after I have lost many of my people. So forsooth it appears to be agreeable to all-powerful Jove, who has already overthrown the citadels of many cities, yea, and will even yet overthrow them, for transcendent is his power. For this were disgraceful even for posterity to hear, that so brave and so numerous a people of the Greeks warred an ineffectual war, and fought with fewer men; but as yet no end has appeared. For if we, Greeks and Trojans, having struck a faithful league,[1] wished that both should be numbered, and [wished] to select the Trojans, on the one hand, as many as are townsmen; and if we Greeks, on the other hand, were to be divided into decades, and to choose a single man of the Trojans to pour out wine [for each decade], many decades would be without a cup-bearer.[2] So much more numerous, I say, the sons of the Greeks are than the Trojans who dwell in the city. But there are spear-wielding auxiliaries from many cities, who greatly stand in my way, and do not permit me wishing to destroy the well-inhabited city. Already have nine years of mighty Jove passed away, and now the timbers of our ships have rotted, and the ropes have become untwisted.[3] Our wives and infant children sit in our dwellings expecting us; but to us the work for which we came hither remains unaccomplished, contrary to expectation. But come, as I shall recommend, let us all obey; let us fly with the ships to our dear native land, for at no future time shall we take wide-wayed Troy."
Thus he spoke; and to them he aroused the heart in their breasts, to all throughout the multitude, whoever had not heard his scheme.[4] And the assembly was moved, as the great waves of the Icarian Sea, which, indeed, both the south-east wind and the south are wont to raise,[5] rushing from the
- ↑ Ὅρκια is probably used as an adjective, understanding ἱερεῖα, the victims that were slain in order to ratify the oath. See however Buttm. Lexil. p. 439.
- ↑ The Greeks doubled the Trojans in number. See Anthon.
- ↑ Observe the change of construction in λέλυνται with the neuter plural. Apollon. de Syntaxi, iii. 11. Τὰ σπάρτα λέλυνται καταλληλότερον τοῦ δοῦρα σέσηπε.
- ↑ i e., his real object. Cf. vs. 75, sqq.
- ↑ Spitzner and the later editors unite in reading κινήσῃ for κινήσει from the Venice MS. See Arnold.
