Agamemnon honored Nestor’s counsel and mourned that Zeus had thrown him into a quarrel with Achilles. If he had ten counselors like Nestor, Priam’s city would soon bow under Achaean hands. He ordered the men to eat and arm; whoever stayed apart from battle would be food for dogs and birds.
The army roared like surf against a headland. Men scattered to their ships, lit fires, ate, and sacrificed. Agamemnon sacrificed a fat five-year-old bull to Zeus and called the best elders: Nestor, Idomeneus, the two Aiantes, Diomedes, Odysseus, and Menelaus, who came uncalled because he knew his brother’s heart.
Agamemnon prayed that the sun not go down before he had thrown Priam’s roof blackened to the ground, burned the doors with fire, cut Hector’s tunic around his chest with bronze, and laid many companions face down in dust. Zeus accepted the sacrifice but did not yet fulfill the prayer; he increased their labor.
They burned the thigh-bones, roasted the meat, ate, and then Nestor urged the leaders to waste no time. Heralds called the host. Athena moved among the men with the deathless aegis and put strength into each heart. War became sweeter to them than returning home in hollow ships.