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[32] The barbarians showing no courage, Achilles waylaid Troilus and slaughtered him in the sanctuary of Thymbraean Apollo,1 and coming by night to the city he captured Lycaon.2 Moreover, taking some of the chiefs with him, Achilles laid waste the country, and made his way to Ida to lift the kine of Aeneas. But Aeneas fled, and Achilles killed the neatherds and Nestor, son of Priam, and drove away the kine.3


1 Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xxiv.257 (where for ὀχευθῆναι it has been proposed to read λοχηθῆναι or λογχευθῆναι); Eustathius on Hom. Il. xxiv.251,p. 1348; Dio Chrysostom xi. vol. i. p. 189, ed. L. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 307-313; Verg. A. 1.474ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 1.474; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 66 (First Vatican Mythographer 210). Troilus is represented as a youth, but the stories concerning his death are various. According to Eustathius, the lad was exercising his horses in the Thymbraeum or sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, when Achilles killed him with his spear. Tzetzes says that he was a son of Hecuba by Apollo, though nominally by Priam, that he fled from his assailant to the temple of Apollo, and was cut down by Achilles at the altar. There was a prophecy that Troy could not be taken if Troilus should live to the age of twenty (so the First Vatican Mythographer). This may have been the motive of Achilles for slaying the lad. According to Dictys Cretensis iv.9, Troilus was taken prisoner and publicly slaughtered in cold blood by order of Achilles. The indefatigable Sophocles, as usual, wrote a tragedy on the subject. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 253ff.

2 Compare Hom. Il. 11.34ff.; Hom. Il. 13.746ff. Lycaon was captured by Achilles when he was cutting sticks in the orchard of his father Priam. After being sold by his captor into slavery in Lemnos he was ransomed and returned to Troy, but meeting Achilles in battle a few days later, he was ruthlessly slain by him. The story seems to have been told also in the epic Cypria. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20.

3 Compare Hom. Il. 20.90ff.; Hom. Il. 20.188ff.; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20.

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