s. As when some great forest fire is raging
upon a mountain top and its light is seen afar, even so as they marched
the gleam of their armour flashed up into the firmament of heaven.

They were like great flocks of geese, or cranes, or swans on the plain
about the waters of Cayster, that wing their way hither and thither,
glorying in the pride of flight, and crying as they settle till the fen
is alive with their screaming. Even thus did their tribes pour from
ships and tents on to the plain of the Scamander, and the ground rang
as brass under the feet of men and horses. They stood as thick upon the
flower-bespangled field as leaves that bloom in summer.

As countless swarms of flies buzz around a herdsman's homestead in the
time of spring when the pails are drenched with milk, even so did the
Achaeans swarm on to the plain to charge the Trojans and destroy them.

The chiefs disposed their men this way and that before the fight began,
drafting them out as easily as goatherds draft their flocks when they
have got mixed while feeding; and among them went King Agamemnon, with
a head and face like Jove the lord of thunder, a waist like Mars, and a
chest like that of Neptune. As some great bull that lords it over the
herds upon the plain, even so did Jove make the son of Atreus stand
peerless among the multitude of heroes.

And now, O Muses, dwellers in the mansions of Olympus, tell me--for you
are goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things, while
we know nothing but by report--who were the chiefs and princes of the
Danaans? As for the common soldiers, they were so that I could not name
every single one of them though I had ten tongues, and though my voice
failed not and my heart were of bronze within me, unless you, O
Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, were to recount them
to me. Nevertheless, I will tell the captains of the ships and all the
fleet together.

Peneleos, Leitus, Arcesilaus, Prothoenor, and Clonius were captains of
the Boeotians. These were they that dwelt in Hyria and rocky Aulis, and
who held Schoenus, Scolus, and the highlands of Eteonus, with Thespeia,
Graia, and the fair city of Mycalessus. They also held Harma, Eilesium,
and Erythrae; and they had Eleon, Hyle, and Peteon; Ocalea and the
strong fortress of Medeon; Copae, Eutresis, and Thisbe the haunt of
doves; Coronea, and the pastures of Haliartus; Plataea and Glisas; the
fortress of Thebes the less; holy Onchestus with