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Omens
and oracles of gods go down before them, and all under malign influence
clamour for awful war. Emulously they surround Latinus' royal house. He
withstands, even as a rock in ocean unremoved, as a rock in ocean when
the great crash comes down, firm in its own mass among many waves
slapping all about: in vain the crags and boulders hiss round it in
foam, and the seaweed on its side is flung up and sucked away. But when
he may in nowise overbear their blind counsel, and all goes at fierce
Juno's beck, with many an appeal to gods and void sky, 'Alas! ' he cries,
'we are broken of fate and driven helpless in the [595-626]storm. With
your very blood will you pay the price of this, O wretched men! Thee, O
Turnus, thy crime, thee thine awful punishment shall await; too late
wilt thou address to heaven thy prayers and supplication. For my rest
was won, and my haven full at hand; I am robbed but of a happy death. '
And without further speech he shut himself in the palace, and dropped
the reins of state.

There was a use in Hesperian Latium, which the Alban towns kept in holy
observance, now Rome keeps, the mistress of the world, when they stir
the War-God to enter battle; whether their hands prepare to carry war
and weeping among Getae or Hyrcanians or Arabs, or to reach to India and
pursue the Dawn, and reclaim their standards from the Parthian. There
are twain gates of War, so runs their name, consecrate in grim Mars'
sanctity and terror. An hundred bolts of brass and masses of everlasting
iron shut them fast, and Janus the guardian never sets foot from their
threshold. There, when the sentence of the Fathers stands fixed for
battle, the Consul, arrayed in the robe of Quirinus and the Gabine
cincture, with his own hand unbars the grating doors, with his own lips
calls battles forth; then all the rest follow on, and the brazen
trumpets blare harsh with consenting breath. With this use then likewise
they bade Latinus proclaim war on the Aeneadae, and unclose the baleful
gates. He withheld his hand, and shrank away averse from the abhorred
service, and hid himself blindly in the dark.
Then the Saturnian queen
of heaven glided from the sky, with her own hand thrust open the
lingering gates, and swung sharply back on their hinges the iron-bound
doors of war. Ausonia is ablaze, till then unstirred and immoveable.
Some make ready to march afoot over the plains; some, mounted on tall
horses, ride amain in clouds of dust. All seek out arms; and now they
rub their shields smooth and make their spearheads glitter with
[627-659]fat lard, and grind their axes on the whetstone: rejoicingly
they advance under their standards and hear the trumpet note. Five great
cities set up the anvil and sharpen the sword, strong Atina and proud
Tibur, Ardea and Crustumeri, and turreted Antemnae. They hollow out
head-gear to guard them, and plait wickerwork round shield-bosses;
others forge breastplates of brass or smooth greaves of flexible silver.
To this is come the honour of share and pruning-hook, to this all the
love of the plough: they re-temper their fathers' swords in the furnace.
And now the trumpets blare; the watchword for war passes along. One
snatches a helmet hurriedly from his house, another backs his neighing
horses into the yoke; and arrays himself in shield and mail-coat
triple-linked with gold, and girds on his trusty sword.

Open now the gates of Helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the kings
that rose for war, the array that followed each and filled the plains,
the men that even then blossomed, the arms that blazed in Italy the
bountiful land: for you remember, divine ones, and you can recall; to us
but a breath of rumour, scant and slight, is wafted down.

First from the Tyrrhene coast savage Mezentius, scorner of the gods,
opens the war and arrays his columns. By him is Lausus, his son,
unexcelled in bodily beauty by any save Laurentine Turnus, Lausus tamer
of horses and destroyer of wild beasts; he leads a thousand men who
followed him in vain from Agylla town; worthy to be happier in ancestral
rule, and to have other than Mezentius for father.

After them beautiful Aventinus, born of beautiful Hercules, displays on
the sward his palm-crowned chariot and victorious horses, and carries on
his shield his father's device, the hundred snakes of the Hydra's
serpent-wreath. Him, in the wood of the hill Aventine, Rhea the
priestess [660-693]bore by stealth into the borders of light, a woman
mingled with a god, after the Tirynthian Conqueror had slain Geryon and
set foot on the fields of Laurentum, and bathed his Iberian oxen in the
Tuscan river. These carry for war javelins and grim stabbing weapons,
and fight with the round shaft and sharp point of the Sabellian pike.
Himself he went on foot swathed in a vast lion skin, shaggy with
bristling terrors, whose white teeth encircled his head; in such wild
dress, the garb of Hercules clasped over his shoulders, he entered the
royal house.