nestheus, son of Peteus, commanded. No man upon the earth was equal to him in marshaling steeds and shielded warriors in battle; Nestor alone vied with him, for he was elder. With him fifty dark ships followed.
But Ajax[1] led twelve ships from Salamis, and leading arranged them where the phalanxes of the Athenians were drawn up.
Those who possessed Argos, and well-fortified Tiryns, Hermione, and which encircle the Asine deep bay, Trœzene, and Eïonæ, and vine-planted Epidaurus, and those who possessed Ægina, and Mases, Achæan youths. Their leader then was Diomede, brave in war, and Sthenelus, the dear son of much-renowned Capaneus; and with these went Euryalus the third, god-like man, the son of king Mecisteus, Talaus' son; and all these Diomede brave in war commanded. With these eighty dark ships followed.
Those who possessed Mycenæ, the well-built city, and wealthy Corinth,[2] and well-built Cleonæ, and those who inhabited Ornia, and pleasant Aræthyrea, and Sicyon, where Adrastus first reigned: and those who possessed Hyperesia, and loftly Gonoessa, and Pellene, and those who [inhabited] Ægium, and all along the sea-coast,[3] and about spacious Helice. Of these, king Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, commanded a hundred ships: and with him by far the most and bravest troops followed; and he had clothed himself in dazzling brass, exulting in his glory, that he shone conspicuous among all heroes; for he was the most eminent, and led by far the most numerous troops.[4]
- ↑ The son of Telamon.
- ↑ An anachronism, as Corinth, before its capture by the Dorians, was called Ephyra (as in II. vi. 152). "Neque est, quod miremur ab Homero nominari Corinthum, nam ex persona poetæ et hanc urbem, et quasdam Ionum colonias iis nominibus appellat, quibus vocabantur ætate ejus, multo post Illium captum conditæ."—Vell. Paterc. i. 3.
- ↑ i. e., the later Achaia.—Arnold.
- ↑ On the superior power of Agamemnon, see Grote, vol. i. p. 211, and compare II. ix. 69.
impossible to make Erechtheus son of Athene,—the type of the goddess forbade it; but the Athenian myth-creators, though they found this barrier impassable, strove to approach to it as near as they could." Compare also p. 262, where he considers Erechtheus "as a divine or heroic, certainly a superhuman person, and as identified with the primitive germination of Attic man."
