Book 17

17. That a foreign foe might withdraw from Ausonia's lands, the old oracles of the prophetic Sibyl had decreed that the mother of the gods, sought from her Phrygian seat, must be consecrated within the walls of Laomedon's city: that the godhead, brought over, should be received by him who, chosen out of the whole council of the Fathers, lived as the best man of the present age. Behold, a name better and greater than triumphs! And now she was here, sought out, with the Latian ship bearing Cybele, and before all, while the great senate gave way, Scipio hastened to meet the summoned rites, who, son of the uncle chosen for the African wars of the leader, shone with the many likenesses of his ancestors. And he, when from the far-off sea he received the coming godhead, a suppliant, with his palms, and lofty led the ship to the mouth of the Tuscan Tiber's resounding stream, then women's hands came beneath, to draw the tall alder up the river by fastened ropes. Round about the bronze rang with shrill, hollow chimes, and together the drums contended, resounding with their hoarse beat, and the half-male choirs who keep chaste the twin-peaked Dindyma, who revel in the Dictaean cave, and who know the ridges of Ida and the silent groves. Amid these roars and vows in glad uproar the sacred barge stood still, refusing to go on though the ropes were drawn, and on a sudden shoal stuck fast, unmoved. Then from the middle of the ship, with a great cry, the priest:

'Forbear to touch the ropes with polluted palms, and far from here, I warn you, far from here, whoever you are, unchaste, take your steps, nor mingle in our holy toil, while it is enough to have warned you in the goddess's name. But if any woman is strong in a modest mind, if any stands sure of her own untainted body, let her, even alone, take up the holy task with her hand.'

Here Claudia, drawing her name from the ancient line of the Clausi, ill credited by the people's unfair report, with palms and eyes turned to the ship speaks out:

'Mother of the heaven-dwellers, godhead who create for us all the gods, whose offspring govern by their allotted lot the earth and the sea, the stars and the shades of the realms below, if our body has been violated by no crime, come, goddess, as witness, and set me free with an easy keel.' Then, untroubled, she takes the rope, and the roaring of lions seemed suddenly to be heard, and through the air, struck by no hand, the goddess's drums sounded a graver note. The barge is carried forward, head down (you would think winds drove it), and outstrips the woman who draws it against the opposing waves. At once a greater hope soothes the breasts of all, that an end to arms at last, and an end to perils, was coming.

Scipio himself, eager, departing from the Sicilian land, hid the sea far and wide with his ships driven forward, having appeased the sea's godhead with a bull for victim, and the entrails, cast out, floated on the blue waves. Then, gliding from the seat of the gods and through the pure upper air, the armour-bearing birds of Jove before his eyes began to point out the sea-ways and to lead the fleet. Their clangour gave a glad augury. Then following their flight, gone before under the clear cloud, only so far as the eyes of watchers keep them, not in vain, in sight, they held the treacherous shores of the Agenorean land.

Nor slack, with so great a storm coming on against herself, had Africa, under a great name, made ready a fearful mass, the king's resources against them, and Massylian arms, and Syphax was the one hope of the Libyans and the one terror of the Laurentines. The plains alike and the receding valleys and the shores he had filled with the Numidian used to deck his horse with no woven cloth, and through the air dense clouds were hiding the sky with hissing javelins. Forgetful here of the right hand he had given and the pact joined at the altars, and of the tables as witness and the rights of a guest, of law and good faith together, changed by a base love, he had broken them, and won a marriage-bed at the price of his kingdom. There was a maiden of surpassing beauty and famous father, daughter of Hasdrubal, and when he had taken her to his lofty chamber, as if kindled by the first torch and the wedding-pine, the son-in-law turned his strength to the Carthaginians, and, the bond of Latian friendship dissolved, carried over his dowered arms.

But it was not the least of cares to the Ausonian leader to have warned Syphax, and his envoys threaten: let him stand by his kingdom, reckon with the gods, keep the guest-pact: far off would the marriage be, far off the Tyrian wedding, set amid the lines of the Dardanians. For in blood, if he refused, his obedience to a too soft and easy husband would have to stand, and the loves of his blazing chamber.

So the Latian leader warned, mingling threats, but in vain. For his wife had stopped his deaf ears. And so, harsh against warnings that strove for nothing, he calls his swords, and, calling the chaste altars of the broken pact to witness, busily stirs up Mars by various art. The camp, roofed over with light reed and marsh cane, such scattered huts as the Moorish shepherd loves, he attacks, the shadows guarding his theft of arms, and in the silent night scatters hidden fires. Then, when the gathered flames began to spread the swift plague and to bear themselves with a great noise through the rich fodder, the flames range out openly into the air and drive the smoke before them with a flying light. The hostile pest goes through the whole camp with a whirlwind, and Vulcan with panting roar devours the dry feeding, and the fires stream from every tent. By most the fire is felt before it is seen, as they are roused from sleep, and the flames invade the mouths of many who call for help. On every side the conquering Mulciber flows, and with his swift embraces seizes arms and men: the pest overflows, and half-burnt the camp flies through the topmost clouds in whitening ash. With a vast leap, mournfully crackling, the blaze flies wide about the very tents of the king, and would have swallowed the man, had not a guard, in fear at the disaster, snatched him, praying unavenged, from sleep and his bed.

But soon, when the Massylian and the Tyrian leaders had joined their forces behind a common rampart, and the manhood summoned from the kingdom had eased the wounds of that ill-starred night, wrath and shame, and his wife, a third fire, gave him monstrous spirit, and the barbarian, his face scorched by the camp's flames, and himself with no covering scarcely snatched from the foe amid the trembling bands, gnashed and threatened: but that by no daylight could Syphax, not in clear day, nor with the sun looking on, be conquered by any man. Such things the frenzied king had boasted, but already Atropos was closing his breath and allowing no more, and hastening the thread of his swollen tongue. For when he sprang from the camp, like a turbid river which, dragging woods and rocks headlong through trackless ways, rolls on and loosens its banks with a foaming flood, riding before all on his horse he draws his columns on with his voice. Against him the Rutulian's busy band, and the army, lofty, rushed when they saw the king far off, snatching up their arms, and each to himself: 'Do you see? Do you see how in the front line the Massylian leader hovers, demanding battle? My right hand, make this glory ours. He has profaned the altars of the heaven-dwellers and broken the chaste leader's pact. Let it be enough that he escaped our camp once, when it was burned.' So each in silence, and they pour their spears in rivalry. First the flying spear lodged in the horse's nostrils breathing fire, and reared the beast up, his mouth bloodied, as he beat the air with his lifted hooves. The fierce horse crashed down, and tossing his pierced limbs with the spear-point, this way and that, betrayed his rider to the foe. They rush in, and as he struggled in vain to flee and to lift his weary frame, with the weapon drawn back from the wound they seize him; then bonds for the man, and manacles—shameful— were added, and (a lesson never to trust glad fortune) they bound his sceptre-bearing hands with a tight chain. He is led down, cast from the high summit of his kingdom, who but now beneath his feet had seen the lands and sceptres and the open shores down to Ocean, and the sea obedient to his nod. His kingdom's resources laid low, the Phoenician columns are mown down, and Hasdrubal, hateful to Mars and known for flight, turns his back in haste, his daring condemned.

Carthage stood, her limbs lopped off on every side, leaning on one man, and Hannibal, though absent, by his name held back the mass that fell with so great a crash. That sole resource the last extremities of their state bid them rouse, weary and in need of help and aid; here in fear they flee for refuge, after they see themselves deserted by the power of the gods. No delay: the keels, driven on, furrow the salt waters, to call him back and bear him their country's charge, warning him not to look, slow, on no citadels of Carthage left standing.

The fourth Dawn had brought their ship to the shores of Daunus, and fierce dreams were troubling the leader's mind. For while, heavy with cares, he took his rest by night, he seemed to see Flaminius and Gracchus, to see Paulus, all at once rush against him with drawn swords and drive him from the Italian land, and the whole host of shades from Cannae and from the waters of Trasimene was going, driving him into the sea. He himself, longing for flight, sought to escape to the known Alps and, embracing the Latian earth with both arms, clung to it, until a savage force from the deep thrust him off and gave him to the swift gales to carry away.

With these visions, the men bearing the charge come to him in his sickness, the envoys, and lay open his country's last perils:

how the Massylian arms had fallen, how on his neck the chains the ruler of Libya had borne, and, death denied, was kept as a new show for Jove; how Carthage labours, with frightened Hasdrubal, who had held the reins of state, shaken by more than one rout. They themselves, grim to tell, had seen, when two camps burned in the silent night, and Africa shone with criminal flames. That a headlong young man threatened, while the Carthaginian held the Bruttian shores, to strip with black fires the country to which he might return, and his own famous deeds. When these things were said, and the disasters and fears lay bare, they pour out tears and worship his right hand as a godhead.

He heard them, fixed with a grim gaze, and with sick care silently weighed within himself, turning it over, whether Carthage were worth so much. Then thus he speaks:

'O dread destruction to mortals! O envy, never enduring that anything should grow or that great praises should rise! Long since I could have overthrown and razed Rome and levelled her with the ground, led the captured nation into slavery and laid laws upon Latium. While they deny the leader the cost and the arms, and to renew his maniples worn by success with a fresh levy of recruits, and while it pleases Hanno to cheat the cohorts even of grain and food, all Africa is wrapped in flames, the Rhoetean lance batters the Agenorean gates. Now the glory of his country, now her sole support is Hannibal alone, now the last hope lies in our right hand. The standards shall be turned, as the Fathers have decreed, and together both the walls of our country and you, Hanno, we shall save.'

When he had thundered this out, he drives the tall ships from the shore and, groaning much, moves his fleet over the sea. No one dared assail the backs of the departing, nor call the man back: all seem to grant that he should leave of his own will, you gods, and at last set free Ausonia. They pray for winds, and to see the shores bare of the foe is enough: as when the South Wind checks its fierce blasts and, departing, gives back the sea, the sailor with a modest vow meanwhile does not ask for friendly breezes, content to be rid of the South, and reckons a quiet peace enough in place of an easy passage. All to the deep the Sidonian soldiery had turned their gaze on every side: the leader kept his eyes fixed, intent, upon the Italian land, and the tears flowed and wet his face, running in silence, and he heaved frequent sighs, no otherwise than if, driven out, he were leaving his country and his sweet home, and were dragged, a grim exile, to alien shores.

But when, the winds poured into the sails, the ships began to go on and little by little the mountains to sink in the distance, and there was now no Hesperia and nowhere now the Daunian land, here, gnashing within himself: 'Am I in my right mind, and now unworthy of this return, who ever tore myself from the bounds of Ausonia? Would that Carthage had blazed, set to the torch, and that the name of Elissa had rather fallen. What? Was I then in my right mind, who did not carry the burning weapons from Cannae into the Tarpeian temples, and drag Jove from his throne? I would have scattered fires over the seven hills, emptied by war, and given to the proud race Ilium's destruction and the doom of their forefathers. Why, further, should these things gnaw me? Now, now, who forbids me to fall on them with the sword and turn my steps again to the walls? I will go, and, retracing the monuments of my camp, where the known road calls, I will return to the waters of the Anio. Turn your prows toward Italy, wheel the fleet about: I will see to it that Scipio is recalled to a Rome under siege.'

When Neptune from the deep looked out upon him, burning with such furies, and saw the ships turned toward the shore, the father, shaking his sea-blue head, heaved the waters from the bottom and stirred the swollen sea beyond the shores. At once he rouses winds and rains, and from the rock the Aeolian storms, and hides the sky in clouds. Then, working the inmost realms with his three-pronged weapon, he drives Tethys from the west and from the east and stirs all the head of Ocean. The seas rise foaming, and at the dashing of the waters every crag trembles. First, lifting himself from the seats of the Nasamones, the South Wind, cloud-bringing, laid bare the Syrtis, the wave snatched away. There follows, bearing on high with black wings, the North Wind, the torn-off flank of the sea. Black he thunders with discordant blast, and the East Wind snatches a part of the deep. Hence the burst poles roar back, and hence the frequent flashing of lightning, and the implacable heaven rushes upon the fleet. Fires and storm-clouds and waves and the wrath of the winds agreed together, and darkness laid night upon the sea. Look—a squall, twisted by the South and coming from the stern, bellows in the yardarm (and the harsh shriek of the cordage whistles) and, like a mountain in the blackening deep, breaks over the leader's trembling face a wave. Rolling his eyes to sky and sea, he cries out:

'O happy brother, made equal to the gods by your fall, Hasdrubal! whose brave right hand in arms won you a noble death as you fought, and to whom the fates granted to grip the Ausonian land in your last bite. But to me, on the plains of Cannae, where Paulus, where those noble souls fell, it was not allowed to give up my life, nor, when I carried fires into the Capitol, to go down to the shades by Tarpeian Jove's bolt.'

While he mourns so, the wave, driven by warring blasts, rushes against both flanks and held the ship beneath the black ridges of the sea, as though plunged in a whirlpool. Soon, struck high by the black eddies of the surging sand, the ship returned to the airs of heaven and hung above the waves while the wind held it poised. But the South Wind, by a hard lot, drags two biremes onto the rocks and the bristling crags—pitiable and grim. The prows crashed at the impact. Then on the sharp reef the hull, its joints burst, sounded as it broke apart. Here a varied sight before their eyes: there swims over all the sea, among the arms and helmets of men and the reddening crests, the treasure of flowering Capua and the Laurentine spoils of the leader, set apart for the triumph, the tripods and tables of the gods and the images vainly worshipped by the wretched Latins. Then Venus, terrified at the face of the heaving sea, addresses the king of the sea with these words: 'This is enough of wrath for now, father: enough of threats for greater things. Spare the rest, I pray, to the deep, lest bitter Carthage carry off this glory, that no war could surpass— to have brought forth such a head—and that the Carthaginians needed the waves and all the deep for the death of the sons of Aeneas.'

So Venus. And the swollen waves of the flood subside.

. . . and against the opposing camps they drive the meeting bands.

The leader, old in arms and skilled to kindle hearts with praises, was maddening their minds to wrath with fiery exhortation and burning their breasts with the flames of glory:

'You bring me the dripping face of slain Flaminius, the leader: I know your right hand. You, first against the blows of mighty Paulus, rush, and fix your sword in his bones. For you are borne the spoils of warlike Marcellus, and Gracchus, falling, drenched your sword for you. Behold the hand that, when you battered him, warlike Appius, on the lofty wall of high Capua, struck him down dying, hurled headlong from the rampart by a spear. Behold another thunderbolt of the right hand, by which the noble name of Fulvius took more than one wound in his breast. Set yourself here in the front line, you to whom in arms the consul Crispinus fell. Do you accompany me through the foe, who—I remember—at Cannae, most glad in your wrath, bear the face of the leader Servilius transfixed upon a stake. I see your blazing eyes and your face, fearsome no less than your very sword, bravest young Carthaginian— such as I saw you when, in the savage stream of Trebia, you clasped in your huge arms and plunged to the bottom the tribune struggling in vain. And you, who first at the cold waters of the Ticinus dyed your iron with the blood of Scipio the father, finish what you began and give me back the son's blood. Should I dread the very gods, if they come to battle, when, squadrons, I have seen you trample ridges bordering the sky, flying over the highest Alps, when I see the plains of Argyripa, that took fire with your sword and your hands, broad as they are? Will you go more sluggishly now for me, you who first hurl your weapon at the Dardanian walls, and are not ready to yield to my glory? Should I goad you, you indeed, who, when I stood against the lightning and the storm-clouds and the thunders and the wrath of the highest godhead, bade me endure the noises and the empty clouds, and made for the lofty Capitol before your leader? Why should I urge you on, by whom Saguntum was destroyed in famous war, whom the beginnings of the war ennoble? As is worthy of me and of you, defend, I beg, the past praises of your right hand. By the gods' own favour, and by conquering, I, an old man, after my country has tottered for thrice five years, and the home not seen in so long an age, and my son, and the face of my faithful wife long since, trusting in you, I seek again. No other battle remains now for Libya, no other battle remains for the Dardanians. This day, fought out by us, receives its master for the world.'

So Hannibal. But the Ausonian soldiery, impatient of the words that held them back, as often as the leader had begun to open his lips for speech, kept demanding the signal and the fight.

When the father of the gods saw his sister watching this from afar in an airy cloud, and her face grieving under his keen gaze, he spoke thus with friendly voice:

'What gnawings of the mind devour you? Let me know, wife. Does care for the Carthaginian leader's fate and for Carthage trouble you? But consider with yourself the frenzies of the Sidonians. Against the race and the fated kingdom of the Teucrians—what end, I ask, sister, will there be for a rebel people, the treaties broken? Carthage herself has borne and drained no more of evil and of toil than you have undergone, tried for the sake of the Cadmean race. You have stirred up seas and lands, and let loose a fierce young man upon Latium. The walls of Rome have trembled, and for twice eight years Hannibal has been first of the human race. It is time to compose the nations. We have come to the end, and the door of war must be closed.'

Then Juno, a suppliant: 'Neither, striving to change these things whose day is fixed, have I settled in the hanging cloud, nor do I seek to call back the lines or to prolong the war. What you can grant—since my favour languishes and my first love has fallen now—against the threads of the sisters I ask nothing: let Hannibal turn his back to the foe, as you please, and let the ashes of Troy reign in Carthage. This I beg of you, by the mutual pledges of our twin love, both as sister and as wife: that you let the great-souled leader swim through the perils, and grant him his life, and not suffer him, captured, to bear Ausonian chains. Let my walls stand, even bruised by ills, the Sidonian name broken, and let them be kept for my honour.'

So Juno, and against her Jupiter briefly thus began:

'I grant a respite to the walls of lofty Carthage, as you wish. Let them stand by your tears and prayers. But hear, wife, how far it is allowed me to indulge you. No long fates remain to the city, and a leader of like name shall come who shall overturn from the foundations the citadels now saved. Let Hannibal too, as you ask, draw the airs of heaven, snatched from the battle. Here he will wish to mingle the stars with the sea and to fill the lands with returning arms: I know the man's heart, teeming with war. But let this be the law of our gift: let him not, hereafter, see the realms of Saturn, nor seek again, ever any more, Ausonia. Now bear him off, snatched from the death that presses, lest, if he mingles fierce battles on the wide plains, you be unable to withdraw him from the young Roman's right hand.'

While the Almighty fixes the fates of city and leader, the lines fall on the fight and challenge the stars with their shout. At no other time did the earth see weightier peoples, or, of those who moved their country's arms, greater leaders contend. The high reward of the hazard lay in the midst: whatever the sky covers on every side. The Agenorean leader went, gleaming in purple, and lifted high his lofty head with the nodding plume of his red crest. A savage terror from his great name goes before him, and his sword flashes, well known to Latium. But against him Scipio shone with burning scarlet, showing forth his fearful shield, on which he had engraved the dire battles of his father and of his uncle together, their living likenesses: his high front belched a vast flame. Under so great a force of weapons and of men, in the leaders alone stood the hope and the victory of all. Indeed, as favour or fear sways most men, they believe that, had Scipio been born on Libyan shores, the sceptre would have come to the descendants of Agenor, and, had Hannibal been born in an Ausonian seat, they doubt not the lands would have been under Italian sway.

The airs shuddered, the spears quivering in a swift whirl, and drew a horrid cloud across the sky. Then the sword, and the lines nearer, and face brought close to face, and eyes blazing with dire flame. There is laid low the throng that scorns danger, which flung itself headlong against the first spears, and the earth unwilling drank the blood of its own people. Hot in temper and hot in years, Masinissa bears his huge limbs into the front squadrons of the Macedonians and flies about the field with his winged javelin. No otherwise, when he fights, does the blue-painted dweller of Thule hem in the close ranks with his scythe-bearing war-car.

The Greek phalanx had massed its bands in its native fashion and stood, penetrable by no spears, with theirs locked together. Forgetful of the pact, Philip had sent these to war after the treaty, and was warming up the shaken city of Agenor. The soldiery grows thin, loosened by many a wound, and, with bodies laid low, opens wide-spreading paths among the weapons. The Ausonian band breaks in with the weight of ruin and unseals the Greek perjuries.

Rutilus slays Archemorus, Norbanus slays Teucer (and both Mantua their mother had sent forth in their budding age), the right hand of warlike Calenus cuts down Samius, and Selius cuts down Clytius—Clytius, vainly swelling at the name of Pella, his homeland: but the glory of Pella availed not to defend the wretch from Daunian weapons.

Fiercer than these, the Latian Laelius laid waste the Bruttian standards, taunting them: 'Was the land of Oenotria so to be loathed, that over harsh seas and through mad waves you fled with Tyrian oarsmen? But to have fled was enough. Do you over and above seek to drench alien lands with Latian blood?' Saying this, he forestalls Silarus, who was planning battle with his spear. The flying lance sat deep beneath his throat and at once, driven home, closed the ways of life and voice together.

Caudinus is laid low by Vergilius, Amanus by bitter Laus. The faces of the men and the look of their arms, well known, and the voice attuned to one tongue, kindle their wrath. When the son of Hamilcar saw them baring their backs in flight, crying 'Stand, and do not betray our race,' he comes up and turns the battle with his right hand: as in the heat-bearing plains of the Garamantes the Paraetonian serpent, teeming with venom, fed on the burning sand, rears its neck and over the air far and wide twists its surging length, drenching the clouds with foul slime. At once he hinders Herius, who bore a wound on his deadly spear, flying before him—Herius, to whom the Marrucine house and famous Teate gave a noble name. And as the foe strove hard and stood erect for praise, his eager hand sat at the hilt's very end, and the wretch sought his brother with dying sight, when the young Pleminius comes up, and, stung by the bitter death, flashes his savage sword before his face and with a great cry, threatening, demands his brother back. To him the son of Barca: 'If indeed it pleases you to give back the brother, I do not refuse. Only let our pact stand:

call Hasdrubal back from the shades. Shall I ever lay aside my bitter hatreds against the Romans, or let our hearts grow soft, and spare a man whom the Italian land has borne? Then let my brother drive the hostile shades from his eternal seat and banish me to a shared Avernus.' So he speaks and, with the whole weight of his shield, where the ground, slippery with his sliding brother's blood, betrayed his footing, lays him flat and overtakes him with the sword. Falling, Herius stretched out his palms, and embracing the prostrate man, with their deaths joined eased his griefs. Then the Libyan falls on the struggles of the mingled crowd and, rushing, turns the enemy's backs the whole length of the line, as when thunders mingled with lightnings terrify the world and the high house of the highest father totters: all the race of men trembles on earth, and before their very eyes the dread light flashes, and Jupiter is believed to stand present, man by man, over the stricken, his fire aimed.

In another quarter, as though the field's only struggle were there where Scipio, driving on, mingled grim Mars, the harsh fight under a varied image of death gives many forms. Here one lies prostrate, the sword driven home, here another, pitiable, groans, his bones shattered by a stone, and others, to their shame, fear flung face down in flight, while the valour of these gave their breasts, fronting, to Gradivus. The Rhoetean leader himself presses over the slaughter, as by the cold Hebrus higher Mars shakes his car and looses the Getic snows with hot blood, glad in the carnage, and the war-bearing axle, shrieking under its weight, breaks through the ice driven on by the North Winds. And now, ranging in grim ardour, he goes against every bravest name with the sword. Renowned through the world for famous slaughters, the youth fall wide among the weapons: those who seized your walls, Saguntum, and made the wretched ruins, the beginning of the unspeakable war, those who polluted your sacred lakes, Trasimene, and the Phaethontian pools with gore, and whom such confidence carried, that they went to plunder the throne and house of the king of the gods: they are slaughtered hand to hand in one destruction, and yield up their lives—they who bore off the secrets of the gods, profaned, and first unbarred the Alps, denied to human steps. The line, full of this terror, rushed back in haste, dead with fright: no otherwise than when the Vulcanian plague pours itself into the roofs of a city, and the swift wind fans the fires and scatters the flying flames over the gables, the stunned crowd bursts out in sudden terror, and there is panic far and wide as in a captured city.

But when it wearies him to dawdle, hunting the scattered fights of men and held in a lighter combat, it pleases him at last to turn all his strength against the cause of the war and the author of their woes. While Hannibal alone remains, even if fire be set to the walls of Carthage and all her armies fall slain, no profit is won for Latium. But, if that one man fall, all the arms and men of the Agenoreans will be for nothing. So, ranging the field, he turns his eyes about and searches out the leader. It pleases him to bear his step into the supreme contest, and he longs to meet the man, with all Ausonia watching. Lofty, with a fierce shout, he calls him out, taunting his foe, and demands fresh battles.

When Juno heard these cries, terrified lest they reach the Libyan leader's undaunted ears, she shapes a Latian likeness and quickly lifts it with gleaming crests, adds the shield and plumes of the Roman leader, and lays on its shoulders the honour of a gleaming cloak, gives it the gait and bearing of one rousing battle, and grants it bold movements without a body. Then a matching likeness of a false horse, an empty image, to be guided swiftly through trackless ways at speed, is given to the warlike shade for the show of a contest. So before the Carthaginian leader's eyes, the Scipio feigned by Juno exults and of itself brandishes its weapons. But the Carthaginian, glad at sight of the Latian commander before his face and hoping at last for great things at closer range, swiftly sets his nimble limbs upon his horse and hurls his spear against him in a hastened whirl. The winged image turns its back and, fleeing, flies over the field and passes through the lines. Then indeed, as victor and master now of his high prayer, the Carthaginian bloodies his horse with the iron heel and harshly shakes the loosened reins:

'Where do you flee, forgetting to yield to our realm? No hiding-place is yours, Scipio, in the Libyan land.' This he says, and with drawn sword follows the flier, until he led the baffled man over a long stretch into fields far apart, away from the contest of the fight. Then suddenly the deceiving phantom withdrew into the clouds. The lightning leader: 'What god,' he says, 'has set himself against us with hidden power? Or why does the same one hide? Does my glory so stand in the gods' way? But you will never tear away from me—whoever you are, you who stand, a favouring heaven-dweller, by Ausonia—you will not snatch my true foe from me by your arts.' Then, in a fury, he turns the reins of his goaded horse and made for the field, when suddenly, collapsing in the trembling of a hidden plague, the bulk of the horse falls, and breathed out from its panting chest, into the clouds, the life that Juno's care had claimed. Then indeed, impatient: 'This is your second, your fraud, you gods,' he says: 'you do not deceive me. The rocks should have hidden me sunk in the sea, and the deep and the waves should have swallowed me! Was I kept for this death? My standards, followed by those to whom we gave the omen of battle, are cut down, and absent I hear the groans and voices and the words of men calling on Hannibal. What Tartarean torrent will atone enough for our sins?' Even as he poured this out, he looked at his own right hand and seethed with the love of death.

Then Juno, pitying the man, turns into the face of a shepherd and comes out suddenly from the shadowy woods and addresses him as he ponders his inglorious fate:

'What cause has driven you, armed, to come into our woods? Are you making for the hard battle, where great Hannibal subdues with arms the remnants of Ausonia? If you delight to go swiftly and short cuts are welcome to you, by a near path I will lead you into the midst.' He nodded and loads the shepherd's breast with lavish promises, and tells him the Fathers of lofty Carthage will repay him greatly, nor will he himself give the lighter share. Headlong, and clearing the nearest ground with a vast leap, Juno leads him round and, deceiving him as to the lie of the roads, keeps hidden a safety unwelcome to him who would not have it.

Meanwhile the Cadmean band, deserted and afraid, sees no Hannibal anywhere, nowhere the known struggles of the savage leader. Some believe him fallen by the sword, some that he condemned the line and yielded to the gods' frown. The Ausonian commander presses on and drives the routed over all the field. And now the very citadels of Carthage tremble: all Africa is filled with wandering terror, the columns driven back, and rushing in headlong flight without a battle they bend their stunned courses to the farthest shores and, fugitive, are scattered onto the Tartessian coasts; some sought the homes of Battus, some the streams of Lagus. So when, conquered at last by a blind force, Vesuvius vomited up to the stars its fires fed through the ages, and the Vulcanian plague was spread over sea and land, the Eastern Seres saw—a marvel to wonder at— their wool-bearing groves grow white with Ausonian ash.

But at last, on a nearby mound, queen Juno halts the weary leader, whence all the face and the black traces of the battle appear, brought close to his eyes. Such as he had seen the field of Garganus and the marsh of Trebia and the Tyrrhene shallows and the river of Phaethon surging with the slaughter of men, such, pitiable to see, opens the dire sight, the maniples laid low. Then Juno, troubled, revisits the seats above. And now the enemy drew near and came up the mound, when the Carthaginian to himself: 'Though all heaven, its frame dissolved, fall upon this head, and the lands gape open, you will abolish Cannae, Jupiter, in no age, and you will depart from your realms sooner than the nations be silent of the name or the deeds of Hannibal. Nor, after this, do I leave you secure of me, Rome; surviving my country, I will live for you in the hope of arms. For though you now excel in battle, my foes only abide: it is enough and more for me that the Dardanian mothers and the Italian land, while I live, should fear me and know no peace in their hearts.' So he is swept off, mingled with a few of the fleeing, and the high mountains thereafter he seeks, back the way he came, and safe lurking-places.

Here was the end of the war. At once the citadels are opened to the Ausonian leader, now of their own will. Their lawless rule was taken away and their arms, and their laws cut down, and their proud resources— their might broken—and the elephant laid aside the towers it bore. Then the tall ships, a savage spectacle for the Carthaginians, received the flaming brand, and in a sudden storm the seas blazed, and Nereus took fright at the light.

Master of glory that shall last through the ages, the commander, first to bear the surname of the conquered land, secure in his command, seeks Rome again across the blue and rides into his ancestral home in a lofty triumph. Before him Syphax, seated on the litter, a captive, kept his eyes downcast, and golden chains held his neck, here Hanno and the noble Phoenician youth by race and the chief of the Macedonians and the swart bodies of the Moors, then the Numidians, and the Garamant known to Hammon when he ranges the sands, and the ever shipwrecking Syrtis. Next, lifting her conquered palms to the stars, Carthage went, and the image of the Spanish shore, now grown gentle, Gades, the world's end, and Calpe, once the bound of the praises of Hercules, and the Baetis, wont to bathe the horses of the sun in the sweet water of its stream, and, thrusting her leafy peak to the stars, the mother of wars, fierce Pyrene, and the ungentle Ebro, when together it dashes into the sea the rivers it has brought. But nothing held minds and eyes more than the sight of Hannibal's image, fleeing over the plains. He himself, standing on the car, adorned with gold and purple, offered his martial face for the Quirites to gaze on, such as Liber, descending from the perfumed Indians, drove his vine-wreathed car with a tigress bridled; or as, when the mass of the Giants was finished on the Phlegraean plains, the Tirynthian strode on, touching the stars. Hail, unconquered father, not to yield to Quirinus in praises, nor to yield to Camillus in deserts: nor indeed, when she recalls you sprung from the stock of the gods, does Rome lie in calling you the offspring of the Tarpeian Thunderer.