Book II

.

The venerable Nestor and King Agamemnon then addressed the troops, after which they all went to their tents and ships to prepare for battle. They began by making the customary sacrifices to the gods, Agamemnon offered up a fat ox five years old. Homer fully describes how this was done. First the king and his chiefs stood around the ox, holding pounded barley cakes in their upraised hands, and praying to Jupiter to grant them victory in the approaching battle. After the prayer the ox was killed, and the carcass cut into pieces. Portions of the flesh were then burned on leafless billets, while other portions were roasted for the banquet which followed.

After the banquet the loud-voiced heralds summoned all the warriors and their followers to assemble. Immediately they came from their ships and tents, and then, on the advice of Nestor, there was a review of the whole army. The azure-eyed Minerva moved amongst them, bearing in her hand the ægis, or shield of Jupiter, from which hung a hundred golden fringes, each "worth a hundred oxen in price." She went through the hosts of the Greeks encouraging them to fight bravely, and so they were now more eager for battle than to return to their native land.

It is at this part of his story--the review of the forces--that Homer gives the remarkable account known as the "Catalogue of the Ships." In it he tells the names of all the Greek kings and princes and chiefs, the Grecian states from which they came, and the number of ships which each brought to the war. To do this was no easy task, and so the poet, before undertaking it, again seeks the aid of the Muses:

O Muses, goddesses who dwell on high, Tell me,--for all things ye behold and know, While we know nothing and may only hear The random tales of rumor,--tell me who Were chiefs and princes of the Greeks; for I Should fail to number and to name them all,-- Had I ten tongues, ten throats, a voice unapt To weary, uttered from a heart of brass,-- Unless the Muses aided me.

BRYANT, _Iliad_,