Characters
- Diomedes — killer of Rhesus and twelve Thracians
- Dolon — informant (already captured; background to this isolate)
- Hippocoon — Rhesus’s kinsman who raises the alarm
- Lyssa — limits the raid
- People of Crisa — wakes the Thracian side
- Rhesus — Thracian king; slain asleep
- Thracian horses — white prize driven to the ships
- Thyestes — night-raider; manages the horses
- Twelve Thracians — killed with their king
Places
- Achaean council — destination of the horses
- Assembly — night of *Iliad* 10
- Thracian bivouac at Troy’s edge — slaughter
Themes
Narrative
From captive Dolon, Odysseus and Diomedes learn that newly come Thracians under King Rhesus sleep apart at the edge of the Trojan camp, and that Rhesus’s horses are the finest and whitest Dolon has seen, his chariot worked with gold and silver. The Achaeans leave Dolon dead and enter the Thracian bivouac. Diomedes kills Rhesus and twelve of his men as they sleep; Odysseus frees the horses and drives them out with his bow as whip. Apollo wakes Hippocoon, Rhesus’s kinsman; the alarm rises too late. Athena warns Diomedes not to seize the chariot or press further; they race the Thracian steeds to the Achaean ships.
Homer gives no oracle that Troy falls if Rhesus’s horses drink Scamander—that is later and tragic. The Iliadic Rhesus is a rich ally cut down in one night raid, his horses the prize that ends the Doloneia’s success.