Early that day did the two hosts meet, and soon was the morning air filled with the cries of pain and of rage, of defeat, and of victory, and the fair earth was streaming with the blood of men, dead and dying.
When midday came, Zeus stretched out from his throne on the mountain his golden scales, and in them laid two weights of death, one for the Greeks and the other for the men of Troy. And the scale of the Greeks sank down low, and as it sank, Zeus sent down a blazing lightning flash so that the two armies saw the great god and his scales, and fear seized upon the Greeks.
The mightiest Greek no longer kept his courage. Only Nestor, oldest of the warriors, still had a dauntless heart. With an arrow from his bow had Paris slain one of the horses in Nestor’s chariot, but from his chariot did the old man leap down and with his sword fiercely hewed at the traces. But as he still hewed, through the throng Hector furiously drove his chariot. Then had Nestor indeed perished, but that Diomedes marked what would befall.
With a great shout did he call to Odysseus:
‘Whither fleest thou, like a coward, Odysseus? Stand thy ground till we have saved the old man from his mighty foe!’
So spake he, but Odysseus heard him not, and hastened onward.
Alone then did Diomedes take his stand by the side of Nestor.
‘Younger warriors than myself beset thee hard!’ said Diomedes. ‘Thou art feeble, thy charioteer is a weakling, and thy horses slow. Quickly mount my car, and see what are the paces of my horses that I took from Aeneas. Straight against Hector shall we guide them, that he may know the power of the spear of Diomedes.’
On the chariot of Diomedes did old Nestor then mount; in his hands he took the reins, and he lashed the horses. In furious gallop they came to meet Hector, and Diomedes hurled his spear. But the spear passed Hector, and in the breast of his brave charioteer was it buried, so that he fell to the ground and there he died.
Upon the men of Troy might defeat then have come, but in his hands Zeus took a thunderbolt, and right in front of the horses of Diomedes it burst in awful flames, making the horses in desperate panic rear backwards.