Book 15

15. But a new care was wearing at the senate of Romulus, who should take up against the proud enemy the trembling peoples and the Iberian war, their resources worn down. The twin Scipios lie low before the haughty foe, brothers, the warlike hearts of Mars. Hence a fear, lest now the Tartessian land should yield to Tyrian laws and dread the wars drawn nearer. The anxious throng of fathers, mournful, looks round in their shaken command for remedies and prays the gods for a leader who would dare to succeed to the mangled camp.

The throng deters the young man, who longs to make atonement to the spirits of his father and his uncle, terrified by the grim grief and reckoning his years, his kindred blood: if he should seek the ill-fated nation, he must fight it out amid the tombs of his own, against him who broke the arms of the two, who broke the counsels of the leaders, and who blazes with a better War-god: nor is it easy to undertake vast wars with tender arms and to demand the command in a raw and untried age.

These cares the young man, sitting beneath the green shade of a laurel at the edge of the buildings, was turning over in his breast, when suddenly there stand by him, gliding down on the right and the left through the air, an image not a little greater than mortal — on this side Virtue, on that, Pleasure hostile to Virtue. The one breathed from her head an Achaemenian fragrance, her ambrosial locks spread out, and shining in a robe where she had washed Tyrian purple with tawny gold. Beauty sought by the needle was on her brow, and her wanton eyes cast frequent flames with their shifting motion. The other's bearing was unlike: her brow rough and her hair never changed by being composed; a standing countenance, and in face and gait nearer to a man, and of glad modesty, tall upon her shoulders she shone in the thread of a snow-white robe.

Then Pleasure, trusting in her promises, takes up first: "What madness is this, boy, to consume unworthily in war the flower of your age? Have Cannae and the Maeonian lake, heavier than the Stygian marsh, and the Padus passed from your mind? To what end at last will you provoke the fates by warring? Do you even prepare to attempt the Atlantic realms and the Sidonian homes? I warn you, cease to contend with perils and to fling your head against the arms-resounding storm. Unless you flee these ways, savage Virtue will bid you flit through the midst of battle-lines and the midst of fires. She it was who thrust your father and your uncle, who, prodigal, thrust Paulus, who thrust the Decii, down to the Stygian waves of Erebus, while she holds out to the ashes a title and to the tombs names to be remembered, to a shade that will not feel what it achieved. But if you accompany me, boy, the age of your allotted time shall now run down for you on no harsh path. Never shall the trumpet break your trembling slumbers, you shall not try the Arctic ice, nor the ardour of raging Cancer, nor tables often laid out on bloody turf. Harsh thirst shall be absent, and the swallowing of dust beneath the helmet, and the lesser share of toils. But white days and serene hours shall run for you, and it shall be granted to hope for old age amid soft living. How many things has the god himself begotten for glad uses, and given to man with full hand the goods of joy! And the same god, a model of a gentle life to mortals, holds undisturbed ease with a placid mind. I am she who joined Venus to Anchises by the waters of Simois, whence the founder of your race was born to you. I am she who often turned the father of the gods above, now into the shape of a bird, now into the horns of a fierce bull. Turn your ears this way. The age of mortals runs on, nor is it granted to be born twice: the hour flees, and the Tartarean torrent snatches it away, and refuses to bear with itself beneath the shades whatever has pleased the mind. Who, at his last light, has not groaned, too late, that he sent away my hours?"

After she fell silent and an end was set to her words, then Virtue: "Into what snares," she said, "do you lure the young man in his flowering years, into the darknesses of life, to whom reason and the heavenly seeds of a great mind have been granted by the gift of the gods? As far as the high heaven-dwellers excel mortals, by so much do those excel all living creatures. For Nature herself bestowed these lesser gods upon the lands; but by a fixed bond she condemned the degenerate souls to the Avernian shadows. But to those who keep the birthright of their ethereal seed, the gate of heaven lies open. Why should I recall the son of Amphitryon, who tamed all things? Why him for whom, when Liber after the Seres and the Indians bore back his standards from the captive East, the Caucasian tigers drew the chariot through the towns? Why should I recall the Ledaean brothers, sighed for by sailors in great peril, and your own Quirinus? Do you not see how the god raised men's lofty faces to the stars and shaped their countenances sublime, when he had laid the cattle and the race of birds and the shapes of beasts everywhere prostrate upon the sluggish and unsightly belly? The race of men, born for glory, is happy in glory, if it take the gifts of the gods. Come, look here a little (nor will I seek far back): Rome lately unequal to threatening Fidenae and content to grow by an asylum, by what right hands she has raised herself: look too, far and wide, what cities once flourishing in luxury Pleasure has overthrown. For neither the anger of the gods so much, nor weapons, nor enemies harm so much, Pleasure, as you alone, gliding into men's souls. Foul Drunkenness is your companion, yours Luxury, and ever flitting about you on black wings, Infamy. With me are Honour and Praises and Glory with glad face and Distinction and Victory of one colour with snow-white wings. Triumph, girt with laurel, leads me to the stars. My house is chaste, and my Penates stand on a lofty hill: a steep path leads up the rocky slope. Harsh at the beginning (for it is not my way to deceive), labour attends the way. He who would enter must strive, nor must he reckon as goods those things which faithless Chance has power to give and the same to snatch away. Soon, lofty from on high, you shall see beneath you the race of men. All things, on the contrary, remain to be endured, beyond what coaxing Pleasure promises. Flung on hard straw beneath the stars you shall suffer sleepless nights and shall master cold and hunger. You too, a cultivator of justice, whatever you take in hand, shall judge the gods to stand as witnesses of your deeds. Then, as often as the perils of your country and of affairs demand it, you shall bear arms first, first you shall raise yourself onto the hostile walls, nor be conquered in mind by steel or by gold. Hence I shall give you not garments tainted with Tyrian purple, nor the gift, unworthy of a man, of fragrant balsam, but I shall give you this: to overcome by your hand the one who now wearies your empire with savage war, and to lay the proud laurel in the lap of Jupiter, the Carthaginians cut down."

When Virtue had sung these things from her hallowed breast, she turned the young man, glad at the examples and approving with his face what he had heard. But indignant Pleasure did not restrain her words. "I delay you no longer," she cried. "They will come, they will come one day, my times, when Rome, made docile in a great contest, shall serve my commands, and honour shall be given to me alone." So, shaking her head, she lifted herself into the black clouds.

But the young man, full of the warnings, plans mighty things in his heart and grows warm with love of the Virtue he was bidden to. He seeks the lofty rostra, when none wills the fierce wars, and demands the heavy duties of doubtful Mars. The minds of all are stirred: some believe the eyes of the father, some the grim countenance of the uncle, grow young again. But although they are roused, yet silently a sickly terror of peril creeps over their breasts, and, fearing, they weigh the mass of the war, and anxious favour numbers his years.

And while the crowd reviews these things with confused murmur, behold, athwart the sky, a serpent, gleaming with scales rough with gold among the clouds and seen amid the iron, was beheld to radiate through the air with a burning furrow, and, where the region tends toward the shore of heaven-bearing Atlas, to glide on with the resounding pole. Twice and thrice the father added a flashing thunderbolt to the augury, and far and wide the wandering thunders crashed through the suddenly stirred world. Then indeed they bid him take up arms and on their knees salute, bowed down, the augury: that he should go where it was clear the gods led, and where with his father's sign he pointed out the beginning.

Eagerly the companions of his fortunes and the ministers of war gather themselves and beg to share the keen labours, and it is in place of praises to be under the same arms. Then a new fleet goes down into the blue sea. Ausonia goes as companion and crosses over into the Iberian lands: as, when Corus has flung savage battles upon the straits, he hurls himself high over the Isthmus with a curved wave and, rushing with foaming flood over the groaning rocks, mingles the Ionian sea with the Aegean. Lofty for arms Scipio darts forth and, standing on the prow's front, speaks: "God mighty with the trident, whose deep seas we begin to traverse, if I prepare just things, grant my fleet to run down them, father, and scorn not to aid our labours. Through the sea I bear a holy war." Then a light breeze, breathing favourable, drives on the sails with its blast. And now the nimble ships, where the Tyrrhenian blue sounds, passed by the Ausonian side, and with swift prows cross the Ligurian shores. Hence from the deep flood they see, far off, a land bursting into the stars, the airy Alps. Walls meet them, founded by the Greeks, of Massilia: this city, girt with proud peoples, when the barbarous neighbour terrifies with savage rite, the Phocaean keeps the custom and culture and dress of her ancient fatherland, a guest among arms-bearing nations. Hence the Ausonian leader picks his way through the winding bends of the sea curved by the flood. A hill appears lofty with its wooded summit, and the forests of the Pyrenees flee into the clouds; then Emporiae, and through their ancient risings the crowd of the Greeks, then Tarraco, host to Bacchus. They settle in the harbour. Safe in the closed flood the ships stand, and the toil and the terror of the deep are laid aside.

Night, most peaceful, had given slumbers like to death: the image of his father seemed to stand before the man's face and, troubled at the sight, to warn him with this voice: "Son, once the salvation of your begetter, son, your parent's glory even after death, the land, dire creatress of wars, must be laid waste by you, and the proud leaders of Libya mastered by slaughter and cautious valour, who now spread their columns in three camps. If it should please you to join hand to hand, and the lines, summoned from here and there, should meet, who would have strength to bear the men rushing on with their threefold mass? Stand off from the doubtful labour, but, not sluggish, take up the better course. A city is inhabited, founded long ago by an ancient Teucer, by name Carthage: a Tyrian dweller holds the walls. As it is the chief of Libya's own, so memorable in the Iberian lands is this head. None will vie with it in the wealth of gold, none in harbour or lofty site, none in the dowries of a rich field or in nimble vigour for forging weapons. Invade this city, son, while its leaders are turned away: no battle-line will have prepared so much of fame or of booty."

Such things his father showed, and warned him more closely, when sleep and the dissolving image left the young man. He rises and addresses the powers that dwell in the infernal groves, and, a suppliant, his father's spirits by name: "Be my leaders in war, and lead me to the city shown me; I, your avenger, gleaming in Sarranian purple, will send funeral-offerings, conspicuous, the Iberians routed, and will add to your tombs sacred games in contest."

He goes before and hastens the ways and snatches the column along, swift in its nimble course, and wears out the plains. So, when the chariot-horse has leapt headlong from the Pisaean barrier, not only before the others, but indeed — wondrous to tell — before its own self the victor goes, and through the air no eyes hold out to keep pace with the flying car. And now the seventh light of Hyperion, rising with its lamp, was gradually raising the citadels nearer to those drawing on toward the city, and the roofs grew with the nearing step, and Laelius, borne by sea, kept the hour which the leader had given for the fleet to subdue the walls, and was girdling the buildings from behind with his keels poured against them.

Carthage, aided by the lavish favour of nature, raises its lofty walls high, flowed around by the sea. A modest island closes the narrowed jaws of the sea, where Titan sprinkles the lands at its eastern rising. But, where it looks toward the late ridges of falling Phoebus, it drives its waters into a sluggish plain of standing pools, which the incoming and ebbing tide swells and draws back in turn. But on the front it sits, lofty toward the cold Bear, a city set on a ridge, and runs down sloping to the sea, and defends its safe walls with the eternal wave.

Bold, as if marching on a level plain to bear victorious standards, the soldier strove to scale the ridge. The nature of the ground fought against them, and with small effort from above the warriors, rolled here and there down the slopes, unsteady, poured out their lives, their bodies maimed. But when the rolling wave of the sea retreated and the flood fled into the open seas in swift gliding, and where lately the lofty ships had furrowed the blue, there Nereus gave them to cross over unharmed on foot, straining in silence, undismayed to approach this way, the Dardanian leader draws a sudden band over the sea and, on foot, flies through the waves to the walls. Then the swift men hasten from behind, where Aris, trusting in the waves, had left the city ungarrisoned, without soldiery. Then prostrate on the ground — pitiable — the Carthaginian gave his vanquished neck to chains and surrendered his unarmed people. This city the rising Titan saw, as he rose, walled about with camps, and beheld it taken, the same, sooner than he dipped his axle in the Hesperian flood.

Dawn, entering the lands, had driven out the shadows: at the outset they set up altars. A bull, a lofty victim, falls to Neptune and equally to the Thunderer. Then merits are matched with gifts, and valour takes the rewards won by blood: this man shines on his breast with trappings, this one girds his warlike neck with a golden collar, that one gleams, lofty in the honour of the mural crown. Laelius before all, whose right hand and house were famous, is given thirty oxen and the lofty title of the sea-fight and the recent arms of the Carthaginian commander. Then to the men a spear, then to each the standards of Mars, as he deserved, and the first-fruits of the booty are given.

After the praises of men and gods were completed, the captive wealth is viewed and the booty set in order: this gold for the senators, these talents for war and Mars, this for the gifts of kings, this above all for the temples of the gods, the rest for the right hands of the warriors and their fair toil. Moreover the ruler of an Iberian people is summoned, whose betrothed and whose love, fixed in his bones, was for that betrothed. This token of her beauty Scipio granted, glad and exulting, a gift to the rejoicing maiden, untouched. Then, free of cares, on the neighbouring shore they set up tables and hold banquets with festal sport. Laelius speaks out: "All hail, O leader to be revered, hail, soul of chastity. Let the glory and praise of the great heroes yield to you, and the valour celebrated in song. The Mycenaean ruler who drew a thousand prows onto the seas, and he who mingled Thessalian arms with the Inachian, violated their allied pact for a woman's love, and then no tents stood on the Phrygian field not full of captive couches: for you alone a barbarian maiden has been kept more holily than the Iliac priestess of Phoebus." Such things and the like they wove in alternate talk, until Night, her body wrapped in a black mantle, brought in her dark horses and counselled rest.

Meanwhile, with Emathian tumult, the Aetolian land seethed, struck by the sudden keels of the Macedonians. Next to this the Acarnanian was joining right hands with the enemy. The cause of the new upheaval was the forces allied by pact with the Carthaginians and king Philip for the Ausonian war. He, distinguished in race and from the origin of an ancient kingdom, swelled with the sceptres of the Aeacidae and his ancestor Achilles. He both terrified Oricum with nocturnal arms, and where through Illyricum the Taulantian dweller inhabits little walls of no name, he advanced, turbulent, with weapons. He, borne over the sea, now harassing the lands of the Phaeacians and Thesprotia, ranged over Epirus, his daring vain with a useless helmet, now displayed his standards on the Anactorian shore and drenched the Ambracian gulfs and the Olpaean shores with swift war. He drove with oars the seething shallows of Leucate and swiftly saw the Actian temples of Phoebus. Nor did he leave the harbours of Ithaca, the realms of Laertes, and Same unapproached, and the rocks of the Cephallenians sounding with hoary flood, and Neritos with its rocky fields. He too, rejoicing greatly to approach the seat of Pelops and the Achaean walls, was drawing near to Calydon, grim to Diana, and the homes of Oeneus, the Curetic dwellings, promising against Hesperia his own battles to the Greeks. Then Ephyre was ranged over, and Patrae and royal Pleuron and twin-peaked Parnassus and the rocks that speak with Phoebus. And often, the war recalling him to his fathers' Penates, when now Sarmatian Orestes infested his realms, now the harsh force of the Dolopians had overflowed into his fields, yet not easy to desist from his vain undertaking he carried the shadow of war round the Greek shores: until, stripped now by sea, now by land, he gave up the hope set in the Tyrians, and, a suppliant, ratified the Dardan treaties, nor shrank from accepting a law for his kingdom.

Then too the fortune of Tarentum, sprung from Tyndareus, increased the Latin resources and praise alike. For at last the treacherous city was subdued by old Fabius, the last title in arms of the cautious leader. Then too his cleverness won a safe honour, the walls taken without blood. For when it was found out that he who ruled the Punic standards was being consumed by a woman's flame, and a secret trick thereafter pleased his quiet valour, the brother of the beloved woman (for he was in the Rutulian camp) is compelled to go to his sister and to conquer the woman's heart with great promises, if she should grant to pass the unbarred gates to the Libyan commander. And, gaining his wish, Fabius, the Carthaginian outwitted, penetrated by night the walls surrounded by weapons and ungarrisoned.

But who then would hesitate to say that Phoebus had turned away his horses from the city of Romulus, who at the same time should hear that Marcellus had met death in arms? That mass of a man, and his breast inhabited by hot Gradivus and never made to tremble by any perils, alas, to make Hannibal so famous by his bright fall, sank down. The terror of Carthage lies on the plains, perhaps about to snatch from Scipio the name of the war brought to its end, had some god added a little to his age.

A hill separated the Agenorean rampart from the Ausonian mound (Mars had settled in the fields of Daunus). Crispinus, companion of his cares and partner of the highest honour, was stirring up shared wars with Marcellus. To him Marcellus: "My mind yearns to range over the neighbouring woods and to set men on the middle of the mountain, lest the Libyan first seize the height by hidden ventures. If it is your wish, Crispinus, I would have you a partner of the labour. Counsels are never lacking to two." When these things were settled, they strive for some time now to lift themselves onto their eager horses. Marcellus, when he saw his son fitting on his arms and glad at the tumult, said: "You surpass our vigour by your wondrous ardour. Let the premature labour be fortunate. As I saw you in the Sicanian city, when your age did not yet allow you war, handling the battle by my countenance! Here, glory, here, our own, join yourself to your father's side and learn from me as master to attempt the new War-god." Then, embracing the boy's neck, he prays thus, a few words: "Highest of the gods, grant that, from the governor of the Libyans now, on these, on these shoulders, I may bear you the spoils of honour." No more, when Jupiter poured bloody dews from the serene sky and sprinkled the arms, unpropitious, with black drops. Scarce had they finished speaking and entered the narrow jaws of the death-bearing hill, when a swift throng, the Nomads, attack with javelins, and are borne like a storm-cloud of heaven, the blind covert pouring forth armed knots into the battle. After his beleaguered valour sees that nothing remains which he should owe further now to the gods above, he yearns to bear with him beneath the shades a great name of death. Now with hurled spears from afar he rises the higher, now he rages hand to hand with the sword. And perhaps he would have swum out of the savage straits of swift peril, had not a weapon come into the limbs of his son before him. Then the father's hands trembled, and, loosened with grief, the ill-fated arms slipped from his stiffened palms. A spear, meeting him, passes through his bared breast, and, falling, with his pressed chin he marked the grasses.

But when the Tyrian leader amid the savage battles saw the weapon fixed beneath the breast set against him, he cried out hugely: "Cease now, Carthage, to fear the Latin laws: the deadly name lies low, the pillar of the Ausonian realm. But let a right hand so like our own be sent not obscure to the shades. Great-souled valour is free of envy." At once a tomb's high altar is built and raised to the sky. They carry together vast oaks from the woods: you would believe the Sidonian leader had fallen. Then incense and feasts and the fasces and the man's shield, the last procession, are borne. He himself, setting fire beneath, "Praise eternal is won," he said. "We have taken Marcellus from Latium. Perhaps the Italian race may at last wish to lay down its arms. Go, perform the obsequies of a proud soul, and grant his ashes the duty of the last office: never will I deny you this, Rome." Like and the same was the fortune of the labours of the other consul: a horse bore him back lifeless to the standards.

Such things in Ausonia. But not such was for the Iberians the outcome of arms on the plains. Swift victory, all the Carthaginians snatched away on a sudden, far and wide had terrified the nations. For the leaders one hope of safety, if they should join their allied forces. That the young man, begun under mighty auspices, as if he bore his country's thunderbolts in arms, had snatched in less than a whole day a city walled on a lofty mountain-top and on crags, heaped with the slaughter of men, where that martial Hannibal in the land of Spain, a year consumed, had overthrown Saguntum, to be matched neither in manhood nor in the richness of its wealth.

Nearest, his mound set against the rocky woods, Hasdrubal stretched out his camp, breathing his brother's mighty deeds. Here the strength of the Cantabrian, mingled with the rebel Africans, here the Asturian swifter than the swift Moor; and so great was the majesty of the commander in the Iberian land as great was Hannibal's terror on the Laurentine shore. By chance the day had brought back to the Tyrians the ancient solemn honour, on which they first, having begun the foundations of high Carthage, founded the new city with huts. And glad, recalling the origins of his people, the leader held festal joys with garlanded standards, making peace with the gods. A fraternal cloak shone, let down from his shoulders, a gift, which as a pledge of close alliance the Trinacrian king had sent among the presents to the Libyan, a token worn by the Aeolian tyrants. A golden pinion was snatching a boy to the upper air through the clouds, an eagle poised in interwoven flight. A vast cave nearby, which the needle counterfeited in purple, the home of the Cyclopes. Here, reclining, Polyphemus swallows with his death-bearing jaws bodies dripping with gore. Around lie bones broken and shaken out by his bites. He himself, his hand stretched out, demands the cups of Laertes and mingles with the wine the gore belched from his mouth.

Conspicuous in the art of the Sicilian woof, the Tyrian was praying for the peace of the gods above at the grassy altars: behold, amid their midst, a messenger, borne on a galloping four-footed horse, reported that hostile arms were drawing near. Their minds were troubled, and the unfinished honour of the gods gave way. The rites broken, they leave the altars: they are shut in by the rampart, and when dewy Aurora sent thin light to the pole, they snatch up the contests of Mars. Bold Sabbura received the whistling cornel-spear of the son of Scipio, and the twin lines were stirred as by an omen. The Latin leader cries out: "The first victim for you, hallowed spirits, lies on the field. Come now, soldier, to battle and slaughter, as you were wont to go with your leaders breathing, so rush." And while he speaks these things, they fall on. Laenas slays Myconus, and Latinus Cirta, and Maro Thysdrus, and Catilina cuts down Nealces, defiler of his sister's marriage-chamber. Kartalo, ruler of the Libyan sands, falls in the way of keen Nasidius. You too the terrified land of the Pyrenees saw, mingled with the Carthaginians and raging scarce to be believed, great glory of Dardania, Laelius, to whom happy Nature gave all things, with no god refusing. He, heard in the forum, when he had loosed his sweet mouth, matched the Neleian honey of Pylian old age. He, when the suspended fathers and the senate-house demanded his voice, drew the hearts of the senate as with a song. The same man, when a sudden grim murmur of the trumpet had grazed his ear on the field, rushed with such fervour into battle and the lines that you would think he was born for war alone: nothing of life pleased him to be done without praise. Then too he struck down Gala, handling battles in stealthy light. His mother had once withdrawn him from the rites of Carthage by a substituted birth, but no joys stand long for the deceived gods. Then he sent Alabis and Murrus and Draces down to the shades, Draces begging his last, with a womanish cry. His neck, amid words and prayers, he severs with the sword: the murmurs lasted on in the cut-off neck.

But the Libyan leader had no equal ardour in arms. He makes for the coverts of a leafy hill and the trackless rocks, nor did the slaughter or the final losses move him of his column. An exile, he gazed at Italy and the Alps, the great rewards of flight. A watchword gives the silent signal: that the battle be carried off into the hills and the woods, the men scattered, and that whoever shall have escaped should seek the topmost citadel and summit of the Pyrenees. Then first, the honour of his arms stripped off and concealed by an Iberian shield, he goes off into the mountains and willingly leaves his straggling columns. The Latin soldier sends his victorious standards into the deserted camp. Not by any city taken was more booty won, and he held back the angers, delayed from slaughter, as the Libyan leader had foreseen: as a beaver, caught in the waves of a river's flood, the part torn off from its groin and the cause of its peril, swims out, escaping, while the enemy is intent on the booty. After the tireless Carthaginian is hidden in the secret shadows, trusting in the rocky wood, greater wars are sought again in turn, and the enemy more surely overcome. On a mound of the Pyrenees they fix a shield with an inscription: THE SPOIL OF HASDRUBAL, SCIPIO THE VICTOR, TO GRADIVUS.

Meanwhile, the terror laid aside, beyond the steeps of the mountain, in the Bebrycian court, the Carthaginian armed the peoples, lavish to buy right hands and ready to squander on war what war had won. Sent ahead, the weights of silver and gold, won in metal-bearing lands by long peril, increased the fierce spirits. Hence the venal souls filled the new camps with no slow soldiery, those who rejoice in the flood of the Rhone, through whose fields the Arar creeps most sluggish of wave. And now, the winter spent, the year had begun to grow mild: thence, entering his swift way through the Celtic fields, he marvels at the tamed Alps and the steeps of the mountain made passable, and seeks the footprints of the Herculean tread and compares his brother's ways with the divine ventures. But when he came to the summit and settled in the camp of Hannibal, "What walls," he said, "what walls, I pray, does Rome raise higher, which after these, conquered by my brother, should stand unharmed? Let the glory of my right hand, I pray, be so happy, and let no sinister god begrudge that I have gone all the way to the stars." Then eager, from his lofty column, where the mound, sloping down, shows a fortified way from on high, he flies down with hastened arms. Not with such fear did the beginnings of the war resound: now they boast of a twin Hannibal, now of two camps joining from here and there, and that the leaders, fed by prosperous wars on Italian blood, are joining their War-god and doubling their lines: that the enemy would come to the walls in headlong course and would see the darts lately hurled by Elissaean arms clinging in the gate. At these things the Oenotrian Land, gnashing, thus to herself: "By so great a frenzy, alas, you gods, am I scorned and despised by the Sidonian race, I who once granted Saturn, fearing his son's sceptre, to settle on my shores and to reign? This is now the tenth summer that turns since we are trampled. A young man, to whom there remain only wars against the gods above, snatched from the farthest shore, brought arms against me, and, the Alps violated, ablaze, came down into our fields. How many bodies of the slain have I covered, so often disfigured by my outstretched foster-children! No tree of mine flowers with happy berries: the unripe corn is cut down by the swift sword: the roofs of the villas, fallen, are borne into my lap and foul my realms with their ruins. Shall I endure even this one, who now has brought himself to my vast shores, seeking to burn out the wretched remnants of war? Then let the wandering African cleave me with the plough and let the Libyan commend his seed to Ausonian furrows, unless I bury in one tomb all the columns that exult on my broad plains." While she turns over such things, and black Night closes the chambers of gods and men, she rushes headlong to the camp of her Amyclaean grandson. He then was keeping, on the turf of a neighbouring rampart, the Carthaginian who held his arms within the Lucanian bounds. Here the image of the Latin land approaches the young man: "Glory of the besieged and, Marcellus snatched away, greatest hope of Rome, Nero, break and drive off your slumber. Something great you must dare, if you will trust your country's fates, which, even with the enemy driven from the walls, shall make victors tremble that it was done. In gleaming arms the Carthaginian has flooded the plains, where the Sena keeps through the ages the name left by the Gallic peoples. Unless you swiftly snatch your wing-footed squadrons to the contest, you shall help too late, after Rome's destruction. Rise, come, bear your steps. The broad fields in the region of the Metaurus I have doomed to the tombs and bones of the Carthaginians." With these words it goes, and departing seemed to drag him trembling and to drive the squadrons through the broken gates. Troubled, with kindled heart, he breaks his slumber and, a suppliant, stretching his twin palms to the stars, prays to the Earth and the Night and the stars sprinkled in the sky and to Phoebe, guide of his way under the silent light. Then he chooses right hands worthy of so great an attempt, and where Larinas, neighbour of the upper sea, lies, and where the Marrucine race, hardy in war, and the Frentanian untaught to lay aside faith to his allies in arms, then, where the Praetutian youth tames the vine-bearing fields, glad of the labour, both than wing and than thunderbolt and than the wintry waves and than the Achaemenian bow swifter he flies forth. Each is his own exhorter: "Come, press on, the safety of Ausonia the doubtful gods, and whether Rome stand or fall, have set in your feet," they cry, and rush. The keen leader has the manner of exhorting, to go before: him they magnify, striving to match his course by following, and untiring they are borne by night and day.

But Rome, hearing only that the evils of the adverse war were swelling, trembled with fear, and complained that Nero had hoped too much, and that with one wound her remaining life could be taken away. That neither arms nor gold nor manhood nor blood to shed remained. Was he then to attack Hasdrubal, who for battle could not be enough for Hannibal alone? And again, when he should learn that the arms had been turned aside from his own rampart, the Carthaginian would cling to the gates. That one had come who would vie with his proud brother, to whom would yield the greatest glory of the city's destruction. The order of the fathers raves, frantic, in the depth of its heart, and meanwhile meditates, with great love of preserving its honour, by what end it might snatch itself from threatening servitude and escape the unjust gods. Amid these groans, in the dark of the shadowy night, Nero comes up to the camp which, joined to fierce Hasdrubal, Livius held with a guarded rampart. He was once a warrior and skilled to kindle war, a famous fighter who had flourished in his early years, soon, wounded by the false charge of an unjust crowd, had hidden his sad years in the secrets of the countryside. But after a heavier burden and terror, with the peril nearer, demanded the man, recalled to arms, so many leaders slain, he had given his anger to his country.

But the tricks of the fresh arms did not escape Hasdrubal, though Night had veiled the cunning with darkness. Traces of dust seen on the shields stirred his suspicion, and, the sign of a hurried arrival, both the horse and the men drawn up in body. Besides, the trumpet, twice giving a clear signal, joined to a twin general, betrayed the camp to the king. But, if his brother's life survived, how at last was it lawful to join the allied forces to the consuls? But indeed only, until the truth should be laid bare, there remained the stratagem of delaying and of dragging out the war.

Nor does he put off the counsels of flight in sluggish dread. Night, mother of sleep, had purged mortal breasts of cares, and the darkness fostered dread silences: he creeps out, bearing his steps in suspense from the camp, and bids the columns slip away, silent, with quiet tread. Having found a moonless night through the silent fields, they hasten and avoid sounds. But the Earth, roused, cannot be deceived under so great a movement: she entangles the driven ways with blind error and, the shadows favouring, wheels round in narrow space those led along their own footprints. For where the river, with winding bends, slants its curved banks, and with a backward gliding over the rough ground returns into itself, here, the leading toil in vain, they enclose a tiny circle with frustrated steps, and in the error of the way the gift of the darkness was taken away.

Light presses on and discloses the flight. A keen whirlwind of horsemen rushes from the open gates, and an iron tempest covers the plains far and wide. Not yet are arms and hands mingled: already the darts, sent ahead, drink blood. Hence the Dictaean feathers, bidden to halt the fleeing Carthaginian, fly, hence the lance with its black whirl bears death to whatever man the stroke shall seize. They lay aside the care of departure and, trembling, draw up their forced lines and turn their hopes to battle.

Himself amid the midst (for he saw the hardness of affairs), the Sidonian leader, lofty on the high back of his galloping horse, stretching both voice and hands: "By the glories sought for you under the farthest pole, by the praises of my brother I beg, let us prove that the brother of Hannibal has come. For Latium Fortune labours to give proofs by adversities and to show how great a man, tamer of the Iberian land, has turned against the Rutulians, a soldier wont to make war at the Herculean columns. Perhaps my brother too may come into these very battles. Worthy of a man, worthy spectacles, I beseech, with a soil full of bodies, hasten. Whatever leader could be feared in war lies before my brother. Now the one hope, from his punishment and his hiding-place, Livius, broken in years, is offered to you, a head condemned. Go, come, I pray, lay low the leader, with whom for my brother to clash were a shame, and grant an end to his base old age." But on the other side Nero: "Why do you delay to close the labours of a mighty war? By your feet, soldier, a great glory is won: now heap it up, the steep thing begun, by your right hand. Alas, rashly you left the camp, the strength led away, unless victory absolves the deed. Take the lead in praise: the enemy will be remembered to have fallen at your coming."

In another part, conspicuous, his grey hair bared of the helmet, Livius: "Hither, young men, hither watch me rushing into battle, and as far as my sword shall have opened a way, so far enter, and at last shut off with steel the Alps now too open to the ranging Carthaginians. For unless we lay low the columns with swift War and a sudden thunderbolt of Carthage, Hannibal, be at hand, what god would snatch any of us from the infernal shades?" Then, the helmet taken on his head, he ratifies his grim words with the steel, and, covered, mingles fierce battles in his old age. Him, through the wedges and through the thickest bodies of the field, dealing as many to death as he hurled darts, the troubled Macae fled, the fierce Autololes fled and the youth of the Rhone with unshorn hair.

Nabis, coming from the prophetic sands of Ammon, mingled wicked battles secure of his fate, as if a god protected him, and, swollen, with vain mouth had promised to fix Italian spoils in his fathers' temples. A blue robe blazed with the Garamantian gem, as when the scattered lights of the stars glitter in the sky, and he had kindled his helmet with gems and his shield with gold. From his horned helmet a hanging fillet bore before it sacred terrors and the honour of the gods. The man had a bow and a quiver, and darts steeped in horned vipers, and armed with poison he waged his wars. Moreover, set on his horse's back in his wonted manner, the weight of his Sarmatian pike, supported on his knee, he drove level against the enemies opposite. Then too, transfixing through the limbs, through the arms, Sabellus with a weapon, before the consul's eyes, with a great shout he was carrying him off exulting, and exulting sang of Ammon. The elder bore not this rage and such great swellings in his barbarian heart, and hurled his weapon, and at once the victor took from the victor both the booty and the life together.

Hasdrubal leaps up, sad at the heard shout of the ruin, and, as the Arab began to snatch the spoil of gem-bearing dress from the slain and the trappings stiff with gold, balances a javelin from behind to the bone. The wretch, the coverings seized with his two palms, was hastily plucking at them and had bared his trembling limbs: he fell, and gave back the sacred robes and the golden threads to the lifeless man, sinking onto the foe he had despoiled. But Canthus slays Rutilus — Canthus, possessor of the sand where the Philaeni placed their unconquered, famous name — Rutilus, rich in sheep, for whom a thousand woolly ewes bleat in the deep stalls. He himself, exercising his ease with soft care, now in a cold river was breaking the excessive heats for his flock, now glad in the grass was shearing the gleaming fleeces of snowy wool, or, when the flock returned from pasture to its shelter, watched in the sheepfolds the lambs that knew their mothers. He fell, betrayed, his shield's bronze transfixed, and groaned too late that he had gone forth from his father's stalls.

The more keenly for this the Italian youth charges and presses: as a torrent, as a tempest, as the flame of the flashing thunderbolt, as the sea flees Boreas, as the hollow clouds run, when Eurus has mingled sky with sea. Tall stood the cohorts, the standards of the Celts, the front line. These the sudden force loosens with its charge and fierce wedge, and the men, weary with the error of the ways, unequal to the ground and panting from the long toil, their nation's native fear turns away. To add to their backs spears the Ausonian, and to press on with the pursuing weapon and not to grant flight. Thyrmis falls by one wound, Rhodanus by more than one, and the lance casts down Morinus, overthrown by an arrow and now at the very point of falling. Keen Livius on his horse, having given all the reins, presses the retreating and drives his swift-hoofed steed upon the departing squadrons. Then the fleeing necks of turned-away Mosa he scatters with his sword. The head, slipped from on high with the helmet, struck the ground with its weight: but the trunk, sitting on, the troubled horse snatched into the battle. Here Cato (for he too was brandishing weapons in the midst of the tumult) said: "If, when we lost the first Alps in war, this man had been set against the Tyrian youth! Alas, how great a right hand has stood idle for Latium, and how many deaths the grim votes of a corrupt field gave to the Carthaginians!"

And now the lines were giving way, and over all the Gauls' fear had put on fear, and the Sidonian Fortune was falling: to the Rutulians Victory had turned her wings. Lofty, as if with his early youth flowering again, the consul went exulting, greater and greater to behold. Behold, drawing with him a squadron hoary with dust, the Agenorean leader comes up, and whirling weapons from his arms, resounds: "Check your flight. To what enemy do we yield? Is it not a shame? An old man, his years withered, drives the lines turned about. Now, I pray, now does my right hand in arms degenerate, and is it ashamed of me? Mine was Belus, the source of my ancestors, mine Sidonian Dido a kindred name, and before all to be counted in war is Hamilcar my father. Mine, to whom yield mountains and lakes and plains and rivers, is my brother. Great Carthage thinks me second to Hannibal, and on the Baetis shores the nations that suffered my battles match me with my brother." While he recounts such things, borne into the midst of the enemy, when the new arms of the spotted consul gleamed, he hurls his spear with too hasty effort. It on the edges of the brazen shield and the coverings of the corslet, at the top of the shoulder, fell, not happy, and the body, scantly aimed at, it grazed, dyed with not much blood, but promised vain joys to the wishing Carthaginian.

The Rutulians were troubled, and their breasts confused at the terrifying sight. Then the consul, chiding the attempt: "A body grazed amid feminine horns you would believe struck by nails or by boyish palms. Go, men, teach how great wounds Roman hands are wont to inflict." Then indeed a vast force of weapons pours out, and the sun is overcome by thick shadow. And now over the outstretched plains the bodies of men, fallen in alternate slaughter, lie, and the corpses, sunk into the wave, joined the banks with a growing heap: as, when Dictynna plies the shady glades with hunting and gives spectacles to her glad mother, shaking the woods of Pindus or ranging Maenala (all the throng of the Naiads, accompanied with full quivers, rushes, and the arrow-bearing bow-cases hiss), then the beasts, strewn over the rocks and over their very lairs, through the valleys and rivers and the caverns green with moss, lie in much slaughter: she exults on the mountain's summit, the daughter of Latona, ranging with her eyes over the welcome prey.

Having heard before others of the elder's wound, savage Nero breaks his way through the midst, and, seeing the men's battle equal, "What then, what is left after this to the fates of Italy? If you do not conquer this enemy, will you conquer Hannibal?" he says. He rushes the swifter, frantic, into the midst, and when he saw the Tyrian leader roaring among the foremost lines, as a beast of the raging sea, tossed long along the barren deep toward its pastures, when from afar, ill-wounded, it sees a fish in the wave, seethes, and, ranging, swallows the swimming prey beneath the flood, the sea mingled with fishes, far and wide: no delay for weapon, none for words. "No longer," he said, "shall you slip from me. Here the trackless groves of the Pyrenees shall not deceive, nor shall you mock with vain promises, as once, caught in the treacherous Iberian land, you escaped our right hand by a lying treaty." This Nero, and he hurls his javelin, nor was the stroke vain. For balanced, the point settled in the far side. He attacks over these things, undaunted, with drawn sword, and pressing with his shield-boss the trembling limbs of the fallen, "If you would by chance have any commands carried back to your brother under this last mischance, we will bear them," he said. The Sidonian in answer: "By no death am I terrified. Use your War-god, while for our spirits there is at hand straightway an avenger. If you prepare to bear my last words to my brother, I bid that, victorious, he burn the Capitol and mingle Jupiter's bones with the ash and our ashes." As he longs to add more and seethes with rage, he transfixes him in death with the sword and, victor, snatches the faithless head. The columns, their leader laid low, are strewn, trusting no longer in War.

And now black night took away the day and the sun's ways, when they restore their strength with sparing food and sleep, and, the day not yet returning, the victorious standards, where they had come, they carry back to the camps closed in fear. Then Nero, bearing high on a tall pike the face of the slain leader: "We have repaid Cannae," he said, "Hannibal, and the Trebia and the shores of Trasimene with you, by your brother's head. Go, now double your treacherous wars and summon your twin lines. These rewards remain for those who should desire your arms, the Alps crossed." The Carthaginian held back his tears and steadfastly lessened by bearing his evils, and, his mouth closed, murmured to himself that he would send to his brother, in due time, worthy funeral-offerings. Then, his camp moved far off, dissembling under the guise of rest, he shut off the doubtful contests of Mars.