aly; but of this Homer mentions nothing. The first Dardanian town
founded by him was in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida; for
he was not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain. But his
son Erichthonius, by the favor of Zeus, became the wealthiest of
mankind. His flocks and herds having multiplied, he had in his pastures
three thousand mares, the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced
horses of preternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius, and
the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons--Ilus, Assaracus, and the
beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole away to become his cup-bearer in
Olympus, giving to his father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of
immortal horses.

From Ilus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian lines diverge; the
former passing from Ilus to Laomedon, Priam, and Hector; the latter from
Assaracus to Capys, Anchises, and AEneas. Ilus founded in the plain of
Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assaracus and his descendants remained
sovereigns of Dardania.

It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Ilus, that Poseidon and Apollo
underwent, by command of Zeus, a temporary servitude; the former
building the walls of the town, the latter tending the flocks and herds.
When their task was completed and the penal period had expired, they
claimed the stipulated reward; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their
demand, and even threatened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and
foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves. He was punished
for this treachery by a sea-monster, whom Poseidon sent to ravage his
fields and to destroy his subjects. Laomedon publicly offered the
immortal horses given by Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one
who would destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin of
noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell upon Hesione,
daughter of Laomedon himself. Heracles, arriving at this critical
moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene
and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people;
but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in
place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded
of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and
killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to
whom she bore the celebrated archer Teucros. A painful sense of this
expedition was preserved among