As smoke goes towering up the sky from out a town cut off on a distant island under siege... enemies battling round it, defenders all day long trading desperate blows from their own city walls but soon as the sun goes down the signal fires flash, rows of beacons blazing into the air to alert their neighbors - if only they'll come in ships to save them from disaster - so now from Achilles' head the blaze shot up the sky.

As smoke goes towering up the sky from out a town
cut off on a distant island under siege…
enemies battling round it, defenders all day long
trading desperate blows from their own city walls
but soon as the sun goes down the signal fires flash,
rows of beacons blazing into the air to alert their neighbors –
if only they’ll come in ships to save them from disaster –
so now from Achilles’ head the blaze shot up the sky.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 18, lines 240-247. To terrify the Trojans, goddess Athena wraps Achilles’s head up in a golden cloud, so that a fiery light blazes out from him and shoots up to the sky. Homer’s epic simile likens this to a city under siege from an enemy, where defenders in the evening light signal fires, the beacons blazing into the air to alert neighbors and summon help.

Homer Quotes