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Poseidon, sympathetic to the Achaeans, takes the form of Calchas and moves through the ranks, encouraging the commanders. He especially strengthens Aias and Idomeneus.
Idomeneus kills several Trojans at the ships. Menelaus and Meriones fight side by side. Polydamas advises Hector to regroup, but Hector trusts that Zeus is with him. The book is a broad battle narrative with no single hero, emphasizing numbers, chance, and the exhaustion of the combatants.
Opening lines
Now Zeus, when he had brought the Trojans and Hector to the ships, left the combatants there to have toil and woe unceasingly, but himself turned away his bright eyes, and looked afar, upon the land of the Thracian horsemen, [5] and of the Mysians that fight in close combat, and of the lordly Hippemolgi that drink the milk of mares, and of the Abii, the most righteous of men. — Homer, Iliad XIII.1ff., trans. A. T. Murray (Loeb; Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0).
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The following entries mention “Iliad XIII · Battle at the Ships”.