off to the temple of Apollo in the citadel, where Latona and Diana tend and heal him. Apollo meanwhile replaces him in the battle by a phantom likeness, round which Greeks and Trojans continue the fight. Then he calls his brother deity the War-god to the rescue of the hard-prest Trojans, and entreats him to scare from the field this irreverent and outrageous champion, who, he verily believes, would lift his spear against Olympian Jove himself. In the likeness of a Thracian chief, Mars calls Hector to the rescue; and the Trojan prince leaps from his chariot, and, crying his battle-cry, turns the tide of war. Æneas is restored, sound and well, to his place in the mêlée—somewhat indeed to the astonishment of his friends, who had seen him lying so long grievously wounded; but, as the poet pithily remarks, little time had they to ask him questions. The two Ajaxes, Ulysses, Menelaus, and Agamemnon himself, "king of men," come to the forefront of the Greek battle: and the young Antilochus, son of the venerable Nestor, notably wins his spurs. But the Trojans have supernatural aid: and Diomed, of the purged vision, cries to his friends to beware, for that he sees the War-god in their front brandishing his huge spear. The Greek line warily gives ground before this immortal adversary. The Queen of Heaven can no longer endure to be a mere spectatress of the peril of her favourites. She obtains permission from Jupiter to send Minerva against Mars: and the two goddesses, seated in Juno's chariot of state, glide down from Olympus—
"Midway between the earth and starry heaven"—
and alight upon the plain of Troy. There Juno, taking human shape, taunts the Greek troops with cowardice—
