Many of these hillocks are still standing on the plain of Troy. When the
plague had raged for ten days, Achilles called an assembly of the whole
army, to try to find out why the Gods were angry. They thought that the
beautiful God Apollo (who took the Trojan side) was shooting invisible
arrows at them from his silver bow, though fevers in armies are usually
caused by dirt and drinking bad water. The great heat of the sun, too,
may have helped to cause the disease; but we must tell the story as the
Greeks told it themselves. So Achilles spoke in the assembly, and
proposed to ask some prophet why Apollo was angry. The chief prophet was
Calchas. He rose and said that he would declare the truth if Achilles
would promise to protect him from the anger of any prince whom the truth
might offend.

Achilles knew well whom Calchas meant. Ten days before, a priest of
Apollo had come to the camp and offered ransom for his daughter Chryseis,
a beautiful girl, whom Achilles had taken prisoner, with many others,
when he captured a small town. Chryseis had been given as a slave to
Agamemnon, who always got the best of the plunder because he was chief
king, whether he had taken part in the fighting or not. As a rule he did
not. To Achilles had been given another girl, Briseis, of whom he was
very fond. Now when Achilles had promised to protect Calchas, the
prophet spoke out, and boldly said, what all men knew already, that
Apollo caused the plague because Agamemnon would not return Chryseis, and
had insulted her father, the priest of the God.

On hearing this, Agamemnon was very angry. He said that he would send
Chryseis home, but that he would take Briseis away from Achilles. Then
Achilles was drawing his great sword from the sheath to kill Agamemnon,
but even in his anger he knew that this was wrong, so he merely called
Agamemnon a greedy coward, "with face of dog and heart of deer," and he