Agamemnon's taunts had sunk deep into the heart of Diomede, and he went into battle with a stern resolve to vindicate his manhood in the eyes of all Greece. A fierce light blazed from his helm and shield as he rushed, like a living engine of destruction, into the thickest of the fight. The first to feel the weight of his arm was a young Trojan named Phegeus, son of Dares, a priest of Hephæstus. Mounted on the same car with his brother Idæus, he drove furiously at Diomede, who was fighting on foot, and aimed a blow at him with his spear; but the weapon went wide of the mark, and the next moment he rolled from his car, pierced through the breast by the spear of Diomede. Idæus sprang to the ground and fled, leaving car and horses as a spoil to his brother's slayer. While Diomede was disposing of his booty, the Greeks pursued their advantage, and there was not a chieftain of name among them who failed to slay his man. Then fell Scamandrius, a famous Trojan hunter, and the favourite of Artemis, pierced in the back by the spear of Menelaus, and Phericlus, whose father, Tecton, had built the fatal ships which bore Paris and his retinue to Greece, and many more, of whose names there is no record. Back to the field came Diomede, sweeping all before him like a river in flood, which breaks down dyke and dam, and covers the smiling fields with ruin. So impetuous were his movements as he darted to and fro in pursuit of the flying Trojans, that it was hard to see on which side he fought; but, wherever he passed, his path was strewn with Trojan dead. At last he received a check from Pandarus, the archer whose treacherous hand had broken the truce an hour or two before. Watching him from a safe distance, Pandarus shot an arrow, which pierced clean through Diomede's right shoulder, staining his corslet with blood. Loud was the joy of Pandarus when he saw the success of his archery: "Turn again," he shouted, "ye horsemen of Troy! Back to the fray, every one! The bravest of the Greeks is wounded unto death." The boast of Pandarus was premature, for the wound was not severe, though sufficient to disable the hero's arm for the moment. Diomede drew back out of the press, and with the assistance of Sthenelus, his charioteer, drew out the arrow which was galling his shoulder. Then he stood apart and prayed to Athene, the patron goddess of his mighty father, Tydeus. And she heard him, and came and stood before him in all her divine majesty, and said: "Take heart, son of Tydeus, for I am ever near thee, and I have put into thy heart all the valour of thy sire. And I have taken from thine eyes the darkness which before lay upon them, that thou mayest look upon the gods and know them, face to face.[1] If thou seest any of the other gods, avoid them, and presume not to fight against the children of heaven; but if Aphrodite, Jove's froward daughter, comes into the battle, have at her, and strike, and fear nothing."