Book XII

BOOK XII

SO THE son of Menoetius was attending to the hurt of Eurypylus

within the tent, but the Argives and Trojans still fought

desperately, nor were the trench and the high wall above it, to

keep the Trojans in check longer. They had built it to protect

their ships, and had dug the trench all round it that it might

safeguard both the ships and the rich spoils which they had

taken, but they had not offered hecatombs to the gods. It had

been built without the consent of the immortals, and therefore it

did not last. So long as Hector lived and Achilles nursed his

anger, and so long as the city of Priam remained untaken, the

great wall of the Achaeans stood firm; but when the bravest of

the Trojans were no more, and many also of the Argives, though

some were yet left alive--when, moreover, the city was sacked in

the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back with their ships to

their own country--then Neptune and Apollo took counsel to

destroy the wall, and they turned on to it the streams of all the

rivers from Mount Ida into the sea, Rhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus,

Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and goodly Scamander, with Simois,

where many a shield and helm had fallen, and many a hero of the

race of demigods had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo turned the

mouths of all these rivers together and made them flow for nine

days against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he

might wash it sooner into the sea. Neptune himself, trident in

hand, surveyed the work and threw into the sea all the

foundations of beams and stones which the Achaeans had laid with

so much toil; he made all level by the mighty stream of the

Hellespont, and then when he had swept the wall away he spread a

great beach of sand over the place where it had been. This done

he turned the rivers back into their old courses.

This was what Neptune and Apollo were to do in after time; but as

yet battle and turmoil were still raging round the wall till its

timbers rang under the blows that rained upon them. The Argives,

cowed by the scourge of Jove, were hemmed in at their ships in

fear of Hector the mighty minister of Rout, who as heretofore

fought with the force and fury of a whirlwind. As a lion or wild

boar turns fiercely on the dogs and men that attack him, while

these form solid wall and shower their javelins as they face

him--his courage is all undaunted, but his high spirit will be

the death of him; many a time does he charge at his pursuers to

scatter them, and they fall back as often as he does so--even so

did Hector go about among