Homer, The Iliad
Samuel Butler, Ed.

The Lycians, shamed by his rebuke, pressed closer round him who was their counselor their king. The Argives on their part got their men in fighting order within the wall, and there was a deadly struggle between them. The Lycians could not break through the wall and force their way to the ships, nor could the Danaans drive the Lycians from the wall now that they had once reached it. As two men, measuring-rods in hand, quarrel about their boundaries in a field that they own in common, and stickle for their rights though they be but in a mere strip, even so did the battlements now serve as a bone of contention, and they beat one another's round shields for their possession. Many a man's body was wounded with the pitiless bronze, as he turned round and bared his back to the foe, and many were struck clean through their shields; the wall and battlements were everywhere deluged with the blood alike of Trojans and of Achaeans. But even so the Trojans could not rout the Achaeans, who still held on; and as some honest hard-working woman weighs wool in her balance and sees that the scales be true [alêthês], for she would gain some pitiful earnings for her little ones, even so was the fight balanced evenly between them till the time came when Zeus gave the greater glory to Hektor son of Priam, who was first to spring towards the wall of the Achaeans. As he did so, he cried aloud to the Trojans, "Up, Trojans, break the wall of the Argives, and fling fire upon their ships."

Thus did he hound them on, and in one body they rushed straight at the wall as he had bidden them, and scaled the battlements with sharp spears in their hands. Hektor laid hold of a stone that lay just outside the gates and was thick at one end but pointed at the other; two of the best men in a district [dêmos], as men now are, could hardly raise it from the ground and put it on to a wagon, but Hektor lifted it quite easily by himself, for the son of scheming Kronos made it light for him. As a shepherd picks up a ram's fleece with one hand and finds it no burden, so easily did Hektor lift the great stone and drive it right at the doors that closed the gates so strong and so firmly set.

These doors were double and high, and were kept closed by two cross-bars to which there was but one key. When he had got close up to them, Hektor strode towards them that his blow might gain in force and struck them in the middle, leaning his whole weight against them. He broke both hinges, and the stone fell inside by reason of its great weight. The portals re-echoed with the sound, the bars held no longer, and the doors flew open, one one way, and the other the other, through the force of the blow. Then brave Hektor leaped inside with a face as dark as that of fleeing night. The gleaming bronze flashed fiercely about his body and he had tow spears in his hand. None but a god could have withstood him as he flung himself into the gateway, and his eyes glared like fire. Then he turned round towards the Trojans and called on them to scale the wall, and they did as he bade them - some of them at once climbing over the wall, while others passed through the gates. The Danaans then fled panic-stricken towards their ships, and all was uproar and confusion.