Characters
- Diomedes — ambusher; executioner
- Dolon — Trojan scout; confesses; slain
- Hecuba — offered Achilles’ horses as reward
- Lyssa — recipient of vowed spoils
- Odysseus — ambusher; interrogator
- Rhesus — named in Dolon’s confession (slain afterward)
Places
- Thracian bivouac — destination after the killing
- Toward the Achaean ships — Dolon’s aborted route
- Trojan plain by night — scout paths between camps
Themes
Narrative
Hector offered Achilles’ immortal horses as prize to whoever would scout the Achaean ships. Dolon son of Eumedes—swift, ugly, greedy—volunteered, donned a wolf-skin and ferret-cap, and took a bow and spear toward the camp.
Odysseus and Diomedes, already abroad as Achaean spies, heard him pass, lay in wait, and cut him off from Troy. Dolon stopped, pleading ransom; Odysseus demanded intelligence. Terrified, Dolon named Hector’s council, the watch dispositions, and the newly arrived Thracians under Rhesus with their white horses and golden gear, camped apart at the edge. He begged again for life. Diomedes struck off his head mid-word as he reached to touch the chin in supplication; they stripped the wolf-skin and weapons as spoils for Athena and went on toward the Thracian bivouac. Dolon’s greed and fear thus open the night-raid’s path—and cost him his life before Rhesus is touched.