The hero Sarpedon also appealed to Hector, and then the Trojan commander in chief, leaping from his chariot, and brandishing his javelins, rushed among his troops exhorting them to battle.
Terrible
The conflict that ensued. The men of Troy
Made head against the Greeks: the Greeks stood firm,
Nor ever thought of flight.
Bryant, Iliad, Book V.
Soon, however, the Greeks were forced to fall back. Their great chiefs, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the two Ajaxes and Ulysses, performed wondrous deeds of courage, slaying many Trojan warriors. But Minerva had left the field, and Mars was fighting on the Trojan side. Æneas, too, had returned to the battle with renewed strength and courage, and Hector and Sarpedon were in the front, dealing death among the enemy. The fierce god of war and mighty Hector fought side by side, and they slew numbers of Argive warriors.
Such destruction of her beloved Greeks was not pleasing to Juno, who was watching the conflict from her place on high Olympus, and she begged of Jupiter to permit her to drive Mars from the battle. Jupiter consented, but he advised her to intrust that work to Minerva, who had often before "brought grievous troubles on the god of war." Juno obeyed. Then the two goddesses, who had already mounted the queen of heaven's own grand chariot, glittering with gold and silver and brass, set out for the Grecian camp.
Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame;
The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame,
Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold
Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd.
The bossy naves of solid silver shone;
Braces of gold suspend the moving throne;
The car, behind, an arching figure bore;
The bending concave form'd an arch before.
Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,
And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.
Pope, Iliad, Book V.
Riding in this magnificent chariot, driven by Juno herself, "midway between the earth and the starry heaven," the goddesses descended upon the plain of Troy, near where the Simois and the Scamander united their streams. There they alighted, and cast a dense mist around the chariot and the steeds to hide them from mortal view. Then they hastened to where the bravest of the Greek chiefs were standing around the warrior Diomede, Juno likening herself to the herald Stenʹtor, who had a voice louder than the shout of fifty men.
Stentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs,
Whose throat surpass'd the force of fifty tongues.
Pope, Iliad, Book V.