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other gods and the armed warriors on the plain slept soundly, Jove was wakeful, for he was thinking how to do honor to Achilles and destroy much people at the ships of the Achaeans." Even before the battle was joined, the god Apollo began the hos- tilities: "He sat himself down away from the ships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his arrow in the midst of them [the Achaeans] . . . For nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people. . . . And all day long, the pyres of the dead were burning." When the contending sides agreed to postpone hostilities so that their leaders might decide the issue in hand-to-hand combat, the unhappy gods instructed the goddess Minerva: "Go at once into the Trojan and Achaean hosts, and con- trive that the Trojans shall be the first to break their oaths and set upon the Achaeans." Eager for the mission, Minerva "shot through the sky as some brilliant meteor ... a fiery train of light followed in her wake." Later on, lest the raging warfare cease for the night, Minerva turned night into day by lighting up the battle- field: She "lifted the thick veil of darkness from their eyes, and much light fell upon them, both on the side of the ships and on where the fight was raging; and the Achaeans could see Hector and all his men." As the battles raged on and on, sometimes pitching one hero against another, the gods, too, kept a watchful eye over individual warriors, swooping down to snatch away a beleaguered hero or to steady a driverless chariot. But when the gods and goddesses, find- ing themselves on opposing sides, began to hurt each other, Zeus called a halt, ordering them to keep out of the mortals' fighting. The respite did not last long, for many of the leading combatants were sons of gods or goddesses (by human mates). Especially an- gered was Mars, when his son Ascalaphus was pierced to death by one of the Achaeans. "Do not blame me, ye gods that dwell in heaven, if I go to the ships of the Achaeans and avenge the death of my son," Mars announced to the other Immortals, "even if in the end I shall be struck by Jove's lightning and shall lie in blood and dust among the corpses." "So long as the gods held themselves aloof from the mortal war- riors,". wrote Homer, "the Achaeans were triumphant, for Achil- les who has long refused to fight was now with them." But in view of the mounting anger among the gods, and the help the Achaeans were now getting from the demigod Achilles, Jove changed his mind: The Wars of Man