3
Chryses knew this, I suppose, being a priest and an — old man and wise in the ways of the gods; so when he came away from Agamemnon unsuccessful, it was just as if he had loaned his good works to Apollo; he took him to task, demanded his due, and all but insulted him, saying: “My good Apollo, I have often dressed your temple with wreaths when it lacked them before, and have burned in your honour all those thighs of bulls and goats upon your .altars, but you neglect me when I[ am in such straits and take no account of your benefactor.”Iliad1, 33 ff. Consequently, he so discomfited Apollo by his talk that he caught up his bow and arrows, sat. himself down above the ships, and shot down the Achaeans with the plague, even to their mules and dogs.
4
Having once alluded to Apollo, I wish to mention something else that gifted men say about him, not his misfortunes in love, such as the slaying of Hyacinthus and the superciliousness of Daphne, but that when he was found guilty of killing the Cyclopes and was banished from Heaven on account of it, he was sent to earth to try the lot of a mortal. On this occasion he actually became a serf in Thessaly under Admetus and in Phrygia under Laomedon, where, to be sure, he was not alone, but had Poseidon with him; and both of them were so poor that they had to make bricks and work upon the wall;Of Troy. what is more, they did not even get full pay from the Phrygian, who owed them, it is said, a balance of more than thirty Trojan drachmas!
