Bringing two different things together with an explicit word, such as "like", "just as" or "seems". Unlike the metaphor, the simile makes plain that these are two different things.
In the Iliad
and she brushed the arrow from his skin as far as a mother brushes a fly from her son when he sleeps the sweet sleep,
The line links two actions with "as far as": the goddess brushes the arrow away as the mother brushes off the fly. The domestic image, of cradle and sleep, contrasts with the danger of a war arrow and gives the measure of the lightness with which Athena acts.
Book IV: The Truce Broken, the narrator
and he drew his spear back again; and bronze Ares roared as much as nine or ten thousand men roar in war, when they join the strife of Ares.
Book V: The Aristeia of Diomedes, the narrator
just as is the generation of leaves, so is that of men. The leaves, some the wind pours to the ground, others the flourishing forest brings forth when the season of spring arrives; so is the generation of men: one is born, another ends.
Book VI: Hector and Andromache, Glaucus
As when in the sky the stars around the bright moon shine forth, when the air is still without wind; [...] so many, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus, the blazing campfires of the Trojans appeared before Ilion. A thousand fires burned on the plain, and beside each one sat fifty men, in the light of the blazing fire.
Book VIII: The Battle Interrupted, the narrator
For I hate, as much as the gates of Hades, the man who hides one thing in his chest and says another.
Book IX: The Embassy to Achilles, Achilles
but the father Zeus, who dwells on high, put fear into Ajax: he stopped, stunned, threw his seven-hide shield onto his back and withdrew, looking at the crowd like a beast, turning at every step and slowly shifting one knee for the other.
Book XI: The Aristeia of Agamemnon, the narrator
but they held like the scales of an honest woman who works wool: she holds the weight and the fleece and, on each side, evens the pans, so as to earn a miserable wage for her children; so equal the battle and the war stretched between them, until Zeus gave greater glory to Hector, son of Priam, the first to leap into the wall of the Achaeans.
Book XII: The Assault on the Wall, the narrator
and he brought down the Achaeans' wall with great ease, as when a child, beside the sea, after making sand toys in its childishness, goes back to undo them with its feet and hands, playing.
Book XV: The Trojans at the Ships, the narrator
Why do you weep, Patroclus, like a little girl who, running beside her mother, begs to be carried in her arms, clinging to her dress, and holds her back when she is in a hurry,
Book XVI: The Death of Patroclus, Achilles
but, like the stele that stands firm over the grave of a dead man or woman, so they stood still, holding the splendid chariot, with their heads planted in the ground; and hot tears ran from their eyelids to the ground as they wept, out of longing for their charioteer.
Book XVII: The Fight over Patroclus' Body, the narrator
May discord vanish from among gods and men, and anger, which drives even the very sensible to rage, anger that, far sweeter than dripping honey, grows like smoke in the chests of men: that is how the lord of men, Agamemnon, just now angered me.
Book XVIII: Achilles' Shield, Achilles
There came a grinding of teeth from him, and his eyes shone like a flash of fire, and into his heart came an unbearable grief; and he, raging against the Trojans, put on the gifts of the god, which Hephaestus had labored to make.
Book XIX: The End of Wrath, the narrator
As divine fire lays waste the deep valleys of a parched mountain, and the dense forest burns, and the wind, stirring it everywhere, rolls the flame along, so he ran everywhere with his spear, like a god, chasing the dying; and the black earth ran with blood.
Book XX: The Battle of the Gods, the narrator
wretched mortals, who, like leaves, now blaze in full vigor, eating the fruit of the earth, now wither lifeless.
Book XXI: Achilles and the River, Apollo
as in a dream one cannot pursue the one who flees: the other cannot escape, nor the first catch up; so the one could not catch him with his feet, nor the other escape.
Book XXII: The Death of Hector, the narrator
Hector, execrable one, do not speak to me of pacts; as there are no faithful oaths between lions and men, nor do wolves and lambs have a single mind, but they plot evil against one another without ceasing.
Book XXII: The Death of Hector, Achilles
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