tears, they placed them upon the chariots; nor did mighty Priam suffer them to give way to grief. In silence, therefore, they heaped the bodies on the pile, grieving at heart. But when they had burned them in the fire, they returned to sacred Ilium. In like manner, also, on the other side, the well-greaved Greeks heaped the bodies on the pile, grieving in their hearts; and having burned them with fire, they returned to the hollow ships. And when it was not yet morning, but still twilight, then a chosen band of Greeks arose about the pile; and going out from the plain, they made around it one common tomb, and near it they built a wall and lofty towers, a bulwark of their ships and of themselves. In them they made well-fitted gates, that through them there might be a passage for the chariots. Without they dug a deep ditch, near it, broad and large, and in it fixed palisades. Thus the long-haired Greeks on their part labored.
But the gods on the contrary sitting beside the thundering Jove, were admiring the mighty work of the brazen-mailed Greeks; but to them Neptune, the earth-shaker, thus began to speak:
"O father Jove, is there any mortal on the boundless earth, who will any more disclose his mind and counsel to the immortals? Dost thou not perceive how the long-haired Greeks have built a wall before their shipping, and have drawn a ditch all round, nor have they given splendid hecatombs to the gods? The fame of this [work] will certainly be wherever light is diffused: but they will forget that [wall] which I and Phœbus Apollo, toiling, built round the city for the hero Laomedon."[1]
Him, greatly enraged, the cloud-compelling Jove addressed: "Ha! thou far-ruling earth-shaker, what hast thou said? Another of the gods, who is much weaker than thou in hands and in might might have dreaded this idea; but thy glory shall assuredly extend as far as light is diffused. Howbeit, when the crest-waving Greeks shall have departed with their ships into their dear fatherland, do thou, overthrowing
- ↑ Grote, Hist. p. 78. well observes that the "subsequent animosity of Neptune against Troy was greatly determined by the sentiment of tho injustice of Laomedon." On the discrepancy between this passage and xxi. 442, see Müller, Dor. vol. i. p. 249.
