Agamemnon's aristeia broke against Hector's charge; Diomedes and Odysseus fell wounded; the healer Machaon was carried off until Menelaus saved him — and Ajax alone held the wall while the Trojans assaulted the gates with fire.1
Agamemnon's day
Dawn brought Agamemnon's aristeia: the son of Atreus cut down Trojans from the plain to the wall until his armpits ran with sweat and his hands grew weary on the spear. Zeus sent Iris to Hector with a warning — when Agamemnon was wounded, then Hector might drive the host. The king was speared in the belt when he stood his ground too long; he left the field in his chariot, and the tide turned.2
Diomedes and Odysseus down
Diomedes fought on until Paris' arrow struck his foot; he climbed into his chariot and withdrew. Odysseus stood alone among the Trojans until he was speared; companions bore him out senseless. The Achaean captains fell one by one — Eurypylus wounded, Teucer driven back — and Hector called on Troy to fire the ships. The nested episode on the Night Raid tells Book 10, when Odysseus and Diomedes would strike back in darkness; here the daylight slaughter leaves the host leaderless on the wall.3
Machaon and the healers
Eurypylus fell with an arrow in the thigh; Nestor lifted him into his chariot and drove to the ships, passing the wounded captains sitting in the sand. Machaon the healer, wounded by Paris, was carried off in a chariot until Menelaus and Ajax ran to rescue him — for the host could not afford to lose the sons of Asclepius. Achilles, watching from his ship, sent Patroclus to learn who was hurt; the first step toward the armour Patroclus would borrow.4
Ajax on the wall
Book 12 opens with the Trojans assaulting the wall the Achaeans had built — Hector and Polydamas at the gates, Sarpedon and Glaucus among the Lycians. Ajax and Teucer held the tower; stones and arrows beat back the first wave. Poseidon and Hera chafed on Olympus while Zeus slept, but the law held: no god might fight openly yet. The wall would stand one more day because Telamonian Ajax would not yield a stone's breadth — until Hector found the weak gate in the next book's battle for the ships.5
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
In play
Iliad
Homer
Book XI — Agamemnon's aristeia breaks, Diomedes and Odysseus fall wounded, and Ajax holds the wall while Hector presses.
Diomedes
The wounded Tydeid who still fights — Paris' arrow and the chiefs' retreat that opens the path to Patroclus.
Ajax the Great
The shield that covers the wounded — Telamonian Ajax alone holding the Greek left when the chiefs go down.