The third portion, or epilogue, appears to be ascribable chiefly to the genial love of Homer for the horse. His arrangement of the army according to the number of ships, which conveyed each division, had shut out the mention of the chariots and the coursers who drew them, and he appears to have devised this closing invocation for the purpose of supplying the defect. It was certainly not necessary in order to fix the position of Achilles in the army, which the First Book had completely developed; and the passage is chiefly occupied with the horses of Eumelus, together with those of Achilles and his force. It contains, however, two remarkable notes of historical veracity. The horses of Eumelus, a Thessalian, are proclaimed to have been by far the best (μέγ’ ἄρισται): and the Myrmidons, again a Thessalian contingent, are here spoken of as having a number of separate chariots and horses; we are told (773), ‘the soldiers played at games.... The horses stood feeding, each near his own chariot, and the chariots were in their sheds.’ This is never said of any other contingent in the army. In strict harmony with this picture, Thessaly was conspicuous throughout the historic times of Greece, for the excellence of its breeds of horses, and the high character of its cavalry. If all this be so, we cannot wonder at the high estimation in which the Catalogue of Homer was held by the Greeks of after-ages, as the great and only systematic record of the national claims of the respective states. This was not merely literary or private estimation: the Catalogue had the place of an authoritative public document. Under the laws of Solon, for example, it received the honour of public recitation on solemn occasions. It was also quoted for the decision of controversies. In the critical moment, which preceded the first Persian war, the Athenian and Spartan envoys apply on the part of Greece to Gelon for his aid. He claims the command. In resisting this claim and urging their own right to lead the fleet, unless that post be claimed by the Lacedæmonians, the Athenians found their pretensions on the magnitude of their fleet, their autochthonism, and, finally, the testimony of Homer to the merits of Menestheus[494]. _The Trojan Catalogue._ The Trojan Catalogue has less of organic connection than the Greek with the structure of the poem at large. In proceeding to this portion of his work, the poet does not renew his ornamental similes, or his invocation to the Muse. He evidently meant to lower the tone of his strain: and moreover he was not about to tax memory as he had done in the former operation, the proper names being only about one fourth in number of those used for the Greeks, and none of them being arranged in long strings like the towns of Bœotia.