⁵Agamemnon put to sea when he had offered his sacrifice, and called in at Tenedos. Neoptolemos was visited by Thetis,* who persuaded him to remain for two days and then offer a sacrifice; so he remained. But the others sailed off and were caught in a storm at Tenos (for Athene had appealed to Zeus to send a storm against the Greeks). And many ships were sunk.

⁶Athene hurled a thunderbolt at the ship of Aias, but when the ship broke up, Aias escaped to safety on a rock and proclaimed that he had saved himself against the goddess’s will. But Poseidon split the rock with a blow from his trident, and Aias fell into the sea and was killed.* His body was washed ashore and buried by Thetis at Myconos.

⁷When the others were driven towards Euboea by night, Nauplios* lit a beacon on Mount Caphereus, and the Greeks, thinking that it came from some comrades who had escaped, sailed towards it, only to have their vessels wrecked on the Capherian Rocks, with the loss of many lives.

⁸Now Palamedes, the son of Nauplios by Clymene, daughter of Catreus, had been stoned to death as a result of the intrigues of Odysseus.* And when Nauplios had come to hear of it, he had sailed to the Greeks and demanded restitution for the death of his son; ⁹but turning back with nothing achieved (because all the Greeks had wanted to gratify King Agamemnon, who had been involved with Odysseus in the murder of Palamedes), he had sailed along the coast of Greece contriving that the wives of the Greeks should be unfaithful to their husbands, Clytemnestra with Aigisthos, Aigialeia* with Cometes, son of Sthenelos, and Meda, wife of Idomeneus,* with Leucos. ¹⁰But Leucos killed Meda along with her daughter, Cleisithyra, who had taken refuge in a temple; and he then arranged the defection of ten Cretan cities and became their tyrant. And when Idomeneus landed in Crete after the Trojan War, Leucos drove him out. ¹¹These, then, were the earlier machinations of Nauplios, and later, when he learned that the Greeks were returning home to their countries, he lit the beacon on Mount Caphereus, which is now called Xylophagos.* It was there that the Greeks approached the shore, supposing it to be a harbour, and met their deaths.

The fate of Neoptolemos; various wanderings and returns

¹²After he had remained in Tenedos for two days as Thetis had advised, Neoptolemos travelled by land to the country of the Molossians,* accompanied by Helenos. Along the way, Phoenix died, and Neoptolemos buried him. He became king of the Molossians after defeating them in battle, and had a son, Molossos, by Andromache. ¹³Helenos founded a city in Molossia, where he settled, and Neoptolemos gave him his mother, Deidameia, as a wife. When Peleus was expelled from Phthia by the sons of Acastos, and died, Neoptolemos recovered his father’s kingdom.*

¹⁴And when Orestes went mad,* Neoptolemos abducted his wife, Hermione, who had been promised to him previously at Troy,* and he was killed for that reason by Orestes at Delphi. But some say that he went to Delphi to demand reparation from Apollo for the death of his father,* and that he plundered the votive offerings and set fire to the temple, and was killed on that account by Machaireus* the Phocian.

^15.After their wanderings, the Greeks landed in different countries and settled there, some in Libya, some in Italy, others in Sicily, others again in the islands near Iberia, or along the River Sangarios; and there were some who settled in Cyprus too.

Agapenor settled in Cyprus. [Gouneus went to Libya, and leaving his ships behind, he made his way to the River Cinyps, where he settled. Meges and Prothoos were killed with many others at Caphereus in Euboea . . . and after Prothoos had been shipwrecked at Caphereus, the Magnesians with him were cast ashore on Crete and settled there.*]

[After the sack of Ilion, Menestheus, Pheidippos, and Antiphos, and the companions of Elephenor, and Philoctetes sailed together as far as Mimas. Then Menestheus went to Melos, where he became king because the previous king, Polyanax, had died. Antiphos, son of Thessalos, went to the land of the Pelasgians, and after seizing control of it, named it Thessaly. Pheidippos was driven to Andros with the Coans, and then to Cyprus, where he settled. Elephenor had died at Troy, but his companions were carried to the Ionian Gulf and settled at Apollonia in Epirus. The companions of Tlepolemos called in at Crete, and were then driven by the winds to the Iberian Islands, where they settled. The companions of Protesilaos were cast up on the [peninsula of] Pallene near the plain of Canastron. Philoctetes was driven to the land of the Campanians in Italy, and after a war against [the Lucanians], he settled at Crimissa, near Croton and [Thourioi]. Now that his wanderings had reached an end, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo the Wanderer, to whom, according to Euphorion, he dedicated his bow.]

[The Navaithos, a river in Italy, bears that name (according to Apollodorus and the rest) because after the capture of Ilion, the daughters of Laomedon and sisters of Priam, Aithylla, Astyoche, and Medesicaste, arrived in that part of Italy with the other captives, and fearing that they might become slaves in Greece, set fireto the ships. As a result, the river was called Navaithos, and the women the Nauprestides*And the Greeks who were with them settled there after the loss of their ships.]

¹⁶Demophon* called in at the land of the Thracian Bisaltians with a small number of ships. Phyllis, the king’s daughter, fell in love with him, and her father offered her in marriage to Demophon with the kingdom for her dowry; but he wanted to leave for his own country, and after much pleading, and swearing to come back again, he departed. Phyllis accompanied him as far as the place known as Nine Ways,* and she gave him a basket, telling him that it contained an object sacred to Mother Rhea, and that he was not to open it unless he had abandoned all hope of returning to he. ¹⁷Demophon went to Cyprus and settled there. When the appointed time had elapsed, Phyllis called down curses on Demophon and killed herself. Demophon opened the basket, and terrorstruck,* he jumped on to his horse and rode it at such a reckless pace that he lost his life; for the horse stumbled, and Demophon was thrown off and fell on his sword. His companions settled in Cyprus.

¹⁸Podaleirios arrived in Delphi and asked the god where he should settle; and he received an oracle that he should settle in the city where he would suffer no harm if the surrounding heavens fell in. So he settled at a place in the Carian Chersonese which is girded by mountains on every side.

¹⁹Amphilochos, son of Alcmaion, who, according to some accounts, had later arrived at Troy, was driven by a storm to the land of King Mopsos; and according to some accounts, they fought in single combat for the kingdom and killed one another.*

²⁰The Locrians with some difficulty made their way back to their own land; and when, three years later, Locris was struck by a plague,* they received an oracle telling them to propitiate Trojan Athene and to send her two maidens as suppliants for the next thousand years. The first to be picked out by the lot were Periboia and Cleopatra. ²¹On their arrival at Troy, they were pursued by the inhabitants and fled to the sanctuary. Without ever approaching the goddess, they swept and sprinkled her sanctuary; and they never went outside the temple, and kept their heads shorn and wore only a single tunic without any shoes. ²²When the first suppliants died, the Locrians sent others. They entered the city by night to ensure that they would not be seen outside the sacred precinct and be put to death. Later, however, they sent them as babies with their nurses; and after the Phocian War,* when the thousand years had elapsed, they stopped sending the suppliants.