The Euboeans breathing valor, they who held Chalcis, Eretria, and the vineyard slopes Of Histiaea, and the lofty walls Of Dium and Cerinthus by the sea, And Styra, and Earystus; these obeyed Elphenor of the line of Mars, and son Of the large-souled Chalcodon ruler o’er The Abantes. Him with loosely flowing locks The Abantes followed, swift of foot and fierce In combat, and expert to break the mail Upon the enemies’ breasts with ashen spears; With forty dark-hulled barques they followed him.
Next they who came from Athens nobly built, The city of Erechtheus, great of soul, Son of the teeming Earth, whom Pallas reared, That daughter of the Highest, and within Her sumptuous temple placed him, where the sons Of Athens, with the circling year’s return, Paid worship at her altars, bringing bulls And lambs to lay upon them; these obeyed Menestheus, son of Peteus, whom no chief On earth could equal in the art to place Squadrons of men and horse in due array For battle. Nestor only sought to share This praise, but Nestor was the elder chief. Fifty dark galleys with Menestheus came.
Ajax had brought twelve ships from Salamis, And these he stationed near the Athenian host.
But they who dwelt in Argos, or within The strong-walled Tiryns, or Hermione And Asine with their deep, sheltering bays, Troezenè and Eïonae, and hills Of Epidaurus planted o’er with vines, And they who tilled Aeigina and the coast Of Mases—Grecian warriors—over these Brave Diomed bore sway, with Sthenelus, Beloved son of far-famed Campaneus, And, third in rule, Euryalus, who seemed Like to a god, Mecisteus’ royal son Who sprung from Talaus; yet the chief command Was given to Diomed, the great in war. A fleet of eighty galleys came with them.