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On the death of Protesilaus, Achilles landed with the Myrmidons, and throwing a stone at
the head of Cycnus, killed him.1 When the
barbarians saw him dead, they fled to the city, and the Greeks, leaping from their ships,
filled the plain with bodies. and having shut up the Trojans, they besieged them; and they
drew up the ships.
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1 Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Pind. O. 2.82(147); Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.468ff.; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 257ff.; Scholiast on Theocritus xvi.49; Ov. Met. 12.70-140; Dictys Cretensis ii.12. Cycnus was said to be invulnerable （Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18）: hence neither the spear nor the sword of Achilles could make any impression on his body, and the hero was reduced to the necessity of throttling him with the thongs of his own helmet. So Ovid tells the tale, adding that the seagod, his father Poseidon, changed the dead Cycnus into a swan, whose name （Cygnus, κύκνος） he had borne in life.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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