and Ajax of
Salamis, son of Telamon, was the biggest and strongest man. His brother
Teucer used to stand behind his shield and aim arrows at the Trojans.
There was another Ajax, from Locria, called after his father Oileus. The
oldest man in the camp was Nestor, king of Pylos, who had been among the
Argonauts, and had been a friend of Hercules, and was much looked up to.
The wisest men were Ulysses of Ithaca, and Palamedes, who is said to have
invented the game of chess to amuse the warriors in the camp; but Ulysses
never forgave Palamedes for his trick on the shore at Ithaca, and managed
to make him be suspected of secret dealings with the Trojans, and put to
death. Each of these brought a band of fighting men, and they had their
ships, which were not much more than large boats, drawn up high and dry
on the shore behind the camp. They fought with swords and spears, which
latter were thrown with the hand. Some had bows and arrows, and the
chiefs generally went to battle in a chariot, an open car drawn by two
horses, and driven by some trusty friend, who held the horses while the
chief stood up and launched spear after spear among the enemy. There was
no notion of mercy to the fallen; prisoners were seldom made, and if a
man was once down, unless his friends could save him, he was sure to be
killed.

During the first eight years of the war we do not hear much of the
Greeks. They seem to have been taking and wasting the cities belonging
to the Trojans all round the country. The home of Andromache, Hector's
good and loving wife, was destroyed, and her parents and brothers killed;
and Priam's cousin AEneas was also driven in from Mount Ida, with his old
father Anchises, and wife and little son. In the ninth year of the war
the Greeks drew up their forces round the walls of Troy itself, their
last exploit having been the taking of the city of Chrysae, where they
had gained a great deal of plunder. All captives were then made slaves,
and in the division of the spoil a maiden named Briseis was given to
Achilles, while Agamemnon took one called Chryseis, the daughter of
Chryses, priest of Apollo.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

CHAP. IX.--THE SIEGE OF TROY.

We have come to the part of this siege which is told us in the _Iliad_,
the oldest poem we know, except the Psalms, and one of the very finest.
It begins by telling how Chryses prayed to Apollo to help him to get back
his daugh