Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/323

 ACHILLES. -AJAX.- ODYSSEUS. 291 neighboring islands, 30, under the orders of Pheidippus and An- tiphus, sons of Thessalus and grandsons of Herakles. 1 Among this band of heroes were included the distinguished warriors Ajax and Diomedes, and the sagacious Nestor ; while Agamemnon himself, scarcely inferior to either of them in prow- ess, brought with him a high reputation for prudence in command. But the most marked and conspicuous of all were Achilles and Odysseus ; the former a beautiful youth born of a divine mother, swift in the race, of fierce temper and irresistible might ; the lat- ter not less efficient as an ally from his eloquence, his untiring endurance, his inexhaustible resources under difficulty, and the mixture of daring courage with deep-laid cunning which never deserted him : 2 the blood of the arch-deceiver Sisyphus, through an illicit connection with his mother Antikleia, was said to flow in his veins, 3 and he was especially patronized and protected by the goddess Athene. Odysseus, unwilling at first to take part in the expedition, had even simulated insanity ; but Palamedes, sent to Ithaca to invite him, tested the reality of his madness by plac- ing in the furrow where Odysseus was ploughing, his infant son Telemachus. Thus detected, Odysseus could not refuse to join the Achasan host, but the prophet Halitherses predicted to him that twenty years would elapse before he revisited his native land. 4 To Achilles the gods had promised the full effulgence of 1 See the Catalogue in the second book of the Iliad. There must pr> ably have been a Catalogue of the Greeks also in the Cyprian Verses ; for a Catalogue of the allies of Troy is specially noticed in the Argument of Proclus (p. 12. Diintzer). Euripides (Iphig. Aid. 165-300) devotes one of the songs of the Chorus to a partial Catalogue of the chief heroes. According to Dictys Cretensis, all the principal heroes engaged in the expedition were kinsmen, all Pelopids (i. 14) : they take an oath not to lay down their arms until Helen shall have been recovered, and they receive from Agamemnon a large sum of gold. 2 For the character of Odysseus, Iliad, iii. 202-220 ; x. 247. Odyss. xiii. 295. The Philoktetes of Sophokles carries out very justly the character of the Homeric Odysseus (see v. 1035) more exactly than the Ajax of the samo poet depicts it. 3 Sophokl. Philoktet. 417, and Schol. also Schol. ad Soph. Ajac. 190. 4 Homer, Odyss. xxiv. 115 ; JEschyl. Agam, 841 ; Sophokl. Philoktet. 1011