t the
forsaken husband to recover his spouse, and, marshalling their forces,
they entered upon the long and tedious war. Thus, a woman was the cause
of the first great struggle between Orient and Occident, of the
assembling of the mighty hosts of the Achaeans under King Agamemnon, of
ten years of siege and struggle and innumerable wars, of the hurling of
many valiant souls to Hades, of the fall of Troy, and of the varied
wanderings and dire fortunes of the surviving heroes and heroines of the
epic story.

The Iliad does not tell the whole story of the Trojan War; Homer invites
the muse to sing of but one episode thereof--the dire wrath of Achilles.
The cause of that violent outburst is also a woman. The Greek chieftains
are gathered in the place of assembly, along the banks of the Scamander.
In their midst is an aged priest of the town of Chryse, bearing in his
hand the fillets of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden staff. He
beseeches the Greeks to restore to him his dear child, the maiden
Chryseis, their captive, and to accept in return the proffered ransom,
reverencing the god. There is a sympathetic murmur among the chieftains,
who urge the granting of the petition; but the thing pleases not the
heart of Agamemnon, king of men, who had received the beautiful captive
as his own share of the booty, and for love of her will not give her up.
So he roughly sends the old man away, and lays stern charge upon him not
to be seen again near the ships of the Achaeans. Outraged in his dignity
as a priest and in his tenderness as a father, the aged sire prays to
Apollo, who at once sends dire pestilence upon the Greeks; and the pyres
of the dead burn continually in multitude. Nine days speed the god's
shafts throughout the host, and on the tenth the valiant warrior
Achilles summons the folk to assembly, and bids Calchas, "most excellent
of augurs," declare the cause of the pestilence. Calchas, after much
hesitation, responds that the Far-darter has brought war upon the Greeks
because Agamemnon has done despite to the priest, and has not set his
daughter free and accepted the ransom.

Agamemnon is violently enraged at the seer; his dark heart within him is
greatly filled with anger, and his eyes are like flashing fire. He
charges the seer with never saying anything that is pleasant for him to
hear. And as for Chryseis, he would fain keep her himself in his
household; for he prefers her even before Clytemnestra, his wedded wife