4.
Achilles did not go forth to the war, because he was angry on account of
Briseis, ... the daughter of Chryses the priest.1 Therefore the barbarians took heart of grace and sallied out of the city. And Alexander fought a single
combat with Menelaus; and when Alexander got the worst of it, Aphrodite carried him
off.2 And Pandarus, by shooting an arrow at Menelaus, broke the
truce.3
[2]
Diomedes, doing doughty deeds, wounded Aphrodite when she came to the help of
Aeneas;4 and encountering Glaucus, he recalled the friendship of their
fathers and exchanged arms.5 And Hector having challenged the bravest to single
combat, many came forward, but the lot fell on Ajax, and he did doughty deeds; but night
coming on, the heralds parted them.6
[3]
The Greeks made a wall and a ditch to protect the roadstead,7 and a
battle taking place in the plain, the Trojans chased the Greeks within the wall.8 But the Greeks sent
Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax as ambassadors to Achilles, begging him to fight
for them, and promising Briseis and other gifts.9
[4]
And night coming on, they sent Ulysses and Diomedes as
spies; and these killed Dolon, son of Eumelus, and Rhesus, the Thracian （ who had
arrived the day before as an ally of the Trojans, and having not yet engaged in the battle
was encamped at some distance from the Trojan force and apart from
Hector）; they also slew the twelve men that were
sleeping around him, and drove the horses to the ships.10
[5]
But by day a fierce fight took place; Agamemnon and
Diomedes, Ulysses, Eurypylus, and Machaon were
wounded, the Greeks were put to flight11
Hector made a breach in the wall and entered12 and, Ajax having retreated, he set fire to the ships.13
[6]
But when Achilles saw the ship of Protesilaus burning, he sent out Patroclus with the
Myrmidons, after arming him with his own arms and giving him the horses. Seeing him the
Trojans thought that he was Achilles and turned to flee. And having chased them within the
wall, he killed many, amongst them Sarpedon, son of Zeus, and was himself killed by
Hector, after being first wounded by
Euphorbus.14
[7]
And a fierce fight taking place for the corpse, Ajax with
difficulty, by performing feats of valor, rescued the body.15 And Achilles laid aside his
anger and recovered Briseis. And a suit of armour having been brought him from Hephaestus,
he donned the armour16 and went forth to the war, and chased the Trojans in a crowd to the
Scamander, and there killed many, and amongst them Asteropaeus, son of Pelegon, son of the
river Axius; and the river rushed at him in fury.
But Hephaestus dried up the streams of the river, after chasing them with a mighty
flame.17 And
Achilles slew Hector in single
combat, and fastening his ankles to his chariot dragged him to the ships.18 And having buried
Patroclus, he celebrated games in his honor, at which Diomedes was victorious in the
chariot race, Epeus in boxing, and Ajax and
Ulysses in wrestling.19 And after the games Priam
came to Achilles and ransomed the body of Hector,
and buried it.20
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1 Compare Hom. Il. 1.1ff. From this point Apollodorus follows the incidents of the Trojan war as related by Homer.
2 Compare Hom. Il. 3.15-382.
3 Compare Hom. Il. 4.85ff.
4 Compare Hom. Il. 5.1-417.
5 Compare Hom. Il. 6.119-236.
6 Compare Hom. Il. 7.66-312.
7 Compare Hom. Il. 7.436-441.
8 Compare Hom. Il. 8.53-565.
9 The embassy of Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax to Achilles is the subject of the ninth book of the Iliad. Hom. Il. 9. Libanius composed an imaginary reply to the speech of Ulysses （Libanius, Declam. v., vol. v. pp. 303-360, ed. R. Foerster）.
10 These events are narrated in the tenth book of the Iliad . Hom. Il. 10. They form the subject of Euripides's tragedy Rhesus, the only extant Greek drama of which the plot is derived from the action of the Iliad .
11 These events are told in the eleventh book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 11).
12 Compare Hom. Il. 12.436ff.
13 Compare Hom. Il. 15.716ff.
14 These events are narrated in the sixteenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 16).
15 These events are the subject of the seventeenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 17).
16 These events are narrated in the eighteenth (Hom. Il. 18) and nineteenth (Hom. Il. 19) books of the Iliad .
17 These events are related in the twentieth (Hom. Il. 20) and twenty-first (Hom. Il. 21) books of the Iliad . As to the slaying of Asteropaeus by Achilles, see Hom. Il. 21.139-204. As to the combat of Achilles with the river Scamander, and the drying up of the streams of the river by the fire-god Hephaestus, see Hom. Il. 21.211-382. The whole passage affords a striking example of the way in which the Greeks conceived rivers as personal beings, endowed with human shape, human voice, and human passions. Incidentally （Hom. Il. 21.130-132） we hear of sacrifices of bulls and horses to a river, the horses being thrown alive into the stream.
18 The combat of Achilles with Hector, and the death of Hector, form the subject of the twenty-second book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 22).
19 The burial of Patroclus and the funeral games celebrated in his honour, are described in the twenty-third book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 23).
20 These events are narrated in the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 24).
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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