Hector and Ares drove the Argives back. Hera saw them being destroyed and urged Athena to remember their promise to Menelaus. Hera harnessed the divine horses; Athena put on Zeus’s war tunic, the tasselled aegis with Terror, Strife, Strength, Pursuit, and the Gorgon head, then took her heavy spear.
The gates of heaven opened of themselves, guarded by the Hours. The goddesses drove to Zeus. Hera asked whether he was angry at Ares for killing Achaeans without order. Zeus told her to set Athena on him, since she was most used to bringing Ares pain.
They came to Troy, loosed the horses by Simoeis, and went like doves to the Achaean line. Hera shouted with Stentor’s bronze voice, shaming the Argives because the Trojans had reached far from the city while Achilles no longer fought.
Athena found Diomedes cooling his wound by the chariot. She mocked him as unlike Tydeus. Diomedes answered that he had obeyed her command not to fight gods, except Aphrodite. Athena told him not to fear Ares; she mounted beside him after pulling Sthenelus down, took whip and reins, and drove straight at the war-god.