Machaon

Eurypylus, the Trojan ally and son of Telephus, struck down Nireus after Achilles had fallen. Nireus was the most beautiful of the Greeks after Achilles. He lay among the fighting like a flowering apple tree thrown down by the wind in a wealthy man’s orchard. Eurypylus moved towards him to strip away his armour, but Machaon rushed forward. Machaon had been wounded during Hector’s attack on the ships, when Hector brought fire against them, and had been carried to Nestor’s tent. He now drove his spear through Eurypylus’s left shoulder.

Eurypylus answered with his sword. He cut Machaon’s shoulder, and blood flowed. Machaon stooped, seized a great stone, and hurled it at Eurypylus’s helmet. The blow shook him, but he did not fall. He recovered and drove his spear through Machaon’s breastplate and into his breast. Machaon fell and died. With his last breath he said, “Thou, too, shalt fall.” Eurypylus replied, “So let it be! Men cannot live for ever, and such is the fortune of war.”

The battle continued around them. Paris, wounded in the thigh, withdrew and shot arrows among the Greeks. Eurypylus, with Paris and Aeneas beside him, drove the Greeks back to the ditch around their camp. Stones, spears, and arrows fell from the wall and towers. When night came, Eurypylus withdrew, and his men made fires on the plain. The Greeks buried Machaon.

One account says Eurypylus was later killed by Neoptolemus. Another says Priam’s bribe of a golden vine made by Hephaistos persuaded Eurypylus’s mother, Astyoche, to send him to Troy.

Paris loosed his arrows among the Greeks as the battle pressed towards the camp. Machaon, their physician, was struck and badly wounded. Homer recounts this sequence in Book 11 of the Iliad. The finest Greek fighters were already out of the battle, apart from Ajax, and the spearmen were fleeing. Nestor lifted Machaon into his chariot and carried him away from the fighting.

Achilles stood beside the stern of his ship and watched the Greek defeat. When he saw Machaon pass in Nestor’s chariot, he called to Patroclus, the friend he loved above all others. Achilles told him to ask Nestor how Machaon was. Patroclus went to Nestor, who was sitting and drinking wine with the wounded man.

Nestor told Patroclus how many Greek chiefs had been hurt. Patroclus was in haste, but Nestor began to recount his own deeds in war when he had been young. At length, he told Patroclus to say that, if Achilles would not fight, he should at least send his men into battle under Patroclus. Patroclus should wear Achilles’ splendid armour. The Trojans would then believe that Achilles had returned, and they would fear him, since none of them dared face him.

Elsewhere, Odysseus remained the only Greek chief still fighting in the centre. He stood alone among the Trojans, struck four men, and wounded a fifth before he was speared through the side. Menelaus and Ajax came to rescue him. Paris had earlier been wounded in the thigh by a spear. He withdrew a short distance and continued shooting arrows at the Greeks. The fighting lasted until night, when the Trojans withdrew and camped on the plain. Machaon was buried.