Which excerpt from the odyssey best shows odysseus demonstrating the epic hero traits of strength and leadership? this was an army, trained to fight on horseback or, where the ground required, on foot. they came with dawn over that terrain like the leaves and blades of spring. so doom appeared to us, dark word of zeus for us, our evil days. we saw death in that fury, dropped the yards, unshipped the oars, and pulled for the nearest lee: then two long days and nights we lay offshore worn out and sick at heart, tasting our grief, until a third dawn came with ringlets shining. we stopped to take on water. all ships' companies mustered alongside for the mid-day meal. then i sent out two picked men and a runner to learn what race of men that land sustained. they fell in, soon enough, with lotus-eaters, i drove them, all three wailing, to the ships, tied them down under their rowing benches, and called the rest: ‘all hands aboard; come, clear the beach and no one taste the lotus, or you lose your hope of home.’