that some glamour of more than mortal power has made Diomed invulnerable to human weapons. He bitterly regrets, as he tells Æneas, that he did not follow the counsels of his father Lycaon, and bring with him to the campaign, like other chiefs of his rank, some of those noble steeds of whom eleven pair stand always in his father's stalls, "champing the white barley and the spelt." He had feared, in truth, that they might lack provender in the straits of the siege:—
"Woe worth the day, when from the glittering wall,
Hector to serve, I took my shafts and bow,
And to fair Ilion, from my father's hall,
Captain of men, did with my Lycians go!
If ever I return, if ever I know
My country, my dear wife, my home again,
Let me fall headless to an enemy's blow,
Save the red blaze of fire these arms contain !" (W.)
Æneas bids him mount with him into his chariot, and together they will encounter this redoubtable Greek. Pandarus takes the spear and shield, while Æneas guides the horses. Diomed is still fighting on foot, when Sthenelus, who attends him with the chariot, sees the two hostile chiefs bearing down upon him. He begs his comrade to remount, and avoid the encounter with two such adversaries. Diomed indignantly refuses. He will slay both, with the help of Heaven; and he charges Sthenelus, if such should be the happy result, to leave his own horses and chariot, securing the reins carefully to the chariot-front, and make prize of the far-famed steeds of Æneas—they are descended from the immortal breed bestowed of old by Jupiter upon King Tros. So, on foot still, he awaits their onset. Pandarus stands high in the chariot
