The Greeks had now lost their two most powerful warriors, and they began to think that it was impossible for them to take Troy by force, and that they must try other methods. So the wise Ulysses then set his brain to work to devise some stratagem by which the city might be taken. The first thing he did was to capture the Trojan prince and soothsayer, Helenus, who had gone out from the city to offer sacrifices in the temple of Apollo on Mount Ida. Calchas, the Greek soothsayer, had said that Helenus was the only mortal who knew by what means Troy could be conquered, and so Ulysses made him prisoner and threatened him with death if he did not tell. Then Helenus told the Ithacan chief that before Troy could be taken three things must be done. First, he said, the Greeks must get the arrows of Hercules; next, they must carry away the sacred Palladium, for as long as it remained within the walls the city was safe; and, lastly, they must have the help of the son of Achilles. Now the arrows of Hercules could be obtained only from Phil-oc-teʹtes, a Greek chief who received them from Hercules himself. These arrows had been dipped in the blood of the hydra, a monster Hercules had slain. This made them poisonous, so that wounds inflicted by them were fatal. Philoctetes was with his countrymen at Aulis when they set sail for Troy, but he was bitten on the foot by a serpent, and the smell of the injured part being so offensive that his comrades could not endure it, he had been left behind, on the advice of Ulysses. Far in an island, suffering grievous pangs,-- The hallowed isle of Lemnos. There the Greeks Left him, in torture from a venomed wound Made by a serpent's fangs. He lay and pined. BRYANT, _Iliad_, Book II. Ulysses now resolved to get Philoctetes to come to Troy, if he were still alive, and so, taking Diomede with him, he set out for Lemnos. They found him at the cave where they had left him ten years before. The wound was not yet healed, and he had suffered much, having had no means of existence except game which he had to procure himself. Exposed to the inclement skies, Deserted and forlorn he lies; No friend or fellow-mourner there, To soothe his sorrows and divide his care. SOPHOCLES (Francklin's tr.) Still enraged at their former ill-treatment of him, Philoctetes at first refused the request of the two chiefs. Their mission would have failed had not Hercules appeared to him in a dream and advised him to go to Troy, telling him that his wound would be healed by the famous Machaon. He then gladly went with Ulysses and Diomede. On his arrival at the Grecian camp the great physician cured him by casting him into a deep sleep and cutting away the diseased flesh from the injured foot. He awoke in perfect health and strength, and at once joined his countrymen in the war, resolved to make good use of his fatal arrows.