in all his glory, he towered high over all his fighters—
he was the greatest warlord, he led by far the largest army.
Next those who held Lacedaemon’s hollows deep with gorges,
Pharis, Sparta and Messe, crowded haunt of the wild doves,
men who lived in Brysiae and Augeae’s gracious country,
men who held Amyclae, Helos the seaboard fortress,
men who settled Laas and lived near Oetylus:
Agamemnon’s brother, Menelaus lord of the war cry
led their sixty ships, armed them apart, downshore,
and amidst their ranks he marched, ablaze with valor,
priming men for attack. And his own heart blazed the most
to avenge the groans and shocks of war they’d borne for Helen.
Next the men who lived in Pylos and handsome Arene,
Thryon, the Alpheus ford and finely-masoned Aepy,
men who lived in Cyparisseis and Amphigenia,
Pteleos, Helos and Dorion where the Muses met
the Thracian Thamyris, stopped the minstrel’s song.
From Oechalia he came, from Oechalia’s King Eurytus,
boasting to high heaven that he could outsing the very Muses,
the daughters of Zeus whose shield resounds with thunder.
They were enraged, they maimed him, they ripped away
his voice, the rousing immortal wonder of his song
and wiped all arts of harping from his mind.
Nestor the noble old horseman led those troops
in ninety sweeping ships lined up along the shore.
And those who held Arcadia under Cyllene’s peak,
near Aepytus’ ancient tomb where men fight hand-to-hand,
men who lived in Pheneos and Orchomenos rife with sheep,
Stratia, Rhipe and Enispe whipped by the sudden winds,
men who settled Tegea, Mantinea’s inviting country,
men who held Stymphalus, men who ruled Parrhasia—
the son of Ancaeus led them, powerful Agapenor
with sixty ships in all, and aboard each vessel
crowded full Arcadian companies skilled in war.
Agamemnon himself, the lord of men had given them
those well-benched ships to plow the wine-dark sea,
since works of the sea meant nothing to those landsmen.
Then the men who lived in Buprasion, brilliant Elis,
all the realm as far as Hyrmine and Myrsinus, frontier towns
and Olenian Rock and Alesion bound within their borders.
Four warlords led their ranks, ten-ship flotillas each,
and filling the decks came bands of Epean fighters,
two companies under Thalpius and Amphimachus, sons
of the line of Actor, one of Eurytus, one of Cteatus.
Strong Diores the son of Amarynceus led the third
and the princely Polyxinus led the fourth,
the son of King Agasthenes, Augeas’ noble stock.
Then ocean men from Dulichion and the Holy Islands,
the Echinades rising over the sea across from Elis—
Meges a match for Ares led their troops to war,
a son of the rider Phyleus dear to Zeus who once,
enraged at his father, fled and settled Dulichion.
In his son’s command sailed forty long black ships.
Next Odysseus led his Cephallenian companies,
gallant-hearted fighters, the island men of Ithaca,
of Mount Neriton’s leafy ridges shimmering in the wind,
and men who lived in Crocylia and rugged Aegilips,
men who held Zacynthus and men who dwelled near Samos
and mainland men who grazed their flocks across the channel.
That mastermind like Zeus, Odysseus led those fighters on.
In his command sailed twelve ships, prows flashing crimson.
And Thoas son of Andraemon led Aetolia’s units,
soldiers who lived in Pleuron, Pylene and Olenus,
Chalcis along the shore and Calydon’s rocky heights
where the sons of wellborn Oeneus were no more
and the king himself was dead
and Meleager with his golden hair was gone.
So the rule of all Aetolian men had passed to Thoas.
In Thoas’ command sailed forty long black ships.
And the great spearman Idomeneus led his Cretans,
the men who held Cnossos and Gortyn ringed in walls,
Lyctos, Miletus, Lycastus’ bright chalk bluffs,
Phaestos and Rhytion, cities a joy to live in—
the men who peopled Crete, a hundred cities strong.
The renowned spearman Idomeneus led them all in force
with Meriones who butchered men like the god of war himself.
And in their command sailed eighty long black ships.
And Heracles’ son Tlepolemus tall and staunch
led nine ships of the proud Rhodians out of Rhodes,
the men who lived on Rhodes in three island divisions,
Lindos and Ialysus and Camirus’ white escarpment,
armies led by the famous spearman Tlepolemus
whom Astyochea bore to Heracles filled with power.
He swept her up from Ephyra, from the Selleis River
after he’d ravaged many towns of brave young warlords
bred by the gods. But soon as his son Tlepolemus
came of age in Heracles’ well-built palace walls
the youngster abruptly killed his father’s uncle—
the good soldier Licymnius, already up in years—
and quickly fitting ships, gathering partisans,
he fled across the sea with threats of the sons
and the sons’ sons of Heracles breaking at his back.
But he reached Rhodes at last, a wanderer rocked by storms,
and there they settled in three divisions, all by tribes,
loved by Zeus himself the king of gods and mortals
showering wondrous gold on all their heads.
Nireus led his three trim ships from Syme,
Nireus the son of Aglaea and King Charopus,
Nireus the handsomest man who ever came to Troy,
of all the Achaeans after Peleus’ fearless son.
But he was a lightweight, trailed by a tiny band.
And men who held Nisyrus, Casus and Crapathus,
Cos, Eurypylus’ town, and the islands called Calydnae—
combat troops, and Antiphus and Phidippus led them on,
the two sons of the warlord Thessalus, Heracles’ son.
In their command sailed thirty long curved ships.
And now, Muse,
sing all those fighting men who lived in Pelasgian Argos,
the big contingents out of Alus and Alope and Trachis,
men of Phthia and Hellas where the women are a wonder,
all the fighters called Achaeans, Hellenes and Myrmidons
ranked in fifty ships, and Achilles was their leader.
But they had no lust for the grind of battle now—
where was the man who marched their lines to war?
The brilliant runner Achilles lay among his ships,
raging over Briseis, the girl with lustrous hair,
the prize he seized from Lymessus—