reek: per].]

[Footnote 757: "Ut supra, xxii. 254, erat [Greek: epidosthai],
pro [Greek: dosthai martyras epi tini chremati], sic nunc [Greek:
tripodos peridometha] est [Greek: dometha orkon peri trimodos],
quem poenae loco daturus erit uter nostrum temere
contenderit."--Heyne.]

Thus he spoke; but swift Ajax, son of Oileus, immediately rose to reply
in harsh words. And now doubtless the strife would have proceeded
farther to both, had not Achilles himself risen up, and spoke:

"No longer now, O Ajax and Idomeneus, hold altercation in evil, angry
words, for it is not fitting, and ye also would blame another, whoever
should do such things; but, sitting down in the circus, look towards the
steeds, which themselves will soon arrive, contending for victory; and
then will ye know, each of you, the horses of the Greeks, which are
second, and which first."

Thus he spoke; but the son of Tydeus came very near, pursuing, and
always drove on [his horses] with the lash across the shoulders; whilst
the steeds were raised up aloft into the air, quickly completing their
course, and the drops of dust kept always bespattering their charioteer.
The chariot, adorned with gold and tin, rolled on close to the
swift-footed steeds; nor was there a deep trace of the tires behind in
the fine dust, but they, hastening, flew. But he stood in the midst of
the circus, and much perspiration exuded from the steeds, from their
necks and chest to the ground. But he himself leaped to the ground from
his all-shining chariot, and rested his scourge against the yoke; nor
was gallant Sthenelus dilatory, but he eagerly seized the prize, and
gave the woman to his magnanimous companions to escort, and the handled
tripod to bear away; whilst he himself unyoked the steeds.

Next to him Nelcian Antilochus drove his steeds, outstripping Menelaus
by stratagem, not indeed by speed. Yet even thus Menelaus drove his
swift horses near; but as far as a horse is distant from the wheel,
which, exerting its speed with the chariot, draws its master through the
plain, and the extreme hairs of its tail touch the wheel-tire, but it
rolls very near, nor is there much space between, while it runs over the
vast plain; so far was illustrious Menelaus left behind by Antilochus:
although at first he was left behind as much as the cast of a quoit, yet
he quickly overtook him; for the doughty strength of Agamemnon's mare,
the beautiful-maned AEthe, was increased.