ABSTRACT
DIOMEDES, a hero of high renown and a special favourite of Pallas, was incited by her (being of himself apt enough) if he chanced to encounter Venus in the battle, not to spare her. He boldly did as he was bid, and wounded Venus in the hand. This for the time he carried with impunity, and returned to his own country in great fame and reputation: but meeting there with domestic troubles he took refuge abroad in Italy. Here also he had a good enough fortune at first. King Daunus entertained him with hospitality and enriched him with honours and presents, and many statues were raised to him throughout the country. But no sooner did a calamity befall the people among whom he had taken up his abode, than Daunus bethought him that he was entertaining under his roof a man impious and hated by the gods, a fighter against heaven,. who had violently assaulted and wounded with the sword a goddess whom it was forbidden even to touch. Whereupon, to free his country from the curse under which it lay, he suddenly (setting aside the bond of hospitality, in respect of the more ancient bond of religion) puts Diomedes to death, and orders his statues to be thrown down and his honours cancelled. Nor was it safe ih such a case even to pity so grievous an accident; but his comrades likewise, when they bewailed the death of their chief and filled the land with lamentations, were changed into a kind of swans,-a birdwhichat the approach of its own death also utters a sweet and plaintive sound.
