Chapter 13 13

Palamedes was the most knowledgeable hero of the Greek army.He is diligent, smart, upright, determined, handsome, and good at singing and playing.It was because of his eloquence that most of the princes in Greece agreed to the expedition to Troy.It was because of his great intelligence that he saw through the tricks of Odysseus, the son of Laertes, so he offended the hero in the Greek army.Odysseus is hostile to him and wants revenge on him. Now, the oracle of Apollo inspired the Greeks to sacrifice a hundred animals to Apollo, namely Smintheus.Smintheus is an alias used by the Troy area to honor Apollo, and sacrifices are placed in front of his temples and statues.Palamedes was chosen by the gods to be the person who escorted the sacrifice.Chryses, the priest of Apollo, will accept sacrifices there and preside over a grand sacrifice ceremony.This area pays special respect to Apollo, the sun god, and there is also a strange history: in ancient times, King Teucers led the ancient Teucers from Crete to the Gulf of Asia Minor, and an oracle ordered them to station in the underground Drill out where the enemy came from.Later, when they came to the native town of Hamachitus, many rats came out of the ground, and gnawed away all their shields during the night.They thought the oracle had been fulfilled, so they camped there and built a statue of Apollo with a mouse lying at his feet.Smintheus means mouse in the local Aeolian dialect.

The priests received a hundred holy sheep as sacrifices to the sun god.In fact, Apollo chose Palamedes as a sacrifice and gave him special honors, which accelerated his destruction, because Odysseus was even more jealous and planned to murder him.He quietly buried a sum of gold in the tent of Palamedes, and then he wrote a letter to Palamedes in the name of King Priam.The letter talked about rewarding gold and thanked Palamedes for betraying the military secrets of the Greeks.He dropped the letter into the hands of one of Phlicia's captives, and pretended to have discovered it.He immediately ordered the transfer to be killed.Finally he published the letter at a meeting of Greek princes.

Palamedes was immediately called in by the angry Greek heroes.Agamemnon appointed princes of high status as judges. Odysseus presides.Odysseus ordered a search of Palamedes' house, only to find the gold that the cunning Odysseus had pre-buried under the bed.Without asking the truth of the matter, the judges unanimously agreed to sentence Palamedes to death.Palamedes didn't want to defend himself. He saw the conspiracy, but he couldn't produce strong evidence of his innocence and someone framed him.When he heard that they were going to stone him, he only said: "O Greeks, you are going to kill a nightingale who is learned, innocent, and has the most beautiful song!" method of defense.They took the noblest man in the Greek army to a brutal execution.

Palamedes accepted it calmly and courageously.A shower of stones rained down on him, and he cried out, "Happy, O truth, for at last you are dead before me!" As he cried, Odysseus threw him on the head with all his strength. Going to a big rock, he fell to the ground, dead.But Nemesis, goddess of justice, saw it all from heaven.She decided to punish the Greeks and Odysseus who tricked them into committing crimes, causing them disaster.