The Iliad

Athena lures Ares away from the battlefield under the guise of avoiding Zeus’s wrath. The Achaeans take the upper hand. The poet catalogues both Achaean victors and Trojan victims, including personal details about each life lost. Scamandrius, for example, learned to hunt and kill wild animals from Artemis herself; Phereclus’s grandfather was a blacksmith beloved by Athena.

Athena fills Diomedes with “strength and daring” so he can “win himself great glory” (164). He rages through the ranks like a rushing stream, “sweeping away the dikes” (167). Pandarus boasts after wounding Diomedes, who prays to Athena to avenge him. She answers, removing the mist from his eyes so that he can recognize gods who enter the battle. She warns him not to fight any immortal but Aphrodite.

Pandarus tells Aeneas that “some god” is fighting with Diomedes (170). They decide to take him on together. Diomedes refuses to retreat, hoping to kill both and commandeer Aeneas’s horses, a breed gifted from Zeus to Tros in payment for kidnapping his son Ganymede. Athena guides Diomedes’s spear throw, killing Pandarus. Diomedes smashes Aeneas with a boulder “no two men could hoist [...] weak as men are now” (174). Aphrodite spirits Aeneas away. Diomedes chases her down and stabs her wrist.