Page 228 - the-iliad

BOOK XII

O THE son of Menoetius was attending to the hurt of
SEurypylus within the tent, but the Argives and Trojans
still fought desperately, nor were the trench and the high
wall above it, to keep the Trojans in check longer. They had
built it to protect their ships, and had dug the trench all
round it that it might safeguard both the ships and the rich
spoils which they had taken, but they had not offered heca-
tombs to the gods. It had been built without the consent
of the immortals, and therefore it did not last. So long as
Hector lived and Achilles nursed his anger, and so long as
the city of Priam remained untaken, the great wall of the
Achaeans stood firm; but when the bravest of the Trojans
were no more, and many also of the Argives, though some
were yet left alive—when, moreover, the city was sacked in
the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back with their
ships to their own country—then Neptune and Apollo took
counsel to destroy the wall, and they turned on to it the
streams of all the rivers from Mount Ida into the sea, Rhe-
sus, Heptaporus, Caresus, Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and
goodly Scamander, with Simois, where many a shield and
helm had fallen, and many a hero of the race of demigods
had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo turned the mouths of
all these rivers together and made them flow for nine days
against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he