"Up from the shore he led the king, he ushered him in –
suspecting nothing of all his doom – he feasted him well
then cut him down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough!"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 600-602. The seer and sea god Proteus tells Menelaus of his brother Agamemnon’s murder. Having survived the Trojan war and the voyage home, Agamemnon was cut down by his wife’s lover Aegisthus at a banquet. A simile compares the killing to an ox being slaughtered at the trough.