Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVIII/Chapter 16

Chapter 16.—Of Diomede, Who After the Destruction of Troy Was Placed Among the Gods, While His Companions are Said to Have Been Changed into Birds.

Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made well known even to boys; for it was signally published and spread abroad, both by its own greatness and by writers of excellent style.&#160; And this was done in the reign of Latinus the son of Faunus, from whom the kingdom began to be called Latium instead of Laurentum.&#160; The victorious Greeks, on leaving Troy destroyed and returning to their own countries, were torn and crushed by divers and horrible calamities.&#160; Yet even from among them they increased the number of their gods for they made Diomede a god.&#160; They allege that his return home was prevented by a divinely imposed punishment, and they prove, not by fabulous and poetic falsehood, but by historic attestation, that his companions were turned into birds.&#160; Yet they think that, even although he was made a god, he could neither restore them to the human form by his own power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter his king, as a favor granted to a new inhabitant of heaven.&#160; They also say that his temple is in the island of Diomed&#230;a, not far from Mount Garganus in Apulia, and that these birds fly round about this temple, and worship in it with such wonderful obedience, that they fill their beaks with water and sprinkle it; and if Greeks, or those born of the Greek race, come there, they are not only still, but fly to meet them; but if they are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, and wound them with such severe strokes as even to kill them.&#160; For they are said to be well enough armed for these combats with their hard and large beaks.