So we ordered each thing, and offered victims to the gods about the city; and on the third day all the Eleians came together, many men and whole-hooved horses in full array, and with them the two Moliones in their harness, being still but lads, nor yet well skilled in impetuous valour. Now there is a certain city, Thryoessa, a steep burg, far off on Alpheios, the uttermost city of sandy Pylos, round this they pitched their camp, being eager to raze it utterly. But when they had passed through all the plain, to us came Athene by night rushing down from Olympus, with the message that we should arm us. Nor were the folk unwilling that she gathered in Pylos, but right eager for war. Now Neleus would not suffer me to arm myself, but hid my horses away, for he deemed that I knew naught as yet of the deeds of war. Yet even so did I shine among our horsemen, on foot though I was, for so Athene led the fight. There is a river Minyeïos, that falleth into the sea near Arene, where the horsemen of us Pylians waited the fair dawn, and thither those ranks of footmen flowed onward. Thence in full array, and harnessed in our gear, we came at midday to the sacred stream of Alpheios. There to Zeus pre-eminent in might we sacrificed goodly victims, and a bull to Alpheios, and a bull to Poseidon, but to bright-eyed Athene a heifer of the herd, and thereafter took we supper in ranks throughout the camp, and lay down to sleep each man in his arms, about the streams of the river. Now the great-hearted Epeians were gathered round the citadel, being eager to sack it utterly. But ere that might be, there appeared unto them a great deed of war. For when the bright sun came up above the earth, we joined battle, with prayer to Zeus, and Athene. But when the strife of the Pylians and Epeians began, I was the first that slew a man, and got me his whole-hooved steeds,—the warrior Mulios was he, who had to wife fair-haired Agamede, the eldest daughter of Augeias, and she knew all drugs that the wide earth nourisheth. Him as he came on I smote with a bronze-shod spear, and he fell in the dust and I leaped into the car, and stood among the foremost fighters. But the great-hearted Epeians fled this way and that when they saw the man fall, even the leader of the horsemen, who excelled in battle. But I sprang upon them, like a black tempest, and fifty chariots I took, and beside each chariot two men bit the earth with their teeth, subdued beneath my spear. And now should I have overthrown the twin Moliones, sons of Aktor, if their sire, the Earthshaker of wide sway, had not saved them out of the battle, and covered them with a thick mist.* There Zeus gave great might to the Pylians, for we followed through the wide plain, slaying the foe and gathering their goodly arms, even till we brought our horses to Bouprasion, rich in wheat, and the rock Olenian, and where is the hill called the hill of Alision, whence Athene turned the people again.