Aeneid

to serve a nobler sire, and happier far

he had ne'er been born Mezentius' son.

Next after these, conspicuous o'er the plain,

with palm-crowned chariot and victorious steeds,

rode forth well-moulded Aventinus, sprung

from shapely Hercules; upon the shield

his blazon was a hundred snakes, and showed

his father's hydra-cincture serpentine;

him deep in Aventine's most secret grove

the priestess Rhea bore—a mortal maid

clasped in a god's embrace the wondrous day

when, flushed with conquest of huge Geryon,

the lord of Tiryns to Laurentum drove,

and washed in Tiber's wave th' Iberian kine.

His followers brandished pointed pikes and staves,

or smooth Sabellian bodkin tipped with steel;

but he, afoot, swung round him as he strode

a monstrous lion-skin, its bristling mane

and white teeth crowning his ferocious brow:

for garbed as Hercules he sought his King.

Then came twin brethren, leaving Tibur's keep

(named from Tiburtus, brother of them twain)

Catillus and impetuous Coras, youth

of Argive seed, who foremost in the van

pressed ever where the foemen densest throng:

as when two centaurs, children of the cloud,

from mountain-tops descend in swift career,

the snows of Homole and Othrys leaving,

while crashing thickets in their pathway fall.

Nor was Praeneste's founder absent there,

by Vulcan sired, among the herds and hinds,

and on a hearth-stone found (so runs the tale

each pious age repeats) King Caeculus

with rustic legions gathered from afar:

from steep Praeneste and the Gabian vale

to Juno dear, from Anio's cold stream,

from upland Hernic rocks and foaming rills,

from rich Anagnia's pastures, and the plain

whence Amasenus pours his worshipped wave.

Not all of armor boast, and seldom sound

the chariot and shield; but out of slings

they hurl blue balls of lead, or in one hand

a brace of javelins bear; pulled o'er their brows

are hoods of tawny wolf-skin; as they march

the left foot leaves a barefoot track behind,

a rawhide sandal on the right they wear.

Messapus came, steed-tamer, Neptune's son,

by sword and fire invincible: this day,

though mild his people and unschooled in war,

he calls them to embattled lines, and draws

no lingering sword. Fescennia musters there,

Aequi Falisci, and what clans possess

Soracte's heights, Flavinia's fruitful farms,

Ciminian lake and mountain, and the groves

about Capena. Rank on rank they move,

loud singing of their chieftain's praise: as when

a flock of snowy swans through clouded air

return from feeding, and make tuneful cry

from their long throats, while Asia's rivers hear,

and lone Cayster's startled moorland rings:

for hardly could the listening ear discern

the war-cry of a mail-clad host; the sound

was like shrill-calling birds, when home from sea

their soaring flock moves shoreward like a cloud.

Then, one of far-descended Sabine name,

Clausus advanced, the captain of a host,

and in himself an equal host he seemed;

from his proud loins the high-born Claudian stem

through Latium multiplies, since Roman power

with Sabine first was wed. A cohort came

from Amiternum and the olden wall

of Cures, called Quirites even then;

Eretum answered and Mutusca's hill

with olives clad, Velinus' flowery field,

nomentum's fortress, the grim precipice

of Tetrica, Severus' upland fair,

Casperia, Foruli, Himella's waves,

Tiber and Fabaris, and wintry streams

of Nursia; to the same proud muster sped

Tuscan with Latin tribes, and loyal towns

beside whose walls ill-omened Allia flows.

As numerous they moved as rolling waves

that stir smooth Libyan seas, when in cold floods

sinks grim Orion's star; or like the throng

of clustering wheat-tops in the summer sun,

near Hermus or on Lycia's yellowing plain:

shields clashed; their strong tramp smote the trembling ground.

Now Agamemnon's kinsman, cruel foe

to the mere name of Troy, Halaesus, yokes

the horses of his car and summons forth

a thousand savage clans at Turnus' call :

rude men whose mattocks to the Massic hills

bring Bacchus' bounty, or by graybeard sires

sent from Auruncan upland and the mead

of Sidicinum; out of Cales came

its simple folk; and dwellers by the stream

of many-shoaled Volturnus, close-allied

with bold Saticulan or Oscan swains.

Their arms are tapered javelins, which they wear

bound by a coiling thong; a shield conceals