wning him with his ponies. The
bodies were never afterwards recovered.

Philostratus gives us a quantity of details about the Homeric heroes,
which the vine-dresser has picked up in his talks with Protesilaus. Most
of the heroes can be easily recognized. Achilles, for instance, enters
into conversation with various people, and goes out hunting. He can be
recognized by his height and his beauty and his bright armour; and as he
rushes past he is usually accompanied by a whirlwind--[Greek: podarkes,
dios], even after death.

Then we hear the story of the White Isle. Helen and Achilles fell in
love with one another, though they had never met--the one hidden in
Egypt, the other fighting before Troy. There was no place near Troy
suited for their eternal life together, so Thetis appealed to Poseidon
to give them an island home of their own. Poseidon consented, and the
White Isle rose up in the Black Sea, near the mouth of the Danube. There
Achilles and Helen, the manliest of men and the most feminine of women,
first met and first embraced; and Poseidon himself, and Amphitrite, and
all the Nereids, and as many river gods and spirits as dwell near the
Euxine and Maeotis, came to the wedding. The island is thickly covered
with white trees and with elms, which grow in regular order round the
shrine; and on it there dwell certain white birds, fragrant of the salt
sea, which Achilles is said to have tamed to his will, so that they keep
the glades cool, fanning them with their wings and scattering spray as
they fly along the ground, scarce rising above it. To men sailing over
the broad bosom of the sea the island is holy when they disembark, for
it lies like a hospitable home to their ships. But neither those who
sail thither, nor the Greeks and barbarians living round the Black Sea,
may build a house upon it; and all who anchor and sacrifice there must
go on board at sunset. No man may pass the night upon the isle, and no
woman may even land there. If the wind is favourable, ships must sail
away; if not, they must put out and anchor in the bay and sleep on
board. For at night men say that Achilles and Helen drink together, and
sing of each other's love, and of the war, and of Homer. Now that his
battles are over, Achilles cultivates the gift of song he had received
from Calliope. Their voices ring out clear and godlike over the water,
and the sailors sit trembling with emotion as they listen. Those who
had anchored there declared t