hat they had heard the neighing of horses,
and the clash of arms, and shouts such as are raised in battle.

Maximus of Tyre[40] also describes the island, and tells how sailors
have often seen a fair-haired youth dancing a war-dance in golden armour
upon it; and how once, when one of them unwittingly slept there,
Achilles woke him, and took him to his tent and entertained him.
Patroclus poured the wine and Achilles played the lyre, while Thetis
herself is said to have been present with a choir of other deities.

If they anchor to the north or the south of the island, and a breeze
springs up that makes the harbours dangerous, Achilles warns them, and
bids them change their anchorage and avoid the wind. Sailors relate how,
"when they first behold the island, they embrace each other and burst
into tears of joy. Then they put in and kiss the land, and go to the
temple to pray and to sacrifice to Achilles." Victims stand ready of
their own accord at the altar, according to the size of the ship and the
number of those on board.

Pausanias also mentions the White Isle.[41] On one occasion, Leonymus,
while leading the people of Croton against the Italian Locrians,
attacked the spot where he was informed that Ajax Oileus, on whom the
people of Locris had called for help, was posted in the van. According
to Conon,[42] who, by the way, calls the hero Autoleon, when the people
of Croton went to war, they also left a vacant space for Ajax in the
forefront of their line. However this may be, Leonymus was wounded in
the breast, and as the wound refused to heal and weakened him
considerably, he applied to Delphi for advice. The god told him to sail
to the White Isle, where Ajax would heal him of his wound. Thither,
therefore, he went, and was duly healed. On his return he described what
he had seen--how that Achilles was now married to Helen; and it was
Leonymus who told Stesichorus that his blindness was due to Helen's
wrath, and thus induced him to write the _Palinode_.

Achilles himself is once said to have appeared to a trader who
frequently visited the island. They talked of Troy, and then the hero
gave him wine, and bade him sail away and fetch him a certain Trojan
maiden who was the slave of a citizen of Ilium. The trader was surprised
at the request, and ventured to ask why he wanted a Trojan slave.
Achilles replied that it was because she was of the same race as Hector
and his ancestors, and of the blood of the sons of Pria