At the isle of Tenedos the Greeks had to leave behind Philoctetes, the friend of Hercules, who had his quiver of poisoned arrows, because the poor man had a wound in his heel, which was in such a dreadful state that no one could bear to come near him. One story was that he was bitten by a water-snake, another that when he was just setting off he had been over-persuaded to show where he had buried the ashes of Hercules. He did not say one word, but stamped with his foot on the place, and an arrow fell out at the moment and pierced his heel. At any rate, he and the arrows were left behind, while the Greeks reached the coast of Troy.
The augurs had declared that the first man who touched the shore would be the first to be killed. Achilles threw his shield before him, and leaped out of the ship upon that; but Protesilaus leaped without so
doing, and was slain almost instantly by the Trojans. When his wife Laodamia heard of his death, she grieved and pined so piteously that his spirit could not rest, and Mercury gave him leave to come back and spend three hours with her on earth. He came, but when she tried to embrace him she found that he was only thin air, which could not be grasped, and when the time was over he vanished from her sight. Then Laodamia made an image of him, and treated it as a god; and when her father forbade her to do this, she leaped into the fire, and thus perished.
The chief of the Greeks were Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ, his brother Menelaus of Sparta, and Achilles of Ægina, whose men were called Myrmidons, and said to be descended from ants. His friend, to whom he was devoted, was called Patroclus. He was the most perfect warrior in the army, but Diomed the Ætolian came near him in daring, and Ajax of Salamis, son of Telamon, was the biggest and strongest man. His brother Teucer used to stand behind his shield and aim arrows at the Trojans. There was another Ajax, from Locria, called after his father Oileus. The oldest man in the camp was Nestor, king of Pylos, who had been among the Argonauts, and had been a friend of Hercules, and was much looked up to. The wisest men were Ulysses of Ithaca, and Palamedes, who is said to have invented the game of chess to amuse the warriors in the camp; but Ulysses never forgave Palamedes for his trick on the shore at Ithaca, and managed
to make him be suspected of secret dealings with the Trojans, and put to death. Each of these brought a band of fighting men, and they had their ships, which were not much more than large boats, drawn up high and dry on the shore behind the camp. They fought with swords and spears, which latter were thrown with the hand. Some had bows and arrows, and the chiefs generally went to battle in a chariot, an open car drawn by two horses, and driven by some trusty friend, who held the horses while the chief stood up and launched spear after spear among the enemy. There was no notion of mercy to the fallen; prisoners were seldom made, and if a man was once down, unless his friends could save him, he was sure to be killed.
During the first eight years of the war we do not hear much of the Greeks. They seem to have been taking and wasting the cities belonging to the Trojans all round the country. The home of Andromache, Hector’s good and loving wife, was destroyed, and her parents and brothers killed; and Priam’s cousin Æneas was also driven in from Mount Ida, with his old father Anchises, and wife and little son. In the ninth year of the war the Greeks drew up their forces round the walls of Troy itself, their last exploit having been the taking of the city of Chrysæ, where they had gained a great deal of plunder. All captives were then made slaves, and in the division of the spoil a maiden named Briseis was given to Achilles, while Agamemnon took one called Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo.
