Hector versus Ajax; the Greeks build a wall

Hector, returned to the field, challenges the Greeks to send out a champion. Nine men volunteer; lots are drawn; Ajax wins. Ajax — the largest of the Greeks, "huge as a wall" — and Hector face each other. The combat is one of the longest in the poem. They throw spears; both spears strike but neither pierces the armor. They fight with rocks. Ajax knocks Hector down with a boulder; Apollo, watching, sets him back on his feet. Night falls. The heralds intervene and stop the fight. The two warriors exchange gifts — Ajax a war-belt, Hector a sword — and part on terms of mutual respect.

That evening the Greeks debate. Nestor proposes a defensive wall around the camp, with a ditch outside it, to protect the ships in case Hector's army manages to reach them. Agamemnon agrees. They build it overnight, with a gate, towers, and a moat full of stakes. The book is, in a sense, the moment the Greeks acknowledge they may now be on the defensive — that without Achilles, Hector's army can reach the ships.

On Olympus, Poseidon is angry. He helped build the walls of Troy long ago and was not paid; now the Greeks have built their own wall without sacrificing to him, and his work will be eclipsed. Zeus, half-amused, promises Poseidon can flatten the Greek wall later, when the war is over and the Greeks have sailed home. The episode is a small Iliadic comedy — the gods' grievances are real to them, in proportion to nothing — and ends with the wall standing for now.