BOOK THE THIRTEENTH.

ARGUMENT.

Neptune engages on the Grecian side, and the battle proceeds. Deiphobus
is repulsed by Meriones. Teucer kills Imbrius, and Hector Amphimachus.
Neptune, assuming the likeness of Thoas, exhorts Idomeneus, who goes
forth with Meriones to battle, when the former slays Othryoneus and
Asius. Deiphobus attacks Idomeneus, but misses him, and slays Hypsenor.
Idomeneus slays Alcathous, over whose body a sharp contest ensues.

But after Jove, then, had brought the Trojans and Hector near the ships,
he left them to endure labour and toil at them incessantly; but he
himself turned back his shining eyes apart, looking towards the land of
the equestrian Thracians and the close-fighting Mysians, and the
illustrious Hippomolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living, and most just
men.[411] But to Troy he no longer now turned his bright eyes; for he
did not suppose in his mind that any one of the immortals, going, would
aid either the Trojans or the Greeks.

[Footnote 411: Arrian, Exp. Alex. iv. p. 239, referring to this
passage of Homer, observes, [Greek: oikousi de en te Asia outoi
autonomoi, ouch ekista dia penian te kai dikaioteta]. Dionysius,
Perieg. 309, seems, as Hill observes, to consider the name
[Greek: ippemolgoi] as applicable not to one single clan, but to
the whole of the Sarmatian nomads, milk being one of the
principal articles of their diet, as among the Suevi (Caesar, B.G.
iv. 1), and the ancient Germans (id. vi. 22). Callimachus, Hymn
iii., applies the epithet to the Cimmerians. The epithet [Greek:
abion] (or [Greek: abion]=_bowless_, not living by archery: cf.
Alberti on Hesych. t. i. pp. 17, 794) is involved in doubt, and
the ancients themselves were uncertain whether to regard it as a
proper name or an epithet. (Cf. Steph. Byz. s. v., p. 7, ed.
Pined.; Villois on Apoll. Lex. p. 14; Duport, Gnom. Horn. p. 74,
sqq.) It seems best to understand with Strabo, vii. p. 460,
nations [Greek: ap' oligon eytelos xontas]. Knight wished to
throw out these verses altogether, alleging that allusion is made
in them to the discipline of Zamolxis, with which Homer must have
been wholly unacquainted.]

Nor did king Neptune keep a vain watch; for he sat aloft upon the
highest summit of the woody Thracian Samos, admiring the war and the
battle. For from thence all Ida was visible, and the city of Priam