The dreadful battle of Trojans and Achaeans was left to itself, surging across the plain between Simoeis and Xanthus. Telamonian Aias first broke a Trojan line by killing Acamas, best of the Thracians, with a spear through the forehead.
Diomedes killed Axylus of Arisbe, a wealthy man who welcomed all travelers because his house stood by the road, but none of his guests came to save him. He killed Axylus and his charioteer Calesius together.
Euryalus killed Dresus, Opheltius, and the twin sons Aesepus and Pedasus. Polypoetes, Odysseus, Teucer, Antilochus, Agamemnon, Leitus, and Eurypylus each took victims. Menelaus captured Adrastus alive when his horses broke the chariot and bolted.
Adrastus clasped Menelaus’s knees and begged to be ransomed with bronze, gold, and worked iron from his father’s house if Menelaus took him alive to the ships. Menelaus was moved, but Agamemnon came running and asked why he cared for Trojans — had they done him such kindness in his house? Let none escape steep destruction, not even a child in the womb; let all of Ilios perish unwept and unmarked. Menelaus pushed Adrastus away, and Agamemnon stabbed him in the flank, planted his heel on his chest, and pulled out the ash spear.
Nestor shouted that no man should hang back for spoil; they must kill first and strip bodies later. The Trojans would have fled into Ilios if Helenus, Priam’s son and best of bird-readers, had not spoken to Hector and Aeneas.