No More Learning

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.

Next twin brothers leave Tibur town, and the people called by their
brother Tiburtus' name, Catillus and valiant Coras, the Argives, and
advance in the forefront of battle among the throng of spears: as when
two cloud-born Centaurs descend from a lofty mountain peak, leaving
Homole or snowy Othrys in rapid race; the mighty forest yields before
them as they go, and the crashing thickets give them way.

Nor was the founder of Praeneste city absent, the king who, as every age
hath believed, was born of Vulcan among the pasturing herds, and found
beside the hearth, Caeculus. On him a rustic battalion attends in loose
order, they who dwell in steep Praeneste and the fields of Juno of
Gabii, on the cool Anio and the Hernican rocks dewy with streams; they
whom rich Anagnia, and whom thou, lord Amasenus, pasturest. Not all of
them have armour, nor shields and clattering chariots. The most part
shower bullets of dull lead; some wield in their hand two darts, and
have for head-covering caps of tawny wolfskin; their left foot is bare
wherewith to plant their steps; the other is covered with a boot of raw
hide.

But Messapus, tamer of horses, the seed of Neptune, whom none might ever
strike down with steel or fire, calls quickly to arms his long unstirred
peoples and bands [694-727]disused to war, and again handles the sword.
These are of the Fescennine ranks and of Aequi Falisci, these of
Soracte's fortresses and the fields of Flavina, and Ciminus' lake and
hill, and the groves of Capena. They marched in even time, singing their
King; as whilome snowy swans among the thin clouds, when they return
from pasturage, and utter resonant notes through their long necks; far
off echoes the river and the smitten Asian fen. . . . Nor would one
think these vast streaming masses were ranks clad in brass; rather that,
high in air, a cloud of hoarse birds from the deep gulf was pressing to
the shore.

Lo, Clausus of the ancient Sabine blood, leading a great host, a great
host himself; from whom now the Claudian tribe and family is spread
abroad since Rome was shared with the Sabines. Alongside is the broad
battalion of Amiternum, and the Old Latins, and all the force of Eretum
and the Mutuscan oliveyards; they who dwell in Nomentum town, and the
Rosean country by Velinus, who keep the crags of rough Tetrica and Mount
Severus, Casperia and Foruli, and the river of Himella; they who drink
of Tiber and Fabaris, they whom cold Nursia hath sent, and the squadrons
of Horta and the tribes of Latinium; and they whom Allia, the
ill-ominous name, severs with its current; as many as the waves that
roll on the Libyan sea-floor when fierce Orion sets in the wintry surge;
as thick as the ears that ripen in the morning sunlight on the plain of
the Hermus or the yellowing Lycian tilth. Their shields clatter, and
earth is amazed under the trampling of their feet.

Here Agamemnonian Halaesus, foe of the Trojan name, yokes his chariot
horses, and draws a thousand warlike peoples to Turnus; those who turn
with spades the Massic soil that is glad with wine; whom the elders of
Aurunca sent from their high hills, and the Sidicine low country
[728-761]hard by; and those who leave Cales, and the dweller by the
shallows of Volturnus river, and side by side the rough Saticulan and
the Oscan bands. Polished maces are their weapons, and these it is their
wont to fit with a tough thong; a target covers their left side, and for
close fighting they have crooked swords.

Nor shalt thou, Oebalus, depart untold of in our verses, who wast borne,
men say, by the nymph Sebethis to Telon, when he grew old in rule over
Capreae the Teleboic realm: but not so content with his ancestral
fields, his son even then held down in wide sway the Sarrastian peoples
and the meadows watered by Sarnus, and the dwellers in Rufrae and
Batulum, and the fields of Celemnae, and they on whom from her apple
orchards Abella city looks down. Their wont was to hurl lances in
Teutonic fashion; their head covering was stripped bark of the cork
tree, their shield-plates glittering brass, glittering brass their
sword.

Thee too, Ufens, mountainous Nersae sent forth to battle, of noble fame
and prosperous arms, whose race on the stiff Aequiculan clods is rough
beyond all other, and bred to continual hunting in the woodland; they
till the soil in arms, and it is ever their delight to drive in fresh
spoils and live on plunder.

Furthermore there came, sent by King Archippus, the priest of the
Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet,
Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle
slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath.
Yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the Dardanian spear-point, nor
was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the
Massic hills.