A reporter interviews some veterans from the Troy war, by both sides, about the crucial point of the war: the duel of Achilles and Hector. Homer told the story by the heroes' point of view; now also the average soldier, brave or coward, fierce or ch...
Meanwhile, Troy lived one of the most dramatic moments of the war. So Ichetaon remembers it.
"Following Aeneas, I was in the middle of a shipwreck. I remember the feeling on board of a raft, full by survivors, that uneasily stands on waters, when you see other people swimming in the huge ocean. You, who, a moment before, were in the same condition, pity them and in the same time you fear them, because, if they get the ship, it will be sunk by their weight.
That day in Troy it was the same thing. Running on the Troy plain and chased by Achilles, seeing the Scaean gates wide open, we prayed the gods because they stayed unclosed, till we would be safe by the possessed person at our shoulders. Then, when we had got to be secure, we looked forwards to seeing those gates closed, enabling to Achilles the entering in the town.
Who, that day, saved Troy, was Agenor, the Antenor's son, who dared to challenge Achilles and to move him far the gates and he got away too, how himself doesn't know, I suppose. At least, I hear the squeaking of the closing gates and I think, "By today, it's over". Never, since the beginning of that war, we had a reverse alike. Perhaps, the ones of us remained on the Scamander plain, breed for the crows, were more than the ones able to breathe and fight. Too, Toy stood again and would have stood for a long time again, we believed. Perhaps it was the time when our fate, got the bottom, would have begun to go up again.
I went to a fountain, to wash the battlefield dust and restore the thirst by a drunk of water. Besides me there was an unfamiliar soldier, one of the expert strategists who always come forth after a lost battle, like the mushrooms after a rainy night. According to that soldier, our perspectives were not as bad as seemed. The walls were steady, as built by the gods, and well warded. About Achilles, the rage that possessed him, as made him deathly, so now made him rash and he already has moved far his comrades more than prudence asked. It was not impossible that some unknown archer could alone to balance the account of the day, sending the quick-feet to the Elysian Fields by an arrow.
Another guy, just descended by the ward on the walls, intervened: - I hope it, for Hector.
The strategist answered: - Hector is very brave, but not imprudent. Surely, he will not leave the repair of this city only to show that he doesn't fear Achilles. – His tone was so peremptory to make you swear that he had been milk-brother of the Priam's son.
The ward answered: - You don't know? Hector had been closed out the walls. I don't know if he did it by choose or by Fate's will. But I'm sure to have seen him near the sources, pursued by Achilles.
Everybody surrounds the ward, asking other news, and instead I stay there, with a little water again at the bottom of the helm, full of shame because I exulted when the Tory gate closed, sentencing Hector. I know easy to say it, being now safe in this inn, but willingly I should have changed our places".
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The last act of that tragic day, the duel of Hector and Achilles, was seen, you can say, by the whole city. The Trojans, conscious that the two warriors were to determine the end of the war, massed upon walls and glacises. Few were, instead, the witnesses by the Greek side; Ephesius was one of them.
"I stayed behind, to racket the dispersed Trojans, but quickly I realised to lose my time. Achilles almost didn't let a single enemy alive behind his shoulder, and the few ones spared by his rage were so frightened that, just seeing a Greek, they raised their hands, kneeled and prayed to be caught as captives.
I was tired to do the work of a young shepherd, gathering the lost sheep, and I choose to reach the others. I was also curious to glance at least the famous city that we tried to conquer by ten years but that we never had neared so much to can describe its walls. But I didn't know the ground, so, instead to get the Greek army, that I was assembled in the plain, I found myself on a little woody hill, before the ones that I later knew to be called the Scaean Gates. I sat a little to take a breath and then I saw two men running under the walls. They were too far to distinguish their arms, but I suddenly understood who they were. Achilles alone could run so quickly; Hector alone could make him so enraged. I saw the pursued to stop and then the pursuer too. Hector talked to Achilles, to contract the conditions of the duel, but his adversary spitefully repelled his proposals. Of course, I understood it by their attitude, because by my place I could not hear their words.
I believe that Hector too, in front of Achilles, had lost his head, because, that day, I saw him strangely acting. Not as a coward, of course. But I saw him casting his lance and failing his shot as not even a boy would have done, and then turning around, as thinking to have somebody beside him.
Just in that moment, I felt the sound of some steps behind me. I turned and I saw a dispersed Trojans, without arms and without helm, making me a gesture that I interpreted as asking for peace. I should have had to kill or capture him, but I had seen dead and captives enough, for a single day. More, that guy had a so little bellicose look that you could not consider him a serious menace for the Achaean army. I answered his gesture and saw him sitting beside me, to see what happened before the walls.
This made me uneasy. A wordless truce, stipulated by two soldiers in the middle of the war, is a thing, but sitting side by side too, looking to the others fighting, like two spectators of the Olympic games, is too much. So, I raised and moved to the mass of soldiers that I saw at West, massed under the walls, waiting for the duel's end.
I didn't see Achilleskilling Hector, but I understood that Peleus' son had got his revenge, hearingthe hopeless cry coming from the Troy walls. And I didn't see even therevolting scene that followed, when all the Myrmidons cast their lances to thebody of Hector, unable to defend himself. I too was happy because Achilles hadgot out the greatest obstacle to our victory, but to profane the corpses is abarbarian and Scythian action, not a Greek one."
