Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
BOOK XII
So the son of Menoetius was attending to the hurt of Eurypylus
within the tent, but the Argives and Trojans still fought desperately,
nor were the trench and the high wall above it, to keep the Trojans
in check longer. They had built it to protect their ships, and had
dug the trench all round it that it might safeguard both the ships
and the rich spoils which they had taken, but they had not offered
hecatombs to the gods. It had been built without the consent of the
immortals, and therefore it did not last. So long as Hector lived and
Achilles nursed his anger, and so long as the city of Priam
remained untaken, the great wall of the Achaeans stood firm; but
when the bravest of the Trojans were no more, and many also of the
Argives, though some were yet left alive when, moreover, the city
was sacked in the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back with
their ships to their own country- then Neptune and Apollo took
counsel to destroy the wall, and they turned on to it the streams of
all the rivers from Mount Ida into the sea, Rhesus, Heptaporus,
Caresus, Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and goodly Scamander, with
Simois, where many a shield and helm had fallen, and many a hero
of the race of demigods had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo turned
the mouths of all these rivers together and made them flow for nine
days against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he
might wash it sooner into the sea. Neptune himself, trident in hand,
surveyed the work and threw into the sea all the foundations of
beams and stones which the Achaeans had laid with so much toil;
he made all level by the mighty stream of the Hellespont, and then
when he had swept the wall away he spread a great beach of sand
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