previous next
And there was the strife of the Lapith spearmen gathered round the prince Caeneus and Dryas and Peirithous, [180] with Hopleus, Exadius, Phalereus, and Prolochus, Mopsus the son of Ampyce of Titaresia, a scion of Ares, and Theseus, the son of Aegeus, like the deathless gods. These were of silver, and had armor of gold upon their bodies. And the Centaurs were gathered against them on the other side [185] with Petraeus and Asbolus the diviner, Arctus, and Ureus, and black-haired Mimas, and the two sons of Peuceus, Perimedes and Dryalus: these were of silver, and they had pinetrees of gold in their hands, and they were rushing together as though they were alive [190] and striking at one another hand to hand with spears and with pines. And on the shield stood the fleet-footed horses of grim Ares made of gold, and deadly Ares the spoil-winner himself. He held a spear in his hands and was urging on the footmen: he was red with blood as if he were slaying living men, [195] and he stood in his chariot. Beside him stood Fear and Flight, eager to plunge amidst the fighting men. There, too, was the daughter of Zeus, Tritogeneia who drives the spoil.1She was like as if she would array a battle, with a spear in her hand, and a golden helmet, [200] and the aegis about her shoulders. And she was going towards the awful strife. And there was the holy company of the deathless gods: and in the midst the son of Zeus and Leto played sweetly on a golden lyre. There also was the abode of the gods, pure Olympus, and their assembly, and infinite riches were spread around [205] in the gathering of the deathless gods. Also the goddesses, the Muses of Pieria were beginning a song like clear-voiced singers. And on the shield was a harbor with a safe haven from the irresistible sea, made of refined tin wrought in a circle, and it seemed to heave with waves. In the middle of it were [210] many dolphins rushing this way and that, fishing: and they seemed to be swimming. Two dolphins of silver were spouting and devouring the mute fishes. And beneath them fishes of bronze were trembling. And on the shore sat a fisherman watching: in his hands he held [215] a casting net for fish, and seemed as if about to cast it forth.

1 “She who drives herds,”i.e.“The Victorious,” since herds were the chief spoil gained by the victor in ancient warfare.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Pieria (Greece) (1)
Olympus (Greece) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (2 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: