The next day the Greeks were forced back to the beach, and Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diomedes were wounded. Hera resolved to turn the tide of battle. Using Aphrodite's magic girdle, she seduced Zeus into making love to her and forgetting about the war. While Zeus was engaged Poseidon entered the fray and made the Trojans retreat. Ajax hurled a boulder at Hector and felled him, whereupon the Trojans ran madly for the city. Zeus recovered from his infatuation, saw the rout, threatened to beat Hera, and ordered Poseidon from the field.
Apollo came to Hector's aid, breathing vigor into him. Once again the Trojans gained the upper hand. With Hector in the forefront the Trojans smashed down the protective barricades the Greeks had built to protect their ships. Greatly alarmed, Achilles' companion Patroclus tried to persuade his friend to fight, but still Achilles declined. Patroclus then borrowed Achilles' armor and entered the battle. Thinking that Achilles was now fighting, the Trojans panicked as Patroclus slaughtered them right and left. He made his way to the walls of Troy, but Apollo dazed him as he tried to scale them. Hector found Patroclus then and slew him, stripping him of his splendid armor.
When Achilles received news of Patroclus' death he threw himself on the ground in a frenzy of grief and had to be restrained. His mother, Thetis, brought him new armor fashioned by Hephaestus, but she warned him that if he killed Hector he himself would perish soon after. Nevertheless, Achilles was determined to slay Hector and a host of Trojans besides. The next morning he made a formal reconciliation with Agamemnon and began fighting immediately.
The clash of arms that day was terrible. While Hector and Aeneas killed many Greeks they could not stop Achilles in his furor of bloodletting. In fact, both Aeneas and Hector had to be rescued with divine help. Achilles filled the Scamander River so full of bodies in his dreadful onslaught that the waters over-flowed and nearly drowned him. The gods, too, engaged in battle among themselves, as Athena felled Ares, Hera boxed Artemis' ears, and Poseidon provoked Apollo.
