Book 10
1.13
The Euboeans excelled in “standing” combat, which is also called “close” and “hand-to-hand” combat; and they used their spears outstretched, as the poet says: spearmen eager with outstretched ashen spears to shatter corselets.Hom. Il. 2.543Perhaps the javelins were of a different kind, such as probably was the “Pelian ashen spear,” which, as the poet says,Achilles alone knew how to hurl;Hom. Il. 19.389and heOdysseus. who said,And the spear I hurl farther than any other man can shoot an arrow,Hom. Od. 8.229means the javelin-spear. And those who fight in single combat are first introduced as using javelin-spears, and then as resorting to swords. And close fighters are not those who use the sword alone, but also the spear hand-to-hand, as the poet says: he pierced him with bronze-tipped polished spear, and loosed his limbs.Hom. Il. 4.469Now he introduces the Euboeans as using this mode of fighting, but he says the contrary of the Locrians, thatthey cared not for the tolls of close combat, . . . but relying on bows and well-twisted slings of sheep’s wool they followed with him to Ilium.Hom. Il. 13.713There is current, also, an oracle which was given out to the people of Aegium,Thessalian horse, Lacedemonian woman, and men who drink the water of sacred Arethusa,meaning that the Chalcidians are best of all, for Arethusa is in their territory.
1.14
There are now two rivers in Euboea, the Cereus and the Neleus; and the sheep which drink from one of them turn white, and from the other black. A similar thing takes place in connection with the Crathis River, as I have said before.6. 1. 13.
