Note (return) — BOOK THE EIGHTH.

When, therefore, they saw that the bird had come from Jove, they rushed the more against the Trojans, and were mindful of battle. Then none of the Greeks, numerous as they were, could have boasted that he had driven his swift steeds before Diomede, and urged them beyond the ditch, and fought against [the enemy]; for far the first he slew a helmeted Trojan hero, Agelaus, son of Phradmon. He, indeed, was turning his horses for flight; but as he was turning, Diomede fixed his spear in his back, between his shoulders, and drove it through his breast. He fell from his chariot, and his arms rattled upon him. After him the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus; after them the Ajaces, clad in impetuous valour; after them, Idomeneus and Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars; and after them Eurypylus, the illustrious son of Evæmon. Teucer came the ninth, stretching his bent 277 bow, and stood under the shield of Telamonian Ajax. Then Ajax, indeed, kept moving the shield aside, and the hero looking around, when shooting, he had hit any one in the crowd, the one 278 falling there, lost his life. But he 279 retiring like a child to his mother, sheltered himself beneath Ajax, and he covered him with his splendid shield. Then what Trojan first did blameless Teucer slay? Orsilochus first, and Ormenus, and Ophelestes, and Dætor, and Chromius, and godlike Lycophontes, and Amopaon, son of Polyæmon, and Melanippus—all, one after the other, he stretched upon the bounteous earth. But Agamemnon, king of men, rejoiced at seeing him destroying the phalanxes of the Trojans with his stout bow. And advancing near him he stood, and thus addressed him: