render Agamemnon, distinguished among many, and conspicuous among heroes.
Tell me now, ye Muses, who possess the Olympian mansions (for ye are goddesses, and are [ever] present, and ken all things, while we hear but a rumor, nor know any thing[1]), who were the leaders and chiefs of the Greeks. For I could not recount nor tell the multitude, not even if ten tongues, and ten mouths were mine, [not though] a voice unwearied,[2] and a brazen heart were within me; unless the Olympic Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, reminded me of how many came to Ilium. However, I will rehearse the commanders of the ships, and all the ships.
THE CATALOGUE OF THE SHIPS.
Peneleus, and Leitus, and Arcesilaus, and Prothoënor, and Clonius, commanded the Bœotians; both those who tilled Hyrie, and rocky Aulis, and Schœnos, and Scholos, and hilly Eteonus, Thespia, Græa, and the ample plain of Mycalessus; and those who dwelt about Harma, and Ilesius, and Erythræ; and those who possessed Elion, Hyle, Peteon, Ocalea, and the well-built city Medeon, Copæ, Eutressis, and Thisbe abounding in doves; and those who possessed Coronæa, and grassy Haliartus, and Platæa; and those who inhabited Glissa, and those who dwelt in Hypothebæ, the well-built city, and in sacred Onchestus, the beauteous grove of Neptune; and those who inhabited grape-clustered Arne, and those [who inhabited] Midea, and divme Nissa, and remote Anthedon: fifty ships of these went to Troy, and in each embarked a hundred and twenty Bœotian youths.
Those who inhabited Aspledon, and Minyean Orchomenus, these Ascalaphus and lalmenus, the sons of Mars, led, whom Astyoche bore to powerful Mars in the house of Actor, son of Azis: a modest virgin, when she ascended the upper
- ↑ Cf. Æn. vii. 644:—
"Et meministis enim, Divæ, et memorare potestis:
Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura."
Milton, Par. Lost, i. 27:—
"Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell――" - ↑ Cf Æn. vi. 625 sqq.; Georg. ii. 42; Valor. Flace. vi. 36; Silius, iv. 527; Claudian, 6 Cons. Hon. 436. This hyperbolical mode of excusing poetic powers is ridiculed by Persius, Sat. vi.
