Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/326

 fc<)4 HISTORY OF GREECE. was the attempt to oppose the landing of the Greeks : the Tro jans were routed, and even the invulnerable Cycnus, 1 son of Poseidon, one of the great bulwarks of the defence, was slain by Achilles. Having driven the Trojans within their walls, Achilles attacked and stormed Lyrnessus, Pedasus, Lesbos and other places in the neighborhood, twelve towns on the sea-coast and eleven in the interior; he drove off the oxen of ./Eneas and pursued the hero himself, who narrowly escaped with his life : he surprised and killed the youthful Troilus, son of Priam, and captured several of the other sons, whom he sold as prisoners into the islands of the ^Egean. 2 He acquired as his captive the fair Brisgis, while Chryseis was awarded to Agamemnon: he was moreover eager to see the divine Helen, the prize and sti- mulus of this memorable struggle ; and Aphrodite and Thetis contrived to bring about an interview between them.3 At this period of the war the Grecian army was deprived of Palamedes, one of its ablest chiefs. Odysseus had not forgiven the artifice by which Palamedes had detected his simulated in- sanity, nor was he without jealousy of a rival clever and cun- ning in a degree equal, if not superior, to himself; one who had enriched the Greeks with the invention of letters, of dice for 1 Cycnus was said by later writers to be king of Kolonae in the Troail (Strabo, xiii. p. 589-603; Aristotel. Rhetoric, ii. 23). ^Eschylus introduced upon the Attic stage both Cycnus and Memnon in terrific equipments ( Aris- tophan. Ran. 957. OW ^ETT^JITTOV avroiig KVKVOVC ayuv Kal M-E/ivovaf KU- dttvoQahapoirMovf). Compare Welckcr, ^Eschyl. Trilogie, p. 433. 2 Iliad, xxiv. 752; Argument of the Cypria, pp. 11, 12, Diintzer. These desultory exploits of Achilles furnished much interesting romance to the later Greek poets (see Parthenius, Narrat. 21). See the neat summary of the principal events of the war in Quintus Smyrn. xiv. 125-140; Dio Chry- sost. Or. XL p. 338-342. Troilus is only once named in the Iliad (xxiv. 253); he was mentioned also in the Cypria; but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an object of great interest with the subsequent poets. Sophokles had a tragedy called Trdilus (Welcker, Griechisch. Tragod. i. p. 124) ; Tdi> avdpoxaida 6ea- noTijv aTrMeaa, one of the Fragm. Even earlier than Sophokle's, his beau- ty was celebrated by the tragedian Phrynichus (Athense. xiii. p. 564; Virgil, -Toi)<; etc rd avrb 'A^p.)6irij icai Qerif. icene which would have been highly interesting in the hands of Homer.