But him king Agamemnon, answering, addressed: “O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, need of prudent counsel [comes upon] both thee and me, which will protect and preserve the Greeks and their ships, since the mind of Jove is altered. Surely he has rather given his attention to the Hectorean sacrifices; for never have I beheld, nor heard a person who related, that one man has devised so many arduous deeds in one day as Hector, dear to Jove, hath performed upon the sons of the Greeks in such a manner, [although] the dear child neither of a goddess nor of a god. But such deeds hath he done as I conceive will long and for many a day be a cause of care to the Greeks; so many evils hath he wrought against the Greeks. But go now, call Ajax and Idomeneus, running quickly to their ships, but I will go to noble Nestor, and exhort him to arise, if he be willing to go to the sacred company 335 of guards and give orders; for to him will they most attentively listen, because his son commands the guards, along with Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus; for to them we intrusted the chief charge.” Footnote 335: (return) Some picked troop chosen for the especial purpose of keeping watch. Heyne compares Σ, 504: ἱερὸς κύκλος; Ω, 681: λαθὼν ἱεροὺς πυλαωρούς. Compare, also, the ἱερὸς λόχος of the Thebans, Plutarch, in Pelop. t. i. p. 285; E. Athen. xiii. p. 561. But him Menelaus, valiant in the din of war, then answered: “In what manner dost thou command and exhort me in thy speech? Shall I remain there with them, waiting till thou come, or shall I run back again to thee, after I have duly given them orders?” But him, in turn, Agamemnon, king of men, addressed: “Wait there, lest, as we come, we miss 336 one another; for there are many ways through the camp. But shout aloud whithersoever thou goest, and enjoin them to be watchful, accosting each man by a name from his paternal race, 337 honourably addressing all; nor be thou haughty in thy mind. Nay, let even us ourselves labour, whatever be our station, so heavy a calamity hath Jove laid upon us at our birth.” Thus saying, he dismissed his brother, having duly charged him. But he hastened to go to Nestor, the shepherd of the people. Him he found on his soft couch beside his tent and black ship, and by him lay his variegated arms, a shield, two spears, and a glittering helmet: beside him also lay a flexible belt, with which the old man girded himself, when he was arming for man-destroying war, leading on his people; since he by no means yielded to sad old age. Being supported on his elbow, 338 and lifting up his head, he addressed the son of Atreus, and questioned him in [these] words: Footnote 336: (return) Buttmann, Lexil. p. 85, comes to the conclusion that “we must include ἀθροτάζειν among the forms of άμαρτάνω, whose etymological connections, as long as we are ignorant of them, we can easily do without.”