Book 16

16. The Bruttian land received Hannibal, who mourned the fate of his country and his own. Hedged behind a rampart here he simmered, biding his time, to renew the war he had laid aside: as a bull, when his stalls are torn from him and his herd is lost, retires into the woods, and in the trackless glade, penned in, works up his battles, and now with savage bellowing terrifies the groves, and over the steep crags charges at a run, lays the forests flat and challenges the cliffs, mad with his angry horn—and every shepherd trembles, watching from a high rock the new wars he is preparing. But though his vigour would have drained Latium dry, had the other aids of war stood by him, the warped envy of his own men spitefully obstructed him, and he was forced to call his spirit back, denied the means to make a stand, and to grow numb in the dull rot of affairs. Yet the dread his hand had won, and the terror sought of old through so many slaughters, kept his head sacred and inviolable to the spears; and in place of all the weapons, the camp's resources and fresh fighting hands, the single name of Hannibal was enough. So many columns of jarring tongue, so many hearts of men discordant in barbarian custom held their ground, and though his fortunes had been blunted, reverence for their leader kept their minds loyal.

Nor in Ausonia alone did Mars show himself glad for the sons of Dardanus: now the Spanish land gives way, the Phoenician driven at last from the gold-bearing fields, now Mago, stripped of his camp and harried by panic, has crossed the blue sea to Libya under a hurried sail. But look—Fortune, not content with a single favour, was nursing fresh glory for the leader. For Hanno came driven on in haste, bringing barbarian columns with their clattering shields, and late was snatching up the native Spaniards. The skill, the cunning of war, the strong right hand were not lacking, were he not running up against a son of the Scipios. The Ausonian leader bore down on all their greatness with a greater mass: as Phoebe surpasses the stars, as her brother's light surpasses Phoebe, as Atlas the mountains and the Nile the rivers, as father Ocean overmasters Neptune's blue waters. As he palisaded his camp—for evening from a darkened sky had begun to spread its uneven shadow over the anxious foe— the Latian commander attacked, and in the sudden uproar men are cut down here and there above the works of the half-built rampart, just begun. The grassy turf wove a cover for the fallen weights, and the sod yielded to honour the mound.

Scarcely is one man's mind worthy to learn the lesser deeds and hand the worth of their work to fame.

A Cantabrian, Larus, dread for his native wit and the bulk of his limbs, could be feared even unarmed. Here, after his people's fierce fashion, he mingled in the fray with his axe-bearing right hand, and though he saw his columns beaten and routed all about him, the men of his tribe cut down, alone he filled the spaces of the slain: whether the foe stood close at hand, he loved to be glutted with a wound to the face that fronted him, or whether the line called him to fight on his left, he whirled his weapon back, hurled aslant in the battle. And when the victor came fiercely behind, against the backs of men turned away, he had the trick—untroubled—of flinging the axe backward, fearsome in no quarter of the war. At him with a vast whirl Scipio, the brother of the unconquered leader, hurling his spear, with the helmet's crest scattered his flowing hair. For the point ran higher than aimed and was struck far off by the lifted axe. But the young man, whose weapon had been swelled by great anger, leaping in with a loud shout, drove down the barbarian axe. The lines shuddered, and through the air there rang the boss of his shield, struck by the war-heavy weight— not, indeed, unpunished: for the right hand returning from the blow was severed by the sword and died upon its cherished weapon. When this wall of theirs fell, the wretches' columns as one turned at once to flight, scattered across the fields. It was no look of battle, but the grim image of punishment, slaughterers only on this side, fugitives on that. And look—through their midst Hanno, hands bound behind his back, was being dragged, and a captive among his chains he begged for the light (alas, the sweet light of heaven!), light amid his bonds. To him the Latian commander: 'See, these are the men who claim back kingdoms, before whom the gown should yield, and the race holy to armed Quirinus! If you take so easily to slavery, why do you bring back war?'

Meanwhile, to bid him hasten his step and join his arms, a scout on horseback comes as herald, bringing word to Hasdrubal, ignorant of the rout. The leader snatches up his standards to meet them, and when he saw with joy that he was reaching the longed-for battle, and the columns coming on at a great run to their death, looking up to heaven he said: 'Nothing more do I ask of you today, you gods above. That you dragged to arms what was in flight—that is enough: the rest of my prayers lie in my right hand, men. Seize them, go, I beg. Look, the maddened blood calls me—on this side my father, on that my uncle. O twin powers of war, lead on, be near, I follow. You shall watch slaughter worthy of your name—or my foreknowing mind deceives me—done now in your name. For what end at last is there to fighting on the plains of the Spanish earth? Will the day ever dawn upon the world on which I shall see you, Carthage, trembling at the sound of my arms and the war brought close?'

He had spoken, and a hoarse cry with a shrieking roar rose loud: the stars thundered with the savage shouting. They charge, and as much as the violence of the sea sweeps away with the South Wind, the North Wind, and the relentless Southwest, when the swollen waters drown laden fleets beneath the deep, or as much as Sirius, kindling his death-bearing fires, scorches with savage heat the panting world— so much does the battle and the fierce discord of men reap with the sword. No gulf of the earth could ever match the losses of those fights, nor through trackless wilds has the dread frenzy of beasts ever wrought such slaughter. Now the fields and valleys are soaked, and the weapons blunted. Both the Libyans have fallen and the Spaniards who love Mars. Yet one line holds its ground, crippled, its armour pierced through, and struggles on where Hasdrubal shakes his spear. Nor would that day and his high courage have made an end, had not a reed-shaft, gliding past his breastplate's cover, grazed the surface of his body with a slight wound and counselled flight. Borne off on his swift horse he leaves the battle for a hiding-place, and through the shades of night makes for the harbours of Tartessus along the shore.

Next to the leader in war and in the strength of his hand had been Masinissa, ruler of the Numidians, soon through a long alliance and his devotion to the sons of Aeneas a name of pride. As he, worn out, snatched the sleep that hard flight and black night had urged, a sudden point of fire shone at the crown of his head, glittering, and a gentle flame seemed to wrap his curling hair and spread over his bristling brow. The servants run together and hasten to quench the fire about his temples with cold spring-water; but his aged mother, foreknowing the omens of the gods, cried: 'So, so, you heaven-dwellers, lay up your portents with favour: may the light last on his head through the ages. Do not, do not, my son, fear so glad a prodigy of the gods, nor dread the sacred flames amid your temples. This fire promises you a treaty with the Dardanian race, this fire will give you a kingdom greater than your father's kingdom, and will join your name to the fates of Latium.' So the prophetess; and so clear a marvel stirred the young man's mind: no honours of valour for him among the Carthaginians, while even Hannibal himself was now growing each day more modest in arms.

The Dawn was wiping the clouds from a darkened sky and had scarcely reddened the faces of the Atlantian sisters: he makes for the Ausonian camp, still the enemy's. And when he had borne himself within the rampart, and the Latian leader received him with kindly face, the king begins thus:

'The warnings of the gods above and the answers of my sacred mother, and your valour, O ruler of the Rutulians, most welcome to the gods, have led me here, torn willingly from the Tyrians. If we have often been seen to stand, not slack, against your thunderbolts, we bring you, son of the Thunderer, a right hand worthy of you. Neither has the empty fickleness of a wavering mind subdued us, and a heart that shifts, nor do we chase hope and the prizes of glad battle: it is treachery I flee, and a race forsworn from its very origin. You, since you have ended your battles at the bounds of Hercules, now invade with us the very mother of the war. That man, who for two five-year spans has held the realm of Laurentum, and sets his ladders to the walls of Rome, must be dragged to Libya by fire and sword.'

So the Numidian leader. Then Scipio, clasping right hand in right hand: 'If our race seems fair to you in Mars, it is fairer in good faith. Dismiss from your heart your double-tongued allies. From this great rewards of bright valour await you, Masinissa, and Scipio shall be outdone sooner even in arms than in the zeal of a grateful mind. The other fires you urge me to carry to Libya, time will see to. For such matters are not unconsidered by me, and Carthage wearies my mind.' Then he gives the young man as gifts a cloak distinguished by an embroidered design, and a horse covered with purple, which he himself had taken as victor when Mago was struck down, and had approved its spirit; then a golden bowl and a plumed helmet, from which Hasdrubal had poured libation at the altars of the gods. So, the ally's pact with the king now made firm, he turns his thoughts already to overthrowing the towers of Carthage.

There was a ruler richest in the Massylian lands, nor unarmed in valour, Syphax, whom countless nations sought for justice, and Tethys at the world's last shore. Much land was his, and the swift horse and the elephant, terror of wars, and youth chosen out for Mars. Nor was there any to outdo him in ivory or solid gold, or to dye fleece more brightly in Gaetulian cauldrons. Eager to add these resources, and reckoning the labour should the king turn to the Carthaginians, Scipio bids them set sail upon the deep, and even now his spirit takes up the wars of Africa. But when he had arrived and the keels held the harbour, already Hasdrubal was there, fleeing in a frightened ship along the nearest shore, seeking new pacts for his stricken cause, and dragging the Massylian standards over to the Tyrians.

Hearing alike that the leaders of two peoples had come into his realm, each striving with all his weight and disputing in arms which of them should rule the world, Syphax, high in mind, bids them be summoned kindly into his halls, and lifts himself up with so great an honour for his kingdom. Then, rolling his glad eyes over the faces before him, he addresses the Latian young man, and is first to begin of himself:

'How serenely I receive you, fairest son of Dardanus, and how gladly I look upon you! And how joyfully I recall the face of Scipio! Your form calls back your father to me. For I remember—when I had come to Gades, Hercules' Erythia, to its shores, in my love of the sea and to watch the tides of its waves— with what strange love I gazed upon the great leaders by the neighbouring river Baetis. Then the men brought me gifts, choice spoils, arms, and—then first known in my kingdom— the bridles of swift horses and the bows to which our javelins now know to yield, and they gave me masters of the old soldiering, who would shape my scattered, lawless bands after your fashion for the contests of Mars. But I, when in return I brought what wealth my kingdom held— now gold, now gifts of snow-white tusk— had no power to win with my prayers. Each took for himself only the swords that an inlaid ivory sheath enclosed. Therefore come, gladly greet the entering of our home, and since my fortune brings the Libyan leader over the waves, take in with an easy mind what I shall say. And you who rule the towers of Tyrian Carthage, Hasdrubal, turn your ears, your senses, this way, I beg. How great a storm rushes upon the Ausonian peoples with its torrent of arms, and threatens Latium with its end, and how for twice five savage years now the land of Sicily, now the Spanish shores, drink Tyrian blood— who is allowed not to know? Why then do these grim wars not at last subside, and why do you not lay down your arms of free will? You, Libya, you, Ausonia—remember to restrain yourselves. It will be no disgrace to you, once you have turned to terms, that Syphax was your peacemaker and stood between.' To add more Scipio did not allow, but points to the custom of his people and the judgement of the senate, and bids him drop the empty hope of his undertaking, and teaches him that the Fathers alone weigh these things. This was the limit of persuasion; and what was left of the spent day they turn to the tables and the cups, and when the feast was ended, give their bodies to sleep and loose into the night the hard chains of their cares.

And now Dawn, stepping forth at the first threshold, was bringing a new day to birth for the earth, and the horses of the sun from their stalls were coming to the yoke, nor had he yet mounted his car, but the waters glowed with the flames about to burst forth: Scipio drives his body from the bed and with serene face makes his way to the doors of the Massylian king. It was that king's ancestral way to rear the young of lions and to drive out their rage and anger by feeding the cubs. Then too with his hand he was stroking their tawny necks and manes and handling, unafraid, the fierce mouths of the playful beasts.

When he learned that the Dardanian leader was present, he puts on his cloak, and in his left hand bears the glory, the ensign of his ancient realm. His temples are bound with a white fillet, and at his side, by custom, the sword is fastened. Then he calls him into the house, and in inner rooms the guest sits down with the sceptred king in equal honour.

Then the pacifier of the Spanish land begins first with these words:

'My first and greatest care, the Pyrenean peoples subdued, was to go in haste to your kingdom, O Syphax, worthy of reverence for your sceptre. Nor did the savage sea delay me in mid-passage. We ask of your kingdom nothing steep or dishonourable: join to the Latins a heart of one mind, and come as an ally to our success. The Massylian nations and the land stretched out by the Syrtes, and your ancestral power on the wide plains, will bring you no more glory than Roman valour joined in sure faith, and the honours of the Laurentine people. Why tell the rest? No god, to be sure, is fair to any man who has done harm to Dardanian arms.'

The Massylian heard with glad face and gave his nod, and embracing the man said: 'Let us make firm the favourable omens, nor let the gods be absent from our concordant vows, and let us call with our lips on horned Jove and Tarpeian Jove.' And at once the turf had risen in built-up altars, and the victim stood placed beneath the lifted axe, when suddenly the bull, fleeing the altars, with broken bonds leaped clear, and with its bellowing filled the halls far and wide, and doubling its sighs with a hoarse roar scattered terror through the trembling court. And the fillet, ornament of his forefathers, slipping from his brow with no touch at all, laid bare the king's temples. Such grim signs the heaven-dwellers gave to the realm about to fall, and the heavy omens of a savage fate were at hand. This king, broken in war and torn from his throne— a time will come—he will lead, driving him to the temple of the Thunderer, who now as a suppliant begged for an alliance. This done, Scipio makes for the harbour and gives his ships to a favourable wind, and returns himself to the lands he knows.

The eager nations gathered, and conquered Pyrene sent its various peoples. The mind of all was one: with one accord they call him king and salute him king. For they know this to be the highest honour of valour. But when with gentle face he rejected the gifts as unworthy of an Ausonian man, and in turn instructed them in the customs of his country, and showed them that Rome knows not how to brook the names of kings, then, turned to the one care that remained, with no enemy left to face, he calls together at once the Latins and the host of Baetis and Tagus, and in the midst of the assembly speaks thus: 'Since the favouring will of the gods above has so granted us that the Libyan, cast down from the far edge of the world, should either fall on these plains or, the Hesperian region left behind, range his native sands an exile: now it is my mind to honour the tombs of my own with your soil, and to give peace to the shades that demand it. Favour me with like mind, and turn your ears this way. When the sun's seventh round shall be renewed in heaven, let those strong in arms and the sword, and those who excel in the art of guiding the four-horse chariot, and those who hope to win on foot, and whose zeal is to drive the winds with javelins, be present and contend for the praise of a fair crown. I shall give worthy prizes, famed spoils from Tyrian plunder, nor shall any one leave without a share of my gift.' So with gifts and the desire for praise he fires the throng.

And now the appointed day was here, and the field rang with the countless gathering, and in due order the leader led the mimic funeral rites with welling tears. Every Spaniard, every soldier under the Latin name brings gifts and heaps them on the blazing tombs. He himself, holding cups now full of milk, now of the sacred wine of Lyaeus, sprinkles the altars with fragrant flowers. Then he calls up the roused shades and sings the praises of those men with weeping, and reveres the deeds of the fallen.

Then he betakes himself to the racecourse and begins the first contests, opening with the swift courses of the horses. The fickle crowd surges with a roar like the sea and the rage of those who cheer, before the barriers are yet unbarred, and keeps its eyes on the gates and the thresholds of the horses. And now, when the bolts have sounded at the given signal and the foremost hoof has scarcely flashed from the whole starting-front, a shout is lifted to the sky in a frenzied whirl, and leaning forward, with faces like the contenders, each follows his own chariot, and with a great voice they all speak to the flying horses. The racecourse is shaken by the contest of the spectators, and the ardour has carried off no one's mind: they press their advice on, and steer the horses with their shouting. A tawny ball of sand, rising from the dusty earth, is raised aloft into the air, and covers with a dense fog the paths of the horses and the toils of the charioteers. This man rages with zeal for a fierce horse, that one for the driver. Some are fired by love of country, some by the noble name of an ancient stable. There are those whom glad hope wearies, and a neck new to bearing the yoke. There are those who delight in raw old age, and the horse proven in long years.

Out before all, in his swift chariot through the air, the Galician Lampon flies, and exulting swims across the great expanses and leaves the winds behind his back. They shout together and roar with applause, and believe the greater part of their wish achieved, the boundary forestalled. But those whose care within is keener, and whose knowledge of the course is deeper, condemn strength poured out in the first contest and chide from afar with vain complaints the man who wears out his team by an unmeasured effort:

'Where, where so wildly, Cyrnus, do you rush?' (for Cyrnus was driving) 'Let go the lash and rein in, with measure, your reins.' Alas, deaf ears! He is carried on heedless of his horses and does not think how much of the field is left to run.

Next, distant from the first by as much of the ground as the chariot itself takes up, but next he went, the Asturian Panchates: his brow shone white with the native mark, and his whole foot matched the native white. Great in spirit, his limbs not tall, the grace of his body slight, but then he had made himself wings, and roused he went over the field chafing at the reins: you would think him rising lofty and his limbs growing larger.

His driver, the Spaniard, shone with Cinyphian scarlet.

Third, running with brow level with Pelorus, came Caucasus. He himself was harsh, no horse to love the coaxing sounds of a patted neck, and foaming he loved to chew the iron clenched in his bleeding bite. But Pelorus, teachable to the rein and better at obeying, never swerved aside to bend his car loose, but on the left, hugging the inside, grazed the turning-post, striking for his great neck and the abundance of his mane that played about his throat. A marvel to tell, he had no sire: to the new breezes of Zephyr on the plains of the Vettones his dam Harpe had brought him forth. Noble Durius spurred on this chariot in the field; Caucasus trusted in the old trainer Atlas. Aetolian Tyde, founded by the wandering Diomedes, had sent him: men said he was sprung of Troy's horses, of those that the victorious son of Tydeus by great daring carried off from Aeneas at the waters of Simois. And now, borne nearly to the middle of the field in their contest, they were gaining in the open stretch, and striving to take the lead the spirited Panchates seemed to go higher, above the foremost horses, and to be mounting now, now, the chariot ahead from behind, and with his curved hoof his front foot, striking, was beating against the Galician's axle.

But last went Atlas, yet no slacker than Durius behind: you would think, after the manner of peace, that they ran with brow level and rein in accord. When the Spaniard who went nearest sensed the Galician strength of Cyrnus spent, and that no longer as before did his headlong chariot leap, but his smoking horses were violently forced by ceaseless lashing—as when from a mountain a sudden squall rushes down from on high—stretched out at once up to the necks of his team and hanging over their high heads, he urges on the burning Panchates, that being second he bore the reins, and adds words mingled with the lash:

'Will any man, Asturian, in the contest of the course carry off the palm snatched from you? Rise up, fly, glide over the field swift on your accustomed wings. Lampon shrinks, consumed with panting chest, nor does breath remain to the gasping horse to carry him to the post.' When these words were said, the horse lifted himself, as though then from the first barrier he were snatching the stretch, and leaving Cyrnus far behind his back, who strained to oppose or match his curving steps. Both the sky and the racecourse, struck by the high voices of the spectators, roar. Borne aloft through the air, lifting his neck higher, the victor Panchates exults and himself, the foremost, drags his yoke-mates on.

But last Atlas, last Durius, ply their arts in a circle: now this one tries on the left, now that one presses and strives to come up on the right, and each in turn tries vainly to deceive the other: until, trusting in the flower of his early youth, Durius leaning forward with reins turned crosswise threw his chariot across, and drove the car of Atlas, weak with age, over and overturned—Atlas, justly complaining:

'Where do you rush? What manner of mad contest is this? You labour at a death common to us and our horses both.' And while he cries this out, the axle breaks and he is rolled headlong, and along with him, pitiable to see, his horses are flung across the field, scattered at odds. The victor shakes his reins over the open ground, and Pelorus in the midst of the sand left Atlas behind, struggling and striving to rise, as he fled. Nor was it long to catch the wearied chariot of Cyrnus. Him too, hesitating and learning too late the management of his horses, the swift car flew past at speed. The shout and the voices of those who cheer drive on the chariot, and now even over the back and shoulders of the trembling Spaniard the horse has set his head, and the driver feels his back pressed by the warm breath and grows hot with the foam. Durius bent over the field and sent his team on, spurred by the lash—and not in vain: he seems to match, or even has matched, the yokes that went before, on the right. Then, astonished at so great a hope: 'Pelorus, now, now is the time to show you were brought forth by your sire Zephyr. Let those who draw their name from the breed of cattle learn how far the birth of divine seed excels. As victor you shall give gifts and raise altars to your father.' And had he not been betrayed in too great success and glad fear, with the whip slipping from him amid his words, perhaps he would have hallowed to Zephyr the altars he had vowed. But then indeed, unhappy, as though the crown had slipped from the victor's head, turned against himself in anger he rends his gilded robe down the middle of his breast, and tears and complaints together were poured out to the stars. And now, the lash withdrawn, the chariot obeyed no more. Instead of goads, the empty reins shake upon their backs.

Meanwhile, sure now of the praise, Panchates bore himself toward the post and sought the first prize, held high. Gently along his neck, along his shoulders, the breeze fans his streaming mane; then lifting his soft legs in a haughty stride he triumphs amid a great shout. The gift was the same for all, an axe chased in solid silver, but the rest differing in varied honour. First, a swift horse, no gift to be scorned, the Massylian king's offering, he carried off. Next in valour carried off two cups from the rich Tyrian plunder, bathed in the gold of Tagus. The shaggy hide of a fierce lion and a Sidonian helmet bristling with crests is the third honour. As the last gift the leader summons Atlas— though the elder had sunk down with his axle broken— and gives to him, pitying both his age and the lot of his mishap, a servant in the flower of youth, with a tribal cap added as an honour.

This done, the leader invites them to the glad contests of the foot and fires their hearts with the prizes set out:

'This helmet (with this Hasdrubal terrified the Spanish lines) the first man shall take; and this sword, whose glory is next in the running— this his father stripped from slain Hyempsa. The third shall console his last place with a bullock. The rest of the crowd shall depart content with two javelins each, fierce each one, which their native metal gives.'

The shining boys Tartessos and Hesperos showed themselves together to the crowd's favouring shout. Famed Gades, their homeland, sent these from a Tyrian house. Then comes Baeticus, his cheeks sprinkled with first down: Corduba had given the boy this name from the river, and fostered the glad contests at no small cost. Then, red of hair but with a body of snowy brightness, Eurytus filled all the arena with shouting: Saetabis, reared on a high hill, had brought him forth, and his parents stood by, anxious in their love. Then Lamus and Sicoris, sons of warlike Ilerda, and Theron, drinker of the water that flows under the name of Lethe and grazes its banks with a stream that brings forgetting.

When they, raised on their toes and leaning forward with their chests, their exultant hearts beating with the heat of glory, took their distance at the trumpet, they leaped through the air quicker than arrows poured forth as the bowstring drives them. The cheers and the partisanships are divided, and those who favour them hang on their nails, and each, as is his liking, calls his own man by name, panting. The famous band is carried over the field and leaves no trace marked on the sand it crosses, all in their first youth and graced with golden faces, all light to run and all worthy to win.

Bending to the task, halfway along the course Eurytus had thrust his stride forward and went first, by short margins, yet first, leading the stretch. No less keenly the eager Hesperos presses, and with his first step grazes the prints of the heel that ran ahead. It is enough for the one to be first, enough for the other to hope that he can become first. The more keenly for this they strain their steps and with vigour of spirit drive their bodies on. The very toil increases the boys' grace. Look—running with a light effort and at the rear of the field, after he thought he had gathered strength enough in himself, Theron, towering, pours out his untapped powers in a whirl unlooked-for, and suddenly bursts out and rides past the breezes: you would believe a Cyllenian foot went on its airy course with winged sandals tied. Now these, now those—the people marvelling—he leaves behind, and, lately last, now third in the order of the palm, he harries Hesperos, pressed close upon his tracks. And now not only the man he follows, but the first hope of the crown, trembles, Eurytus, as so great a runner comes on such wings. Fourth by lot of place, but—if the three keep in order the courses they have begun—labouring at his vain effort in vain, Tartessos pressed his brother, with Theron between. And no longer enduring it, Theron lifts himself over the field, afire, and flies past Hesperos, full of wrath. One only was left, and the nearer goal pricked the weary with sharper stings; whatever strength toil had left them— on this side toil, on that the fear piercing the heart— while it was still allowed to hope, each summoned for the short effort: their courses are made level, and they rushed on together. And perhaps they would have earned a double prize with twin palm, reaching the goal at once, had not Hesperos, following Theron's back, savage with vast anger, seized the hair streaming wide over his milk-white neck and dragged it. Glad and exulting at the youth's checking, Eurytus gets clear, and as victor darts to the prizes and bears off the splendid gift of the gleaming helmet. The rest of the band was given the promised gift, and with unshorn hair bound in a green crown each carried off two spears, brandishing their native iron.

From here come the graver contests of men: the sword is drawn for close combat, and the mock images of fierce war are roused. It was not those whom guilt brought, nor the harmful crimes of life, but valour and a fierce spirit for love of praise, that made these men matched in the sword; a spectacle worthy of the war-born crowd, and the image of their wonted toil. Among these were twin (what now have kings not dared? or what crime of kingship now remains?) brothers, who in the vast arena, the spectators damning their madness, joined battle with armed hands for a sceptre. That was the dread custom of their race, and bereaved of the light the brothers sought their father's throne at the hazard of life. They clashed with such spirit as it is fitting men should fight whom the madness for a kingdom drives, and bearing down to the shades hearts glutted at once with much blood they fell. With equal effort the blade, driven through the breast, sank into their innermost parts; their last words were added to their savage wounds; and rolling out curses the dreadful spirit fled into the unwilling air. Nor did the shades suffer peace. For when one pyre with a single flame sought to consume their joined bodies, the impious fire split apart, and the very ashes refused to lie together. The rest of the crowd was given a gift to match their merits, as their valour and their right hand had been. They led away bullocks trained to cleave the earth with the pressed plough, they led away young men used to rousing the lairs of wild beasts in the hunt, men whom Mauretanian plunder gives. Likewise badges of silver and of captive raiment, prizes, and the horse, and the crest rising on its gleaming cone, the spoils and trappings of Libya.

Then they sought glory with the javelin, the last shows of the racecourse, and they vied to beat the limit of the mark: Burnus, strong in his line, whom the bank sent †of the metal where Tagus runs pale, troubled with its gold-bearing sands, and Glagus, famous for outstripping the winds with his arm, and the hunter Aconteus, whose spears no deer was ever able to flee by its most headlong flight, and Indibilis, long glad to wage war for the Latins, now an ally, and Ilerdes, used to catching wandering birds in their cloud with his javelins, both that and a warrior. The first praise was Burnus's, who fixed his shafts in the mark: his gift is a slave-girl skilled to turn white wool with Gaetulian purple. But he whom the next prizes honour, who drove his spear nearest the mark, Ilerdes departed glad, a boy received as his reward, for whom no doe was beyond raising in the course as sport. The third palm was held by Aconteus, distinguished for twin hounds, not fearful to harry the boar with their baying.

When the shout and applause had approved these honours, the leader's brother and Laelius, shining in purple, joyfully call out the great names and the shades of the fallen and hurl their spears together. It pleased them to honour the hallowed ashes and add this glory to the games. The leader himself too, testifying the joys of his mind in his face, when he had matched the loyal hearts with deserved gifts— and his brother carried off a breastplate of layered gold, Laelius swift coursers from the Asturian breed— hurls with great strength a victorious spear, rising as he flung, and declares the honour given to the shades. The spear flying—a marvel to tell—in mid-field, at speed, stopped before their eyes and fixed in the earth, clung fast. Then sudden leaves and branches at its lofty top, and an oak, even as it grew, spreading a broad shade. The prophets, foreseeing, bid him aim at greater things: this the gods showed, this they portended by signs.

At which augury, the Carthaginians driven from the Hesperian shore, the avenger of his country and his house returns to Ausonia, with Fame leading his triumph. Nor does Latium burn with any cares more fiercely than to entrust to the young man Libya and the highest rods of office. But the crowd, unequal in spirit and not lucky in war, with wavering minds—the older men forbade the rash undertakings and shrank from great hazards with cautious dread.

So, when the consul, exalted by the honour conferred, brings his proposal to the Fathers, and begs that the power of destroying Carthage be given him, then, beginning from further back, aged father Fabius opened his lips in this manner:

'I, for my part, could not be feared—sated with both years and glory, with both fame and age now left to me— that the consul should believe I disparage his praises in a contest of envy. My name carries fame famous enough, nor do my deeds, so prosperous, need praise that is new. But to fail my country, while life remains, is sin, and sin to wrong my mind by keeping silent. Do you contrive to lead a new war into the lands of Libya? For there is no enemy lacking to Ausonia, nor is it enough for us to conquer Hannibal. What greater glory is sought at the shore of Elissa? If the spurs of praise drive us, reap this harvest. Fortune has provided you, by a nearer venture, a worthy match. The land of Italy wishes—at last it wishes— to drink the blood of the savage leader. Where do you drag Mars, where your standards? The first task is to quench the burning of Italy. You, going astray, desert the weary enemy, and as a traitor strip bare the seven citadels. Or when you lay waste the Syrtes and the barren sands, will that dread plague not leap upon the now-known walls of the city, and invade Jove, emptied, without manhood, without arms? For how much would he buy your yielding and leaving Rome! And, struck by so great a thunderbolt of war, shall we so recall you from the seacoasts of Libya, as lately Fulvius was summoned from high Capua? Conquer at home, and cleanse with war Ausonia, that mourns her dead through three five-year spans. Then stretch your march to the far Garamantes and contrive Nasamonian triumphs. The straitened Italian state now forbids such undertakings. That father of yours, who—no sluggard—added a name to your race, when as consul he was making for the banks of the Spaniard, recalled his soldiers and was the first, of his own accord, to set himself against Hannibal descending eagerly, the Alps once crossed. Do you, as consul, prepare to depart from the conquering enemy, and to pluck the Carthaginian away from us, of course, by this cunning? If then he sits still, unafraid, and does not follow you into Libya and your arms, with Rome taken you will condemn your improvident counsels. But suppose he, thrown into confusion, turns his standards and follows the sails of your fleet. He will surely be the same Hannibal, the same whose rampart you saw from the city's walls.' So Fabius, and the band of elders murmured assent with one voice.

Then the consul in reply: 'When long ago the leaders, great-souled, were slain by a twin death, and the whole land of Tartessus, possessed, had passed beneath the Sidonian yoke, with no man turned—I confess it—to Fabius, nor to any whose heart holds the same opinion, for help, in my earliest years I met the cloud of war and alone set my head against the falling sky, and turned all things upon myself. Then the aged band thought the war ill entrusted to a boy, and this same prophet sang of rash undertakings. I give thanks and praise to the gods, beneath whose power we are the Trojan race: that boy, that futile age, those unwarlike years, that Scipio, not yet ripe for arms, unhurt restored the Spanish lands to the sons of Troy, drove out the Carthaginians, and following the farthest paths of the sun to Atlas, banished from the Hesperian world the name of Libya, and brought back his standards from †the gold no sooner than he saw Phoebus, around the steaming seas, loosing his car on a Roman shore. The same man won over kings. Now Carthage remains the last labour of our deeds. This Jupiter, sower of eternal time, warns. Behold, old age trembles in Hannibal, or he feigns sick fears with a lie, lest the title of having brought an end at last to long ruin should be ours. Surely now our right hand is tested, and we have increased its strength in our flourishing years. Do not, then, fashion delays, but let this lot run its course to wipe out the shame of the old defeats— a lot the gods kept for me. The glory of being unconquered is fair enough for cautious Fabius, and the Delayer by sitting still won everything. Neither Mago nor Hanno, nor the son of Gisgo, nor Hamilcar would have turned his back on us, had we slackly dragged out our battles behind a closed rampart.

Could the Sidonian boy, with his manhood scarcely budding, reach the Laurentine peoples and the Trojan walls and yellow Tiber with its sacred flood, and could he prey on Latium in a long war: and shall it irk us to carry our standards to the lands of Libya and harry the Tyrian homes? The shores lie open wide, safe from danger, and the land stands quiet in rich peace. Let Carthage at last be afraid, accustomed as it is to being feared, and let it understand that we have arms to spare, though the fields of Oenotria be not yet free of Hannibal. That man—whom you yourselves, with your caution and your counsels, made an old man in Latium, who lavishly through a third five-year span draws our blood— that man I shall turn, trembling and afraid too late, back to the burning seats of his country. Or shall Rome see the shameful footprints of the Agenorean right hand on her walls:

shall Carthage, untouched and secure, hear of our toils in the meantime, and make war with its gates open? Then indeed let the shameless enemy batter our towers again with the Sidonian ram, if he has not first heard the temples of his own people crackling with Rutulian flames.'

The Fathers, kindled by such words, and the fate calling them, assented to the consul's speech, and praying that it might be fortunate for Ausonia, granted leave to carry the war across.