accompanied at the request of his father by his kinsman Patroclus, and
contributed to the expedition a large force of Thessalian troops, or
Myrmidons, as they were called, and also fifty ships.

For ten long years Agamemnon and the other chiefs devoted all their energy
and means in preparing for the expedition against Troy. But during these
warlike preparations an attempt at a peaceful solution of the difficulty
was not neglected. An embassy consisting of Menelaus, Odysseus, &c., was
despatched to king Priam demanding the surrender of Helen; but though the
embassy was received with the utmost pomp and ceremony, the demand was
nevertheless rejected; upon which the ambassadors returned to Greece, and
the order was given for the fleet to assemble at Aulis, in Boeotia.

Never before in the annals of Greece had so large an army been collected. A
hundred thousand warriors were assembled at Aulis, and in its bay floated
over a thousand ships, ready to convey them to the Trojan coast. The
command of this mighty host was intrusted to Agamemnon, king of Argos, the
most powerful of all the Greek princes.

Before the fleet set sail solemn sacrifices were offered to the gods on the
sea-shore, when suddenly a serpent was seen to ascend a plane-tree, in
which was a sparrow's {289} nest containing nine young ones. The reptile
first devoured the young birds and then their mother, after which it was
turned by Zeus into stone. Calchas the soothsayer, on being consulted,
interpreted the miracle to signify that the war with Troy would last for
nine years, and that only in the tenth would the city be taken.

DEPARTURE OF THE GREEK FLEET.--The fleet then set sail; but mistaking the
Mysian coast for that of Troy, they landed troops and commenced to ravage
the country. Telephus, king of the Mysians, who was a son of the great hero
Heracles, opposed them with a large army, and succeeded in driving them
back to their ships, but was himself wounded in the engagement by the spear
of Achilles. Patroclus, who fought valiantly by the side of his kinsman,
was also wounded in this battle; but Achilles, who was a pupil of Chiron,
carefully bound up the wound, which he succeeded in healing; and from this
incident dates the celebrated friendship which ever after existed between
the two heroes, who even in death remained united.

The Greeks now returned to Aulis. Meanwhile, the wound of Telephus proving
incurable, he consulted an oracle, and the response