the hydra, the boast of Argos, and from the midst of the walls the dragons were bearing the children of the Thebans in their jaws.  But I had the opportunity of seeing each of these, as I took the word of battle to the leaders of the divisions.  And first indeed we fought with bows, and javelins, and distant-wounding slings, and fragments of rocks; but when we were conquering in the fight, Tydeus shouted out, and thy son on a sudden, “O sons of the Danai, why delay we, ere we are galled with their missile weapons, to make a rush at the gates all in a body, light-armed men, horsemen, and those who drive the chariots?” And when they heard the cry, no one was backward; but many fell, their heads besmeared with blood; of us also you might have seen before the walls frequent divers toppling to the ground; and they moistened the parched earth with streams of blood.  But the Arcadian, no Argive, the son of Atalanta, as some whirlwind falling on the gates, calls out for fire and a spade, as though he would dig up the city.  But Periclymenus the son of the God of the Ocean stopped him in his raging, hurling at his head a stone, a wagon-load, a pinnacle[40] rent from the battlement; and dashed in pieces his head with its auburn hair, and crushed the suture of the bones, and besmeared with blood his lately blooming cheeks; nor shall he carry back his living form to his mother, glorious in her bow, the daughter of Maenalus.  But when thy son saw this gate was in a state of safety, he went to another, and I followed.  But I see Tydeus, and many armed with shields around him, darting with their AEtolian lances at the highest battlements of the towers, so that our men put to flight quitted the heights of the ramparts; but thy son, as a hunter, collects them together again; and posted them a second time on the towers; and we hasten on to another gate, having relieved the distress in this quarter.  But Capaneus, how can I express the measure of his rage!  For he came bearing the ranges of a long-reaching ladder, and made this high boast, “That not even the hallowed fire of Jove should hinder him from taking the city from its highest turrets.”  And these things soon as he had proclaimed, though assailed with stones, he clambered up, having contracted his body under his shield, climbing the slippery footing of the bars[41] of the ladder:  but when he was now mounting the battlements of the walls Jupiter strikes him with his thunder; and the earth resounded, insomuch that all trembled; and his limbs were hurled, as it were by a sling, from the ladder separately from one another, his hair to heaven, and his blood to the ground, and his limbs, like the whirling of Ixion on his wheel, were carried round; and his scorched body falls to the earth.  But when Adrastus saw that Jove was hostile to his army, he stationed the host of the Argives without the trench.  But ours on the contrary, when they saw the auspicious sign from Jove, drove out their chariots, horsemen and heavy-armed, and rushing into the midst of the Argive arms engaged in fight:  and there were all the sorts of misery together:  they died, they fell from their chariots, and the wheels leaped up and axles upon axles:  and corses were heaped together with corses.—­We have preserved then our towers from being overthrown to this present day; but whether for the future this land will be prosperous, rests with the Gods.