[SPOILER: The fathers raise their spears. The space between the two sides is drawn tight as a bowstring about to snap. Then the light comes, a shaft so pure and terrible every man shields his eyes. Athena stands between them, armor blazing, eyes holding all the clarity of a mind that has never known doubt. Enough. The word is law. No man can move. The blood spilled is spilled. The dead are dead. You will put down your spears. The cycle of revenge ends here. Zeus commands it. Thunder splits the sky and strikes the ground between them, so close the earth bucks. Men fall back. The fathers lower their weapons one by one, not from courage or mercy but from the knowledge that they stand against something vast and immovable. The spears clatter on the stone. The fathers turn and walk back toward the town in small groups, broken. The poem does not pretend the men chose peace. The gods imposed it. The cycle stops because something stronger than grief said stop.]
The Divine Command of Peace
Athena descends in a shaft of light. Enough. The dead are dead. Put down your spears. Zeus commands it. The fathers obey.