Poseidon roused the Achaeans in Calchas' likeness while Zeus slept; Hector broke the wall and reached the ships — Ajax and Hector fought over a single vessel until the first fire touched the fleet and Patroclus could bear his friend's inaction no longer.1
Poseidon among the ranks
Zeus turned his eyes from Troy to the distant Ethiopians, and Poseidon seized the hour. Disguised as Calchas, he walked the Achaean ranks giving courage; as himself he met the wounded Idomeneus and Meriones and drove them back to the fight. The two Ajaxes rallied the line; the battle rolled along the wall until the stones the Trojans had piled were thrown down and the ditch bridged — the work of the Achaean wall undone in an afternoon.2
Hector at the ships
Hector seized a boulder that two men of today could barely lift and smashed the gates; the Trojans poured through and the Achaeans ran for the ships. Ajax and Hector fought over one vessel, trading blows across the prow — the closest the war came to deciding Troy's fall before Achilles rose. Teucer shot Hector, but Apollo stayed the arrow; Sarpedon urged the Lycians on, and the ships stood in a ring with the sea behind and the enemy before.3
The first fire
Hector seized the stern of Protesilaus' ship with firebrand in hand — the moment Achilles had told the embassy he would wait for. Flames touched the timbers; Ajax leapt from deck to deck beating them out with a long pike, shouting that this was no time for the bow. Patroclus left Eurypylus' hut where he had been tending the wounded and wept at Achilles' door: let him at least lead the Myrmidons if Achilles would not fight — the plea that would end in borrowed armour and Book 16.4
Zeus wakes
On Ida Zeus woke from sleep and saw the Trojans at the ships and Hector in the front rank. He sent Iris and Apollo to rouse Hector again; Poseidon withdrew before the father's anger. The nested episode on Patroclus' fall tells Book 16; the nested Night Raid on Rhesus tells Book 10 between the wounding of the chiefs and this crisis. Here the Iliad's middle movement ends with the fleet burning and the son of Peleus still in his tent — one step from the wrath's release.5
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How the centuries saw it
On screen
In play
Iliad
Homer
Books XIII–XVI: Poseidon rouses the Achaeans, Hector breaks the wall, and fire touches the first ship — the crisis that forces Patroclus into arms.
Ajax the Great
Telamonian Ajax holding the ship against Hector remains the Iliad's image of stubborn defence at the waterline.
Hector
The Trojan who reaches the ships and calls for fire — the battle for the fleet is Hector's high-water mark before Patroclus turns the tide.