er in her
distress, and lent Iris his chariot and horses, to convey Aphrodite
home. Aphrodite ascended into the chariot, and Iris took the reins;
and thus they rode through the air to the mountains of Olympus. Here
the gods and goddesses of heaven gathered around their unhappy sister,
bound up her wound, and expressed great sympathy for her in her
sufferings, uttering at the same time many piteous complaints against
the merciless violence and inhumanity of men. Such is the ancient tale
of AEneas and his mother.

At a later period in the history of the war, AEneas had a grand combat
with Achilles, who was the most terrible of all the Grecian warriors,
and was regarded as the grand champion of their cause. The two armies
were drawn up in battle array. A vast open space was left between them
on the open plain. Into this space the two combatants advanced, AEneas
on the one side and Achilles on the other, in full view of all the
troops, and of the throngs of spectators assembled to witness the
proceedings.

A very strong and an universal interest was felt in the approaching
combat. AEneas, besides the prodigious strength and bravery for which
he was renowned, was to be divinely aided, it was known, by the
protection of his mother, who was always at hand to guide and support
him in the conflict, and to succor him in danger. Achilles, on the
other hand, possessed a charmed life. He had been dipped by his mother
Thetis, when an infant, in the river Styx, to render him invulnerable
and immortal; and the immersion produced the effect intended in
respect to all those parts of the body which the water laved. As, how
ever, Thetis held the child by the ankles when she plunged him in, the
ankles remained unaffected by the magic influence of the water. All
the other parts of the body were rendered incapable of receiving a
wound.

Achilles had a very beautiful and costly shield which his mother had
caused to be made for him. It was formed of five plates of metal. The
outermost plates on each side were of brass; in the centre was a plate
of gold; and between the central plate of gold and the outer ones of
brass were two other plates, one on each side, made of some third
metal. The workmanship of this shield was of the most elaborate and
beautiful character. The mother of Achilles had given this weapon to
her son when he left home to join the Greeks in the Trojan war, not
trusting entirely it seems to his magical invulnerability.

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