Book 8

8. First of all Fabius had given the sons of Aeneas the sight of the line of Agenor's race retreating. The Roman camp calls him father alone, and Hannibal alone calls him enemy, and, impatient of delay, he roars: that there might be a chance of battle, the man's fates must be awaited, and beneath arms must be prayed for the help of the Parcae. For while this old age breathed, in vain did he hope for the blood of Latium. But now the soldiery was of one mind, and, the standards brought back, the honour undivided, and again and again the same Fabius alone had to be wrestled with: this galled him, sick at heart, with greater cares. By slackening the seething wars the dictator had so wrought, by his art of sitting still, that, with many things, the Tyrian soldier above all became destitute of everything, and, though the end had not yet been gained by battle and by hand, already by war he had conquered the foe. Nay more, of a yielding temper, but fierce at first, the Celts, a boastful race and changeable of mind, were looking back to their homes: they grieved that wars were waged with no slaughter (unwonted to them), and that their right hands, dry of blood, grew dull amid the weapons in a thirst for Mars. Besides these things, inner ruin and the wound of civic envy increased his troubles. Hanno, hostile to the leader's attempts, would not let the fathers send from home any reinforcements, nor aid him with any resources.

This man, torn with cares and dreading the worst of his fortunes, Juno, foreknowing Cannae and lifted up by the future, leads back to hopes of arms and frenzied vows. For she summoned Anna from the Laurentine pools and addresses her with her voice and fills her with coaxing exhortations: 'A youth of your own kindred blood toils for you, goddess, Hannibal, whose name is memorable from your own Belus. Come, go on, and curb the mad surges of his cares. Shake Fabius from his anxious mind. He alone is now girding on his arms to delay the sending of the Latins under the yoke. With Varro his hands must be joined, and with Varro the battles must be sown, nor let him fail the fates in moving the standards. I myself will be at hand. Let him stretch his way at once toward the Iapygian plain. Hither again shall follow the fates of Trebia and Trasimene.' Then the goddess whose home borders the chaste groves of Indiges: 'It is not in my power,' she said, 'to delay your commands. Let it be right, let it only be permitted, I pray, to retain favour toward my ancient fatherland and the great charges of my sister, although among Latin honours Anna's godhead stands.'

Much lies far back in the affairs of things, and antiquity, sunk in dense darkness, is veiled by the windings of the age, why the Oenotrians should call Sarranian deities to a temple, and a sister of Elissa be worshipped in the realm of Aeneas's sons. But, recalled from its source, I will draw the tale tight within the bounds of telling, and briefly unroll old things.

After Dido was deserted by her Trojan guest and her hopes were broken off, into her inmost chambers, frenzied, she hastens to build a black pyre. Then she snatches the sword, resolved on death, the deadly gift of her fugitive husband. Iarbas, scorned in his suit, sets himself over the realm, and Anna flees the warm pyre. Who would bring help to her in her need, with the Numidian tyrant terrifying far and wide? Battus then by chance was cherishing Cyrene with a gentle rule, mild Battus, ready to give tears to human misfortunes. He, when the suppliant was seen, trembled at the fates of kings and stretched out his right hand. And there, while the reaper twice shears the golden ears, her seat was meanwhile preserved: nor was it longer hers to use these resources and Battus. For Pygmalion was now teaching that ruin should be borne across the sea to the wretched woman. So she is driven over the deep, hateful to the gods and to herself because she had not given herself as companion in her sister's last hour, until a deadly whirlwind, pitiable, with torn sails, drove her, tossed about, onto the Laurentine shores. Knowing neither sky nor soil nor the dwellers there, the Sidonian, shipwrecked, trembled on the Latin land. But lo, Aeneas, attended by sacred Iulus, now possessed of his kingdom, was bearing himself with familiar face. Her, with eyes fixed on the ground and fearing much, and then sinking at the knees of weeping Iulus, he lifts up and with a gentle hand leads within the threshold. And when the honour of his hospitality had soothed her misfortunes and the dread of adversities, then his anxious care demands to learn the death of unhappy Elissa. To him thus, drawing out her words with abundant tears, Anna begins, and adds, suited to the time, coaxing words: 'Son of a goddess, you alone were the cause of my sister's kingdom and her life: death is witness, and that pyre (alas, why was it not the same for me then!). After her eyes were torn from seeing you, wretched one, she sat on the shore at times, at times stood, and following the winds the unhappy woman called with a great cry to Aeneas with her eyes, and begged you to suffer her alone to set herself as companion on your ship. Soon, troubled, she carried back her panting course to her chamber, and with a sudden trembling halted, and feared to touch the sacred bed. Then, distraught, now she cherishes the starry likeness of shining Iulus in her embrace, now wholly, all at once, turned to your face, she hangs upon the image and complains to you, and hopes that answers are sent back. Love never lays aside its hope: now her dwelling and her home she deserts and again, frenzied, revisits the harbours, in case any winds with changed breeze should bring you back. The faithless and shameless levity of the Massylian race even forced her down to magic arts. Alas, the sacred errors of the seers! While they call forth the powers of night and promise remedies for new cares, what crime I saw, deceived! She heaped upon the black pyre all the tokens of you and the gifts that brought no good.'

Then thus Aeneas, recalled to sweet love: 'By this earth I swear, often heard by you amid our prayers, I swear by my life, Anna, and by Iulus, dear to you and to your gentle sister, looking back and sick at heart I then left your realms, nor would I have departed from the chamber, had not Cyllenius, threatening great things and setting me with his own hand on the ships, driven the fleet on the deep with the swift East winds. But why (alas, late warnings!), why at such a time did you give an unguarded love leave to rage?' Against this thus Anna begins, scarcely rolling out her panting murmur amid her sobs and with trembling lips: 'To black Jove, for whom the third realm toils, and to the consort of his dark chamber I was preparing strange rites, to lighten the sick mind and trembling heart of my unhappy sister of the marriage-bed; and I myself was dragging dark sheep with my hand, hastening to the visions to be appeased; †for a grim horror in sleep had filled me with dread, and thrice Dido, thrice with a cry had called her own Sychaeus, and, glad, exulting, had shown his face. While I drive these things from my mind, and toward the light, that the visions might prosper, I pray to the heaven-dwellers and am cleansed in the living stream, she, borne with quick step to the silent shore, twice and thrice pressed kisses on the sand where you had stood: then, embracing it to her breast, she warmed your tracks far and wide, as bereaved mothers press the ashes to their breasts. Then headlong, with rapid course and with hair undone, she swiftly escaped onto the high pyre which she had built before with great mass, from whose seat it was granted to see all the straits and the whole city of Carthage. Here, having put on the Phrygian robe and the pearled necklace, after the unhappy woman had drained in her mind that day on which the gifts were first beheld, and brought back the feasts and the tables made festal by your coming, and you, in order, telling the long labours of Troy while she watched through the night, distraught, she turned her streaming eyes toward the harbours: 'Gods of the long night, whose powers death, now pressing, makes greater to us, I pray,' she said, 'be present and gently receive the shades conquered by passion. Wife of Aeneas, daughter-in-law of Venus, having avenged my husband, I have seen the built citadels of our Carthage. Now to you shall descend the shade of a great body. Me too perhaps the man once known to me in sweet love awaits, longing to match his former cares.' Saying this, she drove the sword into the midst of her breast, the sword sought as a pledge of the Dardanian's love. Her companions saw, and through the halls with sorrowful lament they rush together: the house resounds with great wailings. I, unhappy, took it, and terrified by the dread fates, tearing my face with my hand, with frantic course I seek the royal halls and strive to climb the high steps. Thrice I had tried to fall upon the dire iron, thrice I fell back, fainting, upon my sister's limbs. And now the rumour was carried through the neighbouring towns: the chiefs of the Numidians and savage Iarbas prepare arms. Then, with the fates driving me on, I came to the Cyrenaean city. From here the force of the sea drove me to your shores.'

The Trojan ruler had been moved, and had received calm spirit and a quiet mind toward wretched Anna. And now he had driven all grief and all cares from her breast, nor did she any longer seem a stranger in the Phrygian dwelling. Black night with silent slumber had buried all things over both the lands and the pools of the wide deep, when Dido, most sick at heart, with sorrowful face seemed in sleep to pour out these words to her sister: 'In this house, sister, you can indulge in long rest, alas too careless, nor do you see what snares are stretched for you, what dangers stand around you? Do you not yet know the nurslings of Laomedon's land, ill-omened to our race and to our soil? While the heaven shall roll the stars with rapid turning, and the moon shall light the lands with her brother's fire, no peace shall remain between the sons of Aeneas and the Tyrians. Rise, come: already suspicious Lavinia contrives silent snares and turns over a dread crime in her heart. Moreover, that you may not think sleep feigns these things falsely, not far from here, descending from a small spring, Numicus glides and is rolled in a gentle stream through the valleys. Hither, sister, you shall snatch your way and a safe retreat. The glad nymphs shall receive you into their sacred streams, and you shall be honoured as an everlasting godhead on Italian shores.' So having spoken, the Phoenician vanished into thin air. Anna is shaken from sleep, terrified by the strange visions, and fear goes through all her limbs with cold sweat. Then, as she was, her body covered with a thin garment, she leapt from her bed and, going out by the low window, runs through the open fields with nimble feet, until—so runs the tale—Numicius received her in his sandy bosom and hid her in his glassy caves. Day had risen and filled the whole world with its rays, when the sons of Aeneas, having found no Sidonian in her chamber, and, wandering through the field with great clamour, the Rutulian, follow to the banks of the neighbouring river the plain tracks of her feet, and while they wonder among themselves, from its deep the river snatches its waters and its course. Then in the lowest seats the Sidonian was seen to sit among the dark-blue sisters and to address the Trojans with a peaceful face. From that time, honoured in the first days of the year, through all Ausonia she was worshipped with a venerable godhead.

After Saturn's daughter had urged her to the grievous battles of the Italians, she seeks the upper air in a swift chariot, about at last to drink the longed-for blood of Latium. The goddess prepares to obey the goddess, and, seen by none, sought the great leader of the Libyan race. He then by chance, withdrawn from all gathering of men, revolving the uncertain outcomes of affairs and of the war, was drawing anxious sighs with a wakeful voice. To him the goddess thus with friendly words soothes his cares: 'Why, O bravest king of the Sidonian race, do you draw out your grief further with sickening care of leadership? All the anger of the gods now stays appeased for you, all favour has returned to Agenor's sons. Come, up, break off your sluggish delays, sweep the Marmaric forces into battle. The fasces are changed. Already the Tirynthian hero, against the senate's will, has laid down war and arms, and with another Flaminius you must wage your wars. That you may not doubt, the matron of the highest Thunderer has sent me to you. I, an everlasting godhead on Oenotrian shores, am honoured, sprung from the blood of your own Belus. Let there be no delay: snatch up the thunderbolts of war in a swift course. Where lofty Garganus spreads itself into the Iapygian fields (the land not far), hither direct your standards.' She spoke, and lifted her dewy face into the clouds. To her the leader, freshening again at the pledge of promised glory: 'Nymph, glory of my race, than whom no more sacred godhead,' he said, 'is ours, propitious in your appearing, prosper my cause. But I, when I am master of the battle, in the citadel of Carthage will set you in marble temples and beside you will dedicate Dido, made equal by the twin gift of an image.' Having said this, swollen with pride, he spurs his exulting comrades: 'Lay aside your heavy cares and the slow torments of sitting still, soldier fated for Latium. We have appeased the wrath of the heaven-dwellers, the gods return: I announce that here the command of malign Fabius is finished and the fasces changed with a new consul. Now let each man render me his right hand and those great things which, shut out from Mars, you used to promise. See, my country's godhead pledges greater things than those achieved. Let the standards be plucked up, and with a goddess leading let us seek the plain ill-omened to the Trojans by the name of Diomedes.'

And while the Carthaginians, kindled in their breasts, make for Arpi, upheld by the snatched purple of a plebeian office, Varro now rages on the rostra and, hastening to open a place for a vast ruin, brings the fates near the city. And to him belonged a race without lustre and a deaf, nameless ancestry, and immoderately his bold tongue quivered in his tuneful mouth. Hence increased in wealth and lavish of plunder, while he courts the lowest of the crowd and barks at the senate, he raised his head so high in a city shaken by wars that he was the one arbiter of the moment of affairs and of fate, under whose victory it should be a shame for Latium to be preserved. Him, among the Fabii and the names hallowed to Mars, the Scipios, and Marcellus bearing the high spoils to Jove, the blind votes had added as a blot upon the records, and Cannae, that deadly evil, was fostered by canvassing and the Field of Mars, more fatal than the Greek sea. The same man, as a sower of disturbances and skilled to kindle envy, and crooked in the toga, so, feeble in the art of war and unskilled to ply Mars and tried by no steel, hoped with his tongue to attain the glory of the right hand, and from the rostra stirred up wars. So, eager and professing to upbraid Fabius for delay, he carried impudent words against the fathers before the crowd: 'You, whose is the command, I, the consul, demand precepts and the measure of waging war. Am I to sit still or wander on the mountains, while with me the Garamantian and the Moor, scorched of body, divide Italy? Or shall I use the sword with which you gird me? Hear, good dictator, what the Martial commons command: they bid the Libyans be driven out and Rome be relieved of the foe. Are they in haste, who, having suffered very much, a third year burns with tearful misfortunes? Go then, take up arms, men. Delay alone is the short road to triumph. The first day that shows the foe will both undo the rule of the fathers and the wars of the Carthaginians. Go eagerly: with a Latin chain bound about his neck I will lead Hannibal through the city while Fabius looks on.' After he had thundered these things, swiftly he carries arms from the gates and drives off delay: as when, the barrier broken, an untaught charioteer pours out all the reins and, headlong, hanging on the lash with anxious foot, is borne unmatched by his horses: the ill-driven axle smokes, and the discordant reins float on the uncertain car. Paulus saw it (for to him the Field had borne common rights and arms), that affairs were slipping and ruined, the sinister consul sinking; but the wrath of a troubled crowd is fickle, and a scar marked upon his mind curbed the surging griefs in his sick heart. For once, when the Illyrian coast was subdued by the man's youthful arms, envy had barked at the victor with black mouth and tossed him with unfair winds. Hence there was in him fear and a reverence for the harsh commons. But his race, near to the gods, touched the heaven through its high ancestors at the summit: to count his forefather Assaracus back, Amulius was the warrant before him, and Assaracus had Jove, nor would one who had watched him in arms deny his lineage. To him Fabius, as he now sought the camp: 'If you believe your greatest wars will be with the Tyrian leader (unwilling I shall break this utterance from my breast), you are deceived, Paulus. The dire battles of the sons of Ausonia and a foe heavier than your camp await you, or I have learned in vain through much war to foreknow misfortunes. I heard him promise (it grieves and wearies my old age, alas, if any ruins remain that I foresee for it to suffer!) to the leader of so fortunate a Mars that, at whatever hour he should see him, he would take up battle. How near now, Paulus, to the last destruction we are, if the burning Carthaginian has heard this utterance of the consul! Now I believe a battle-line stands ready over the broad fields, and a second Flaminius is awaited beneath the blow. How many men, madman, Varro, will you rouse! Will you (O gods!) you, at once, the arms, you, the field? Will you not first learn and explore by delaying, †what the enemy's manner is? Will you not, what abundance of resources, what nature there is to the ground, what kind of arms there is, search out cunningly, and look upon Fortune, who stands above all weapons? Bring, Paulus, a heart not straying from the right. Why, if it is right for one man to crush his country, should it be wrong for one to save it? The shameless Libyan now lacks in narrow store, and, the heat of war blunted, the loyalty of his allies is loose. Here no friendly house invites him with a native roof, no faithful cities receive him with their walls, and no youth renews itself with equal manhood. Scarcely a third throng of men remains, which comes from the raw Spaniard. Hold fast and, patient, love the remedies of a cautious war. If meanwhile any breeze invite and a god assent, swift draw near to the favouring signs.' To him in turn the consul thus briefly with sorrowful face: 'This devotion shall be wholly with me, and I will bear your mind, unconquered one, against the Carthaginians. Nor does the one reasoning of delay deceive me, by which, while you ranged, Hannibal aged and saw the war settle, crushed. But what is this wrath of the gods? One consul, I think, is given to Ausonia, the other to the Carthaginians. He drags all things with him and madly fears lest, with another consul, Rome should fall. Summon from the Tyrian senate a colleague: he will not wish things so savage. No steed suffices to bear the madman against the foe. He grieves that the darkness of night, which would slow his course, comes on, and goes proud all but with drawn swords, lest any delay slow the battles while the sword is drawn from the sheath. By the Tarpeian rocks and the dwelling of Jove, kindred to us in blood, and by the walls of my fortunate fatherland, which now standing on their own height I leave, wherever the highest safety shall call, I swear I will go, the danger scorned. But if the camp shall fight against me, deaf to my warning, no longer, my sons, will I delay you and the sweet house of Assaracus's race, nor shall wounded Rome see Paulus returning like Varro.' So then with divided mind the troubled leaders sought their camp. But already on the foretold fields had settled the Carthaginian, keeping the Aetolian plains for battle. Never at another time was the Italian land shaken by a greater host of men, by a greater throng of hoofed beasts beneath arms. For at once they feared the worst both for their race and their city, nor was hope of contending given beyond a single Mars.

The sons of Faunus, sacred band, with the Sican as ally, have rushed to war, the Rutulian who guards the Daunian realm and rejoices in the Laurentine house and the spring of Numicus, whom Castrum and Ardea, once grievous to the Phrygians, sent, whom Lanuvium, Juno's seat sloping from a high ridge, and Collatia, nurse of chaste Brutus, and those who love the cruel grove of Trivia, and who love the mouths of the Tuscan river and cherish Cybele in the warm Almo. Hence Tibur, your city, Catillus, and Praeneste, dedicated to Fortune's sacred ridges, and Antemnae, older than ancient Crustumium, and Labici, fit for the plough. And those who drink the wave of sceptre-bearing Tiber, and who hold the banks of the Anio and are watered by the cold Simbruvium, and tame with mattocks the Aequiculan fields. Their counsellor was Scaurus—Scaurus then in his tender age, but already valour, being born for the ages, gave its signs. It was not their wont to brandish spears in the field, nor their custom to fill the quiver with feathered arrows: they choose the javelin and swords handy with short blades; their heads covered with bronze, they rise above the columns with their crests.

But those whom Setia, set apart for the table of Lyaeus himself, and Velitrae sent from its unsung valley, whom Cora, whom Signia, foaming with harsh new wine, and whom the plague-bearing damp of the Pomptine fields, where the misty marsh of Satura overflows, and, livid with black mud, Ufens, turbid through the squalid fields, gathers his waters and stains the sea with slime— these Scaevola leads, mighty in ancestors and not unworthy in his right hand of his forebears, on whose shield is engraved the honoured likeness of dread glory: fires blaze on the altars, in the midst of the rampart stands Mucius, his anger turned upon himself, and valour rages in the image. †Then the struck image they entered, and the wars by their master is seen, Porsena fleeing the burning right hand.

Those by whom the Circean ridges and Anxur of the rocky summit and the Hernican stones are scraped with the pressed ploughshare, those by whom rich Anagnia is furrowed with crumbling soil, Sulla led, with the companies of Ferentinum and the Privernates roused together, and the youth of Sora glittered, added to the weapons. Here the manhood of Scaptia, here the throng of Fabrateria, nor was Atina, descending from its snowy mountain, absent, nor Suessa, worn with wars, nor Frusino, not unwarlike from the hard plough. But he who dwells beside the Liris, mingling its sulphurous streams with the Fibrenus and gliding with silent shallows to the shore, the Arpinate, with the manhood summoned from Venafrum and the right hands of the Larinates, bristling, sets in motion his allied arms and drains huge Aquinum of its men. Tullius was sweeping into the columns his bronze-clad squadrons, a royal offspring and blood from high Tullus. O with how great endowment a youth, and how great a citizen he will give to the peoples of Ausonia in the ages to come! He, heard beyond the Ganges, beyond the Indians, will fill the lands with his voice and curb frenzied wars with the thunderbolt of his tongue, nor will leave thereafter any of his descendants to hope for equal glory in eloquence.

Behold among the foremost, of Therapnaean blood from Clausus, Nero exults, not to be imitated in his swift daring. Him the cohort of Amiternum, and Casperia, drawing its name from Bactra, him Foruli and Reate, dedicated to the great Mother of the heaven-dwellers, and Nursia, dwelt in by frosts, and the cohorts from the Tetrican crag accompany. For all, the spear is their glory, and the shield is bent back into a circle, and their cones are without plumes, and there is covering for the left leg. They went, and, glad, part were singing with their voice of Sancus, the founder of their race, part bore on their lips the praises, Sabus, of you, who first, from your own surname, called the peoples Sabines with great dominion.

What of him who goads the nurslings of the Picene land, Curio, bristling both with scales and with a horse-hair crest— how great a part of the war comes! Not on the upturned sea so thick whitens the wave in the broken billows, nor with a lighter gathering, where through a thousand columns the maiden imitates the lines of Mars with crescent shields, does both the earth and the Amazonian Thermodon resound. Here too those whom the rocky fields of Numana pasture, and those for whom the altars of seacoast Cupra smoke, and those who guard the Truentine towers with their river, could be seen: shield-bearing columns far off under the flashing sun quiver in the clouds with a bloody light. Ancon stands to dye the distaff, no cheaper in its purple than Sidon or than Libya, and Hadria stands, moistened by the Vomanus, and the harsh standard-bearer of shaggy Asculum. This memorable name Picus once established from high Saturn, his father, whom Circe with her song bade fly through the air stripped of his form, and she sprinkled a saffron glory upon the feathers of the fleeing one. Before, as fame teaches, the land was held by the Pelasgians, whose ruler was Aesis, and he left his name to the river and then called the peoples Asili from himself.

But the country-dwellers strengthened the camp with no worse strength, the Umbrians coming from their hollow mountains. These the Aesis and the Sapis wash, and the Metaurus, whirling his rapid waves with a sounding eddy over the rocks, and Clitumnus washes the huge bull, bathing it in his sacred stream, and the Nar, hastening to the Tiber with whitening waves, and the inglorious water of the Tinia and the Clanis and the Rubicon and the Sena, named from the Senones. But the father Albula glides amid them with his huge stream and grazes the walls with his near-brought bank. With these the cities Arna and Mevania of the glad meadows, Hispellum and Narnia, leaning on its hard mountain through the rocks, and Iguvium, once beset with damp mists, and Fulginia, lying on the open plain without walls; with these, brave peoples: the man of Ameria, and Camers, to be praised for arms or mattocks, with these Sassina, rich in milk, and the men of Tudertum, not sparing to worship Mars. Their leader Piso led men scornful of death, a boy in face and fair in bearing, but with shrewd heart he matched old age and by craft had surpassed his years. He shone before the front line in painted arms, as a fiery gem flashes on the tawny necklace of the Arsacidae.

And now the legion, filled out through the Etruscan companies, looked to its ruler Galba of the great name. For him Minos begins the line, and Pasiphae, shut in the bull, and then in order stand his illustrious fathers. Chosen men Caere sent, chosen men Cortona, the house of proud Tarchon, and ancient Graviscae. And Alsium, the shore dear to Argive Halesus, and Fregenae, beset by its squalid plain. There was present too Faesula, interpreter of the lightning with sacred wings, and the Clusine throng, an old terror to the Roman walls, when, great Porsena, you bade the banished Tarquins, in vain, to rule over Rome. Then those whom Luna sent from its snowy quarries, distinguished by its harbour, than which no other is more spacious to receive countless ships and to close in the sea, and Vetulonia, once the glory of the Maeonian race. This first gave the twelve fasces to go before, and joined as many axes with their silent terror. This adorned the high curule chairs with the honour of ivory and first edged the robe with Tyrian purple. This same first brought forth the bronze to kindle battles. With these mingled the cohort of Nepe and the Aequi Falisci, and those who hold your hearths, Flavina, and the Sabatian pools and the Ciminian lake, who frequent the dwellings of Sutrium not far off and Soracte, sacred to Phoebus. They bear two darts each: for their heads a cap of wild beast's hide is caution enough: they condemn the Lycian bows for spears.

These battle-lines knew how to make war. But the Marsian manhood knew both to make war with the hand and to charm sleep upon water-snakes, and to dull the viper's tooth with herbs and with song. They say that Angitia, offspring of Aeetes, first showed them evil grasses and to master poisons by touch and to shake the moon from the pole, curbing rivers with her hissings, and to lay the mountains bare, summoning the woods. But a more fearful guest gave a name to the peoples, when Marsyas fled across the seas the Phrygian Crenae, overcome by Phoebus's plectrum in the Mygdonian flute. Marruvium, celebrated by the name of old Marrus, is the head of those cities, and farther in, through the wet fields, Alba sits and pays back the ears of grain with fruits. The rest are in the obscurity of fame and without the name of the crowd, but in number the strongholds are strong. There is joined the fierce Pelignian, and from cold Sulmo he sweeps his cohorts. Not lighter than he in wars, the Vestine youth, hardened by the hunting of beasts, thickened the columns: this youth shears your citadels, Fiscellus, and green Pinna and the pastures of Aveia, returning not slowly to their grass. The Marrucinian too, manhood rivalling the Frentani, drew the peoples of Corfinium and great Teate. For all, the boar-spear is borne into battle, for all the slings wont to bring down the bird from the high sky. A skin of a bear slain in the hunt covers their breasts.

Nor is the Sidicine cohort wanting. Viriasius arms a thousand men, surpassed by none either in pitching camp or in joining a raft and breaking down walls with the hard ram, and in sending sudden bridges against a tower. Nor does the Sidicine soldier yield in zeal in his blood, whom Cales bore. No small founder of the city, as fame is, was Calais, whom Orithyia, snatched through the air by Boreas, nursed, a wanderer, in the Getic caves.

But now those whom Campania, rich in wealth, rich in ancestors, gave to the war from its whole tract, the Oscans from their neighbouring seats awaited the coming of their leaders: warm Sinuessa, and the Volturnus, sounding with its wave, and the towns that silence overthrew, Amyclae, and Fundi and Caieta, ruled by Lamus, and the home of Antiphates, hemmed in by the strait, and marshy Liternum with its pools, and Cyme, once conscious of the fates. There Nuceria and Gaurus, founded by the seafaring offspring of Dicarchus, with much Greek soldiery; there Parthenope and Nola, never penetrable to the Carthaginian, Allifae and Acerrae, always scorned by the Clanius. You could see the Sarrastian peoples too and all the gentle wealth of the Sarnus; there those whom the bays of Phlegra, rich with sulphur, gathered, Misenus and Baiae, the Ithacan seat, burning with its Giant's mouth. Nor was Prochyta absent, nor Inarime, allotted burning Typhoeus, nor the rocky island of ancient Telon, nor Calatia of the small walls, Surrentum and Abella, poor in Ceres's furrow, and above all Capua—alas, in serene affairs ill-advised to keep the measure, and doomed to perish by perverse swelling! Scipio was forming for war the men glad in their ruler. He had taught the men to surround their breasts with javelin and iron. Lighter weapons, after the custom of their fathers, they had borne from home, cornel-shafts burnt to a point without an iron tip; their use was of the dart and the axe made for the fields. He himself among them gave great signs of the renown to come: to brandish the stake, to leap across the city ditches, to break the watery shoal by swimming clad in his breastplate: such spectacles of valour were before the lines. Often, on winged foot, he himself, on foot, outran the horse, its flanks pierced through, flying through the open fields; often, the same, towering, he crossed the breadth of the camp with both stone and spear. A martial brow and easy hair, nor behind and at the back was his hair shorter. His eyes blazed with a gentle aspect, and a pleasing awe was in him for those who beheld him.

The Samnite too was present, his favour not yet leaning toward the Carthaginians, but neither cleansed of his old anger: those who reap Batulum and Nucrae, and those who beat the lairs of Bovianum or cling to the Caudine gorges, and those whom either Rufrae or Aesernia, or whom obscure Herdonia sent from its untilled fields. The Bruttian, not unequal in spirit, and together the youth roused from the Lucanian ridges and the Hirpinian manhood bristled with weapons, shaggy with the hides of beasts on their backs. These the hunt feeds: they have dwelt in lairs and turn their thirst aside with the river, and their sleep is won by toil. To these is added the Calabrian and the Sallentine cohorts, and Brundisium too, where the Italian land ends. The legion obeyed, entrusted to bold Cethegus, for whom they reviewed the allied forces and the arms not distinguished into companies: now the soldier of Leucosia showed himself from the crags, now the one whom Picentia sent from Paestum and Cerillae, soon drained by the Punic Mars, now those whom the Silarus nurses with its waters, in whose stream they say the hardness of stones grows upon the boughs dipped in. He praised too the weapons of warlike Salernum, its scythe-shaped swords, and the oaken clubs, unsmoothed, which the Buxentian manhood fitted to their right hands. He himself, bare of shoulder after the native custom of his fathers, rejoiced in a difficult horse and exercised the strength of his youth on the hard mouth of the bending steed.

You too, cut down and bereft of your men, nations of the Eridanus, with no god heeding your vows then, rushed to the arms that would fall upon you. Placentia, shaken by war, vied with Mutina, Mantua vied to send its manhood with Cremona, Mantua, home of the Muses and lifted to the stars by Aonian song and a rival of the Smyrnaean lyre. Then Verona, flowed around by the Athesis, and Faventia, skilled on every side to nurse the pine that crowns its fields, Vercellae, and Pollentia, fertile in dark wool, and the ancient house of Ocnus, once companion of the Trojans in the Laurentine wars, and Bononia of the little Rhenus, and those who with heavy oar sluggishly cleave through the muddy waves the slow pools of marshy Ravenna. Then the Trojan band, sprung of old from the Euganean land, and the fugitives from the sacred shores of Antenor. And Aquileia too overflows with the Veneti's arms. Then the nimble Ligurian and the Vagenni, scattered among the rocks, sent hardy descendants to Hannibal's glory. Their leader Brutus, the greatest confidence of so many peoples, went and by exhortation kindled them against the well-known foe. A glad gravity was in the man and a lovable weight of mind and a valour without gloom. He loved not the thankless praises of sternness, nor the cloud of the brow, nor did he seek fame by a perverse path of life. He had added thrice a thousand men, tried in the arrow's Mars, the faithful ruler from Sicilian Aetna. Not so many men did Ilva arm, but men glad to gird on iron, with its native metal, by which it nurses wars. He would have forgiven Varro, eager to join battle, whoever should see at once so many weapons together. On the Rhoetean shore once with such great hosts the Leandrian Hellespont saw a thousand ships swarm, when great Mycenae invaded Troy.

When they came to Cannae, the traces of an ancient city, they fix their ill-omened standards on the dire rampart. Nor, with so great a ruin now hanging over the wretched, did the gods cease to betray the neighbouring disasters. Through the clear sky the javelins blazed for the astonished companies, and the high battlements fell from all the rampart, and Garganus, rushing with nodding summit, laid low the woods, and Aufidus bellowed, panting from its lowest depths, and far apart over the great sea the kindled Ceraunian heights terrified the trembling sailors. The Calabrian, with the light suddenly withdrawn into measureless darkness, sought both the land and the shores of Sipus, and the frequent owl beset the thresholds of the camp. Nor did the dense clouds of bees cease to wrap themselves around the alarmed eagles. Not one death-bringing comet, overthrower of kingdoms, glowed red with flashing hair. The camp too and the rampart, in the silent night, the raging beasts broke into, and, snatched before the faces of the trembling, they scattered the limbs of the joined sentries through the fields. And when the image of terror mocked their sleep, the shades of the Gauls were seen to burst from their tombs, and thrice and four times the Tarpeian rocks, torn from their roots, trembled deep, and with black blood the river flowed in the temples of Jove, and tears in great abundance flowed from the ancient image of father Quirinus. And the Allia, greater, rose up between its horrid banks. The Alps did not stay in their place, nor by night or day did the Apennine stand still amid its huge chasms. Above the mid heaven, from the Libyan side, flashing torches came into Latium, and the pole, burst with a din fearful to hear, and the face of the Thunderer lay open. Vesuvius too, whirling Aetnean fires from its crags, thundered, and, with rocks hurled into the clouds, its Phlegraean summit touched the trembling stars.

Behold, in the midst, a soldier, foreteller of the war, and with face astonished and senses at once, fills the camp with savage cries and pants out the disaster to come: 'Spare us, cruel gods. Already the fields fail with heaps of slaughter. I see the leader of Libya flying through the dense columns and chariots driven on, dragging over the arms of men and limbs and standards. The wind rages with mad whirlwinds and rolls the battles into our eyes and faces. Unmindful of his age, Servilius falls, in vain, Trasimene, drawn from your shores. Where, Varro, do you flee? O Jupiter! by the blow of a stone Paulus, the last hope, falls upon the weary. Let the Trebia yield to this destruction. Behold, a bridge is built of falling bodies, and the smoking Aufidus casts back the corpses, and the victorious beast tramples the plains. The man of Agenor bears the axes of the consul after our custom, and the lictor carries the fasces sprinkled with blood. Into Libya the pomp of an Ausonian triumph is borne. O grief! Do you bid us, gods, to have seen even this? With gold heaped up, whatever is torn from the left hand, victorious Carthage measures the ruins of Latium.'