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Idomeneus answered, "I will be a trusty comrade, as I promised you
from the first I would be. Urge on the other Achaeans, that we may
join battle at once, for the Trojans have trampled upon their covenants.
Death and destruction shall be theirs, seeing they have been the first
to break their oaths and to attack us."
The son of Atreus went on, glad at heart, till he came upon the two
Ajaxes arming themselves amid a host of foot-­‐soldiers. As when a goat-­‐herd
from some high post watches a storm drive over the deep before the
west wind-­‐ black as pitch is the offing and a mighty whirlwind draws
towards him, so that he is afraid and drives his flock into a cave-­‐
even thus did the ranks of stalwart youths move in a dark mass to
battle under the Ajaxes, horrid with shield and spear. Glad was King
Agamemnon when he saw them. "No need," he cried, "to give orders to
such leaders of the Argives as you are, for of your own selves you
spur your men on to fight with might and main. Would, by father Jove,
Minerva, and Apollo that all were so minded as you are, for the city
of Priam would then soon fall beneath our hands, and we should sack
it."
With this he left them and went onward to Nestor, the facile speaker
of the Pylians, who was marshalling his men and urging them on, in
company with Pelagon, Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, and Bias shepherd
of his people. He placed his knights with their chariots and horses
in the front rank, while the foot-­‐soldiers, brave men and many, whom
he could trust, were in the rear. The cowards he drove into the middle,
that they might fight whether they would or no. He gave his orders
to the knights first, bidding them hold their horses well in hand,