HOW TROY WAS TAKEN. 11

vicinity of Troy. From here Ulysses and Menelaus
were sent to that city as envoys to demand a return
of Helen and the stolen property.

Meanwhile the Trojans, well aware of what was
in store for them, had made abundant preparations,
and gathered an army of allies from various parts
of Thrace and Asia Minor. They received the two
Greek envoys hospitably, paid them every attention,
but sustained the villany of Paris, and refused to
deliver Helen and the treasure. When this word
was brought back to the fleet the chiefs decided on
immediate war, and sail was made for the neighbor-
- ing shores of the Trojan realm.

Of the long-drawn-out war that followed we know
little more than what Homer has told us, though
something may be learned from other ancient poems.
The first Greek to land fell by the hand of Hector,
the Trojan hero,—as the gods had foretold. But in
vain the Trojans sought to prevent the landing;
they were quickly put to rout, and Cycnus, one of
their greatest warriors and son of the god Neptune,
was slain by Achilles. He was invulnerable to iron,
but was choked to death by the hero and changed
intoaswan. The Trojans were driven within their
city walls, and the invulnerable Achilles, with what
seems a safe valor, stormed and sacked numerous
towns in the neighborhood, killed one of King Priam’s
sons, captured and sold as slaves several others,
drove off the oxen of the celebrated warrior Aineas,
and came near to killing that hero himself. He
also captured and kept as his own prize a beautiful
maiden named Briscis, and was even granted, through