Diomedes, doing doughty deeds, wounded Aphrodite when she came to the help of Aeneas;Compare Hom. Il. 5.1-417. and encountering Glaucus, he recalled the friendship of their fathers and exchanged arms.Compare Hom. Il. 6.119-236. And Hector having challenged the bravest to single combat, many came forward, but the lot fell on Ajax, and he did doughty deeds; but night coming on, the heralds parted them.Compare Hom. Il. 7.66-312.

The Greeks made a wall and a ditch to protect the roadstead,Compare Hom. Il. 7.436-441. and a battle taking place in the plain, the Trojans chased the Greeks within the wall.Compare Hom. Il. 8.53-565. But the Greeks sent Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax as ambassadors to Achilles, begging him to fight for them, and promising Briseis and other gifts.The embassy of Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax to Achilles is the subject of the ninth book of the . Hom. Il. 9. Libanius composed an imaginary reply to the speech of Ulysses (Libanius, Declam. v., vol. v. pp. 303-360, ed. R. Foerster).

And night coming on, they sent Ulysses and Diomedes as spies; and these killed Dolon, son of Eumelus, and Rhesus, the Thracian ( who had arrived the day before as an ally of the Trojans, and having not yet engaged in the battle was encamped at some distance from the Trojan force and apart from Hector); they also slew the twelve men that were sleeping around him, and drove the horses to the ships.These events are narrated in the tenth book of the . Hom. Il. 10. They form the subject of Euripides's tragedy , the only extant Greek drama of which the plot is derived from the action of the .

But by day a fierce fight took place; Agamemnon and Diomedes, Ulysses, Eurypylus, and Machaon were wounded, the Greeks were put to flightThese events are told in the eleventh book of the , (Hom. Il. 11). Hector made a breach in the wall and enteredCompare Hom. Il. 12.436ff. and, Ajax having retreated, he set fire to the ships.Compare Hom. Il. 15.716ff.