These were, however, saved by Antenor;As to the embassy of Ulysses and Menelaus to Troy to demand the surrender of Helen, see Hom. Il. 3.205ff.; Hom. Il. 11.138ff.; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Bacch. 14(15), ed. Jebb; Hdt. 2.118; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 154ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.206. According to the author of the epic , as reported by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19, the embassy was sent before the first battle, in which Protesilaus fell (see below); according to Tzetzes, it was sent before the Greek army assembled at Aulis; according to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.206, it was despatched from Tenedos. Herodotus says that the envoys were sent after the landing of the army in the Troad. Sophocles wrote a play on the subject of the embassy, called . See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 171ff.; , ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 121ff. Libanius has bequeathed to us two imaginary speeches, which are supposed to have been delivered by the Greek ambassadors, Menelaus and Ulysses, to the Trojan assembly before the opening of hostilities, while the Greek army was encamped within sight of the walls of Troy. See Libanius, Declam. iii. and iv. (vol. v. pp. 199ff., ed. R. Foerster). but the Greeks, exasperated at the insolence of the barbarians, stood to arms and made sail against them. Now Thetis charged Achilles not to be the first to land from the ships, because the first to land would be the first to die. Being apprized of the hostile approach of the fleet, the barbarians marched in arms to the sea, and endeavored by throwing stones to prevent the landing.

Of the Greeks the first to land from his ship was Protesilaus, and having slain not a few of the barbarians, he fell by the hand of Hector.Compare Hom. Il. 2.698-702; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 245; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.759ff.; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 221ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325, and on Od. xi.521, p. 1697; Paus. 4.2.5; Hyginus, Fab. 103; Dictys Cretensis ii.11. The common tradition, followed by Apollodorus, was that Protesilaus fell by the hand of Hector; but according to others, his slayer was Aeneas, or Achates, or Euphorbus. See Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325, and on Od. xi.521, p. 1697; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 230ff. The Greeks had received an oracle that the first of their number to leap from the ships would be the first to perish. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 245; Hyginus, Fab. 113; Ovid, Her. xiii.93ff. Protesilaus was reckoned by Paus. 1.34.2 among the men who after death received divine honours from the Greeks. He was buried in the Thracian Chersonese, opposite the Troad, and was there worshipped as a god (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 532). His grave at Elaeus, or Eleus, in the peninsula was enclosed in a sacred precinct, and his worshippers testified their devotion by dedicating to him many vessels of gold and silver and bronze, together with raiment and other offerings; but when Xerxes invaded Greece, these treasures were carried off by the Persians, who desecrated the holy ground by sowing it with corn and turning cattle loose on it to graze (Hdt. 9.116). Tall elms grew within the sacred precinct and overshadowed the grave; and it is said that the leaves of the trees that looked across the narrow sea to Troy, where Protesilaus perished, burgeoned early but soon faded and fell, like the hero himself, while the trees that looked away from Troy still kept their foliage fresh and fair. See Philostratus, Her. iii.1. Others said that when the elms had shot up so high that Troy could be seen from them away across the water, the topmost boughs immediately withered. See Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vii.408ff.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi.238. His wife Laodamia loved him even after his death, and she made an image of him and consorted with it. The gods had pity on her, and Hermes brought up Protesilaus from Hades. On seeing him, Laodamia thought it was himself returned from Troy, and she was glad; but when he was carried back to Hades, she stabbed herself to death.According to the author of the epic the name of Protesilaus's wife was Polydora, daughter of Meleager (Paus. 4.2.7). Later writers, like Apollodorus, called her Laodamia. As to her tragic tale, see Lucian, Dial. Mort. xxiii. (who does not name her); Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325; Scholiast on Aristides, vol. iii. pp. 671ff., ed. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.763ff.; Prop. i.19.7-10; Hyginus, Fab. 103, 104; Ovid, Her. xiii; Serv. Verg. A. 6.447; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 147 (First Vatican Mythographer 158; Second Vatican Mythographer 215). According to Hyginus, Fab. 103, Laodamia had prayed that Protesilaus might be restored to her for only three hours; her prayer was granted, but she could not bear the grief of parting with him, and died in his arms (Servius, l.c.). A rationalistic version of the story ran that Laodamia had made a waxen image of her dead husband and secretly embraced it, till her father ordered it to be burned, when she threw herself into the fire and perished with the image (Hyginus, Fab. 104). According to Ovid, Laodamia made the waxen image of her absent lord and fondled it even in his lifetime. Her sad story was the theme of a tragedy of Euripides (TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 563ff.), as it is of a well-known poem of Wordsworth (Laodameia).

On the death of Protesilaus, Achilles landed with the Myrmidons, and throwing a stone at the head of Cycnus, killed him.Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Pind. O. 2.82(147); Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.468ff.; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 257ff.; Scholiast on Theocritus xvi.49; Ov. Met. 12.70-140; Dictys Cretensis ii.12. Cycnus was said to be invulnerable (Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18): hence neither the spear nor the sword of Achilles could make any impression on his body, and the hero was reduced to the necessity of throttling him with the thongs of his own helmet. So Ovid tells the tale, adding that the seagod, his father Poseidon, changed the dead Cycnus into a swan, whose name (Cygnus, κύκνος) he had borne in life. When the barbarians saw him dead, they fled to the city, and the Greeks, leaping from their ships, filled the plain with bodies. and having shut up the Trojans, they besieged them; and they drew up the ships.

The barbarians showing no courage, Achilles waylaid Troilus and slaughtered him in the sanctuary of Thymbraean Apollo,Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xxiv.257 (where for ὀχευθῆναι it has been proposed to read λοχηθῆναι or λογχευθῆναἰ; Eustathius on Hom. Il. xxiv.251,p. 1348; Dio Chrysostom xi. vol. i. p. 189, ed. L. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 307-313; Verg. A. 1.474ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 1.474; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 66 (First Vatican Mythographer 210). Troilus is represented as a youth, but the stories concerning his death are various. According to Eustathius, the lad was exercising his horses in the Thymbraeum or sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, when Achilles killed him with his spear. Tzetzes says that he was a son of Hecuba by Apollo, though nominally by Priam, that he fled from his assailant to the temple of Apollo, and was cut down by Achilles at the altar. There was a prophecy that Troy could not be taken if Troilus should live to the age of twenty (so the First Vatican Mythographer). This may have been the motive of Achilles for slaying the lad. According to Dictys Cretensis iv.9, Troilus was taken prisoner and publicly slaughtered in cold blood by order of Achilles. The indefatigable Sophocles, as usual, wrote a tragedy on the subject. See , ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 253ff. and coming by night to the city he captured Lycaon.Compare Hom. Il. 11.34ff.; Hom. Il. 13.746ff. Lycaon was captured by Achilles when he was cutting sticks in the orchard of his father Priam. After being sold by his captor into slavery in Lemnos he was ransomed and returned to Troy, but meeting Achilles in battle a few days later, he was ruthlessly slain by him. The story seems to have been told also in the epic . See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20. Moreover, taking some of the chiefs with him, Achilles laid waste the country, and made his way to Ida to lift the kine of Aeneas. But Aeneas fled, and Achilles killed the neatherds and Nestor, son of Priam, and drove away the kine.Compare Hom. Il. 20.90ff.; Hom. Il. 20.188ff.; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20.