Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as he must believe in Hektor and Achilles.

There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and Priam.

But the force of the word "enact" in Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declaredsuch speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or of Hektor at his parting with Andromache.

Well able verily is Salamis to rear a man of battles: so at Troy was Hektor aware of Aias; and so now, O Timodemos, art thou glorified by thy stubborn prowess in the pankration.

Howbeit they tell how Hektor's glory flowered beside Skamander's streams, and thus on the steep cliffs of Heloros' banks, where men call the ford the Fountain of Ares, hath this light shined for Agesidamos' son in the beginning of his praise.

Now drive me upward still; say who slew Kyknos, and who Hektor, and the dauntless chief of Ethiop hosts, bronze-mailed Memnon.

So didst thou, son of Diodotos, following the praise of the warrior Meleagros, and of Hektor, and of Amphiaraos, breathe forth the spirit of thy fair-flowering youth amid the company of fighters in the front, where the bravest on slenderest hopes bare up the struggle of war.

He it was who stained the vine-clad Mysian plain with the dark blood of Telephos that he shed thereon, and made for the sons of Atreus a safe return across the sea, and delivered Helen, when that he had cut asunder with his spear the sinews of Troy, even the men who kept him back as he plied the work of slaughterous battle on the plain, the strength of Memnon and high-hearted Hektor, and other chiefs of pride.