Then stood up on one side Aias and on the other Ulysses, for these two
had rescued the body, and neither thought himself a worse warrior than
the other. Both were the bravest of the brave, and if Aias was the
taller and stronger, and upheld the fight at the ships on the day of the
valour of Hector; Ulysses had alone withstood the Trojans, and refused to
retreat even when wounded, and his courage and cunning had won for the
Greeks the Luck of Troy. Therefore old Nestor arose and said: "This is a
luckless day, when the best of the Greeks are rivals for such a prize. He
who is not the winner will be heavy at heart, and will not stand firm by
us in battle, as of old, and hence will come great loss to the Greeks.
Who can be a just judge in this question, for some men will love Aias
better, and some will prefer Ulysses, and thus will arise disputes among
ourselves. Lo! have we not here among us many Trojan prisoners, waiting
till their friends pay their ransom in cattle and gold and bronze and
iron? These hate all the Greeks alike, and will favour neither Aias nor
Ulysses. Let _them_ be the judges, and decide who is the best of the
Greeks, and the man who has done most harm to the Trojans."

Agamemnon said that Nestor had spoken wisely. The Trojans were then made
to sit as judges in the midst of the Assembly, and Aias and Ulysses
spoke, and told the stories of their own great deeds, of which we have
heard already, but Aias spoke roughly and discourteously, calling Ulysses
a coward and a weakling. "Perhaps the Trojans know," said Ulysses
quietly, "whether they think that I deserve what Aias has said about me,
that I am a coward; and perhaps Aias may remember that he did not find me
so weak when we wrestled for a prize at the funeral of Patroclus."

Then the Trojans all with one voice said that Ulysses was the best man
among the Greeks, and the most feared by them, both for his courage and
his skill in stratagems of war. On this, the blood of Aias flew into his