We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and

the terrible effects of it, at an end, as that only was the subject of the

poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author to proceed

to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the common reader

to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the chief actors in

this poem after the conclusion of it.

I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector by

the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are described

by Virgil in the second book of the Æneid.

Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an arrow

in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii.

The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.

Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the

armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself through

indignation.

Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at the

taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaus her

first husband, who received her again into favour.

Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by Ægysthus, at the

887

The Iliad of Homer