previous next
And Tlepolemus, son of Heracles, a valiant man and tall, led from Rhodes nine ships of the lordly Rhodians, [655] that dwelt in Rhodes sundered in three divisions—in Lindos and Ialysus and Cameirus, white with chalk. These were led by Tlepolemus, famed for his spear, he that was born to mighty Heracles by Astyocheia, whom he had led forth out of Ephyre from the river Selleïs, [660] when he had laid waste many cities of warriors fostered of Zeus. But when Tlepolemus had grown to manhood in the well-fenced palace, forthwith he slew his own father's dear uncle, Licymnius, scion of Ares, who was then waxing old. So he straightway built him ships, and when he had gathered together much people, [665] went forth in flight over the sea, for that the other sons and grandsons of mighty Heracles threatened him. But he came to Rhodes in his wanderings, suffering woes, and there his people settled in three divisions by tribes, and were loved of Zeus that is king among gods and men; [670] and upon them was wondrous wealth poured by the son of Cronos. Moreover Nireus led three shapely ships from Syme, Nireus that was son of Aglaïa and Charops the king, Nireus the comeliest man that came beneath Ilios of all the Danaans after the fearless son of Peleus. [675] Howbeit he was a weakling, and but few people followed with him. And they that held Nisyrus and Crapathus and Casus and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and the Calydnian isles, these again were led by Pheidippus and Antiphus, the two sons of king Thessalus, son of Heracles. [680] And with them were ranged thirty hollow ships. Now all those again that inhabited Pelasgian Argos, and dwelt in Alos and Alope and Trachis, and that held Phthia and Hellas, the land of fair women, and were called Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaeans— [685] of the fifty ships of these men was Achilles captain. Howbeit they bethought them not of dolorous war, since there was no man to lead them forth into the ranks. For he lay in idleness among the ships, the swift-footed, goodly Achilles, in wrath because of the fair-haired girl Briseïs, [690] whom he had taken out of Lyrnessus after sore toil, when he wasted Lyrnessus and the walls of Thebe, and laid low Mynes and Epistrophus, warriors that raged with the spear, sons of king Evenus, Selepus' son. In sore grief for her lay Achilles idle; but soon was he to arise again.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (Thomas D. Seymour, 1891)
load focus Greek (1920)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (10 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (3):
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 19.175
    • Thomas D. Seymour, Commentary on Homer's Iliad, Books I-III, 3.167
    • Thomas D. Seymour, Commentary on Homer's Iliad, Books IV-VI, 5.627
  • Cross-references to this page (2):
  • Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (1):
  • Cross-references in text-specific dictionaries to this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: