Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 109 



"Then the twain went forth through the arms, and the black 

 blood, and quickly they came to the company of Thracian 

 men. Now they were slumbering, foredone with toil, but their 

 goodly weapons lay by them on the ground, all orderly, in 

 three rows, and by each man his pair of steeds. And Rhesus 

 slept in the midst, and beside him his swift horses were 

 bound with thongs to the topmost rim of the chariot \" Then 

 Diomede fell to slaying the sleeping Thracians^ " but whom- 

 soever he drew near and smote with the sword, him did 

 Odysseus of the many counsels seize by the foot from behind 

 and drag him out of the way, with this design in his heart, 

 that the fair-maned horses might lightly issue forth, and 

 not tremble in spirit, when they trod over the dead ; for 

 they were not yet used to dead men." Then when Diomede 

 is slaying Rhesus himself, " meanwhile the hardy Odysseus 

 loosed the whole-hoofed horses, and bound them together with 

 thongs, and drave them out of the press, smiting them with 

 his bow, since he had not taken thought to lift the shining 

 whip with his hands from the well-dight chariot. Diomede 

 pondered, whether he should take the chariot where lay the 

 fair-dight armour, and drag it out by the pole, or lift it upon 

 high, and so bear it forth," but yielding to the monition of 

 Athena he "swiftly sprang upon the steeds, and Odysseus 

 smote them with his bow, and they sped to the swift ships 

 of the Acheans." When they had come thither Nestor was 

 the first to hear them, and when they had leaped down to 

 earth the old man asked them whether they had won the 

 horses by stealing into the press of Trojans, or had some god 

 given them to them. " Wondrous like," said he, "are they to the 

 rays of the sun. But never yet saw I such horses, nor deemed 

 of such ^" 



Plainly then the white horses of the Veneti to which we 

 have just referred were no new feature in the countries south 

 of the Danube, but it is clear from the words put in the mouths 

 of both Nestor and the Trojan Dolon that white horses were 

 unknown both in Greece and on the Asiatic side of the Aegean. 



J //. X. 469 sqq. '-^ II. x. 480 sqq. » II. x. 543 sqq. 



