13.

The Eubœans excelled in standing585 fight, which was also called close fight,586 and fight hand to hand.587 They used spears extended at length according to the words of the poet;

“warriors eager to break through breastplates with extended ashen spears.”588

The missile weapons were perhaps of different kinds, as, probably, was the ashen spear of Pelion, which, as the poet says,

“Achilles alone knew how to hurl.”589

When the poet says,

“I strike farther with a spear than any other person with an arrow,”590

he means with a missile spear. They, too, who engage in single combat, are first introduced as using missile spears, and then having recourse to swords. But they who engage in single combat do not use the sword only, but a spear also held in the hand, as the poet describes it,

“he wounded him with a polished spear, pointed with brass, and unbraced his limbs.”591

He represents the Eubœans as fighting in this manner; but he describes the Locrian mode as contrary to this;

“It was not their practice to engage in close fight, but they followed him to Ilium with their bows, clothed in the pliant fleece of the sheep.”592

An answer of an oracle is commonly repeated, which was returned to the Ægienses;

“a Thessalian horse, a Lacedæmonian woman, and the men who drink the water of the sacred Arethusa,”

meaning the Chalcideans as superior to all other people, for Arethusa belongs to them.