Athena Protection

And Apollo, looking down from Pergamus, had indignation, and called with a shout to the Trojans: "Rouse ye, horse-taming Trojans, give not ground in fight before Argives; not of stone nor of iron is their flesh to resist the bronze that cleaveth the flesh, when they are smitten. Nay, and Achilles moreover fighteth not, the son of fair-haired Thetis, but amid the ships nurseth his bitter wrath."

So spake the dread god from the city; but the Achaeans were urged on by the daughter of Zeus, most glorious Tritogeneia, who fared throughout the throng wheresoever she saw them giving ground.

Then was Amarynceus' son, Diores, caught in the snare of fate; for with a jagged stone was he smitten on the right leg by the ankle, and it was the leader of the Thracians that made the cast, even Peiros, son of Imbrasus, that had come from Aenus. The sinews twain and the bones did the ruthless stone utterly crush; and he fell backward in the dust and stretched out both his hands to his dear comrades, gasping out his life; and there ran up he that smote him, Peiros, and dealt him a wound with a thrust of his spear beside the navel; and forth upon the ground gushed all his bowels, and darkness enfolded his eyes.

But as the other sprang back Thoas of Aetolia smote him with a cast of his spear in the breast above the nipple, and the bronze was fixed in his lung; and Thoas came close to him, and plucked forth from his chest the mighty spear, and drew his sharp sword and smote him therewith full upon the belly, and took away his life. Howbeit of his armour he stripped him not, for about him his comrades, men of Thrace that wear the hair long at the top, stood with long spears grasped in their hands, and for all that he was great and mighty and lordly, drave him back from them, so that he reeled and gave ground. Thus the twain lay stretched in the dust each by the other, captains the one of the Thracians and the other of the brazen-coated Epeians; and about them were others full many likewise slain.

Then could no man any more enter into the battle and make light thereof, whoso still unwounded by missile or by thrust of sharp bronze, might move throughout the midst, being led of Pallas Athene by the hand, and by her guarded from the onrush of missiles: for multitudes of Trojans and Achaeans alike were that day stretched one by the other's side with faces in the dust.


- Homer, The Iliad, Book 4