Book 13

13. The slow march scarcely ended, the Tarpeian heights had hardly faded from his sight, when, his grim gaze turned toward the city, the son of Agenor prepared to withdraw. He pitches camp where, harming no grasses on its bank, the Tutia draws down a thin and nameless stream and silently, inglorious, flows into the Tuscan waters. Here, now upbraiding the chief men of his allies, now the commands of the gods, now himself, he cries: "Tell me, you for whom by Lydian slaughter the pools have swollen and the Daunian land was shaken by the thunder of arms — to what shores, half-dead, do you carry your standards back? What blade at last, what spear entered your breast? If now bountiful Carthage should rise before your eyes, lofty in towered shape, what reasons for retreat, soldier, unwounded, would you give? 'Showers, my country, and storms mingled with hail and thunder — these I flee.' Drive far from a Tyrian people this womanish stain — unless it cannot wage war save in clear daylight and beneath a cloudless sky." The terror of the gods still lingered, and on his arms still hung the smell of thunderbolts, and before his eyes the battle of the angry Thunderer. Yet the vigour to obey, and to press wherever ordered, held firm, and spreading by degrees to the edges the ardour for bringing back the standards grew through the column. So, when a pebble breaks the standing water, it forms small circles through the first whirls, then, setting the trembling liquid quivering with swelling motion, it multiplies the close-set rings of the winding flood, until at last the circle, its rim loosened, touches both banks with its broad-sweeping curve.

But on the other side, the crooked glory of Argyripa — for he drew his renowned seed from the line of Oeneus, chieftain of the Aetolians (Dasius was no ignoble name: rich in wealth, but lame in faith, and he had joined himself to the hot-blooded Carthaginian, distrustful of the Latin rein) — he, turning over the old remembered tales of his forefathers, spoke as a soldier of long descent: "When Troy with war shook Pergama, and Mars stood at the walls without bloodshed, to the anxious Greeks Calchas (for thus the bravest hero, Diomedes, often told it over the cups to Daunus, his demanding father-in-law, who stored it in his mindful heart) — but Calchas declared to the Greeks that, unless they took care to tear from its seat within the citadel the image of the armour-clanging goddess, never would Ilion yield to Therapnaean arms, nor the name of Leda return to Amyclae. For the gods had decreed that to no one should it be granted to break through any cities that effigy should ever have possessed. Then my Tydides, with the Ithacan joined to him, made his way into the citadel that was pointed out, and with his right hand, removing the guards at the very threshold of the temple, carried off the heavenly Palladium and opened wide ill-omened Pergama to our fate. For after he founded a city in Oenotrian lands, sick at heart for his crime, he prepares to appease the Phrygian deity with worship and to entreat the Trojan Penates. Already a vast temple was rising on the lofty citadel, a hateful seat for Laomedon's Minerva, when, amid sleep and deep repose, unconcealed, the Tritonian maiden, threatening, addressed him: 'Not these things, son of Tydeus, in reward for so great a glory do you fittingly prepare: not Garganus nor the Daunian land are owed to us. Seek out in the Laurentine fields those who now lay the first walls of a better Troy. Bring there the fillets and the chaste shrine of our forefathers.' And trembling at the warning, he made for the Saturnian realms. Now the Phrygian, victorious, was founding Lavinian Pergama and fixing Trojan arms in the Laurentine grove. But when he reached the waters of the Tyrrhenian river and Tydides set his shining camp upon the bank, the sons of Priam trembled with fear. Then, holding out as pledges of peace a branch of grey-green olive in his right hand, the son-in-law of Daunus thus began amid the murmurs of the Teucrians: 'Lay aside, son of Anchises, your remembered angers and your fears. Whatever blood we sweated out by Idaean Xanthus and Simois and at the threshold of the Scaean gate, is not our doing: the gods drove us, and the harsh Sisters. Come now, why should we not lead what remains of life under better auspices? Let us join our right hands, unarmed: behold, this image shall be witness to our pact.' And praying for pardon, he showed the Trojan Minerva from the stern to the trembling men. She it was who, when the Celts dared to break into the walls of Rome, seized them in death, and of so many thousands of that vast people sent not one back to his ancestral altars."

Broken by these words, the chieftain bids his standards be pulled up, his companies glad at the longed-for departure. They march into the fields where, rich beyond all others, Feronia is worshipped in her grove, and the sacred Capenas waters the Flavinian countryside. The story goes that, untouched from the founding of the ancient shrine, the wealth had grown, gifts heaped up from every quarter, through measureless time, and that gold abandoned for countless ages was guarded by dread alone over the ground. Here greedy minds and barbarous hearts he polluted with plunder and armed their breasts with contempt for the gods. Then distant trackless lands please them, which Bruttius furrows with the plough where Trinacria stretches her fields out to the straits.

While the Libyan, not gladly, makes for the shores of Rhegium, the victor Fulvius, the enemy driven from his country's bounds, was carrying ill-omened news to the Campanians shut within their walls and stirring the last extremities for the wretched men. Then, grasping every man whose name stood high in arms, he cried: "Repel this disgrace by your hand! Why does the treacherous second Carthage, after broken treaties with our city, after the Carthaginian sent against our gates, after asking the right to share the consulship, still stand, and from her high towers sluggishly await Hannibal and the Libyan cohorts?" He mingled deeds with his words, and now he forced lofty towers to be raised on strong oak, with which to overtop the steep wall, now he pressed to bind beams together with knots and with iron, with which to shatter the high doorposts of the gates and to batter the bars that delayed him. Here a rampart, its sides woven with studded planks; here a vineshed rose heavy with armoured back. But after he had hurried enough of what need required, he gives the signal and eagerly bids them mount the walls by ladders, and fills the city with savage terrors.

Then suddenly an omen flashed favourable on his endeavours. There was a doe, of a colour rarely seen on earth, which surpassed in whiteness the snow, in whiteness the swans. This Capys, as a gift of the countryside, when he was marking the walls with the furrow, had reared, softened by tender love for the little creature, and by feeding her had given her the feelings of a human. Thence, stripped of her wildness and teachable, she would come to the tables and of her own accord rejoiced in her master's caressing touch. The matrons were wont with a gilded comb to groom the gentle creature and to restore her colour in the flowing river. Already the doe was the divinity of the place, and they believed her the handmaid of Diana, and incense was offered to her in the gods' manner. Tenacious of years and life, and fortunate, she had passed a green old age through a thousand untiring years, and by the number of generations she matched the time since the Trojan dwellings were founded. But now, after long ages, night had come. For, harried by the sudden onset of savage wolves which through the darkness of night had entered the city (a pitiable portent in war), at the first rising of the light she had hurled herself out through the gates and, dismayed, in panic flight sought the plains laid out before the walls. The chieftain Fulvius, taking her amid the joyful contest of the young men, sacrifices her to you, goddess (for these rites are most pleasing to you), and prays: "Be present, daughter of Latona, to my undertakings." Then, eager and confident, he moves his arms about the goddess and the besieged, and where the curving walls bend round in an oblique circle with sloping fold, he binds them with a thick-set crown and surrounds them with weapons in the manner of a hunting-net.

While they quake, lashing the fierce heart of his foaming horse, Taurea is borne out through the gate, towering with his crests, a warrior to whom the Sidonian chief granted to outdo with the arm both the Autololes and the Moorish spears. He, masterfully driving with violence the horse that trembled and refused to stand at the clangour of the trumpet, after he sees himself near to the enemy's ears and hears them shout close by, to him Claudius (Claudius excelled in the art of warfare and in fame earned through a thousand battles) — to him he says: "Alone, if you have any trust in your right hand, give yourself to the field and enter the contest with me." The only delay for the descendant of Aeneas, after the words reached his ears, was until the chieftain should grant the omen and the right of combat: for it was forbidden, and a capital offence, for men to engage in single combat of their own will. He bursts forth exulting, as soon as Fulvius releases his arms by command, and, driven onto the open plain, he raises a billowing cloud of gathered dust. Scorning to be aided by the thong's help and by an ally, Taurea, brandishing his spear with bare exertions, hurled it forth, the javelin loosed from the knotted thong, and summoned his strength: then, rushing in anger, he whirls the weapon into the air. But the Rutulian's mind was not the same: he watches and with his whole body scans where the surest path is for the iron into a wound, now he brandishes, now he checks his spear and feigns his threats. Then with the blow he passed through the middle of the shield, but the point was cheated of the welcome blood. Then quickly he uncovers the drawn sword from its sheath. And now Taurea, fleeing, was urging his swift-hoofed horse with iron heel, escaping the fates that threatened him. Nor was the Rutulian slower to destroy the back of the retreating man: for swiftly, with reins flung loose, he pressed upon the fugitive, and as fear had driven the vanquished, so anger and glory drove the victor through the gates, and the desire for the blood he had earned. And while they scarcely believe with their eyes, scarcely with their minds, that the enemy, trusting in no companion, has burst among the buildings, undaunted, through the middle of the panicking city he quickly drove his horse and escaped to his own ranks by a gate turned aside.

From this, with equal ardour and effort to charge the walls, the spirits take fire, and to enter the buildings once penetrated. Weapons and flames flash at once. Then a rain of stones falls heavily, and spears mount to the topmost towers. Nor was it easy for any to excel in valour by daring: their angers made their right hands equal. Through the air a Dictaean arrow flies and glides into the middle of the city. Fulvius rejoices that there is no place for exhorting, none for more urging. Each seizes the labour for himself. When he sees them so high in spirit, and that each is over and above the leader of his own deeds, he rushes with vast onset to the gate and longs for the crises of great fame.

Three brothers, of equal age, guarded the barrier, to each of whom a chosen band of a hundred carried out the watch, and together they held the post in one station. Of these Numitor surpassed in beauty, Laurens in running and swift foot, Taburnus in the mass of his limbs. But the men's weapons were not the same: one was wondrous with the bow, another to brandish the spear and with the stroke of a poisoned point to set battles in motion, and to trust not the bare iron; the third fitted torches with flame and sulphur: as on the Atlantic shore once, men tell, a monster, Geryon, vast in the wrath of his triple body, to whom three right hands bore varied arms in battle: one poured savage fires, but the second behind poured arrows, the third hurled a strong cornel-spear, and dealt three different wounds at a single effort. When the consul saw these men varying their battles with unequal weapons, and around the threshold of the gate the slaughter and the posts drenched with the blood of those who came on, he hurls a spear twisted with frenzied strength. Bearing grim death, the Italian yew cuts the air and, where Numitor had bared his side, while he poured his darts from on high, stretching out his bow, it passes through his entrails. But not content to wage war at the closed-off threshold, fickle in war but turbulent in daring, Virrius in heedless heat had burst out, frantic, the gate flung open into the plain, and offered to the fury of the conquerors his wretched youth. Scipio rushes against the weapons and, insatiable, mows down the column offered to him.

Tifata had reared Calenus, born on the shadowy mountain, to dare fiercely; nor was his mind inferior to his great body. He had been wont often to bring down a lion, to meet battles bare-headed, to contend with a bull-calf and to wrench down the horns of a savage bull from the side, and to raise himself by some bloody deed. He, while Virrius drives the Campanians headlong from the city, whether from scorn, or lest delay should arise, had gone out naked upon the plain without his breastplate, and pressed, the lighter for the weight of the corslet, and, victorious, drove the scattering foes. And now he had run Veliternus through the middle of the belly, now he had struck down Marius, wont to join equestrian battles in equal play with the Scipios, with a rock torn from the earth. The wretch, expiring with a groan, called upon his friend, and the boulder pressed upon him as he gasped. But Scipio, with savage grief doubling his strong powers, poured forth tears and at the same time the resounding cornel-spear, hastening, the longed-for consolation in arms, to show the dying enemy to his prostrate friend. The hero's spear flew through the man's breast, as if it cleft the clear liquid air on swift wing, and burst his vast limbs: as great as is the force of the nimble Liburnian over the sea's blue surface, which, as often as the oars, drawn back together to the breast, strike the strait, flees swifter than the winds and, long as it is, passes its own length at a single stroke of the oars.

Ascanius, who had thrown away his arms the quicker to seek the walls the lighter, flying through the open ground, Volesus overtakes on foot. Struck off at once by the sword, the head lay before its master's feet, and he himself, following in fuller onrush, fell forward, a trunk dashed down by its own impetus. Nor was further hope opened to the besieged of guarding their walls: they turn their steps, and (unspeakable) shut out their comrades begging to be taken back, while, the hinge turned, straining, they wheel the bars, those too-late defences. The more keenly for this the Italians press and harass the shut-in men. And, had not blind night hidden the lands in its dark bosom, the broken gates would have lain open to the swift soldier.

But the darkness did not withdraw alike into rest: on one side, fearless sleep, such as victory brings; but Capua, terrified either by the mournful complaints of howling mothers or by the groans of trembling elders, prays an end and goal to her torments and labours. The author of the treachery mutters, and in the gathering of the senate Virrius shows that there is no safety from the Carthaginian, crying aloud, with cares of living driven from his heart: "I hoped for the sceptres of Ausonia, and made my pact that, if a god and Fortune had been favourable to the Carthaginians in arms, the realms of Trojan Quirinus would migrate to Capua. I sent men to shake the walls and the Tarpeian battlements; nor did the vigour to demand fail me, that one of the equal consuls should bear the fasces in our name. Thus far it is enough to have lived. While there is opportunity of the night, let whoever holds dear that Liberty which is the eternal companion at the wave of Acheron seek out my tables and my feasts, and, his mind overcome by Lyaeus poured through his limbs, and the bite of death lulled to sleep, drink in the remedies for our ruin and disarm the fates with gentle poisons." So he speaks and, the crowd attending him, makes for his home.

In the middle of the hall, rising high with much oak, a pyre is built, a common lodging for the doomed. Nor do grief and dread cease to madden the common folk. Now to their too-late minds comes back Decius, and his good valour punished with cruel exile. From on high sacred Faith looks down and stirs the deceitful hearts of the men. A hidden voice rises, spread far and wide through the air: "Mortals, do not break your treaties with savage steel, but keep chaste Faith. Better is she than realms shining with purple. He who shall rejoice to break the doubtful pacts of affairs and to abandon the slender hope of a friend, for him there shall never remain a home, or a wife, or a life free of grief and tears. Faith, despised and violated, shall drive him ever on the sea and crush him on the land, shall drive him sick by night and by day." Now she comes to all the councils and the tables, and, hidden in cloud, reclines on the couches, and the wicked Fury feasts. She herself even holds out cups foaming with Stygian gore and lavishly serves out penalties and death. Meanwhile Virrius, as the destruction is allowed to pierce the marrow, both climbs the pyre and clings in embraces, joining his fate to theirs, and bids the fires be set beneath the more quickly.

The darkness was hemming in the turning-posts, and the victor was rushing on. And now the Campanian youth saw Milo standing upon the wall and lifting up his allies by his voice. Astounded, they fling open the gates and in trembling step make for the hostile camp, those for whom the spirit had been lacking to turn aside their punishment by death. The city lies open, confessing its frenzy, and unbars the dwellings stained by its Tyrian guest. Matrons and boys rush out, and the senate's mournful assembly, and the common crowd, pitiable to no man. The whole army stood leaning on their spears and watched the men, untaught to bear either glad or grievous things, now with beards hanging forward upon their breasts sweeping the ground, now fouling in the dust their hoary hair, and with shameful tears and shaming prayers pouring a womanish wailing into the thin air.

And while the soldier marvels at these spiritless deeds and fiercely awaits the signal for levelling the walls, behold, a sudden religious awe runs through their breasts with silent feeling and composes their savage minds by divine power, lest they wish for flame and torches, lest in one pyre they should drag the temples to ashes. Gliding gently into their inmost hearts, the gentle god steals in. He warns that Capys long ago laid the foundations of the proud city — a thing seen by no one — and he teaches that it is useful for the dwellings to be left standing, the fields spread out into immeasurable space. Little by little the angers grow faint in their fierce minds, and the softened force grows weak.

Pan had been sent by Jupiter, who willed that the Trojan dwellings be saved — Pan, ever like one hanging poised, scarcely tracing any footprints on the earth with his hoof. His right hand played wantonly, a Tegean she-goat slain, moving glad strokes with his tail through the festal crossroads. Pointed pine girds his locks and shades his temples, and small horns break out red from his brow. His ears stand up, and a shaggy beard falls from his lowest chin. The god has a shepherd's staff, and a skin from the body of a tender doe veils his left side gracefully. There is no cliff so sheer in its steepness and inhospitable on which, balancing his body and like one flying, he has not borne his hoofed foot through the broken wilds. Sometimes, bent back, he looks at the sportive mockeries of his shaggy tail sprouting in the middle of his back, smiling, and holding out his hand he keeps the sun from burning hot on his brow and surveys the pastures with shaded gaze. He, after the god's commands were fulfilled and he had calmed the evil madness and soothed the hearts of the raging men, revisited the swift glades of Arcadia and beloved Maenala, where, sweetly sounding from the sacred summit on his shrill reeds, he leads all the herds with his song far off.

But the Ausonian legion, the chieftain commanding the flames to be kept from the gates and to leave the walls standing (a mild glory of mind), put away both swords and torches. Much plunder is brought out from the temples of the gods and the houses gleaming with gold, the sustenance of the conquered men's pride, for whom the goods perished: robes from the men's own bodies, women's robes, tables sought from another land, and cups, with Eastern gems goading luxury. Nor was there measure to the silver, and the chased weights of wrought gold, made only for feasts; then everywhere bodies in a long line, captives, and talents drawn out from the houses, not failing to feed the long war, and immense flocks, a household throng for banquets.

Fulvius, when the warlike trumpet recalled him and he made an end of plundering the houses, lofty from his high platform, a favourer not feeble of great daring, said: "Son of Lanuvium, whom Saving Juno gives to us, Milo, take, as victor, the honour of Gradivus, your temples girt with the towered mural crown." Then he summons the guilty among the chief men and those who deserved the first expiations, and punishes their crimes with the just axe. Here a fierce valour (for I would not approve hiding a worth observed even in an enemy) with a fierce shout — Taurea cried: "Will you, unavenged, strip with the steel me, greater than my own life, and shall my bravest neck, cut off by the lictor at command, fall before your coward feet? Never shall a god grant you this." Then with menacing gaze, glaring back grim and frenzied, he eagerly drives his sword through the warrior's breast. To him the chieftain said: "Dying, accompany your falling country. What spirit is ours, what right hand each man has, severally, Mars shall decide. To you, if you thought it shameful to suffer commands, it was permitted to fall fighting in death."

While Capua, not without blood, atones for her ill-omened fault, meanwhile cruel Fortune on Iberian soil had taken away the twin Scipios, mingling sad with glad, a great glory and a great grief. By chance, while the young man Scipio sat in the city of Dicaearchus, seeking again his home after the extremities of war, hither sad rumour brought the bitter tears and funerals of his kin. Though not wont to yield to hardships, he violently tears his garments, striking his breast. His companions cannot hold him back, nor any shame of his honours or his soldiering. His love of kin, enraged at the hostile gods, rages, and hates the consolations of grief. And now day after day is consumed in laments: the image of his fathers turns before his face and eyes. Therefore he prepares to call up the spirits and souls of his kin and to soothe such great griefs by speech with the men. The neighbouring marsh urges him on, where the stagnant Acherusian water marks the squalid entrance of Avernus. At once his mind is moved to learn the years to come.

So to the Cumaean priestess, who then under the name of Phoebus — Autonoe — held the sacred tripods and the cave, the young man bears his steps and lays open the counsels of his sick heart, and prays to meet the sight of his fathers. Nor did the prophetess delay long: "It is the custom," she said, "to sacrifice the wonted offerings to the spirits laid away, black sheep at nightfall, and to shut within the opened earth the blood streaming from the throats of the living slain. Then the realms will send you their pale peoples. The rest that you ask shall be sung by a greater prophet. For I will draw out for you oracles sought again from the Elysian field, and grant you to behold, amid the rites, the prophetic shade of the old Sibyl's Phoebean breast. Go now, and when the moist night turns itself from mid course, lead, purified, to the jaws of neighbouring Avernus the appeasements I have foretold for hard Dis with sacred rites: bring with you honey too, and the gifts of pure Lyaeus."

Eager at this warning, and at the name of the promised prophetess, he prepares the appeasements shown to him for his secret undertaking. Then, when advancing night reached the appointed hour and the spaces traversed equalled those yet to come of the darkness, he rises from his bed and proceeds to the dark mouths of the Tartarean gate, where, deep within, the prophetess had fulfilled her promises and sat in the Stygian cave. Then, where the cavern, the earth broken open, first reveals itself, hateful to heaven, and breaks out the bitter marsh of Cocytus, sighing with its gaping mouth, she leads the young man in, and to hollow the dug-up ground with iron she swiftly urges him, and, breathing forth a secret murmur, bids the herds be sacrificed in order. First a black bull to the king of the hidden world; then, next, to the Hennaean goddess a chaste heifer is slain with sacred neck. Then to you, Alecto, to you, Megaera, never glad, chosen bodies of woolly sheep sink down. They pour honey over them, and the offering of Bacchus and of milk.

"Stand fast, young man, and endure the face that rises from all Erebus," the prophetess cries. "I see Tartarus drawing near, and before my eyes the third realm standing forth. Behold, varied shapes rush on, and whatever of mankind has been born from the lowest chaos and snuffed out" (already she saw all, the Cyclopes and Scylla, and the horses of the Odrysian land fed on the limbs of men): "strive to look, and, undaunted, hold the sword drawn from its sheath. Whatever souls press forward before to drink the blood, scatter them, until the shade of the chaste Sibyl comes forth. Meanwhile see how an unburied shade bears its hurried steps and hastens to join words with you, to whom it is granted, before the dark fires of his consumed body, without touching the blood, to pour out his accustomed voice." Scipio looks and, suddenly troubled at the sight, cries: "What chance, what mischance, greatest of leaders, snatched you from your weary country, when such wars demand men of horror? For neither in his right hand would Appius yield to any, nor in cunning. The tenth day has brought back its dawn since I saw you, when I returned from Capua, soothing your wounds, grieved at this one thing alone — that you, being hurt, could not approach the walls and lacked the honour of Mars." In answer the chieftain: "To me, weary at last, the nearest day turned away the welcome horses of Phaethon and sent me down forever to the dark waters. But while the slow care of my men performs the vain rites and the solemnities of the crowd, it delays to set my body upon the flames, that it may carry my limbs through the long way to my fathers' tombs. For this I pray you, by the rival deeds of my warfare, keep off the drugs that preserve my decaying limbs and grant the wanderer to approach the gates of Acheron as soon as may be."

Then the young man: "O fairest race of ancient Clausus, no care before yours, though no small ones weary me, shall have stood higher. For that judgement keeps its distinction among all peoples, and the burial of the dead and the verdict on the ashes varies and is at variance. In the land of Iberia, as they tell (this is the ancient custom), the foul vulture consumes lifeless bodies. When royal limbs have laid down the light, it is approved among the Hyrcanians to bring dogs to them. The Egyptian land shuts up bodies standing after the funeral in perfumed stone and does not separate the bloodless shade from the tables. Pontus has established the custom of emptying men's faces of the drained brain and, embalmed, lays them away for a long age. What of those who bury the naked Garamantes in the opened sand? What of those who bid the Nasamones consign the dead to the savage deep on Libyan shores? But the Celts delight to surround with gold the bones of an emptied skull — a sacrilege — and keep them as cups for their tables. The sons of Cecrops, for those slain by the lot of Mars for their country, decreed to burn them together in common flames. But among the Scythian people the corpses, fixed to tree-trunks, slow time buries as they melt away with rotting decay."

While they recount such things, the shade of the Sibyl coming on, Autonoe says: "Here put an end to your alternate speeches. This, this is the priestess fertile in truth, to whom so much of things has been opened as the god himself denied that he knew more. With me now accompanying you, it is time to depart from the throng and to set the herds upon the flames." But when the aged woman of Cumae, heavy with secrets, had touched the sacrificial blood with her mouth and tasted it, intent in face upon the glory of her excellent youth: "When I enjoyed the upper light," she said, not idly, "my voice sounded to the peoples in the Cumaean cave. Then I sang of you, mingled with the ages and the coming deeds of the sons of Aeneas. But your forefathers gave my words not care enough worthy of them. For it was no part of their skill to gather or preserve my sayings. But come, learn, boy, since it is your heart's desire to know, the Dardan things now hanging on your fate and your kin. For I see that you have hastened to seek here the oracles of life and to touch with your sight your fathers' spirits. A victor in arms, you shall avenge your father in the Iberian field, believed before your years to be Mars, and with the sword you shall break the joys of the Carthaginians and rejoice in the omen sent to war, Carthage conquered in Iberian lands. Hereafter you shall be raised to a greater command, nor before will Jupiter cease his care, until he has driven all the wars into Libya and himself led to be conquered by you the Sidonian ruler. It shames me for the unjust city that after this it shall lack this glory and its country and its home." So spoke the prophetess and turned her step toward the dark lake.

Then the young man: "Whatever harder lot of life is given, we will struggle against it," he said, "only let our hearts be free of guilt. But, I beg you, since the cause of your life was to have aided human labours, halt, renowned maiden, a little while your step, and number for us the spirits of the silent and open the hall of Stygian terror." She indeed assented, but: "You unlock realms not to be wished for," she said. "Here dwell in darkness and flit through the shadows peoples once innumerable. One house is for all. In the midst a vast void stretches far and wide: hither whatever the earth, whatever the seas and the fiery air nourished from the first generative age of the world, common Death drives: all things descend, and the lifeless plain holds as much as has perished and as much as remains to come. Ten gates surround the realms: of which one receives the war-makers created by the hard lot of Gradivus; another, those who established laws and renowned rights for the nations and first founded cities with walls; the third, the tillers of the soil, the most just throng of Ceres, who come to the spirits unharmed by the poison of frauds. Then, those who found the way of glad arts and of the cultivation of life, and poured forth songs not unworthy of their father Phoebus, keep their own thresholds. Next, those whom the winds and savage storms have swallowed, the gate of shipwreck seizes: so by that name they call it. Bordering on this, vast, lies open to a people heavy with guilt and confessing their sin: Rhadamanthus exacts penalties at the very entrance and harries the empty dead. The seventh gate is unbarred to throngs of women, where chaste Proserpina cherishes her moist groves. From here for bands of infants and torches turned to funerals, for unwed virgins, and the throng on the threshold of light, there is a way of the extinguished, and a gate known by wailing. Then, set apart in place and opened in the bright night, the gleaming barriers shine, which through the shadow of a secret path lead to the Elysian fields: here the throng of the pious, not in the Stygian realm, nor set beneath the vault of heaven, but beyond Ocean, bordering on the sacred fount, drinks the waters of Lethe, the forgettings of the mind. From here the farthest gate, gleaming with gold, now feels the honour of the light and shines like the moon's near star. By this way the souls seek heaven again and, a thousand lustres completed, forgetful, return from Dis into bodies. By these ways pallid Death, opening wide her black maw, goes and returns and wanders at all the gates.

Then there lies, spread out, a sluggish whirlpool without body, and muddy lakes: with waters largely overflowing savage Phlegethon burns its banks, and, resounding with the panting whirl of its flames, hurls its rocky conflagrations. In another part the torrent Cocytus rages with eddies of black blood and is borne in a foaming flood. But the marsh, ever deemed worthy to be sworn by the great gods and the king of the gods, bristling with a stream of pitch, Styx rolls its smoking mud amid the sulphur. Sadder than these, Acheron seethes with gore and thick poison and, belching forth cold sand with a murmur, descends slow through black pools in a dark marsh. This gore Cerberus drinks with not one mouth; these too are the cups of Tisiphone, and black Megaera thirsts for this, and her madness is quenched by no draught. Last of all, a river bursts from fountains of tears before the hall and the entrances and the inexorable threshold.

What a cohort, with every monster stabled through the halls, keeps watch and terrifies the spirits with mingled murmur! Devouring Grief and Wasting, companion added to evil diseases, and Sorrow fed on weeping, and bloodless Pallor, Cares and Snares, and on one side querulous Old Age, on the other Envy throttling her own throat with either hand, and Want, a deformed evil prone to crime, and Error with unfaithful step, and Discord rejoicing to mingle sea with sky. At the doorway of Dis sits Briareus, wont to open them with his hundred palms, and the Sphinx, her maiden jaws stained with gore, and Scylla and the savage Centaurs and the shades of the Giants. Here Cerberus ranges through Tartarus with his chains burst; not Alecto herself, not Megaera teeming with frenzy dares approach the brute, while, his thousand chains broken, barking, he binds his viper-tail about his flanks. On the right, a yew spreads its foliage and leafy arms, more leafy for being watered by Cocytus' wave. Here dire birds, and the vulture fed on corpses, and many an owl, and the screech-owl with blood-spattered feathers, and the Harpies tend their nests and cling, all packed, among the leaves: the tree rages with shriekings. Among these shapes the consort of Avernal Juno, sitting on his platform, learns the crimes of kings. They stand bound, and too late they repent their guilt before the judge: about them wander the Furies and every image of Punishments. How they would wish they had never shone with proud sceptres! The spirits, having suffered things unworthy and unjust to the world above, mock the hard command, and at last, permitted, they complain of what it was not lawful to speak to the living. Then one is bound to a rock with savage chains, but another drives a stone up against the steep of a mountain, eternal Megaera tames this one with her viper-whip. Such things remain to be suffered by death-dealing tyrants. But it is time for you to know your mother's face, whose shade comes first with no slow steps."

Pomponia stood there, fruitful by the theft of Jupiter. For when Venus learned of the Carthaginian wars rising in Latium, striving to forestall the snares of Juno, she entangled her father, gradually pouring the flame through his breast. Had these things not been foreseen, the Sidonian maiden would now be kindling the Trojan altars. So when the tasted blood and the Sibyl's warning gave them both to know each other's faces, thus the young man first: "O likeness to me of a mighty divinity, dear mother, how I would have wished, that it might be granted me to see you, to enter the Stygian darkness even by death! What was our lot, from whom the day, when first it dawned, snatched you without honour and carried you off by death?" His mother takes him up at this: "No labours, O son, did our death hold: while I was loosed of the heavenly burden of childbirth, the Cyllenian offspring with gentle right hand, at Jupiter's command, led me down to the Elysian shores and assigned me a seat among equals, where Alcides' mother lingers in greatness, where Leda by sacred gift abides. But come, son, that you may fear no wars nor doubt to raise yourself to heaven by your deeds, since it is granted us to disclose it, now at last learn your birth. Alone, when by chance in mid-day I had sought sleep for rest, a sudden embrace bound my limbs, not that embrace wont to come to me at my husband's arrival and easy for me. Then in flashing light, though sleep was filling my languishing eyes, I saw, believe me, Jupiter. Nor did the changed shape of the god deceive me, for, turned into a scaly serpent, he drew his coiled folds in a huge circle. But to me, after the birth, it was not granted to draw out my life longer. Alas, how I groaned, that my breath departed into the air before I could give you these things to know!" Eagerly at this he sought his mother's neck with an embrace, and three times the shade, vainly grasped through the void, deceived him.

The shades of the men succeed, in harmony, of his father and of his uncle, of one mind together. He himself rushes through the shadow seeking vain kisses, and strives to grasp the souls, like flying smoke and like the mists. "What god, dear father, hating Latium where the Italian realms stood, carried you off? Alas for me! For why were there any moments at all in which I, cruelly, was apart from you? I would have changed death by setting my breast against it. What groans does the Italian race give everywhere at your funerals! A double tomb rises for you, by the senate's decree, through the grasses on the field of Mars." Nor did they suffer more, but in the midst of the speaker's words thus they begin. First this, the father's image: "Virtue itself is its own fairest reward; yet sweet it comes to the spirits, when the gratitude of life endures among those above, and forgetfulness does not consume their praise. But come, speak, our glory, how great a service of war wearies you. Alas, how often terror enters my breast, when I recall how fiercely you go where great perils befall you. By the causes of our death, bravest one, I beseech you, govern the fury of Mars. Let the lessons of your house be enough for you. The eighth summer was wearing down the harvest dry on its crackling stalks since all the Tartessian land, trodden and conquered, was passing under my yoke and my brother's. We, wretched, gave the walls and the renewed dwellings to Saguntum, we granted that the Baetis be drunk with no enemy by, for us the unconquered brother of Hannibal turned his back three times and four. Oh barbarian faith, never unpolluted! When as victor I sought out Hasdrubal, wasted by disasters, suddenly the Spanish cohorts, a venal crowd whom Hasdrubal had made with Libyan gold, abandoned the standards, their column broken off. Then the enemy surrounded us, deserted by our allied soldiery, much richer himself in men, with a close-packed ring. Not sluggishly for us, nor unavenged, my son, was that last day accomplished, and we closed our age with glory."

Then his brother takes up to join his fortunes to theirs: "After the last things, in a strait of affairs, of a lofty tower I had hoped for a refuge, and was stirring the final wars. They flung in smoking torches and broad fires everywhere and a thousand brands. I make no complaint to the gods of death by name: my limbs were given a not small tomb, they burned me in death with my arms clinging to me. But grief holds me, lest by the disaster of the twin ruin Spain has yielded, overwhelmed by the Carthaginians poured upon her." In answer the young man, his face troubled with weeping: "Gods, I pray, as she has deserved, let Carthage pay worthy penalties for such daring. But Marcius, proved by your warfare and known by his arms, keeps in check the fierce peoples of the Pyrenees, who received the weary men and succeeded to the war. Rumour also bore that the victors too were routed in battle, and the expiations of slaughter exacted." At these things the leaders returned glad to the pleasant places of the pious, and the boy, having revered them, follows them with his eyes as they go. And now Paulus drew near, scarce to be known in the deep shade, and, the blood drunk, poured forth his words: "Light of the Italians, whose Martial deeds I beheld, far greater than one man — does it compel some to descend to night and to behold the realms that must be dwelt in once?" To him in answer Scipio pours forth such words: "Mighty in arms, leader, how your fate through the city has long been lamented! How nearly, falling with you, you dragged the Oenotrian dwellings to the Stygian darkness. Then for you, dead, the Sidonian enemy set up a tomb and sought praise by your honour." And while Paulus, weeping, hears of the enemy's funeral rites, before his eyes now Flaminius, now Gracchus, and Servilius, carried off at Cannae, stood with grieving face.

It was his ardour to address the men and to add words, but love hurried him on to know the ancient spirits. Now he sees Brutus, who earned by the savage axe an immortal name, now Camillus, equalling the gods in praise, now Curius, never the friend of gold. The Sibyl points out the faces of those coming and reveals their names. Here is he who, his eyes blinded, drove back the frauds of peace and Pyrrhus from the threshold of the gate; that one bore the king as he rushed to the banks of the Tiber, and alone, fierce, the bridge torn down behind him, shut out the returning realms. "If it is sweet to you to have seen the man who in the first war made the treaties with the Phoenicians: here is that renowned Lutatius, victor with his fleet in the watery arms. If you have a zeal to know also the savage shade of Hamilcar, that is he (look from afar) whose brow, not relaxed even in death, keeps the madness of its angers. If it pleases your heart to join in converse, let him, the blood once tasted, give his voice." And when it was permitted and the thirsting image had filled itself, thus Scipio first upbraids him, not gentle in face: "Are such your treaties, O father of frauds, or did you make these, captured on the Sicanian shore? Your son wages war against all pacts throughout Latium, and, having struggled through the broken masses of the Alps, is here: the Italian race seethes with barbarian war, and the rivers, blocked with slaughter, flow back." After which the Carthaginian: "The boy had just begun to pass his tenth year, when by our command he conceived wars against the Latins, nor was it lawful to deceive the gods sworn to his father. But if he now lays waste the Laurentine realms with fire and tries to overturn the Phrygian state, O piety, O sacred faith, O true offspring! And would that he might recover the glory I lost!" Then with quickened step he goes off, lofty, and the greater image withdrew.

Next the prophetess marks out those who gave laws to a people demanding them under arms, and who first mingled the laws sought from the Piraean shore with the Italians. Scipio rejoices and his insatiable face gazes upon the men, and he would address them all, did not the great priestess warn him of the countless throng: "How many thousands in all the world do you think, boy, while you scan each one with your sight, have descended to Erebus? At no time without an abundant torrent of shades is hither driven, and Charon carries the columns in his capacious hold, and his wicked boat suffices." After this, pointing out a young man, thus the maiden speaks: "This is he who, a wanderer, victorious in every land, bore his standards in his course, to whom Bactra and the Dahae lay open, who drank the Ganges and bound Niphates with a Pellaean bridge, to whom his own walls stand by the sacred Nile." The descendant of Aeneas begins: "Surest offspring of Libyan Ammon, since your glory surpasses all leaders, undoubted, and our breasts burn with a like desire of deeds, tell me what road led you, proud, to glory and to the highest citadels of praises." He answers at this: "Base is the cunning of slow war. By daring you may dispatch wars. Sluggish valour by craft has never raised itself up. Hasten the time of doing great things: black death hangs over the man who acts." Having spoken these things, he departs. Soon the shade of Croesus flies up, rich among those above, but death had made him equal to the poor.

And here, seeing the image of a young man making his way along the Elysian path, whose flowing hair a purple fillet chastely bound across his shining neck, "Tell me," he said, "who is this, maiden? For with peculiar light the sacred brow of the man shines forth, and many souls follow, marvelling, and throng round him with glad clamour. What a countenance! How, were he not in the Stygian shade, I would readily have said he was a god!" "You are not deceived," said the learned companion of Trivia. "He deserved to seem a god, and there was no small divinity in so great a breast. In song he embraced earth, sea, stars, and the spirits, and in his singing equalled the Muses and Phoebus in honour. And all these things, before he beheld them in order on the earth, he set forth, and bore your Troy even to the stars." Scipio, surveying the shade with rejoicing eyes, "If now the fates would grant that this prophet might sing the deeds of Romulus through the world, how much greater would those same deeds enter our descendants, with him for witness!" he said. "Happy descendant of Aeacus, to whom it fell by such a mouth to be shown to the nations; your valour grew by his song." But asking what so great a throng was, advancing, he receives the images of heroes and greater shades. He stands amazed at unconquered Aeacides, amazed at great Hector, and marvels at the gait of Ajax and the venerable face of Nestor; glad, he gazes at the twin sons of Atreus and now at the Ithacan, equalling in heart the deeds of Peleus' son. From here he sees the shade of Ledaean Castor, destined to live: Pollux was passing his alternate light in the upper air. But suddenly Lavinia, pointed out, drew his gaze. For the maiden warned him it was time to know the female spirits, lest the kindly light should summon him as he lingered. "Happy," she said, "is this bride of Venus, who in a long line joined the Trojan-born by alliance with the Latins through her offspring. Do you wish also to see the marriage-chamber of war-born Quirinus? Behold Hersilia: when once she scorned the shaggy wooers of the neighbouring race, snatched away to a shepherd husband she entered the cottage, and pressed gladly the couch propped on the straw of the stalk, and called the fathers-in-law back from arms. Look at the step of Carmentis. She was the mother of Evander and, foreknowing, touched upon your labours. Do you wish also to see what face Tanaquil wears? She too, by the augury of her chaste mind, had power and foretold the coming kingdom to her husband, and recognized the favouring gods in the bird. Behold the glory of Latium in chastity, renowned Lucretia, who bears her brow and her eyes fixed upon the ground in death, the renowned victim of death. It is not granted, alas, to you, Rome (nor would it be fitting to wish it), to keep this praise for long. Beside her, Verginia, behold, keeps the wound beneath her bloodied breast, the grim memorials of a chastity defended by the sword, and praises her father's hand in the pitiable wound. She it is who broke the Tiber, who broke the Lydian wars, not yet having known a man, such as Rome will one day wish to have for men, Cloelia, scorner of her sex." When suddenly, troubled at the sight, Scipio asks what is the cause of punishment, and who are the spirits in guilt, then the maiden: "She who broke her father's limbs with her chariot and stood, the reins drawn up, over the trembling face, Tullia, who shall never drain enough of her labours, swims in burning Phlegethon. In black furnaces the swift fount rages and rolls up burnt rocks beneath its flood and beats her face with blazing crags. But she whose vitals are torn by the beak of the bird (lo, how the armour-bearer of Jupiter resounds with beating wings, returning to his pastures!) — that maiden, Tarpeia, an unspeakable crime, betrayed the citadel to the enemy for the gold she loved, and by the pact unbarred the bolts to the Sabines. Beside her (do you not see? for crimes no lighter are tamed) Orthrus barks with hungry jaws, once the huge guardian of the Iberian herd, and seeks her with his bite and disembowels her with polluted claw. Yet the penalty is not equal to the crime: the priestess defiled the shrines of Vesta, stripped of her own virginity. But enough to have seen these things, enough." Then presently: "For you who now see the souls that drink the forgettings, I prepare to number a few at the end, and to return to the darkness. Here is Marius: nor does much day now remain for him to go into the upper light. There shall come to you, of small origin, a consul to long command. Nor can Sulla delay the commands, or drink long of the sleepy river: the light calls him, and the fate that no god can change. He shall first seize the empire, but the glory of his guilt is that he alone shall give it back, nor in so great a name shall any exist who would wish to be second to Sulla. That one, on whose brow the rough hair bristles up, a head comely and dear to the lands, Magnus; that one, a race of gods, raising a star-bearing crest, Trojan Caesar, with Iulus for his grandsire. What masses, when, their seat unlocked, they at last burst forth from here, will they stir by land and sea! Alas, wretched ones, how often you shall fight throughout the world, nor, victor, shall you atone for lighter crimes than the vanquished!" Then the young man, weeping: "I lament that these things remain in their hard order for the Latin state. But, the light withdrawn, if there is no pardon and even death itself toils for the deserving, with what penalties, or in what waves of Phlegethon, shall the Carthaginian leader burn away the crime of his treachery, or what bird, worthy of him, shall forever tear with its bites his limbs renewed?" "Do not fear," cries the prophetess. "A life unviolated shall not attend the man: his bones shall not rest in his country. For when, broken in resources by the struggle of a great battle, he shall have endured to be conquered and to beg shameful safety, he shall again wish to renew wars under the arms of the Macedonians. And condemned for treachery, he shall leave behind his faithful wife and his sweet son and the citadels of Carthage, and, an exile, shall roam the seas in a single ship. From here he shall behold the rocky summits of Cilician Taurus. Ah, how much lighter it is for mortals to undergo bitter slaveries and winters and heats and flight and the sea and hunger, than to be able to die! After the Italian wars, a servant to the Assyrian king, and deceived of the longed-for upheaval of Ausonia, he shall seek the seas with doubtful sail, until, sluggishly carried to the shores of Prusias, he shall endure a second servitude in an unwarlike age and a hiding-place as the gift of a kingdom. Then, the sons of Aeneas persisting and demanding that the enemy be given back to them, he shall snatch in haste the cups of a stealthy poison and at last shall free the lands from their long dread." So spoke the prophetess, and gave herself back to the hollow shades of Erebus. Then the young man, glad, revisits his comrades and the harbour.