ng to the unjust condemnation of Palamedes as analogous to
that which he himself was about to suffer; and his companions seem to
have dwelt with satisfaction on the comparison. Palamedes passed for an
instance of the slanderous enmity and misfortune which so often wait
upon superior genius.

In these expeditions the Grecian army consumed nine years, during which
the subdued Trojans dared not give battle without their walls for fear
of Achilles. Ten years was the fixed epical duration of the siege of
Troy, just as five years was the duration of the siege of Camicus by the
Cretan armament which came to avenge the death of Minos: ten years of
preparation, ten years of siege, and ten years of wandering for Odysseus
were periods suited to the rough chronological dashes of the ancient
epic, and suggesting no doubts nor difficulties with the original
hearers. But it was otherwise when the same events came to be
contemplated by the historicizing Greeks, who could not be satisfied
without either finding or inventing satisfactory bonds of coherence
between the separate events. Thucydides tells us that the Greeks were
less numerous than the poets have represented, and that being, moreover,
very poor, they were unable to procure adequate and constant provisions:
hence they were compelled to disperse their army, and to employ a part
of it in cultivating the Chersonese--a part in marauding expeditions
over the neighborhood. Could the whole army have been employed against
Troy at once (he says), the siege would have been much more speedily and
easily concluded. If the great historian could permit himself thus to
amend the legend in so many points, we might have imagined that a
simpler course would have been to include the duration of the siege
among the list of poetical exaggerations and to affirm that the real
siege had lasted only one year instead of ten. But it seems that the ten
years' duration was so capital a feature in the ancient tale that no
critic ventured to meddle with it.

A period of comparative intermission, however, was now at hand for the
Trojans. The gods brought about the memorable fit of anger of Achilles,
under the influence of which he refused to put on his armor, and kept
his Myrmidons in camp. According to the _Cypria_ this was the behest of
Zeus, who had compassion on the Trojans: according to the _Iliad_,
Apollo was the originating cause, from anxiety to avenge the injury
which his priest Chryses had endured