Thoas son of Andraimon spoke first among the Achaeans, saying Hector's return was a wonder. Many had hoped he was dead under Aias's hand, but some god had saved him. They must decide: the mass of men should fall back to the ships, while the best fighters stood and tried to check him with spears.
They obeyed. The Aiantes, Idomeneus, Meriones, Teucer, Meges, and others formed around the best men and faced Hector. The rest drew back. The Trojans came on in a dense crowd, Hector in front with long strides, and Apollo before him holding the aegis, bright and terrible, that Hephaestus made for Zeus to carry rout among men.
As long as Apollo held the aegis quiet, weapons from both sides struck and men fell. But when he stared into the Danaans' faces and shook it with a shout, he bewitched their hearts. They forgot furious courage and turned in flight.
As two wild beasts scatter cattle or sheep in the dark when no herdsman is near, so the Achaeans were scattered by Apollo.
Hector and the Trojans killed as they fled. Hector killed Stichios and Arkesilaos; Aeneas killed Medon and Iasos; Polydamas killed Mecisteus; Polites killed Echios; Agenor killed Klonios; Paris struck Deiochos from behind as he fled.
The Trojans stripped the armor from the dead while the Achaeans leapt into the ditch and over the stakes, driven back inside the wall. Hector shouted to leave the bloody spoils and press toward the ships. Any man he found hanging back would die by his hand, and dogs would eat him before the city.
He lashed his horses over the trench, calling to the Trojans. Apollo went before him, kicked the banks of the deep ditch into the middle, and made a broad causeway as long as a spear cast. Then he broke down the Achaean wall easily, as a child at the seashore knocks down sand piles he has made in play.