ith him the swift
Abantes followed, with flowing locks behind, warriors skilled with
protended spears of ash, to break the corslets on the breasts of their
enemies. With him forty dark ships followed.

Those besides who possessed Athens, the well-built city, the state of
magnanimous Erechtheus, whom Minerva, the daughter of Jove, formerly
nursed (but him the bounteous earth brought forth), and settled at
Athens in her own rich temple: there the sons of the Athenians, in
revolving years, appease her with [sacrifices of] bulls and
lambs[122]--them Menestheus, son of Peteus, commanded. "No man upon the
earth was equal to him in marshalling steeds and shielded warriors in
battle; Nestor alone vied with him, for he was elder. With him fifty
dark ships followed."

But Ajax[123] led twelve ships from Salamis, and leading arranged them
where the phalanxes of the Athenians were drawn up.

[Footnote 122: Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 75, observes,
"Athene is locally identified with the soil and people of Athens,
even in the Iliad: Erechtheus, the Athenian, is born of the
earth, but Athene brings him up, nourishes him, and lodges him in
her own temple, where the Athenians annually worship him with
sacrifice and solemnities. It was altogether impossible to make
Erechtheus son of Athene,--the type of the goddess forbade it;
but the Athenian myth-creators, though they found this barrier
impassable, strove to approach to it as near as they could."
Compare also p. 262, where he considers Erechtheus "as a divine
or heroic, certainly a superhuman person, and as identified with
the primitive germination of Attic man."]

[Footnote 123: The son of Telamon.]

Those who possessed Argos, and well-fortified Tiryns, Hermione, and
which encircle the Asine deep bay, Troezene, and Eionae, and vine-planted
Epidaurus, and those who possessed AEgina, and Mases, Achaean youths.
Their leader then was Diomede, brave in war, and Sthenelus, the dear son
of much-renowned Capaneus; and with these went Euryalus the third,
god-like man, the son of king Mecisteus, Talaus' son; and all these
Diomede brave in war commanded. With these eighty dark ships followed.

Those who possessed Mycenae, the well-built city, and wealthy
Corinth,[124] and well-built Cleonae, and those who inhabited Ornia, and
pleasant Araethyrea, and Sicyon, where Adrastus first reigned: and those
who possessed Hyperesia, and lofty Gonoessa, a