Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/325

AGAMEMNON AND IPfflGENEIA. 293 The armament was again assembled at Aulis, but the goddess Artemis, displeased with the boastful language of Agamemnon, prolonged the duration of adverse winds, and the offending chief was compelled to appease her by the well-known sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. 1 They then proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus and Menelaus were despatched as envoys to Troy, to redemand Helen and the stolen property. In spite of the prudent counsels of Anten6r, who received the two Grecian chiefs with friendly hospitality, the Trojans rejected the demand, and the attack was resolved upon. It was foredoomed by the gods that the Greek who first landed should perish : Protesi- laus was generous enough to put himself upon this forlorn hope, and accordingly fell by the hand of Hector. Meanwhile the Trojans had assembled a large body of allies from various parts of Asia Minor and Thrace : Dardanians under .^Eneas, Lykians under Sarpedon, Mysians, Karians, Maeonians, Alizonians, 2 Phrygians, Thracians, and Paeonians. 3 But vain the miraculous cure with the dust of the spear, Kpiaroiat pivfifiaai. Diktys softens down the prodigy : " Achilles cum Machaone et Podalirio adhibcutes curam vulneri," etc. Pliny (xxxiv. 15) gives to the rust of brass or iron a place in the list of genuine remedies. " Longe omnino a Tiberi ad Caicum : quo in loco etiam Agamemnon errasset, nisi ducem Telephum invenisset" (Cicero, Pro L. Flacco, c. 29). The portions of the Trojan legend treated in the lost epics and the trage dians, seem to have been just as familiar to Cicero as those noticed in the Iliad. Strabo pays comparatively little attention to any portion of the Trojan war except what appears in Homer. He even goes so far as to give a reason why the Amazons did not come to the aid of Priam : they were at enmity with him, because Priam had aided the Phrygians agaist them (Iliad, iii 188 : in Strabo, roZf 'Itiaiv must be a mistake for rots $pv!;iv). Strabo can hardly have read, and never alludes to, Arktinus ; in whose poem the brave and beautiful Penthesileia, at the head of her Amazons, forms a marked epoch and incident of the war (Strabo, xii. 552). 1 Nothing occurs in Homer respecting the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (seo Schol. Yen. ad H. ix. 145). 2 No portion of the Homeric Catalogue gave more trouble to Demetrius of Skepsis and the other expositors than these Alizonians (Strabo, xii. p 549 ; xiii. p. 603) : a fictitious place called Alizonium, in the region of Ida was got up to meet the difficulty (elr' 'A/Ujvtoi>, ToOr 1 rjdrj vov irpbf ryv TUV 'Aht&vuv vnodeaiv, etc., Strabo, 1. c.). 3 See the Catalogue of the Trojans (Iliad, ii. 815-877).