§ 1.1  BOOK I
Here I begin the war by which the fame of the Aeneadae was raised to heaven and proud Carthage submitted to the rule of Italy. Grant me, O Muse, to record the splendid achievements of Italy in ancient days, and to tell of all those heroes whom Rome brought forth for the strife, when the people of Cadmus broke their solemn bond and began the contest for sovereignty; and for long it remained uncertain, on which of the two citadels Fortune would establish the capital of the world. Thrice over with unholy warfare did the Carthaginian leaders violate their compact with the Senate and the treaty they had sworn by Jupiter to observe; and thrice over the lawless sword induced them wantonly to break the peace they had approved.

§ 1.12  But in the second war each nation strove to destroy and exterminate her rival, and those to whom victory was granted came nearer to destruction: in it a Roman general stormed the citadel of Carthage, the Palatine was surrounded and besieged by Hannibal, and Rome made good her safety by her walls alone.
The causes of such fierce anger, the hatred maintained with unabated fury, the war bequeathed by sire to son and by son to grandson — these things I am permitted to reveal, and to disclose the purposes of Heaven. And now I shall begin by tracing the origin of this great upheaval.
When Dido long ago fled across the sea from the land of Pygmalion, leaving behind her the realm polluted by her brother's guilt, she landed on the destined shore of Libya. There she bought land for a price and founded a new city, where she was permitted to lay strips of a bull's hide round the strand. Here — so remote antiquity believed — Juno elected to found for the exiles a nation to last for ever, preferring it to Argos, and to Mycenae, the city of Agamemnon and her chosen dwelling-place. But when she saw Rome lifting her head high among aspiring cities, and even sending fleets across the sea to carry her victorious standards over all the earth, then the goddess felt the danger close and stirred up in the minds of the Phoenicians a frenzy for war. But the effort of their first campaign was crushed, and the enterprise of the Carthaginians was wrecked on the Sicilian sea; and then Juno took up the sword again for a fresh conflict.

§ 1.36  When she upset all things on earth and was preparing to stir up the sea, she found a sufficient instrument in a single leader.
Now warlike Hannibal clothed himself with all the wrath of the goddess; his single arm she dared to match against destiny. Then, rejoicing in that man of blood, and aware of the fierce storm of disasters in store for the realm of Latinus, she spoke thus: "In defiance of me, the exile from Troy brought Dardania to Latium, together with his household gods — deities that were twice taken prisoners; and he gained a victory and founded a kingdom for the Teucrians at Lavinium. That may pass — provided that the banks of the Ticinus cannot contain the Roman dead, and that the Trebia, obedient to me, shall flow backwards through the fields of Gaul, blocked by the blood of Romans and their weapons and the corpses of men; provided that Lake Trasimene shall be terrified by its own pools darkened with streams of gore, and that I shall see from heaven Cannae, the grave of Italy, and the Iapygian plain inundated with Roman blood, while the Aufidus, doubtful of its course as its banks close in, can hardly force a passage to the Adriatic shore through shields and helmets and severed limbs of men." With these words she fired the youthful warrior for deeds of battle.
By nature he was eager for action and faithless to his plighted word, a past master in cunning but a strayer from justice. Once armed, he had no respect for Heaven; he was brave for evil and despised the glory of peace; and a thirst for human blood burned in his inmost heart.

§ 1.60  Besides all this, his youthful vigour longed to blot out the Aegates, the shame of the last generation, and to drown the treaty of peace in the Sicilian sea. Juno inspired him and tormented his spirit with ambition. Already, in visions of the night, he either stormed the Capitol or marched at speed over the summits of the Alps. Often too the servants who slept at his door were roused and terrified by a fierce cry that broke the desolate silence, and found their master dripping with sweat, while he fought battles still to come and waged imaginary warfare.
When he was a mere child, his father's passion had kindled in Hannibal this frenzy against Italy and the realm of Saturn, and started him on his glorious career. Hamilcar, sprung from the Tyrian house of ancient Barcas, reckoned his long descent from Belus. For, when Dido lost her husband and fled from a Tyre reduced to slavery, the young scion of Belus had escaped the unrighteous sword of the dread tyrant, and had joined his fortunes with hers for weal or woe. Thus nobly born and a proved warrior, Hamilcar, as soon as Hannibal could speak and utter his first distinct words, sowed war with Rome in the boy's heart; and well he knew how to feed angry passions.
In the centre of Carthage stood a temple, sacred to the spirit of Elissa, the foundress, and regarded with hereditary awe by the people. Round it stood yew trees and pines with their melancholy shade, which hid it and kept away the light of heaven. Here, as it was reported, the queen had cast off long ago the ills that flesh is heir to.

§ 1.86  Statues of mournful marble stood there — Belus, the founder of the race, and all the line descended from Belus; Agenor also, the nation's boast, and Phoenix who gave a lasting name to his country. There Dido herself was seated, at last united for ever to Sychaeus; and at her feet lay the Trojan sword. A hundred altars stood here in order, sacred to the gods of heaven and the lord of Erebus. Here the priestess with streaming hair and Stygian garb calls up Acheron and the divinity of Henna's goddess. The earth rumbles in the gloom and breaks forth into awesome hissings; and fire blazes unkindled upon the altars. The dead also are called up by magic spells and flit through empty space; and the marble face of Elissa sweats. To this shrine Hannibal was brought by his father's command; and, when he had entered, Hamilcar examined the boy's face and bearing. No terrors for him had the Massylian priestess, raving in her frenzy, or the horrid rites — of the temple, the blood-bespattered doors, and the flames that mounted at the sound of incantation. His father stroked the boy's head and kissed him; then he raised his courage by exhortation and thus inspired him:
" The restored race of Phrygians is oppressing with unjust treaties the people of Cadmean stock. If fate does not permit my right hand to avert this dishonour from our land, you, my son, must choose this as your field of fame.

§ 1.109  Be quick to swear a war that shall bring destruction to the Laurentines; let the Tuscan people already dread your birth; and when you, my son, arise, let Latian mothers refuse to rear their offspring."
With these incentives he spurred on the boy and then dictated a vow not easy to utter: When I come to age, I shall pursue the Romans with fire and sword and enact again the doom of Troy. The gods shall not stop my career, nor the treaty that bars the sword, neither the lofty Alps nor the Tarpeian rock. I swear to this purpose by the divinity of our native god of war, and by the shade of Elissa." Then a black victim was sacrificed to the goddess of triple shape; and the priestess, seeking an oracle, quickly opened the still breathing body and questioned the spirit, as it fled from the inward parts that she had laid bare in haste.
But when, following the custom of her ancient art, she had entered into the mind of the gods whom she inquired of, thus she spoke aloud; "I see the Aetolian fields covered far and wide with soldiers' corpses, and lakes red with Trojan blood. How huge the rampart of cliffs that rises far towards heaven! And on its airy summit your camp is perched. Now the army rushes down from the mountains; terrified cities send up smoke, and the land that lies beneath the western heavens blazes with Punic fires. See! the river Po runs blood. Fierce is that face that lies on a heap of arms and men — the face of him who was the third to carry in triumph choice spoils to the Thunder-god.

§ 1.134  Ah! what wild storm is this that rages with sudden downpour, while the sky is rent asunder and the fiery ether flashes! The gods are preparing mighty things, the throne of high heaven thunders, and I see Jupiter in arms." Then Juno forbade her to learn more of coming events, and the victims suddenly became dumb. The dangers and the endless hardships were concealed.
So Hamilcar left his design of war concealed in his secret heart, and made for Calpe and Gades, the limit of the world; but, while carrying the standards of Africa to the Pillars of Hercules, he fell in a hard-fought battle.
Meanwhile the direction of affairs was handed over to Hasdrubal; and he harried with savage cruelty the wealth of the western world, the people of Spain, and the dwellers beside the Baetis. Hard was the general's heart, and nothing could mitigate his ferocious temper; power he valued because it gave him the opportunity to be cruel. Thirst for blood hardened his heart; and he had the folly to believe that to be feared is glory. Nor was he willing to sate his rage with ordinary punishments. Tagus, a man of ancient race, remarkable for beauty and of proved valour, Hasdrubal, defying gods and men, fastened high on a wooden cross, and displayed in triumph to the sorrowing natives the unburied body of their king. Tagus, who had taken his name from the gold-bearing river, was mourned by the Nymphs of Spain through all their caves and banks; nor would he have preferred the river of Maeonia and the pools of Lydia, nor the plain watered by flowing gold and turned yellow by the sands of Hermus pouring over it.

§ 1.160  Ever first to enter the battle and last to lay down the sword, when he sat high on his steed and urged it on with loosened reins, no sword could stop him nor spear hurled from far; on he flew in triumph, and the golden armour of Tagus was well known throughout both armies." Then a servant, when he saw that hideous death and the body of Tagus hanging on the fatal tree, stole his master's favourite sword and rushed into the palace, where he smote that savage breast once and again. Carthaginians are cruel; and now, in their anger and grief, they made haste to bring the tortures. Every device was used — fire and white-hot steel, scourges that cut the body to ribbons with a rain of blows past counting, the hands of the torturers, the agony driven home into the marrow, the flame burning in the heart of the wound. Dreadful to see and even to relate, the limbs were expanded by the torturers' ingenuity and grew as much as the torment required; and, when all the blood had gushed forth, the bones still smoked and burned on, after the limbs were consumed. But the man's spirit remained unbroken; he was the master still and despised the suffering; like a mere looker-on he blamed the myrmidons of the torturer for flagging in their task and loudly demanded to be crucified like his master.
While this piteous punishment was inflicted on a victim who made light of it, the soldiers, disturbed by the loss of their general, with one voice and with eager enthusiasm demanded Hannibal for their leader. Their favour was due to many causes — the reflection in him of his father's valour; the report, broadcast among the nations, that he was the sworn enemy of Rome; his youth eager for action and the fiery spirit

§ 1.187  that well became him; his heart equipped with guile, and his native eloquence.
The Libyans were first to hail him with applause as their leader, and the Pyrenean tribes and warlike Spaniards followed them. At once his heart swelled with pride and satisfaction that so much of land and sea had come under his sway. Libya lies under the burning sign of Cancer, and is parched by the south winds of Aeolus and the sun's disk. It is either a huge offshoot of Asia, or a third continent of the world. It is bounded on the rosy east by the river of Lagus, which strikes the swollen sea with seven streams. But, where the land in milder mood faces the opposing Bears, it is cut off by the straits of Hercules, and, though parted from them, looks on the lands of Europe from its adjacent heights; the ocean blocks its further extension, and Atlas forbids its name to be carried further — Atlas, who would bring down the sky, if he withdrew his shoulders. His cloud-capt head supports the stars, and his soaring neck for ever holds aloft the firmament of heaven. His beard is white with frost, and pine-forests crown his brow with their vast shade; winds ravage his hollow temples, and foaming rivers rush down from his streaming open jaws. Moreover, the deep seas assail the cliffs on both his flanks, and, when the weary Titan has bathed his panting steeds, hide his flaming car in the steaming ocean. But, where Africa spreads her untilled plains, the burnt-up land bears nothing but the poison of snakes in plenty; though, where a temperate strip blesses the fields, her fertility is not surpassed by the crops of Henna nor by the Egyptian husbandman.

§ 1.215  Here the Numidians rove at large, a nation that knows not the bridle; for the light switch they ply between its ears turns the horse about in their sport, no less effectively than the bit." This land breeds wars and warriors; nor do they trust to the naked sword but use guile also.
A second camp was filled with Spanish troops, European allies whom the victories of Hamilcar had gained. Here the war-horse filled the plains with his neighings, and here high-mettled steeds drew along chariots of war; not even the drivers at Olympia could dash over the course with more fiery haste. That people recks little of life, and they are most ready to anticipate death. For, when a man has passed the years of youthful strength, he cannot bear to live on and disdains acquaintance with old age; and his span of life depends on his own right arm. All metals are found here: there are veins of electrum, whose yellow hue shows their double origin, and the rugged soil feeds the black crop of iron. Heaven covered up the incentives to crime; but the covetous Asturian plunges deep into the bowels of the mangled earth, and the wretch returns with a face as yellow as the gold he has dug out. The Durius and the Tagus of this land challenge the Pactolus; and so does the river which rolls its glittering sands over the land of the Gravii and reproduces for the inhabitants the forgetfulness of Lethe in the nether world. Spain is not unfit for corn-crops nor unfriendly to the vine; and there is no land in which the tree of Pallas rises higher.

§ 1.239  When these peoples had yielded to the Tyrian ruler and he had received the reins of government, then with his father's craft he gained men's friendship; by arms or by bribes he caused them to reverse the Senate's decrees. He was ever first to undertake hardship, first to march on foot, and first to bear a hand when the rampart was reared in haste. In all other things that spur a man on to glory he was untiring: denying sleep to nature, he would pass the whole night armed and awake, lying sometimes upon the ground; distinguished by the general's cloak, he vied with the hardy soldiers of the Libyan army; or mounted high he rode as leader of the long line; again he endured bare-headed the fury of the rains and the crashing of the sky. The Carthaginians looked on and the Asturians trembled for fear, when he rode his startled horse through the bolts hurled by Jupiter, the lightnings flashing amid the rain, and the fires driven forth by the blasts of the winds; he was never wearied by the dusty march nor weakened by the fiery star of Sirius. When the earth was burnt and cracked by fiery rays, and when the heat of noon parched the sky with its blazing orb, he thought it womanish to lie down in the shade where the ground was moist; he practised thirst and looked on a spring only to leave it. He would grasp the reins also and break in for battle the steed that tried to throw him; he sought the glory of a death-dealing arm; he would swim through the rattling boulders of an unknown river and then summon his comrades from the opposite bank. He was first also to stand on the rampart of a city stormed; and, whenever he dashed over the plain where fierce battle was joined, a broad Sirius, the Dog-star, stands for the heat of summer.

§ 1.267  red lane was left on the field, wherever he hurled his spear. Therefore he pressed hard upon the heels of Fortune; and, resolved as he was to break the treaty, he rejoiced meantime to involve Rome, as far as he could, in war; and from the end of the world he struck at the Capitol.
His war-trumpets sounded first before the gates of dismayed Saguntum, and he chose this war in his eagerness for a greater war to come. The city, founded by Hercules, rises on a gentle slope not far from the coast, and owes its sacred and famous name to Zacynthus, who is buried there on the lofty hill. For he was on the march back to Thebes in company with Hercules, after the slaying of Geryon, and was praising the exploit up to the skies. That monster was furnished with three lives and three right arms in a single body, and carried a head on each of three necks. Never did earth see another man whom a single death could not destroy — for whom the stern Sisters span a third lease of life when the thread had twice been snapped. Zacynthus displayed in triumph the prize taken from Geryon, and was calling the cattle to the water in the heat of noon, when a serpent that he trod on discharged from its swollen throat poison envenomed by the sun. The wound was fatal, and the Greek hero lay dead on Spanish soil. At a later time exiled colonists sailed hither before the wind — sons of Zacynthus, the island surrounded by the Ionian sea that once formed part of the kingdom of Laertes. These small beginnings were afterwards strengthened by men of Daunia in search of a habitation; they were sent forth by

§ 1.293  Ardea of famous name — a city ruled by heroic kings, and rich in the number of her sons. The freedom of the inhabitants and their ancestral glory were preserved by treaty; and by it the Carthaginians were forbidden to rule the city.
The Carthaginian leader broke the treaty and brought his camp-fires close and shook the wide plains with his marching host. He himself, shaking his head in fury, rode round the walls on his panting steed, taking the measure of the terrified buildings. He bade them open their gates at once and desert their rampart; he told them that, now they were besieged, their treaties and Italy would be far away, and that they could not hope for quarter, if defeated: "Decrees of the Senate," he cried, "law and justice, honour and Providence, are all in my hand now." In eager haste he confirmed his taunts by hurling his javelin and struck Caicus through his armour, as he stood on the wall and uttered idle threats. Pierced right through the middle, down he fell; his body at once slipped down from the steep rampart; and in death he restored to his conqueror the spear warmed with his blood. Then with loud shouting the soldiers followed the example of their leader, and wrapped the walls round with a black cloud of missiles. Their prowess was seen and not hidden by their numbers; turning his face to the general, each man fought as if he were the only combatant. One hurled volleys of bullets with Balearic sling: standing erect, he brandished the light thong thrice round his head, and launched his missile in the air, for the winds to carry; another poised whizzing stones with strong arm; a third threw a lance speeded by a light strap.

§ 1.318  In front of them all their leader, conspicuous in his father's armour, now hurls a brand smoking with pitchy flame, now presses on unwearied with stake or javelin or stone, or shoots arrows from the string — missiles dipped in serpent's poison and doubly fatal — and exults in the guile of his quiver. So the Dacian, in the warlike region of the Getic country, delighting to sharpen his arrows with the poison of his native land, pours them forth in sudden showers on the banks of the Hister, the river of two names.
The next task was to surround the hill with a front of towers and blockade the city with a ring of forts. Alas for Loyalty, worshipped by former ages but now known on earth by name only! The hardy citizens stand there, seeing escape cut off and their walls enclosed by a mound; but they think it a death worthy of Italy, for Saguntum to fall with her loyalty preserved. Now they exert all their strength with increased ardour: the catapult of Marseilles launches with a roar huge boulders from its tightened cords, and also, when the burden of the mighty engine is changed, discharges tree-trunks tipped with iron, and breaks a way through the ranks. Loud rose the noise on each side. They joined battle with as much fierceness as if Rome were besieged. Hannibal also shouted: "So many thousand men, people born in the midst of arms — why do we stand still before an enemy we have already conquered? Are we ashamed of our enterprise, or ashamed of our beginning? So much for splendid valour and the first

§ 1.343  exploit of your general! Is this the glorious news with which we intend to fill Italy? Are these the battles whose rumour we send before us?"
Fired by his words their courage rose high; the spirit of Hannibal sank deep into their hearts and inspired them; and the thought of wars to come spurred them on. They attack the rampart with bare hands and, when thrust down from the walls, leave there their severed limbs. A high mound was erected and placed parties of combatants above the city. But the besieged were protected and the enemy kept away from the gates by the falarica, which many arms at once were wont to poise. This was a missile of wood, terrible to behold, a beam chosen from the high mountains of the snow-covered Pyrenees, a weapon whose long iron point even walls could scarce withstand. Then the shaft, smeared with oily pitch and rubbed all round with black sulphur, sent forth smoke. When hurled like a thunderbolt from the topmost walls of the citadel, it clove the furrowed air with a flickering flame, even as a fiery meteor, speeding from heaven to earth, dazzles men's eyes with its blood-red tail. This weapon often confounded Hannibal when it carried aloft the smoking limbs of his men by its swift stroke; and, when in its flight it struck the side of a huge tower, it kindled a fire which burnt till all the woodwork of the tower was utterly consumed, and buried men and arms together under the blazing ruins. But at last the Carthaginians retreated from the rampart, sheltered by the close-packed shields of the serried tortoise, and sapped the wall unseen till it collapsed, and made a breach into the town.

§ 1.368  The rampart gave way, the walls built by Hercules sank down with a fearful crash, and the huge stones fell apart, and a mighty rumbling of the sky followed their fall. So the towering peaks of the high Alps, when a mass of rock is torn away from them, furrow the mountain-side with the roar of an avalanche. With haste the ruined rampart was raised again; and nought but the prostrate wall prevented both armies from fighting on in the wreckage that divided them.
First of all Murrus sprang forward, conspicuous for his youthful beauty. He was of Rutulian blood, born of a Saguntine mother; but he had Greek blood too, and by his two parents he combined the seed of Italy with that of Dulichium." When Aradus summoned his comrades with a mighty shout, Murrus watched his forward movement and stopped him; and the spear-point pierced the gap that came between the breastplate and the helmet. Then pinning him to the ground with his spear he taunted him as well: "False Carthaginian, you lie low; you were to be foremost, forsooth, in mounting the Capitol as a conqueror; was ever ambition so presumptuous? Go now, and fight the deity of the Styx instead!" Next, brandishing his fiery spear, he buried it in the groin of Hiberus who stood before him; and, treading on the features already convulsed in death, he cried: "Terrible as is your host, by this path must ye march to the walls of Rome; thus must ye go to the place whither ye are hastening." Then, when Hiberus tried to renew the combat, Murrus evaded the weapon and snatched the shield of his foe, and

§ 1.393  pierced his unprotected side. Rich in land and rich in flocks but unknown to fame, Hiberus used to wage war against wild beasts with bow and javelin, happy, alas, in his forests and worthy of praise in his life of retirement, if he had never carried his arrows outside his ancestral woodlands. In pity for him Ladmus came up, intent to strike. But Murrus cried with a savage laugh: "Tell Hamilcar's ghost of my right arm, which, when the rabble are slain, shall send Hannibal to keep company with you all." Then, rising erect, he smote with his sword the crested brazen helmet and scattered the rattling bones of the skull right through their covering. Next, Chremes, whose unshorn brow was surrounded and shaded by his hair, and who made a shaggy cap of his locks; then Masulis, and Kartalo, vigorous for war in green old age, who feared not to stroke the lioness with cubs; and Bagrada, whose shield was blazoned with the river's urn; and Hiempsal, one of the Nasamonians who plunder the devouring Syrtis and make bold to pillage shipwrecks; — all these were slain alike by that wrathful right hand; and so was Athyr, skilled to disarm serpents of their fell poison, to send fierce water-snakes to sleep by his touch, and to test a child of doubtful birth by placing a horned snake beside it. Slain too was Hiarbas, who dwelt near the prophetic groves of the Garamantes, and whose helmet was conspicuous for the horn that curved over his temples; in vain, alas, he blamed the oracle that had so often promised a safe return, and Jupiter for his breach of faith.

§ 1.418  By this time the rampart had grown higher with heaps of corpses, and the ruins smoked with horrid slaughter. Then with eager shout Murrus challenged Hannibal to combat.
But Hannibal was far away, where a band of defenders had issued unexpected from the gates. As if no missiles or swords could bring him injury or death, he mingled with both armies and raged far and wide, brandishing the sword which old Temisus from the shore of the Hesperides had lately forged with magic spells — Temisus the powerful enchanter who believed that iron was hardened by incantations. Mighty was Hannibal as Mars when he careers far and wide in his war-chariot through the land of the Bistones," brandishing the weapon that defeated the band of Titans, and ruling the flame of battle by the snorting of his steeds and the noise of his chariot. Already Hannibal had sent down to Hades Hostus and Pholus the Rutulian and huge Metiscus, and, with them, Lygdus and Durius and fair-haired Galaesus, and a pair of twins, Chromis and Gyas. Next came Daunus, than whom no man was more skilled to move assemblies by the charm of eloquence and to mould men's minds by speech; nor was any man a more sagacious guardian of the laws. He mingled taunts with his blows: "What madness, inherited from your father, brings you hither, man of Carthage? This is no Tyrian city built by a woman's hands or bought for money; this is not a shore with a measured space of sand conceded to exiles ": you see here walls raised by gods, and allies of Rome." But even as he shouted such boasts over all the plain, Hannibal seized him with a mighty effort, and bore

§ 1.450  him from the centre of the fighting men, and bound his hands behind him, and reserved him to suffer the punishment of wrath deferred. Then, reproaching his men, he ordered the standards to be advanced, and right through the piled corpses and heaps of dead he pointed out the way in his frenzy, calling to each man by name, and boldly promising them as booty the still untaken city.
But when frightened messengers brought news that in a different quarter the fighting was fierce and they were losing the day, and that propitious gods had granted this day to Murrus, then Hannibal, abandoning his mighty exploits, flew off with frantic haste and the speed of a madman. The plume that nodded on his head showed a deadly brightness, even as a comet terrifies fierce kings with its flaming tail and showers blood-red fire: the boding meteor spouts forth ruddy rays from heaven, and the star flashes with a dreadful menacing light, threatening earth with destruction. Weapons, standards, and men gave way before his headlong career, and both armies were terrified; the fiery point of his spear shed a dreadful light, and his shield flashed far and wide. So, when the Aegean sea rises to the stars, and all along the coast, with a mighty roaring of the North-west wind, the waves carry ashore the piled-up sea, the hearts of seamen turn cold and tremble; the wind roars far away, and with swelling blast and arching waves crosses the frightened Cyclades. Neither missiles from the walls, all aimed at him alone, nor smoking brands before his face, nor boulders hurled cunningly from engines, can arrest his course. As soon as he saw the glittering helmet on the head of Murrus, and his arms shining in the sunlight with blood-bedabbled gold, he began

§ 1.478  in his rage: Behold Murrus! Murrus is the man to impede the prowess of Libya and our might} enterprise, the man to hinder the war against Rome! Soon will I make you learn the power of your useless treaty and your river Ebro." Take with you loyalty unstained and observance of law; leave to me the gods whom I have deceived!" And Murrus addressed him thus: "I have longed for your coming; my heart has long been eager for battle and aflame with hope to take your life; take the deserved reward of your guile, and seek for Italy in the bowels of the earth. My right hand spares you the long march to Roman territory and the ascent of the snowy Pyrenees and the Alps."
Meanwhile, seeing his foe come close, and that he could trust the overhanging ground where he stood, Hannibal rent the rampart and seized a huge rock and hurled it down upon the head of the climber; and the stone fell swiftly with downward force. Smitten by the tough fragment of the wall, Murrus crouched down. But soon shame fired his heart; and conscious courage, though taken at a disadvantage, did not fail him. Grinding his teeth, he struggled on, and with difficult effort climbed up over the stones that barred his way. But when Hannibal shone closer with nearer light, and moved on in all his bulk, then the eyes of Murrus grew dark before his mighty foe; it seemed as if the whole Carthaginian army were moving to close round him, and as if all the host were attacking him. He seemed to see a thousand arms and countless flashing swords, and a forest of plumes waving on his foe's helmet. Both armies shouted, as if all Saguntum were on fire; Murrus in fear dragged along his limbs faint with the

§ 1.604  approach of death, and uttered his latest prayer: "Alcides, our founder, whose footprints we inhabit on hallowed ground, turn aside the storm that threatens us, if I defend thy walls with no sluggish arm."
And, while he prayed and raised his eyes to heaven in supplication, the other spoke thus: "Consider whether the hero of Tiryns will not far more justly assist us in our enterprise. If thou frownest not on rival valour, invincible Alcides, thou wilt recognize that I come not short of thy young years; bring thy power to help me; and, as thou art renowned for the destruction of Troy long ago," so support me when I destroy the scions of the Phrygian race." Thus Hannibal spoke; and at the same time, clutching his sword in fury, he drove it home till the hilt stopped it; then he drew back the weapon, and his dread armour was drenched with the blood of the dying man. At once the fighters rush forward, troubled by the great man's fall, and defy the proud conqueror to take the famous armour and body of Murrus. Their numbers grow by mutual encouragement; they unite and charge in a serried mass. Now stones rattle on Hannibal's helmet, and now spears on his brazen shield; they attack with stakes, and vie with one another in swinging and hurling weights of lead. The plume was shorn from his head, and the glorious horsehair crest that nodded over the slain was torn in pieces. And now streams of sweat started out and bathed his limbs, and pointed missiles stuck fast in the scales of his breastplate. No respite was possible and no change of armour, beneath the rain of blows. His knees shake, and his weary arms lose hold of his shield.

§ 1.531  Now too a constant steam comes smoking from his parched lips, with deep-drawn breaths, and men heard a groaning forced out with panting effort, and an inarticulate cry that broke against the helmet. So the furious wild boar, when pursued by baying hounds of Sparta, and when debarred from the forest by the hunters in his way, erects the bristles on his shaggy back and fights his last battle, champing his own foaming blood; and now with a yell he dashes his twin tusks against the spears. By courage Hannibal overcomes disaster; he is glad that valour is made brighter by hardship; and he finds an equivalent for danger in the reward of glory.
Now the sky was cloven, and a sudden earth-shaking crash burst forth among the thick clouds, and right above the battle the Father of heaven thundered twice with repeated bolt. Then, mid the blind hurricane of the winds, there sped between the clouds a spear to punish unrighteous warfare, and the well-aimed point lodged in the front of Hannibal's thigh. Ye Tarpeian rocks, where the gods have their dwelling, and ye fires of Laomedon, altars of Troy, that burn for ever with a flame tended by Vestals, how much, alas. Heaven promised to you by the appearance of that deceptive weapon! If the spear had pierced deeper into the fierce warrior, the Alps had been for ever closed to mortal men, and Allia would not now rank after the waters of Lake Trasimene.
But Juno, surveying from the summit of the lofty Pyrenees his youthful prowess and martial ardour, when she saw the wound inflicted by the point of

§ 1.551  the flying spear, hastened thither through the sky, veiled by a dark cloud, and plucked forth the stout spear from the tough bone. He covered with his shield the blood that poured over his limbs, and went back from the rampart, dragging his feet one after the other slowly and gradually with uncertain effort.
Night at last buried land and sea in welcome darkness, and separated the combatants by robbing them of light. But resolute hearts kept watch, and they rebuilt the wall — their task for the night. The besieged were spurred on by the extremity of their danger, and their last stand was more furious in their desperate plight. Here boys and feeble old men, and there women, strove valiantly to carry on the piteous task in the hour of peril, and soldiers with streaming wounds carried stones to the wall. And now the senators and noble elders were heedful of their special duty. Meeting in haste, they chose envoys, and urged them with entreaties to be active in this grievous plight and bring safety back, and to entreat the aid of Roman armies in their extremity. Go with speed; urge on your ship with oar and sail, while the wounded wild beast is shut up in his camp; we must take advantage of the interruption of war, and rise to fame by danger. Go with speed; lament our loyalty and our crumbling walls, and bring us better fortune from our ancient home. This is our final charge — return before Saguntum falls." Then the men hasten to the nearest coast, and fly with swollen sail over the foaming sea.
The dewy spouse of Tithonus was banishing sleep, and her ruddy steeds had breathed on the mountaintops with their first neighings, and tugged at their roseate reins.

§ 1.580  Now high on the walls the inhabitants, oft on their finished work, point from the walls to their city, fenced in by towers that grew in the night. All activity was suspended; for the sorrowing Carthaginians relaxed the vigour of the blockade, and their martial ardour paused; it was to their leader in his great danger that their thoughts were turned.
Meantime the Rutulians" had travelled far over the waters, and the hills of Hercules began to emerge from the sea, and to lift up from the range the cloud-capt cliffs of Monoecus. Thracian Boreas is the sole lord of these rocks, a savage domain; ever freezing, he now lashes the shore, and now beats the Alps themselves with his hissing wings; and, when he spreads over the land from the frozen Bear, no wind dares to rise against him. He churns the sea in rushing eddies, while the broken billows roar and the mountains are buried beneath water piled above them; and now in his career he raises the Rhine and the Rhone up to the clouds. Having escaped this awful fury of Boreas, the envoys spoke sadly one to another of the hazards of war succeeded by the hazards of the sea, and about the doubtful issue of events. "Alas for our country, the famous home of Loyalty! how do thy fortunes now stand? is thy sacred citadel still erect upon the hills? Or — alas, ye gods! — are ashes all that remain of so mighty a name? Grant us light airs, and send forth favouring breezes, if the Carthaginian fire is not yet triumphant over the tops of our temples, and if the Roman fleets have power to help us."
Thus night and day they mourned and wept, until

§ 1.605  their ship put in at the shore of Laurentum, where father Tiber, richer by the tribute of the Anio's waters, runs down with yellow stream into the sea. From here they soon reached the city of their Roman kinsmen.
The consul summoned the worshipful assembly — the Fathers rich in unstained poverty, with names acquired by conquests — a senate rivalling the gods in virtue. Brave deeds and a sacred passion for justice exalted these men; their dress was rough and their meals simple, and the hands they brought from the crooked plough were ready with the sword-hilt; content with little, uncovetous of riches, they often went back to humble homes from the triumphal car.
At the sacred doors and on the threshold of the temple captured chariots were hung, glorious spoils of war, and armour taken from hostile generals, and axes ruthless in battle, and perforated shields, and weapons to which the blood still clung, and the bolts of city-gates. Here one might see the wars with Carthage, the Aegatian islands, and the ships' prows which testified that Carthage had been driven from the sea when her fleet was defeated on the water. Here were the helmets of the Senones and the insolent sword that decreed the weight of gold paid down, and the armour that was borne in the procession of Camillus on his return, when the Gauls had been repulsed from the citadel; here were the spoils of the scion of Aeacus, and here the standards of the

§ 1.628  Epirote," the bristling plumed helmets of the Ligures, the rude targets brought back from Spanish natives, and Alpine javelins.
But when the mourning garb of the suppliants made plain their calamities and sufferings in war, the Senate seemed to see before them the figure of Saguntum appealing for help in her last hour. Then aged Sicoris thus began his sorrowful tale: "O people famous for keeping of your oaths, people whom the nations defeated by your arms admit with reason to be the seed of Mars, think not that we have crossed the sea because of trifling dangers. We have seen our native city besieged and its walls rocking; we have looked on Hannibal, a man to whom raging seas or some union of wild beasts gave birth. I pray that Heaven may keep the deadly arm of that stripling far from these walls, and confine him to war against us. With what might he hurls the crashing beam! How his stature increases in battle! Scorning the limit of the Ebro, and crossing the range of the Pyrenees, he has roused up Calpe and stirs up the peoples hidden in the sands of the Syrtis," and has greater cities in his eye. This foaming billow, rising" in mid-ocean, will dash itself against the cities of Italy, if you refuse to stop it. Do you believe that Hannibal, frantic for the war he has sworn to wage, will be content with this reward of his great enterprise and his breach of treaty by force of arms — the conquest and submission of Saguntum? Hasten, ye men of Rome, to put out the flame in its beginning, or the trouble may recur too late when the danger has grown greater. And yet — ah me! — if no danger threatened you, if the hidden sparks of war were not at this moment smoking, would it be beneath you to

§ 1.655  hold out to your city of Saguntum a kindred hand? All Spain threatens us, all Gaul with her swift horsemen, and all thirsty Libya from the torrid zone. By the long-cherished origins of the Rutulian race, by the household gods of Laurentum, and by the pledges of our mother Troy, preserve those righteous men who were forced to leave the walls of Acrisius for the towers of Hercules. It Mas your glory to help Zancle against the armies of the Sicilian despot; you deemed it worthy of your Trojan ancestors to defend the walls of Capua and drive away the strength of the Samnites. I was once a dweller in Daunia — bear witness, ye springs and secret pools of the river Numicius! — and when Ardea sent forth the sons in which she was too rich, I bore forth the sacred things and the inner shrine from the house of Turnus, my ancestor, and carried the name of Laurentum beyond the Pyrenees. Why should I be scorned, like a limb cut off and torn from the body } and why should our blood expiate the breach of the treaty?"
At last, when they ceased to speak, it was pitiful to see them dash their unkempt bodies down upon the floor, with their open hands held up and their garments torn. Next the Fathers held counsel and carried on anxious debate. Lentulus, as if he actually saw the houses of Saguntum burning, moved that they should demand the surrender of Hannibal for punishment, and that, if Carthage refused to give him up, her territory should be ravaged with instant
' A small river of Latium runnina: into the sea between Ardea and Laurentum: it was believed that Aeneas was buried beside the river.
The speaker identifies himself with the original settlers at Saguntum.

§ 1.679  war. But Fabius, peering warily into the future, no lover of doubtful courses, slow to provoke war, and skilful to prolong a campaign without unsheathing the sword, was next to speak. He said that in so grave a matter they must first find out whether the madness of Hannibal began the war, or the senate of Carthage ordered the army to advance; they must send envoys to examine and report. Mindful of the future and musing on the war to come, Fabius, prophet-like, uttered this advice from his lofty soul. Thus many a veteran pilot, when from his high poop he sees by tokens that the gale will soon fall upon his canvas, reefs his sails in haste upon the topmast. But tears, and grief mixed with resentment, made them all eager to hasten the unknown future. Senators were chosen to approach Hannibal; if he turned a deaf ear to his engagements and fought on, they must then turn their steps to the city of Carthafre and declare war without delay against men unmindful of the gods.

§ 2.1  BOOK II
And now the Roman vessel, sailing forth over the blue water, carried leading senators with the stern behests of the high-souled Senate. Fabius, descended from Hercules, could tell of ancestors three hundred in number, who were swept away in a single day by the hurricane of war, when Fortune frowned on the enterprise of the patricians and stained the banks of the Cremera with their blood. With Fabius went Publicola, the Spartan descendant of mighty Volesus, and shared the duty in common with his colleague. Publicola showed by his name his friendship for the people, and the name stood first on the roll of Roman consuls, when his ancestor held office.
When word was brought to Hannibal that the

§ 2.12  envoys had lowered sail and were gaining the harbour, and that they brought a decree of the Senate demanding peace — a belated peace when war was already raging — and also the punishment of the general as laid down in the treaty, he quickly ordered squadrons in arms to display all along the shore menacing standards, shields newly dyed with blood, and weapons red with slaughter. "This is no time for words," he cried; "all the land is loud with the blare of the Tyrrhene trumpet and the groans of the dying. Let them, while they may, put to sea again, and not make haste to join the besieged Saguntines; we know the licence of passion and of weapons reeking with slaughter, and the boldness of the sword, when once unsheathed." Thus accosted by Hannibal, the envoys, driven away along the unfriendly shore, turned their course about and made for the Carthaginian senate.
Then Hannibal shook his fist at the vessel as she spread her sails: "Ye gods," he cried, "it is my head, even mine, which yonder ship seeks to carry across the sea! Woe be to minds that cannot see, and to hearts puffed up with prosperity! The unrighteous land demands Hannibal, sword in hand, for punishment. Without your asking, I shall come; you shall see enough of me before you expect me; and Rome, which is now protecting foreign households, shall tremble for her own gates and her own hearths. Though ye clamber a second time up the steep cliffs of the Tarpeian rock and take refuge in your lofty citadel, ye shall not again, when made prisoners, ransom your lives for any weight of gold."
These words fired the courage of his troops, and they fought with fresh fury. Instantly the sky was hidden with clouds of missiles, and the towers of Saguntum rattled under a thick hail of stones.

§ 2.38  Men were spurred on by their eagerness to wage war under the eyes of the retreating vessel, while she could still see the walls in her course. But their leader, conspicuous with his wound exposed to view, himself demanded of his excited soldiers the promised scapegoat, and shouted his repeated complaint with frenzied utterance: "Comrades, the Romans demand my surrender; and Fabius on the deck displays the fetters for me, and the wrath of the imperious Senate summons me. If you are weary of our enterprise, if the war we have begun is blameworthy, then make haste to recall the Roman ship from the sea. I am ready: hand me over to the torturers with fettered wrists. For why should I, though I trace my pedigree to Belus of the East, and am girt about by so many nations of Africa and Spain — why should I refuse to endure slavery? Nay, let the Roman rule for ever, and proudly spread his tyranny over the world for all generations: let us tremble at their nod and obey their bidding." His men groan aloud, and turn the evil omen upon the race of the Aeneadae, and increase their ardour by shouting.
Among the loosely-girt Libyans and the peoples of two tongues, Asbyte had come boldly to fight against Rome with troops from Marmarica. She was the child of Hiarbas the Garamantian; and he was the son of Ammon and ruled with extended sway the caves of Medusa, daughter of Phorcys, and the Macae who dwell by the river Cinyps, and the Cyrenians whom the cruel sun scorches; he was obeyed by the Nasamones, hereditary subjects, by ever-parched Barce, by the forests of the Autololes,

§ 2.63  by the shore of treacherous Syrtis, and by the Gaetulians who ride without reins. And he had built a marriage-bed for the nymph Tritonis, from whom the princess was born; she claimed Jupiter as her forefather and derived her name from the prophetic grove." She was a maiden and ever lay alone, and had spent her early years in the forest-chase; never did the wool-basket soften her hands nor the spindle give her occupation; but she loved Dictynna and the woodlands, and to urge on with her heel the panting steed and lay low wild beasts without mercy. Even so the band of Amazons in Thrace traverse Rhodope and the high forests on the stony ridges of Mount Pangaeus, and tire out the Hebrus by their speed; they spurn all suitors — the Cicones and Getae, the royal house of Rhesus, and the Bistones with their crescent-shaped shields.
And thus conspicuous in her native dress — with her long hair bound by a gift from the Hesperides, with her right breast bared for battle, while the shield glittered on her left arm and the target of the Amazons protected her in battle — she urged on her smoking chariot with furious speed. Some of her companions drove two-horse chariots, while others rode on horseback; and some of the princess's escort had already submitted to the bond of wedlock, but the maidens of the troop outnumbered these. She herself proudly displayed before the line the steeds which she had chosen from the droves among distant native huts; keeping near the mound, she drove round the plain in circles; and, hurling her whizzing missiles through the air, she planted them in the summit of the citadel.

§ 2.89  Again and again she hurled her weapons within the walls; but old Mopsus resented it, and sped from the high walls Cretan arrows from his twanging bow, and launched through the clear sky deadly wounds with the winged steel. He was a Cretan, who had voyaged from the caverns of the Curetes that ring with brass. When young and nimble, he was wont to beat the coverts of Dicte with feathered shafts: oft did he bring down from the sky the wandering bird; from a distance he would strike and stay the stag that was escaping from the nets along the plain; and the beast would collapse, surprised by a blow unforeseen, before the bow had ceased to twang. Gortyna, though she rivals the arrows of the East," had more reason then to boast of Mopsus than of any other archer. But when, grown poor, he was unwilling to pass his whole life in hunting, and when his poverty drove him across the sea, he had come, a humble guest, with his wife Meroe and his sons; and destiny had led him to ill-fated Saguntum. From the young men's shoulders there hung quivers and their father's arrows and the winged steel that is Crete's weapon. Mopsus, between his sons, was raining arrows from his Cydonian bow of horn upon the Massylian warriors. Already he had laid low Garamus and bold Thyrus, and Gisgo rushing on together with fierce Bagas, and Lixus, yet beardless, who did not deserve to meet an arrow so unerring; and he fought on with his quiver filled. Now he turned his eyes and his weapon against the face of Asbyte, and prayed to Jupiter; but his prayer found no favour with the god whom he had deserted. For

§ 2.116  Harpe, a Nasamonian maid, when she saw the fatal bow turned about, placed herself in the way of the distant danger, and anticipated the mortal blow; and even as she shouted, the flying arrow struck her open mouth and passed through; and her sisters first saw the point standing out behind her. But Asbyte, furious at the fall of her comrade, raised the prostrate body and wetted with her tears the swimming eyes with their failing light; and then, putting forth all the strength of sorrow, she hurled her deadly spear against the city walls. On it flew and pierced with sudden blow the shoulder of Dorylas, as he strove to launch the steel into the air with loosened thumb — the ends of the bow already met, and the arrow filled the space left by the expanded string. Then he fell down headlong towards his sudden wound from the high bastions of the wall, and beside his falling body the arrows poured forth from his upset quiver. His brother, Icarus, armed alike and standing near him, cried aloud and sought to avenge that pitiable death. But, as he put forth his weapon in haste for battle, Hannibal hurled a great stone and stopped him with its whirling mass. His limbs collapsed, stiff with icy cold, and his failing hand returned to the quiver the arrow that belonged to it.
But Mopsus, when both his sons were slain, caught up his bow in his grief and rage, and bent it thrice; but thrice his hand fell, and sorrow robbed him of his accustomed skill. Too late, alas! he regrets to have left the land he loved. Eagerly he clutched the stone that had felled Icarus; but, when the old man felt that his feeble blows on his own breast were vain, and knew that his arm could not help him to end his sore grief by death, he threw himself headlong

§ 2.146  from the top of the huge tower; and, falling heavily down, laid at full length his dying limbs on his son's body.
While the Cretan stranger fell thus in foreign war, Theron, who guarded Hercules' temple and was priest at his altar, urged on the fighters and attempted a fresh effort. Unbarring a gate, he sent out a force to surprise the Carthaginians, and the fighting was fierce. He bore no spear in his hand nor helmet on his head; but, trusting in his broad shoulders and youthful strength, he laid the enemy low with a club, and craved no sword. The skin stripped from a lion was laid on his head, and raised the terrible open mouth aloft on his tall figure. He bore likewise on his shield a hundred snakes and the monster of Lerna — the hydra that multiplied when the serpents were cut in two. Juba and his father Thapsus; Micipsa, famous for the glory of his ancestor, and Saces the Moor — all these he had driven from the walls and pursued headlong to the shore as they fled in disorder; and his unaided arm made the sea foam with blood. Not satisfied with the death of Idus and the death of Cotho of Marmarica, nor with the slaughter of Rothus and the slaughter of Jugurtha, he raised his ambition to Asbyte's chariot, the glittering mantle that covered her, and her bright jewelled target; and all his mind was fixed on the warrior maiden. When the princess saw him rushing on with bloodstained weapon, she made her horses swerve aside; and thus, evading him by wheeling to the left, she cleaves the plain and flies like a bird over the curving field, showing him the back of her chariot.

§ 2.173  And, while she vanished from his sight, and the hoofs of her horses, galloping swifter than the wind, raised a cloud of dust on the field, her crashing wheels crushed the opposing ranks far and wide; and the maiden launched spear after spear upon them in their confusion. Here Lycas fell, and Thamyris, and Eurydamas of famous name, the scion of a noble stock. His ancestor, poor fool! had dared long ago to covet a splendid marriage with the wife of the Ithacan; but he was taken in by the trick of the chaste wife, who unravelled every night the threads of her web. He had declared that Ulysses was drowned at sea; but the Ithacan inflicted death upon the prater — real death and no fiction; and funeral took the place of marriage. Now his latest descendant, Eurydamas, was slain by the hand of the Numidian queen: the fatal chariot thundered over his broken bones and kept its course.
And now Asbyte came back to the place, when she saw Theron busy with battle; and, aiming her fierce battle-axe at the centre of his brow, she vowed to Dictynna a glorious spoil from it, even the lion-skin of Hercules. Nor did Theron hang back: eager for so great a prize, he rose up right in front of the horses and held before them the shaggy head of the tawny lion and thrust it in their frightened faces. Frantic with fear unfelt before — fear of the menacing open jaws — the coursers upset the heavy car and turned it over. Then, as Asbyte tried to flee from the fight, he sprang to stop her, and smote her between the twin temples with his club; he spattered the glowing wheels and the reins, disordered by the terrified horses, with the brains that gushed from the broken skull. Then he seized her axe and, eager to display

§ 2.202  his slaughter of her, cut off the head of the maiden when she rolled out of her chariot. Not yet was his rage sated; for he fixed her head on a lofty pike, for all to see, and bade men bear it in front of the Punic army, and drive the chariot with speed to the town. Blind to his doom and deserted by divine favour, Theron fought on; but death was near him. For Hannibal came up, with wrath and menace expressed in every feature; with frenzied heart he raged at the slaughter of Asbyte, and at the horrid trophy of her head borne aloft. And, as soon as his shield of glittering brass shone out, and the armour on his swift limbs, rattling afar, thundered forth doom, the enemy were suddenly stricken with fear and fled in haste towards the town. So, in the late twilight, evening sends the birds on their light wings back from their feeding-ground to their familiar roosts; or so, when Cecropian Hymettus scares with menace of a rain-cloud the swarms scattered over the flowers, the bees, heavy with honey, hasten back to their luscious combs and hives of fragrant cork; they fly in a close pack, and unite in a deep humming noise outside the hives. Thus panic drove the frightened soldiers headlong, and they rushed on blindly. Ah! how sweet is the light of heaven! Why do men shun with such terror the death that must some day come, and the sentence pronounced against them at birth? They curse their design, and lament their sally from the protection of the gates and the wall. Theron can hardly stop their flight, using force sometimes and sometimes loud threats: "Stand fast, my men; yon enemy belongs to me; stand fast — victory in a mighty combat is coming to me.

§ 2.229  My right hand shall drive away the Carthaginians from the wall and houses of Saguntum: do your part as mere spectators; or, if urgent fear drives you all into the city — a sorry sight — then shut your gates against me alone."
But Hannibal was hastening with headlong speed towards the walls, while the besieged were in fear, trembling for their safety and despairing of life; his purpose was to attack the city first through its open gates, deferring the slaughter of his foe. When the bold guardian of the temple of Hercules saw this, he sprang forward and, urged to speed by his fears, outstripped the foeman. The wrath of the Tyrian leader waxed yet fiercer: "You, worthy keeper of the city's gates, shall first suffer death at my hands, and by your death throw open the walls." Rage prevented further speech, and he whirled round his flashing sword; but the Daunian warrior was before him and swinging his club with mighty force threw it at Hannibal. Beneath that heavy blow his armour rang with a hollow sound; and the weighty knotted club, crashing upon the hollow metal, rebounded high. Then, unarmed and betrayed by his unsuccessful stroke, Theron urged his limbs to hasty flight and ran round the walls, seeking to escape by his speed. The conqueror pursued fiercely and taunted the back of the fugitive. The matrons cried out together, and their voices, together with wailings, rose up from the lofty summit of the wall; now they address Theron by his familiar name, and now, too late, they wish for power to open the gate to him in his extremity; but, even as they encourage him, their hearts are shaken by the fear that, together with him, they may admit within the walls their mighty foe.

§ 2.257  Hannibal struck the weary runner with his shield and sprang upon him as he fell; then, pointing to the citizens watching from the walls, "Go!" he cried, "and comfort hapless Asbyte by your speedy death!" and at the same time buried his fatal sword in the throat of a victim who was fain to lose his life. Then the conqueror drove off with joy the horses taken from Asbyte, carrying them off from before the very walls, where the body of fugitives had used them to block the entrance of the gate; and off he sped in the chariot through the triumphant lines.
But the band of Numidians, frantic with grief, made haste with the sad office of burial, and gave Asbyte the tribute of a pyre, and seized the dead man's body and carried it thrice round her ashes. Next they cast into the flames his murderous club and his dreadful head-dress; and, when the face and beard were burnt, they left the unsightly corpse to the Spanish vultures.
Meanwhile the rulers of Carthage took counsel concerning the war and the answer they must send to the Italian people; and the formidable approach of the envoys made them uneasy. On the one hand they were swayed by loyalty to the treaty, by the gods who witnessed it, and by the compact to which their fathers swore; and on the other by the popularity of the ambitious young leader; and they nursed a hope of victory. But Hanno, hereditary foe and constant assailant of Hannibal, with these words rebuked their zeal and heedless partiality: "Senators, all things indeed intimidate me from speaking; for the angry threats of my opponents have proved unable to restrain themselves. Yet I shall not flinch, not even though I must soon die by violence. I shall

§ 2.282  appeal to the gods, and I shall tell Heaven, ere I die, the measures demanded by the safety of the state and of our country in its extremity. Not now only, when it is too late, when Saguntum is besieged and burning, do I prophesy these evils: I made a clean breast of my fears: I warned you before and, while I live, shall go on warning you, not to suffer that instrument of destruction to be bred up in camps and in war; for I marked the poison of his nature and his hereditary ambition, even as the watcher of the starry heavens foretells, not in vain, to hapless seamen the coming fury of the sea and the approaching blasts of the North-west wind. Hannibal has taken his seat on a throne and seized the reins of government; and therefore the treaty is broken by the sword, and by the sword every obligation is broken; cities are shaken, and the distant Aeneadae are alert to attack Carthage, and peace has been thrown to the winds. The young man is driven mad by the ghost and evil spirit of his father, by that fatal ceremony," by the gods who have turned against the breaker of faith and treaties, and by the Massylian priestess. Blinded and dazzled by new-gained power, he is overthrowing cities; but are they foreign cities? It is not Saguntum that he is attacking — so may he atone for this crime in his own person and not involve his country in his punishment — now, even now, I declare, he is attacking the walls of Carthage and besieging us with his army. We drenched the valleys of Henna with the blood of the brave, and could hardly carry on the war by hiring the Spartan. We filled Scylla's caverns with shipwrecks; and, when our fleets were borne away by the tide, we saw Charybdis whirling the rowers' benches round and spouting them forth from her depths.

§ 2.309  Madman, with no fear of God in your heart, look at the Aegatian islands and the limbs of Libya drifting far away! Whither are you rushing? Do you seek fame for yourself by the ruin of your country? The huge Alps will sink down, forsooth, at sight of the stripling warrior; and the snowy mass of the Apennines, that raise their summit as high as the Alps, will sink down also. But suppose, vain pretender, that you reach the plains; that nation has a spirit that never dies; sword and flame can never wear them out. You will not find yourself fighting there against the stock that came from Neritus. Their soldiers grow to manhood in the camp, and their faces rub against the helmet before they are marked by the golden down. Nor is rest known to them in age; even old men, who have shed their blood in long service, stand in the front rank and challenge death. My own eyes have seen Roman soldiers, when run through the body, snatch the weapon from their wound and hurl it at the foe; I have seen their courage and the way they die and their passion for glory. From how much bloodshed does Hanno save Carthage, if she sets her face against war and does not wantonly confront the conquerors!" To this speech Gestar replied. Harsh and impatient, he had long been nursing bitter wrath, and twice had he tried to raise a disturbance and silence Hanno in the middle of his speech. "Ye gods!" he cried: "is this a Roman soldier, seated in the council of Libya and the Carthaginian senate? Arms he has not yet taken up; but in all else the foeman stands declared before us. Now he threatens us with the twin ranges of Alps and Apennines, now with the Sicilian sea and the waves on Scylla's

§ 2.335  shore; he is not far from fearing the very shades and ghosts of the Romans: such praise does he heap upon their wounds and deaths, and exalts the nation to the sky. But, though his cold heart trembles with base fear, take my word for it, that the foe whom we are engaging is mortal. I was looking on, when Regulus, the hope and pride of Hector's race, was dragged along amid the shouts of the populace to his dark dungeon, with both hands bound fast behind his back; I was looking on, when he hung high upon the tree and saw Italy from his lofty cross. Nor again do I dread the brows that wear the helmet in early boyhood, nor the heads that carry the steel cap before their time. The temper of our people is not so sluggish. Look at the Libyan squadrons: how many of them vie in exertions beyond their years, and go to war on bare-backed horses! Look at Hannibal himself. When he was first able to utter speech from his childish lips, he pledged himself to war and the clarion's sound, and swore to consume the Phrygian people with fire, and fought in fancy the campaigns of his father, Hamilcar. Therefore, let the Alps soar to heaven, and the Apennines lift their glittering peaks to the stars: through rocks and snows — I will say it, that even an idle boast may sting a traitor's heart — through the sky itself our pioneer will find a way. Shameful is it to shun a path that Hercules trod and to shrink back from repeating his exploit. Hanno exaggerates the defeats of Libya and the conflagration of our first war with Rome, and forbids us to bear hardship again in defence of freedom. Let Hanno still his agitation and fears, and keep his sobbing breath, like an unwarlike woman, behind the walls of his house.

§ 2.363  But we shall march against the foe — we who are determined, even if Jupiter is not on our side, to drive foreign rulers far from Tyrian Byrsa. But, if Fate fights against us and Mars has already condemned Carthage and departed from her, I shall choose rather to fall; I shall not hand over my glorious fatherland to eternal slavery, and I shall go down free to Acheron. For, ye gods! what are the demands of Fabius? Lay down your arms at once and depart from the captured citadel of Saguntum. Next, your picked troops must pile their shields and burn them; your ships must be burnt, and you must withdraw altogether from the sea.' Ye gods, if Carthage never deserved such punishment, prevent the abomination, and keep the hands of our general unfettered." Then he sat down, and the senators were permitted to vote according to custom. But Hanno insisted that the spoils of war should be at once given up, and also the first breaker of the treaty. Then indeed the senate, as excited as if the enemy Avere bursting into the temple, sprang up and prayed the gods to turn the evil omen against Latium. But when Fabius perceived the division of opinion, and that their disloyal minds were inclining to war, he could master his resentment no longer; and he demanded a swift decision. When the senate was summoned, he began thus: "I carry war and peace here in my lap; choose which ye will have, and cheat me not by an ambiguous answer." The angry senators said they would accept neither. Then, as if he were pouring out battle and war enclosed in his arms; "Take war," he cried, "a fatal war for Libya, and

§ 2.389  like in its issue to the last" — and therewith he shook loose the folds of his gown. Then he returned to his native city, a harbinger of war.
While this debate went on in the kingdom of the exile, Elissa," Hannibal swiftly despoiled those tribes whose loyalty was waxing faint as the war dragged on; then, loaded with plunder, he took his army back to the walls of Saguntum.
But behold! the peoples who dwell by the Atlantic brought gifts to the general. They gave him a shield that glittered with cruel sheen, the work of Gallician craftsmen; a helmet wreathed with flashing plumes, on the height of whose white crest snowy feathers nodded and waved; a sword and a spear that, though it was but one, was to slay its thousands. There was also a cuirass wrought with triple bosses of gold, a defence that no weapon could pierce. This armour was wrought throughout of bronze and tough steel, and covered richly with the gold of the Tagus; and Hannibal surveyed each part of it with joy and triumph in his eyes, and he delighted to see there depicted the beginnings of Carthage.
Dido was shown building the city of infant Carthage; her men had beached their ships and were busily engaged. Some were enclosing a harbour with piers; to others dwellings were assigned by Bitias, a righteous and venerable old man. Men pointed to the head of a warhorse which they had found in the soil when digging, and hailed the omen with a shout. Amid these scenes Aeneas was shown, robbed of his ships and men and cast up by the sea; with his right hand he made supplication. The hapless queen looked eagerly upon him with unclouded brow and with looks already friendly.

§ 2.416  Next, the art of Gallicia had fashioned the cave and the secret tryst of the lovers; high rose the shouting and the baying of hounds; and the mounted huntsmen, alarmed by a sudden rainfall, took shelter in the forest. Not far away, the fleet of the Aeneadae had left the shore and was making for the open sea, while Elissa was calling them back in vain. Then Dido by herself was standing wounded on a huge pyre, and charging a later generation of Tyrians to avenge her by war; and the Dardan, out at sea, was watching the blazing pile and spreading his sails for his high destiny. On another part of the shield Hannibal prayed at the altars of the nether gods, and, with the Stygian priestess, made a secret libation of blood, and swore to fight against the Aeneadae from his youth up. And old Hamilcar was there, riding proudly over the Sicilian fields; one might think that he was alive and rousing breathless conflict — fire shines in his eyes, and his image is grim with menace.
The left side also of the shield was filled with Spartan warriors, carved in high relief; they were led in triumph by victorious Xanthippus, who came from Amyclae, the city of Leda. Near them hung Regulus, glorious in suffering, beneath a picture of his punishment, setting to Saguntum a noble example of loyalty. Hard by was a happier scene — herds of wild beasts chased by hunters, and African huts, carved in shining metal. Not far away the savage sunburnt sister of a blackamoor soothed lionesses, her companions, with her native speech. The shepherd roamed free over the plains, and his flock, unforbidden, made their way into pastures without limit; the Punic guardian of the herd took all his possessions with him, according to the custom of his

§ 2.444  country — his javelins, his barking Cretan hound, his tent, his fire hidden in the veins of flint, and the reedpipe which his steers know well. Conspicuous on the shield was Saguntum, rising on its lofty eminence; and round it swarmed countless hosts and serried ranks of fighters, who assailed it with their quivering spears. On the outer rim of the shield flowed the Ebro, enclosing the vast circuit with its curves and windings. And there was Hannibal; having broken the treaty by crossing the river, he was summoning the Punic nations to battle against Rome. Proud of such a gift, the leader fitted the new armour to his broad shoulders with a clang. Then, with head held high, he spoke thus: "Ah! what torrents of Roman blood will drench this armour! How great a penalty shall the Senate, the disposer of war, pay to me!"
By now the beleaguered enemy was growing feebler, and time sapped the strength of the citizens, while they looked in their extremity for the eagles and troops of their ally. At last they turned their gaze away from the delusive sea, and gave up the shore as hopeless, and saw their doom at hand. Inward pangs, piercing to the marrow, had long been fixed there, utterly consuming the starving people. Famine, long concealed, devoured their much-enduring flesh with slow and secret poison, and burnt up their bloodless veins; by now their eyes sank back from the emaciated cheeks; the bones, a hideous sight when the flesh was gone, stuck out, covered only by the yellow skin and ill-joined by the shaking arteries. They tried to ease their suffering by the moist dews and damp soil of night, and with useless toil squeezed in vain the sap from dry wood.

§ 2.472  They shrank from no pollution; their fierce hunger forced them to eat strange food; they stripped their shields bare and gnawed the loosened coverings of their bucklers.
Hercules looked down from high heaven and beheld these things and wept over the calamities of the stricken town; but he was helpless, and respect for the bidding of his mighty sire hindered him from opposing the decrees of his cruel stepmother. Therefore, hiding his intent, he took his way to the abode of sacred Loyalty, seeking to discover her hidden purpose. It chanced that the goddess, who loves solitude, was then in a distant region of heaven, pondering in her heart the high concerns of the gods. Then he who gave peace to Nemea accosted her thus with reverence: "Goddess more ancient than Jupiter, glory of gods and men, without whom neither sea nor land finds peace, sister of Justice, silent divinity in the heart of man, canst thou look on unmoved at the awful doom of thine own Saguntum, and watch the city while it suffers so many penalties in thy defence? For thy sake the people die; the matrons, conquered by famine, call on thee alone; the pitiful cries of the men invoke thee; thy name is heard in the first utterance of their little ones. Bring help from heaven, and grant that the fallen may rise."
Thus spoke Alcmena's son, and the goddess made answer: "I see it indeed, and the breaking of treaties is not disregarded by me: the day is fixed that shall hereafter punish such evil deeds. But, when I hastened to leave the sin-stained earth, I was forced to settle here and change my habitation, because the human race was so fertile in wickedness; I fled from

§ 2.499  wicked kings, who themselves fear as much as they are feared, and the frenzy for gold, and the rich rewards of wickedness. I fled also from nations hateful in their customs and living by violence like wild beasts, where all honour is undermined by luxury, and where shame is buried in deep darkness. Force is worshipped, and the sword usurps the place of justice, and virtue has given place to crime. Behold the nations! no man is innocent; fellowship in guilt alone preserves peace. But, if thou desirest the walls built by thy hand to keep a manhood worthy of thee by a noble ending, and not, worn out as they are, surrender themselves as prisoners to the Carthaginian, I will grant the only boon now allowed by fate and by the chain of coming events: I will prolong the renown of their death and send it down to posterity; and I myself will follow their glorious spirits to the nether world."
Then the austere goddess sped down the light ether and, burning with anger, made for Saguntum and found it struggling with doom. Taking possession of their minds and pervading their breasts, her familiar habitation, she instilled her divine power into their hearts. Then, piercing even to their marrow, she filled them with a burning passion for herself. They call for arms and put forth their feeble efforts in battle. Strength beyond their hopes is forthcoming; to honour their loved goddess, and to die nobly in her defence — this purpose comes still closer to their hearts. An unspoken resolve fills the triumphant hearts of the sufferers — to endure things even worse than death, to imitate the diet of wild beasts, and make their meals an abomination.

§ 2.524  But stainless Loyalty forbids them to prolong a life defiled by crime, and to stay their hunger with the flesh of fellow-creatures."
It chanced that Saturn's daughter was repairing to the Carthaginian camp; and, soon as she saw the maiden. Loyalty, in the citadel of the hated people, she rebuked her eagerness to stir up war, and, stumbling in her rage, summoned at once dark Tisiphone who drives with her scourge the spirits in the depths of hell. Stretching out her hands she said: "Daughter of Night, use your power to overthrow yonder walls, and lay the proud people low by their own hands. This is Juno's bidding; I myself shall keep near and watch from a cloud your handiwork and your zeal. Take up the weapons that confound the gods and even supreme Jupiter, and that make Acheron tremble — flame and hideous serpents and that hissing which belongs to you alone and makes Cerberus shut his mouths for fear; take frothing venom mixed with gall; take all the crime and punishment and wrath that are nursed in your teeming breast, and heap them headlong upon the Rutulians, and send all Saguntum down to Erebus. Let this be the price they pay for Loyalty's descent from heaven."
With these words the angry goddess spurred on the ruthless Fury, and hurled her with her own hand against the walls; and suddenly the mountain shook all round, and the waves along the shore made a deeper sound. Upon the Fury's head and round her swollen neck a brood of scaly-backed serpents glittered and hissed. Opening wide his hollow jaws. Death stalked abroad and gaped for the doomed citizens; and round him stood Mourning and Wailing with blackened breast and Grief and Pain;

§ 2.550  and all the Avengers were there; and the sleepless guardian of the dismal dwelling bayed from his triple throat. At once the Fiend changed her shape and took the likeness of Tiburna and her gait withal and the sound of her voice. Tiburna, robbed of her husband, Murrus, was mourning for her marriage-bed made empty by war and the fierce blast of battle; she was of noble birth and derived her name from the blood of Daunus. The Fury assumed her likeness and then, with hair dishevelled and cheeks torn in sign of mourning, rushed wildly into the midst of the crowd. "How long?" she cried. "We have done enough for the sake of Loyalty and our forefathers; my own eyes have seen the bleeding form of my loved Murrus, have seen him startling my nights with his mangled body, and speaking fearful words; "Save yourself, dear wife, from the calamities of this hapless city; and, if the victory of the Carthaginian leaves no land for refuge, seek safety, Tiburna, with my ghost. Our gods are overthrown, we Rutulians are undone, the Punic sword is master of all.' My heart quakes with fear, and his ghost is still before my eyes. Shall I then see the dwellings of Saguntum vanish utterly? Fortunate Murrus, to die and leave his country still alive! But as for us — we shall be carried off to wait on the women of Carthage; and, after the calamities of war and the dangers of the great deep, victorious Carthage will behold us; and at last, when the final darkness of death comes, I shall be laid a captive in the lap of Libya. But you, young men, whose conscious valour has denied that you can ever be taken captive, you who have in death a mighty weapon against misfortune, rescue your mothers from slavery with your swords.

§ 2.578  Steep is the path that makes virtue seen. Hasten to be the first to snatch a glory that few can attain to, a glory unknown till now!"
When she had stirred up her hearers' troubled minds with this appeal, next she sought the mound which Amphitryon's son had built on the topmost peak of the mountain, as a sea-mark for sailors and a welcome tribute of honour to the dead. Then — dreadful to behold — a snake burst forth at her summons from its abode in the depths of the mound; its body was dark-green and rough with spots of gold; its fiery eyes glittered with blood-red flame; and the mouth with its flickering tongue made a loud hissing. Between the terrified groups its coils moved on through the centre of the city, and swiftly it glided down from the high walls; then, as if escaping, it made its way to the shore near the town, and plunged headlong into the waves of the foaming sea."
Then indeed men's reason tottered: it seemed that the dead were fleeing forth from abodes no longer safe, and that their ghosts refused to lie in conquered soil. They were sick with disappointed hope of deliverance; they refused food; the disguised Fury possessed them. To postpone the date of death is as grievous as Heaven's refusal to pity their suffering; in their frenzy they find existence a burden and long to snap the thread of life instantly. Built by many hands, a pyre whose height rose to heaven was erected in the centre of the city. Hither they dragged or carried the wealth of a long peace, the prizes won by valour, robes embroidered with Gallician gold by their matrons, weapons brought by their ancestors from Dulichian Zacynthus, and the household gods that came across the sea from the

§ 2.605  ancient city of the Rutulians." They throw on the pile all that the conquered still possess, and their shields too and swords that could not save; and they dig up from the bowels of the earth hoards buried in time of war, and with joy and pride consign the conqueror's booty to the all-devouring flames.
When the fatal Fury saw this pile, she brandished the torch that was dipped in the fiery waves of Phlegethon; and she hid the gods above with the darkness of Hell. Then the people, ever unconquered, began a work, which glory in defeat keeps famous for ever throughout the world. First Tisiphone, resenting a father's half-hearted stroke, pushed the hilt forward in triumph and drove in the reluctant sword, and cracked her hellish scourge again and again with hideous noise. Against their will men stain their hands with kindred blood; they marvel at the crime they have committed with loathing, and weep over the wickedness they have wrought. One man, distraught with rage and the madness of disaster and extreme suffering, turns a sidelong glance at the breast of his mother. Another, snatching an axe and aiming it at the neck of his loved wife, reproaches himself and curses his unfinished crime, and, as if paralysed, throws his weapon down. Yet he is not suffered to escape; for the Fury repeats her blows, and breathes black passion into him with her hissing mouth. Thus there is an end of all wedded love: the husband has forgotten the joys of his marriage-bed, and remembers his bride no more. Another, exerting all his strength, throws a suffering body into the flames where the crest of the dark-rolling fire sends up thick smoke and pitchy blackness.

§ 2.632  Again, in the midst of the crowd, ill-starred Tymbrenus, distraught with love assuming strange disguise, and eager to rob the Carthaginian of his father's death, mutilates the features that resemble his own, and desecrates a body that is the image of himself. Twin brethren also, alike in every point, Eurymedon and Lycormas, each an exact likeness of the other, were slain there in their prime. To their mother it had been a sweet perplexity to name her sons aright, and to be uncertain of her own children's features. The sword that pierced the throat of Eurymedon, while the poor old mother lamented, had already cleared him of guilt; and while she, distraught with sorrow and mistaking whom she saw, cried out, "What mean you, madman? Turn your sword against me, Lycormas," lo! Lycormas had already stabbed himself in the throat. But she cried aloud: "Eurymedon, what madness is this?" — and the mother, misled by the likeness of the twins, called back her dead sons by wrong names; at last, driving the steel through her own quivering breast, she sank down over the sons whom even then she could not distinguish.
Who could command his tears when recounting the dreadful fate of the city, the crimes that deserve praise, the penalty paid by Loyalty, and the piteous doom of pious souls! Even the Punic army, enemies incapable of pity, could scarce have refrained from weeping. A city, that was long the abode of Loyalty and that claimed a god as the founder of her walls, is falling now, disregarded by the injustice of Heaven, amid the treacherous warfare of Carthaginians and horrors committed by her own citizens; fire and sword run riot, and any spot that is not burning is scene of crime.

§ 2.658  The pyre sends up aloft a sable cloud of black smoke. On the high top of the lofty mountain the citadel that former wars had spared is blazing — from this point the citizens were wont to see the Punic camp and the shore and the whole of Saguntum, — the temples of the gods are blazing. The sea is lit up by the reflection of the fire, and the conflagration quivers on the restless water.
Lo! in the midst of madness and murder, unhappy Tiburna was seen. Her right hand was armed with her husband's bright sword, and in her left she brandished a burning torch; her disordered hair stood on end, her shoulders were bare, and she displayed a breast discoloured by cruel blows. She hurried right over the corpses to the tomb of Murrus. Such seems Alecto, when the palace of the Infernal Father thunders doom, and the monarch's wrath troubles and vexes the dead; then the Fury, standing before the throne and terrible seat of the god, does service to the Jupiter of Tartarus and deals out punishments. Her husband's armour, lately rescued with much bloodshed, she placed on the mound with tears; then she prayed to the dead to welcome her, and applied her burning torch to the pile. Then, rushing upon death, "Best of husbands," she cried, "see, I myself carry this weapon to you in the shades." And so she stabbed herself and fell down over the armour, meeting the fire with open mouth.
Unhappy in their death, half-consumed by the fire, without distinction or order, the bodies of the people lay pell-mell, one upon another. Even so, when a lion, driven by hunger, has at last prevailed and stormed the sheepfold with parched gorge, he roars with gaping jaws and devours the helpless sheep, and

§ 2.686  streams of blood are vomited forth from his vast gape; he couches down on dark heaps of victims half-devoured, or, gnashing his teeth with panting and roaring, stalks between the piles of mangled carcasses. Around him in confusion lie the sheep with the Molossian dog that guarded them, and the band of shepherds with the owner of the flock and fold; and their huts are utterly destroyed and their dwellings demolished. The Carthaginians rushed into the citadel which so many disasters had left undefended. And then at last the Fiend, her duty done, returned, with thanks from Juno, to the nether world, proud and triumphant that she carried with her to Tartarus a multitude of victims.
But you, ye star-like souls, whom no succeeding age shall ever match — go, glory of the earth, a worshipful company, and adorn Elysium and the pure abodes of the righteous. Whereas he, who gained glory by an unjust victory — hear it, ye nations, and break not treaties of peace nor set power above loyalty! — banished from his native land he shall wander, an exile, over the whole earth; and terrified Carthage shall see him in full retreat. Often, startled in his sleep by the ghosts of Saguntum, he shall wish that he had fallen by his own hand; but the steel will be denied him, and the warrior once invincible in earlier years shall carry down to the waters of Styx a body disfigured and blackened by poison.

§ 3.1  BOOK III
After the Carthaginians had broken faith, and the walls of faithful Saguntum, frowned on by the Father of Heaven, had been overthrown, the conqueror at once visited the peoples who dwell at the limit where the world ends, and Gades, the home of a race akin to Carthage. Nor did he omit to consult the wisdom and foresight of prophets concerning the struggle for power. Bostar was ordered to set sail at once and to inquire into the future before it came. From early times men have always trusted the shrine where horned Ammon sits on high, a rival of the Delphian' caves, and reveals future ages in his prophetic grove among the thirsty Garamantes. From there Hannibal sought a good omen for his enterprise; he sought to know coming events before their date and to learn the changing fortunes of the war. Thereafter he worshipped at the altars of the god

§ 3.16  who bears the club, and loaded them with offerings lately snatched by the conqueror from the fire and smoke of the citadel of Saguntum. Men said — and it was no idle tale — that the timber, of which the temple was built at first, never decayed, and for ages never felt the handiwork of any others than the first builders. Hence men take pleasure in the belief that the god has taken up his abode there and defends his temple from decay. Further, those who are permitted and privileged to have access to the inner shrine forbid the approach of women, and are careful to keep bristly swine away from the threshold. The dress worn before the altars is the same for all: linen covers their limbs, and their foreheads are adorned with a head-band of Pelusian flax. It is their custom to offer incense with robes ungirt; and, following their fathers' rule, they adorn the garment of sacrifice with a broad stripe. Their feet are bare and their heads shaven, and their bed admits no partner; the fires on the hearth-stones keep the altars alight perpetually. But no statues or familiar images of the gods filled the place with solemnity and sacred awe.
The doors displayed the Labours of Hercules. The Hydra of Lerna lay there with her snakes lopped off, and the strangled head of the Nemean lion was carved there with jaws agape. There too the doorkeeper of the Styx, who terrifies the dead by his savage barking, raged at his bonds, when dragged for the first time from his everlasting cavern; and Megaera stood by, fearing to be fettered too.

§ 3.39  Near by were the Thracian horses, and the bane of Erymanthus, and the antlers of the brazen-footed stag that rose above tall trees. And the child of the Libyan land, no easy conquest when he stood upon his mother, lay low, and low lay the ungainly race of Centaurs, half men and half horses, and the river of Acarnania, now robbed of one horn. Amid these figures Oeta shines with sacred fires, and the flames carry the hero's soul up to Heaven.
When Hannibal's eyes were sated with the picture of all that valour, he saw next a marvellous sight — the sea suddenly flung upon the land with the mass of the rising deep, and no encircling shores, and the fields inundated by the invading waters. For, where Nereus rolls forth from his blue caverns and churns up the waters of Neptune from the bottom, the sea rushes forward in flood, and Ocean, opening his hidden springs, rushes on with furious waves. Then the water, as if stirred to the depths by the fierce trident, strives to cover the land with the swollen sea. But soon the water turns and glides back with ebbing tide; and then the ships, robbed of the sea, are stranded, and the sailors, lying on their benches, await the waters' return. It is the Moon that stirs this realm of wandering Cymothoe and troubles the deep; the Moon, driving her chariot through the sky, draws the sea this way and that, and Tethys follows with ebb and flow.
Hannibal viewed these things in haste; for he had much to trouble him.

§ 3.63  His first anxiety was to remove from war the sharer of his bed and their little son, an infant at his mother's breast. She was a maiden and he a youth, when they first were wedded; and she clung to him with a love full of memories. But the child, born in front of besieged Saguntum, had not yet completed twelve circuits of the moon. When he had resolved to send off mother and child and remove them from the army, Hannibal addressed them thus: "O my son, hope of high Carthage, and dread, no less, of the Aeneadae, may you, I pray, be more glorious than your father and make a name for yourself by works of war which shall surpass your grandsire's. Rome, sick with fear, already reckons up your years — years that shall make mothers weep. If my prophetic soul does not deceive my feeling, vast suffering for the world is growing up in you; I recognize my father's countenance, and the defiant eyes beneath a frowning brow; I note the depth of your infant cries and the beginnings of a fierceness like my own. If haply some god shall check my great career and nip my glory in the bud by death, then be it your task, my wife, to keep safe this pledge of war. And, when he is able to speak, lead him through the scenes of my childhood: let him lay his baby hands on the altar of Elissa, and vow to his father's ashes that he will fight against Rome. Then, when his riper age shall put on the down of youth, let him rush forth to war, treading the treaty under foot; and let him, when victorious, demand a tomb" for me upon the Capitoline hill. But you, whose love deserves my worship, you who can look forward to the glory and happiness of so mighty a son, depart from the dangers and uncertainty of war, and turn away from hardship.

§ 3.90  We men must face heights barred by snow, and crags that reach the sky; we must face the labour that brought the sweat to the brow of Alcides and made his stepmother marvel; we must face the Alps, a sharper ordeal than war. But, if Fortune withhold her promised favour and frown on my enterprise, I should wish you long life and peaceful old age; your youth deserves that the unhasting Fates should prolong your threads beyond my span."
Thus he spoke, and Imilce answered him. She was descended from Castalius, a man of Cirrha, who named his city, Castulo, after his mother, and it still keeps the name of Apollo's priest. Thus Imilce traced her pedigree to a sacred stock. When Bacchus was conquering the Spanish peoples and attacking Calpe with the staves and spears of his Maenads, Milichus was born of a lustful Satyr and the nymph Myrice, and had held wide dominion in his native land; and horns, like those of his father, grew upon his forehead." From him Imilce drew her nationality and noble blood; but the name of Milichus had suffered a slight corruption in the native speech. Thus she then began with slowly dropping tears: Do you forget that my life depends on yours? Do you reject me as a partner of your enterprise? Does our union, do our first nuptial joys, make you believe that I, your wife, would fall back when climbing with you the frozen mountains? Doubt not a woman's hardihood; no danger is too great for wedded love to face. But if you judge me by sex alone, and are determined to leave me, I yield indeed and will not stay the course of destiny. I pray God to bless you.

§ 3.116  Go and prosper! Go with favouring gods and prayers! And amid the battles and the blaze of arms, remember to keep in mind the wife and child whom you leave behind. For I fear the Romans, with their weapons and their firebrands, less than I fear you: you rush fiercely right upon the swords, and expose your life to the missiles, nor does any successful feat of arms content you; your ambition, unlike that of other men, knows no bounds; and you think a peaceful death an inglorious end for a soldier. Trembling takes hold of my limbs; and yet I dread no man who shall meet you in single combat. But thou, O Father of battles, have pity, and turn away evil from us, and preserve that life from all assaults of the Trojans!"
And now they had gone forth and stood upon the shore-line. The ship, rowed forward, was slowly trimming her sails to the wind, and the sailors dangled from the mast, when Hannibal, eager to allay her fears and relieve her mind, sick with frantic anxieties, thus began: Have done with forebodings and with tears, my faithful wife. In war, as in peace, the end of each man's life is fixed, and the first day leads but to the last; few there are whom a soul of fire permits to be for ever famous on the lips of men; and such the Divine Father marks out to dwell in heaven. Shall I endure the yoke of Rome, and not resent the slavery of Carthage? I am driven on by the spirit of my father that rebukes me in the darkness of night; that altar and that dreadful sacrifice stand clear before my sight; and my brief and changeful span forbids me to defer the date. Am I to sit still, in order that Carthage alone may know my name? And is all the world to be ignorant of my quality?

§ 3.144  Am I, from fear of death, to abandon the heights of glory? How little does an obscure life differ from death! Yet fear not rashness in my ardour for renown: I too value life, and the hero finds pleasure in old age, when he is famed for great deeds in the autumn of life. You too may look for great rewards from the war now begun: if only Heaven favours us, all Tiber and the Roman women and the Dardans, rich in gold, shall be at your feet." While they conversed together thus and mingled their tears, the steersman, feeling that he could trust the sea, hailed the unwilling wife from his high seat on the stern. Torn from her husband's arms she is carried away. Her eager eyes still cling to him and watch the shore, until the sea made sight impossible and the land fell back, as the swift ship sped on its watery way.
But Hannibal sought to drown his love in the business of war: he went back quickly to the walls of Gades; and, while he went round them and surveyed every part again and again, the ceaseless toil proved too much at last for that strong heart, and he was able to rest his warlike mind in sleep.
Then the Almighty Father, purposing to test the Roman people by peril, to raise their fame to heaven by victory in fierce warfare, and to repeat their ancient ordeal, urged on Hannibal's design by breaking his peaceful rest and sending terrors to disturb his sleep. Quickly the god of Cyllene, flying through the dewy darkness of the night, carried the message of his sire. At once he accosted Hannibal, where he lay at ease in untroubled sleep, and upbraided him with sharp reproof: "Ruler of Libya, it becomes not a leader to pass the whole night in slumber: war prospers when the commander wakes.

§ 3.174  You will see ships swarm forth ere long to plough the sea, and Roman warriors speeding all over the deep, while you, slow to begin, stand idle in the land of Spain. Is it glory enough for you, and a memorable feat of arms, to have overthrown Greek Saguntum with so great an effort? Arise! and if aught in your heart is capable of bold action, then go quickly along with me and accompany my summons (I forbid you to look back: such is the command of Jupiter) and I will set you victorious before the lofty walls of Rome."
And now he dreamed that Mercury laid a hand upon him and drew him in joy and haste to the land of Saturn, when he was startled by a sudden noise about him and a hissing of fierce tongues behind him that hurtled through the sky. Stricken with intense fear, he forgot the divine command, and looked behind him in his dismay. Behold! a black serpent, sweeping along in its huge embrace woods, and forest-trees torn from the hills, and rocks dragged along a pathless track, was hissing with deadly blast. Huge as the Serpent which moves with its coils round the Great and Little Bear and encompasses both constellations in its course, so huge it parts its jaws with cavernous yawn, and raises its crest to the height of rain-swept mountains. And the fury of the bursting heavens redoubled the noise and discharged a storm of rain mixed with hail. Terrified by this portent (for his sleep was not real sleep, and the power of night was waning, because the god whose rod dispels darkness had mingled night with day) Hannibal asked what this terrible monster was, and whither it was bearing that body which weighed down the earth, and what nations were demanded by its open jaws.

§ 3.203  The god who was born in the cold caverns of fostering Cyllene made reply: "You see the war you have prayed for: mighty wars follow in your train, and falling forests, and fierce storms in an angry sky, and slaughter of men, with mighty destruction and doleful doom to the people of Ida. All this is your doing. As that huge serpent with scaly hide laid waste the mountains and hurled the uprooted forests over the plains and wetted the whole earth with its foaming slaver, so you, as huge, will rush down from the conquered Alps and wrap Italy in a black cloud of war; and with a noise like the serpent's you will shatter the walls of towns and root out cities and dash them to the ground."
The god and slumber then left him, disturbed by these incitements. A cold sweat broke out on his body, while he turned over the promises of the dream with a fearful joy and reviewed the night once more. Soon was honour paid to the King of Heaven and Mars, because of the favourable omen; and first of all the god of Cyllene, in reward for his counsel, was propitiated with the sacrifice of a snow-white bull. At once Hannibal ordered that the standards should be plucked up,' and a sudden shout shook the camp filled with a babel of discordant tongues.
Hand down to fame. Calliope, the peoples summoned forth by this fell enterprise and borne against the realm of Latinus! Name the cities of warlike Spaniards whom Carthage armed, and the squadrons that she mustered on the shore of Africa, when she dared to claim for herself the reins of government, and to give a new ruler to mankind. Never at any time did a fiercer tempest rage, driven on by furious winds;

§ 3.229  not even that dreadful war that swept along a thousand ships raged with more violence or appalled more utterly a terror-stricken world.
Foremost in the ranks were the soldiers from Tyrian Carthage. Light of limb were they, and the glory of lofty stature was denied them; but they were readily taught to deceive, and never slow to lay secret traps for the enemy. They carried then a primitive shield, and fought with a short sword; their feet were bare, nor was it their custom to wear a belt; their dress was red, and they had skill to hide under its covering the blood shed in battle. Their leader was Mago, Hannibal's brother, and his purple-clad figure overtopped them all while he drove his chariot along, rejoicing in its clattering noise and bold as his brother in the fray.
Next to the men of Carthage, Utica poured forth her people — Utica hoary with age, that was founded before the citadel of ancient Byrsa. Next came Aspis, which borders the sea with a wall built by the Sicilian, and whose ramparts form a crescent in the shape of a shield. But all eyes were turned upon their leader, Sychaeus, a son of Hasdrubal, who was filled with vainglory on the score of his mother's blood; and the name of his uncle, Hannibal, came ever proudly from his lips.
The warlike sons of Berenicis by the sea were present; nor was Barce backward, a dry land of thirsty springs, whose men are armed for battle with long smooth pikes; and Cyrene too roused to arms the sons of Battus, treacherous men, descendants from a Peloponnesian stock.

§ 3.254  They were led by Ilertes, whom old Hamilcar praised long ago, active still in council but slow in war.
Then Sabratha and Phoenician Leptis sent their Tyrian folk, and Oca sent Sicilian colonists mixed with Africans, and the river Lixus sent the men of Tingis from the stormy shore. Next came Vaga, and Hippo dear to kings of old, and Ruspina, which guards herself by distance against sea-floods; and, with Zama, Thapsus, now made more fertile by Roman blood. All these peoples were led by Antaeus, a giant in giant armour; by his deeds as by his name he kept alive the fame of Hercules, and towered above the heads of his soldiers.
The Ethiopians came, a race whom the Nile knows well, who dig the loadstone from the earth; they alone have the power to attract the iron of the mine without the use of tools by placing the stone beside it. Together with them came the burnt-up Nubae, whose bodies show the fierce heat of their sun; they wear no helmet of brass nor tough cuirass of steel; nor do they bend the bow. It is their custom to protect their heads with many folds of linen, and with linen to cover their bodies, and to throw javelins steeped in noxious juices, thus disgracing the steel with poison. Then first the Macae, from the river Cinyps, learned how to pitch tents in their camp in Phoenician fashion — shaggy bearded men, whose backs are covered with the bristling hide of a wild goat, and the weapon they carry is a curved javelin. But the Adyrmachidae bear a target of many colours, and a sword fashioned by the smith in the shape of a sickle, and wear greaves on the left leg. Rough was this people's fare, and scanty their diet; for their sorry meals are roasted on the burning sand.

§ 3.281  The Massyli also brought thither their glttering standards, the most remote inhabitants of earth, coming from the groves of the Hesperides. Fierce Bocchus was their leader; from his head the hair fell down in close curls; and he had seen the sacred trees beside the sea, and the glittering gold among the green leaves.
The Gaetulians also, who are wont to live among packs of wild beasts, and by their speech to allay the fierceness of untamed lions, left their settlements for the camp of Hannibal. Houseless men, they dwell in wagons; their custom is to stray from place to place and to carry with them their moving household gods. Of these a thousand wing-footed squadrons came speeding to the camp; their horses are swifter than the wind and taught to obey the switch. So, when the speedy Spartan dog fills the thickets with his roving bark, or the Umbrian hound by his keen scent drives wild beasts forth from a mountain path, the flying deer in their terror rush headlong in their herds far and wide. Acherras led the Gaetulians; but his face was not joyful, nor his brow serene; for he was the brother of Asbyte so lately slain.
Then came the Marmaridae with a sound of clashing arms, a people of magical powers, at whose spells the snake forgot its poison, and at whose touch horned serpents lay still and harmless. Next came the hardy warriors of Baniura; having little iron they are content to harden their spear-points over a scanty flame; eager for battle they uttered wild cries together with fierce speech.

§ 3.306  The Autololes also came, a fiery race of nimble runners: no horse nor flooded river could match their pace, so great their speed. They vie with the birds; and, when they have scoured the plain in their flight, you would look in vain for their footprints. There were seen also in the army the people who feed on the tree famous for its juices — on the sweet berries of the lotus, too friendly to the stranger." The Garamantes were there, who dread the furious serpents that pour out black venom in their boundless deserts. Legend tells that, when Perseus slew the Gorgon and carried off her head, the horrid gore dripped over Libya, and from that time the land has abounded with the snakes of Medusa. These thousands were led by Choaspes, a proved warrior, native of Meninx, an Ithacan island; his right arm, swift as the lightning, ever bore a javelin, his renowned weapon. Hither came the Nasamones from the sea, men who fear not to attack wrecked ships upon the water, and to snatch their booty from the deep; and hither came the dwellers by the deep pools of Lake Tritonis, where the Maiden Warrior sprang, as legend tells, from the water and anointed Libya, before other lands, with the olive-oil which she herself had discovered.
Moreover, all the West with its remote nations was present too. First of all were the Cantabrians, proof against cold and heat and hunger, and victorious over every hardship. This people, when disabled by white old age, find a strange pleasure in cutting short the years of weakness by an instant death, and they refuse life except in arms.

§ 3.330  For war is their only reason for living, and they scorn a peaceful existence.
Then Astyr, the ill-starred squire of Eastern Memnon, came; wetted by Aurora's tears, he had fled far from his native land to the opposite quarter of the world. The horses of the Astyrians are small and not notable in battle; yet they amble without shaking their rider, or with docile neck can draw a carriage with speed in time of peace. They were led by Cydnus, eager to scour the heights of the Pyrenees in the chase, or to fight from a distance with Moorish javelin.
The Celts who have added to their name that of the Hiberi came also. To these men death in battle is glorious; and they consider it a crime to burn the body of such a warrior; for they believe that the soul goes up to the gods in heaven, if the body is devoured on the field by the hungry vulture.
Rich Gallicia sent her people, men who have knowledge concerning the entrails of beasts, the flight of birds, and the lightnings of heaven; they delight, at one time, to chant the rude songs of their native tongue, at another to stamp the ground in the dance and clash their noisy shields in time to the music. Such is the relaxation and sport of the men, and such their solemn rejoicings. All other labour is done by the women: the men think it unmanly to throw seed into the furrow and turn the soil by pressure of the plough; but the wife of the Gallician is never still and performs every task but that of stern war. These men, and the Lusitanians drawn forth from their distant forests, were led by the young Viriathus — Viriathus, whose name was to win fame from Roman disasters at a later day.

§ 3.357  The Cerretani, who once fought for Hercules, were not slow now to bear arms; nor the Vascones, unused to wear helmets; nor Ilerda, that witnessed later the madness of Romans; nor the Concanian, who proves by his savagery his descent from the Massagetae, when he opens a vein of his horse to fill his own belly. Now Phoenician Ebusus rises in arms; and the Arbacians, fierce fighters with the dart or slender javelin; and the Balearic islanders, whose sire was Tlepolemus and Lindus their native land, waging war with the sling and flying bullet; and the men sent forth by the town of Oene and Aetolian Tyde, called Gravii by corruption of Graii, their former name. Carthago,- founded by Teucer of old, supplied men; and also Emporiae, colony of Massilia, and Tarraco, the land of vines, which allows precedence to no vintage but that of Latium. Conspicuous among these by the sheen of their cuirasses were the Sedetanian soldiers, who came from the icy waters of the Sucro and the lofty citadel of their mother city, Saetabis — Saetabis which dares to despise the looms of the Arabs and to match her webs against the linen of Egypt. These peoples were commanded by Mandonius and by Caeso, famous tamer of horses; and their joint exertions kept the host together.
The squadrons of the Vettones were reviewed on the open plain by Balarus. In that country, when spring is mild and airs are warm, the drove of mares stand still, mating in secret, and conceive a mysterious progeny begotten by the wind.

§ 3.381  But their stock is short-lived: old age comes quick upon them, and the life of these horses lasts but seven years at the longest.
Less nimble on their feet are the horses from Uxama, a city whose walls are Sarmatian; but her steeds that came to war were tenacious of life; their lusty youth found it hard to endure the bit or obey the commands of the rider. These men were led by Rhyndacus and armed with spears; they add terror to their helmets by decking them with the open jaws of wild beasts; they pass their lives in hunting, or support themselves, as their fathers did, by violence and rapine.
Bright beyond the rest shone the ensigns of Delphian Castulo; and of Hispalis, famous for commerce and for the ebb and flow of its tides; and of Nebrissa which knows the thyrsi of the Nysaean god — Nebrissa haunted by nimble Satyrs and nightly Maenads, who wear the sacred fawn-skin and the mystic vine-leaf. Carteia sent to war the children of Arganthonius; king over their ancestors, he surpassed all mankind in length of days and waged war for the space of three hundred years. Tartessus, that sees the sun to rest, sprang to arms; and likewise Munda, doomed to produce for Italy the suffering of Pharsalia; nor did Corduba hang back, the pride of a land rich in gold. These men were led by fairhaired Phorcys and by Arauricus whose arms were terrible to the corn-bearing lands; the two were of

§ 3.404  equal age, and were born on the fertile banks where the Baetis shelters his horns under the branches of the tree of Pallas.
Such was the host which the Carthaginian captain led on at speed over the dust-darkened plains; he reviewed their glittering ensigns in the field, as far as the eye could see, and rode on in triumph, leaving a shadow" on all the land he traversed. Even so, when Neptune glides over the deep in his chariot and drives his bitted coursers to the outermost Ocean where the sun sinks to rest, all the train of Nereids issue from their caves and, as is their wont, swim in rivalry, tossing their white arms in the transparent water.
But now Hannibal, throwing a peaceful world into confusion, made for the leafy summits of the Pyrenees. From the eminence of their rain-swept peaks they command a wide prospect and divide Spain from Gaul, making an eternal barrier between two great countries. These mountains took their name from Pyrene, daughter of Bebryx and victim of Hercules. For Hercules, in the course of his appointed Labours, was travelling to the distant land of three-bodied Geryon, when he was mastered by wine in the savage court of Bebryx, and left Pyrene robbed of her maidenhood; her beauty was a cause for mourning. The god (if it is not sinful to believe it), the god was the cause of the poor maiden's death. For when she gave birth to a serpent she fled at once from the home she loved, in horror and dread of her father's wrath. Then in lonely caves she mourned for the night when she lay with Alcides, and told his promises to the dark forests; till at last, as she mourned the ingratitude of her ravisher, and

§ 3.432  stretched forth her hands, imploring the aid of her guest, she was torn in pieces by wild beasts. When Hercules came back victorious, he wetted the mangled limbs with his tears; and when he found the head of the maid he had loved, he turned pale, distraught with grief. Then the high mountain-tops, smitten by his cries, were shaken; with loud lament he called Pyrene by name; and all the cliffs and haunts of wild beasts echoed the name of Pyrene. Then, with a last tribute of tears, he laid her body in the grave. And time shall never eclipse her fame; for the mountains retain for ever the name that caused such grief.
And now, marching through hills and dense pinewoods, Hannibal had crossed the territory of the Bebrycian king. Thence he boldly forced his way through the land of the inhospitable Volcae, and ravaged it, till he came with rapid march to the formidable banks of the swollen Rhone. That river, taking its rise in the Alpine heights and snowcovered rocks, flows into Gaul, expanding into a mighty stream, cleaving the plains with its foaming waters, and rushing with utmost speed into the sea in a broad estuary. The Arar, whose noiseless stream seems to stand still, joins the Rhone and swells it; and the Rhone, embracing the reluctant Arar with its restless waters, plunges it into the sea, and forbids it, as it is hurried through the land, to carry its own name to the neighbouring shore. The river will bear no bridges, and the soldiers eagerly plunged in; some protect their weapons by holding their head and shoulders high, while others in keen rivalry stem the flood with stout arms. The horses were haltered and taken across in barges; nor did the terror of the Libyan beasts delay or hinder the crossing;

§ 3.459  for they contrived to throw rafts over the stream and to conceal the line of rafts beneath a covering of soil; then they led the elephants out on to the deep, loosing little by little the cables on the high bank. Scared by this invasion of trumpeting elephants, and fearing the dusky monsters, the Rhone turned back his stream and sent up ominous rumblings from his sandy depths.
Now Hannibal moved on through the territory of the Tricastini, and made an easy march through the land of the Vocontii. But here the Druentia, rough with rocks and trunks of trees, turned his pleasant march to rack and ruin; for, rising in the Alps, it carries along with a roar uprooted ash-trees and boulders washed away from the mountains, and rushes on with raging waters, often shifting its channel, and changing its deceitful fords. The foot-passenger cannot trust it; no broad ship is safe upon it. Now, swollen by recent rains, it seized many of the armed men, and whirled them round in its foaming eddies, and buried in its depths their mutilated bodies and mangled limbs.
But now all memory of past hardships was dispelled by terror, when they saw the Alps close at hand. All that region is covered with rime and hail that never thaws, and imprisons the ice of ages; the steep face of the lofty mountain rises stiffly up, and, though it faces the rising sun, can never melt its hardened crust in his rays. Deep as the chasm that divides the upper world from the pale kingdom of Tartarus, and descends to the dead below and the pools of the black marsh, so high does the earth here rise towards heaven and shut out the sky by its shadow.

§ 3.487  There is no spring anywhere and no beauty of summer; unsightly winter alone inhabits the gruesome heights and dwells for ever there; from every quarter winter drives hither black clouds and rain mixed with hail. All winds and storms, moreover, have set up their furious dominion in the Alps. The gaze turns giddy on the high cliffs, and the mountains are lost in the clouds. Athos added to Mount Taurus, Rhodope united to Mimas, Pelion piled on Ossa and Othrys on Mount Haemus — all these must bow before the Alps. Hercules was the first to set foot on these virgin fortresses; he was a sight for the gods as he cleft the clouds, mastered the steep ascent, and with main force tamed the rocks that no foot had ever trodden during the long ages that followed their birth.
The soldiers moved slow with lagging steps, thinking that they were marching over the world into a forbidden land, in defiance of Nature and in opposition to Heaven. But their general would have none of it — he was not terrified by the Alps or all the horror of the place; and his words raised the courage of his men and revived their energy when they were faint with fear. "Shame on you," he cried, "to grow weary of success and Heaven's favour, and, after glorious victories in the field, to retreat now before snow-clad mountains, cowed and beaten by cliffs! Now, comrades, now — believe that you are even now scaling the walls of imperial Rome and the lofty hill of Jupiter. Our present toil shall make Italy and the Tiber our prisoners." Straightway he led the army uphill, persuading them by his rich promises. He ordered the troops to abandon the track beaten by great Hercules, to march over fresh ground, and climb up by a path of their own.

§ 3.515  He forced a passage where no man had passed; he was the first to master heights and from the crag's top called on his men to follow. Where the ascent was stiff with frozen ice and the slippery path over the snow slopes baffled them, he cut steps with the steel in the resisting ice. When the snow thawed, it swallowed down the men in its opened jaws, and, as it rushed down from a height, buried whole companies beneath an avalanche. At times the North-west wind, menacing with dark wings, drove the snow, packed tight by the opposing gale, full in their faces; or again, the fury of the raging storm stripped the men of their shields, and, rolling them round and round, whirled them aloft into the clouds with its circling blast. The higher they climbed in their struggle to reach the top, the harder grew their toil. When one height had been mastered, a second opens and springs up before their aching sight; and from it they cared not even to look back at the difficulties they had already mastered by their sweat; with such dread did the monotonous even landscape strike their sight; and, as far as their eyes could reach, the same scene of frozen snow forced itself upon them. So the sailor in mid-ocean, when he has left behind the land he loves, and the flapping sails on his idle mast can find no wind, looks forth upon a boundless waste of water, and turns wearily to the sky, to refresh his eyes that cannot endure the sight of the deep any longer.
And now, on the top of the disasters and difficulties of the ascent, half-savage men peeped out from the rocks, showing faces hideous with filth and with the matted dirt of bristling locks.

§ 3.543  Pouring forth from caves in the hollow rock, the natives of the Alps attacked them; with the ease of habit they sped through thorn-brakes and their familiar snow-drifts and pathless places; and soon the army was hemmed in and assailed by the nimble mountaineers. And now the place bore a different aspect. For here the snow turned red, deeply dyed with blood; and here the ice, unwilling to give way, yielded by degrees, when the hot blood thawed it; and where the horse stamps his horny feet, the hoof sticks fast in the ice he has bored through. Nor is a fall the only danger; for men leave arms and legs behind, severed by the frost, and the cruel cold cuts off the limbs already broken. Twelve days and as many dreadful nights they spent in such suffering, before they rested on the longed-for summit, and hung their camp aloft on precipitous cliffs. But now Venus, her heart shaken with doubt and fear, addressed her sire and broke into sorrowful complaint. "What limit of their punishment will the Aeneadae ever reach, I ask, or what end to their destruction? When wilt thou grant them a fixed abode, after all their wanderings over land and sea? Why does the Carthaginian essay to drive my descendants from the city which thou didst grant them? He has planted Libya upon the Alps and threatens an end to Roman power. Rome now dreads the fate of Saguntum. Grant us a resting-place, O Father, whither we may bear at last the ashes and sacred relics of fallen Troy, with the house of Assaracus and the mysteries of Vesta. Grant us safety in our overthrow. Is it not enough that we have wandered over the whole earth, seeking a place of exile? Or shall Rome be taken and the doom of Troy be repeated once more?"

§ 3.570  Thus Venus spoke, and then her sire made answer thus: "Fear not, Cytherea, nor be disturbed by the ambition of the Tyrian people. Your descendants hold the Tarpeian rock and long shall hold it. But I mean to test their manhood by this great conflict and to try them in war. A people, once steadfast in battle and triumphant over hardships, are forgetting by degrees the ancient glory of their sires. Then they never spared their blood in honour's cause, and ever thirsted for fame; but now they pass their time in obscurity and inaction, and spend their lives amid inglorious silence, though my blood is in their veins; and their manliness is slowly sapped and weakened by the seductive poison of indolence. But it is a mighty enterprise that must cost intense effort, to claim power for themselves alone among so many nations. Thou shalt see a time come, when Rome, mistress of the world, shall be more glorious for her calamities. Thus suffering shall produce famous men, worthy to dwell with us in heaven; thou shalt see a Paulus, a Fabius, and a Marcellus who has pleased me by honourable spoils. These men, by their defeats, will gain for Latium an empire so great, that their descendants will be unable to overthrow it, for all their luxury and degenerate hearts. Already the man is born who shall drive Hannibal back from Latium to his own land, and strip him of his arms before the walls of his native Carthage. Thereafter thy descendants, Cytherea, shall reign for ages. Later still, godlike excellence shall come from Cures and soar to heaven;

§ 3.595  and a warrior family, reared on the berry that grows in the Sabine land, shall increase the fame of the deified Julii. The father of that family shall give Rome victory over Thule, unknown till then, and shall be the first to lead an army against the Caledonian forests; he shall set banks to restrain the Rhine, he shall rule Africa with vigour, and, in his old age, he shall subdue in war the palm-groves of Idume. Nor shall he descend to the pools of the Styx and the realm deprived of light; but he shall attain to the habitation of the gods and the honours we enjoy. Then his son, unrivalled in mighty strength of mind, shall take up his father's task and move on in majesty, raising his head as high as his power. While yet a youth, he shall put an end to war with the fierce people of Palestine. But thou. Conqueror of Germany, shalt outdo the exploits of thy father and brother; even in boyhood thou wert dreaded by the yellow-haired Batavians. The burning of the Tarpeian temple cannot alarm thee; but in the midst of the impious flames thou shalt be saved, for the sake of mankind; for in the distant future thou shalt share with me the kingdom of the sky. The people of the Ganges shall one day lower their unbent bows before him, and Bactra display its empty quivers. He shall drive the triumphal car through Rome after conquering the North; he shall triumph over the East, and Bacchus give place to him. When the Danube refuses a passage to the Roman legions, he shall be victorious and retain the river in the land of the Sarmatians. Moreover, his oratory shall surpass all the sons of Romulus who have gained glory by their eloquence; the Muses shall

§ 3.620  bring him offerings, and Phoebus shall marvel at his song — a sweeter strain than his whose music made the Hebrus stand still and Mount Rhodope move on. He shall also erect a golden Capitol on the Tarpeian rock, where, as thou seest, my ancient palace now stands, and raise the summit of the temple to reach our abode in the sky. Then, O son of gods and father of gods to be, rule the happy earth with paternal sway. Heaven shall welcome thee at last, in thy old age, and Quirinus give up his throne to thee; thy father and brother shall place thee between them; and hard by the head of thy deified son shall send forth rays."
While Jupiter thus revealed the sequence of future events, the Carthaginian leader, descending the dangerous heights, tried with uncertain effort to get a firm foothold, as he slid down pathless slopes and trod on dripping rocks. No hostile army detained him; but he was troubled by the dreadful steepness of the descent and by rocks confronting cliffs. The men stand still, as if shut in, and lament the obstacles and difficulties of the way. Nor can they sleep and so revive their frozen bodies; but they work on all night in haste, forced to carry wood on their shoulders and to tear up ash-trees from the hills. Then after stripping the mountain where the trees grew thickest, they piled the timber in a heap; and the rock, set on fire all round, was melted by the devouring flames. Then demolished by the axe, the heavy mass crumbled and parted asunder with a rumbling sound and opened up to the weary soldiers the land of old Latinus.

§ 3.645  At last, after all these sufferings, Hannibal crossed the untrodden Alps and pitched his camp on the plains of the Taurini. Meanwhile Bostar arrived, bearing the oracular response of Jupiter. He came with joy, after traversing the deserts of the Garamantes, and encouraged Hannibal, as if he had seen the Thunder-god with his own eyes: "Mighty son of Belus, whose right arm defends your native walls from slavery, we made our way to the shrine of Libya. The Syrtis, which spatters the stars with its foam, bore us on towards the gods; and the land, more furious than the sea, almost swallowed us up. From the centre of earth to the limit of the sky the barren plains stretch out. Nowhere in that boundless tract does Nature suffer the level to rise, save where a whirlwind, thick with accumulated sand, and driving the hollow clouds along, has raised up a mound. Or sometimes the South-west wind breaks its prison and devastates the earth; and then a blast from the North-west, scattering the sea over the sky, falls fiercely on the plain that is large enough for their battle; and the two winds, blowing against each other, raise mountains of heaped-up sand. We steered our course across these hollows by observation of the stars; for daylight confuses the tracks, and the Little Bear, which never deceives the Phoenician mariner, guides the traveller, as he strays over the sandy depths and ever sees the waste all round him. But when we came, weary travellers, to the groves and tree-clad abode and shining temple of Jupiter who has horns on his forehead, Arisbas welcomed us as guests and took us to his house. Beside the temple is a wondrous marvel — a spring, whose water is lukewarm at morning and at evening, but

§ 3.671  cold when the midday sun kindles the sky; and the same water boils again in the darkness of night. Then that old man showed us the places which the god fills with his presence, and the fields that bear crops without the plough; and thus he addressed us with cheerful heart; Bostar, bow down in prayer before these shady woods, this roof that soars to heaven, and these groves where Jupiter has trodden. For who upon earth has not heard of the gift of Jupiter — the two doves that perched on the lap of Thebe"? One of these flew to the land of Chaonia and there fills the oak of Dodona with prophetic utterance; but the other bird of Venus sailed through the sky over the Carpathian sea, and flew on dusky wings to the dusky people of Libya, and founded here the site for a temple. Here, where now you see the altar and the shady groves, the dove — marvellous to tell — chose out a leader of the flock, and stood between the horns of his fleecy head, and prophesied to the people of Marmarica. Later, trees sprang suddenly from the earth, and a grove of ancient oaks; and, as the branches now reach the skies, so they grew on their first day. Hence the grove is sacred and awful from ancient times, and is worshipped with steaming altars. While we marvelled at his words, the doors suddenly flew open with a terrible crash, and a brighter light suddenly struck upon our eyes. Before the altar stood the priest, conspicuous in his snow-white robe, and the people thronged eagerly to the doors. Then when I had uttered the message with which I was charged, behold! the god suddenly entered the breast of the prophet. The trees clashed against one another, and a deep humming noise passed through the resounding grove; and then a

§ 3.699  voice, louder than any we know, burst forth into the air: "Men of Libya, ye move against Latium, and prepare to make war against the seed of Assaracus. I see a perilous enterprise; I see fierce Mars even now mounting his chariot; I see his furious steeds breathing forth black flame against the Western land, and the blood that streams down from his reins. And thou, who seekest to know the issue of battle and the fated end, and boldly spreadest thy sail for the glorious adventure, advance against the Iapygian plain of the Aetolian leader: thou shalt glorify thy Phoenician ancestors, and no man after thee shall be able to pierce deeper into the vitals of the Ausonian race, so long as the Dardan realm shall tremble beneath thy conquests. Nor shall the race of Saturn ever be free from fear, so long as Hannibal draws breath in the upper world."
Such was the welcome oracle that Bostar brought back; and he filled the army with desire for instant battle.

§ 4.1  BOOK IV
Rumour, spreading through the dismayed cities of Ausonia, told that cloud-capped mountains and heaven-threatening peaks had been conquered, that the Carthaginians had passed over trackless wilds, and that Hannibal had descended from the Alps, boasting an exploit that rivalled the labour of Hercules. Mischievous Rumour prophesied dread commotions, and, growing as she went, and moving swifter than the wings of the wind, shook the panic-stricken cities with alarming reports. Then fear, quick to feed the talk of the populace with falsehood, exaggerated what it heard. Men turned quickly to the fierce business of war, and Mars suddenly raised a clamour throughout Italy, summoning arms and men. They refashion their javelins; the steel is cleansed of rust and puts on its cruel glitter; and helmets, long laid by, renew the beauty of their snowy plumes; the spear is strengthened by a thong, and axes are brought back reforged from the furnace.

§ 4.16  The cuirass that must parry many a thrust and unsuccessful blow is fitted together, to form a protection for the body that nothing can pierce. Some sit late, to mend the bow; some tame the panting steed with the whip and make him wheel about; and others whet the sword upon the stone. Nor are men slow to repair the walls that time has attacked; they bring up stone in wagons and refashion the hollow towers eaten away by age. The citadels too are stored with missiles; men hasten to bring from the forest oak-timber for their gates and trusty bars, and dig moats around. Fear, an active taskmaster, speeds all the work; and terror is rife in the deserted fields. Men leave their homes; panic-stricken, they carry ailing mothers upon their shoulders and drag along old men whose span of life is almost ended; they drive their wives with dishevelled hair in front of them; behind them come the little children with shorter steps, clinging to their father's right hand and left. Thus the people flee, handing on their fear to one another; and no man asks the origin of the reports. But the Senate, though alarmed by the enemy at their doors and by his enormous enterprise, and disappointed by his passage over the Alps, nevertheless opposed the danger with unbroken spirit and high courage. They rejoice to march through peril to glory, and to build by strength of arm such a monument of fame as Fortune has never granted to prosperity.
But Hannibal nursed his army behind the protection of a camp, while the men were weary of marching and their muscles were stiff with continued frost; and, by way of consolation, he pointed out that the

§ 4.42  rest of the march to Rome was over level ground, and that the city was at their mercy. But he did not approve of any pause in his own survey of affairs and plan of campaign; and he alone could not endure inaction. Once before, in ancient days, armed tribes had invaded the happy land of Italy and caused terror by their might; and soon the Tarpeian Father and the conquered Quirites felt the shock of sacriligious warfare." But, while he was tempting the Gauls with bribes, working on the folly and fickleness of that people, and making an alliance with them, the consul Scipio was returning from the land of the Phocaeans, sailing with speed along the coast. Each mighty chief had completed his hard task, one on land and the other by sea; and now a more instant danger brought their camps together; and the beginnings of a great disaster were present. For when the consul arrived and the armies faced each other, and Fortune put an end to delays, the soldiers, roused by the sight of the enemy, demanded the signal for the furious assault. Then Hannibal's voice rose in a great shout over his mighty host: "We have subdued all that distant land that bears the name of Spain; the Pyrenees and the proud Rhone have obeyed our bidding; Rutulian Saguntum has gone up in smoke; we forced a passage through Gaul; and, where Hercules found it hard to tread, the soldiers of Carthage have marched in arms; our horsemen have ridden up the heights and trampled on the peaks, and the Alps have echoed with the snorting of our steeds."
On the other side the consul summoned his men to danger and to glory: "Soldiers, your foes are

§ 4.68  enfeebled and frost-bitten by the Alpine snows, and drag their benumbed limbs with difficulty. They have crossed inviolate mountains and rocky chasms: well, let them learn how high our rampart rises above the citadel of Saguntum, and which is the harder task — to climb hills or to break your ranks. Let them boast of their useless exploit — I care not, if only the Alps oppose them, when they have been routed in a great battle and are rushing back the way they came. Heaven brought them hither and led them over the heights, that they might dye the land of Latium with their blood and lay their bones in a hostile soil. I would fain know whether this war is launched by a new and different Carthage or by the same power which sank beneath the waves and now lies buried in the boundless deep near the Aegatian islands."
Thus he spoke, and turned his march aside to the river Ticinus. That crystal river keeps its pools of blue water free from all stain above its shallow bed, and slowly draws along its fair stream of greenish hue. One would scarce believe it was moving; so softly along its shady banks, while the birds sing sweet in rivalry, it leads along in a shining flood its waters that tempt to sleep.
And now night was ending and the darkness departing; dawn was near and Sleep had completed his allotted hours, when the consul made ready to examine the ground and ascertain the character of the neighbouring hill and plains. Hannibal had the same intention, and the same anxiety filled his heart. So the two came near, escorted by speedy squadrons of horsemen.
But when the rising cloud of dust showed that the

§ 4.95  enemy were on the march, and the earth rang with the sound of hoofs coming ever nearer, and at the same time the trumpet was drowned by the eager neighing of the horses, then both leaders called upon their troops: "To arms, my men! to arms with speed!" Each had the same restless valour, and the same thirst for glory, and they were kindred spirits in their passion for war and battle.
There was no delay. Soon the combatants were separated only by as much ground as a lance sped by a thong can cover, when suddenly all eyes and thoughts were turned to the sky by a portent appearing in the clear and cloudless heavens. A hawk, flying from the sun in his meridian, was fiercely assailing a flock of the birds that are dear to Venus and owe their fame to the favour of Dione; now with talons, now with beak, and now with fierce buffeting of his wings, he had cruelly wounded and slain fifteen victims. Nor did he stop, satisfied: his eagerness for a fresh victim grew, and he pressed hard on the last dove, while she wavered in her flight with flagging wing, terrified by the slaughter of the rest. But now an eagle, coming up from the East, forced the hawk at last to fly for refuge to the unsubstantial clouds. Then the undefeated dove turned and flew gladly towards the Roman standards and the place where the general's son, Scipio, was brandishing shining weapons with his childish strength; then, when she had uttered her note thrice and pecked at the plume of the boy's glittering helmet, she went back to the sky.
A cry came from Liger — he was skilled to perceive the warnings of heaven and to foretell the future by watching the birds: — Hannibal, you, like that bold

§ 4.123  bird, for twice eight years shall pursue the men of Rome in the land of Italy, and shall carry off much booty and shed much blood. But restrain your threats; for, lo! the armour-bearer of Jupiter withholds from you the realm of Daunus. I recognize thy hand, O mightiest of the gods. Be present, O Father, and confirm the omen of thy bird! For, unless the eagle is false to the gods and his flight means nothing, it is reserved for this boy to seal the fate of conquered Libya, and to gain a name greater than that of Carthage."
Bogus, on the other hand, prophesied good fortune to Hannibal: the hawk was a favourable sign, and the slaughter of birds in the sky foretold disaster to the Aeneadae, the descendants of Venus. Then, to suit his words, he hurled the first spear against the foe, as if prompted by heaven and aware of coming events. The weapon flew far over the empty space of the spreading plain, and distance would have robbed it of its effect, but for the desire of Catus to reap glory in the first battle. He galloped forward with loosened rein and drove his horse's head to meet it; and so the spear, when flagging in its course and ready to fall, found the mark it sought and received from the enemy power to kill; it lodged between the temples of the brow that courted death.
The armies advance at speed, and a mighty noise spreads over the field when all the riders raise their horses' heads high with the bridle and then urge them forward; rearing aloft, the chargers then rush on and in their stormy flight over the plain leave hardly a trace of their hoof-prints on the dusty surface. A swift squadron of Boii, commanded by Crixus, takes the lead, dashing against the front rank of Romans, and blockingthe way with their giant bodies.

§ 4.149  Crixus himself, proud of his ancestry, claimed descent from Brennus, and the taking of the Capitol was one of his titles to fame. Poor fool! he displayed on his shield the Gauls weighing the gold on the sacred eminence of the Tarpeian hill. A golden collar glittered on his snow-white neck; his garments were striped with gold, with gold his gauntlets were stiff, and his helmet-crest sparkled with the same metal.
Their fearful charge struck and overthrew the men of Camerium in the front rank, and the Boii rushed over the close-packed spears like crowding waves; and the accursed" Senones joined them and swelled their ranks; and men's bodies, shattered by the chests of the horses, tumble over all the plain. The ground is drenched; pools of blood, from men and horses, swallow up the slippery footprints of the fighting squadron. The heavy hoof kills outright those who are half-dead already; and the horses, as they ride round, scatter on the ground a hideous dew of blood, and the armour of the poor wretches is drenched with their own gore. The first victorious javelin was thrown by proud Pelorus, and stained by the red life-blood of young Tyrrhenus. For, while he blew his horn, to stir the soldiers' hearts and kindle their courage for battle, and to make them face fresh wounds by his music, the barbarian's weapon stuck fast in his windpipe and stopped with a deadly wound the hoarse murmur of the horn. Yet the last music that came from his dying lips trickled through the curved instrument, after the lips themselves were dumb.

§ 4.175  Crixus slew Picens and Laurus, but not both from a distance; for Laurus fell by the sword, but Picens was slain by a polished spear, once cut on the banks of the Po. For, when Picens tried to turn aside and sought to elude his foe by wheeling to the left, the terrible spear pierced at the same time the rider's thigh and the unprotected belly of the flying steed, inflicting a double death. Crixus also plucked his weapon from the gory neck of Venulus and, while it was still warm, laid low Farfarus with it, and Tullus who was reared near cold Velinus — a proud boast of Italy he would have been and a famous name, if the Fates had granted him longer life or the Carthaginians had adhered to the treaty. Next Crixus slew Remulus, and warriors whose names were once famous in arms — the Magii of Tibur, Metaurus of Hispellum, and Clanius, — and aimed his blow with a spear which doubted whom to strike.
The Carthaginians had no room for fighting, because the furious Gauls filled all the field; not one of them hurled his weapon in vain; every missile was planted in the body of a foe. And now Quirinius, to whom flight was a thing unknown, and whose dauntless heart chose death with wounds in front, when the battle went against them, showed mighty daring, while those around him trembled. He spurred his horse with his spear-point and hurled javelins with his strong arm, hoping to clear a passage and burst his way by the steel to Crixus. Assured of death, he sought with might and main the glory he could never hope to enjoy. Teutalus, pierced in the groin, fell before him, and the earth shook under his huge weight; and Sarmens next, who vowed, if victorious, to offer to Mars his yellow locks — the hair that rivalled gold — and the ruddy topknot on the crown of his head.

§ 4.202  But his vow was unheard, and the Fates drew him down to the shades below with his locks unshorn; for the steaming blood drenched his white limbs, and the soaked earth turned red. But now Ligaunus, undeterred by the javelin that met him, rushed on and whirled his sword full in face of Quirinius, rising to his full height as he struck; and the left arm, where the tough muscles attach the limb to the shoulder, was cut off by the blow; for a space it hung dying over the slackened reins, and the quivering hand, while it felt again with feeble effort for the bridle, imitated unwittingly the familiar gesture of the horseman. Then Vosegus cut off his head from behind, and carried off the helmet hanging by its plume with the dead man's head inside it, and hailed his gods with the war-cry of his nation.
While the Gallic tribes dealt death thus over the field, the consul summoned his troops in hot haste from their camp, and charged foremost against the foe, borne aloft on his white steed. Behind him came the soldiers, chosen from every part of fertile Italy — Marsians and men of Cora, the pride of Laurentum and the Sabine throwers of javelins, the hill-dwellers of Tuder who worship Mars, and with them the men of Falerii who wear the flaxen stuff of their country; the men who were bred by the orchards of Catillus, dwellers by the Anio, where the stream runs silent under the walls of Hercules; and the men sent forth by the misty fields of Casinum and by the Hernician rocks, where the people are made hardy by their icy streams. Thus the children of the ruling land went forth to battle; but heaven had condemned them, and the army was doomed never to return.

§ 4.229  Scipio urged his steed to where the central whirlpool of battle was swallowing up the fighters; then, infuriated by the carnage of his men, he slaughtered, as offerings to the dead, Labarus and Padus and Caunus and Brucus, scarcely laid low with many a wound, and Larus, as he rolled his eyes with the stare of a Gorgon. Cruel too was the doom by which brave Leponticus fell. For when he boldly threw himself in the consul's way, catching hold of the reins, and, though on foot, reaching up to the level of the rider's face, down came the heavy sword on the centre of his forehead, and the head, split in two, fell upon the shoulders. Then Batus, while he fought madly against Scipio's horse and warded off attacks with his shield, was stretched on the yellow sand by a blow from the steed, and his face was crushed out of recognition by the stamping hoofs. Thus the Roman general raged over the troubled plain, like the Thracian North-wind, when in his might he has stirred up from the bottom the whole Icarian sea; ships are wrecked, and seamen scattered and tossed on the mighty deep; and all the Cyclades are drenched with the foaming flood.
With slender hopes and little chance of safety, Crixus steeled his heart with contempt of death: his bristling beard was red with a bloody foam, foam flew from his open mouth in his fury, and his hair was rough with a coating of dust. He attacked Tarius, who was fighting beside Scipio, and thundered round him with furious assault. Tarius rolled upon the ground; for the death-dealing spear drove him forward upon his horse's neck, and he was dragged along by the frightened beast, with his feet caught in the encircling girth.

§ 4.257  His blood sprinkled the plain and left long traces there; and the spear printed uneven marks on the sand. Scipio praised the young man's death, and was preparing to avenge his noble spirit, when a dreadful sound struck his ear, and he knew by the shouting that Crixus, whose face he did not know, was coming. His wrath grew fiercer as they got closer, and he fastened his gaze upon the coveted victim. Then encouraging his steed, and patting his neck to please and honour him, Scipio spoke thus: "Garganus, leave till later the common herd of lesser foes; the gods summon us to greater things. Do you see the mighty Crixus coming? Even now I promise to reward you with yonder saddle-cloth, glittering with Tyrian purple — an adornment fit for the barbarian; and I shall give you the reins of gold." Thus Scipio spoke, and summoned Crixus to battle with a great shout, and demanded an open space for the duel. His enemy, fired with equal ardour, proved no laggard. When the squadrons on both sides fell back as they were bidden and left a clear space, the combatants took stand in the centre of the field. Like the Giant Mimas, the son of Earth, when he fought on the fields of Phlegra and terrified Heaven, so the gigantic Crixus sent forth a cry from his brutish breast and roused his fury with hideous yells. When Rome was taken and burnt, was no survivor left, to tell you the strength of arm that the tribe of Brennus showed in battle? Well, learn it now!" As he spoke, he threw his spear, whose knotted strength and firehardened point were fit to batter down even a city gate. With a dreadful sound it flew; but it went too far, misjudging the distance to be crossed, and the foe was too close; so it passed over the consul's head.

§ 4.286  But to him said Scipio: "Remember to tell the shades below and Brennus, your ancestor, how far from the Tarpeian temple you fell, and that you were not permitted to behold the sacred hill of the Capitol." Then he added force to his spear by the thong and by the trotting of his horse, and threw it with an effort worthy of his huge antagonist. Through the many folds of linen it sped and through the shield fashioned of hide, and pierced with the length of its point his inmost breast. Down he sank, stretching far over the field in his overthrow, and the earth groaned, smitten by his gigantic armour. Even so, when masons build on the Tuscan shore, they hurl a mass of stone from a height upon the water with a mighty noise, to battle with the sea and the invisible currents below: the sea roars; and the deep, parted by the blow, receives the huge mass as it crashes beneath the angry water. Deprived of their leader, the Gauls had recourse to flight; all their confidence and all their valour depended upon a single life. So the hunter on the top of Mount Picanus harries the haunts of wild beasts, and all through the untrodden thickets spreads fell destruction in their crowded lairs; while the fire is silently gathering strength and flame, the tops of the pinetrees are gradually wrapt in black darkness, and the thick smoke goes eddying to the sky; but soon flames blaze out suddenly over the whole mountain: a crackling is heard, the wild beasts flee, the birds flee, and the heifers are startled in the lowland valleys far away.
When Mago saw that the ranks of Gaul had turned back and that their first effort had failed (and that people is incapable of a second), he summoned to battle his own men and the cavalry of his country.

§ 4.313  From all sides they rode up, men who used bridles and men who used none." At one time the Romans turn their reins and retreat; at another, panic carries back the squadrons of Carthage; either one force wheels to the right in crescent-shaped curves, or the other turns with a left wheel to outflank the foe; riding forwards and then back, they weave their massed moving ranks and then unweave them in the skill of their retreat. With such alternation, when the winds are at variance, the North-wind drives the sea one way and the East-wind another, and the two with alternate blasts carry the mighty deep in different directions.
Now the Carthaginian leader flew to the spot, gleaming in purple and gold, and with him were Fear and Terror and Madness. When he raised up the beamy circle of his Gallician shield and threw a great light over the plains, then hope and courage fled, and the shame of retreat was forgotten by fearful hearts; none cared for a noble death, but all were resolved to fly and prayed to the earth to swallow them. So, when a tigress comes forth from her den in the Caucasus, the plains are deserted, and every beast, terrified by her furious mien, seeks a safe hidingplace; she wanders victorious through the deserted valleys, and presently draws back her lips and slowly bares her teeth, as if tearing actual bodies, and devises carnage with wide-gaping jaws. Metabus could not escape Hannibal, nor could Ufens for all his greater stature, though the last ran with winged feet, and the other, with his horse to help him, galloped at full speed. For the spear with shining point sent Metabus to the lower world; and the sword slew

§ 4.341  Ufens when he fell hamstrung and so lost his life and his repute for speed together. Next Hannibal slew Sthenius and Laurus and Collinus, the son of a cool country, whom Lake Fucinus had reared in its moss-covered grotto and had suffered to swim across its waters. From these Massicus was not divided in death, when the spear struck him — Massicus who was born on the sacred top of the vine-clad hill, and drank the water of the Liris, a placid stream that conceals its flow, and, never affected by rain, brushes its silent banks with sparkling wave. And now began a furious slaughter, and the madness of the combatants could scarce find weapons; shield met and clashed against shield; foot pressed on foot, and the nodding helmet-plume waved as it struck the enemy's brow.
Three brothers, all of an age, fought fiercely in the first rank. They were the sons of Barce, a Carthaginian, whom their fertile mother bore, during the wars, to Xanthippus," the Spartan. Their hearts swelled with pride for the past — the victory of Greece when their father led the host, the famous name of Amyclae, and the fetters that the Spartans fastened upon the neck of Regulus. They burned to prove by deeds of valour their descent from a Laconian sire; and then they were fain to visit the cold heights of Taygetus, and at last, when war was over, to swim in their native Eurotas, and see the laws of Lycurgus. But they never went to Sparta; for Heaven and three Italian brothers prevented them. The three were of the same age and the same spirit;

§ 4.367  they were bred in the tall groves of Egeria, and ruthless Aricia sent them forth; but stern Fate suffered them not to look again on Diana's lake and temple. For Eumachus and Critias, with Xanthippus, proud to bear his father's name, were swept on by the tide of battle, and confronted the Romans. Even so, when lions fight one another with fury and fill the desert plains and distant huts with their hoarse roaring, every Moor hastens to remote rocks and untrodden crags, and the African mother raises her babes to her streaming breast, to still their cries; the beasts roar terribly, the broken bones crack in their blood-stained jaws, and the limbs still fight on, in the grip of the cruel teeth. Even so Egeria's sons, brave Virbius and Capys and their comrade Albanus, sprang forward. Critias, crouching down a moment, stabbed Albanus in the belly and overthrew him; and at once his bowels all gushed out and filled his shield — a piteous sight. Next Eumachus attacked Capys; and though he clutched his shield with all his strength as though it were fastened to his body, yet a cruel sword-cut lopped off the left arm as it clung to the shield; and the luckless hand, refusing to surrender the buckler, still kept its grip and clung to the armour as it fell. Two were now slain, and Virbius alone was left to conquer. He, while shamming flight, slew Xanthippus with his sword and Eumachus with his unbending spear. So at last, when these two were slain, the combat was on equal terms. Then each ran his sword through the other's breast, and they ended the combat by mutual slaughter. Fortunate

§ 4.396  in death were they, whom love of kin and country sent down to join the dead! Coming ages will pray for brethren like them, and their undying fame shall be for ever remembered, if only my verse has power to endure and see a distant posterity, and if Apollo has not begrudged me fame.
When the ranks were straggling over all the plain, Scipio's voice (while his voice lasted) stopped them: "Whither do you carry back your standards? What panic has robbed you of yourselves? If it seemed a dreadful thing to stand in the front rank and challenge the van of the foe, then take your stand behind me, soldiers, dismiss your fears, and merely look on! Yonder warriors are the sons of our prisoners. Whither do you fly? What hope have you, if defeated? Shall we make for the Alps? Believe that Rome in person, with her walls and her head crowned with towers, is now stretching out her hands in supplication. I see all our children carried captive, our parents slain, and the fires of Vesta quenched with blood. Keep this sacrilege far away!" Thus he shouted again and again, till the effort and the thick dust choked his voice; then he seized his reins with the left hand and his sword with the right, and exposed his broad breast to the foe, threatening to use his bare blade at once, now against himself" and now against the fugitives, if they refused to stand.
When the Father of Heaven beheld this battle from the height of Olympus, his heart was moved by the danger of the noble consul. He summoned Mars and spoke thus to his son: "Son, unless thou takest part in the strife, this will surely be the last fight of yonder hero; and I fear for him. Snatch him away from the battle; so fiery is he, and he forgets himself in the joy of slaughter.

§ 4.423  Stop Hannibal; for the insatiate African hopes more from the death of Scipio than from all the heaps of slain. Thou seest, moreover, that boy who already relies on his youthful arm for battle, and aims at prowess beyond his years, and thinks that ripeness for war is slow to come. Thou must be his leader when he wins his maiden spurs; thou must teach him to aspire to great deeds; and let his first victory be the rescue of his sire."
Thus spoke the Father of all things. And straightway Mars summoned his chariot from the land of the Odrysae. Then he took the shield that scatters flames of terrible lightning; he put on the helmet too heavy for any other of the gods to wear, and the breastplate which cost the Cyclopes who wrought it much sweat; he brandished aloft the spear that had its fill of blood in the war with the Titans; and he filled the fields with his chariot. With him went his train — Wrath accompanied by the Furies, and countless forms of bloody death; and Bellona, busy with the reins, urged on the four coursers with her fatal scourge. A fearful storm burst from the boundless sky and shrouded the earth, driving dark masses of stormy cloud. The land of Saturn trembled and shook at the approach of the god; and the Ticinus left its banks at the sound of the chariot and flowed backwards to its source.
The Garamantian spearmen had made a ring round the Roman general; they sought to give Hannibal what he had never got before — the dripping head of a consul, and his armour as booty. Scipio stood firm, resolved never to yield to Fortune; made fiercer by slaughter, he hurled back spear for spear with vehement effort.

§ 4.450  By now his limbs were drenched with his own blood and the enemy's; the plume fell from his helmet; the Garamantes, drawing a closer circle round him, pressed nearer with their weapons; and one launched a dart that pierced him with its cruel point.
When the boy saw the weapon lodged in his father's body, tears wetted his cheeks, he trembled and turned pale in a moment, and his loud cry went up to heaven. Twice he sought to lay violent hands on himself and die before his father; but twice Mars turned his fury against the Carthaginians instead. Boldly the boy rushed on through missiles and through enemies, keeping pace with Mars himself. At once the ranks gave way, and a wide passage was seen suddenly upon the plain. Protected by the god's shield, he mowed down the host; over the armour and bodies of the slain he laid low the thrower of the dart, and many a life — the atoning sacrifice he longed for — does he immolate before his father's eyes. Then in haste he drew the spear from the tough bone, and sped away, bearing his father supported on his neck and shoulders. Amazed at such a sight, the soldiers lowered their weapons; every fierce Libyan and every Spaniard everywhere gave ground: his youth and his noble defence of his father brought about a wondrous silence on the field of battle. Then Mars spoke from his lofty car: "Thou shalt sack the citadel of Carthage, and force her people to make peace. But the glory of this day surpasses all that a long life will offer thee, dear boy. Blessings on thy glorious promise, true child of Jupiter! Greater things are yet to come, but a better gift Heaven cannot give." The sun had now completed

§ 4.478  his journey over the earth, and Mars betook himself to the clouds and the sky; and darkness confined the weary armies to their camps.
Cynthia with downward course was ending the night, while her brother's coursers breathed fire upon her; and from the eastern wave roseate lights ascended amid the blue of heaven. Then Scipio, fearing the fatal plain and the level ground so favourable to the Carthaginians, made for the Trebia and the hills. The days flew by, as they marched and toiled busily; and, when Hannibal reached the swift stream of the Po, the bridge by which the Roman army had crossed was broken down and floating in midstream, with its cables cut. While Hannibal marched round by devious paths, seeking a ford and an easy approach and a peaceful stretch of the river, meantime he felled with speed the trees that grew hard by, and built barges, to take his army across the stream. And now, behold! a consul, a scion of the Gracchi," arrived and encamped near his colleague beside the Trebia. In answer to a summons he had made the long voyage from Pelorus in Sicily. The family of this great man was famous for its high spirit; and, among the busts of his ancestors, many were conspicuous for distinctions won both in war and peace.
The Carthaginians, after pitching their camp in the fields across the river, were not backward either. For they were encouraged by success and by their leader, who taunted the Romans thus: "Has Rome yet a third consul in reserve, or a second Sicily to fight her battles? No! all the fighting men of Latium and all the descendants of Daunus are here assembled.

§ 4.503  Now let the Roman leaders make a treaty with me; now let them insist upon their contracts and covenants! And you," whose life was spared in the battle, life that was no boon, so, so may you live on and again confer this glory on your son! When life ends and Fate summons you, may death in battle be denied you! To fall fighting belongs to Hannibal." Thus he cried in his fury. Then, impatient of delay, he sent light-armed Massylian squadrons to the verge of the Roman camp, to provoke the foe and draw him forth.
The Roman soldiers too were ashamed to owe their safety to their stockade, or to let the spears strike against the closed gates of the camp. They sallied forth; and, when the rampart was levelled, the consul, worthy descendant of the Gracchi, rushed out before them all. The wind blew out the horse-hair plume of his Auruncan helmet, and the scarlet cloak that had graced his ancestors was conspicuous on his shoulder. Looking back on the ranks, he summoned them with a loud voice; and wherever a mass of foemen in close formation met him, he burst his way through and sped along the plain. Even so a roaring torrent falls headlong from the summit of Pindus to the plain; with a mighty noise it tears away a side of the mountain and rolls it down; all the cattle in its path, the wild beasts, and the forests, are swept along; and the foaming waters are loud in the rocky valleys.
Even if I could reproduce the glorious voice of Homer, and if Father Phoebus granted me to speak with a hundred tongues, I could not set forth all the victims slain by the arm of the great consul or by the furious rage of his Carthaginian opponent.

§ 4.529  Murranus and Phalantus were hardy veterans both; but Hannibal slew the first in close combat and Gracchus the second, each general fighting in full view of his rival. Murranus came from the wind-swept height of Anxur, and Phalantus from the stainless waters of the sacred lake, Tritonis. Cupencus had lost an eye, but found the other enough to fight with; and, when he sighted Gracchus, conspicuous in the garb of his rank, he boldly hurled his spear, and planted it quivering in the topmost rim of the consul's shield. Boiling with rage, Gracchus cried to him: "Rash man, leave here the sight that still remains in that fierce face and gleams from that mutilated brow." With these words he threw his spear with a strong straight cast, and the whole point passed through the threatening eye. Nor was the son of Hamilcar less formidable in the fray: he slew luckless Varenus who wore white armour and came from Mevania; for him fertile Fulginia ploughed her rich soil, where the Clitumnus, flowing through the spreading fields, bathes the white bulls in its cool stream. But Heaven was cruel, and Varenus got no recompense for the stately victim he had bred up with fruitless care for the Thunderer of the Capitol. The Spaniards were nimble in attack, and the Moors yet more nimble in their movements. Roman javelins and African spears vied in covering the sky with a thick cloud, and all the level ground, as far as the river-banks, was hidden by the hurtling missiles; and in that close-packed throng the dead had no room to fall.

§ 4.555  The hunter Allius had come from Argyripa in the land of Daunus, and now rode over the plain; his horse was of Apulian breed and his weapons rude; yet he charged the centre of the enemy and threw his native darts with no erring aim. His breastplate was the bristly hide of a Samnite bear, and his helmet was protected by tusks taken from an aged wild boar. He fought as if he were straying through the coverts in some lonely wood, or pursuing flying beasts on Mount Garganus; but when Mago and fierce Maharbal, each from his own place, sighted him at the same moment, then, as two bears, driven by hunger, come down from opposite cliffs, to fall upon a bull affrighted by his two antagonists, and their rage will not suffer them to divide the spoil — even so brave Allius was overthrown by the javelins that came from both his foes. The Moorish yew-wood passed hissing through both his sides; the points met and clashed in the centre of his heart; and it was doubtful which of the two spears could claim his death. By now the Roman standards were scattered over the battle-field; and Hannibal drove the frightened stragglers towards the bank — O pitiful sight! — pushing them on and striving to drown them in the river. Then, obedient to Juno's petition, the Trebia, that river of ill omen, began a fresh assault upon the weary Romans, and roused up its waters. The bank fell in and swallowed up the bodies of the fugitives, and sucked them in by the treacherous quagmire of the soil. Nor could they move on and extract their feet from the deep and sticky mud. For the clinging mire held them prisoners; the crumbling bank entangled them, or the swampy ground trapped them without warning and overthrew them. One after another they struggled up the slippery sides, each trying to

§ 4.582  outstrip the rest along the pathless bank, and battling with the crumbling turf; but they slipped and fell, buried under the rubbish that fell with them. One of them, a speedy swimmer, struggled for a safe hand-hold and forced his way upward, to grasp the turf at the top; but, just as he emerged from the water, a spear was hurled and pinned him to the bank to which he was clinging. Another, having no weapon left, clasped a foe in his arms and held him fast as he tried to swim, till they were drowned together. Death showed itself in a thousand shapes. Though Ligus fell on land, his head hung over the river and drank in the blood-stained water with long sobbing gasps. After much effort comely Irpinus had almost swum ashore from mid-stream; he was shouting to his comrades for a helping hand, when a horse, infuriated by wounds, was carried down by the swift current and struck him down and submerged the weary swimmer.
The crowning disaster came suddenly in sight, when a troop of elephants, with towers upon their backs, were driven into the river. For they rushed headlong through the water, like a cliff falling down from a shattered mountain. They drove the Trebia, dreading dangers unknown till now, before them with their forequarters, and lay down above the foaming channel. Manhood is tested by trial, and valour climbs unterrified the rocky path and difficult ascent that leads to glory. So Fibrenus disdained to die to no purpose, unhonoured and unsung. "The eyes of men shall behold me," he cried, "and Fortune shall not hide my death beneath the flood. I shall find out whether there is aught on earth which a Roman sword cannot master or a Roman spear cannot pierce."

§ 4.610  Rising to his full height he threw his cruel shaft and planted it in the right eye of one great beast; and the weapon remained in the wound. When the point of the spear went in, the monster met it with a hideous trumpeting; then it raised its wounded and bleeding head, threw its rider, and turned in flight. But now the Romans, daring at last to hope that they might kill it, assailed it with darts and showers of arrows. Soon the vast expanse of its shoulders and sides was covered with wounds from the cruel steel; many a lance stuck in its dusky back and rump; and, when it shook itself, the huge forest of missiles waved. At last, when the long contest had used up all their weapons, it fell, and the huge carcass blocked the stream beneath it.
But see! Scipio appears on the opposite bank. Though his limbs, hampered by his wound, cannot move freely, yet he enters the river, and ruthlessly deals out death to countless foes. The Trebia was covered over with close-packed bodies, and shields and helmets of the fallen, till it was scarce possible to see the water. He overthrew Mazaeus with a javelin and Gestar with his sword, and next Thelgon, a native of Cyrene whose ancestors came from the Peloponnese. At him Scipio hurled a javelin which he had caught up from the running stream, and drove the whole length of the tapering iron point through his open mouth; and the shaft made the teeth rattle in the wound. Nor did death bring him peace; for the Trebia carried the swollen corpse to the Po, and the Po to the sea. Thapsus also fell, and a grave was denied to him after death.

§ 4.636  What availed him the home of the Hesperides, or the grove where the goddesses guard the ruddy branches of their gold-bearing tree?
And now the Trebia swelled high, and rose from its lowest depths, driving all its waters fiercely forward, and exerting all its might; the stream raged with noisy eddies, and a fresh flood came roaring after. When Scipio felt this, his rage grew fiercer, and he cried: "O Trebia, you shall suffer as you deserve, and pay dearly for your treachery: I shall divide your stream and make it flow in separate channels through the land of Gaul; and I shall rob you of the name of river, and stop the spring from which you rise; and never shall you be able to reach the banks of the Po and flow into its stream. What sudden madness has turned you, wretched Trebia, into a Carthaginian river?"
As Scipio hurled these taunts, the rising wall of water smote him and weighed down his shoulders with its arching flood. The general, standing erect, matched his strength against the onset of the waves, and held up the rushing river with his shield. But behind him also the foaming flood with roaring blast bedewed with its spray the topmost plume of his helmet. The river-god, withdrawing the soil from beneath his feet, prevented him from wading through the water and finding firm footing; the boulders were smitten and sent afar a hollow sound; the waves, called forth to battle by their sire, joined the fray; and the banks of the river were lost to sight. Then the river-god raised his dripping locks and his head crowned with blue-green weed, and spoke thus: "Arrogant man and enemy of my realm, do you threaten to punish me further and to wipe out my

§ 4.662  name? How many corpses I carry, slain by your arm! So packed am I with the shields and helmets of your victims that I have left my proper channel; you see how my deep pools, red with carnage, are flowing backwards. Put a limit to your deeds of arms, or else attack the plains hard by."
Vulcan was looking on meanwhile from a high hill, hidden in the darkness of a black cloud, with Venus at his side. Then Scipio raised his hands to heaven with a bitter cry: "Ye gods of our country, by whose favour Dardan Rome is preserved, did ye save my life just now in the fierce battle for such a death as this? Did I seem unworthy to end my life by a soldier's arm? Give me back, my son, to danger, give me back to the foe! Suffer me to fight and to welcome such a death as my country and my brother would approve." Then Venus groaned, moved by his prayer, and turned against the river the devouring strength of her invincible consort." Fire spread and burned all over the banks and fiercely devoured the trees that the river had nourished for many a year. All the copses were burnt up, and the victorious flame crackled as it spread in full career to the high groves. Soon the foliage of the fir-tree was seared, and the leaves of pine and alder; soon nothing was left of the poplar but the trunk, and the tree sent off into the sky the birds that were wont to nest on its branches. The devouring flame sucked the moisture from the very bottom of the stream and licked it up; and the blood upon the banks was dried up and caked by the fierce heat. The rugged earth everywhere split up and cracked, showing yawning chasms; and ashes settled in heaps in the bed of the river.

§ 4.690  Father Eridanus marvelled when his immemorial stream suddenly ceased to flow; and the sorrowing company of Nymphs filled their inmost caves with anguished cries. Thrice he strove to lift up his scorched head, and thrice Vulcan threw a firebrand which sent him down below the steaming water; and thrice the reeds caught fire and left the god's head bare. At last the voice of his petition was heard, and his prayer was granted — that he might keep his former banks. And at length Scipio, accompanied by Gracchus, recalled his weary troops from the Trebia to a fortified height. But Hannibal paid high honour to the river, and raised altars of turf to the friendly stream. He knew not, alas! the much greater boon that Heaven intended for him, or the mourning that Lake Trasimene had in store for Italy.
The tribe of the Boii had formerly been attacked by an army under Flaminius; and then he had gained an easy triumph and crushed a fickle and guileless people; but to fight the Carthaginian general was a far different task. Flaminius was born in an evil hour to inflict fatal loss upon Rome; and Juno now chose him as ruler of an exhausted nation and a fit instrument of coming destruction. When his first day of office came, he seized the helm of the state and commanded the armies. So, if a mere landsman, with no skill to manage the sea, has got the command of a luckless vessel, he himself does the work of foul weather, and exposes the ship to be tossed by every gale; she drifts at random over the sea, and the hand of her own captain drives her upon the rocks. So the army was equipped in haste and led toward the

§ 4.719  land of the Lydians, where stands the sacred city founded of old by Cory thus, and where Maeonian settlers had mixed their blood with that of Italians in ancient times.
A warning from heaven came quickly to Hannibal, that he might learn the consul's design and win great glory. Sleep had lulled all things to rest and brought to men forgetfulness of trouble, when Juno, counterfeiting the deity of the neighbouring lake, appeared before him, the hair on the dripping brow crowned with poplar leaves. She stirred the general's heart with sudden anxiety, and broke his sleep with a voice he could not disregard. Hannibal — a glorious name, though a cause of tears to Latium — had Fortune made you a Roman, you would have joined the ranks of the high gods. But why do we arrest the course of destiny? Make haste! The flood-tide of Fortune soon ebbs. Those rivers of blood that you vowed, when you swore to your father enmity against Rome, shall flow now from the veins of Italy, and you shall glut your father's ghost with carnage. When your troubles are over, you must pay me the honour that is my due. For I am the lake surrounded by lofty mountains, round which dwell the settlers from Tmolus; I am Trasimene, the lake of shady waters."
Hannibal was encouraged by this prediction, and the soldiers rejoiced in the divine aid. At once he led them at speed over the barrier of lofty mountains. The Apennines were frozen hard and lifted their pineclad summits to heaven between slippery cliffs. The forests were buried deep in snow, and the hoary peaks climbed high into the sky over snow-drifts.

§ 4.744  He bade them march on. He thought his past glory tarnished and lost, if any mountains barred his way after he had crossed the Alps. They clambered up the stormswept heights and rocky precipices; but even when the mountains v/ere crossed, there was no end and no alleviation of their toil. The plains were flooded, the rivers swollen with melted snow, and the pathless fields covered with a slimy morass. And amid such inhosp table surroundings, Hannibal's uncovered head felt the buffetings of this savage clime, and from his eye a discharge flowed over face and cheeks. Physicians he laughed to scorn. He thought no danger too high a price to pay for the coveted opportunity for war. For the beauty of his brow he cared nothing, provided that his march was not in vain; if victory demanded it, he was willing to sacrifice every limb for the sake of war; it seemed to him that he had sight enough, if he could see his victorious path to the Capitol, and a way to strike home at his foe. Such were their sufferings in that unkind region; but they came at last to the lake they longed to see — the place where Hannibal was to find on the field of battle many a victim in atonement for his lost sight.
But behold! senators came as envoys from Carthage; they had good reason for their voyage, and they bore heavy tidings. The nation which Dido founded when she landed in Libya were accustomed to appease the gods by human sacrifices and to offer up their young children — horrible to tell — upon fiery altars. Each year the lot was cast and the tragedy was repeated, recalling the sacrifices offered to Diana in the kingdom of Thoas. And now Hanno, the ancient enemy of Hannibal, demanded the general's

§ 4.771  son, as the customary victim to suffer this doom according to the lot; but the thought of the armed general's wrath struck home to men's hearts, and the image of the boy's father stood formidable before their eyes.
Their fear was heightened by Imilee," who tore her cheeks and hair and filled the city with woeful cries. As a Bacchant in Thrace, maddened by the recurring festival, speeds over the heights of Mount Pangaeus and breathes forth the wine-god who dwells in her breast, so Imilce, as if set on fire, cried aloud among the women of Carthage: "O husband, hearken! whatever the region of the world where you are fighting now, bring your army hither; here is a foe more furious and more pressing. Perhaps at this moment you stand beneath the walls of Rome itself, parrying the hurtling missiles with dauntless shield; perhaps you are brandishing a dreadful torch and setting fire to the Tarpeian temple. Meanwhile your first-born and only son is seized, alas, in the heart of his native country, for a hellish sacrifice. What boots it to ravage the homes of Italy with the sword, to march by ways forbidden to man,' and to break the treaty which every god was called to witness? Such is the reward you get from Carthage, and such the honours she pays you now! Again, what sort of religion is this, that sprinkles the temples with blood? Alas! their ignorance of the divine nature is the chief cause that leads wretched mortals into crime. Go ye to the temples and pray for things lawful, and offer incense, but eschew bloody and cruel rites. God is merciful and akin to man. Be content with this, I pray you — to see cattle slaughtered before the altar. Or, if you are sure beyond all doubt that

§ 4.798  wickedness is pleasing to the gods, then slay me, me the mother, and thus keep your vows. Why rob the land of Libya of the promise shown by this child? If my husband's glorious career had been thus nipped in the bud long ago by the fatal lot, would not that have been as lamentable a disaster as the battle by the Aegatian islands when the power of Carthage was sunk beneath the waves?" The senators, hesitating between their fear of the gods and their fear of Hannibal, were induced by her appeal to run no risks; and they left it to Hannibal himself to decide, whether he would defy the lot or comply with the tribute due to the gods. Then indeed Imilce became half-frantic with terror; for she dreaded the stern heart of her high-souled husband.
Hannibal listened eagerly to the message and thus replied: "O Mother Carthage, you have set me on a level with the gods, and how shall I repay you in full for such generosity? What sufficient recompense can I find? I shall fight on, night and day, and many a high-born victim from the people of Quirinus shall I send from this place to your temples. But the child must be spared, to carry on my career in arms. You, my son, on whom rest my hopes, you, who are the only safeguard of Carthaginian power against the menace of Italy, remember to fight against the Aeneadae all your life long. Go forward — the Alps lie open now — and apply yourself to my task. To you also I call, gods of my country, whose shrines are propitiated with bloodshed, and who rejoice in a tribute that strikes terror to mothers' hearts, turn hither joyful looks and your whole hearts; for I am preparing a sacrifice and building for you mightier altars.

§ 4.823  You, Mago, must encamp on the top of the mountain opposite, while Choaspes keeps closer and approaches the hills on our left; and let Sychaeus lead his men through the woods to the gorge and its mouth. I myself shall ride swiftly about Lake Trasimene with a flying force, and shall seek victims of war to offer to the gods. For the express promise of the god assures me of a great victory. It is for you, ambassadors, to witness it and carry back the tale to Carthage."

§ 5.1  BOOK V
The Carthaginian leader had seized the Tuscan hills with an unseen force, and in the deep silence of night had occupied the winding woods with troops in ambush. But on their left hand the lake, like a sluggish sea, spread over all the region round with the overflow of its mighty waters and marred the prospect with its abundant slime. This lake was ruled over in ancient times by Arnus, son of Faunus, and now, in a later age, keeps green the name of Trasimene. The father of Trasimene was Tyrrhenus, a Lydian and the pride of Tmolus; he had formerly brought men of Maeonia the long sea-voyage to the Latian land, and had given his own name to the country," and it was he who first revealed to men the sound of the trumpet, unheard till then, and broke the spiritless silence of battle. An ambitious man, he bred up his son for a higher destiny. But the nymph Agylle loved the young Trasimene; and indeed in beauty he could contend with the gods themselves. Casting off maiden shame, she seized him on the shore and carried him down to the depths;

§ 5.18  for her young heart was quick to feel the spell of youthful beauty, nor was she slow to catch fire from the arrow of the Idalian goddess." The Naiads, in their green cave far below, comforted and cherished the boy, when he shrank from his bride's embrace and that watery world. From him the lake, a gift from the bride, got its name; and the water, aware through all its extent of the marriage joy, still bears the name of Trasimene.
And now the chariot of dewy night was close to its dusky goal, and the spouse of Tithonus, not yet emerged from her marriage-chamber, stood shining on the threshold — a time when the wayfarer is less sure that day has begun than that night is ended. The Roman general was marching over the uneven ground, ahead even of his standards; all his cavalry hastened in confusion after him; the skirmishers were not arrayed in separate companies; the footmen were mixed up with the body of cavalry; and the unwarlike rabble of camp-followers filled the air with ominous uproar, and went into battle like fugitives. Then, in addition, the lake itself breathed forth a black and blinding mist, so that the doomed army could see nothing on any side; and the sky, hidden beneath night's dark robe, was gloomy with pitch-black clouds. Nor did Hannibal forget his cunning. He lay in hiding with sword in rest; no advance of his blocked the progress of the foe. Their course was free; and far and wide, as in the stillness of peace, stretched the unguarded shore — the shore, from which there would soon be no returning; for, the path narrowing as it passed into the closing gorge, their route led into the trap; and a double doom, with the cliffs on one side and the barrier of the lake on the other, kept them fast in the toils.

§ 5.44  Meanwhile on the wooded mountain-top careful watch waited for the entrance of the Romans, ready to strike whenever they took to flight. Even so beside a glassy stream a cunning angler weaves osiers to make a light and wide-mouthed weel; the inmost part he frames with especial care, and for the centre he makes the trap taper gradually to a point, and fastens together the narrowed ends; so by the contracting aperture's deceit he forbids return to the fish which, free as they were to enter, he has drawn in from the stream.
Meanwhile Flaminius, bereft of his senses and swept along by destiny, ordered the standards to be advanced with speed; and then the sun's coursers lifted his fiery chariot from the sea and scattered daylight abroad. Soon the sun with disk renewed had dispelled the vapours; and the darkness, broken up by the cloudless radiance, floated down by degrees to earth. But now the birds, which the peoples of Latium consult by ancient custom, when they go to war and inquire into the purpose of Heaven concerning the issue — these birds refused to eat as if aware of coming disaster, and fled from their food with flapping wings. And the bull at the altar never ceased to bellow with hoarse and mournful sound; and when the axe was swung against him, he met the blow with shrinking neck and ran away from the altar. Again, when they tried to wrench the standards from their mounds of soil, noisome blood spouted forth in their faces from the broken ground, and Mother Earth herself sent forth from her bleeding breast dreadful omens of coming slaughter. Moreover, the Father of the gods, who shakes earth and sea with his thunder,

§ 5.71  seized thunderbolts from the forges of the Cyclopes, and hurled them into the Tuscan waters of Lake Trasimene, till the lake, struck by fire from heaven, smoked all over its wide expanse, and fire burned on the water. Alas, for fruitless warnings and portents that seek in vain to hinder destiny! Alas, for gods who cannot contend against Fate! At this point Corvinus spoke, a famous orator and a noble name; his golden helmet bore the bird of Phoebus, which commemorated the glorious combat of his ancestor. Himself inspired by Heaven and alarmed by the fears of the soldiers, he mingled warning with entreaty and thus began: "By the fire from Troy and by the Tarpeian rock, by the walls of Rome, by the fate of our sons that hangs on the issue of this battle — by these we entreat you, general, not to defy the gods but to await a fit time for battle. They will give us place and time for fighting; only be not too proud to wait for Heaven's favour. When comes the happy hour that shall bring death and defeat for Libya, then the standards will need no force to make them follow, the birds will take their food unterrified, and Mother Earth will vomit no blood. Do you, so skilled a soldier, fail to see how great is the power of cruel Fortune in our present position? The enemy is encamped over against us and stops our way, and the wooded heights all round threaten us with ambuscades; nor is there a way of escape on the left where the lake spreads, and the path through the gorge is narrow. If you are willing to meet guile with guile and to postpone battle, Servilius will soon be here with his hurrying troops.

§ 5.99  He has equal authority with you, and his legions are as strong as yours. War calls for strategy: valour is less praiseworthy in a commander."
Thus Corvinus spoke; and all the chief officers added words of entreaty; and each man, beset by a double fear, prayed to the gods not to fight against Flaminius, and to Flaminius not to persist in fighting against Heaven. This roused the general's anger to greater heat; and, when he heard that a friendly force was near, he cried in fury: "Was it thus that you saw me rushing to battle against the Boii, when the great peril of that fearsome horde came against us, and the Tarpeian rock feared a second siege? How many I then put to death! how many bodies my right arm laid low! — bodies born by Earth in anger, and men whom a single wound could hardly kill. Their huge limbs were scattered over the plains, and now their mighty bones cover the fields. Shall Servilius, forsooth, claim a share in my great deeds for his belated army, so that I cannot conquer unless I share the triumph with him, but must rest content with half the glory? You say that the gods warn us. Think not that the gods are like yourselves — men who tremble at the sound of the trumpet. The sword is a sufficient soothsayer against the foe, and the work of an armed right hand is a glorious omen worthy of a Roman soldier. Is this your purpose, Corvinus, that the consul should shut himself up behind a rampart and do nothing? Shall Hannibal first seize the high walls of Arretium, and then destroy the citadel of Corythus, and next proceed to Clusium, and at last march unmolested to the walls of Rome? Groundless superstition ill becomes an army; Valour is the only deity that rules in the warrior's breast.

§ 5.126  In the darkness of night an army of ghosts stands round my bed — the unburied soldiers, whose bodies are rolling down Trebia's stream and the waters of the Po."
Straightway, surrounded by his officers and hard by the standards, he put on his armour for the last time, proof against all entreaty. His tough helmet was made of bronze and the tawny hide of a sea-calf; and above it rose a triple crest, with hair of the Suevi hanging down like a mane; and on the top stood a Scylla, brandishing a heavy broken oar and opening wide the savage jaws of her dogs. When Flaminius conquered and slew Gargenus, king of the Boii, he had fitted to his own head this famous trophy that no hand could mutilate, and proudly he bore it in all his battles. Then he put on his breastplate; its twisted links were embossed with plates wrought of hard steel mingled with gold. Next he took up his shield, formerly drenched with the slaughter of Gauls and adorned with their blood; and on it the She-wolf, in a dripping grotto, was licking the limbs of a child, as if he were her cub, and suckling the mighty scion of Assaracus for his translation to heaven. Lastly he fitted the sword to his side and the spear to his right hand. His war-horse stood by, proudly champing the foaming bit; for saddle he bore the striped skin of a Caucasian tiger. Then the general mounted and rode from one company to another, as far as the confined space would allow, and filled their ears with his appeals: "Yours is the task, and yours the glory, to carry the head of Hannibal on a pike through the streets of Rome, for fathers and mothers to behold.
That one head will make amends for all our slain.

§ 5.153  Let each man recall the griefs that urge him on: "My brother, alas! my own brother is lying on the fatal banks of the Ticinus"; or "My son, unburied, is measuring the depth of the river Po." Let each man speak thus to himself. But, if any man feels no rage derived from private sorrow, let him find motives in the suffering of his country to sting his heart to fierce wrath — the breach made in the Alps, the awful fate of Saguntum, and those whom Heaven forbade to cross the Ebro now so near to the Tiber. For, while you are held back by augurs and soothsayers vainly prying into the entrails of victims, Hannibal has but one thing more to do — to pitch his camp on the Tarpeian rock."
Thus Flaminius ranted, and then he spied in the crowded ranks a warrior fitting on his black helmetplume. "It is your task, Orfitus," he cried, "to contend for this prize — who shall bear the spoils of honour to Jupiter, a welcome offering borne aloft on a blood-stained litter. For why should this glory be won by the hand of another?" He rode on; and when he heard in the ranks a familiar voice, "Murranus," he cried, "your war-cry reveals your presence from afar, and I see you already frenzied as you slaughter the foe. How great the glory that awaits you! But this is my prayer: set us free from this confinement, making a way with the sword." Next he recognized Aequanus, a son of Mount Soracte, a splendid figure in splendid armour: in his native land it was his task to carry the offerings thrice in triumph over harmless fires, at the time when the Archer, the loving son, takes

§ 5.178  pleasure in the blazing piles. "Aequanus," cried the general, "fill your heart with wrath that suits your prowess and your wounds; and then may you ever tread unhurt over Apollo's fire, and conquer the flame, and carry the customary offering to the altar, while Phoebus smiles. With you as my partner in the rage of battle, I should not hesitate to pierce a phalanx of the Marmaridae in their centre, or to rush upon the squares of the Cinyphian horsemen."
Flaminius no longer could endure appeals and speeches that postponed the battle. Long shall the Aeneadae lament what followed. The fatal trumpets rang forth the signal all together; and the bugle rent the air with its awesome din. O grief! O tears, which even after so many centuries are not belated! I shudder, as if calamity were imminent, as if Hannibal were even now calling to arms. From the hills that hid them they rushed forth — Asturians and Libyans, fierce Balearic slingers, and swarms of Macae, Garamantians, and Numidians; Cantabrians also, eager beyond others to hire out their swords and approve mercenary warfare; and Vascones who scorn the protection of a helmet. On this side rocks, on this the lake, on this armed men with their united cries, hem the Romans in, while the ring of Carthaginians spread the battle-cry from man to man through the hills.
The gods turned away their faces and gave way reluctantly to over — ruling Fate. Mars himself wondered at the good fortune of the Carthaginian leader; Venus wept with dishevelled hair; and Apollo was wafted to Delos, where he soothed his grief with plaintive lyre.

§ 5.206  Juno alone remained, sitting on a peak of the Apennines, and her cruel heart looked forward to the dreadful slaughter.
First of all, the men of Picenum, when they saw the enemy pouring forth like a cloudburst from the sky, and Hannibal in full career, anticipate the attack; the soldiers in their ardour seek a recompense for their imminent death in harassing their conqueror; and free from fear as if life was lost already, they send down before them victims to make atonement to their own ghosts. With combined effort and simultaneous action they hurled a cloud of javelins against the Carthaginians; and the foe were beaten back and lowered their shields in which the heavy curved weapons" stuck fast. The fiercer on that account did the Libyans press on — and the presence of their stern commander increased their efforts — while man encouraged man, till breast clashed hard against breast.
Bellona herself moved through the centre of the battle, brandishing her torch, and her fair hair was spattered with abundant gore. The hoarse cry that came from the dark breast of the hellish goddess was fraught with death; and the dreadful trumpet with its mournful music drove maddened hearts into the fray. The ardour of the Romans was kindled by defeat, and despair proved a strong incentive in the hour of disaster; but the foe were encouraged by the favour of Heaven and the smiling face of Victory, and they enjoyed the favour of Mars.
Lateranus, carried away by noble love of slaughter, had gone on slaying till he pierced to the centre of the foe. While he, too eager for battle and bloodshed, defied Fortune on unequal terms among the hordes of the enemy, Lentulus, a youth of the same

§ 5.232  age, saw his plight and ran forward with a hasty effort against fierce Bagas, whose spear-point was close to the back of Lateranus as he fought. But Lentulus was quicker and drove his spear in first, and proved himself a friend in adversity. Then the pair eagerly joined forces; the brows of both shone with equal light, and their heads, held high, were adorned with twin plumes. It was by chance that Syrticus, a Carthaginian, was driven to face the pair — for who would have dared to meet them in fight, unless he were condemned to nether darkness by the deity of the shades below? He hastened down from the heights, carrying a branch broken off from an oaktree; and, as he fiercely brandished the heavy-knotted bough, he burned with vain desire to slay the pair: "Ye Romans, here are no Aegatian islands, no shore that betrays the seaman; no sea, stirred by sudden storms and not by war, shall decide the issue of battle; at sea ye conquered in the past; J learn now, how a Libyan can fight on dry land, and resign your power to your betters." At the same time he pressed Lateranus hard with the heavy branch, and reviled him while he attacked. But Lentulus ground his teeth with rage: "Lake Trasimene shall climb up these hills," he cried, "before his noble blood shall wet your bough." Then crouching down, he stabbed the other in the groin which the effort of his blow had lifted up, till the hot blood poured out from the black lung through the gaping entrails.
In other parts of the field the same frenzy raged, and the fighters were eager to slay and be slain. Tall Iertes slew Nerius; and high-born Volunx, the owner of broad lands, was overthrown by Rullus.

§ 5.262  What availed him now all his treasure locked up in secret chambers, or his kingly palace, once shining with African ivory, or whole villages belonging to him alone? The wealth he seized could not help him, or the thirst for gold that men can never slake. The man whom Fortune favoured once and crammed with piled-up wealth and rich gifts — him now shall the Ferryman's boat convey naked to Tartarus.
Near them fought the young warrior Appius, cutting a path with his sword, and seeking glory where utmost valour was needed and none else had strength to seek it. He was confronted by Atlas — Atlas from the Spanish shore; but his distant home by the outmost sea did not save him. When he aimed his spear at the head of Appius, the point alone lightly grazed the skin and just tasted that noble blood. Like a thunder-peal were the threats of Appius; his furious eyeballs burned with fresh fire; the lightning of his rage scattered all in his path; his wound was hidden by the helmet, and the flowing blood made his warlike figure more splendid. Then one might have seen his enemy striving in terror to hide behind his comrades, like a trembling hind pursued by a Hyrcanian tigress, or like a pigeon that checks her flight when she sees a hawk in the sky, or like a hare that dives into the thicket at sight of the eagle hovering with outstretched wings in the cloudless sky. He was wounded in the face by the furious sword; then Appius cut off his head and quivering right hand, and sought a fresh victim, made fiercer by his victory,
Isalcas stood near; he came from Cinyps, and his weapon was a shining axe; his ambition, poor wretch, was to fight and win glory under the eyes of Mago,

§ 5.290  his father-in-law; for he was proud of his Carthaginian bride-to-be, and flattered by the vain promise that, when war with Rome was over, they should be wedded. HFieree Appius turned his furious rage against Isalcas, and, rising to his full height, delivered his stroke at the helmet, while the other sought to aim his heavy axe at the forehead. But the brittle sword broke against the helmet of the Cinyphian, so sturdy was the stroke. Nor was Isalcas more fortunate: he missed his mark and only cut off the boss of the Roman's shield. Then Appius, breathing hard, swung aloft a stone, which he could never have lifted from the ground but for the strength that anger gave him, and crushed his foe as he fell backwards with the heavy boulder, and rammed it down upon the shattered bones. , Mago, who was fighting not far away, groaned when he saw his son-in-law fall, and the tears fell behind his helmet. Then he rushed up in haste; the marriage he had lately approved, and his hope of grandchildren, stirred his rage. On he came and surveyed the shield and the huge limbs of Appius; and the light that shone from the front of the gleaming helmet, seen at close quarters, cooled his fierce wrath for a space. So a lion, that has rushed down from a wooded height, crouches down upon the plain and gathers his limbs under him, when he sees hard by the horns of a fierce bull, even though long fasting urges him on; the beast stares now at the starting muscles on the great neck, and now at the savage eyes beneath the shaggy forehead, and watches the bull preparing for action and pawing the dust in readiness for fight. And now Appius was first to brandish his spear, and thus he spoke: "If you feel the ties of kindred, then be true to the

§ 5.318  alliance you have formed, and go where your sonin-law has gone." The weapon flew through the shield and the brazen armour, and stuck fast in the left shoulder. Mago made no reply, but fiercely levelled his spear, the famous gift that his great brother gave him; for beneath the walls of Saguntum Hannibal had taken it from Durius whom he had conquered and slain, and had given it to his brother to bear in battle, the glorious token of a famous contest. The huge weapon, made more formidable by the rage of the thrower, passed through the helmet and the head of Appius, dealing a fatal wound. His bloodless hands, seeking to pluck forth the weapon, fell helpless upon the wound. Low on the Maeonian plain lies Appius, that famous name; and much of Italy's might fell with him. The lake shivered, and Trasimene withdrew its waters from contact with the body. The bleeding mouth of the dying man closed on the weapon and muttered as it bit the spear.
Nor was Mamercus more fortunate: he suffered in every limb and was wounded by every foe. He had killed a standard-bearer and seized the heavy standard; and now he was carrying it through the enemy's ranks, where a fierce company of Lusitanians were fighting. He was rallying the wavering eagles of the Romans, when the Lusitanians, maddened to fury by his bold action, hurled at the unhappy man every weapon they carried themselves or that they could pick up from the ground, covered so thick with missiles that movement was scarce possible. Even his bones were pierced; and scarce could half of the spears find room in his body.
Meanwhile Hannibal came up in haste, stirred to anger by his brother's wound.

§ 5.346  Distracted at sight of the blood, he kept asking Mago and his companions whether the wound was in the body, and whether the spear had struck home with all its weight. When he heard better news than he dreaded, and that danger of death was remote, he covered Mago with his own shield, and hurried him off the field, and lodged him in the camp, safe from the storm of battle. Next he made haste to summon the skill of the healer and the aid of ancient Synhalus. Synhalus surpassed all men in anointing a wound with the juices of simples; he could draw a weapon forth from the body by incantation and send snakes to sleep by stroking them. Hence his fame was great through the cities of Libya and the shores of Egyptian Syrtis. In ancient days the first Synhalus had learnt from his father, Ammon himself, the deity of the Garamantes, how to give relief and healing to men bitten by wild beasts or sore wounded in battle; and he, when dying, revealed the divine gift to his son; and the son bequeathed his father's skill, to make his heir glorious; and next in succession came this Synhalus, no less famous than his sires. By his sagacity and by study he added to the lore of Ammon, and could point to his ancestor, the ancient comrade of Ammon, on many a bust. Now with healing hand he brought the remedies his ancestors had used; his garments were wound tightly about his loins, as the custom of physicians is; and quickly he cleansed the wound of blood and soothed it by washing. But Mago, reflecting on the death and spoiling of his foe, comforted his brother by his words, and made light of a mishap so glorious: Fear nothing, brother," he said. "You can apply no more potent remedy to my suffering than this — that Appius lies low, sent to the nether world by my spear.

§ 5.374  Even if I lose my life, I have done enough and shall gladly follow my foe to the shades."
While this mischance disturbed the leaders, taking them from the battle-field and penning them in the camp, Flaminius, watching from a high mound, saw Hannibal leave the fighting-line and the black cloud of war disappear within the camp. At once in fury he attacked the wavering enemy with a picked force, and the sudden alarm opened up the ranks that were already growing thin; then he called fiercely for his horse, and rushed into the conflict in the centre of the valley. So, when Jupiter smites the earth with pouring rain and crackling hail, and stirs with his thunderbolt now the Alpine heights and now the Ceraunian mountains that reach to heaven, earth and sea and sky all quake together, and Tartarus itself is shaken in the convulsion of the universe. Even so the sudden storm of unforeseen destruction fell upon the startled Carthaginians, and cold terror made its way into their bones, when they saw the consul. He rode through their midst, making a wide passage and hewing down with his sword the ranks where they were thickest. The shouting with all its discordant cries carried the madness of war to heaven, and struck the stars. So Father Ocean together with raging Tethys beats on Calpe, a Pillar of Hercules, and drives the churned-up sea with its roaring waves into the hollow interior of the mountain; the cliffs bellow; and the crash of the breakers on the rocks is heard by Tartessus far-parted by broad lands, and heard by Lixus across a great space of sea.
Bogus was the first to fall, by a javelin that came stealing noiselessly through the sky.

§ 5.402  He had launched the first flying spear against the Romans by the ill-omened river of Ticinus. Beguiled by deceitful omens from birds, he had believed that he would live long and see many children of his children. But no man may postpone by augury the date that Fate has fixed. He fell in the battle, looking up to heaven with blood-shot eyes, and calling upon the gods, even as he died, to redeem their promise of old age. Nor might Bagasus triumph or escape unpunished, when he had slain Libo in the consul's sight. Libo's ancestors had won laurels, and he was glorious in his vigorous youth; but the sword of the Massylian cut off the head on which the beard was just growing, and the savage warrior cut down by an early death the blossom of youth. But he cried to Flaminius, even as life left him, and his cry was not vain; for, head and all, the foeman's neck was instantly shorn away: glad was he to imitate the conqueror's cruelty and to slay him even as he had slain.
Ye Muses, what god could narrate so many deaths in fitting language? What poet could utter a dirge worthy of the mighty dead? Who could tell of the striplings contending with one another for the prize of death; of the brave deeds done on the brink of the grave; of the fury that filled breasts pierced with wounds? Foe clashed furiously against foe and fell; and none found time to spoil his victim or think of plunder. They were driven on by thirst for blood, while Hannibal was kept close in camp by his brother's wound. Among the myriad warriors Flaminius, spreading destruction with javelin or sword, was now conspicuous on horseback, and now fought fiercely on foot, in front of the eagles and standards. The

§ 5.432  accursed valley ran with blood; and the hills and hollow rocks echoed the clashing of arms and the snorting of horses.
The combatants were scattered by Othrys of Marmarica, who brought to battle superhuman strength and stature; and the mere sight of his huge frame turned the Roman troops to flight. His giant head rose on broad shoulders high over both armies, and his mouth was hidden by the shaggy locks that grew on his grim forehead, and by a beard that rivalled his hair; a matted growth of bristles, like a wild beast's fell, covered his hairy chest. None dared to challenge him or fight him at close quarters: like a wild beast in the open plain, he was assailed by missiles thrown from a safe distance by the host. At last as, shouting loud, he rushed with furious face against the backs of the straggling Romans, a Cretan arrow, flying noiselessly through the air, pierced his threatening eye and stopped his course. As he fled to the main body, Flaminius cast a javelin at his back; and it pierced the undefended ribs and revealed its point sticking out beyond the shaggy breast. Quickly he strove to pluck it forth, where he saw the bright steel point protrude. At last, after losing much blood, he fell forward in death, covering much ground, and hid the weapon with his wounded breast. His breath, as it poured forth, stirred the dust, blowing over the plain beside him and raising a cloud into the sky.
Meanwhile, fighting as fierce went raging on, over the scattered hills and woods; and rocks and thickets were wet and red with manifold encounters fought over the rough ground. Sychaeus was the destroyer of the fugitives, bringing death upon them and untimely slaughter.

§ 5.461  His spear struck down from afar Murranus, who, in times of peace, was surpassed by none in drawing sweet strains from the lyre of Orpheus." He fell in a great forest and even in death recalled the mountains of his home, the vine-clad Aequan hills and soft Surrentum with its healthful breezes. Then Sychaeus sent another to keep company with Murranus; and the conqueror rejoiced in the strange manner of that cruel death. For Tauranus, while following the stragglers, had found his way to a high wood, where he leant his back against an ancient elm-tree and tried to shield himself with its trunk against attack; and there with his last words he summoned the comrades he had left behind. In vain; for the spear of Sychaeus pierced him, and, after swiftly passing through his body, lodged in the tree that stood in its path.
What ailed ye, O men? Was it divine wrath or disastrous panic that possessed your minds, when you gave up fighting and sought help in trees? Fear is indeed an evil counsellor in danger: the stern issue proved that cowardice gives bad advice. An ancient oak grew there, which shot its tall branches to the sky, thrusting its shady top into the clouds and towering over the forest; had it grown on the open plain, it would have looked like a whole grove; and it covered a wide space of ground with the dark shade of its foliage. Beside it grew another oak of equal size, that had striven for centuries to exalt its hoary head to the sky; the spreading trunk was crowned with a vast circle of leafage that overshadowed the top of the mountain. Hither flew in haste men of Henna, whom the king of Arethusa had sent from

§ 5.490  Sicily; they knew not how to preserve death from disgrace, and they were mad with terror. One after another they climbed aloft and bent the swaying branches with their shifting weight. Then, as one climbed above another in his eagerness to reach a place of safety, some fell to the ground, deceived by the rotten boughs and decay of the treacherous tree, while others hung in terror in the lofty tree-top, a mark for missiles. Eager to destroy them all in their distress by the same death, Sychaeus changed his weapon: he laid down his shield and caught up at once his brazen battle-axe. His comrades lent a hand, and the tree, yielding to repeated blows, creaked with a crashing sound. The wretched fugitives toss to and fro when the trunk is smitten; as, when the blast of the West- wind rocks ancient groves, the bird and her nest also are tossed about, and she can scarce find foothold on the swaying tree-top. At last the unfriendly oak, a sorry refuge in trouble, fell under the blows of many axes, and crushed the men's limbs in its far-spreading downfall.
Other forms of disaster followed. The other oak, close to the scene of slaughter, took fire and was soon wrapped in flames. And now among the leaves, spreading with fierce eddies over the dry wood, Vulcan brandished tongues of fire with panting heat and scorched the topmost branches. And all the time the shooting went on; and half-burnt bodies, clutching at blazing branches, fell shrieking to the ground.
In the midst of these pitiful conflicts, see! Flaminius arrives, with wrath in his heart and destruction for Sychaeus. The young man, fearing the danger of so mighty a duel, was first to try his fortune with his
spear;

§ 5.521  but the weapon lodged lightly on the brazen plate in the centre of the shield, unable to pierce the wicker-work in its path. The consul, unlike his rival, was not willing to trust to his spear for success in the victory he desired: he stabbed Sychaeus in the body with his sword; and the round shield of raw leather failed to stop it. The victim fell and, as he died, bit the earth with bleeding mouth. Then, as the fatal chill spread through his frame, and death made its way to his vital parts, he suffered it, and closed his eyes in eternal sleep.
While the battle went on thus, with varying fortune and such scenes of horror, Mago and Hannibal had already left the camp, and were hurrying their troops on with speedy march, eager to make up for lost time by slaying Romans, and to make it good by much bloodshed. On came their troops, raising a black cloud of whirling dust; the sand rose and lifted the soil with it; and, wherever Hannibal moved and turned his steps, the storm of war, driven by a billowy tempest, rolled in all directions and veiled the high mountains with darkness. Fontanus fell, pierced in the thigh; pierced was the throat of Buta, the minstrel, and the spear-point stuck out beyond the sore wound and beheld his back. The first, a man of long descent, was mourned by Fregellae; and his native Anagnia wept for the other. Laevinus fared no better, though he had been less bold; not daring to challenge Hannibal, he had chosen Ithemon, a captain of Autololes, as a fitting rival. Him he had hamstrung and was stripping him, when the heavy ashen spear with furious force broke in his ribs: and he collapsed under the blow and fell instantly on the corpse of his prostrate foe.

§ 5.551  Nor were the men of Sidicinum backward. A thousand of them served under Viriasius, who had no superior in pitching a camp or building a raft or battering walls with the tough ram or planting improvised gangways against a tower. But Hannibal saw him exulting in his prowess, because Arauricus, distrusting his light armour, fled wounded before him in hot haste; and his ardour was kindled by the prospect of a glorious combat; and he thought it not beneath him to close in conflict with the fierce warrior. As Viriasius drew his spear forth from the body of Arauricus, Hannibal rushed up and stabbed him in the breast, crying: "Famous fighter, whoever you are, you deserved to fall by no hand but mine; carry down to the shades the glory of your death; had not the land of Italy given you birth, I should have suffered you to depart alive." Next he attacked Fadus and the veteran Labicus, whom Hamilcar had once fought in Sicily and made famous by a memorable contest. Unmindful of his years and forgetting his age, he came forth now to battle. He kept his youthful ardour and all the passion of youth; but his feeble blows betrayed the weakness of the aged warrior: so a fire of straw crackles to no purpose and blazes up with no strength and no effect. When Hannibal learnt his name from Hamilcar's armourbearer, he cried exultingly: Here and now you shall pay the penalty for the first battle in which you fought: the famous Hamilcar uses my arm to send you down to the shades." Then he raised a javelin to his ear and threw it, and then ran him through as he lay writhing upon his wound. When the weapon was drawn forth, the blood defiled his grey hairs, and death ended his long service.

§ 5.580  Herminius likewise was slain in his first battle by Hannibal — Herminius who was wont to pillage Lake Trasimene and draw forth the fish with his hook, pulling out food for his ancient father with a line that hung over the motionless pools.
Meanwhile the sorrowing Carthaginians raised the lifeless body of Sychaeus upon his shield and bore it to the camp. When Hannibal saw them hasting with loud lament, his heart was stricken with foreboding grief. "Why mourn ye thus, comrades?" he asked: "Whom have the angry gods taken from us? Is it you, Sychaeus, burning with desire of glory and too eager in your first battle, whom the black death-day has cut off before your time?" When the tears of the mourners answered his question, and when they told at the same time the name of the slayer, Hannibal spoke thus: "I see the glorious wound of the Roman spear on the front of your body. You will go down to the shades, worthy of Carthage, worthy of Hasdrubal; your good mother will mourn you as a true descendant of your ancestors; and, when my father Hamilcar meets you in the darkness of Hades, he will not shun you as degenerate. My own grief shall be lessened by the death of Flaminius, the author of our sorrow. He shall be the escort that follows you to the grave; and wicked Rome shall dearly repent too late the stroke that robbed my beloved Sychaeus of life."
While he spoke thus, a reeking steam issued from his mouth, and a hoarse inarticulate sound came forth from his furious breast, as water overflows with fireheated waves, when it rages angrily, confined in the burnt cauldron. Then he rushed headlong into the fray, and singled out Flaminius for attack, taunting him; and Flaminius was ready for battle on the instant.

§ 5.609  The War-god towered up closer, and now the pair stood face to face on the field, when suddenly there came an awful crash along the cliffs, and the heights were shaken and the high peaks rocked all along the range; on the pine-clad summit the trees swayed, and fragments of rock rushed down upon the armies. Splitting asunder in its lowest depths, the earth rumbled in its tortured hollows and opened up great chasms; and the vast gulf, yawning wide, revealed the shades below; and the dead in the depths were terrified by the daylight they once had known. The dark lake, forced from its ancient seat, rose to the height of the mountains, and bathed the Tuscan woods with moisture unfelt before. And now that same storm and dire catastrophe overthrew and destroyed nations and the cities of mighty kings. And rivers also flowed backwards and fought against their sources; the sea-waves reversed their course; and the Fauns who dwell on the Apennines left the hills and fled towards the coast."
Yet — alas for the frenzy of war! — the battle still went on; and the soldiers, though staggering on the unsteady ground and falling when the earth withdrew beneath them, kept hurling their uncertain missiles against the foe. At last the Romans were defeated and turned their random flight to the lakeshore, and were driven distracted into the water. The consul had been separated from them by the earthquake; but now he overtook them and reproached them from behind: "What still remains, if you fly now } what, I beseech you? You are leading Hannibal against the walls of Rome; you are giving him fire and sword, to use against the Tarpeian shrine of the Thunderer.

§ 5.637  Stand firm, soldiers, and learn from me to fight bravely; or, if fight is impossible, learn how to die. Flaminius shall set a worthy example to coming generations. No Libyan, no Spaniard, shall ever behold the back of a consul. If you are possessed by such a mad passion for flight, then single-handed I shall intercept every weapon with my own breast; and, dying, as my soul departs through the sky, I shall call your swords back to the battle."
While Flaminius spoke thus and plunged into the thickest of the enemy, Ducarius rode up, savage in mind as in aspect. That fierce warrior bore a name familiar in his tribe, and his savage heart had long cherished resentment for the defeat suffered in time past by his countrymen, the Boii." Recognizing the face of their proud conqueror, he cried: "Art thou he whom the Boii so much dreaded? I intend this weapon to decide whether blood will flow, when such a hero is wounded. And you, my countrymen, shrink not from offering up this victim to our noble dead. This is the man who stood in the chariot and drove our defeated sires to the Capitol. Now the hour of vengeance summons him." Then the consul was overwhelmed with missiles that rained from all sides alike; and, covered by the shower that hurtled through the sky, he left to none the power of boasting that his hand had slain Flaminius. When the leader was slain, the fighting ceased. For the foremost soldiers closed their ranks; and then, enraged against Heaven and themselves for their defeat, and thinking it worse than death to see the Carthaginians conquer, they hastened eagerly to pile over the body of Flaminius and
walked in front of their conqueror's chariot to the temple of Jupiter.

§ 5.664  his prostrate limbs their weapons, their bodies, and their hands red with the blood of defeat. Thus they covered him with a close-packed heap of corpses for a tomb. The dead lay scattered in the water, in the woods, and in the valley where the blood ran deep, when Hannibal rode up with his brother to the centre of the carnage: "Do you see these wounds, these deaths?" he said to Mago: each hand grasps its sword, and the warrior lies in his armour, and still maintains the strife. Let our soldiers look and see how these men died! Their brows still frown, and martial ardour is fixed upon their faces. It misgives me that this land, the fertile mother of such noble heroes, may be destined to hold empire, and may, even by its lost battles, conquer the world."
Thus Hannibal spoke and then gave way to night; for the sun had vanished, and the coming on of darkness ended the slaughter.

§ 6.1  BOOK VI
Now on Eastern shores the Sun was yoking the steeds that he had freed in the sea of Tartessus when he scattered his fires for the night; and the Seres, first disclosed by the sunrise, began again to pluck fleeces from their wool-bearing trees. Then hideous havoc was revealed, and the work of War's madness was seen clearer — a medley of arms and men and horses, and hands that still clung to the wound of a slain enemy. The ground was littered with shields and helmet-plumes, with headless corpses and swords that had broken against tough bones; and one might see the eyes of half-dead men looking in vain for the light. Then there was the lake foaming with gore, and the corpses floating on its surface, for ever deprived of a grave. Yet Roman courage had not utterly collapsed in the hour of defeat.

§ 6.15  Bruttius, whose wounded body showed his ill-fortune in the battle, slowly raised his head from a huge pile of hapless corpses, and dragged his mutilated limbs through the carnage with muscles that failed him from time to time. He had not wealth or noble birth or eloquence; but his sword was keen, and none of the Volscian people gained more glory than he by a heroic death. As a boy, before his beard grew, he had chosen to join the army, and his prowess had been witnessed by brave Flaminius, when with better fortune he fought the Celtic armies and crushed them. Thus Bruttius won honour and guarded the sacred bird in every battle; and this distinction was the cause of his death. He was sure to die; and, when he could not prevent the Carthaginians from taking the eagle, he tried to bury it in the ground for the time; for he saw that fate was adverse and the battle was turning into a great disaster. But a sudden wound made him throw his failing limbs over his charge; and death lay over it to hide it. But, when day returned after a dreadful night of distressful slumber, he raised himself on a spear taken from the nearest corpse; then, exerting all his strength for the effort, he dug a hole in the earth with his sword; and the ground, drenched in blood all round, parted easily. Next he bowed before the buried effigy of the luckless eagle, and smoothed the sand over it with strengthless palms. Then his last feeble breath went forth into thin air, and sent a brave heart to Tartarus.
Near by one might see an awful frenzy of valour that deserves to claim the poet's verse. Laevinus, a native of Privernum on the hill, who had earned

§ 6.44  the distinction of the Roman vine-staff, lay there on the top of Tyres, a Nasamonian; and both were dead. He had neither spear nor sword: Fortune had robbed him of his weapons in the hard fight; yet in the unarmed contest rage found a weapon to fight with. He had fought with savage mouth, and his teeth did the work of steel, to gratify his rage. Already the nose of Tyres was torn and the eyes marred by the cruel jaws; the ears were bitten off and the head mutilated; the forehead itself was horribly gnawed, and blood streamed from the open lips; nor was Laevinus satisfied, until the breath left those champing jaws and dark death arrested the crammed mouth.
While hideous valour displayed such portentous deeds, the stricken mob of fugitives were harassed meanwhile by a different fate. Covered with wounds, they slunk away along pathless tracks in the dark forests, and traversed the deserted fields all night. They were terrified by every sound, by the breeze, and by the stirring of a bird on its light wings. Sleep or peace of mind was impossible. Panicstricken, they were driven on now by fierce Mago, and now by Hannibal prancing on with relentless spear.
Serranus bore a glorious name: he was the son of Regulus, whose fame ever increases with the passage of time, and of whom it will never be forgotten, that he kept faith with the faithless Carthaginians. Serranus was in the flower of his youth; but, alas, he had begun the war against Carthage with his fiither's ill-fortune, and now, sore-wounded, he sought in sad plight to return to his unhappy mother and the home he loved.

§ 6.69  Of his comrades none was left, and there was none to dress his grievous wounds. Leaning on a broken spear, and rescued from doom by the connivance of dark night, he crept silently through bypaths towards the fields of Perusia." Worn out, he knocked at the door of a humble dwelling, whatever fate might meet him there; and Marus was not slow to rise from his bed. Long ago Marus had served under Regulus, and the ear of Fame had heard of his prowess. Now he came forth, holding up a light he had kindled at the poor hearth where he worshipped Vesta. He recognized Serranus and saw him suffering from dreadful wounds, and supporting himself on his halting feet by the broken spear — a piteous sight to behold. Rumour of the fatal disaster had already wounded his ears; and now he cried: "What horror is this I see! — I have lived too long and was born to suffer too much adversity. I saw you,' greatest of generals, when, though you were a prisoner, your aspect terrified the citadel of Carthage; I witnessed your death, a scandal and a shame to the Thunderer; and even the destruction of Carthage could never expel from my heart the grief I suffered then. And now once more, where are ye, ye gods? A Regulus offers his breast to the sword, and perjured Carthage lops off the hopeful scion of that mighty house." Next he laid the sick man on the bed, and, with the skill in medicine which he had learnt in war, now cleansed the wounds with water and now applied healing simples, binding them up and wrapping them in wool with gentle hand, and warming the stiffened limbs. The old man's next care was to slake the sick man's grievous thirst, and to recall his strength by a sparing meal.

§ 6.97  When all this was quickly done, sleep at last did its kindly office and diffused gentle rest through all his limbs. Before day dawned Marus, forgetful of his years, made haste to treat the fever of the wound with tried remedies, and provided a pleasant coolness with eager loyalty.
Now Serranus, raising his sorrowful eyes to heaven, cried out amid groans and tears: "O Father," if thou hast not yet condemned the realm of Quirinus, and dost not hate the Tarpeian citadel, then look down on the desperate plight of Italy and the ruin of Rome; turn at last a merciful eye upon our troubles. We lost the Alps; nor is there any limit to our sufferings since then — the Ticinus, the river Po dark with our dead, the Trebia made famous by Punic triumph, and the lamentable country of the Arnus. But why speak of all this when, behold! a far heavier weight of calamity is ours? I saw the level of Lake Trasimene raised by the multitude of the slain; I saw Flaminius fall amid the missiles. I swear by the dead, whom I worship, that I sought death then in striking down the foe — a death befitting the famous sufferings of my father; but cruel fate, which denied him a soldier's death, denied it to me also."
As he still heaped complaint upon complaint, the old man strove to comfort him, saying: "In your father's fashion, brave youth, let us bear reverses of fortune and all the troubles that beset us. Such is the law of Heaven: the wheel of our existence, as it moves on along the steep track of life, is subject to many a slip. Great enough and famous throughout the world are the title-deeds of your house; your father, that sacred figure whom no deity excels, gained his high renown by defying ill-fortune; and he discarded none of the virtues until the time when
his spirit fled from the unwilling body.

§ 6.126  I had hardly outgrown the years of boyhood, when the first beard was growing on the face of Regulus. I became his comrade, and we spent all our years together, till Heaven saw fit to put out the light of the Roman people — the man in whose noble breast kindly Loyalty had fixed her seat and remained the tenant of his heart. He gave me this sword for valour — an honour second to none — and the bridle which you see now blackened by smoke, though the sheen of the silver still remains; and, when Marus had received such gifts, there was no horseman who took precedence of him. But the chief of all my distinctions was my lance. You see me pour wine in its honour; and it is worth your while to learn the reason.
" The turbid stream of Bagrada furrows the sandy desert with sluggish course; and no river in the land of Libya can boast that it spreads its muddy waters further, or covers the wide plains with greater floods. Here, in that savage land, we were glad to encamp upon its banks; for we needed water, which is scarce in that country. Hard by stood a grove whose trees were ever motionless and sunless, with shade dark as Erebus; and from it burst thick fumes that spread a noisome stench through the air. Within it was a dreadful dwelling, a vast subterranean hollow in a winding cavern, where the dismal darkness let in no light. I shudder still to think of it. A deadly monster lived there, spawned by Earth in her wrath, whose like scarce any generation of men can see again; a serpent, a hundred ells in length,
Livy described the battle of the army against the reptile, and says that its skin, 120 feet long, was sent to Rome.
haunted that fatal bank and the Avernian grove.

§ 6.154  He filled his vast maw and poison-breeding belly with lions caught when they came for water, or with cattle driven to the river when the sun was hot, and with birds brought down from the sky by the foul stench and corruption of the atmosphere. On the floor lay half-eaten bones, which he had belched up in the darkness of his cave after filling his maw with a hideous meal on the flocks he had laid low. And, when he was fain to bathe in the foaming waters of the running stream and cool the heat engendered by his fiery food, before he had plunged his whole body in the river, his head was already resting on the opposite bank. Unwitting of such a danger I went forth; and with me went Aquinus, a native of the Apennines, and Avens, an Umbrian. We sought to examine the grove and find out whether the place was friendly. But as we drew near, an unspoken dread came over us, and a mysterious chill paralysed our limbs. Yet we went on and prayed to the Nymphs and the deity of the unknown river, and then ventured, though anxious and full of fears, to trust our feet to the secret grove. Suddenly from the threshold and outer entrance of the cave there burst forth a hellish whirlwind and a blast fiercer than the frantic East-wind; and a storm poured forth from the vast hollow, a hurricane in which the baying of Cerberus was heard. Horrorstruck we gazed at one another. A noise came from the ground, the earth was shaken, the cave fell in ruins, and the dead seemed to come forth. Huge as the snakes that armed the Giants when they

§ 6.182  stormed heaven, or as the hydra that wearied Hercules by the waters of Lerna, or as Juno's snake" that guarded the boughs with golden foliage — even so huge he rose up from the cloven earth and raised his glittering head to heaven, and first scattered his slaver into the clouds and marred the face of heaven with his open jaws. Hither and thither we fled and tried to raise a feeble shout, though breathless with terror; but in vain; for the sound of his hissing filled all the grove. Then Avens, blind with sudden fear — blameworthy was his act, but Fate had him in the toils — hid in the huge trunk of an ancient oak, hoping that the horrible monster might not see him. I can scarce believe it myself; but the serpent, clinging with its huge coils, removed the great tree bodily, tearing it from the ground, and wrenching it up from the roots. Then, as the trembling wretch called on his companions with his latest utterance, the serpent seized him and swallowed him down with a gulp of its black throat — I looked back and saw it — and buried him in its beastly maw. Unhappy Aquinus had entrusted himself to the running stream of the river, and was swimming fast away. But the serpent attacked him in midstream, carried his body to the bank, and there devoured it — a dreadful form of death!
" Thus I alone was suffered to escape from the monster so terrible and deadly. I ran as fast as grief would let me, and told all to the general. He groaned aloud, in pity for the cruel fate of his men. Then, eager as he ever was for war and battle and conflict with the foe, and burning with a passion for great achievements, he ordered his men to arm instantly, and his cavalry, well tried in many a fight, to take the field.

§ 6.211  He galloped forward himself, spurring his flying steed; and at his command there followed a body of shieldsmen, bringing the heavy catapults used in sieges and the weapon whose huge point can batter down high towers. And now, when the horses speeding over the grassy plain surrounded the fatal spot with the thunder of their hoofs, the serpent, aroused by the neighing, glided forth from his cave and hissed forth a hellish blast from his reeking jaws. Both his eyes flashed horrible fire; his erected crest towered over the tall tree-tops; and his three-forked tongue darted and flickered through the air and rose up till it licked the sky. But, when the trumpets sounded, he was startled and reared aloft his huge bulk; then, couching on his rear, he gathered the rest of his body beneath his front in circling coils. Then he began a fearsome conflict, quickly unwinding his coils and stretching his body out to its full length, till he reached in a moment the faces of men far away. All the horses snorted, in their terror of the serpent, refusing to obey the rein and breathing frequent fire from their nostrils. The monster, towering above the frightened men with swollen neck, waved his high head to right and left and, in his rage, now hoisted them on high, and now delighted in crushing them beneath his huge weight. Then he breaks their bones and gulps down the black gore; with his open jaws wet with blood, he leaves the half-eaten body and seeks a fresh foe. The soldiers fell back, and the victorious serpent attacked the squadrons from a distance with his pestilential breath. But then Regulus speedily recalled the troops to battle and encouraged them thus: "Shall we, the men of Italy, retreat before a serpent, and admit

§ 6.243  that Rome is no match for the snakes of Libya? If his breath has conquered your feeble strength, and your courage has oozed away at sight of his open mouth, then I will go boldly forward and cope with the monster single-handed." Thus he shouted and undismayed hurled his flying spear through the air with lightning speed. The weapon rushed on and did its work: it struck the serpent fairly on the head, gaining not a little force from the fierceness of the creature's charge, and stuck there quivering. A shout of triumph rose, and the sudden noise of it went up to Heaven. At once the earth-born monster went mad with rage: he spurned defeat and was a stranger to pain; for never before in his long life had he felt the steel. Nor would the swift charge, prompted by his pain, have failed, had not Regulus, skilled horseman that he was, eluded the onset with wheeling steed, and then, when the serpent, with a bend of its supple back, once again followed the turning horse, pulled the rein with his left hand and soon got out of reach.
" But Marus did not merely look on at such a scene and take no part: my spear was the second to transfix the great body of the monster. His three-forked tongue was now licking the rump of the general's tired horse; I threw my weapon and quickly turned on myself the serpent's fierce assault. The men followed my example and hurled their darts together with a will, making the creature shift its rage from one foe to another; and at length he was restrained by a blow from a catapult that would level a wall. Then at last his strength was broken; for his injured spine could no longer stand up stiff for attack, and the head had no strength to rear up to the sky. We

§ 6.273  attacked more fiercely; and soon a huge missile was lodged deep in the monster's belly, and the sight of both his eyes was destroyed by flying arrows. Now the dark pit of the gaping wound sent forth a poisonous slaver from the open jaws; and now the end of the tail was held fast to the ground by showers of darts and heavy poles; and still he threatened feebly with open mouth. At last a beam, discharged from an engine with a loud hissing sound, shattered his head; and the body lay at last relaxed far along the raised bank, and discharged into the air a dark vapour of poison that escaped from its mouth. Then a cry of sorrow burst from the river, and the sound spread through the depths; and suddenly both grove and cave sent forth a noise of wailing, and the banks replied to the trees. Alas, how great were our losses, and how dearly we paid in the end for our luckless battle!" How much we suffered, and what a cup of retribution we had to drink! Our soothsayers were not silent: they warned us that we had laid profane hands on the servant of the Naiads, the sisters who dwell in the warm stream of the Bagrada, and that we should suffer for it later. — Then it was, Serranus, that your father gave me this spear as my reward and prize for dealing the second wound; this was the first weapon to draw blood from the sacred serpent."
The eyes and cheeks of Serranus had long been wet with tears, and now he interrupted Marus and said: Had Regulus lived on to our time, the Trebia would never have overflowed its fatal banks with blood, nor would the waters of Lake Trasimene hide so many famous dead."
The older man replied; The Carthaginians paid

§ 6.300  dearly with their blood, and he, while he yet lived, took vengeance for his death. For Africa, with her armies thinned and her treasure exhausted, was holding out her hands in supplication, when brave Therapne in an evil hour sent a leader to the Carthaginians. His aspect was mean: no beauty or noble brow was his; but with his low stature there went a tireless activity to marvel at — an activity whose effort could conquer giants. In the art of war, in combining the sword with stratagem, in enduring hardship and contriving to exist in an unfriendly country, he was not inferior to yonder Hannibal, who is now supreme for skill in war. Glad had I been if Taygeta, so cruel to us, had made an exception of Xanthippus, and not hardened him on the shady banks of the Eurotas. Then I should have seen the walls of Dido overthrown in flames; or at least I should not have mourned the dreadful doom of Regulus — a sorrow which no death or funeral fire can ever take from me, but I shall keep it and carry it with me to Tartarus. The armies met in the field; war raged fiercely throughout the land; and every heart was full of martial ardour. Here, in the midst of his men, Regulus did memorable deeds, opening a path in the field with his sword, dashing into danger, and dealing out with his deadly arm strokes that needed not to be struck again. So, when a hurricane sweeps along a whirling mass of dark cloud with shrieking southwinds, and the pitch-dark heaven threatens earth and sea alike with destruction from above, all tillers of the soil and herdsmen on their wooded heights are terrified, and every seaman on the deep furls his sails. But the Greek general devised a trick: hiding a force behind rocky hollows, he suddenly ceased lighting and beat a hasty retreat in pretended fear.

§ 6.328  Even so a shepherd, seeking safety for his flock, lures the wolves at night by the bleating of a tethered lamb into the pitfall masked by a slender covering of leafage. Regulus was caught and carried away by the desire of fame that fires the noble heart, and by mistaken trust in the fickle god of war. To no companions or helpers or troops did he look back but was pressing on alone in his wild desire for battle, when suddenly a cloud of Spartans issued from their ambush in the rocks and surrounded the eager warrior, while behind him rose up a great army. O fearful day for Rome, that she must mark with black on her calendar! What disgrace to Mars, that a warrior born to serve the god and the god's city was doomed to the sad lot of a captive! Never shall I cease to mourn over it. Did Carthage behold Regulus a prisoner? Did Carthage seem to Heaven to deserve so great a triumph? What fitting punishment shall attend the Spartans for their foul manner of warfare?
' But now the senate of Carthage resolved to take an oath of Regulus and send him to Rome as mediator with new conditions of peace; they sought to exchange Regulus for their own soldiers who had been taken prisoners in the course of the war. With no delay, a ship was launched from the arsenal and rode already on the waters close to the shore; and already the crew were shaping oars in the woods or felling pines to make new thwarts; some were busily engaged in fitting the twisted cordage, and others in fixing the canvas upon the high mast. They laid upon the prow the heavy iron anchor with its curved flukes. Chief of all Cothon, a skilful seaman and steersman of the ship, saw to the vessel and its rudder;

§ 6.357  the shining brass of the triple beak was reflected on the deep and glittered over the sea. Weapons also were brought on board, and much else to help them against the dangers of the sea in time of need. Amidships by the gunwale the coxswain stood, to regulate the rowers' successive strokes, to set their cadence to the oars, and, as the blades were drawn back together, to make the water echo to the rhythm.
" When the sailors had done their work, and the time for starting came, and the ship was fitted out, and the wind made sailing possible, then all the people hastened to the shore — women and boys and old men. Through the midst of the crowd and before their unfriendly eyes Regulus was brought along by Fortune, for them to look at. His calm brow met their gaze — calm as when he first brought the fleet under his command to the Carthaginian shore. I went with him, and he made no objection; sadly I went on board, to share his ill-fortune. To contend with / pressing evils — squalid attire and meagre fare and a hard bed — this he thought more glorious than to win a battle; and he held it a nobler thing to conquer adversity by endurance than to avoid it by precaution. One hope I still cherished — although I knew well, and had long known, the inflexible conscience of the man — that, if we wretches were permitted to reach the walls of Rome and our homes, his resolution might give way and be melted at least by the tears of his wife and children. I hid my fears in my breast, and believed that Regulus could weep and feel misfortune like other men. When at last our ship glided into the Tiber, our native river,

§ 6.384  I watched his face and the eyes that reveal the mind, and never did I take my gaze off him. If you can believe me, young man, his expression was unchanged amid a thousand dangers, unchanged in Rome and in the cruel city of Agenor, and unchanged even when he was tortured. From all the cities of Italy men came to meet the prisoner; and, when the plain could not contain the crowd, the neighbouring hills were thronged, and the high banks of the Albula resounded. Even the Carthaginian senators pleaded with that stern heart to resume his native dress, and the dignity of the gown was offered him. He stood there unmoved, while the senators shed tears, and the crowd of matrons and the young men wept for sorrow. On the river bank the consul first held out his hand, in friendly welcome to the exile as he set foot upon his native soil. Regulus stepped back; he bade the consul withdraw and not dishonour his high office; only the haughty Carthaginians and the company of prisoners were round him when he moved on, causing men to reproach Heaven and the gods.
" Now Marcia came up, leading two boys, the pledges of their love — Marcia made unhappy by the too lofty virtue of her great husband; in her sorrow she tore her disordered hair and rent her garments. (Do you remember that day, Serranus, or has it slipped from your boyish memory?) When she saw him near, changed in mien and wearing the unsightly dress of Carthage, with a loud cry she fell fainting, and the hue of death covered her cold limbs. (If the gods have any pity, let them make Carthage witness mothers suffering like Marcia.) Regulus

§ 6.412  spoke to me in a calm voice and bade me keep from him the embraces of you two, his children, and of his wife; he remained obdurate against grief and never bowed his neck to pain."
Then Serranus spoke with a deep groan and starting tears: "Noble father," he said, "not less divine to me than even the deity who dwells on the Tarpeian rock, if love has a right to complain, why did you so sternly deny my mother and me this consolation and this glory — to touch your sacred face and take kisses from your lips? Was I forbidden to clasp your hand in mine? How much lighter my present wounds would be, had I been allowed to carry to the grave the undying memory of your embrace,
worshipful father! But, Marus, unless memory deceives me — and I was but a child then — his stature was more than human; the unkempt hair fell down from his white head and hid the great shoulders; and on his brow with its disordered locks sat an awful majesty and reverend dignity. None like him have
1 seen since." But here Marus took up the tale and prevented him from making his wounds worse by complaining: "And what," he cried, "when he passed by his own house and sought the hateful hospitality of the Carthaginians and their unfriendly lodging? Shields and chariots and javelins were fastened at his doors — famous trophies of a great victory adorning a humble dwelling; these struck on his sight, and his wife was crying out from the threshold: "Whither are you going, Regulus? This is no Carthaginian prison, for you to shun. This house preserves the prints on our chaste marriage-bed, and our hereditary household gods are stained by no guilt. In it once and again — what, I ask, have I done to dishonour the

§ 6.441  house? — I bore you a child, and the Senate and people wished us joy. Look back! this is your own dwelling, from which, in all a consul's state, your shoulders gleaming with purple, you saw the Roman lictors march forth. From it you went to the wars; and to it you often brought back the victor's spoils, and we hung them up together on the threshold. No embraces do I ask, no union that the hallowed torch of wedlock brings; but do not persist in shunning the house of your fathers, and count it no crime to pass one night here for the sake of your sons."
' While thus she lamented, he passed along with the Carthaginians and shut himself up in their lodging, deaf to her appeal. Scarce was the daylight shining on the famous pyre of Hercules upon Oeta's height, when the consul ordered the Carthaginians to be summoned. Then we saw Regulus entering the temple. How the Senate debated, and how Regulus at last addressed the sorrowing house — this he reported to me himself with calm utterance. When he entered, all eagerly called on him with voice and gesture to take his wonted seat and former place. He refused and declined the seat of honour that once was his. None the less they gathered round, all seeking to grasp his hand and begging him not to deprive his country of so great a general; he, they said, might be exchanged for the crowd of Carthaginian prisoners; and then the hand which once wore fetters at Carthage would more fitly set fire to the Carthaginian citadel.
Then he lifted hand and eye together to heaven: "O Ruler of the universe, source of justice and truth; and O Loyalty, no less divine to me, and Juno of Tyre, ye

§ 6.469  gods whom I invoked to witness my oath that I would return, if I am permitted to speak words that befit me, and by my voice to protect the hearths of Rome, not unwillingly shall I go to Carthage, keeping my promise to return and enduring the prescribed penalty. Therefore cease to honour me and thus ruin the state. So many years, so many wars, have broken down my strength; and also long captivity in fetters has sapped the energy of an old man and a prisoner. Regulus is not the man he was once, when he never rested from the hard task of war; what you see now is a mere name, a bloodless body. But Carthage, that home of treachery, knows well what a wreck I am, and is scheming to get in exchange for my wornout body our prisoners who are young and eager for battle. Foil their knavish tricks, and teach a nation that delights in deceit how much, though I be a prisoner, is still left to Rome. Accept no peace that is not concluded in the fashion of our fathers. The Carthaginians demand — and this is the message they gave me to carry — that you should weigh this war in equal scales, and frame conditions of peace that shall favour neither nation. But I would rather go down to the house of Hades than see the Romans strike so base a bargain."
" Thus he spoke and at once gave himself up again to the anger of Carthage. Nor did the Senate reject a warning so serious and so honest, but sent off the Carthaginian envoys, who made haste for home, vexed by their failure and threatening their prisoner. The Roman populace accompanied the senators, beating their breasts and mourning, till the vast Field of Mars" was filled with the sound.

§ 6.495  They were eager at times to call him back and to rescue him by force in their righteous indignation.
" But when Marcia saw him hastening on board, she was bewildered and uttered a terrible cry, as if she stood suddenly by his death-bed. Hurrying to the shore, Take me, ye Carthaginians,' she cried, to share his punishment and his death. Husband, I ask but one thing in the name of the children I bore you: suffer me to endure along with you whatever earth and sea and sky can inflict. It was not I who sent the Spartan leader forth to battle; nor mine were the chains that were riveted round your neck. Why do you go all the way to Carthage, to escape unhappy me? Take me and these children with you. Perhaps our tears will melt the hard hearts of the Carthaginians; or, if that hostile city turns a deaf ear, then the same hour will await you and yours together. Or, if you are resolved to end your life, let us die in our own country. Here is one to share your fate to the end.'
While she spoke, the ship was cast loose from her moorings and began to move slowly from the shore. Then indeed the unhappy wife, frantic with grief, stretched forth her weary hands over the bank with a loud cry: "See him! He boasts of keeping faith with the enemy and the abominable people of Libya. But where is now the compact made with me, and the troth you plighted at our marriage, unfaithful husband?" These were the last words that reached the inflexible ear of Regulus; the rest was drowned by the plashing of the oars.
Then we went swiftly down the river to the seashore, and sailed over the deep, cleaving the vast expanse of water and the great waves with our hollow ship.

§ 6.524  Dreading a shameful death, I prayed that the violence of the sea might sink our vessel, or that the wild fury of the wind might dash her upon the rocks; then we should have died together. But the mild breath of gentle zephyrs carried us on to the torture, and gave us over to the rage of Carthage.
" I, alas, witnessed his punishment, and was sent back to Rome to tell the tale; and dearly did I pay for my release. Nor would I now essay to tell you how the people of Carthage" behaved with the cruelty of wild beasts, if mankind had ever seen in any part of the world a nobler example than was set by the splendid courage of your father. I am ashamed to complain of tortures which I saw him endure with cheerfulness. You too, dear youth, must still think yourself worthy of such a glorious descent, and check those starting tears. A frame all round him was faced with planking studded with points of equal length, and there was artfully compacted a painful system of puncture consisting of rows of projecting iron spikes. By this device sleep was denied him; for to whichever side passive drowsiness made him lean as time dragged on, these spikes pierced deep into his flesh. Weep no more, young man. That endurance is greater than all triumphs. His laurels will be green throughout the ages, as long as unstained Loyalty keeps her seat in heaven and on earth, and will last as long as virtue's name is worshipped. The day will come when posterity will shudder to hear of the death which thou, O famous leader, madest light of." Thus Marus spoke, while he tended the young man's wounds with sorrowful care.
details many years earlier, either from his mother, Marcia, or from Marus himself.

§ 6.552  Meanwhile Rumour, her swift wings dyed with blood — she had dipped them in the blood-stained waters of Lake Trasimene — spread tidings true and false throughout Rome. In their terror men recalled the battle of the Allia, the accursed Senones, and the sight of the captured citadel. Woeful Fear shook off all restraint, and the calamity was made worse by apprehension. Some rush to the walls. A dreadful cry is raised — "The enemy is upon us." They hurl stakes and javelins at an imaginary foe. Women also, with their grey hair torn, lay their heads in the dust of the lofty temples, and besiege the gods with prayer for their dear ones whom death has already taken. Neither day nor night brings relief. The people, vociferous in their grief, lie scattered round the different gates; and they follow, step by step, the long procession of fugitives, and hang upon their lips. Good news they can hardly believe; they stop a man, to ask a second time; some beg for tidings with dumb looks, and dread the answer to their question. Some weep, when they hear of a grievous loss; others are affrighted, when the messenger professes ignorance and hesitates to answer. But when the fugitives came close and were clearly seen, then their friends crowded round them with a fearful joy, kissing their very wounds, and wearying Heaven with prayers.
Now Marus came through the anxious crowd, leading Serranus with praiseworthy care; and then Marcia, who had never left the house since her husband's death, but shunned society and endured life only for the sake of her sons — she too rushed forth, to mourn as she had mourned long ago.

§ 6.579  Startled by the sudden sight and recognizing Marus, she spoke to him: "Famous comrade of one most faithful, one at least you bring back to me alive. Is his wound slight?- Or did the cruel point pierce deep, to my very vitals? In either case, I thank the gods, if only Carthage does not carry him off in fetters, and repeat the tortures that his father endured. Alas, my son, how often I begged you not to carry into battle the impetuous ardour of your sire, and not to be urged on to feats of arms by his crown of thorns! I have lived too long and paid a heavy penalty for my long life. Spare me henceforth, ye gods, if any gods have fought against us."
And now, as if the thunder-cloud of cruel disaster had dispersed, the Senate discussed the means of mending their desperate plight; each did his utmost to carry on the war; and fear was dispelled by the terrible danger. Their chief task was to appoint a commander, who could support Rome and the shattered edifice of the state, now that destruction was in sight. It was Jupiter who took in hand to grant a reprieve from ruin to Italy and to Roman rule. For aloft on the Alban mount he had seen the Tyrrhenians, and Hannibal puffed up with success and ready to carry his victorious standards against the walls of Rome. Shaking his head in anger, he spoke: "Never shall Jupiter permit you, young man, to pass the gates of Rome and walk her streets. To cover the Tyrrhenian valleys with the slain, and to make the rivers brim with Roman blood — these things you may do; but I forbid you to approach the Tarpeian hill and to raise your hopes to the walls of Rome." Then four times he hurled his flashing bolt with his right arm, till all the land of the Maeonidae was lighted up; and rolling a black cloud through the sky, he broke it and made a rift in the heavens over the head of the Carthaginian army.

§ 6.609  Nor was he content with turning Hannibal away: his divine power inspired the Aeneadae to place a sure shield before the seat of Romulus, and to entrust to Fabius as general the control of their deliverance; and when he saw the supreme command handed over to him, "This man," he said, "will never yield to jealousy or the sweet poison of popular applause; he will be proof against artful devices and desire of plunder and all other passions. A veteran soldier, he can meet success and disaster with a quiet mind; neither war nor peace is beyond his capacity." Thus spoke the Father of the gods, and went back to his heaven.
This Fabius, so praised by Jupiter, was never surprised by any foe; so wary a campaigner was he. Marvellous was his joy, when he came home and brought the soldiers he had led forth to war back to their country without one missing. No man was ever more eager to guard his own life, or the life of a beloved son, than he to spare his soldiers; and no man was sadder to see the blood of his comrades shed in battle; and yet he ever returned to Rome red with the slaughter of foemen, a conqueror with undepleted ranks. His birth was noble, and the founder of his family was akin to the gods. For Hercules long ago, when he came back from a far country, drove his booty in triumph to the place where glorious Rome now stands. He had taken the kine that were the pride of the triple monster; and men marvelled to see them. Legend tells that a man from Arcadia

§ 6.632  was then building a house on the Palatine among uninhabited thorn-brakes, a king with needy subjects; and the king's daughter, unable to resist the divine stranger, gave birth to a Fabius — a sin that brought no sorrow; and thus the Arcadian woman blended with her own the blood of that mighty sire, to become the ancestress of the stock of Hercules. Three hundred Fabii once went forth to war from a single household; but this Fabius surpassed their glorious deed by delay and by proving himself a match for Hannibal. So great wert thou then, O Hannibal!
While the defeated Romans were preparing for a fresh campaign, Hannibal, rebuffed by Jupiter's warning and hopeless of battering the walls of Rome, made for the hills and fields of Umbria, where Tuder hangs on a high mountain-top and slopes down its side; and where Mevania, lying low on the wide plains, breathes forth sluggish mists and feeds mighty bulls for Jupiter's altar. Next he passed on over the land of Picenum, rich in olives, and took much booty; then he moved his plundering forces from place to place, wherever spoil attracted them, till mild Campania stopped his destructive raids and harboured the war in her undefended breast.
Here, at Liternum in the marshes, while Hannibal viewed the temple and buildings of the city, he saw, painted in divers colours on the temple-cloisters, a record of the former war, which the past generation had fought to a finish; and these pictures remained upon the walls, representing a long succession of notable events. First there was Regulus, speaking with fierce aspect in favour of war — war that he should have spoken against, could he have foretold the future.

§ 6.659  Next Appius was seen; he was first to declare war in the ancient fashion against Carthage; and crowned with laurel he led along a triumphal procession, earned by slaughter of Carthaginians. Hard by was seen a tall column of white marble, adorned with the beaks of ships, a naval trophy for a victory at sea; Duilius, the first to sink a Carthaginian fleet, was dedicating his spoils to Mars and offering sacrifice. (He had honour in the night; for flaming torches and a temple-piper attended him home from the banquet; and he walked back to his modest dwelling to the sound of a merry tune.) Here Hannibal saw too the last honours paid to a dead countryman; for Scipio, victorious over Sardinia, was conducting the funeral of a Carthaginian general. Next he saw the Roman soldiers on the African coast rushing on through a routed army; and in hot pursuit of the rear came Regulus with glittering plume: Autololes, Numidians, Moors, Ammonians, Garamantes — all laid down their arms and gave up their towns. Bagrada, the sluggish river that passes over a sandy desert, was shown there also, foaming with the monster's slime, when the serpent challenged the threatening squadrons and fought a battle against Regulus. Elsewhere, the Spartan general, hurled overboard and appealing to the gods in vain, was being drowned by a treacherous crew; and thus Xanthippus at last paid the penalty to Regulus by a deserved death in the sea.

§ 6.684  The artists had painted also the two Aegatian islands rising in mid-sea; and the remnants of a shattered fleet were visible all round, and shipwrecked Carthaginians adrift on the water, while Lutatius, lord of the sea, drove the captured ships ashore before the wind. And there too was Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal; fettered in a long row of prisoners, he turned the eyes of the whole throng away from all the painted scenes upon himself alone. But there one might see the form of Peace, and the profaned altars at which the treaty was sworn, and the mockery of Jupiter, and the Romans dictating terms. With bowed necks the Libyans shrank from the bare axes, and held out their hands together begging for pardon, and swore to a treaty which they did not observe, while Dione looked on the scene rejoicing, from the heights of Eryx.
All these pictures Hannibal surveyed with a face of anger and contempt, and then cried out with rising passion: "Deeds as great as these, the work of my right arm, shall Carthage yet display upon her walls. Let us see there the capture of Saguntum, overthrown by fire and sword together; let fathers be shown stabbing their own children; the conquest of the Alps will claim no little space; let Garamantes and Numidians, riding on their horses, trample on the high peaks. Add the banks of the Ticinus foaming with blood, and my victory on the Trebia, and the shore of Lake Trasimene covered deep with the Roman dead. Let us see Flaminius, a giant in giant armour, crash to the ground, and the consul Scipio a wounded fugitive, borne on his son's shoulders back to their camp. Show these sights to the people, Carthage; and greater sights shall be forthcoming in future: you

§ 6.712  shall display Rome blazing with Libyan fire-brands, and the Thunderer cast down from the Tarpeian rock. For the present, ye soldiers, by whose valour my great deeds are accomplished, make haste to do what is right to be done: throw these pictures into the fire and wrap them in flames."

§ 7.1  BOOK VII
Meanwhile Fabius was the one beacon-light in that dark hour. He made haste to arm sore-wounded Italy and her allies; his green old age faced the hardships of war, and he soon marched against the foe. But that more than human genius recked little of spears and swords and strong steeds. He went forth alone against an army of so many thousand Carthaginians and their invincible leader; and all the men and arms of Italy were comprised in his person. But for that old man's godlike power, but for his fixed resolve to check by delay Fortune's favour for the enemy, the Roman name would have passed away for ever. He it was who made the gods withdraw their favour from the Punic host, and put a stop to the victorious campaign of the African invaders;

§ 7.13  it was his wise policy of delay that baffled Hannibal elated with conquest. O greatest of generals, who didst save the realm of Troy from falling a second time, preserver of perishing Italy and the great deeds of our ancestors, of Carmentis's treasure and the throne of Evander" — arise and lift up thy sacred head to the heaven which is thy due!
But, when the dictator had been chosen and new names came to the front, Hannibal, reflecting that the Romans had not so quickly changed the supreme command without good reason, was eager to learn the dictator's rank and reputation; he wondered why Fabius was the sole remaining anchor of the stormtossed state, and why Rome thought him a match for Hannibal. He was troubled by his rival's age, free from youthful passion and proof against stratagem. Quickly he summoned one of his prisoners and questioned him concerning the dictator's family, his manner of life, and his martial exploits. Cilnius, born in the Tuscan land of Arretium, bore a famous name; but an evil hour had brought him to the banks of the Ticinus, where he was thrown from his wounded horse and taken prisoner by the Libyans. He was eager to end his troubles by a violent death and answered thus: "You have not now to do with a Flaminius or a hot-headed Gracchus. Hercules is the ancestor of his house; and if Fate had made them your countrymen, Hannibal, you would have seen Carthage mistress of the world. I shall not detain you with a long list of separate achievements: one will suffice, and from one battle you shall learn what the Fabii are. The people of Veil had broken the peace and refused to submit to the Roman yoke, war

§ 7.42  was raging close to the gates of Rome, and the consul gave the call to arms. No levy was held: the clan of Hercules, unhelped by the State, made up an army. From a single house — marvellous to tell! — there went forth an army of patricians to fight side by side. Three hundred leaders sprang to arms, and with any one of them in command you might have fought a campaign with confidence. But they went forth with evil omens: the Bloody Gate creaked with inauspicious sound, and a moaning came from the Great Altar of divine Hercules. When they attacked the foe, their fierce valour suffered them not to count the enemy, and they slew more than their own number. Often in close array, and often scattered afar over uneven ground, they endured the changing chances of battle; and by their equal effort and equal valour they deserved to lead three hundred triumphs to the temple of Jupiter. But alas for hope deceived! They forgot that no boon granted to mortal man is lasting. That band of heroes, who thought shame that the Fabian clan should not hazard their lives when their country was at war, were suddenly surrounded and slain all together, because of the jealousy of Heaven. But you, Hannibal, have no reason to rejoice at their death: enough of them is left to cope with you and Libya: one Fabius will match the three hundred warriors. Such life is there in his limbs; so painstaking is his foresight; such shrewdness does he hide beneath calmness and caution. Though you are of the age when blood is hot, you will not be swifter than Fabius to spur the flanks of your war-horse and tear his mouth with the bridle." Such a speech showed Hannibal that Cilnius was eager for death.

§ 7.70  "Fool!" he cried: "in vain you seek to rouse my wrath and to escape captivity by death. You must go on living. Let him be guarded in close fetters." Thus he spoke, proud of victory and the favour of Heaven.
But the senators and matrons of Rome repaired in haste to the temples, to worship the gods. With sad looks and streaming eyes, the band of women marched in long procession, and offered a robe to Juno and solemn vows. "Be present, O Queen of Heaven, we, thy chaste people, pray; and we, all the Roman women of noble name, bring thee a gift wondrous fair, which our own hands have woven and embroidered with threads of gold. This robe thou shalt wear for the present, O goddess, until mothers grow less fearful for their sons. But if thou dost grant us to drive the African storm-cloud away from our land, divers jewels, set in gold, shall adorn thy glittering crown." They made special offerings also to Pallas and Phoebus, to the War-god, and to Dione above all. So great is the sudden piety of men in time of trouble; but altars seldom smoke in prosperous times.
While Rome in ancient fashion appointed sacrifices for the temples of the gods, Fabius, moving quietly forwards, by his strategy which might be mistaken for inaction, had barred every approach against Fortune and the foe. He suffered none to leave the ranks, and taught his men discipline — discipline, the chief glory that raises the imperial head of Rome to heaven. But, when the first Roman ensigns were distinctly seen on the heights, and the new weapons of the army glittered in the distance, Hannibal's hopes rose high. Intoxicated by success, he made sure of victory as soon as the armies met: "On! on!" he cried;

§ 7.101  " make haste! Rush to the gates of Rome! Knock down the ramparts with your breasts! The space between the hosts is all that separates the enemy from death. They summon to arms the old and feeble, unworthy antagonists for us. All whom you see now are the refuse — men discarded as useless when the war began. Where are now the Gracchi, and where are the two Scipios," the thunderbolts of their nation? Behold! Hunted out of Italy, they never paused in their cowardly flight until terror drove them to the Ocean and the World's End; each is now a wandering exile, and keeps to the banks of the Iberus," in dread of my name. With good reason my fame was increased when Flaminius fell; with good reason I rejoice to add to the list of my exploits the name of that doughty warrior; but how few years can my sword cut off from the life of this Fabius! And yet he dares. Let him dare! Never again, I warrant, shall he be seen in arms."
Thus he shouted, and pushed his army on with flying speed. Riding in advance, now he shook his fist at the foe, and now taunted them, and again hurled his spear from far and rode on triumphant, rehearsing the impending battle. So the son of Thetis bore on the plains of Troy the armour that Vulcan forged — the shield on which the whole world was depicted — earth and sky and his mother's sea.
Fabius sat and watched this fruitless rage from a lofty mountain-top; by refusing battle he tamed their proud hearts, and wore out their baffled boasting by masterly delay. So through the dark night the shepherd sleeps secure who keeps his flock

§ 7.128  penned in the fold behind iron bars, while the pack of wolves rage outside, mad with hunger, howling in their fury and rattling with their teeth at the unyielding barriers.
Foiled in his design," Hannibal moved away and marched slowly through the land of Apulia. Sometimes he halted and hid in some remote valley, hoping for a chance to hurry on the foe behind him and surround them with an unexpected ambush; or again he planned secret marches under cover of night, and pretended to retreat in panic; and again he suddenly abandoned in sight of the enemy a camp filled with booty, and set a trap for them, careless of the cost. Thus the Maeander, as it flows through the land of Lydia, turns back in its crooked course and wanders till it rejoins its own stream. All his attempts are full of guile; he tries every trick at once, and sharpens his ingenuity for every kind of enterprise. Even so, when a sunbeam is reflected in water, the light flits to and fro through the room, quivering as the reflection moves, and strikes the ceiling with flickering shadow. And now, wild with rage, Hannibal thus complained in his wrath: "If I had met Fabius at first in battle, would the Trebia and Lake Trasimene never have become famous? would no Italians be mourning their dead? would the river of Phaethon never have darkened the sea with its blood-stained waters? He has invented a new method of conquest: he holds his hand, and we are weakened by inaction. How often, pretending an attack, has he skilfully unmasked our plots and disclosed our stratagems!" Thus the sleepless general pondered, when the bugle sounded the midnight hour, and when the third watch," to whom the

§ 7.156  unwelcome duty was allotted, were roused from sleep to take up their arms. He now changed his route: he left the land of Daunus behind him and returned to Campania which had felt the spoiler's hand before; but this time when he reached the fertile district of Falernus — a rich soil it is, that never deceived the husbandman — they flung destroying fire on the fruitful branches.
Though called away by my great theme, I may not pass over the honours of Bacchus without mention. I must tell of the god who bestowed on man the divine drink, and whom the nectar-bearing vines forbid to set any brand above the presses of Falernus. In the good old days before swords were known, Falernus, a man in years, used to plough the high ground of Mount Massicus. Then the fields were bare, and no vine-plant wove a green shade for the clusters; nor did men know how to mellow their draught with the juice of Lyaeus, but were wont to slake their thirst with the pure water of a spring. But when Lyaeus was on his way to the shore of Calpe and the setting sun, a lucky foot and a lucky hour brought him hither as a guest; nor did the god disdain to enter the cottage and pass beneath its humble roof. The smoke-grimed door welcomed a willing guest; the meal was set, in the fashion of that simple age, in front of the hearth; nor was the happy host aware that he entertained a god; but, as his fathers used lo do, he ran hither and thither with kindly zeal, tasking his failing strength. At last the feast was set — fruit in clean baskets, and dainties dripping dew which he hastened to cull from his well-watered garden. Then he adorned the toothsome meal with milk and honeycomb, and heaped the gifts of Ceres on a chaste board which no blood defiled.

§ 7.183  And from each dish he first plucked a portion in honour of Vesta, and threw what he had plucked into the centre of the fire. Pleased by the old man's willing service, Bacchus decreed that his liquor should not be lacking. Suddenly a miracle was seen: to pay the poor man for his hospitality, the beechen cups foamed with the juice of the grape; a common milk-pail ran red with wine; and the sweet moisture of fragrant clusters sweated in the hollow oaken bowl. "Take my gift," said Bacchus; "as yet it is strange to you, but hereafter it will spread abroad the name of Falernus, the vine-dresser"; and the god was no longer disguised. Straightway ivy crowned his brows that glowed and flushed; his locks flowed down over his shoulders; a beaker hung down from his right hand; and a vineplant, falling from his green thyrsus, clothed the festive board with the leaves of Nysa, Falernus found it hard to strive against the cheerful draught: when he had drunk once again of the cup, his stammering tongue and staggering feet roused mirth. With splitting head he tried, though he could not speak plain, to render thanks and praise to Father Lyaeus; and at last Sleep, who goes ever in the train of Bacchus, closed his reluctant eyes. And when the sun rose and the hoofs of Phaethon's horses dispelled the dews, all Mount Massicus was green with vine-bearing fields, and marvelled at the leafage and the bunches shining in the sunlight. The fame of the mountain grew, and from that day fertile Tmolus and the nectar of Ariusia and the strong wine of Methymna have all yielded precedence to the vats of Falernus.

§ 7.212  This was the land which Hannibal then ravaged and fiercely persecuted. He was impatient, because the blood on his swords was dry, while Fabius still foiled him. But now over-confidence and a perverse desire for battle grew strong in the Roman camp, and the men were ready to rush down from their position on the heights.
Muse, make famous the man who was enabled to master two armies and to quell the fury of them both. Fabius spoke thus: "If the Senate had considered me a man of hot blood and violent temper, a man easily upset by clamour, they would not have trusted me in the last resort with the control of a war already all but lost. My plan of campaign has long been weighed and is fixed: I will persist in saving you, though you protest against it and court your doom. Not one of you shall be allowed to perish, if I can help it. If you are tired of life, and wish to be the last bearers of the Roman name, and if at this crisis you are not content unless you have made some spot famous for fresh disaster and resounding defeat, then we must call Flaminius back from the realm of darkness. Long ago he would have given the order and the signal to attack. Or are you still blind to the yawning precipice and imminent destruction? One victory more for Hannibal, and the war is over. Stay where you are, my men, and learn to understand your leader. When a favourable moment calls for action, then let your deeds match your present vaunting words. It is not, I assure you, it is not a hard thing to rush to battle: when the gates of the camp are opened, a single hour will see you all pour out into the field. But it is a great thing — and none get it, unless Jupiter has smiled on them as they went forth — to come back after the battle.

§ 7.241  Hannibal is following up his good fortune, and driving his ship with confidence before a favouring wind. Until the breeze falls and the flagging wind deserts his swelling sails, to delay will prove our gain. Fortune never clings to any man with a lasting embrace. Already, how much reduced are their forces, and how much reputation they have lost! And yet we have fought no battle against them. Indeed, my titles to fame may include him who not long ago — but it may be better to say no more. Do you call for immediate action and battle with the foe? I pray to Heaven that your confident spirit may be lasting. In the meantime, avert the risk of a great disaster, and set me, me only, in opposition to the whole war." His words tamed their frenzy and calmed their angry weapons. So, when Neptune, the ruler of the sea, raises his serene brow above the stormy waves, and sees the whole ocean and is seen by it, the angry winds stop their fierce howling and cease to ply the wings on their foreheads; then peace and quiet spread gradually over the deep, and gentle waves reflect the light along the silent shore.
Hannibal, watchful and shrewd, was aware of this, and tried to poison men's minds by a trick. Fabius owned a small estate inherited from his ancestors, which needed but few ploughs to till it; but the fields grew vines that Mount Massicus made famous. Hence Hannibal resolved to stir up mischief and sow disaffection in the camp: with wicked cunning he refrained from fire and sword and left that land in peace;

§ 7.266  thus men might suspect that the war was prolonged by a secret understanding."
The dictator saw through the trick of the Carthaginian and perceived its danger. But he was too busy, amid the clashing of swords and the sound of bugles, to fear morbid jealousy, and to parry the tooth of calumny by fighting a hazardous battle. At last, as Hannibal crept about, shifting his camp without result and spying out any chance of battle, Fabius posted cavalry where cross-roads met, and shut him in, where there were wooded heights and steep rising cliffs. The high rocks of Laestrygonia hemmed in his rear; in front were the marshes of Liternum, a dismal stretch of flooded fields. The ground made the soldier's sword useless; they were trapped by the treacherous position; Famine, soon to claim the penalty for the tragedy of Saguntum, held them in her grip; and the army of Carthage came near to destruction.
Sleep had lulled all things to rest over the earth and the calm wide sea; the labour of the day was done, and the world enjoyed the peace that night brings to all mankind. But restless anxiety and watchful fear prevented Hannibal from tasting the bounty of drowsy night. Rising from his bed, he put on the tawny lion-skin which had served him as bedding when he lay stretched upon the grassy sward. Then he went in haste to his brother's tent which was pitched near his own. Mago too was no effeminate soldier: his limbs rested on an ox-hide, as he lay there soothing trouble with sleep. His spear was planted in the ground beside him, and from the spear point his dreadful helmet hung down;

§ 7.296  and his shield and breastplate, his sword and bow and Balearic sling lay on the ground beside him. A chosen band of veteran soldiers attended him; and his war-horse wore the saddle as it grazed. When his light slumber was broken by the sound of entering footsteps, "Ha, brother!" he cried, and at the same time reached out for his weapons; "what sleepless anxiety forbids you to rest your weary limbs?" Already he stood erect, and a stamp of his foot summoned to attention his men who lay stretched upon the sward, when Hannibal thus began: "It is Fabius who breaks my rest, Fabius who excites my fears; that old man, alas, alone withstands the tide of my fortunes. You see how you are surrounded by a ring of warriors, trapped and encircled by the army he has placed there. But, come, since we are in this strait, hear further a plan I have devised. The cattle we have seized up and down the land are with us now, after the custom of war. I shall order dry branches to be tied to their horns, and bundles of light faggots to be fixed to their foreheads; then, when fire is applied and spreads its heat, the beasts, driven mad by pain, will run wild and spread a blaze over the hills with tossing heads. Then our jailers, surprised and alarmed, will relax their strict guard, and will fear worse dangers in the darkness. If my plan pleases you, let us set to work — the crisis forbids delay." Together they went at once to the camp. There lay huge Maraxes, his head pillowed on his shield; around him were horses and men and blooddripping spoils that he had taken in battle; and, as if fighting in dreams, he uttered just then a frantic cry, while his shaking hand felt eagerly for his good sword and the weapons on his bed.

§ 7.327  With a blow from the butt of his spear Mago awoke him from his unpeaceful slumber. "Control your ardour in the hours of darkness, brave captain," he said, "and postpone your fighting till day comes. We must make use of to-night for a stratagem, for a secret flight and safe retreat. My brother intends to fix dry branches to the horns of the cattle and to turn them loose when lighted all through the woods, that the foe may relax his grasp; and he hopes thus to wrench the beleaguered army from their clutches. Let us make our way out, and teach Fabius that he is no match for us in cunning." Rejoicing in this bold stroke, the warrior tarried not. The pair next hastened to the quarters of Acherras, a man content with brief slumbers who never slept the whole night through. He was awake now and attending to a mettlesome steed, rubbing him down after exercise and bathing the mouth which the bit had chafed. His men were furbishing their weapons, washing the dry blood from the steel and sharpening their swords. The pair explained their business and the requirements of the place and time, and bade Acherras go with speed and further the plan. The word was passed round through the camp; the captains zealously instructed their men and explained the work to be done; fear beset them and quickened their pace, urging them to depart in the silence and darkness, before the shadow of night grew lighter. The brushwood was quickly kindled, and fire rose high from the horns of the cattle. But when the mischief spread and the beasts tossed their tortured heads, the flames, so helped, grew thicker, and their crest burst upwards through the smoke and conquered it. All

§ 7.356  over the hills and thickets, over the high cliffs of the rocky mountain, the maddened cattle rushed on panting, driven by that dreadful scourge; and the steers, their nostrils stopped by the fire, tried in vain to bellow. Nothing can check the destroying fire: it runs from place to place over hill and valley; and the sea, not far away, reflects it. It was like the multitude of stars which the seaman beholds from his ship as he ploughs the deep on a clear night, with his gaze fixed upon the sky; or like the multitude of fires that the shepherd sees from his seat on Mount Garganus," when the uplands of Calabria are burnt and blackened, to improve the pasture.
But the Roman sentries whose turn it was to be on guard were horror-struck by the sudden sight of flames moving about on the mountain-tops: they believed that no hand of man had sent forth fire, but that it spread of itself and flourished unrestrained beneath the hills. "Did it fall from heaven?" they asked in their fear; "had the Almighty launched thunderbolts with his strong arm? or had the vexed earth burst asunder and sent forth flames, vomited from hidden hollows with burning sulphur?" Quickly they fled; and the Carthaginian army made haste to seize the narrow pass and dashed forth triumphant into the open country. Yet by his skilful management the watchful Dictator had succeeded so far, that Hannibal, even after the Trebia and the Tuscan lake, was content now to have escaped Fabius and the Roman attack. Indeed Fabius would have followed with his army the retreating foe, had he not been summoned to pay worship to the gods of his family. As he turned his face to Rome, he addressed the younger man, who took over, as custom required, the colours and the supreme command, and

§ 7.385  spoke thus, instructing him beforehand and schooling him with warning: "Minucius," if you have not yet learned from my actions to approve caution, then words also will be too weak to attract you to true glory and to guard you from mistakes. You have seen Hannibal entrapped: his footmen and his horsemen and his army with its serried ranks were all useless. I alone entrapped him, I call you to witness. Nor shall I be slow to do it again. Suffer me to make a feast for the gods and offer the customary sacrifices. Again and again — do you but refrain from battle — I shall show you Hannibal penned in by lofty mountains or rapid rivers. For the present (take the word of experience, I speak the truth) inaction is safety in peril. Let many generals feel joy and pride when they have laid low the enemy in battle — and it is indeed a glorious thing; but let Fabius regard this as his height of glory, that he has saved the lives of you all. I hand over to you an undepleted force and unwounded men; give them back to me unharmed, and that shall be your boast. Soon you will see the Libyan lion charging our ramparts; at one time he will offer you spoil, and at another he will retreat, looking ever backwards and nursing wrath in his guileful heart. Shut the gates of the camp, I entreat you, and rob him of all hope of fighting. This is sufficient warning; but, if my entreaties cannot restrain your ardour, then by my high office of dictator and by my duty I forbid you to take up arms." Thus he defended the camp by his warnings ere he left it and returned to Rome.
But now, before a favouring wind, Carthaginian ships were seen ploughing with their beaks the sea by the shore of Caieta and the bay of the Laestryonians

§ 7.411  They had entered the undefended harbour, and the number of their oarsmen churned all the sea to foam. The noise startled the Sea Sisters, and they rose up together from the crystal seats of their grotto, and saw the shore occupied by hostile vessels. Then in great fear and consternation the train of Nereids swam off quickly to a familiar haunt, where the realm of the Teleboans rises far off in mid-sea, and there are rocky caves. Proteus, the monstrous seer, hides here in his cavern among the rocks, and keeps the foaming deep at a distance by a barrier of cliffs. He knew well the cause of their alarm; but first he eluded them by taking various shapes: he frightened them in the likeness of a black and scaly snake, and hissed horribly; again he changed into a fierce Hon and roared. At last he spoke: "Tell me the cause of your coming, and why have your faces suddenly turned pale? Why seek ye to know the future?"
Cymodoce replied, the eldest of the Italian nymphs: "Prophet," she said, "you know why we are afraid What mean these ships of Carthage that have robbed us of our shore? Are the gods removing the empire of Rome to Libya? Or shall the seamen of Tyre possess these harbours in future? Must we leave our native seat and dwell in the caves of uttermost Atlas and Calpe?"
Then the prophet, the deity of many forms, thus began to reveal the future, beginning his tale far back in the distant past. "When the shepherd son of Laomedon sat on Phrygian Ida, and his sweet piping recalled to the dewy pastures his bulls that strayed through pathless thickets,

§ 7.440  he was chosen to witness the contest of the goddesses for the prize of beauty. Then a Cupid drove the snow-white swans harnessed to his mother's car, and feared to be too late for the contest. A tiny quiver and a golden bow glittered at his shoulder, and he signed to his mother to have no fear, and showed her the quiver that he carried loaded with arrows. Another Cupid combed the tresses on her snow-white brow, and a third put the girdle round the folds of her purple robe. Then Venus sighed, and her rosy lips thus addressed her pretty children: "See, the day has come that will prove beyond all doubt your love for your mother. Who would dare to believe, that while you still live, the claim of Venus to the prize for beauty is contested? What worse remains behind? If I gave to my children all my arrows steeped in delicious poison — if your grandsire," the Lawgiver of heaven and earth, stands a suppliant before you when so you please, then let my triumph bear back to Cyprus the palm of Edom won from Pallas, and let the hundred altars of Paphos smoke for my conquest of Juno.' And, while Cytherea thus charged her winged children, all the grove re-echoed the footsteps of a goddess. For now came the Warrior Maid. She had laid aside her aegis; the hair which the helmet was wont to hide was braided now, and her clear eyes wore a studied look of peace; and her sacred feet bore her quickly to the appointed grove. From another quarter obedient to the call came the daughter of Saturn; though wedded to her brother, Jupiter, she must endure to be judged and rejected by the Trojan shepherd on Mount Ida. Last came Venus with smiling face, glorious in her beauty.

§ 7.469  All the surrounding groves and all the hollows of the leaf-clad heights drank in deeply the fragrance that breathed from that divine head. The judge could not sit still; his eyes, dazzled by the brilliance of her beauty, sank to the ground; and he feared lest he might seem ever to have been in doubt. But the defeated goddesses brought a fierce army across the sea, and Troy was demolished together with the Trojan who had judged them. Then good Aeneas, after much suffering on land and sea, established the gods of Troy on the soil of Italy. So long as seamonsters shall swim the deep and stars shine in the sky and the sun rise on the Indian shore, Rome shall rule, and there shall be no end to her rule throughout the ages. But you, my daughters, while the thread of Fate that none may change still runs on, avoid the ill-omened sands of Saso in the Adriatic sea. For Aufidus will fall into that sea, his stream swollen with gore, and will pour incarnadined waters into the main; and on a field condemned long ago by the oracles of Heaven, the ghosts of Aetolia shall fight the Trojans once more. Later the missiles of Carthage shall batter the walls of Romulus, and the Metaurus shall be famous for the utter defeat of Hasdrubal. Next the offspring of stolen love shall duly avenge his father and his uncle as well; then he shall spread fire over the coast of Dido, and tear Hannibal away from the vitals of Italy on which he is preying, and defeat him in his own country. To him Carthage shall surrender her arms, and Africa her name. And his son's son shall finish a third war with victory and bring back the ashes of Libya to the Capitol."

§ 7.494  While the prophet in his grotto revealed these secret things of the gods, the Master of the Knights and commander of the army had put from his mind the warnings of Fabius, and was pressing forward against the enemy. And Hannibal was not slow to feed and encourage this folly: he feigned at times to retreat, that by a trifling loss he might tempt Minucius to a pitched battle. So the fisherman tempts a fish forth from the watery depths by scattering bait in the pools, and then, when he sees his nimble prey swimming close to the surface, draws it captive to the shore in his bellying net.
Wild rumours ran — that the enemy was routed, and Hannibal had saved himself by flight; an end of defeats was certain, if the Romans were allowed to conquer; but the brave had no authority, and punishment was in store for the victorious. Soon would Fabius keep the army in camp and order the sword to be sheathed once more, that the warrior might be called to account and clear himself of the crime of conquering. Thus the people murmured; and even the hearts of the Senators were stirred up by the daughter of Saturn with the sting of jealousy and with the desire for popular favour. Then they passed a decree unworthy of belief, a decree that Hannibal might have prayed for; they were soon to repent it and to pay for it with great disaster.
The army was divided, and the Master of the Knights was given equal powers with the Dictator. The older man looked on without resentment; but he feared that the ill-advised government might pay a heavy penalty for their grievous error. And then, revolving many things in his breast, he returned from Rome and, after dividing the forces with Minucius,

§ 7.521  encamped on a neighbouring height, where from his lofty watch-tower he kept an eye on the Roman army as much as on the army of Hannibal. Minucius in his folly at once dismantled the rampart of his camp; he was burning with eagerness to destroy and, at the same time, to be destroyed.
When Hannibal from one point and Fabius from another saw him hurrying forth from his camp, each instantly conceived wise plans to meet the emergency. The Roman general ordered his foot-soldiers to arm with speed, and kept his cavalry behind the protection of the ramparts, while Hannibal threw every man into the fighting-line, and called on them thus to go forward: "Soldiers, seize the opportunity for battle, while Fabius is absent. See! Heaven offers us the chance so long denied of fighting on the open plain. Since the opportunity is given, cleanse the steel from the mould of long disuse, my men, and glut your rusty swords with much bloodshed."
The Delayer surveyed the country from the high rampart, and weighed these things in his heart. He was grieved that Rome should learn the value of a Fabius at so great a cost. His son who served at his side said: "That rash man will suffer as he deserves — the man who by the votes of the blind populace usurped our authority and has brought things to this pass. Look on now, ye senseless Tribes! Shame on the rhetoric that leads to ruin, and on the marketplace that approves worthless men! Let them now, in their ignorance of war, divide the command over the army and vote that light shall give place to darkness! Dearly shall they pay for their mad mistake, and for their insult to my father." As the old man answered him, he shook his spear, and the tears

§ 7.548  rose to his eyes: "My son, you must wash away that harsh speech in Punic blood. Shall I suffer my countryman to be slain before my eyes, and not move a hand, or allow Hannibal to conquer while I look on? If such were my feeling, will not those who set me on a level with my subordinate be acquitted of all blame? And now, my son, take this for certain from your aged father, and keep it ever engraved upon your heart: to harbour wrath against your country is a sin; and no more heinous crime can mortal man carry down to the shades below. Such was the doctrine of our fathers. How great and noble was Camillus, when, exiled from home and country, he returned from banishment to drive his triumphal car to the Capitol! How many enemies were slain by that right hand which Romans had condemned! But for the placid wisdom of Camillus and his refusal to harbour wrath, the realm of Aeneas would have changed its seat of empire," and Rome would not stand now at the summit of the world. Be not angry for your father's sake, my son; but let us fight side by side and make haste to help." Already the trumpets were sounding together with the trumpets of the foe; and men had charged forward, to clash in conflict.
The Dictator was the foremost man to knock down the bars and tall gate-posts of the camp, and to rush into the fray. No mightier are the winds when they war against one another, Boreas from Thrace and Africus that has power to lift the Syrtis; when they rage in stubborn conflict, they divide the sea and each rolls his own part to an opposite shore; as the tempest howls, the tide is swept after it hither and thither, and the waves thunder.

§ 7.575  No possible achievement — not the conquest of Africa and the fall of Carthage — could confer on Fabius such glory as he reaped from the wrong done him by envy; for he conquered at the same time every obstacle — danger and Hannibal, resentment and jealousy — and he trod underfoot calumny and Fortune together.
When Hannibal saw the Romans rushing down from their high rampart, his ardour was shaken: he groaned, and his sanguine hopes of a crushing victory sank in a moment. For he had surrounded the army of Minucius with a serried ring of soldiers and hoped to destroy them by a shower of missiles from every side. And now the Roman general in that ill-judged battle had already in thought crossed the Styx to the place of eternal darkness — for he was ashamed to look to Fabius for help — when the Dictator, surrounding the battle-field with his two flanks, hemmed in the Carthaginian rear with an outer circle, and now, from his outside position, blockaded those who had lately been blockaders. By grace of Hercules he seemed to rise higher as he fought and to grow in stature. The plume of his helmet flashed on high; and his frame was suddenly endued with marvellous strength and activity; he hurled spear after spear and assailed the enemy in their rear with clouds of darts. Thus the King of Pylus fought in his Second stage of life, when youth was gone and old age not yet come.
On he rushed and slew Thuris and Butes, Naris and Arses, and Mahalces who had dared to face him, a famous warrior who had gained glory by his spear. Then he laid low Garadus and Adherbes of the long hair, and Thulis who towered above both armies and could grasp the topmost battlements on a lofty wall.

§ 7.604  These he slew from a distance; and his sword accounted for Sapharus and Monaesus, and for Morinus, as he stirred the hearts of the combatants with the trumpet's blare; the fatal blow struck his right cheek, and the blood, running down through the trumpet from the wound in his face, flowed forth, expelled by his dying breath. Close by him fell Idmon, a Nasamonian, slain by a javelin. For as he slipped on the warm blood and was vainly striving to plant his unsteady feet on firm ground, the Dictator's horse struck him down; and, when he tried in haste to lift his bruised limbs from the ground, Fabius pinned him to the earth by a strong thrust of his spear and left the weapon in the deadly wound. Sticking in the ground, the spear quivered as the dying man moved, and kept guard on the plain over the corpse consigned to it.
This glorious example inflamed the younger men: a Sulla and a Crassus with him, Furnius and his comrade Metellus, and Torquatus, a more practised warrior, entered the battle; and all alike were willing even to die, if they might have the eyes of Fabius upon them. Unhappy Bibulus was stepping quickly backwards and swerving aside, to elude a huge stone hurled at him, when he stumbled on a heap of Roman corpses in his movement to the rear; and an iron point, which happened to project from a dead body, entered his side where many a blow had loosened the clasps of the buckle on his corslet; and his fall drove the weapon home to his vitals. Alas, for so strange a death! He was spared by the missiles of the Garamantes and the swords of the Marmaridae, in order to be laid low by a senseless weapon — a weapon aimed at a different victim.

§ 7.632  Down he fell in death; a strange pallor disfigured his youthful beauty; his shield fell from his loosened grasp, and the sleep of darkness stole over his eyes.
Cleadas, a descendant of Cadmus, had come to the wars from Tyrian Sidon, summoned by the entreaty of the daughter-city, and fought side by side with the Carthaginians, proud of his troop of archers from the East; jewels sparkled all over his golden helmet and golden collar. So sparkles Lucifer," when, refreshed by the waters of Ocean, he is approved by Venus and outshines the greater stars. Purple was his dress, and purple the housings of his steed; and on all his company glittered the precious dye that is steeped in the vats of Sidon. Brutus, eager for the fray, was burning to blot out such a famous name; but Cleadas mocked him, wheeling his horse lightly round in mazy circles, now to the right and now to the left; and then he shot a winged arrow over his shoulder, refusing in Persian fashion to face his foe. Nor did he fail to hit: the keen arrow lodged, alas, right in the chin of Casca, the squire of Brutus; warmed with blood the point passed upwards, leaving a jagged wound, and forced the steel into the moist palate. But Brutus, troubled by the grievous plight of his friend, no longer tried to ride down Cleadas, as he ranged at large and sent out a shower of deadly arrows while pretending flight: he entrusted to his spear all the fierce anger of his heart, and launched the flying weapon with a thong; and the point pierced his breast, where the collar with its row of pendants hung loose and left the neck exposed.

§ 7.669  Cleadas' bow was bent when he was laid low by the spear; the bow slipped from his left hand and the arrow from his right, as down he fell.
But better fortune in battle befell Carmelus, the pride of Soracte sacred to Apollo. For he had already dyed his sword with the blood of Bagrada, lord and leader of a Nubian people; and he had slain Zeusis also, a warlike son of Spartan Phalantus, whom a Punic mother had borne to a famous Lacedaemonian. Then fearing the same fate, Hampsicus had not confidence to engage so active a foe, nor even to fly: urged by terror, the poor wretch had passed through thickets and climbed to the top of a neighbouring oak, where he hid in the thick leafage, standing on boughs that shook under his weight. But Carmelus ran him through with his long spear, as he begged hard for mercy and sprang from branch to branch overhead. Thus the fowler who dispeoples the grove with his cane-rod tipped with birdlime, pursues the bird over his head with a lengthening reed, and silently tries to reach at last the topmost branches by adding a joint to his tapering rod." Hampsicus poured forth his life; his blood streamed down from above, and his lifeless limbs bent down the branch on which they hung.
And now the Romans were fighting fiercely against the straggling and fleeing foe, when suddenly Tunger, the Moor, a terrible giant, rushed forward to battle. His body was black, and his lofty chariot was drawn by black horses; and the chariot — a new device to strike terror — was the same colour all over as the dusky backs of the steeds; and on his lofty crest he had been careful to set a plume of the same hue; and the garment he wore was black also.

§ 7.688  So the Ruler of the eternal darkness, when he carried off the maiden from Henna long ago and hastened to their bridal chamber in the lower world, drove a chariot black with the darkness of Hell. But Cato, on whose cheeks the down of manhood was just appearing, was undismayed. He was the pride of his native Tusculum, which lies on Circe's height and was once ruled by the grandson of Laertes. Though he saw that the Roman van was checked and had withdrawn in confusion, he drove on his hesitating steed with iron heel and freely loosened rein. The horse refused to go forward and stood trembling, terrified by the harmless shadow that Tunger cast. Then quickly dismounting from his tall horse to fight, he followed the flying chariot on foot, and sprang upon it from behind as it sped on. Reins and whip were dropped in a moment; and the ill-fated Moor lost courage and turned pale, dreading the sword that hung over his neck. Cato cut off his head with the sword and carried it away, stuck on the point of his spear.
Meanwhile the Dictator, exulting in fierce battle, burst his way through a mass of exhausted men, and carried death with him. Then he saw a pitiful sight — Minucius weary, wounded, and bleeding, and asking for a shameful death. Fabius shed tears, and protected the frightened general with his shield. Then he encouraged his son to battle thus: "Brave son, let us wipe off the stain upon us and repay Hannibal in full for his kind treatment in dropping no fire upon our fields." Then, rejoicing in the encouragement of his wise father, the young man drove

§ 7.715  off with the sword the surrounding ranks of Carthage, and cleared the plain; and Hannibal at last withdrew from the field. So, when the shepherd's back is turned, the wolf that Mars loves, urged by hunger, snatches up a lamb and holds the frightened youngling fast in its jaws; but, if the shepherd hears a bleating and runs to face the wolf, then it fears for itself, and casts up the still breathing prey from between its teeth, and makes off in wrath with empty jaws. Not till then was the Stygian darkness, with which the black cloud of the Carthaginian attack had surrounded the army of Minucius, at last dispelled. Their hands were numbed; they said they were not worthy to be rescued; they were stunned and confused by sudden good fortune. Even so, men buried beneath a falling house, when dug out and suddenly released from darkness, blink with their eyes and fear to see the sun again.
When all this was done, Fabius numbered his army and was glad, and marched back to the heights where they were safe in camp. But, behold, the soldiers, recalled to life from the very jaws of death, raised a shout to the sky and marched triumphantly in long procession, all with one acclaim loudly hailing Fabius as their glory, Fabius as their saviour, and Fabius as their father. Then the general who had lately parted from him, taking half the army with him, spoke thus: "O worshipful father, if I, thus restored to the blessing of light, may make a just complaint, why were we permitted to have separate camps and separate armies? Why did you submit to hand over a force which you alone are fit to command? To that generous act we owed our fall and looked on the darkness of death, and much blood was spilt.

§ 7.742  Make haste, ye soldiers, to bring back hither the eagles and standards which Fabius saved! Fabius is our country, and the walls of Rome rest on the shoulders of a single man! And you, Hannibal, have done with your stale tricks and stratagems; in future you have to fight Fabius and him alone."
When Minucius had spoken thus, an imposing sight then was seen — a thousand altars of green turf raised in haste; and no man dared to touch food or the pleasant gift of Lyaeus, till he had offered many a prayer and poured out wine upon the board in honour of Fabius.

§ 8.1  BOOK VIII
Fabius had been the first to show the Romans the retreating backs of the Carthaginians. Him alone his soldiers called their father, and him alone Hannibal called his foe. The Carthaginian leader raged, impatient of delay: for a chance of fighting, he must wait for the death of Fabius and summon the Fates as allies in war; for, so long as that old man lived, he had no hope of shedding Italian blood. Further, the united army, serving with standards restored under a single commander, and the necessity of wrestling again and again with Fabius alone — all this weighed still more heavily on his anxious spirit. By skilful inaction and by slackening the pace of war, the Dictator had effected much; and, above all, he had deprived the Tyrian army of all supplies; and, though a fight to a finish was still in the future, he was already the master of the foe. Moreover, the Gauls, a boastful and unstable people, bold at the start but infirm of purpose, were turning their eyes

§ 8.18  homewards: unaccustomed to a bloodless campaign, they grieved that their hands, unwetted with gore in time of war, should be enfeebled by thirst for conflict. Nor was this all: his troubles were increased by dangers at home — the jealousy of his fellow-citizens and the opposition of Hanno to the enterprise; for Hanno would not suffer their senate to send reinforcements or supplies of any kind.
Though tortured by these anxieties and fearing the worst, Hannibal regained hope of victory and renewed his insane ambition, by help of Juno; the goddess foresaw the field of Cannae, and coming events filled her with pride. Summoning Anna from the river of Laurentum she thus addressed her, pressing her with flattering appeal: "Goddess, a youth akin to you is in sore straits — even Hannibal, a famous name, descended from Belus the Phoenician. Arise, hasten, and assuage his raging sea of troubles. Dislodge Fabius from his mind. Fabius alone stands between the Romans and subjugation; but he is now putting off his armour, and Hannibal will have to fight against Varro and meet Varro in battle. Let him move his standards forward and take advantage of Fortune. I myself shall be there. Let him march instantly to the plain of Iapygia. The doom of the Trebia and Lake Trasimene shall be repeated there."
Then the nymph, who dwells near the sacred grove of the native god," thus replied: "It is my duty to do your bidding without delay. One thing only I beg: suffer me to keep the goodwill of my former

§ 8.42  country and to carry out the solemn behests of my sister, although the deity of Anna is among those honoured by the Romans."
Far back in history, and hidden in deep darkness by the uncertain report of antiquity, lies the answer to this question; why should the Italians consecrate a temple to a Phoenician deity, and why should Dido's sister be worshipped in the country of the Aeneadae? But I shall repeat the legend from the beginning, keeping my tale within strict limits, and briefly recalling the past.
When Dido was deserted by her Trojan guest and hope was utterly dead, she hastened in frenzy to the fatal pyre within the palace. Then, resolved on death, she seized the sword which her runagate husband had given her for her destruction. Iarbas, whose hand she had refused in marriage, usurped the throne, and Anna fled before her sister's pyre was cold. Who would help her in her need, when that king of the Numidians spread terror far and wide? It chanced that Battus then ruled Cyrene with gentle sway — Battus, a kindly man and ready to give a tear to human suffering. When he saw the suppliant, he trembled at the thought of what princes may suffer, and stretched forth his hand to her. And there she stayed for a time, till the golden ears were twice cat down by the reapers. Then she could no longer avail herself of Battus and his friendship; for he told her that Pygmalion was sailing thither, intent on her destruction. So she was driven to the sea, angry with Heaven, and with herself for not dying together with her sister, and was pitifully tossed with tattered sails, till at last a fateful storm wrecked her upon the coast of Laurentum.

§ 8.70  A stranger to that clime and soil and to its inhabitants, the Phoenician princess was afraid when shipwrecked upon the land of Italy. But see! Aeneas, having now gained a kingdom, came with godlike lulus, and his face she knew. In great fear she gazed upon the ground and then knelt down before weeping lulus; but Aeneas raised her up and led her gently within the palace. And when a courteous reception had lightened her troubles and dispelled her fear of danger, with anxious sorrow he asked to hear about the death of unhappy Dido. And Anna thus began, sighing and weeping abundantly as she spoke, and used soft words too to suit the occasion: "O goddess-born, my sister's throne and her life depended upon you alone; bear witness her death and that funeral-pyre, which would that I then had shared! When the sight of your face was taken from her, she sometimes sat, sometimes stood, on the shore in her misery; watching the course of the winds, she called Aeneas back with a great cry, and prayed that you would deign to take her alone on board your ship. Then in confused haste she hurried back to her chamber, and suddenly trembled and stood still, fearing to touch that sacred couch. Next in her distraction, she first clasps the beauteous image of radiant lulus, and then, quickly turning her whole mind to your likeness, hangs upon your image, making her plaint to you and hoping for an answer. Love never abandons hope. Now she leaves the palace and goes back in frenzy to the harbour, in case some wind may shift its course and blow you back. She stooped even to magic arts, driven to this by the wicked deceitfulness and folly of the Massylian race. But, out upon wizards and their accursed delusions! While they called up the infernal

§ 8.101  gods and promised relief for her strange trouble — what a dreadful sight did I, who believed them, witness! — she heaped upon a fatal pyre all memorials of you and your ill-starred gifts."
Then Aeneas answered, revisited by passion with all its sweetness: "I swear by this land, to which vou both often heard me appeal when we exchanged vows; I swear by the head of gentle lulus, once so dear to you and to your sister: in sorrow and with a longing look behind I left your kingdom; nor would I have broken off the marriage, had not the god of Cyllene," with dreadful threats, set me on board with his own hand, and driven the fleet out to sea with swift winds. But why — too late, alas, is my warning — why at such a moment did ye allow passion to run wild unwatched?"
Anna thus replied with quivering lips and in a breathless voice between her sobs: "I chanced to be preparing strange offerings for the sable King whom the third realm obeys, and for the partner of his gloomy bed, in order to relieve my love-lorn sister of her sorrow and unrest; and I was myself bringing black-fleeced sheep, and making haste, to avert an evil dream. For, in my sleep, an awful fear had filled my heart; and thrice, thrice over with a loud cry, had Sychaeus claimed Dido as his own and shown a face of pride and joy. I drove this from my thoughts and prayed to the gods to give a favourable turn to the dream, when day came; and I bathed in a running stream. Meanwhile, Dido went quickly to the beach and kissed many times the dumb sand where you had stood; and then she fondly embraced ill your foot-prints, even as a mother strains to her breast the ashes of a lost son.

§ 8.130  Then she rushed back headlong with hair unbound and came to the great high pyre she had raised already; and from its site all the sea was visible and the whole city of Carthage. Next she put on the robe from Troy and the necklace of pearls; she drank in, poor wretch, the memory of that day when she first saw those gifts; she recalled the banquet and the feast that greeted your arrival, when you told in order the long agony of Troy, and she sat late to hear you. Then in distraction she turned her weeping eyes to the harbour. Ye gods of endless night," she cried, "whose power seems greater to one at the point of death, help me, I pray, and give a kindly welcome to a spirit that love has conquered. The wife of Aeneas, the daughter-inlaw of Venus, I avenged my husband, I saw the towers of my city Carthage rise; and now the shade of a great queen shall go down to your domain. Perhaps my husband, whose love was sweet to me long ago, is waiting for me there, eager to love me no less than before." Thus speaking she drove a sword into the centre of her breast — the sword which she had received as a pledge of the Trojan's love. Her attendants saw it, and rushed together through the halls with mourning and beating of breasts; the palace resounded with their loud cries. I, unhappy, heard the tidings; terror-stricken by that dreadful death, I tore my cheeks with my nails, as I rushed in frenzy to the palace and struggled to climb the lofty steps. Thrice I strove to throw myself on the accursed sword, and thrice I fell prostrate on the body of my dead sister. Soon the rumour spread through the neighbouring cities; the Numidian chiefs and fierce Iarbas prepared for war; and I, driven by

§ 8.158  fate, came to the city of Cyrene; and at last the violence of the sea brought me to your coast."
Aeneas was touched: he had admitted to his heart a gentle and kindly feeling towards Anna in her troubles. Soon she had put away all grief and sorrow from her heart, and she no longer seemed a stranger in the palace of the Trojan. When black night had wrapped all things in silent sleep, over all the earth and the still expanse of sea, she dreamed that her sister, Dido, with a face of sorrow and utmost grief, spoke to her thus: "Sister, too heedless sister, how can you bear to sleep long under this roof? Are you blind to the snares laid for you and the dangers that surround you? Do you not yet understand that the people of Laomedon bring doom upon our nation and our land? As long as the sky makes the stars revolve with rapid course, and the moon lights up the earth with her brother's radiance, no lasting peace shall there be between the Aeneadae and the men of Tyre. Rise in haste; I distrust Lavinia — already she is laying snares in secret, and ponders some horrible outrage. Further — nor deem this message the idle coinage of sleep — not far from here the river Numicus flows down from a little spring and runs with gentle current through the valleys. Hasten, sister, to a harbour of safety there. The Nymphs will gladly admit you to their sacred stream; and your deity shall be for ever honoured in the land of Italy." So Dido spoke and vanished into thin air.
Terrified by her strange dream, Anna started up from sleep; and fear covered her limbs with a cold sweat.

§ 8.187  Then, just as she was, with one thin garment to cover her, she sprang from her bed and, climbing out by the low window, ran swiftly over the open fields, until the river Numicius — so the legend runs — received her in his sandy depths and hid her in his crystal grottoes. Dawn had filled the whole world with radiance, when the Aeneadae found that the stranger from Carthage had vanished from her chamber. With loud shouts they went to and fro through the country, and followed the plain footprints to the river-bank. And while they marvelled, one to another, the river stopped the seaward course of its waters; and then the stranger was seen sitting among her sister Naiads, and she addressed the Trojans with friendly speech. Ever since, Anna's feast has been held on the first days of the year, and she has been worshipped as divine throughout Italy.
When Juno had appealed to Anna to stir up battle and sorrow for Italy, her swift car carried her back to heaven; she hoped at last to gain her wish and drink the blood of Latium. Anna, obedient to the goddess, made her way in invisible shape to the great leader of the Libyan people. He, as it chanced, had banished all company from him; he was pondering the uncertain issues of fortune and of war, and sighed in his perplexity, while his mind kept watch. Thus the goddess soothed his troubles with friendly speech: "Mightiest ruler of the Phoenicians, why do you persist in nursing this great grief in sick anxiety? All the wrath of the gods against you has now been appeased, all their goodwill has come back to the children of Agenor. Rise up, then, without loitering or delay! Speed on the forces of Marmarica to battle! The consuls are changed.

§ 8.216  By the unwisdom of the Senate the heroic scion of Hercules has laid down his arms, and you have to fight against a second Flaminius. I was sent to you — doubt it not — by the consort of the almighty Thunderer. Though I am honoured in the land of Italy as an immortal goddess, I was born of the seed of Belus, your ancestor. Make no delay; launch the thunderbolts of war with utmost speed, where Mount Garganus sinks down to the fields of Iapygia; the land is not far distant; straight to that point send your standards." She ended, and her watery image rose up to the clouds. The general, revived by this pledge of glory to come, addressed her thus: "Nymph, glory of our nation, as sacred to me as any deity, be propitious and give a favourable issue to your promises. If I may fight a battle, I will set your image in a marble shrine on the citadel of Carthage, and dedicate beside it an image of Dido, and both shall be honoured alike." Thus he spoke, and then swollen with pride encouraged his triumphant comrades. "Soldiers! messengers of death to Italy! Here is an end to heavy hearts and the lingering torture of inaction. We have appeased the anger of the gods, and they turn again to us. I announce to you that the command of Fabius, that pettifogger, is now at an end, and that the rods are borne before a new consul. Now let each of you renew his pledges to me, and make good the deeds of valour which you used to promise when debarred from fighting. See! a goddess of our country promises a future greater than our past. Pull up the standards, and let us follow the goddess to the field where the name of Diomede is of ill omen to Trojans."

§ 8.242  Thus encouraged, the Carthaginians made for Arpi." Meanwhile Varro, relying on the purple that he had seized by gift of the people, was already ranting on the Rostrum, and, by his haste to prepare the way for a mighty downfall, brought Rome near to destruction. His birth was obscure; the name of his ancestors was never heard; but his impudent tongue wagged unceasingly, and his voice was loud. Thus he got wealth, and he was Hberal with his plunder; and so, by courting the dregs of the people and railing at the Senate, he rose so high in the war-stricken city that he alone could turn the scale of events and settle the course of destiny, though Italy might blush to owe even victory and safety to such a man. Blind voters had given to him, that blot upon the Calendar," a place among such men as Fabius, and the Scipios, whose names are sacred to Mars, and Marceilus, who presented his glorious spoils to Jupiter. The holocaust of Cannae was due to bribery, and to the Field of Mars, more fatal than the field of Dioniede. Also, though a bad citizen, skilful to stir up trouble and kindle hatred, he was helpless in the field, unpractised in the conduct of war, and not approved by any deed of valour; but he hoped to gain martial glory by his tongue and sounded the war-cry from the Rostrum. Therefore he bestirred himself; and, professing to blame Fabius for delay, he attacked the Senate in a speech to the people, as if he were already victorious; The supreme power is yours," he said, "and from you I, the consul, ask directions for the conduct of the war. Am I to do nothing, or to move from height to height, while Garamantians and dark-skinned Moors share Italy with me,

§ 8.268  or am I to use the sword which you gird about me? Listen, O worthy Dictator, to the order issued by the people of Mars: this is their demand, that the Libyans be driven out and Rome relieved of her enemy. Are they impatient? No! They have endured countless woes, and a third year is now consuming them with its suffering and sorrow. Rise then and arm, citizens! A short march is all that divides you from victory. The first day that reveals the enemy to your view will end the tyranny of the Senate and the war with Carthage. Go forward with good courage; I shall yet lead Hannibal through the city with Roman chains about his neck, and Fabius shall look on."
After this invective he led the army in haste outside the gates, and swept away all obstacles. So, when the starting-gate is broken down, the unskilful charioteer loses all control of the reins: bending forward with unsteady foothold to flog his team, he is borne on headlong at the mercy of the horses; the axles smoke with the excessive speed, and the tangled reins of the unsteady car swing from side to side. Paulus, to whom the voters had given equal power and authority with Varro, saw that the state was rushing on to ruin, destroyed by the ill-omened consul. But the anger of a turbulent mob is easily stirred; and the scar of an ancient wrong, imprinted on his memory, checked the wave of resentment in his troubled breast. For, when formerly as a younger man he had conquered Illyricum, the foul mouth of envy had barked at the conqueror and persecuted him with cruel slander. Hence he feared the people and bowed before their enmity. Yet his race was akin to the gods, and he was related to the lords of heaven through his ancestors.

§ 8.294  For through Amulius, the founder of his line, he could trace descent from Assaracus, and through Assaracus to Jupiter; and none who saw him fight would dispute his pedigree. Now, when he was going to the camp, Fabius addressed him thus: "Paulus, though I shrink from saying this thing, you are mistaken if you regard Hannibal as your chief opponent. Sore strife with Romans lies ahead of you, and a more grievous foe in your own camp; or else long experience of war has not taught me to predict disaster. I heard Varro promise — irksome, alas! and burdensome is my old age, if it lasts on to endure the destruction I foresee — yes, promise that he would fight Hannibal, that favourite of Fortune, the very hour he saw him. How near we are now, Paulus, to utter ruin, if this boast of the consul's comes to the eager ear of Hannibal! Already, I doubt not, his army is arrayed on the wide plains to meet us, and waiting with uplifted swords for a second Flaminius." What mighty opponents will you rouse, Varro — you, God help us! — in your mad desire for battle! Are you the man to study the ground beforehand and examine at leisure the ways of the enemy? You have no skill to investigate his supplies or the strength of his position or his method of warfare; you will not keep an eye on Fortune which matters more than any weapon. But you, Paulus, keep to the path of duty unswervingly. If a single arm may destroy our country, why should not a single arm preserve it? Bold Hannibal now lacks food for his army, and his allies are lukewarm and have lost their keenness for battle. No house in Italy offers him the hospitality due from kindred, no loyal cities welcome him, and his army is not renewed with recruits of equal value.

§ 8.323  Scarce a third part survives of the army that started from the banks of the cold Ebro. Persevere, and keep to the cautious methods that alone can heal the wounds of war. But if meanwhile some favourable turn encourages you and Heaven approves, then be quick to follow up good fortune."
Brief and sad was the reply of Paulus: "I shall surely follow that path of duty, and in your spirit I shall meet the Carthaginians, O undefeated Fabius. And I realize our one resource — the resource of delay, which you used till an enfeebled Hannibal saw the war arrested and crushed. But what means this anger of Heaven? Of the two consuls one, I believe, is their gift to Rome and the other their gift to Carthage. Varro drags all things in his train, and the madman fears that some other consul than himself may witness the fall of Rome. If a Carthaginian senator were summoned as my colleague, he would be less ruthless in his purpose. No war-horse is swift enough to carry that madman against the enemy; when the darkness of night comes on, he resents the hindrance to his activity; he marches proudly on, with swords that are all but drawn, that the drawing of the blade from the sheath may not delay the battle. I swear by the Tarpeian rock, by the temple of Jupiter with whom I claim kindred, and by the walls of my glorious native city," which I leave still standing with their citadel — I swear that whithersoever the safety of the state summons me, thither I will go and despise the danger. But if the soldiers, deaf to my warning, engage in battle, then I shall think no longer of my sons, the dear descendants of Assaracus; and never shall a stricken Rome see me like Varro returning home."

§ 8.349  So then the two commanders set off for the camp, disquieted by discordant purposes. Hannibal had already encamped where Anna had foretold, keeping to the plains of Diomede for a battle-ground. Never was the soil of Italy trampled by a greater concourse of men or by a larger body of cavalry in arms. For men dreaded the destruction of nation and capital alike; and there was no prospect of ever fighting a second battle."
The Rutulians, descendants of Faunus, aided by Sicanians, came to battle; these are a sacred band, who dwell in the realm of Daunus, and rejoice in the dwellings of Laurentum and the stream of the Numicius; they were sent forth by Castrum and by Ardea once hostile to Trojans, and by Lanuvium, the home of Juno that lies on the side of a steep hill; and by Collatia, the nurse of chaste Brutus. They also came who love the grove of pitiless Diana and the mouths of the Tuscan river, and wash Cybele's image in the warm stream of Almo. Next came Tibur, the city of Catillus; and Praeneste, whose sacred hill is dedicated to Fortune; and Antemna, more ancient than even Crustumium; and the men of Labicum, handy with the plough; and also those who drink the water of imperial Tiber; and those who dwell on the banks of the Anio, and draw water from chill Simbruvius, and harrow the fields of Aequicola. All these were led by Scaurus; and though Scaurus was but youthful then, his youth already gave promise of undying fame; his men were not wont to hurl the spear-shaft in battle, or to fill quivers

§ 8.374  with feathered arrows; they prefer the pilum and handy short-bladed sword; they wear helmets of bronze, and their phimes wave above the ranks.
Setia, whose vintage is reserved for the table of Lyaeus himself, sent her men, and so did the valley of Velitrae well known to fame, and Cora, and Signia whose foaming wine is bitter; and the Pomptine marshes that breed disease, where the misty swamp of Satura covers the land, and the dark Ufens drives his black and muddy current through unsightly fields and dyes the sea with slime. These were led by Scaevola, nobly born and in courage not unworthy of his ancestors. Carved upon his shield was a picture of that dreadful deed of heroism: the fire blazed on the altar, and Mucius stood in the centre of the Tuscan camp and turned his rage against himself; and his ruthless courage was seen in the carving. Cowed by such a sight, and taught by such an example, Porsena was shown, abandoning the war and flying from that burning hand.
Sulla led to war the men who till the heights of Circe' and the steep hill of Anxur, and the Hernicans who drive the ploughshare deep into their stony ground, and those who furrow the rich crumbling soil of Anagnia; and he summoned also the men of Ferentinum and Privernum; and the fighting men of Sora were there too with glittering arms. Here were the men of Scaptia and of Fabrateria; nor did Atina fail to come down from its snow-clad height, nor Suessa, lessened by wars, nor Frusino, trained to battle by the labour of the plough. Then the hardy men of Arpinum, dwellers by the Liris, which mingles its sulphurous waters with the Fibrenus and runs with silent course to the sea, rose up in arms, bringing

§ 8.401  with them fighters from Venafrum and Larinum, and draining mighty Aquinum of its men. Their mailclad squadrons were sped to battle by Tullius, the son of kings and descended from Tullus of old. How noble was his youthful promise! and how great the immortal descendant he was to give to Italy! That voice shall fill the earth and be heard beyond the Ganges and the peoples of India; with the thunders of his tongue Cicero shall quell the frenzy of war,' and shall leave behind him a renown that no orator of after times can hope to equal.
But lo! Nero rides proudly among the foremost, with the Spartan blood of Clausus in his veins, and unrivalled in swift deeds of valour. With him come the soldiers of Amiterna, and Casperia that takes its name from Bactra, and Foruli, and Reate sacred to the great Mother of the Gods, and Nursia the abode of snow, and warriors from rocky Tetricus. All these carry spears and rounded shields; their helmets have no plume, and they wear greaves on the left leg. As they marched, some of them raised a song in honour of Sancus, the founder of their race, while others praised Sabus, who first gave his name to the wide dominion of the Sabines.
And what of Curio, bristling with scale-armour and plume of horse-hair — Curio, a host in himself, who urged on the men of Picenum? Thick and fast they come, like the billows on a stormy sea that whiten amid the breaking waves; less active are the riders, when the Warrior Maid with the crescent-shaped

§ 8.429  shield reviews her thousand squadrons in mimic warfare, till the earth resounds, and Thermodon too, the river of the Amazons. Here might be seen the men whom the fields of rocky Numana feed, and those for whom the altar of Cupra smokes by the shore, and those who guard the towers and rivers of Truentum; their shielded ranks glitter afar in the sunlight and throw a blood-red- radiance skyward. Here stood Ancona, which rivals Sidon and the purple of Libya in the dyeing of cloth; and here stood Hadria washed by the Vomanus, and here the fierce standardbearers of wooded Asculum. Picus, the famous son of ancient Saturn, was the father and founder of Asculum long ago — Picus whom Circe by her spells deprived of human shape, and sentenced to fly about in the sky; and she speckled his feathers with bright saffron colour as he fled from her. Legend tells that the land was possessed earlier by Pelasgians, the subjects of Aesis who left his name to a river and called his people after himself by the name of Asili.
But the Umbrians, dwellers in the country, brought no less strength to the Roman army, when they came from their hills and valleys. Their rivers are the Aesis and the Sapis, and the Metaurus which drives its rapid stream over rocks in noisy eddies; and there Clitumnus bathes in its sacred waters the mighty bull; and there is the Nar whose pale waves hasten to the Tiber, and the Tinia unknown to fame, and the Clanis, and the Rubicon, and the Sena named after the Senones. But Father Albula flows through their midst with his mighty stream and grazes their walls and brings near his banks. The Umbrian towns are Arna, Mevania of rich pastures, Hispellum, Narnia that lies among the rocks on the

§ 8.458  rough mountain-side, Iguvium that damp mists formerly made unhealthy, and Fulginia that stands unwalled on the open plain. These sent good soldiers — Amerians, Camertes famous alike with sword or plough, men of Sassina rich in flocks, and men of Tuder, no laggards in war. These death-defying warriors were led by Piso, with the face of a boy and fair to see; but he had all the wisdom of age and wit beyond his years. In the front rank he stood, a splendid figure in shining armour, even as a fiery jewel glitters on the golden collar of a Parthian king. Another army manned by Etruscan warriors obeyed Galba of glorious name. Minos, and Pasiphae whom the bull deceived, were the authors of his line, and his ancestors who followed in order were famous too. The choicest of their men were sent by Caere and Cortona, the seat of proud Tarchon, and by ancient Graviscae. Alsium too sent men, the city by the sea that Halaesus the Argive loved; and Fregenae, girt about by a barren plain. Faesula also was present — Faesula that can interpret the winged lightning of heaven; and the people of Clusium, terrible once to the walls of Rome, when great Porsena in vain required of the Romans to obey the tyrants they had expelled. Then Luna sent out fighters from her marble quarries — Luna, whose famous harbour, as large as any, shuts out the sea and shelters countless vessels; and Vetulonia, once the pride of the Lydian race. From that city came the twelve bundles of rods that are borne before the consul, and also the twelve axes with their silent menace; she adorned

§ 8.486  the high curule chairs with the beauty of ivory, and first bordered the robe of office with Tyrian purple; and the brazen trumpet which inflames the warrior was her invention also. Together with these came the men of Nepete, and the Aequi of Falerium, and the inhabitants of Flavina, and men who dwell by the Sabatian lakes and the Ciminian mere, and their neighbours from Sutrium, and those who haunt Soracte, the sacred hill of Phoebus. Each carries two spears; a wild beast's skin is protection enough for their heads; their spears despise the bow of Lycia.
All these knew how to make war; but the Marsi could not only fight but could also send snakes to sleep by charms, and rob a serpent's tooth of its venom by simples and spells. They say that Angitia," daughter of Aeetes, first revealed to them magic herbs, and taught them to tame vipers by handling them, to drive the moon from the sky, to arrest the course of rivers by their muttering, and to strip the hills by calling down the forests. But this people got their name from Marsyas, the settler who fled in fright across the sea from Phrygian Crenai, when the Mygdonian pipe was defeated by Apollo's lyre. Marruvium, which bears the famous name of ancient Marrus, is the chief of their cities; and further inland lies Alba in water-meadows, and compensates by its orchards for the lack of corn. Their other strongholds, though unknown to fame and with no name among the people, are formidable by their number. The Pelignians were forward to join the rest, and brought their troops in haste from chilly Sulmo.
No less zealous were the natives of Sidicinum, whose mother-city is Cales.

§ 8.513  Cales had no mean founder — even Calais, who, as legend tells, was nurtured in Thracian caves by Orithyia, when she was carried off by the blast of wanton Boreas through the sky. The Vestini, inferior to none as fighters, and hardened by hunting wild animals, came in serried ranks; their flocks graze on the heights of Fiscellus and green Pinna, and in the meadows of Aveia that are quick to grow again. The Marrucini likewise, in rivalry with Frentani, brought with them the inhabitants of Corfinium, and great Teate. All these carried a pike to battle, and all carried slings that had struck down many a bird high in air. For corslets they wore the skins of bears slain by the hunters.
Moreover the Oscans, whom Campania, rich in wealth and ancient blood, sent to battle from all her wide domain, were waiting close by for the coming of their leaders: Sinuessa of warm springs, and Vulturnum within sound of the sea, and Amyclae which silence once destroyed; Fundi, and Caieta where Lamus once was king, and the home of Antiphates shut in by the sea; Liternum with its marshy pools, and Cyme which could once foretell the future. There were seen Nuceria and Gaurus; and the sons of Dicaearchus were sent forth from their arsenal; Greek Parthenope was there, with many a man-at-arms, and Nola, barred against Hannibal'; Allifae also, and Acerrae, ever mocked at by the Clanius. One might have seen too the Sarrastian men and all the assembled might of the gentle Samus. There were the chosen men from the Phlegraean

§ 8.538  bays rich in sulphur, and from Misenus, and from the seat of Baius the Ithacan with its mighty red-hot crater. Prochyte was not absent, nor Inarime, the place appointed for ever-burning Typhoeus, nor the rocky isle of ancient Telo, nor Calatia of the little walls. Surrentum was there, and Abella ill-provided with corn-fields; and Capua above all; but she, alas, knew not how to observe moderation in prosperity, and her wicked pride went before a fall.
Scipio trained the Campanians for war, and they were proud of their leader. He had given them javelins and iron corslets; at home they had carried lighter weapons after the fashion of their fathers — made of wood hardened in the fire and with no iron point; they used the club and the axe, the countryman's tool. In their midst Scipio gave splendid promise of his future fame, hurling stakes, leaping trenches under city-walls, and stemming the billows of the sea with his breastplate on; such the display of vigour he gave before the ranks. Often his flying feet outstripped a courser as it flew, cruelly spurred, over the open plain; often, rising to his full height, he threw stone or spear beyond the limits of the camp. He had a martial brow and flowing hair; nor was the hair at the back of his head shorter. His eyes burned bright, but their regard was mild; and those who looked upon him were at once awed and pleased.
The Samnites too there were; their allegiance was not yet turning towards the Carthaginians, but they still cherished their ancient grudge.

§ 8.564  Here were the reapers of Batulum and Nucrae, the hunters of Bovianum, the dwellers in the gorge of Caudium , and those whom Rufrae or Aesernia or unknown Herdonia sent from her untilled fields.
The Bruttians, inferior to none in spirit, and also the men called forth from the Lucanian hills, and the Hirpini, carried pointed weapons and were shaggy with the hides of beasts. They get their living by hunting; they live in the forest, and slake their thirst in the rivers, and earn their sleep by toil.
To these were added the Calabrians, and the troops of Sallentia, and of Brundisium where Italy comes to an end. These troops were given to bold Cethegus as commander; and he reviewed their united strength, not broken up into companies. Here men from the rocks of Leucosia showed themselves, and those whom Picentia sent from Paestum; and men of Cerillae, which was afterwards depopulated by the enemy; and people fed by the water of the Silarus, which has power, men say, to turn into stone branches dipped in it. Cethegus praised the sickle-shaped swords with which the fighting Salernians are armed, and the rough oaken clubs which the men of Buxentum suited to their grasp. He himself, with his shoulder bared in the manner of his fathers, took pleasure in his unruly steed, and exerted his youthful strength in forcing the hard-mouthed horse to turn in circles.
Ye too, the peoples of the river Po, though sore smitten and bereft of your men, rushed forth now to battle and defeat, and no god hearkened to your prayers. Placentia, though crippled by the war, vied with Mutina;

§ 8.592  and Cremona sent forth her sons in rivalry with Mantua — Mantua, the home of the Muses, raised to the skies by immortal verse, and a match for the lyre of Homer. Men came from Verona too, round which flows the Athesis; from Faventia, skilful to nurture the pine-trees that grow everywhere round her fields; and Vercellae, with Pollentia rich in dusky fleeces; and Bononia of the little Rhine; the ancient seat of Ocnus, which went to war long ago with the Trojans against Laurentum. Then came the men of Ravenna, who paddle slowly with heavy oars over muddy waters, as they cleave the stagnant pools of their marshes. There was also a band of Trojans, coming from the Euganean country in ancient times and driven forth from the sacred soil of Antenor. Aquileia too together with the Veneti was full to overflowing with troops. The active Ligurians, and the Vagenni who dwell scattered among rocks, sent their hardy sons to swell the triumph of Hannibal. All these peoples had Brutus for their leader and relied entirely upon him; and his appeals roused their spirit against a foe they knew already. Though dignified, Brutus was genial; his powerful intellect won men's hearts, and there was nothing forbidding in his virtue. To wear a frowning brow, or win a thankless reputation for severity, was not his way: nor did he court notoriety by a perverse course of life.
Three thousand men, skilled archers, had also been sent by the loyal king from Etna in Sicily; and

§ 8.615  Ilva had armed with her native iron, on which war thrives, fewer men, but all of them eager to gird on the sword.
Any man who had seen so great an army mustered might have pardoned Varro's eagerness to fight a battle. In ancient times when great Mycenae attacked Troy, Leander's Hellespont saw a thousand ships swarm with as huge a host on the shore of Rhoeteum.
When the Romans reached Cannae, built on the site of a former city, they planted their doomed standards on a rampart of evil omen. Nor, when such destruction was hanging over their unhappy heads, did the gods fail to reveal the coming disaster. Javelins blazed up suddenly in the hands of astounded soldiers; high battlements fell down along the length of the ramparts; Mount Garganus, collapsing with tottering summit, overset its forests; the Aufidus rumbled in its lowest depths and roared; and far away across the sea seamen were scared by fire burning on the Ceraunian mountains. Light was suddenly withdrawn, and the Calabrian mariners, plunged in darkness, looked in vain for the shore and land of Sipus; and many a screech-owl beset the gates of the camp. Thick swarms of bees constantly twined themselves about the terrified standards, and the bright hair of more than one comet, the portent that dethrones monarchs, showed its baleful glare. Wild beasts also in the silence of night burst through the rampart into the camp, snatched up a sentry before the eyes of his frightened comrades, and scattered his limbs over the adjacent fields. Sleep also was mocked by terrible images: men dreamt that the ghosts of the Gauls were breaking forth from their graves.

§ 8.643  Again and again the Tarpeian rock was shaken and wrenched from its very base; a dark stream of blood flowed in the temples of Jupiter; and the ancient image of Father Quirinus shed floods of tears. The Allia rose high above its fatal banks. The Alps did not keep their place, and the Apennines were never still day or night among their vast gorges. In the southern sky, bright meteors shot against Italy from the direction of Africa; and the heavens burst open with a fearful crash, and the countenance of the Thunderer was revealed. Vesuvius also thundered, hurling flames worthy of Etna from her cliffs; and the fiery crest, throwing rocks up to the clouds, reached to the trembling stars.
But lo! in the midst of the army a soldier foretells the battle. With distraction in his aspect and his brain, he fills the camp with his wild shouting, and gasps as he reveals coming disaster: "Spare us, ye cruel gods! The heaps of dead are more than the fields can contain; I see Hannibal speeding through the serried ranks and driving his furious chariot over armour and human limbs and standards. The wind rages in wild gusts, and drives the dust of battle in our faces and eyes. Servilius, careless of his life, is down; his absence from the field of Trasimene does not help him now. Whither is Varro fleeing? Ye gods! Paulus, the last hope of despairing men, is struck down by a stone. Trebia cannot rival this destruction. See! the bodies of the slain form a bridge, and reeking Aufidus belches forth corpses, and the huge beast treads the plain victorious.

§ 8.671  The Carthaginian copies us and carries the consul's axes, and his lictors bear blood-stained rods. The triumphal procession of the Roman passes from Rome to Libya. And, O grief! — do the gods force us to witness this also? — victorious Carthage measures the downfall of Rome by all the heap of gold that was torn from the left hands of the slain.

§ 9.1  BOOK IX
Though Italy was disturbed by these portents and the gods in vain revealed tokens of coming disaster throughout the land, yet Varro behaved as if the omens for the imminent battle were favourable and auspicious. He took no sleep that night but brandished his sword in the darkness, at one time blaming Paulus for inaction, at another seeking to sound by night the fierce war-note of his trumpets. Nor was Hannibal less eager for instant conflict. Driven on by evil fortune, our soldiers sallied out from the camp, and battle was joined. For a body of Macae," foraging here and there in the neighbouring plains, discharged a cloud of winged missiles. Here Mancinus fell, while rejoicing to be the foremost fighter and first to dye his sword with the blood of an enemy; and with him fell many soldiers. Still, though Paulus objected that the entrails of the victims were ominous of the gods' disfavour, Varro would not have checked

§ 9.17  the fighting, had not the rule of alternate command over the army denied him the power of decision, as he rushed upon his fate. Yet this rule could give the doomed multitude a reprieve for one day only. Back they went to camp; and Paulus loudly lamented, because he saw that to-morrow the command would devolve on a madman, and that he had saved the lives of his men to no purpose. For Varro, in fierce anger and resenting the postponement of battle, addressed him thus: "Is this the way, Paulus, you show gratitude and repay me for saving your life } Is this the reward of those who rescued you from the laws and from a jury that meant mischief? Better bid our men at once surrender to the foe the swords and weapons which you called back from battle; or snatch them yourself from their grasp. But you, my men, whose faces I saw wet with tears when Paulus ordered you to turn your backs in retreat, break with custom and anticipate the word of command for battle: let each man be his own commander and rush to action as soon as the first rays of the sun are thrown on the summit of Mount Garganus. I shall open the gates of the camp myself with no delay. Rush ahead, and make up for the opportunity you were robbed of today." Thus in his excitement he tried to animate the sick hearts of his men with a fatal desire for battle. Meanwhile Paulus underwent a change: he felt and looked now as when he stood after the battle and the field lay before him strewn with Roman corpses; for the imminent disaster pressed upon his very sight. So sits a mother stunned and senseless, when all hope of her son's life is lost, and she cherishes with a last fruitless embrace the limbs that are not yet cold. He spoke thus: "By the walls of Rome so often shaken,

§ 9.45  and by these innocent lives, round whom the shadow of infernal night is now hovering, I implore you, Varro, go not to meet disaster. Until Heaven's wrath has passed away and the anger of Fortune is spent, be content, if our recruits learn to endure the name of Hannibal and cease to turn cold at sight of the enemy. See you not how the very sound of his approach drives the blood in a moment from their pale faces, how the swords drop from their hands before the trumpet sounds? You think Fabius a sick man and a dawdler; but every soldier whom he led to battle beneath the standards you blame is in the ranks today, whereas the troops of Flaminius — but may Heaven avert the evil omen! Even if your heart is set against my warnings and entreaties, open your ears to the god. Long ago, in the time of our forefathers, the priestess of Cumae foretold these things to mankind, and her foreknowledge proclaimed to the world you and your madness. Now I turn prophet too and tell you the future to your face in no riddling strain: if you move the standards tomorrow, you shall confirm by my death the prophecy of the Sibyl, Apollo's priestess, and this field shall no longer be famous because of Diomede the Greek but because of you, the Roman consul." Thus Paulus spoke, and the tears sprang from his burning eyes.
That night too was stained by a terrible crime committed in error. Satricus, taken prisoner by Xanthippus, had endured slavery in the land of Libya, and had then been given to the king of the Autololes with other rewards conferred on him in recognition of his valour. This man was a native of Sulmo and left two boys there at their mother's breast — Mancinus and one who bore the Trojan name

§ 9.72  of Solimus; for their remote ancestor was a Trojan who had followed Aeneas as his sovereign and built a famous city which he called by his own name, Solimus; but, when many Italian colonists resorted thither, the name was gradually shortened into Sulmo. And now Satricus had come with his king among the foreign invaders; and the Gaetulians were willing enough, when occasion required, to use his services to interpret Latin speech. But when the chance was given him of revisiting his native town and he could hope to see his father's house again, he summoned night to aid his enterprise and stole out of the hated camp. But he fled unarmed: to carry a shield might betray his design, and he started home with no weapon in his hand. Therefore he scanned the armour of the dead who lay on the field, and armed himself with weapons taken from the corpse of Mancinus. Now he felt less fear; but it was his own son, slain a few hours before by a Libyan foe, whose limbs he had stripped, and from whose lifeless body he had taken the spoils which now he carried. Now when night came and sleep began, his other son, Solimus, came forth from the Roman camp, to relieve in his allotted turn the watch at the gate, and searched for the body of his brother, Mancinus, among the corpses lying on the field; he wished to bury the hapless youth secretly. He had not hastened far when he saw an armed enemy coming towards him from the Carthaginian camp. Thus surprised, he took the course that chance offered him, and concealed himself behind the tomb of Thoas, an Aetolian. But then, when he saw no soldiers following close behind, but only a single man walking alone in the dark, he sprang up from the tomb and threw his javelin at his father's unprotected back.

§ 9.103  His aim was true; and Satricus, believing that he was pursued by a Carthaginian force and that his wound was due to them, looked round anxiously, to discover the unseen hand that had struck him.
But when Solimus, running with youthful vigour, came up to his victim, a dismal light flashed from the familiar arms, and the shield of Mancinus, revealed by the moonlight, showed itself clear before his eyes and gleamed close beside him. Then the young man, fired with sudden wrath, cried out: "No true son of Satricus, no native of Sulmo, should I be, and no brother of Mancinus — and I would own myself no worthy descendant of Trojan Solimus, if I suffered this man to escape unpunished! Shall he wear before my eyes the noble spoils he took from my brother? Is this traitor to carry off the glorious armour of a Pelignian house, while I am alive to prevent it? No! To you, dear mother Acca, I shall carry back this gift, to assuage your grief, and for you to fix for ever on the grave of your son." Thus shouting, he rushed on with sword unsheathed.
But already sword and shield were slipping from the grasp of Satricus, when he heard Sulmo named, and the arms, and the names of his wife and children; frozen horror had stunned him, mind and body. And then a piteous cry came forth from his half-dead lips: "Hold your hand, my son — not that I may live on (for to desire the enjoyment of such a life would be a crime), but that you may not bring a curse on your hand by shedding your father's blood. I am Satricus, son of Solimus, who was taken prisoner by Carthage long ago and have now just returned to my native land. You did no wrong, my son.

§ 9.130  When you hurled your impetuous spear at me, I was a Carthaginian. But I had slipped out of the hated camp and was hastening home, eager to see the face of my dear wife. I snatched this shield from a corpse; but now carry it back, purged of guilt, to your brother's body; no son but you have I now. But your first duty, my son, must be to warn Paulus, the Roman general: he must strive to prolong the war and give Hannibal no chance of a battle. Hannibal, overjoyed by the divine omens, hopes for an immediate engagement and immeasurable slaughter. Restrain, I entreat, Varro's madness; for it is said that he is urging his standards on. For me this will be consolation enough at the end of a wretched life, to have warned my countrymen. And now, my son, give the last embrace to the father whom you have found and lost in the same hour." Thus he spoke and, doffing his helmet, embraced his son, who stood motionless in horror, with trembling arms. Fearing for his terror-stricken son, he strove by his words to heal the shame felt for the wound inflicted, and to make excuses for the stroke: "None was present to see what we have done, none was privy to it. Was not the mistake concealed by the darkness of night? Why tremble so } Rather suffer me to embrace you, my son. I, your father, myself pronounce you innocent, and I entreat you to end my troubles and close my eyes with your
hand." The unhappy youth groaned deeply, and could find no voice or words in reply; but he made haste to stop the flow of dark blood and bind up the deep wound with a piece torn off his own garment; and his tears fell fast. At last the voice of his complaint forced its way through his groans; "Is it thus,

§ 9.167  father, that cruel Fortune brings you back to your country and to us? is it thus she restores father to son and son to father? Thrice and four times happy was my brother, whom death prevented from recognizing his father. But I whom the enemy did not kill — behold! I recognize him by wounding him. This at least Fortune should have permitted, to comfort me for my sin — she should have spared me the clear proof of our ill-starred kinship. But the cruel gods shall no longer find it possible to hide our sufferings."
While the distracted son complained thus, the father from loss of blood breathed forth his life into empty air. Then the young man raised his sad eyes to heaven and cried: O Queen of heaven," thou that didst witness the dreadful deed wrought by my polluted hand, thou whose light guided my weapon in the night to my father's body, these eyes and this accursed countenance shall no longer profane thy deity." With these words he drove his sword into his own body; and, when the blood flowed forth from the dark wound, he checked it and wrote his father's message in letters of blood upon his shield — "Varro, beware of battle!" Then he hung the shield on the point of his spear, and threw himself down upon the body of the father he so deeply mourned.
Such were the omens for the coming battle that Heaven sent to the Romans. By degrees darkness departed, and the night that witnessed that dreadful deed gave place to rosy dawn. The generals, Carthaginian and Roman, summoned their men to arms in customary fashion; and a day began for the invaders, the like of which will never be seen again. "You need no words of encouragement," said Hannibal;

§ 9.185  you have marched victorious all the way from the Pillars of Hercules to the Iapygian fields; brave Saguntum has been wiped out; the Alps have ranted you a passage; and the Po, the proud father Italian rivers, flows down now in a conquered channel. The Trebia is hidden beneath the bodies of the slain; the corpse of Flaminius lies upon the Lydian land; and the fields, furrowed by no plough, are whitened far and wide by Roman bones, greater achievement than all these is at hand; a day is dawning that shall bring with it more bloodshed. For me fame is enough, and more than enough, repay me for the toils of war; let the other gains of victory be yours. All the treasure that Roman ships have brought down the rich Hiberus, all that Rome has displayed in her triumphs over Sicily, and also any booty from the Libyan shore that she has stored up — all this shall fall to your swords, with no casting of lots. Take home with you all the spoil that you get by the sword; I, your general, seek no fame from riches. It will be for your benefit, that the Dardan robbers have for centuries past conquered and pillaged the world. To you I speak who trace your origin back to ancient Tyre and Sidon: whether the acres of Laurentum, ploughed by Roman husbandmen, are your choice, or whether you prefer the fields of Byzacium," where a hundred blades of corn spring from one seed — I shall allow you to choose the land you like best, as part of your reward, I shall give you also the meadows watered by the yellow stream of the Tiber, as a wide pasture-land for the flocks taken from the enemy. Next I say to the allies of foreign blood who fight in the ranks of Carthage:

§ 9.211  if any of you lift up a hand red with Roman blood, he will be henceforth a citizen of Carthage. And do not be misled by the sight of Mount Garganus and the land of Daunus: you are standing now before the walls of Rome. Although the city lies at a distance and is far removed from this battlefield, she shall fall here and now, and never again shall I summon you to arms; when the fight is over, march straight against the Capitol."
Such was his speech. Then they threw down the protecting rampart and hurried over the trenches that delayed them; and the general drew up his line in suitable order on the winding banks, following the lie of the ground. On the left wing, ready for battle, stood the Nasamonians, a barbarous host, and with them the Marmaridae of giant stature; next were fierce Moors and Garamantes and Macae; Massylian warriors and a swarm of Adyrmachidae — a people who dwell by the Nile and rejoice to live by the sword, and whose skins are for ever blackened by their merciless sun. Nealces was appointed captain and commander of these troops. Then on the right wing, where the Aufidus makes bends and meanders round its own banks with circling waters, there Mago was in command. Here fought the light-armed peoples who came from the rugged Pyrenees, filling the river-banks with confused noise; and their crescentshaped shields shone in the sun. Foremost were the Cantabrians; and there were bare-headed Vascones, and Balearic slingers who fight with leaden bullets, and the sons of the Baetis. The centre was commanded by Hannibal himself, conspicuous on horseback, and was composed of stout warriors from Carthage and companies of Gauls whose limbs had often been bathed in the waters of the Po. But

§ 9.237  where the river, falling back with retreating stream, offered no protection to the combatants, there the elephants bore huge towers and upper-works on their sable backs, swaying to and fro like a moving rampart and raising the tall structures to the sky. Lastly, the Numidians had orders to ride all round about, to rove from point to point and busy themselves over all the field.
Thus Hannibal disposed his eager forces. Again and again he appealed to them and could not say enough: he roused each man by reminding him of his past exploits; he boasted that he knew the arm that launched each hissing javelin; and he promised to be the eyewitness of all that each man did. Meanwhile, Varro sent his army forth from the camp and laid the foundations of disaster; and the Ferryman of the pale river" rejoiced to make room for the expected ghosts. The vanguard halted, forbidden to go on by the letters of blood upon the lifted shield; the portent struck them dumb and motionless. A fearful sight was before them: the ill-fated pair lay locked in an embrace, and the son had laid his hand on his father's breast, to hide the fatal wound. Tears were shed, and grief for Mancinus was renewed by his brother's death; men were affected also by the evil omen and by the resemblance between the corpses. Quickly they inform Varro of the crime committed in error, of the dreadful deed, and of the shield that forbade a battle. He cried in wrath: "Carry these omens to Paulus; for he, whose womanish heart is filled with fears, may be affected by that parricidal hand, which, when the avenging Furies came, perhaps used his father's blood to write that infamous dying message."

§ 9.267  Then with words of menace he assigned to all their station on the field. Opposite fierce Nealces and the barbarous clans under his command Varro stood himself, with Marsians and Samnite standards and natives of Iapygia." In the centre of the field, where he saw that Hannibal was stationed, Servilius had orders to face the attack and bring on the men of Picenum and Umbria. The rest of the troops were on the right wing, with Paulus in command. Finally, Scipio had orders to deal with surprise attacks by the flying troops of Numidians, and was bidden to extend his lines, wherever the enemy's cavalry laid a trap by breaking their formation.
And now the two armies closed; and the rapid movement of men, together with the neighing of hotbreathing horses and the loud clashing of weapons, sent a dull roaring noise through the moving ranks. So, when the winds begin a battle on the deep, the sea is big with pent-up fury and storms that will soon drench the stars; then, churned up from the bottom, it breathes out sounds of menace through the rocks; and, driven from its caves, torments the restless water with its foaming eddies.
Nor was the trouble confined to earth, when this crack of doom was heard: the madness of strife invaded heaven and forced the gods to fight. On one side fought Apollo and Mars with him, and the Ruler of the stormy sea; with them was Venus in despair, and Vesta, and Hercules, stung by the slaughter of captured Saguntum, and likewise worshipful Cybele; and the native gods of Italy — Faunus and father Quirinus; and Pollux who takes turns of life with his brother Castor.

§ 9.296  On the other
was Juno, daughter of Saturn, with her sword girt round her, and Pallas who sprang from the Libyan waters of Lake Tritonis; and Ammon, the native god of Africa, whose brow bears curving horns, and a great company of lesser deities as well. When they all came on together. Mother Earth shook beneath the tread of those mighty beings. Some of them went apart and filled the mountains round with their presence, while others rested beneath a high cloud; and heaven was left empty when they came down to battle.
A tremendous shout went up to the deserted sky, loud as the challenge sent up to heaven by the army of the Earthborn on the plain of Phlegra, loud as the voice with which Jupiter, creator of the universe, demanded fresh thunderbolts from the Cyclopes, when he saw the aspiring Giants coming, with mountains piled on mountains, to seize the throne of heaven. Nor was any spear the first to be thrown in that mighty conflict: a hissing storm of missiles was discharged all at once with emulous rage; and men on both sides, eager for blood, were killed themselves by the cross-fire; and, even before the furious sword was drawn, a great number of the combatants lay low. In their eagerness, men even stood on the bodies of their comrades, and trod them under foot, in spite of their groans. The pressure of the Carthaginians could not dislodge nor turn aside the Roman line; nor could the steady ranks of Carthage be broken up; the sea might as well try to wrench Calpe from its seat by the impact of its waters. Blows failed for want of room; and the close-packed dead had no space to fall. Helmet, clashing fiercely against helmet of a foe, flashed fire; shield, striking shield, fell to pieces; and sword broke against sword.

§ 9.324  Foot pressed against foot, and man against man. The ground was hidden from sight by a coating of blood; and thick darkness overhead, caused by showers of missiles, concealed the starry sky. Those to whom Fortune had assigned a station in the second line fought with long poles and far-reaching spears, as if they were in the van of the host. And those who were banished to the third line and could win no glory strove to rival the prowess of those in front by hurling missiles. Behind them shouting did the work of war, and soldiers who were denied the chance of fighting assailed the enemy with volleys of abuse. Every kind of weapon was employed: some used stakes, others burning brands, and others weighty javelins, while others plied stones and slings and flying lances. Here an arrow went hissing through the sky, and there a, falarica which even city-walls must fear.
Ye goddesses, whose priest I am, how can I hope with mere mortal voice to set forth for future ages all the story of that day? Do ye grant me such bold utterance that I can sing of Cannae with but one tongue? If my fame is dear to you, if ye frown not on a mighty enterprise, then summon hither all your music and Apollo your sire. But would that Romans would thereafter bear prosperity with as much constancy as they showed in that dark hour. I pray that Heaven may be satisfied without testing the race of Troy, whether they can endure such an ordeal again. And thou, Rome, doubtful of thy doom, weep not, I pray, but bless those wounds which shall bring thee eternal glory.

§ 9.352  For never shalt thou be greater than then. Later victories shall sap thy strength, till naught but the story of thy defeats shall preserve thy fame.
And now Fortune, shifting from side to side, had baffled the ardour of both armies by keeping the event uncertain; and the hopes of Roman and Carthaginian hung long in the balance, while the battle raged on equal terms. So when light breezes stir the green blades of corn and the wind bends the unripe ears, the tops of the wheat move this way and that, and sway and bow and shine with a gentle changing motion. But at last Nealces and his savage horde, charging with a fierce shout, broke the Roman line and scattered it. The close ranks broke up and the enemy rushed furiously through the gaps upon the frighted foe. Then torrents of blood flowed in a dark stream over the plain; and not a man who fell was pierced by one spear only. The Romans, fearing to be wounded in the back, welcomed the fatal stroke to their breasts, and by death avoided dishonour.
Scaevola, ever a lover of danger and equal to any emergency, stood among the foremost in the centre of the fray; when so many had fallen, he had no wish to survive them but desired a glorious death worthy of his great ancestor.' When he saw that the day was lost and that ruin was spreading, "Life is short," he cried, "and little of it remains; let me prolong that little; for valour is an empty name unless the hour of death is sufficient to win glory." With these words he gathered all his strength and rushed furiously to the centre where Hannibal was clearing a path with his unresting right hand.

§ 9.380  Then, when Caralis, in triumph, was about to fix on a tall tree the armour taken from a victim, Scaevola stabbed him, and his fury drove the sword in up to the hilt. He fell and rolled over, biting that foreign soil and crushing down the pains of death upon the ground. Nor could the rage and united valour of Gabar and Siccha stop Scaevola: brave Gabar, who stood firm, lost his right hand cut off in the fight; and while Sicca, stricken with grief, hastened to help his friend, he trod incautiously upon a sword and fell, cursing too late his unshod feet; and there he lay on the right hand of his dying comrade. At last the increasing fury of Scaevola attracted the deadly weapons of lightning-swift Nealces. The Carthaginian sprang forward, eager for the rewards of victory, and made more eager by Scaevola's famous name. He seized a boulder torn by a torrent from a cliff and carried down from the lofty mountains, and hurled it furiously in Scaevola's face. His teeth rattled, struck by that heavy weight; his features were destroyed; matter, mixed with brains and blood, gushed out through the nostrils, and a black discharge from the eyes flowed down from the crushed eye-sockets and mutilated forehead. Then Marius fell, while striving to rescue his friend, Caper, and fearing to survive his fall. They were born on the same day, and poverty was the lot of both their families; they were natives of the sacred city, Praeneste; they had been school-fellows, and the fields they tilled lay close together. In liking and disliking they never differed; it was a life-long marriage of two minds; and brotherly love made then rich in poverty. In death they were not divided; and of all their prayers Fortune granted them one only — to die in battle side by side.

§ 9.409  The armour of both became the prize of Symaethus, their conqueror.
But the Carthaginians were not permitted to enjoy for long so great a gift of Fortune. For Scipio, pitying the men whose backs were turned in flight, came up, terrible and menacing; and with him came Varro, the cause of all the suffering, and fair-haired Curio, and Brutus whose ancestor was the first consul. Supported by these warriors, the army would have regained the lost ground by a fresh effort, had not the sudden onset of Hannibal arrested the ranks as they ran forward. When he saw Varro far off on the field and the lictors in their scarlet tunics moving round him, "Ha!" he cried; "I recognize the state and the badges of a consul; even so looked Flaminius, not long ago." Then in fury he thundered on his huge shield, to signify his eager rage. Unhappy Varro! Death might have made him the equal of Paulus; but heaven's wrath would not suffer him to fall there by Hannibal's hand. How often was he to reproach the gods for saving him from the sword of the Carthaginian! For Scipio rushed forward and quickly brought life where death was imminent, and turned the danger from Varro to himself. And Hannibal, though he lost the glory of winning the choicest spoils, was not sorry to change his antagonist for one more mighty, and to punish Scipio for rescuing his father by the river Ticinus, now that the chance of a duel was at last offered him. There they stood, the two mightiest warriors that earth has ever seen meet in battle; reared in far distant lands, in

§ 9.436  prowess they were well matched; but otherwise the Roman was superior — in sense of duty and of honour.
Then Mars, fearing for Scipio, and Pallas, fearing for Hannibal, lighted down in haste from a hollow cloud upon the battle-field. And the appearance of the gods made both armies tremble, but the champions were undismayed. Wherever Pallas turned her breast, a baleful fire flashed far and wide from the Gorgon's face, and the dreadful serpents on the aegis sent forth their hissings. Her blood-shot eyes blazed — one might think that a pair of comets were flashing — and the ample crest that crowned her helmet rolled waves of flame to the sky. And Mars, driving the air before him by the movement of his spear, and covering the plain with his shield, wore a breastplate, the gift of the Cyclopes, which sent forth fire of Etna; and, as he rose high, his golden plume struck the heavens.
The champions, though on battle bent and each measuring at close quarters what he could dare to do, were aware, nevertheless, that gods had come down in arms; and both rejoiced to have them for witnesses and became more eager for battle. And now Pallas turned aside with her right hand the spear strongly hurled at Hannibal's breast; and Mars, taught by the example of the fierce goddess to help Scipio, straightway put in his hand a sword forged on Aetna, and bade him do yet mightier deeds. Then the Maiden was roused to fury: a sudden flush suffused her fierce countenance; and, when she looked askance, her disordered aspect was more terrible than the Gorgon's face. She shook her aegis, and all the serpents reared up their hideous bodies;

§ 9.464  and her first furious onset made even Mars retreat step by step from the fray. Then the angry goddess quickly tore away part of a mountain near her and hurled the mass of rugged rock at Mars; and the noise, carried far away, terrified the isle of Saso and shook its shores.
But this duel was not hidden from the King of Heaven. He made haste to send Iris down, girt about with clouds, to quell their exceeding wrath. "Go, goddess," he said, "and glide swiftly down to the land of Oenotria; and bid Pallas to abate her fury against her brother, and not to hope that she can reverse the fixed laws of Fate. Tell her this also: if she persists and still cherishes her anger — for I know the fierceness and rage of her fiery heart — she shall learn how far my dreadful thunderbolts outdo her aegis."
When the maiden of Tritonis heard this message, she doubted for a space, uncertain whether to yield to her father's weapons. "I shall quit the field," she said; "but can his defeat of Pallas turn destiny aside? Or can he from his height in heaven avoid seeing the fields of Garganus reek with carnage?" Thus she spoke, and caught up Hannibal in the bosom of a cloud and bore him to a distant part of the field. Then she left the earth.
But Mars, encouraged by the retreat of the goddess to the sky, renewed his purpose. Hidden in a cloud, he raised with his own mighty hand the Romans prostrate on the field and brought them back to battle. They turned their standards about and began a fresh slaughter, and fear fell upon the foe. But now the gaoler of the winds, whose prison keeps the blasts under control, and who is obeyed by every wind that

§ 9.493  sweeps the sky — Eurus and Boreas, Caurus and Notus — yielded to the prayer of Juno who offered him no small rewards, and unchained for battle the fury of Vulturnus, the wind that is lord of the Aetolian plains. Him she chose as the instrument of her deadly wrath. First he dived into the white-hot crater of Etna and caught fire from there; then he lifted up his flaming face, and flew forth with a dreadful roaring over all the land of Daunus, driving before him a dark cloud of thick dust. The blast made the Romans blind and dumb and helpless; the wind whirled fiery masses of eddying sand — piteous to tell — into their faces, and rejoiced to obey orders and fight furiously against the ranks. Then in vast destruction down fell soldiers and weapons and trumpets; and every lance was carried backwards by the blast, and every Roman missile fell useless behind their own backs. And the same blast was of service to the Carthaginian weapons: the howling wind quickened their javelins, as if they had been launched with a thong, and drove their spears onward. At last the soldiers, stifled by the thick dust, shut their mouths tight, and mourned that they must die an inglorious death. Vulturnus himself, his fair hair hidden in black darkness and covered deep with sand, at one time turned his victims round and assailed their backs with his hissing wings; at another time he attacked them in front with boisterous blast, rattling their weapons full in face, and hissing at them with open mouth. Sometimes, when they were bent on battle and just bringing their swords to an enemy's throat, the wind thwarted the intended blow and plucked away the hand in the very act of striking.

§ 9.522  Nor was he content with spreading havoc through the Roman army, but belched forth his howling blasts against Mars himself, and the hurricane twice caused the god's topmost crest to quiver.
While the fury of the wind battled thus against the Roman troops and kindled the anger of Mars, the Maiden Goddess together with Juno addressed her Father thus: "See the storms that Mars is rousing against the ranks of Carthage, and the carnage with which he gluts his fury. Say, is it not thy pleasure now that Iris should go down to earth? Yet the purpose of my presence there was not to destroy the Trojans — let Rome hold empire together with my pledge, and there I would fix the abode of the Palladium — no, but I would not allow Hannibal, the glory of my Libyan birthplace, to be slain in the flower of his youth, and such promise to be nipped in the bud."
Then Juno took up the tale, wrathful at her unending task: "Nay!" she cried: "that all the world may know the immense extent of thy power and thy vast superiority over all the gods, use thy flaming bolt, my husband, to shatter the citadels of Carthage — I beg for no mercy — and bury her soldiers in a huge chasm of the earth and plunge them in the depths of Tartarus, or whelm them in the sea."
Then Jupiter made answer with gentle words: "Ye strive against destiny, and cherish unsound hopes. That young warrior, against whom thou, my daughter, wert fain to fight, shall destroy the Carthaginians and assume their name and bear to the Capitol the laurel for the conquest of Libya. That other to whom thou, my wife, givest courage and glory — I tell his fortune — shall turn his sword away from the Italian nation.

§ 9.649  The date of disaster is not distant: the day and hour are coming, when he shall regret that he ever crossed the Alps." Thus Jupiter spoke and sent Iris down in haste from Olympus, to recall Mars and bid him leave the battle. And Mars did not refuse to obey: he departed, loudly protesting, to high heaven, delighting as he did in clarions and trumpets, in wounds and blood and the shouting of the warriors.
When the field was free at last from the contending gods, and Mars no longer filled the plain, Hannibal rushed up from the remotest part of the battle, whither he had fled step by step before the divine weapons. With a great shout he brought with him horsemen and footmen and heavy siege-engines, and the huge beasts that carry towers on their backs. And when he recognized a warrior harassing the light-armed troops with his sword, anger flashed from his blood-stained features: "What Fury," he cried, "what god has driven you to battle, Minucius, that you should dare to face me a second time? Where is Fabius now, he who was once a father to you and saved you from my spear? You ask too much: be content with having escaped once from my hand." Then, together with his insults his spear went forth and pierced the breast of Minucius with the force of a battering-ram, and cut off the reply he would have uttered.
Nor was the steel enough to gratify his rage. The huge black beasts were brought up, and the Roman soldiers were matched against monsters. For Hannibal rode along the line, and ordered the Moors, whose goads controlled the Lucan kine in battle, to prick their charges to speed, and to hasten forward by the herd of elephants.

§ 9.675  Trumpeting wildly, and compelled by many a stab, the great beasts of war came quickly on. A tower, freighted with men and javelins and fire, was borne on each dusky back and discharged a fierce hail of stones over the distant ranks; and the Libyans, seated aloft, poured a shower of darts all round from their moving rampart. The line of white tusks stretched far in serried ranks; and to each tusk was fastened a blade, whose point came close and flashed down straight from the curved upper part. Here, in the general alarm, an elephant drove its murderous tusk through the armour and body of Ufens and carried him shrieking through the trampled ranks. Nor had Tadius an easier death: where the corslet with its many folds of linen protected his body, the persistent point of a tusk bored its way in by degrees and then swung the man aloft unwounded, while his shield rang. The brave man was not terrified by danger in this strange form, but turned it to glorious account: when close to the elephant's forehead, he stabbed both its eyes with quick thrusts of his sword. Maddened by the grievous wound, the beast rose on its hind legs and reared up till it threw off the heavy tower on the ground behind it. A piteous sight, when weapons and men and the blinded beast suddenly came crashing down together to the ground!
The Roman general ordered his men to hurl lighted torches against the fighting monsters, and to shower dark sulphurous brands upon the moving forts carried by the elephants. They obeyed at once: the backs of the beasts sent up smoke and flame, as the fire grew; and fed by the roaring wind, it spread over the fighting-towers and devoured them.

§ 9.605  Even so, when the shepherd burns the grass on Pindus or Rhodope," and the fierce blaze spreads through the woods, the leaf-clad heights catch fire; and suddenly the flame of fire leaps from point to point and shines over all the lofty range. Scorched by the burning pitch, the beasts ran wild and cleared a wide path through the ranks. Nor was any man bold enough to fight them at close quarters: to attack from a distance with javelins and showers of arrows was all they dared. Maddened by the heat, the huge beasts in their torment tossed the fire on all sides and spread it, till they plunged headlong into the stream beside them. But deceived by the shallow water that overflowed the level plain, they rushed far along the banks, and the flame, rising above the water, went with them. At last they dived beneath the stream, where the water was deep enough to cover their huge bodies.
But, where battle was possible, and before the Moorish monsters were set on fire, the Roman soldiers surrounded them at a distance and assailed them with javelins and stones and flying bullets, like men besieging a citadel or attacking a fortified place on high ground. Mincius showed courage worthy of a warrior and worthy of better fortune: coming close, he raised up his drawn sword; but his brave deed miscarried; for the trunk of the trumpeting monster, discharging hot and panting breath, wound its angry coils round him and lifted him up; then it brandished his body in that dreadful grasp, and hurled it high in air, and dashed the crushed limbs of the poor wretch upon the ground — a mournful sight.
Amid these disasters Paulus sighted Varro on the field and thus taunted him: "Why are we not

§ 9.634  fighting Hannibal hand to hand? Did we not promise Rome that he should stand with fetters round his neck before your triumphal car? Alas for our country! Alas for our people who in their wickedness bestow their favour amiss!" Now that they are suffering such calamities, they will find no answer to this question: was Varro's birth or Hannibal's the worse calamity? and which should they have prayed Heaven to avert?" While Paulus spoke thus, Hannibal pressed hard on the flying Romans, and discharged all the spears of Carthage against their backs, in full view of Paulus. The consul's helmet was struck and his shield battered; but on he rushed, none the less fiercely, into the centre of the foe.
But now, when Paulus had parted from him and gone to fight far away, Varro's reason tottered. He pulled at the bridle and turned his horse round and said: "Rome, thou art punished now for having put Varro in command while Fabius still lived. But what means this divided mind, this change of fortune? Is it a trap laid for me by the Fates? I long to make an instant end of all things by taking my own life. But some god arrests my sword and keeps me alive that I may suffer even worse. Can I live and carry back to Rome these rods, broken and spattered with the blood of citizens? How shall I show my hated face through the towns of Italy? How shall I, a fugitive from battle, see Rome again? Hannibal himself could desire for me no more cruel punishment."
Further protest was cut short by the approach of the enemy: their attack drove him back, and his warhorse with loosened rein carried him swiftly away.

§ 10.1  BOOK X
When Paulus saw that the enemy was gaining ground, even as a wild beast dashes of its own accord upon the ring of spears that surrounds it, and so, at the cost of wounds, brings its assailants closer, so he fought his way to the centre of the battle, rushing into every danger and courting death from every sword. He cried to his men with a terrible voice: "Stand firm, I implore you, and receive the steel in your breasts without flinching, and carry unwounded backs to the world below. Nothing remains save a glorious death. I, Paulus, shall be your leader still as you go down to Hades." Then on he went, swifter than Thessalian Boreas or the arrow that comes back to the fight from the bow of the retreating Parthian. Where Cato, full of martial spirit and forgetful of his youth, was fighting, Paulus rushed

§ 10.15  upon the foe and rescued the youth from death, when he was hard pressed by nimble Vascones and Cantabrians with showers of darts. The foemen fell back and withdrew in fear. So a hunter gleefully chases a roe-deer in a distant valley, and follows close till it is weary, hoping soon to put his hand upon it; but, if a fierce lion suddenly emerges from a cave before him and stands in full view, gnashing its teeth, then the red blood leaves the hunter's cheeks, and he drops the weapon that will not serve him at such a pass, and thinks no longer of the quarry he once counted on. Now Paulus thrust his sword-point at close range against foes who held their ground; now his missiles overtook the frightened cowards who turned their backs. He finds pleasure in fierce frenzy and gains glory from defeat; a multitude of nameless enemies fall before his single sword; and, had but a second Paulus been present in the Roman host, Cannae would have lost its fame."
At last the Roman wing gave way and the front rank fell to pieces in full retreat. Ocres and Opiter, who came from the vine-clad hills of Setia, were slain, and likewise Labienus, whom rocky Cingulum sent from its high walls. Soldiers of Carthage slew them all at the same time but in different ways; for Labienus was run through the body by a spear; and, of the brothers, one was wounded in the shoulder, and the other in the thigh, when they fell. Maecenas too was slain by a dart that pierced his groin; his name was held in high honour in the Lydian land where his ancestors once were kings over Etruria. Despising life, Paulus pressed through the centre of the fray, seeking Hannibal;

§ 10.43  there was but one fate he dreaded — to die and leave the Carthaginian general alive.
But Juno feared the man's might; for, if a duel began, such a storm of passion would not have ended in nothing. Therefore she took the form of cowardly Metellus: "Why," she asked, "do you, the consul on whom alone the hopes of Rome depend, defy Fortune and rage furiously to no purpose? If Paulus survives, the empire of Rome still stands; if he dies, he drags down his country with him. Do you mean, Paulus, to go forth against that warrior in his pride, and to deprive us of our leader in our time of trouble? Just now, in his joy of battle, Hannibal would dare to fight the Thunderer himself. Already Varro has turned his bridle-rein — I saw him do it — and made off, reserving himself for better times. Give Fate time to work; and, while you may, snatch from death a life that matters more than ours; you will have fighting enough hereafter."
Paulus sighed and answered: "Have I not cause enough to seek death in battle, when my ears have heard such infamous counsel from a Metellus? Fly, madman, fly! I pray heaven that no weapon of the enemy may wound you in the back.' Untouched and unscathed may you depart and enter the gates of Rome with Varro as your companion! Worst of cowards, did you think roe worthy of life on such terms and unworthy of a noble death? Hannibal forsooth is raging, he whose valour would now challenge Jupiter himself. How far have you declined from the high emprise of your ancestors! When could

§ 10.70  I prefer to fight or against whom to match myself? Hannibal, whether conqueror or conquered, will make my name famous for ever."
Uttering such reproaches, Paulus sped off to the centre of the foe. Acherras was making his way back to where the ranks of his supporters were thick, and finding a path by stealth through close-packed warriors and a hedge of shields; but Paulus, swifter of foot, overtook and slew him. So a Belgian hound pursues a boar he cannot see; never giving tongue, with nose to the ground he tracks unerringly the beast's wanderings over hill and dale, and ranges over uplands that no line of hunters has ever surrounded; nor does he cease from following the scent once caught, till he comes upon the lair hidden deep in the thorn-brakes.
But the consort of Jupiter, when Paulus would not cease from fighting and her words proved unavailing to stop him, changed her form again: she took the likeness of the Moor, Gelesta, and summoned Hannibal, who knew her not, away from the heat of battle. Glory of Carthage," she said, "whose fame will never die, we implore you to turn hither your armed right hand; for Paulus is fighting fiercely by the banks of the swollen river; and the death of no other foeman can bring you greater fame." With these words she hastened Hannibal to a distant part of the field.
On the high bank of the river a warrior named Crista harassed the African host; and his six sons fought together round their father. The family was poor but known to fame among the Tudertes; and Crista himself had a name for deeds of arms throughout Umbria, and taught all his troop of sons to bear arms and fight.

§ 10.97  And now this band of brothers, led by their hardy instructor, had glutted themselves with slaughter of men, and then laid low with countless wounds an elephant with a tower on its back. Then fire-brands followed, and they were watching with joy while the fallen monster was burning, when suddenly a helmet flashed and plumes waved bright above a higher helmet. The old man, who recognized Hannibal by the light he shed, was no laggard: willingly he urged on his troop of sons into the fierce conflict, bidding them hurl their weapons thick and fast, and disregard his fire-breathing nostrils and the flames that came from his helmet. Thus the bird of mighty Jupiter, whose care brings up her eaglets in the nest to be fit carriers of the thunderbolts, turns them to face the sun and examines them, testing their genuine descent by the rays of Phoebus. And now Crista was fain to set an example for the contest that summoned them: see, his spear flies swiftly past through the space between. But the point could not penetrate the many plates of the golden corslet; the spear hung down, and the feeble blow betrayed the failing powers of the thrower. Then Hannibal accosted him: "What madness induced your hand, feeble with age, to strike such harmless blows? Scarce did your quivering spear scratch the surface plates of Gallician gold. See! I give you back your own weapon; your famous sons should take me rather to teach them skill in arms." And straightway he pierced the breast of hapless Crista with his own spear. Then from the other side — terrible to see — six javelins hurled by six arms came flying, and as many spears were hurled with might. So, when Moorish hunters in the land of Libya have beset the den of

§ 10.125  a mother-lioness and press her hard, her cubs at once begin a furious battle but cannot prevail because their teeth are not yet grown. Hannibal parried all six darts with his shield; then, gathering himself together behind it, he withstood the impact of the spears with their crashing blows; and, not content with all the wounds and slaughter he had dealt out already, he breathed hard in wrath, if he might not slay all the six and lay their corpses beside their father's, and destroy the hapless family, root and branch.
Now he addressed Abaris, his squire, who shared his martial ardour and ever accompanied him to battle: "Give me supply of weapons. Yon band of brothers who assault my shield are eager to go down to the dark waters of Avernus; and soon shall they reap the fruits of their foolish devotion to their father." As he spoke, he pierced Lucas, the eldest of them, with a javelin; the point went home, and the youth fell with upturned face on his brothers shields. Volso's turn came next. He was trying to pluck forth the fatal steel, when Hannibal laid him low, piercing his nostrils through his shield with a pilum which he had chanced to pick up from a heap of corpses. Next Vesulus, whose foot slipped in the warm blood of his brothers, was beheaded by a swift sword-cut; and then, O inhuman warfare! he hurled helmet and severed head together, using them as a weapon, at the backs of the retreating brothers. Then Telesinus, smitten to the marrow by a stone, where the backbone knits the frame together, fell prostrate; and he witnessed the fall of his brother Quercens, who was stunned by a bullet hurled from a distant sling, even while Telesinus was breathing out his life and closing his swimming eyes.

§ 10.153  Perusinus was staggering over the ground and sometimes stopping, disabled at once by grief and fear and rapid movement, but not bereft of courage, when Hannibal stabbed him above the groin with a stake which his squire had snatched from the back of a dead elephant and handed to him. The fierce thrust of the scorched brand held him down. He had tried to appease that furious wrath by entreaty; but the fatal heat filled his mouth as soon as he opened it, and the breath of it drove the fire down to the lungs. Thus at last fell Crista, a name long famous in Umbria, and all his sons with him. So a tall oak-tree, planted long ago by our forefathers, when smitten by Jupiter's thunderbolt, sends up smoke; and the flames and sulphur of heaven make havoc of the boughs revered for centuries, until it crashes in wide ruin, conquered by the god, and the huge trunk, as it falls, covers all the scions that grow round it.
While the Tyrian leader performed these feats near the waters of Aufidus, Paulus avenged his own coming death by slaying many victims, and fought like a conqueror among a thousand foes. Down went huge Phorcys, who came from the caves of Calpe," sacred to Hercules; on his shield was engraved the Gorgon's head; for that cruel goddess derived her birth and beginning from Calpe. Phorcys pressed forward, proud of his ancient race and descent from Medusa, the monster who turned men to stone. As he aimed a furious blow at the left groin of Paulus, the consul seized him by the crest of his tall helmet and turned the blow aside: then, dashing him down upon the ground, he drove his sword downwards through him, where the belt curves round the base of the spine and protects both the hips.

§ 10.182  A hot stream of blood gushed forth from the gaping entrails; and the dweller by Atlas went down beneath the soil of the Aetolian chief.
In the midst of this carnage there was a sudden alarm. A fresh onset of war was launched, and the Roman rear was surprised by troops trained by Hannibal, a master of stratagem, for this very purpose. Pretending to desert from the Carthaginian army, they had surrendered. Now, equipped with guile, they rushed in a body upon the Roman rear, with hearts wholly bent on slaughter. They lacked not for spears and swords; for they tore weapons from the corpses. From far off Galba saw an enemy seize a standard and carry it off; defeat has no power to quench a brave man's spirit; and with an exertion of all his strength he caught up the spoiler and struck him dead ere he could escape. But while he grasped his prize and wrenched it from the dying hand that was slow to yield it up, Amorgus came up quickly and ran a sword through him; and Galba fell and died, balked of his high emprise.
Meanwhile, as if cruel Enyo had not yet glutted her savage wrath, the Sirocco lifted the surface of the field in whirling clouds of dust, and drove the burning sand in all directions. And now the tempest with frightful howling blew the resisting bodies of men to a distance, as far as the limit of the plain, dashing them against the sunken banks, and sinking them in the swollen river. Such was the end of ill-starred Curio; and here the Aufidus marked the limit of his life with an inglorious death. For, while stopping with furious anger the terrified ranks and

§ 10.211  trying to arrest them by throwing his body in the way, he was driven headlong forward by the mass of fugitives and swallowed up by the swollen stream; down he sank to the bottom and lay on the sands of the Adriatic, without honour in death.
Mighty in endurance and incapable of bending the neck to Fortune, Paulus rushed right against the weapons of the victorious foe. Nothing gave him confidence now but his longing for a soldier's death, and his certainty that he must die. Then Viriathus, the high-souled ruler of a Spanish kingdom, drove before him a war-wearied Roman and slew him under the eyes of the consul and close beside him. O grief! O tears! Servilius, the best warrior in all the host, the best after Paulus, was slain by the sword of the barbarian, and his single death added a darker stain to the guilt of Cannae. Paulus could not contain his fierce anger. Though the wild fury of the wind in his face disabled him and veiled the daylight with dust, he broke through the thick dark cloud of sand and strode on in wrath. While Viriathus in Spanish fashion was shouting a savage song of victory and beating on his shield, Paulus attacked him and pierced the vital part in his left breast. This was his last victim, his last labour; no longer might Paulus take part in the war, nor might Rome make use of him hereafter in the great battles still to come. A huge stone, whose enormous weight was hurled by an unseen hand, struck him in the face, driving the fragments of his brazen helmet into the bone and covering his face with blood. Then he drew back and rested his failing limbs on a rock near by;

§ 10.240  gasping from his streaming wound, he sat down upon his shield, a formidable figure with his gory face. So a huge lion shakes off the lighter spears; but when at last the sword has been driven home in his breast, he stands in the centre of the arena, quivering but resigned to the blow; the blood streams from mane and mouth and nostrils, and from time to time he utters a dull roaring, and spits out blood and foam from his wide jaws. Then the Libyans came down upon Paulus; and Hannibal himself came galloping where the wind drove him, and where his sword, his charger, and the fierce beasts that fight with their tusks, had cleared a path. When Piso, buried beneath weapons, saw Hannibal riding over the dead, he raised himself with an effort on his lance and stabbed the horse's belly with his uplifted point. When the beast fell, he tried in vain to bestride it. But Hannibal picked himself up in a moment, though the horse had thrown him when it fell sprawling on its head; and thus he spoke: "Do the Roman ghosts come back again to life, to fight a second time? Can they not rest even in death?" With these words he rose to his full height and, while Piso tried to lift his wounded limbs, plunged his sword in up to the hilt.
Behold, Lentulus, wounded in the foot by a Cretan" arrow, was galloping off the field, when he saw Paulus seated on the rock wet with his blood, and staring with fierce eyes as he sank down to death. Lentulus changed his purpose and felt ashamed of flight. It seemed to him that he saw Rome burning now, and blood-stained Hannibal now standing at her gates; now for the first time he saw before him the Aetolian plain, the grave of Italy.

§ 10.268  " What still remains," he cried, "to prevent the enemy from marching on Rome tomorrow, if you, Paulus, abandon the ship in such a storm? By Heaven I swear — if my words are harsh, grief prompts them — that, unless you take command in this terrible war and live on against your will amid the tempest, you are more guilty even than Varro. Sole hope of our suffering country, take my horse, I entreat. I will lift your weakened frame on my own shoulders and seat you safely on the saddle." Thereupon the consul answered, spitting out the streaming blood from his mutilated mouth: "Go on and prosper, worthy son of brave ancestors! Nor is the prospect dark, when such stout hearts as yours still are found in the realm of Romulus. Spur your horse as hard as your wound will let you, and fly; bid them close the city gates instantly; the Destroyer will rush against her walls. The control of affairs must be given to Fabius. It was madness that resisted our warnings. My life is ended; and nothing remains but to prove to the ignorant populace that Paulus knows how to die. Shall I be carried back to Rome, a wounded and dying man? What would not Hannibal give to see me retreating? No such intention has Paulus; and my ghost shall not go down thus humbled to the shades below. I who
once But why should my failing accents detain
you, Lentulus, with useless complaining? Away! and use your spear-point to urge your weary steed from hence." Then Lentulus made off for Rome, carrying his weighty message. Nor did Paulus suffer his last moments to pass without striking a blow. So a tigress when mortally wounded gives way at last and lying down fights against death; she opens the jaws that have no strength to bite in earnest,

§ 10.297  and the tip of her tongue licks the spears with efforts that cannot gratify her rage. When Iertas came close, brandishing his weapon in triumph and sure of his victim, Paulus rose up suddenly and plunged his sword in his foe's body. Then he looked round for Hannibal, eager to yield up his life, a warrior's life, to that glorious hand. Not so: he was overcome by a shower of darts from every side, from Numidians and Garamantians, from Gauls and Moors and Asturians. Thus Paulus died. A wise heart and a mighty arm were lost in him; if he had been given sole command in the war, he might perhaps have ranked as the equal of Fabius. His noble death gave fresh glory to his country and raised his fame to the sky.
The hope and courage of the Romans fell with their general; the army, like a headless thing, was overthrown by fierce assaults; and victorious Africa raged over all the field. Here lay the men of Picenum and brave Umbrians, and there Sicilian warriors and Hernican troops. Everywhere were lying scattered the standards, borne by warlike Samnites or men from the Sarnus, or by Marsian contingents; the ground was covered with battered shields and helmets and useless swords, with targets broken by collision with other targets, and with foam-covered bits, wrenched from the mouths of mettled steeds. The Aufidus, red with blood, cast up his swollen waters over the plain and in rage restored to the banks the corpses that belonged to them. So an Egyptian vessel is seen like an island in the great sea; but, when the rainy East-wind has dashed her upon the rocks, she covers the sea with scattered wreckage;

§ 10.324  the surface is strewn with floating benches and masts, with stern-ornaments with tattered sails, and with hapless sailors spitting out the brine.
Hannibal had spent the livelong day in stubborn conflict and fierce slaughter; and, when the darkness robbed his frenzy of that glorious day, he ceased at last from fighting and spared his men from slaying yet more Romans. But he was anxious and wakeful, and resented the inaction of night. When the gods had given him so much, it stung him to think that he had not yet gained his object — to enter the gates of Quirinus. Resolved to march on the morrow, he intended to hasten thence with swords still drawn, while the soldiers' blood was hot and their hands stained with carnage; and already he sees the barriers broken and the walls on fire, and makes the burning of the Capitol follow close on Cannae.
The daughter of Saturn was disturbed by Hannibal's design. Knowing well the displeasure of Jupiter and the destiny of Italy, she took steps to curb the rash ardour of Hannibal and his eager hopes of a success he could never win. At once she summoned Sleep, the regent of silent night, by whose aid she often conquers and closes her brother's eyes against his will. She smiled on him and said: "I do not summon you, divine Sleep, for a burdensome task, nor do I ask of your silken wings to overcome Jupiter and place him at my mercy. Not now need you close a thousand eyes, nor conquer with deep darkness the guardian of the heifer, Inachus' daughter — the guardian who made light of your divinity. I pray you to send a strange dream to the Carthaginian
general;

§ 10.349  that he may not be eager now to behold the forbidden walls of Rome; for the lord of Olympus will never suffer him to enter there."
Swiftly he did her bidding and winged his way through the darkness, carrying juice of poppy-seed in a curving horn. In silence he glided on, and went first to Hannibal's tent; then he waved his drowsy wings over the recumbent head, dropping sleep into the eyes, and touching the brows with his wand of forgetfulness. Then Hannibal's excited brain was troubled by unpeaceful dreams. He dreamed that he was even now surrounding the Tiber with a great army, and standing defiantly before the walls of Rome. Jupiter himself was seen — a shining figure on the summit of the Tarpeian rock; his hand was raised, to launch fiery thunderbolts; the surrounding plains smoked with sulphur, and the blue waters of cold Anio were shaken; again and again the dreadful fire was repeated and flashed before his sight; and at last a voice came down from the sky: "You have gained glory enough, young man, at Cannae. Stay your steps; for the Carthaginian may as soon storm our heaven as burst his way within the sacred walls of Rome." He was appalled by the dream, and dreaded a future and more terrible war. Then Sleep, having done Juno's bidding, left him; but daylight could not wash out the dreadful vision from his mind.
While the general's sleep was thus disturbed by groundless alarms, Mago came, reporting that the Roman camp with the remnant of the army had surrendered during the night; and behind him came a rich array of booty. He promised that, when the fifth night was followed in succession by day," Hannibal should feast and make merry on the Tarpeian height.

§ 10.377  Concealing the divine warning and suppressing his fears, Hannibal pleaded in excuse the wounds and weariness of the soldiers after their fierce conflict, and spoke of over-confidence due to success. Then Mago, as much disappointed as if he had been ordered to turn and march back from the very walls of Rome, thus protested: "Then our mighty effort has not defeated Rome, as Rome herself believed; it has only defeated Varro. What fate makes you throw away the bountiful gift of Mars and keep your country waiting? Let me rush forward with the cavalry, and, I swear by my head, the walls of the city will be yours and the gates will fly open before you without a battle."
While Mago spoke thus in his rage and his more cautious brother refused to believe him, the Roman soldiers had begun to rally behind the walls of Canusium and to build a rampart round the fugitives beside the town. How mean, alas, was the aspect of that beaten army, without eagles, without standards, with no consul in chief command, and no axes borne before him by lictors! Men struggle to support upon feeble limbs their frames, sick with fear and mutilated, as if they had been crushed in the fall of some great building. Sometimes a sudden shout was heard, sometimes there was silence with downcast looks. Most of them are defenceless, with no shield on the left arm; there are no swords to fight with; every horseman is wounded; rejecting the pomp and pride of war, they have plucked the splendid plumes from their helmets. Their corslets are pierced with many a spear, and in some breastplates a Moorish arrow is still sticking and hanging down. Sometimes with cries of sorrow they ask for their lost comrades.

§ 10.403  Some weep for Galba and Piso, and for Curio who deserved to die sword in hand, while others lament Scaevola. that stout warrior. Each of these is mourned by some; but to all alike the death of Paulus is grievous as the loss of a father: "How true a prophet he was, when he foretold the evils that have come upon us, and thwarted Varro's folly! How often he tried in vain to save Rome from today's defeat! How brave too he was in battle!" But those who felt anxiety for the future made haste to dig trenches along the city walls, or used such materials as they had to fortify the gates. And, where the plain lay open, with nothing to obstruct the assaults of the enemy, they planted fire-hardened boughs shaped like deers' antlers," whose concealed points would wound unseen the horses' feet.
But now, on the top of defeat and incurable disaster, a treasonable panic and a more dreadful madness stirred the hearts of those who had escaped the Carthaginian sword. They planned to cross the sea and by a change of clime to escape the Tyrian blades, the might of Carthage, and Hannibal. The leader of the exiles was Metellus, a man who took no delight in war though his family had gained high renown. He pressed his shameful design upon cowardly spirits and degenerate hearts, and had in view a hiding place in some distant land, which the name of Carthage would never reach, nor any news of their own forsaken country.
But when Scipio heard of this plan, his wrath was kindled. He snatched up his sword — as mighty a figure as when he confronted Hannibal in deadly combat on the battle-field. He burst open the doors of the place where cowards were hatching their plot bring disgrace and destruction upon Italy;

§ 10.430  he rushed towering in. Then he brandished his naked sword before their frightened eyes as he spoke: "O Father that inhabitest the Tarpeian temple, next after heaven thy chosen abode; and thou, daughter of Saturn, whose heart is not yet softened by the sufferings of the Trojans; and thou, fierce Maiden Goddess, who bindest on thy breast the aegis and the terrors of the Gorgon; and ye gods of Italy — hear me when I swear voluntarily by your divinity, and by the head of my heroic father, as sacred to me as any god! I swear that never while I live shall I leave the realm of Lavinium nor suffer others to leave it. Make haste, Metellus, and call heaven to witness, that, even if the walls of Rome blaze with Carthaginian brands, you will not dare to turn your steps to any foreign land. If you refuse to swear it, the Hannibal, the thought of whom terrifies you and breaks your sleep, is present here, sword in hand." You shall die; and no man who slays a Carthaginian shall win more glory than your slayer." These threats put an end to their design. At once they pledged their lives to their country in the manner prescribed, and swore to heaven the oath that Scipio dictated, and so cleansed their hearts of guilt.
While the Romans were thus engaged with troubled hearts, Hannibal was riding over the battle-field, reviewing his dreadful handiwork and feasting his eyes upon wounds. A numerous staff surrounded him, and the sights he showed them were welcome to the cruel eyes of the Carthaginians. Amid these heaps of dead lay Cloelius, with many a wound in the breast and at the point of death.

§ 10.456  Sinking fast and sighing out his latest breath, he was just able with a faint effort to raise his drooping head and support it on his feeble neck. His horse knew his master; he pricked up his ears and neighed loudly; then he threw Bagaesus, Iiis captor who was then riding him towards the battle-field. Galloping at speed, he flew over mangled corpses and ground made slippery by pools of clotted blood, and halted by the face of his stricken master. Then with sunk neck and sloping shoulders, he bent his knees, as he had been trained to do, to let his master mount; and in his anxious concern he showed an affection that was all his own. No more gallant horseman than Cloelius had ever ridden that mettled steed, either reclining at full length on the flying back, or standing erect with no saddle under him, while the horse flew over the race-course and covered the distance at top speed.
Then Hannibal, marvelling much at a horse which showed the feelings of a man, asked who it was that was fighting so hard against grim death — what was his name and rank. And, as he spoke, he put Cloelius to a speedy and merciful end. Cinna answered him. Deceived by Roman reverses, he had taken sides with Carthage and now rode beside the conqueror. "Brave general," he said, "it is worth your while to hear the early history of his family. Rome, which now rejects the rule of Carthage, was herself once ruled by kings. But when she resented the reign of Superbus and expelled the tyrant, at once a great army came from Clusium's royal dome — you may have heard tell of Porsena and Horatius and the Etruscan invasion. Porsena, supported by the power and manhood of Etruria, strove to restore the exiled kings by war.

§ 10.487  Many an effort they made without success, and the foreign king pressed hard upon Janiculum." At last peace was decided on: they ended hostilities, stopped the war, and agreed to a treaty; and hostages were given in pledge of its fulfilment. But Roman hearts could not be tamed — witness heaven! — but were ready to face any danger for the sake of glory. With other Roman maidens Cloelia was sent across the river to the king as a pledge for peace — young Cloelia who was not twelve years old. Of brave deeds done by men I say nothing; but this maiden, in spite of the king and the treaty, in spite of her youth and the river, swam fearlessly across the astonished Tiber, stemming the stream with childish arms. If nature had changed her sex, perhaps Porsena would never have been able to return to the Tyrrhene land. But, not to detain you longer, from her this young Cloelius is descended, and owes his glorious name to that famous maiden."
While Cinna told this tale, a sudden shout was heard not far away on their left hand. From a disordered heap of weapons and mangled corpses they had drawn forth the body of Paulus in the centre of the pile. How changed, alas! how unlike the Paulus whose prowess lately disordered the ranks of Carthage, or the Paulus who overthrew the kingdom of the Taulantes and bound the king of Illyricum in chains! His grey hairs were black with dust, and his beard defiled with clotted gore; his teeth were shattered by the impact of the great stone; and his whole body was one wound.
Hannibal's joy was redoubled by the sight. "Fly, Varro, fly!" he cried, "and save your life — I care not, so long as Paulus is dead.

§ 10.516  You are a consul: tell the whole story of Cannae to the Senate and the people and to Fabius, the man of inaction. Once again, Varro, if you love life so much, I shall give you leave to fly. But this hero, worthy of my enmity, whose heart beat high with valour, shall receive burial, and his grave shall be honoured. How great is Paulus in death! The fall of so many thousands gives me less joy than his alone. When fate summons me, I pray to die like him, and may Carthage survive my death!" Thus he spoke, and ordered the bodies of his soldiers to be buried when rosy Dawn should issue from her chamber on the following day, and piles of arms to be raised, as a burnt-offering to Mars. The men, though weary, made haste to do his bidding. They dispersed to the neighbouring copses and felled the trees; and the high woods on the leafy hills resounded with the axe. Here ash-trees and tall poplars with white foliage were smitten and cleft by sturdy arms, and there holm-oaks, planted by a former generation. Down came oaks and pine-trees that love the shore, and cypresses that deck the funeral train and mourn beside the pyre. And lastly they hastily built funeral pyres — a mournful duty and a tribute that means nothing to the dead — until Phoebus plunged his panting steeds in the waters of Tartessus," and the moon's disk departing from the sky brought on the blind darkness of black night. Then, when the chariot of the sun shone forth with dawning fire and the earth resumed its familiar colours, they kindled the pyres and burnt the corrupting bodies of their dead on a foreign soil. They felt a dreadful apprehension of the uncertain future, and an unspoken fear invaded their inmost hearts, that, if the fortune of war turned against them later, they themselves must lie in this unfriendly earth.

§ 10.546  Then, as an offering to the War-god, a huge pile of armour was raised up to the sky. Hannibal with his own hand held up a tall pine-torch with fire for foliage and called on the god to hear his prayer: "Hannibal, victorious over the Italian nation, burns these first-fruits of battle and offerings of conquest; and to thee. Father Mars, whose ears were open to my prayers, this host of surviving men dedicates the choicest armour."
Then he threw the torch upon the pyre, and blazing fire made havoc of the burning mass, till the crest of flame burst through the smoke and rose to the sky, flooding the fields with bright light. From here Hannibal went quickly to witness the funeral rites granted to Paulus, proud of showing honour to a dead enemy. A tall pyre was reared, and a soft bier was made of green turf, and offerings were laid upon it, to honour the dead — the shield, the sword dreaded by those who had felt it, the rods and axes taken in the battle, broken now but once a badge of power that all men feared. No wife was there, no sons, no gathering of near kinsmen; no customary masks of ancestors were borne on high litters before the corpse to grace the funeral procession." Bare was it of all trappings; but the praise of Hannibal was glory enough in itself: sighing he threw on the body a covering bright with rich purple dye and a mantle embroidered with gold, and uttered this last tribute to the dead: "Go, pride of Italy! Go whither spirits may go that exult in brave deeds! To you fame is secured already by a glorious death, but I must struggle on as Fate drives me, and she hides future events from my knowledge."

§ 10.576  So Hannibal spoke; and suddenly, mid the crackling of the flames all round, the spirit of Paulus sprang forth and rose triumphant to the sky.
Meanwhile rumour waxed ever louder and louder till it reached heaven. Soon it found its way over sea and land, and came first of all to Rome. Putting no trust in their walls, the terrified citizens were content to rely upon the citadel and nothing else. For they had no fighting men left, and Italy was nothing now but an unsubstantial name. If the enemy had not yet burst in through the gates, they imputed his delay to contempt. Men thought that they saw the houses burning and the temples pillaged, their sons foully slain, and the smoke rising up from the Seven Hills. A single day mourned for the dead corpses of two hundred high magistrates, and mourned for the tottering walls of the depopulated city which had lost twice thirty thousand fighting men; and this after Trebia and the battle by Lake Trasimene; and of the allies also an equal number had fallen at the same time. But, none the less, the surviving senators did their duty and entered upon the functions prescribed to them by lot. Fabius found speed and was everywhere, crying out to the panic-stricken people: "Believe me, there is no longer any reason for delay. Let us make haste to man the walls and baffle the enemy's approach. Ill fortune is increased by the inaction of cowardice, and defeat is made worse by fear. Go quickly, ye young men, and pull down the armour in the temples. Strip the walls of your houses with speed, and take down for service the shields you took in fight. We are enough to save our country, if no one of us withdraws in fear from battle.

§ 10.602  The dreaded foe may be formidable in the open plain; but the naked Moor, for all his speed and activity, will never break down city walls."
While Fabius thus encouraged hearts that had failed for fear, a report that Varro was approaching spread up and down through the city and filled all hearts with secret uneasiness. So, when the captain of a wrecked ship is saved from the sea and swims ashore alone, men are at a loss and uncertain whether to welcome the sea-tossed man or to disown him; they cannot bear that the captain only should be saved when his ship is lost. What a stain must cling to Varro's name, when he dares to approach the gates, and presents himself, a bird of ill-omen, to his horrorstricken countrymen!
Fabius smoothed down these protests. He told them it was a shameful thing to be angry with a defeated general, and so he averted the people's indignation. Men who claimed Mars as their ancestor should not (he said) be mastered by adversity, nor be unable to hide their grief; nor should they seek solace for their mourning in punishing others. But if I am allowed to speak a word of reproof," said he, "that day on which I saw Varro proceed to the camp was more painful to me than that on which I see him return without an army." By his words their threats were silenced and their feelings underwent a sudden change: now they pity Varro's misfortune, or reflect that Hannibal has lost the satisfaction of slaying both the consuls. Therefore all the populace poured forth in long procession to thank him; and they protested that he had acted nobly,

§ 10.628  when, relying on the ancient glory and power of his country, he refused to despair of the city inhabited by the sons of Laomedon.'
None the less, sad at his failure and sore ashamed, Varro drew near the walls with faltering steps and weeping eyes; it was pain to him to raise his eyes from the ground and look upon his native city and recall their losses to the citizens. Though the Senate and people came out then to meet him on his return, he felt that they were not there to thank him, but that each man was demanding a lost son or brother, and that unhappy mothers were ready to tear out the consul's eyes. Thus his lictors kept silence as he entered the city and he claimed no respect for the high office which the gods had condemned.
But the senators and Fabius put sorrow in the background and turned quickly to their tasks. Slaves, chosen for their strength, were armed in haste; the barracks were thrown open to them; for pride gave way to the safety of the state. They were determined to bring, by any agency, the realm of Aeneas back to the land of the living, and to arm even bondsmen in defence of the Capitol and the empire and glorious freedom. They took off from their own children the purple-bordered garment of boyhood and put armour on their unaccustomed shoulders. Boys hid their faces behind the helmet, and were bidden to reach manhood in slaughter of the foe. Likewise, when they were begged to ransom at an easy rate the multitude of Roman prisoners — and the number of petitioners rose to many thousands — they persisted, to the astonishment of Hannibal, in their refusal to redeem them. For they held it worse than any misdeed or crime for an armed man to surrender.

§ 10.654  Then sentence was passed on soldiers guilty of desertion: they were banished to distant Sicily, to serve there until the invader should retreat from Italy. Such as Rome in those days; and, if it was fated that the Roman character should change when Carthage fell, would that Carthage were still standing!

§ 11.1  BOOK XI
Next let me tell of the peoples who went over to the side of Libya and the camp of Hannibal after the signal victory on the plains of Apulia. Nowhere do men remain loyal for long when Fortune proves unstable. Too prone, alas, to distrust the unfortunate, the states vied with one another in open offers of friendship to faithless Carthage. Fiercest of all were the Samnites, ever ready to keep alive ancient feuds, and eager to gratify their hatred afresh when occasion offered. Their example was followed by the Bruttians, a fickle folk whose late repentance was to avert their doom; by the treacherous Apulians who own no fixed alliance; and by the Hirpini, light-minded and restless men who had no reason to break faith. It

§ 11.13  was like a horrible plague that spread infection all over the country. Now Atella and Calatia sent their soldiers to Hannibal's camp, their fears prevailing over their sense of duty. Tarentum too, the city of Phalantus, proud and fickle, threw off the Roman yoke. Crotona on the height opened her gates in friendship, and taught the descendants of the Thespiadae to bow their necks to the bidding of the African barbarian. A like madness affected the Locrians. The low-lying coast, where Greater Greece preserves Argive cities and bends round till it is washed by the Ionian sea, was attracted by the victories of Libya and her success in war, and swore to serve under the dreaded Carthaginians. And also the vainglorious Celts who dwell by the river Po attacked Italy in her distress; they had ancient grievances, and hastened to assist the enemy with their full strength.
It might be lawful for Celts, lawful for the tribes of the Boii, to renew impious warfare; but who could believe that Capua would take the same mad decision as the tribe of Senones, and that a city of Trojan origin would ally herself with a barbarous ruler of Numidians — who could believe this now, when times have changed so greatly! But luxury, and sloth fed by riotous debauchery, and utter shamelessness in sinning, and scandalous respect for wealth and wealth alone — such vices preyed upon an indolent and listless people and a city freed from the restraints of law. Their savage cruelty also bore them to their doom. And they had the means to pamper their vices. No people of Italy possessed gold and silver in more abundance — so favoured were they then by Fortune;

§ 11.40  their garments, even those worn by men, were dyed with Assyrian purple; their princely banquets began at noon, and the rising sun found them at their revels; and their way of life was defiled by every stain. Moreover, the senators oppressed the people, the masses welcomed the unpopularity of the senate, and civil discord made the parties clash. Meanwhile the old men, more corrupt themselves, outdid the headstrong follies of the young. Men notorious for humble birth and obscure origin asserted their claims, expecting and demanding to hold office before others, and to rule the sinking state. Then too, it was their ancient custom to enliven their banquets with bloodshed, and to combine with their feasting the horrid sight of armed men fighting; often the combatants fell dead above the very cups of the revellers, and the tables were stained with streams of blood.
Thus demoralized was Capua, when Pacuvius, a man whose name is known only because of his misdeeds, worked cunningly upon the minds of the citizens, in order to make them more eager to join the Carthaginians. He urged them to demand of Rome what he knew that Rome would never grant — indeed he did not wish it to be granted — that Capua should claim an equal share in the highest office and that the rods should pass in turn from one consul to the other. And, if the Romans refused to share their curule chair and to admit a partner, with a second set of axes, to the high office, then one who would avenge the rebuff was near and in full view." Therefore a chosen body made haste to carry the message. Their chief was Virrius, an eloquent speaker but a man of low origin and second to none in violence.

§ 11.67  When he had set forth the outrageous proposals of a brainsick mob at a great meeting where all the Roman senators were assembled, and even before he had ceased to enrage his hearers by his high-flown eloquence, a unanimous shout of angry refusal rose from the whole assembly; and then each separate senator rebuked him, till the building shook with their contending voices.
Then Torquatus rose. His brow severe recalled that of his noble ancestor. "How now?" he asked. "Have you dared to bring such a message from Capua to the walls of Rome — these walls which Carthage and Hannibal, even after their victory at Cannae, dared not attack? Have you never heard how it fared with the insolent spokesman of the Latins, when they came to the Capitol and made a like request? Not a word was spoken: he was flung forth from the temple doors and rolled down with such violence that he was dashed against the pitiless rock. Thus he atoned, under the eyes of Jupiter, for his insolence; and the penalty for his blasphemous speech was death. Look at me! I am descended from that consul who drove the speaker forth from the Thunderer's temple, and whose unarmed hand defended the Capitol." Then in his rage he shook his fist in the faces of the envoys and was about to repeat the action of his ancestor; but when Fabius saw him proceeding to actual violence, he spoke next, grinding his teeth as he spoke: "Out on such utter shamelessness! See! a consul's seat is vacant, deprived of its occupant by the stress of war. Which, pray, of your number do you intend to place there? Whom do you propose, to fill the room of Paulus? Are you perhaps, Virrius, summoned first and foremost by the lot with the permission of

§ 11.95  the Senate? and does the purple robe put you on a level with our Brutus? Go, poor fool, to the mark you are aiming at: let treacherous Carthage make you her ruler." His fiery speech was not finished when Marcellus, no longer content to groan and hold his peace, burst out in fury and blazing wrath; "Are you, Varro, so utterly stunned by the fierce ordeal of battle? What sluggish endurance ties your tongue, so that you, the consul, can put up with the dreams of these madmen? Will you not instantly turn them out from the temple, drive them headlong to the city gates, and compel these effeminate wretches to learn the power of a consul elected in Roman fashion? I warn you to depart at once from Rome — you who are never sober and are doomed soon to perish. A general at the head of an army shall give you the answer you deserve in the right place — before the walls of Capua." Then all the House rose as one man and loudly threatened the envoys. The men of Capua themselves hastened to go forth; and Virrius, resenting so sharp a rebuff, had the name of Hannibal on his lips. Thereupon Fulvius,' whose prophetic soul assured him of future glory, and who could already see with his mind's eye the ruin of Capua, spoke thus: "Even if you conquer Hannibal and bring him here to Rome as your captive, never again shall you be permitted to enter the sacred dwelling-place of Quirinus. I beg you will hasten to the goal, whither your folly summons you." Then the envoys took back this threatening message in haste to Capua, and reported the grim reply of the angry Senate.

§ 11.122  Is it your pleasure, Almighty Father, that the future shall be hidden in such utter darkness? A happier age will one day come, when loyal Rome shall welcome a consul from Capua; the rods which she long withheld from armed force she will then surrender willingly and confidently to the high-souled descendants of her foes." This penalty, however, for the insolence of their ancestors shall remain, that Capua shall not send voters to Rome before Carthage sends them also. — Virrius, skilfully mixing truth with falsehood, first set forth what the Senate had said and done, and then sounded to his excited hearers the fatal note of bloody war. The frantic people cried out for arms and for Hannibal. They rushed together from every quarter and invited the Carthaginians to their city. Men recalled the mighty achievements of the Tyrian youth: how, rivalling the glory of Hercules, he had burst the barrier of the Alps and overrun the peaks that reach to heaven; how he dammed the river Po with heaps of dead; how, ever victorious, he dyed the Etruscan lake with Roman blood; how he gave eternal glory to the Trebia, and himself in battle sent down to Hades both Paulus and Flaminius, the Roman leaders. To all this they add his early prowess in the sacking of Saguntum, his crossing over the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and the sacrifice offered by his father when he swore in boyhood to make war against Rome. He alone, they said, was impervious in battle to all weapons, though so many leaders had been slain and so many routed. "When the goodness of Providence allows us to join hands with this hero and to ally ourselves with him,

§ 11.160  shall Capua, forsooth, put up with the pride and baseless insolence of an effete people, and be ruled by a state which refuses us, as if we were slaves, the rods of the consulship and equal rights? Varro, forsooth, they think more worthy of that high title, that his flight may be made more conspicuous by the consul's purple."
Talking thus wildly, they were about to send envoys, chosen by lot, to make an alliance with the Carthaginians. But Decius," the sole glory of Capua in that hour, refused to put aside the firm purpose of his brave heart. When he was admitted to the conclave and temporizing was impossible, he spoke thus: "Fellow-citizens, are you about to violate the ties which our fathers cherished, and make friends with a man whom the gods have condemned for breach of treaty? How utterly you have forgotten the path of duty! It is a noble thing, and a property of noble nations and noble men, to show loyalty to the distressed. Now is the time to go to battle in defence of the Romans, and to take the field while their state is critical and their wounds call for treatment. This is the time to serve them, when success lingers and when stern Fortune summons us to help. To court the prosperous is by no means the glory of a noble mind. Hasten hither to their support! I know their godlike spirits and hearts that can bear every great disaster; they can bear, I assure you, Cannae and Lake Trasimene and the noble death of Paulus. These are the men who dislodged the enemy established in your city and rescued Capua from the tyranny of the Samnites. These are the men who, when that menace was driven out, gave you a constitution and put an end to the fighting of the Sidicini.

§ 11.176  Compare the allies whom you are deserting with the new allies whom you are gaining. Shall I, with Trojan blood in my veins, I, to whom Capys of old, the kinsman of great lulus, bequeathed his sacred rites and his name derived from Jupiter — shall I consort with half-human Nasamonians and Garamantians, as cruel and savage as wild beasts, and pitch my tent cheek by jowl with a native of Marmarica? Shall I put up with a leader, whose sword now usurps the place of justice and sworn agreements, and all whose glory is derived from bloodshed? God forbid! Decius does not so confuse right and wrong that he is capable of such a choice. The greatest boon with which grudging Nature has equipped man is this — that the door of death stands open and suffers us to depart from a life that is too hard." Such was the appeal that Decius made in vain to deaf ears.
The chosen body of envoys made a treaty with Hannibal. He sent ahead a numerous troop of Autololes, and they soon arrived with noise and confusion. He himself was coming with the main body, moving in haste over the plains. Then Decius spoke: "Friends, now is the time and now the hour! Rally round me, while the arm of vengeance achieves a deed worthy of Capua and of me as leader. Lay these barbarous soldiers low. Let each man among you be eager to snatch this crown of glory. If Hannibal tries to enter, block the gates against him with corpses and wipe out your guilt by the sword. That bloodshed, and nothing else, will wash away the stain with which your hearts are polluted."
While he spoke thus in vain and no man welcomed his words, Hannibal learned the hostility and

§ 11.203  desperate design of Decius. His heart swelled high with anger, and he ordered a chosen troop to bring the obstinate man at once to his camp outside the walls. That austere virtue, that breast armed with loyalty and love of justice, that heart greater than all Capua, stood there unshaken and unterrified. With frowning brows he listened to the general's threats and even assailed him with bitter speech. Then Hannibal raised his voice to a shout as he rebuked the man who defied all the standards and all the swords of Carthage. "Paulus is dead," he cried, "and Flaminius is dead; and now I am matched against this madman, Decius, who is fain to contend with me, that he may win glory and honour in death. Seize your standards, ye captains, and go forward with speed. I would fain find out whether Capua opens her gates to me in defiance of Decius, even as the Alps opened a path to me at the outset of my campaign — the Alps whose peaks strike the sky and which only a god had trodden before me." His face was flushed with blood, and his angry eye flashed fire; he foamed at the mouth; and the breathing that issued from his panting lungs expressed the inarticulate rage of his breast. Thus he rode into the city, escorted by all the senators and surrounded by the rabble, rushing to behold the general's face, while he gave vent to all his fury and stormy passion.
The heart of Decius also was kindled by the approach of danger. He saw that the time had come, when he, though unarmed, might win more glory than the ever-victorious general. He did not run away nor hide himself in the seclusion of his own house, but lived on his quiet life with fearless mien, as free as if Hannibal had never entered Capua. But

§ 11.231  now, alas, a savage band of armed soldiers quickly seized him and set him down before the feet of Hannibal who sat there in state. From his high seat the conqueror thundered at him with angry speech: "Do you intend with your single hand to prop the falling building and restore a dead Rome to life? Poor fool! are you the man to snatch from me the great gifts of the gods? They kept me alive merely that I might be conquered by Decius, Decius the carpet-knight, weaker than any woman born on the Tyrian shores of our native Carthage. But why should I submit to insult? Hasten, soldiers, to fasten round the neck of this hero the fetters he deserves." Thus he spoke, and the flow of his abuse was still unchecked. So, when a lion springs upon the herd and settles aloft upon their necks, he roars terribly in his victorious rage; then he drives in his claws to keep his great weight steady, and devours the panting steer, perched high upon its neck. But Decius, while they bound him, said: "Put on the fetters with all speed: they are a fitting symbol of Hannibal's entrance and the just reward for this illstarred alliance. Decius is indeed the fit victim to be slain. For Hannibal delights in human blood, and we should do wrong to appease him by the sacrifice of oxen. Look at his friendship! look at his alliance! He has not yet entered the senate-house or the temple doors, but already the cruel tyrant opens the prison. Proceed, and follow up your noble beginning with like deeds! In the nether world I shall have news of your fall, crushed beneath the ruins of Capua." No more was he suffered to say: his head was veiled in a black mantle, and he was carried off still defiant in the sight of his countrymen.

§ 11.259  Thereupon the conqueror's rage at last sank to rest. Calm and well-pleased, in triumph he turned his gaze upon the buildings and temples of the city, and learned one thing and another — who was the founder of the city, how many men they had under arms, how many talents of silver and copper were available for war, the quality of their cavalry, and lastly the number of their infantry. They showed him their lofty citadel and told him of the Stellatian plain with its bountiful harvests. By now Phoebus was driving his weary steeds down the sky to their goal, and Evening spread her gradual shade and darkened his car in its course to the sea. Then the citizens made a feast as their manner was; the city kept holiday, and banquets were held at tables piled with regal splendour. Hannibal himself, adorned like a god and received with divine honours, was placed high upon a seat of honour covered with farshining purple. Those who served at the meal were divided into many companies: it was the duty of some to set the dishes, of others to keep the fires alight, and of others to bring round the wine-cup in due order; and yet others were appointed to pile up the store of food. Heavy golden cups, chased in relief by craftsmen of old, sparkled on the board. The bright lighting banished night, and the lofty chamber hummed with the sound of moving attendants. The soldiers of Carthage, unaccustomed to such banquets, were astonished and drank in with wondering eyes that unfamiliar scene of lavish display. Hannibal himself kept silence while eating, disapproving the splendour of the feast and the great retinue that ministered to a need so easily satisfied; but, when he had eaten enough, the gift of Bacchus softened his harsh mood.

§ 11.286  Then at last he regained a cheerful aspect and laid aside his pressing anxieties.
Now Teuthras, a citizen of Cyme, played on the Euboean lyre, and his singing charmed ears deafened by the ungentle note of the fierce wartrumpet. For he sang of Chaos, once a mass lighted by no star, where dawn never rose, a benighted world. Then he told how the god had severed the expanse of sea and placed the round world in the centre of the system; how he appointed lofty Olympus to be a habitation for the gods. He told of the reign of Father Saturn over a righteous race. Next he sang of Jupiter — his sweet and secret dalliance, and his union with Electra, daughter of Atlas; how their son was Dardanus, worthy of his divine parents; and how Dardanus gave the Thunderer a grandson, Erichthonius of high descent; then the long succession passed through Tros and Ilus to Assaracus and thence to Capys, inferior to none in glory and great deeds; and how he bequeathed his name to the city. Carthaginians and men of Capua together applauded the singer. First of all Hannibal in solemn fashion poured forth a libation in honour of Capys, and the rest of the company followed his example, spilling wine on the tables in customary fashion, and growing heated as they drank.
The assembled Carthaginians gave themselves up to relaxation and revelry. But there was one young man there whom I must mention; for I will not pass over your design in silence, Perolla, or fail to record your purpose, which, even though it failed, proceeded from a noble mind. He, alone unaffected by wine and not enfeebled by the poison of the wine-cup, was revolving in his mind a glorious task — to fight Hannibal and kill him.

§ 11.309  And, to make his noble desire more marvellous, he was the son of Pacuvius," but had spurned his father's intrigues. When his father, burdened by a feast of many courses, walked slowly away from the hall, Perolla went out behind him; and it became possible to reveal his plan and explain his startling design, when they had left part of the dwelling behind them and came to an unoccupied space at the back of the building. Then Perolla spoke: "Hearken to a plan worthy of Capua and of ourselves." Then he drew back his gown and revealed a sword by his side: "I purpose to end the war by this blade, to cut off the head of Hannibal and carry it in triumph to the Thunderer. This sword shall seal the alliance which treachery has stained. If your aged eyes cannot bear to look on such a sight, if you shrink from a deed too bold for your declining age, then withdraw to the safety of your own house and leave me to my purpose. You hold Hannibal to be the chief of men, and you rank him with the gods; how much more famous than the Carthaginian shall your son be soon!" Fire flashed fiercely from his eyes, and in his thought he was already striking the blow. But his father, whose ears at once refused to hear a design of such dreadful import, fell trembling to the ground and in terror kissed his son's feet again and again. "By what remains to me of life, by a father's rights, and by your life, dearer to me than my own, I entreat you to abandon your purpose; let me not witness the hospitable board defiled with blood, the winecups filled with gore, and the tables overset in mortal

§ 11.337  conflict! Will you be able to withstand him whom neither armies nor walled cities can withstand, when his frown comes close and the fire flashes from his eyes? Will you endure the thunderbolts launched from that head, if the sight of your sword calls forth the dread voice that routs whole armies on the field? If you think that he sits unarmed at table, you are wrong. His armour is the immortal glory he has gained by constant warfare and hecatombs of victims slain. If you come close to him, you will marvel to see before you Cannae and the Trebia, the dead of Lake Trasimene and the mighty shade of Paulus. Again, will his officers and those who sit at meat beside him lift no finger while such a scene is acting? Keep still, I entreat you, and abandon a plan which, if successful, must cost you your life. Does not the example of Decius and his cruel fetters teach you to cool your passions?"
Thus the father spoke. But, when he saw his son deaf to fear and burning with desire of high renown, he went on thus: "I entreat no more. Go back to the banqueting-hall; let us make haste. The task before you now is not to stab the Carthaginians when they fight in defence of their chief; mine is the throat on which you must test your blade. For, if you purpose to attack Hannibal, through my heart you must drive your weapon. Despise not my age and weakness. I shall throw my body in the way, and my death shall snatch from your hand the sword which you refused to surrender at my entreaty." Then his tears gushed forth. Thus by the high design of Providence Hannibal was saved, in order to meet Scipio in arms; nor did Fate permit a foreign hand to perform so great an exploit. A splendid figure was Perolla in his wrath, and well he deserved to accomplish his great design.

§ 11.365  But how much fame he lost by abandoning his purpose, when the mere intention is so glorious! Then they hastened back to the feast and smoothed the trouble from their brows. At last sleep came and broke up the merry-making.
When the following day was about to reveal the steeds of Phaethon," and his swift chariot was already shining beneath the surface of the sea, the son of great Hamilcar had long been busily engaged. He bade proud Mago repair to the towers of Carthage and report to the senate the exploits of their general. Booty was sent with him and chosen captives and spoils stripped from the dead in bloody warfare, as thank-offerings to the gods for success in battle. Another of Hannibal's cares was Decius; he, alas, was sent to the Libyan land, to be kept till the general returned and could inflict punishment at leisure. But Jupiter on high had pity on the innocent sufferer, and turned his course aside to the ancient city of Battus.' And here Ptolemy, the Macedonian king of Egypt, rescued him from the threats of the men who brought him in their ship, and released him from his bonds. And the same land that had saved his life soon afterwards received his bones, to lie undisturbed in a peaceful grave.
Meantime Venus did not miss the welcome opportunity to destroy the discipline of the Carthaginians by the insidious weapon of pleasure, and to tame their fierce hearts by luxury. She bade her children scatter their invisible arrows broadcast and kindle unseen fires in every breast. Then she smiled sweetly on the boys and said: "Let Juno, elated by success, give herself airs and despise us. That is no wonder; for what are we? Strong is her hand and strong her

§ 11.393  arm; we but gently launch our tiny shafts from the bows of boys, and our wounds are followed by no blood. But be up and doing, my children; the time has come for you to help me and inflame the hearts of the Tyrians with your invisible weapons. With dalliance, with excess of wine and sleep, you must rout an army that neither sword nor fire could shatter, nor the chariot of Mars with its utmost speed. Let the taste for luxury steal into Hannibal's heart; let him drink it in, and not blush to rest his limbs on an embroidered couch, nor refuse to drench his locks with perfume of Assyria. He used to boast of sleeping under the winter sky; now let him prefer to spend whole nights under a roof. He used often to take his food on horseback with his helmet on and the horse at speed; let him change his habits and give up the peaceful day to the god of wine; and then, when he has well drunk, let him welcome the lyre after the feast and either spend the night in drowsy sleep or watch and wake all night in my service."
When Venus spoke thus, her sportive infantry clapped their snowy wings and flew down from high heaven. The Moorish soldiers felt the fiery arrows, and their hearts were melted in a moment by that shower of bolts. They call for wine and dainty food, and for a repetition of song that sounds sweet to the musician's lyre. No mettled horse now sweats on the open plain; no lance, hurled to a distance, tasks the bare arm. They bathe their limbs, drowsy with sleep, in water heated over the fire; and their stern valour is sapped by the bane of luxury. Even Hannibal, breathed upon by a deceitful Cupid, piles high the festal board and courts the hospitality of eager hosts, till by degrees he grows degenerate

§ 11.423  and discards the virtues of his race; for his mind was poisoned by the unseen arrow. Capua is now a second home to him: he calls it a second Carthage and honours it as much; and the character which victory could not hurt is shattered by the seductions of vice. For the men of Capua set no limits to the luxury and profligacy of their lives: they went further and further: using various arts, they sought to set off their banquets by means of stage-plays: so Memphis on the Nile resounds ever with the Phrygian flute and matches Spartan Canopus in its revelry. Teuthras above all charmed Hannibal, filling his ears with sweet music both of the voice and of the instrument; and he, when he saw the general marvelling at the sound his fingers drew from the strings, began by degrees to set forth the splendid triumphs of the Aonian lyre; and he sang in unison with the music in a voice that might surpass the dying swan. And this was the song he chose out of many, as most grateful to those who sat at meat:
" Long ago the nations of Greece — marvellous to tell — heard the shell of the tortoise sound, and the shell had power to draw stones and bring them of their own accord, to make walls for a city. The lyre on which Amphion played built walls round Thebes and bade the towers rise high at its music; and the stone climbed up of itself upon the ramparts that came to the call of the musician. Another lyre calmed the stormy sea with its music and arrested the seals; it drew after it Proteus in all his changes of shape, and carried Arion on the sea-beast's back.

§ 11.449  A third lyre, whose strains moulded the minds of heroes and the spirit of great Achilles in the cave of Mount Pelion — the lyre that Cheiron loved, could quell the raging sea or the wrath of Hell itself, when he struck the strings. But the chords which Orpheus struck beside the Riphean Strymon, charming the gods above and the gods below the earth, earned a place in heaven and shine there among the bright stars. Even his mother, together with the whole train of her sister Muses, marvelled at his playing. At his music neither Pangaeus nor Haemus, the mountain of Mars, nor remotest Thrace, could stand still. Wild beasts and forests, rivers and mountains, followed him. The bird forgot her loved nestlings, stopped her flight, and hung arrested in the motionless air. Moreover, when the Argo at Pagasae refused to launch out on the blue water which on land she had never known, the sea, summoned by the lyre, obeyed the music and came up to the stern of the sacred bark. The Thracian bard charmed with his quill the sunless land and the crackling flames of Acheron, and stopped the stone from rolling. Alas for the cruelty of the Ciconian women and the madness of the Thracians! alas for Rhodope pronounced guilty by the gods! When the Hebrus bore his severed head to the sea, both banks followed it; and then, when it was carried along by the rushing waves, suddenly the sea-beasts emerged from the water and bounded high at the low sound of that voice all over the sea." Thus

§ 11.481  Teuthras, votary of Castalia and the Muses, enfeebled by his music the soldiers' war-hardened hearts.
Meanwhile Mago had been wafted by gentle breezes to the Libyan land. His ship, wreathed with laurel, entered the desired harbour, and the glittering spoils on her lofty bows shone from a distance across the water. Then the shouting of the sailors, which had long been rising from the open sea, filled all the shore with its sound; and, when the rowers all together brought the oars back sharply to their breasts, the sea foamed under the stroke of a hundred blades. Eager to snatch a hasty joy, the citizens waded out into the water, and the exuberant crowd eagerly hailed the good news with a storm of applause. Hannibal is ranked with the gods. All the women, all the little children, rejoicing at their mothers' bidding, and all the older citizens — senate and people alike — think him worthy of divine honours and the slaughter of oxen. Thus Mago came back to Carthage and entered the gates that rang with the report of his brother's exploits. The senate assembled in haste, and the senate-house was packed with a great assembly. Mago prayed to the gods in the fashion of his sires and then spoke thus: "I bring news of a great victory: the strength upon which Italy relied has been shattered; and I myself played no small part in the work. The gods favoured us in the battle. There is a land which bears the name of a famous king of Aetolia and was possessed by Daunus in an age long past; the rapid stream of the Aufidus flows round the watery plains and cuts off the promise of harvest by its floods; and later, dashing against the waves of the Adriatic, with a loud noise it forces the salt water to retreat seawards.

§ 11.511  Here the Roman commanders — Paulus, a name honoured in Latium, and Varro — took the field, when the darkness of night had hardly been dispelled; and the far-seen glitter of their weapons added a brighter light to the rising sun. We marched quickly from the camp to meet them; for my brother was driven on by a passionate desire for battle. The earth shook and the welkin rang as we fought. Then our general, as great a leader in war as this earth ever bore, hid the river and the plains with heaps of corpses. Before my eyes all Italy was routed and fled from him alone, from the fierce onset and the sound of his warfare. Before my eyes degenerate Varro threw down his arms and galloped from the field. I witnessed also the death of brave Paulus, when he fell, pierced through with many a dart, above the corpses of his men. The great slaughter of that day avenged the Aegatian Islands and the treaty of subservience; we could not wish to pray for more than was granted us then by divine favour. If such a day came over again, Carthage would be the sole ruler over all nations and would be honoured over all the world. As evidence of the slaughter, behold these tokens, which it is the custom of high-born Romans to wear on their left hand." Therewith he poured forth before their astonished eyes glittering rings of gold; and the truth of his words was confirmed by the goodly heap of rings. Then he began again: "Rome is undermined, and it only remains to wrench her from her foundations and level her with the ground. Let us make the effort," he cried; "recruit your armies weakened by so many losses, and open wide your treasury for the pay of mercenaries.

§ 11.540  Our elephants, so dreaded by the Romans, are now few in number; and our want of food-supplies troubles us."
While speaking thus he directed fierce looks at Hanno," whose crooked mind had long been tortured by the growing fame of Hannibal: Do you approve now of the deeds that our hands have wrought? Am I permitted now to refuse a Roman for my master? Or will you vote a second time for the surrender of Hannibal? Unhappy man, be softened at last by so many glorious trophies, and change that heart, so black with the poison of jealousy and so full of bitter gall. See, that hand, that hand which you wished to give up to the Roman torturers, has filled shores and rivers, lakes and spreading plains, with Roman blood." Thus Mago spoke, and the manifest sympathy of his hearers gave him confidence.
Then Hanno answered, urged on at once by jealousy and anger: "Such abuse does not surprise me, coming from a brain-sick youth. He is proud by nature, and it is easy to recognize his brother's disposition and the stingless venom of his tongue. He need not suppose that I have changed and am giving up my pohcy in despair. For I propose that we should now sue for peace, should now lay down the arms that are stained by a breach of treaty, and avoid a war that will destroy us. Or rather, do you yourselves weigh well his proposals; there is no other decision for us to come to. He asks for arms, soldiers, and gold, for fleets, provisions, and elephants. Had he been defeated, he could not have asked for more. We have drenched the soil of Italy with Roman blood, and all Latium is laid low on the battle-fields. Then suffer us at last, noble conqueror,' to forget our troubles and take our ease at home;

§ 11.568  suffer us to keep some children in the families so often thinned by the insatiable demands of war. Now, yes now, I say — I pray that my forecast may prove untrue and my mind may be the victim of a mere delusion — the fatal day is at hand. I know the stubborn hearts of the foe, and I foresee the martial ardour that defeat will breed. It is Cannae, Cannae that I fear. Lower your standards, or rather, make haste to sue for peace and demand it. You will not get it. Believe me, their resentment is hatching a worse destruction than that which they have suffered; and they will make this peace more readily when victorious than when they are defeated. Or rather tell us, you who proclaim those great deeds so proudly and fill the ears of the ignorant with your frothy flood of words — tell us, why that brother of yours, that match for Mars in battle, the greatest general whom earth has ever borne, has never yet set eyes on the walls of Rome. Shall we, forsooth, snatch from their mothers' laps boys who are not yet fit to carry heavy armour, and make them fight? Shall we, at his demand, build a thousand ships of war and ransack all Libya for elephants, in order that Hannibal may prolong his command and fight on for years and exercise a tyrant's sway till the day of his death? But I appeal to you — for the trap is set in our sight — rob not your homes of your loved ones, but set a limit to the armies and the power of these potentates. Peace is the best thing that man may know; peace alone is better than a thousand triumphs; peace has power to guard our lives and secure equality among fellow-citizens. Let us then after so long recall peace to the city of Carthage, and banish the reproach of treachery from Dido's city.

§ 11.597  If Hannibal has such a passion for war and disobeys his country when she bids him sheathe the sword, then I advise you to refuse all supplies to such a madman, and I move that Mago report this answer to his brother."
He would have added more; for he had not yet said enough to gratify his wrath; but loud cries of dissent confounded him: "If Hannibal, the glory of Libya, the invincible general, excites your anger, shall we leave the conqueror in the lurch just when he is reaching the goal, and refuse to send him supplies? Shall the jealousy of one man delay the imperial power which is already secured?" Then they eagerly voted the supplies required for war, and, in the presence of a witness, made a show of their devotion to the absent general. Next they decided to send supplies also to Spain, though malicious envy belittled Hannibal's immortal deeds and sought to refuse the assistance needed for the increase of his fame.

§ 12.1  BOOK XII
Unkindly Winter was now hiding in the earth his icy head, his temples fraught with storms, and his cloud-capped brow that towers aloft with menace of gales; and healthful Spring was cheering the land with her gentle zephyrs and clear warm weather. Then the Carthaginians burst forth from Capua with terror in their van, and harassed all the surrounding country. Thus the serpent hides away in winter while the Riphaean mountains are frozen by the North-wind's breath; but at last, when the season gives it confidence, it glides forth from its secret lair and glitters with a new skin, lifting up its shining head and breathing forth venom from its erected throat. When Hannibal's dreaded standards gleamed over the land, the country became a desert: driven

§ 12.13  by fear men shut themselves up behind fortifications and awaited the enemy, trembling for their lives and distrusting even their walls.
But the former hardihood which had burst through the Alps and cleared a path for the army, which had mastered the Trebia and defiled the Etruscan lake with Italian blood, was no longer there. Their limbs were sluggish and flabby, enervated by luxury and ease, by wine and the enticements of sleep. Once they had been used to spend cold nights under a stormy sky while wearing their heavy breastplates, and had often despised a tent when the rain and hail of winter were pouring down; even at night they did not put off sword and buckler, quivers and lances, but treated their weapons as parts of their bodies. But now the helmet was a burden, the light shield felt too heavy, and their spears made no whizzing sound as they went forth.
When Hannibal renewed the strife, mild Parthenope was the first to feel it, not because the city was wealthy or because he despised its courage; but the harbour was the attraction: he wanted safe anchorage for vessels coming from Carthage. That city is now an abode of peace, a resting-place where the Muses dwell, and life there is free from pressing anxieties. Parthenope, daughter of Achelous, gave the city its famous name. She was one of the Sirens, and her singing long ruled the waves, when her boding voice sang melodious destruction across the water to hapless sailors. The front of the city was defended by the sea, and therefore Hannibal attacked it on the landward side; but all his efforts failed to break open an entrance: he was baffled in the attempt and vainly belaboured the barred gates with the blows of his battering-rams.

§ 12.40  The victor of Cannae stood helpless before a Greek city; and the event proved the wisdom of his caution, when he refused to march from the bloody field of Daunus" against the citadel of Rome. "You called me a laggard who could not follow up his victory, because you were not allowed to scale the walls of Rome immediately after the battle. Well, then, enter Naples and make for me, in a city defended by Greeks, the banquet which you promised to set in the abode of the Thunderer." Thus he reproached his men, and, fearing for his fame in time coming if he were to fall back baffled from the first city he attacked, he shrank from no risks and used stratagems to sharpen his assault. But fire flashed suddenly from the walls, and a shower of missiles was discharged unexpectedly from the whole circuit of the ramparts. Even so, when the tawny bird of Jupiter' has hidden her young on the top of a cliff, if a serpent climbs noiselessly up the height and opens its dreaded jaws near the nestlings, the motherbird flies round and round the nest, attacking the foe with her beak and the talons that are wont to carry thunderbolts.
Wearied out at last he thought to shift his quarters to the seaport of Cumae hard by, to challenge Fortune by change of place, and to prevent loss of reputation by causing unrest. But Gracchus, the governor of the city, a surer defence than the walls themselves, kept the enemy away from the place, preventing them from encamping again by the gates and from hoping again to force an entrance. Hannibal lost courage: he rode about at furious speed and examined closely all the country round; and he tried

§ 12.67  once more to excite his men by reminding them of their past deeds: "Great Heavens!" he cried; soldiers, forgetful of your past, is your onward march to be stopped for ever by Greek cities? Will you nowhere draw the line? A mightier obstacle than the Alps, forsooth, blocks your way, and I bid you climb peaks that touch the sky! And yet, if a land like that were before us now and other cliffs were suddenly to rise as high as heaven, would you not go forward, if I led you, and carry your arms up the heights? Are you the men to stand and gape, barred by the ramparts and walls of Cumae, and by Gracchus who dares not stir outside the gates? I see it all but certain, that the world will impute to chance every result of your exertions. By Lake Trasimene where the gods favoured us, by the Trebia and by the ashes of Saguntum, I implore you to make yourselves once more worthy of the reputation you trail after you; and remember Cannae."
Thus their leader sought to lift up and steady the hearts enfeebled by luxury and enervated by prosperity. And here, while studying all the means of approach, he saw a temple shining on the summit of the citadel; and Virrius, the harsh governor of proud Capua, then explained its origin. "That building above us," he said, "was not the work of our time: it was raised by other hands in ancient days. When Daedalus — so the legend runs — feared the power of the Cretan king, he found a way to escape from our world and leave no trace for Minos who pursued him over the whole earth. He dared to ascend the sky on wings not his own and to reveal to mankind the art of flying. Keeping his body poised amid the clouds, he floated on, and the strange winged creature alarmed the gods.

§ 12.96  He taught his son also to put on a counterfeit semblance of wings and attempt the flight of birds; but, when the feathery oarage melted, he saw him fall and splash the stormy sea with his ill-starred wings. Yielding to his sudden grief, Daedalus smote his breast, and his blows steered his flight though he knew it not. And here he raised a temple to Phoebus in gratitude for his voyage through the clouds, and here put off his daring wings."
So Virrius spoke; but Hannibal was counting up all the idle days that had passed without battle, and was ashamed of inactivity. He groaned at his failure; and looking back at the town he had besieged in vain, he sought to wreak his anger on the city of Dicaearchus. But here too his attempts were foiled, now by the sea, now by the massive stone walls and the exertions of the defenders. And, while his men laboured on and on, endeavouring to force a difficult passage through obstruction, he himself visited the strange sights which the neighbouring waters and land presented.
The nobles of Capua attended him. One explained how the hot springs of Baiae got their name, pointing out that they were named after a mariner who sailed with Ulysses. Another told how the Lucrine lake was called Cocytus in former times, and praised the road which Hercules made over the sea, when the son of Amphitryon, after mastering the Spanish herd, parted the waters asunder. A third pointed out Lake Avernus, formerly called Styx by the people, but now, under a new name, famous among healing waters.

§ 12.122  Once dreaded by birds and awful in the gloomy shade of a dark forest, it sent up a poisonous exhalation to the lowering sky; the infernal deities were worshipped there with savage rites still kept up by the cities. A swamp, not far away — legend tells that it opens a way to the river Acheron — opens up darksome abysses of stagnant water, and reveals hideous fissures in the earth, and sometimes startles the ghosts below by a flash of light. Then his guides tell Hannibal that close at hand, wrapped in gloom and sunk for long ages in subterranean mists, the city of the Cimmerians lay deep in earth under a pall of shade; and they describe the unfathomed night of that Tartarean city. Next they point to the fields that ever breathe out fire and sulphur and boiling pitch. A black steam rises from the ground; and the earth, long heated by subterranean fires, rumbles and heaves and sends up blasts from Hell into the air. Mulciber is in labour and sends forth a dread sound of hissing from his uneasy caves. At times he struggles to burst his caverns or emerge from the sea; then he sends forth a mournful and menacing rumbling and devours the torn bowels of the earth, and mutters as he undermines the crumbling mountains. Men say that the Giants whom the might of Hercules overthrew shake the earth that lies piled above them; the distant fields are scorched by their panting breath, and, whenever they threaten to burst the framework of their burden, the gods tremble. They could see Prochyte, the place appointed for savage Mimas, and Inarime in the distance, which stands above Iapetus, while he spouts forth black smoke and flame from his mutinous jaws, and seeks, if he is ever suffered to get free, to renew his war against Jupiter and the gods.

§ 12.150  They showed Hannibal Mount Vesuvius, where fire has eaten away the rocks at its summit, and the wreckage of the mountain lies all around, and the discharge of stones seeks to rival the death dealt by Etna. He saw Misenum also, which preserves the name of the Trojan who lies buried there, and Bauli, built by Hercules close by the sea. He looked with wonder at all the anger of the sea and the unrest of the land. When he had beheld all these sights, he returned to the high walls of the Pheretiades, and laid waste the Nysaean heights of Gaurus where the vine-plant flourishes luxuriantly; and from there he quickly moved his army to Nola, a colony from Cumae. Nola, situated on a plain, is easy of approach, but is surrounded by a ring of many forts, whose high ramparts prevent access to the level ground. But Marcellus, who came to aid and support them, was not the man to shelter his troops behind the forts: his object was to defend the town by striking the first blow. When he saw the Carthaginians moving like a distant cloud across the plain and advancing towards the city, he shouted out: "To arms, my men! to arms! the murderous foe is at hand!"; and as he shouted he took arms himself. As he cried aloud, his officers gathered round him in haste and fastened the general's blood-red plume to his helmet. Then his voice rang out, as he made a speedy disposition of his forces: "You, Nero, must guard the entrance of the righthand gate; and you, Tullius, pride of the Volscians, march your countrymen and the soldiers of Larinum to the gate on our left; but, when I give the word, open the gates in silence and hurl a sudden shower of missiles over the plain.

§ 12.177  I myself, when the gate is opened, shall charge into their midst and the squadrons of cavalry will follow me." While Marcellus spoke thus, the Carthaginians were trying to pull down the ramparts; and, disdaining to use ladders, they sought to breach the walls.
Everywhere the trumpets brayed, the soldiers shouted, and the horses neighed; the clarion sounded together with the deep boom of the horn; and armour rang on the bodies of the eager combatants. The gates were thrown down, a fierce attack rushed forth, and the squadrons surprised the enemy as they galloped forth in a flood. So a swollen river overflows when its dykes are broken, and so the sea is dashed upon the rocks by the force of the Northern blasts, and so the winds, when they break prison, make war on the earth. When Hannibal saw this avalanche of arms and men advancing, he lost courage and confidence. The Roman leader pressed hard on his dismay: as he rode in front, he bent down to spear the backs of the flying foe. At one time he plied his men with encouragement — "On! on! make haste! This is our hour and Heaven is favourable. Yonder lies the way to Capua." Then again he addressed Hannibal: "Stay! whither are you rushing? It is you, the leader of the host, and not your fugitive soldiers, that I blame. Stay! Here we have weapons and a field to fight on. Let the soldiers cease from slaughter and watch our single combat. I, Marcellus, challenge you to battle." Thus the Roman general spoke; and the Carthaginian was fain to fight, for honour's sake and for the prize of victory.
But Juno could not behold this scene with a mind

§ 12.202  at ease, and turned Hannibal from his purpose as he was rushing upon his doom. He strove to rally and recall his panic-stricken men; "Is this the state in which we come forth from the lap of Capua and her baleful hospitality? Stand fast, miserable men, whose fame, once so high, has become your disgrace. Believe me, if you retreat today, you will find safety nowhere. You deserve that all Italy should fall upon you; and the result of all your fierce fighting is this, that, if you are beaten now, you have lost all hope of peace and of life." His shouting drowned the trumpets, and the noise of his angry rebuke made its way through the tumult to their ears.
Young Pedianus fought bravely there in the armour of Polydamas." He claimed descent from Troy and Antenor as his ancestor; he was a worthy scion of his race, the pride of the sacred river Timavus; and his name was dear to the Euganean land. Father Eridanus, the Venetian clans one and all, and the men who rejoice in the spring of Aponus — these declared that he had no rival, either in battle or when he preferred the peaceful company of the Muses and the obscurity of a studious life, and charmed away trouble with the music of the lyre. No youth was better known to Mars, and none better known to Apollo. He was riding at full gallop on the heels of the retreating enemy, when he recognized the helmet and plume taken from Paulus after death. The wearer was young Cinyps, proud of this great gift from his general. Cinyps was the favourite of Hannibal, and the comeliest of all the host; and no face was radiant with more charm than his, like ivory which remains ever new and bright in the air

§ 12.230  of Tibur, or the jewel brought from the Red Sea which glitters in a lady's ear and dazzles the eye with its purity. When Pedianus saw him in the rearguard, conspicuous by the plume he wore, and recognized the glittering helmet, he rushed on him in fury, as if the ghost of Paulus had risen suddenly into view from the nether world, demanding his lost armour: "How dare you, meanest of cowards, to wear that sacred head-piece, which, even if your general wore it, would make men cry out against the injustice of Heaven? Behold, Paulus!" Then he called the hero's ghost to watch, while he drove his sharp spear through the ribs of the fugitive. Next he sprang from his horse, and tore away the great consul's helmet and plume; and Cinyps saw himself stripped. Death robbed him of all his beauty: a Stygian hue spread over his snow-white skin and destroyed his comeliness. His ambrosial locks were disordered; his neck gave way, and the wounded head fell forward over the marble throat. Thus the star of Venus, when it returns from Ocean and displays itself with new-spangled brightness to its mistress, grows dim if a sudden cloud comes over it, and hides its failing light, growing smaller in the darkness. Pedianus himself, when he had snatched the helmet, was struck dumb by the sight of the uncovered face, and checked his fierceness.
Then he carried off the helmet amid the loud shouts of his men, and urged on his fiery steed, which champed the foaming bit till the blood came. Marcellus, fighting fiercely, met him in the haste and confusion of battle, and recognized the glorious trophy: Well done!" he cried, "son of Antenor, and worthily of your brave ancestors! But one thing still remains: let us spoil Hannibal of his helmet." Eagerly he

§ 12.260  hurled his deadly spear, and it sped with a dreadful whizzing noise. And perhaps he would have gained his end, had not brave Gestar met the weapon and stopped it by throwing his body in the way. He stood beside his general and sheltered him; and the heavy spear, which thirsted for another's blood, pierced him through and wreaked its mighty wrath upon the wrong victim. Hannibal rode off in haste, troubled by his narrow escape from death, and galloped back in rage to the camp. And now the Carthaginian army, wholly bent on flight, turned and ran a headlong race for safety. Behind them came the Roman pursuers; and each man glutted his long-pent resentment of defeat, and each held up his bloody sword, for Heaven and the avenging deities to see. That day first proved, what none would have dared to believe, though the gods had promised it — that the Libyan leader could be withstood in battle. They seized chariots and men and elephants; they tore off the armour from living combatants and carried it away; and then they left off, content to have seen Hannibal's back at the point of their spears. Then they praised Marcellus as equal to Mars in glory; and he rode on escorted by a triumphant procession, a greater man than when after victory he bore the choice spoils to the Thunder-god's temple.
When Hannibal had with difficulty repulsed the enemy from his camp, he vented his anger thus: When can I wash away this stain, and how much Roman blood will be needed to cleanse it? Has Italy been permitted to see me turn my back? O mightiest of the gods, dost thou consider me, the victor of Trebia, worthy of such disgrace and defeat? And you, so long invincible but now, alas, defeated

§ 12.287  in peace by the luxury of Capua, / was not untrue to my past, / did not lower my victorious standards before the Romans: it was you who made me retreat. When I summoned you to arms, I saw you slink off in fear, as if I had been the Roman general. What is left of your former spirit, when you dare to turn your backs and neglect my call?" Thus Hannibal spoke; but the Roman troops went back to the walls of Nola, shouting loud and bearing their spoil with them.
And now Rome, so long accustomed to hear news of defeat to her armies, and never relieved by success, took heart again at this first sign of heaven's favour, when the news of a victory came at last. First of all, they punished for their slackness all those who had been slow to enlist and face hardship, and had concealed themselves amid the thunder of war; and next they condemned the men who had clung to life and therefore devised a trick to evade the sworn agreement made with the Carthaginians; and so the nation was cleared of that guilt. Metellus also, who had proposed to abandon Italy, was punished for his ill-advised policy and heinous crime. Such was the spirit of the men at Rome; and indeed the women were as high-hearted as the men and claimed a share of the praise. All the matrons came eagerly forward, bringing their family jewels for head or hand and ornaments torn from their necks, as a contribution for the war. Nor were the men displeased to let the women have precedence in so noble a cause and at such a crisis: they were glad to have given the opportunity for a sacrifice that will never be forgotten. The High Court of the Senate followed suit.

§ 12.315  With eager rivalry, they poured
out private wealth for public ends, rejoicing to strip their houses bare and keep back nothing for their own use in better times; and even the nameless populace were of the same mind. Thus a united Rome made use of all her members and once more raised towards heaven her sore-stricken head.
Hope, so sweet to the suffering, was also brought by the envoys who bore the answer of Apollo from Cirrha. For they reported that they had heard glad tidings at the shrine, when the divine voice thundered through the grotto, and the priestess, possessed by the god, muttered her message: "Children of Venus, dismiss from your hearts all graver fears. You have done now with defeat and all the calamities of war that were appointed for you. Lighter tasks remain, and danger, but not destruction. Only make prayer and supplication to the gods and wet their altars with warm blood. And do not run away from your troubles. Mars will help you; and the Seer of Delos himself, who, as men know, ever lightened the sufferings of Troy, will turn away imminent danger from you. But remember this: to Jupiter before other gods a hundred altars must smoke in his honour and victims must be slaughtered by a hundred knives. His power will drive the angry cloud and fierce storms of war away to Libya; and you yourselves shall see him shaking the aegis for battle in a stormy sky." And, when news came that this message had been proclaimed in the cavern of Parnassus, and the divine word reached the ears of the people, they made haste to climb the hill of the

§ 12.340  Capitol, and prostrated themselves before Jupiter, and honoured his shrine with the blood of beasts. Then they sang a paean, and prayed that the oracle might come true.
Meanwhile Torquatus, now advanced in years, was attacking the island of Sardinia, where he had fought before, with an army from Italy. For Hampsagoras, proud of the name which he had inherited from Trojan ancestors,' had invited the Carthaginians to start a fresh campaign in the island. His son Hostus was a goodly youth and worthy of a better father; and Hampsagoras, no friend to peace and devoted to barbarous customs, relied upon his son's youthful vigour and hoped by war to revive his own feeble old age. When Hostus saw Torquatus and his army coming on with speed and eager for battle, he eluded them by his knowledge of the country and fled through secret byways in the forest; and so, escaping by familiar short-cuts, he concealed himself in a wooded valley under the shade of trees.
The island of Sardinia, compassed about by the sound of the waves, is made narrow at the ends by the sea that shuts it in; and the land within its borders is irregular in shape, resembling the sole of a naked foot. Hence it was called Ichnusa by the first colonists from Greece. But afterwards Sardus, proud of his descent from the Libyan Hercules, named it anew after himself. Then some Trojans, scattered over the seas after the sack of Troy, came and settled there against their will. Iolaus, too, increased the fame of the island when he brought thither a band of Thespiadae on ships of Thespiae. Legend also tells that, when Actaeon was torn to pieces — the

§ 12.366  grievous penalty he suffered for seeing Diana while bathing — his father, Aristaeus, appalled by so strange a tragedy, fled across the sea to the bays of Sardinia, guided, it is said, by his mother, Cyrene, to this unknown land. The island is free from snakes and breeds no poisons; but the climate is gloomy and the air infected by the swamps that abound there. The side that looks toward Italy and defies the waves with its rocky cliffs is sultry; and inland the feeble crops are burnt up by excessive heat, when the South-winds blow at midsummer. But the rest of the island flourishes under the special favour of Ceres."
Such is the nature of the land, and here Hostus slipped away from Torquatus again and again through the trackless woodlands; he was hoping for a Carthaginian army and Spaniards also to help him in the fighting. As soon as he was encouraged by the landing of their ships, he burst forth at once from his concealment; and the armies, bristling with spears, faced each other, eager to come to close quarters. Spears, hurled from a distance, speed across the open space between the hosts; and at last they take to the sword, that tried and trusty weapon. Fearful carnage followed; they slay and are slain, and death by the ruthless blade overtakes man after man on either side.
I cannot hope to tell of all these countless deaths and dreadful deeds in a manner worthy so great a theme, or find words to match the ardour of the combatants; but grant me this. Calliope, in reward of my pains — that I may hand down to long ages the noble deeds, too little known, of a great man, and crown the poet's brow with the wreath he deserves. Foremost in the fight was Ennius, a scion of the ancient stock of King Messapus;

§ 12.394  and his right hand held the vine-staff, the distinguishing badge of the Roman centurion. He came from the rugged land of Calabria, and he was a son of ancient Rudiae — Rudiae which now owes all her fame to this child of hers. He fought in the van; and, even as the Thracian bard long ago dropped his lyre and hurled missiles brought from Rhodope, when Cyzicus made war upon the Argo, so Ennius had made himself conspicuous by slaying many of the enemy, and his ardour in battle grew with the number of his victims. Now, hoping to win everlasting fame by disposing of such a dangerous foe, Hostus flew at Ennius and strongly hurled his spear. But Apollo, seated on a cloud, mocked his fruitless endeavour and sent the weapon wide into the distant air. Then he spoke: "Too insolent, too bold are you: give up your design. That sacred head is dearly loved by the Muses, and he is a bard worthy of Apollo. He shall be the first to sing of Roman wars in noble verse, and shall exalt their commanders to the sky; he shall teach Helicon to repeat the sound of Roman poetry, and he shall equal the sage of Ascra in glory and honour." Thus Phoebus spoke, and Hostus was struck by an avenging arrow which pierced both his temples. Panicstricken by their prince's fall, his soldiers turned and fled, rushing all together from the field. When Hampsagoras heard of his son's death, he was distracted with rage: with hideous yells such as barbarians utter, he stabbed his own heaving breast and hastened to join his son in the nether world.
Hannibal meanwhile, beaten by Marcellus and sorely mauled in battle, had abandoned fighting in

§ 12.422  the open and turned his superior strength against hapless Acerrae. He gave the town to fire and sword, and then, hurling himself against Nuceria with as heavy a hand and as fierce an anger, razed the walls to the ground. Next came Casilinum, where he struggled long against the illmatched efforts of the defenders, till at last he gained entrance by a stratagem and granted the besieged their lives in return for gold. Then he shifted his army to the Daunian plains and turned his fury against any spot whither booty or anger drew him. Petilia, unhappy in her loyalty and a second Saguntum in her fate, was set on fire, and the smoke went up from her ruined houses; yet once she had prided herself on preserving the arrows of Hercules.
Tarentum too had gone over to the invaders, and the Carthaginians had entered her gates. But a close-packed Roman garrison was quartered in the far-shining citadel, confident in their strong position. Then Hannibal devised a wondrous plan. The Tarentine fleet was at anchor and hidden away in the harbour; for the sea bursts in through the rocks by a narrow entrance and floods an ample basin with water separated from the main. Therefore, as the ships were shut in and prevented from sailing forth by the citadel commanding the entrance, Hannibal artfully brought them out by transporting them over dry land on the side away from the citadel. A slippery surface was laid down underneath wooden wagons, and wheels, moving easily over the hides of freshly-slain bullocks, carried the ships through the meadow-land.

§ 12.447  And soon the fleet, moving on over hills and through thickets without the help of oarsmen, reached the shore and rode upon the waves.
While Hannibal startled the sea by conveying the fleet in this strange fashion, news came that filled him with a fever of anxiety. While he was far away, trying to take their town from the descendants of Oebalus and ploughing the fields for the first time in history with the beaks of ships, he heard that Capua was besieged, even her gates broken down, and her wretched inhabitants exposed to all the horrors of war. In anger he gave up his enterprise. Shame and wrath together lent him wings; he flew through the surrounding country at furious speed and rushed eagerly to the conflict, threatening vengeance. So, when a tigress has lost her cub and dashes forth in pursuit, the distracted beast traverses the whole Caucasus in a few hours and takes a flying leap over the Ganges, until her lightning speed finds the footprints of her young one; then she catches her enemy and wreaks all her fury upon him.
Centenius, foolhardy and careless in danger, faced him but was soon routed and his force dispersed. Yet Hannibal got little glory by it. For Centenius, who had once carried the vine-staff' of a Roman centurion, had hastily stirred up the country people and thrown his ill-armed levies against the foe to be destroyed. Twice seven thousand men were slain, nor did the victor halt: twice seven thousand more, fully armed, were led by Fulvius, no better skilled in war for all his famous name; and again the enemy dashed on over their prostrate bodies and refused to check the rate of their march.

§ 12.473  One thing only made Hannibal pause: seeking a reputation for humanity, he gave burial to Gracchus," though rejoicing at his death. For Gracchus, while seeking by means of a conference to gain the adherence of the false Lucanians, had been treacherously and foully slain by his host; encompassed by hidden guile he had been murdered, and Hannibal snatched at the credit of giving him burial.
But when it was known that Hannibal was hastening to Capua, no stone was left unturned. Both consuls flew to the spot, and all the forces from Nola; the younger Fabius brought his men with speed from Arpi; Nero from one quarter and swift Silanus from another urged their armies on night and day for instant battle. From all sides they assembled; and Rome was resolved to pit all her generals against that one young commander. He himself encamped aloft on Mount Tifata, the height that rises close by the walls of Capua, and looked down thence upon the city below. But now, when he saw himself surrounded by so many armies, and the city of his allies blockaded, so that it was impossible either for him to enter or for the Capuans to sally forth, he was troubled for the issue. At one time he thought of shattering every obstacle with the sword; or again he might swerve from his present purpose, and devise some stratagem to draw that great host away from the closed gates and set free the beleaguered city. Thus then he spoke to himself, and thus he turned over his anxious thoughts: "Whither does my wavering purpose summon me? Shall I face the risk again, though the lie of the land is against me? Shall I turn my back, with Capua looking on? Or shall I sit here close by on the mountain and suffer the city

§ 12.500  of my allies to be sacked before my face? That is not like me: Fabius and his Master of the Knights did not find me discomfited when I escaped triumphantly through the hills beset by Roman soldiers, and forced the cattle, by setting light to their horns, to scatter through the fields tossing fire-brands. Not yet have I lost all my cunning. If the defence of Capua is denied me, I shall find it possible to besiege Rome."
When this was settled and his mind made up, he did not wait until the Sun brought his fire-breathing steeds up from Ocean. With voice and gesture he urged his men to march, and revealed his daring design; "On, soldiers, on! with courage superior to every hardship, and increase your speed to the utmost limit of human endurance. Rome is your object. The Alps and Cannae paved the way for our present march. On with you, and dash your shields against the Roman walls, and take vengeance for the destruction of Capua. The fall of Capua is a price worth paying, if you see the Palatine Hill and the Thunder-god evicted from his abode on the Capitol."
Thus appealed to, they marched with speed. Rome rang in their ears, Rome stood before their eyes. They believed that, thanks to their general's adroitness, this enterprise was better timed than if he had led them there straight from the field so fatal to the Aeneadae. Quickly they crossed the river Vulturnus in boats; and the rearguard, in order to delay the Romans, set fire to the boats and left them useless. Then the soldiers hurried through the territory of Sidicinum, and Thracian Cales,' the abode of Orithyia, named after her son.

§ 12.526  Next they laid waste the land of Allifae, dear to Bacchus, and the country where the nymphs of Casinum dwell; and soon the speedy column passed Aquinum, and Fregellae where a buried Giant sends up smoke. On they rushed over the heights where the warlike men of Frusino cling to their rugged rocks, and where Anagnia rises on a swelling ridge, a fertile land for corn. And at last Hannibal set foot on the plains and corn-fields of Labicum and left behind the walls of Telegonus, battered by the ram already but not worth delay at such a crisis. Nor did the beauty of Algidus detain him, nor Gabii, the city of Juno. With furious speed he rushed forwards to the banks where cold Anio, gliding noiselessly, winds smoothly with sulphurous waters towards Father Tiber.
Here he proudly planted his standards and measured out his camp; and, when the banks shook beneath the trampling of his horsemen, their noise straightway drove Ilia down in fear to hide in the sacred grotto of her spouse, and all the nymphs of the stream took flight. Meanwhile the Roman women, as if the walls were already levelled, ran aimlessly to and fro in their distraction like madwomen. Their terror saw ghosts standing before them — ghosts of mangled men, who met their death by the fatal streams of Trebia and Ticinus; the bleeding forms of Paulus and Gracchus and Flaminius moved before their eyes. The streets were blocked by the crowds. But the Senators stood erect and formidable in wrath, and their grim aspect quelled the mighty panic. Yet sometimes silent tears burst forth from beneath a helmet.

§ 12.553  " What," they asked, does Fortune threaten us with, and what is the purpose of the gods?" The young men were distributed for service among the high towers, and each said to himself: It has come to this, that Rome now is content if she can but defend her walls!"
Hannibal granted his men a short night's sleep, that they might rest after their furious march. He himself kept watch; he was never willing to rest, and thought that every hour claimed by sleep was so much lost to life. He put on his shining armour and ordered his Numidian horsemen to gallop in front. Then he rode swiftly round the walls, and the trampling of the horses raised panic in the city. Now he examined the approaches, now he beat on the closed gates with angry spear and enjoyed the terror of the citizens. Or again, he stood motionless on some eminence, bending his gaze upon the city, learning the name of each spot and the origin of its name. He would have surveyed it all, and his piercing eye would have left no part unseen, had not Fulvius come up in furious haste, without entirely abandoning the siege of Capua. Then only did Hannibal, having feasted his eyes on the sight of Rome, turn his triumphant squadrons towards their camp. And, when night was banished from the sky, and the sea grew red with sunrise, and Dawn called men back to their labours, he sent his army forth from the demolished rampart, and, as he rode along, shouted with all the power of his voice: "Comrades, I adjure you by your countless laurels and your right hands consecrated by bloodshed, go forward and rival your former deeds; let your boldness in battle be as great as the fear in Roman hearts.

§ 12.580  Destroy this one obstacle, and nothing will remain in the whole world for you to conquer. Nor, though they spring from Mars, let that parentage delay your attack: you will take a city that is accustomed to be taken, a city that the Senones entered in their thousands. Perhaps the Senators are already duly seated on their high curule chairs, even as their ancestors sat, preparing for a glorious death and waiting for you to inflict it."
Thus spoke Hannibal; but the men of Rome, on their side, needed no speech or appeal from any leader. They found incentive enough in the sight of women and children, and of loved parents weeping and holding out their hands in supplication. Mothers hold up their infants and stir the eager hearts of the men by the children's cries, and imprint kisses on hands that grasp the sword. The men are eager to march and breast the enemy outside the walls in close array; and they look back at their dear ones and choke down their tears. But, when the opened gate turned on its hinges and the host sallied forth together in arms, the noise of beaten breasts, mingled with sobs and prayers, rose up over the high walls to heaven; and the matrons shrieked, baring their breasts and letting loose their hair. At the head of the army rode Fulvius. "It is an open secret," he said, "that Hannibal was no free agent when he came to attack our homes: he was driven in flight from the gates of Capua." He was about to say more, when he was interrupted by a fearful crash and loud rumbling in the sky; and a tempest burst suddenly from the clouds.
Jupiter was returning from the land of the Ethiopians to the ramparts of Romulus.

§ 12.606  At once he summoned the gods and bade them defend the Dardan city and each to take his place on the Seven Hills. He himself, raised high on the Tarpeian Mount, stirred up all his armoury — winds and clouds and angry hail, thunder and lightning and black rain-storms. The firmament was struck and trembled, darkness veiled the sky, and earth was hidden by the black robe of night. The enemy were blinded by the storm, and Rome, though close beside them, was hidden from their eyes. The flame, hurled through the clouds upon their ranks, kept roaring on, and the fire hisses against their limbs. Then the South-wind and the North, and the dark- winged South-west wind, began a war fierce enough to satisfy the anger in the breast of Jupiter. A deluge of rain came down, mingled with pitchy hurricanes and black storms, and covered all the surrounding plains with foaming waves. The Ruler of the gods, high on his hill-top, hurled a thunderbolt with his lifted arm and smote the shield of Hannibal. The general was resolved never to give way; but the point of his spear was melted, and his sword was fused, as if it had been plunged in the furnace.
But, though his weapons were scathed by the fire, Hannibal still rallied his men, telling them that the fire from heaven was blind, and the tumultuous roaring of the winds a mere empty din. At last, when his men had suffered and all heaven had come crashing down, without their seeing an enemy or an enemy's sword through the rain, he ordered a retreat to the camp, and thus revived his wrath and sorrow: "Rome, you may thank the winds and stormy

§ 12.634  weather, forsooth! for a single day's reprieve; but the morrow shall never snatch you from my grasp, not if Jupiter descends to earth in person." While he spoke thus and gnashed his teeth, behold! the heavens cleared and the sun shone out, the clouds dispersed and the sky became pure and bright. The Aeneadae recognized the hand of the god: laying down their weapons, they held their hands up humbly towards the lofty Capitol and wreathed the temple on the hill with festal laurel. Then they looked at Jupiter's face," cheerful now though bathed in sweat a little while ago: "O supreme Father of the gods," they prayed, "grant that Hannibal may be slain in battle by a bolt from heaven. No other hand has power to destroy him."
Thus they prayed and then kept silence, after Hesperus had hidden the earth beneath the shades of night. But when the sun raised his ruddy torch and hid the morning-star, and mortal men resumed the business of life, back the Carthaginians came, nor did the Roman soldiers remain in their camp. Swords were not yet drawn, and a space, only the length of a spear-cast, separated the armies, when suddenly the brightness of the sky grew dim, and thick darkness came on; daylight fled and Jupiter began to arm for battle a second time. On came the winds, and a thick mass of fiery cloud was whirled before the South-wind. Jupiter himself thundered, till Rhodope and Taurus, Pindus and Atlas, were shaken by it. The pools of Erebus heard it, and Typhoeus, hidden in deep darkness, recognized the sound of war in heaven. The South-wind attacked, driving on a pitch-dark cloud with pelting hail, and

§ 12.662  turned Hannibal about, forcing him to retreat to his camp, in spite of his reluctance and his idle threats.
But when the invader had laid down his arms and was protected by his ramparts, the skies cleared and the face of heaven smiled again: it was hard to believe that so benign a Jupiter had lately wielded bolts and vexed with his thunders a sky so peaceful. Hannibal held out: he promised and vowed that the fury of the elements would not again attack the army, if only they recovered their native valour and thought it no sacrilege for Carthage to sack Rome. Where, he asked, were the thunderbolts of invincible Jupiter hidden away, when the sword was strewing the Aetolian plain" with corpses, or when the Etruscan lake was swollen with human gore?"If the Ruler of the gods," said he, "is fighting in defence of Rome and hurling bolt after bolt from his high place, why, when he is so busy, is he unwilling to strike down me, his adversary? Are we to turn our backs, and be routed by winds and rough weather? Show once more, I entreat you, that firmness of purpose with which you resolved to fight a second war, in spite of treaties and of the covenants of our senate." Thus he sought to inflame their ardour, until the Sun loosed the foaming bits of his steeds. Night brought him no peace of mind, nor did sleep dare to visit his stormy breast; and his frenzy came back with the dawn. Once mere he summoned his frightened men to arms, and clashed on his shield with a terrible din, and rivalled with his armour the roll of thunder.
But when he heard that the Roman Senate, trusting in divine aid, had sent reinforcements to the land of the Baetis, and that the troops had started from

§ 12.689  Rome during the night, he attacked with increased violence, indignant that Rome cared so little for Hannibal and that the besieged citizens should thus take their ease. He was nearing the walls, when Jupiter addressed Juno and soothed her fears by this warning: "Spouse and sister whom I love, will you never, never check this Carthaginian youth whose insolence knows no limit? He destroyed Saguntum and levelled the Alps; he put fetters on the sacred river Po and polluted the lakes." Let that pass; but does he intend also to force his way into the habitations of the gods and into our citadels? Bring him to a halt; for, as you see, he is now calling for fire, and means to kindle flames in rivalry of my thunderbolts."
Saturn's daughter thanked him for his warning. Full of anxiety she flew down from heaven and took Hannibal by the right hand: "Madman, whither are you rushing? Are you intent on a warfare that is beyond the power of mortal man?" Thus speaking she dispersed the cloud of darkness and revealed herself in her real semblance. "You have not now to do with settlers from Troy or Laurentum. Look up and see! For I will remove the cloud for a space from your eyes and suffer you to behold all things. Where yonder peak rises high, the Palatine, so named by the Arcadian king, is held by Apollo; he makes ready for battle, his full quiver rattles, and his bow is bent. Again, where the tall pile of the Aventine rises beside the other hills, see you how the maiden daughter of Latona" brandishes torches kindled in the stream of Phlegethon, and thrusts forth her bared arms in her eagerness for battle? Then look elsewhere and see how Mars, the fierce warrior, has filled all the field named after himself.

§ 12.717  Janus from one side and Quirinus from another, each god from his own hill, come forth to war. And then behold the mighty form of Jupiter — how he shakes the aegis till it vomits forth fire and storm, and how he gluts his fierce wrath with bursts of flame Turn your face hither and dare to look at the Thunder-god. When he shakes his head, what storms, what mighty bolts you see obedient to his nod! What fire flashes from his eyes! Yield at last to Heaven, and fight no more against it like the Giants." With these words she turned him from his purpose and restored peace to earth and heaven. Though slow to learn peace and moderation, yet he was awed by the faces and fiery limbs of the immortals.
As he departed and ordered the standards to be wrenched up from the soil of the camp, Hannibal looked back and swore he would return. At once the sun in heaven shone brighter, and the quivering blue of the sky glittered in the sunlight. But when the Aeneadae from their walls saw the standards pulled up and Hannibal retreating in the distance, they exchanged looks in silence and conveyed by gestures what they dared not believe while panic still clung to their hearts: they supposed that Hannibal did not mean to depart; that this was a trick and a stratagem — an instance of Punic treachery; and mothers kept silence as they kissed their babes. But, when at last the army marched out of their sight, their fears vanished and their suspicion of a trick was lulled to rest. Then indeed they flocked to the temple on the Capitol; and, exchanging embraces, they acclaimed with mingled voices the triumph of Tarpeian Jupiter and decked his shrine with garlands.

§ 12.744  Next they threw open all the gates; and from every quarter the people came rushing with joy, seeking for pleasure that had long been beyond their hopes. Some gaze at the spot where Hannibal's pavilion had been pitched, others at the high seat whither he had summoned his army to address them, or at the camping-ground of the warlike Asturians," savage Garamantians, and fierce Ammonites. Now they bathe in the running water of the river; now they rear altars to the nymphs who haunt the Anio; and then, having purified the walls with sacrifice, they return to the rejoicing city.

§ 13.1  BOOK XIII
Slowly Hannibal marched away, and the Tarpeian hill had hardly disappeared from his sight when he turned a threatening face towards Rome and prepared to march back again. He encamped by the Tutia," a slender stream unknown to fame, which flows down noiselessly into the Tuscan river, with no banks to mar the meadowland. Here he found fault, now with the captains of the host, now with the prohibition of the gods, and now with himself. "You who raised the level of the Lydian lake with bloodshed — you who shook the land of Daunus with the thunder of your warfare, — whither are you now retreating, all courage lost? No sword-point, no lance has pierced your breast. If our mother Carthage were now to appear before you, her high head crowned with towers, what excuse could you give, soldiers, for retreating with no wounds to show? Foul weather, rain and hail together, and thunder, drove us back,

§ 13.16  dear native land.' Drive out this womanish weakness, men of Tyrian race, that prevents you from fighting unless the sky is clear and the weather fine."
Dread of the gods filled their hearts; their weapons still smelt of the lightning, and the Thundergod, the wrathful champion of Rome, was still before their eyes. Yet they had not lost the power to obey and to carry out every order they received; and the desire to carry the standards back to Rome grew stronger in the ranks and spread by degrees to the outside of the circle. So, when a pebble breaks the surface of a motionless pool, in its first movements it forms tiny rings; and next, while the water glints and shimmers under the growing force, it swells the number of the circles over the rounding pond," until at last one extended circle reaches with wide-spreading compass from bank to bank.
There was one dissenting voice. This was Dasius, the glory and the shame of Argyripa — a man of noble birth, who traced his origin to Diomedes, son of Oeneus and king of Aetolia. A wealthy man but a faithless ally, he had joined himself to fiery Hannibal, distrusting the rule of Rome. Thus he spoke, recalling the tradition of former generations: "When an army carried on a long campaign against the citadel of Troy and warfare halted bloodless before the walls, Calchas explained their difficulty. (The brave hero Diomede had kept the tale in mind and often told it, when Daunus, his father-in-law, asked to hear it over their wine.) Calchas assured the Greeks that, unless they could contrive to carry off the image of the Warrior Goddess from the shrine in the citadel that guarded it, Ilium would never yield to the army of Sparta, nor

§ 13.44  would Leda's child return to Amyclae. For the gods had decreed that no city which was ever occupied by this image could be taken by any invader. Thereupon my ancestor, the son of Tydeus, with Ulysses as his companion, made his way into the citadel, as Calchas had indicated, and slew the guards in the very porch of the temple; then they carried off the divine Palladium and threw open Troy to our conquering fortunes, with evil result. For when Diomede had founded a city within the borders of Italy, he felt uneasy because of his crime and sought by worship to appease the Trojan deity and make his peace with the household-gods of Ilium. A vast temple was already rising on the lofty citadel, a dwellingplace distasteful to the goddess from Laomedon's city, when the Maiden of Lake Tritonis appeared in her divine form amid the profound silence of the midnight, and warned him thus: "Son of Tydeus, this work of yours is not adequate to do honour to such great glory; Mount Garganus and the Daunian land are no fitting place for me. Go to the land of Laurentum, and seek there for the man who is now laying the foundation-stone of a happier Troy. Carry to him the fillets and chaste guardian-goddess of his ancestors.' Alarmed by this warning, Diomede went to the realm of Saturn. By this time the Trojan conqueror was founding another Troy at Lavinium and hanging up armour from Troy in a sacred grove at Laurentum. But when Diomede came to the stream of the Tuscan river and pitched his glittering camp on its bank, the sons of Priam trembled for fear. Then the son-in-law of Daunus held forth in his right hand a branch of silvery olive. He brought with him soldiers whose weapons glittered.

§ 13.70  as a pledge of peace, and spoke thus while the Trojans muttered in displeasure: Son of Anchises, lay aside the recollections of rage and fear. For all the sweat and blood we poured out by Xanthus and Simois, rivers of Ida, and by the Scaean gate, we are not to blame: we were driven on by the gods and the inexorable Sisters." Say, why should we not spend under happier auspices what yet remains of life? Let us join hands that grasp no swords. She whom you now behold shall be the witness of our alliance.' Thus he asked pardon of the Trojans, and displayed to their startled sight the image on the stern of his ship. When the Gauls dared to break through the walls of Rome, this goddess put a speedy end to them, and of that vast horde not a single man out of so many thousands returned in peace to the altars of his country."
By these words Hannibal was discouraged. He ordered his men to pull up the standards, and they rejoiced, being eager to depart. They marched to the spot where Feronia's temple of surpassing wealth stands in a sacred grove, and where the sacred river Capenas waters the fields of Flavina. Legend told that the treasure of the temple had never been rifled since its remote foundation, but had grown from time immemorial by means of offerings pouring in from all quarters; and gold, guarded by fear alone, had been left there for centuries. By plundering this temple, Hannibal steeped in guilt his greedy horde of barbarians, and steeled their hearts with contempt of the gods. Next it was decided to march far away, to where the fields ploughed by the Bruttians stretch out towards the Sicilian sea.
While Hannibal sadly bent his steps towards the

§ 13.95  shore near Rhegium, victorious Fulvius, having driven away the invader from his native city," brought news of disaster to the blockaded people of Capua, and prepared to put the finishing touch to their misery. He grasped the hand of every man famous in arms, and said: Fight, to repel this disgrace. Why is treacherous Capua, a second Carthage to our state, still standing, after breaking her treaty and sending Hannibal against Rome, and after her claim to hold one of the consulships? Why does she, at ease behind her lofty towers, look out for the arrival of Hannibal and his Libyan host?" His words he backed up with deeds. He made his men rear high wooden towers, to rise above the top of the walls; or again he made haste to bind together beams with clamps of iron, that he might break the tall gate-posts and batter down the barriers of defence. Here rose a mound of earth whose sides were formed of planks arranged lattice-wise; and there high mantlets, teeming with arms, showed their protected roofs. When all the devices suggested by experience were complete, he gave the word at once and bade them scale the walls by the ladders. Thus he filled the citizens' hearts with dreadful panic; and suddenly a favourable omen smiled upon his enterprise.
There was there a hind of a colour seldom seen by mortal eyes — whiter than snow and whiter than swansdown. When Capys was tracing out the walls of his city with the plough, his heart was touched by the grateful affection of this little creature which the forest had given him; he had reared it and tamed it by his kindness. Soon it lost its wild nature, coming readily to its master's table, and even fawning with pleasure when he stroked it. The

§ 13.122  matrons were accustomed to comb the gentle creature's flanks with a golden comb, and to renew its whiteness by bathing it in the river. The hind had become the deity of the city; the people believed that it had Diana for its mistress, and offered incense to it as to other deities. This animal was long-lived: it was fortunate enough to prolong a green old age through a thousand years of activity, and numbered as many centuries as the city founded by the Trojan exiles; but now death came to it at last. For a fierce pack of wolves had entered the city in the darkness of night — an evil omen in time of war — and the hind, startled by their sudden onset, had sallied forth from the gates at early dawn, and sought, in wild alarm, the fields that lay near the walls. The soldiers, delighting in the chase, caught it, and their general, Fulvius, slaughtered it as an acceptable offering to Leto's daughter," and prayed that the goddess might assist his enterprise.
Then, trusting in the goddess, Fulvius quickly moved forward the troops that surrounded the besieged city; and, at a point where the walls diverged from the straight line to make a curve, he invested them with a dense ring of assailants and penned them in like a beast in the toils. While the citizens trembled, Taurea rode forth from the gate; his helmet-plume rose high as he controlled the hot temper of his foaming steed: Hannibal himself admitted that none of his Autololes or Moors could hurl the spear in battle with as much force as Taurea. His horse was restive and refused to stand still amid the blare of the trumpets; but the rider schooled him by force, and when he saw himself within earshot of the enemy, shouted at close quarters: "Let

§ 13.149  Claudius," he cried — this Claudius was a famous I who had gained glory in a thousand battles — "let Claudius, if he has confidence in his right arm, come forth alone hither to the field, and meet me here in single combat."
The Roman, when he heard the challenge, only waited till the general's sanction gave him leave to begin; for the soldiers were forbidden, on pain of death, to fight for their own hand. When the command of Fulvius made him free to accept the challenge, he rushed forth jubilant, and rode over the open plain, sending up a billowy cloud of gathering dust. Disdaining the help of a thong or the use of a knotted strap to add force to his weapon, Taurea brandished his spear with the strength of his unaided arm. Then in furious rage he hurled his spear into the air. Far different was the purpose of the Roman: he scanned closely every part of the other's body, seeking the surest place for his point to penetrate. Now he brandished his spear, and again he checked it, and made a feint of striking; at last he pierced Taurea's shield through the centre, but the point was cheated of the blood it coveted. Then he drew his sword quickly from the sheath. And now Taurea, fleeing from imminent death, urged on his flying steed with the iron upon his heel. But the Roman was more nimble in pursuit of his retreating foe and pressed hard at full gallop upon the fugitive. Both entered the gate, the vanquished driven on by fear, and the conqueror by rage and love of glory and by thirst for the blood that was his due. The citizens could hardly believe their eyes and doubted their own senses, when they saw a single foeman gallop boldly into the town; but, while they trembled, he rode on

§ 13.177  unterrified right through the city and returned safe to his own army by the gate on the opposite side."
Then all hearts burned with equal zeal and effort to attack the walls and force their way into the town. Weapons and fire-brands flashed together. Stones were hurled in showers, and spears rose to the height of the bastions. Nor was it easy for any man to distinguish himself by valour: rage lent equal strength to every arm. Cretan arrows darted through the sky and flew on to the centre of the city. Fulvius rejoiced that there was no further need for encouragement or appeal; for one and all were eager for the fray. When he saw their high spirit, and also that each man was his own leader in action, he rushed with mighty force against the gate and sought out glorious hazards.
Three brothers of equal age guarded the gate, and each had a chosen band of a hundred men who kept watch and were stationed together. Among the brothers Numitor excelled in beauty, Laurens in speed of foot, and Taburnus in size and stature. Nor were they armed alike: one was a marvellous archer; another brandished the spear and fought with an envenomed point, distrustful of the naked steel; while the third was skilled in hurling fire-brands and lighted torches. They were like Geryon, that dread monster with triple body who is said to have lived long ago on the beach of Atlas: when he fought, his three hands plied different weapons; one hurled fierce fire, and a second, behind the first, shot arrows, while the third brandished a stout spear; and so with a single effort he inflicted three separate wounds. When the consul saw the brothers, each fighting with his different weapon, and the heap of

§ 13.207  corpses round the gate, and the gate-posts red with the blood of the attackers, he brandished his spear with furious strength and threw it. The spear, made of Italian yew, clove the air and bore with it cruel death; it pierced the body of Numitor in the side, which he had exposed while holding out his bow and raining arrows with lifted arms. But Virrius," hotheaded but of little account in battle, was not content to fight within the confinement of the walls: in his headstrong folly he opened a gate, sallied out into the plain, and exposed his hapless followers to the rage of the victorious Romans. For Scipio rushed to meet their onset and mowed down the opposing ranks, insatiable in his fury.
The shady hill of Tifata had given birth and nurture to Calenus, a fierce warrior; great was his body, and his fiery spirit as great. Often did he surprise a lion in its lair, or go to battle with head uncovered, or wrestle with a steer and force down to earth the horns of an angry bull; and often he gained glory by some desperate deed. When Virrius made his precipitate sally from the town, Calenus followed; but he wore no corslet, either because he despised its protection or to gain time; and, carrying less weight, he harassed the Romans who panted under their heavy armour, and drove them before him in defeat and disorder. Already he had run Veliternus through the belly; already he had overthrown Marius with a stone torn from the earth — Marius who was wont to tilt with Scipio, his equal in age, in mimic warfare. In his death-agony he cried to his friend for help, and the stone crushed in his open mouth. Grief doubled Scipio's strength. Even as he wept, he hurled his whizzing spear, eager that his friend

§ 13.237  should find consolation for his fall by seeing his enemy dying. Like a bird cleaving the clear sky, the spear pierced the breast of Calenus and shattered his huge frame. With such force the light Liburnian galley skims over the surface of the deep; when the oars, drawn back to the rowers' chests, strike the water in unison, she flies swifter than the winds, and a single stroke of their blades carries her further than her own length.
Volesus had quickly thrown down his shield, that he might reach the city with more speed; he overtook Ascanius who was rushing over the open plain, and cut off his head with the sword; the head lay in front of the man's feet, and then the headless body fell further on; so fast was he running. The besieged could no longer hope to defend walls already unbarred. They beat a retreat to the town, and (horrible to tell) shut out their comrades as they begged to be admitted: the hinges turned and the bolts were forcibly thrust home, when such precautions were too late. This made the Romans press their attack more fiercely against the beleaguered city. And, if black night had not thrown her robe of darkness over the earth, the eager soldiers would have broken down the gates and passed through them.
But the darkness did not bring the same rest to both armies. On one side there was untroubled sleep, such as the conqueror knows. But Capua, terrified either by piteous complaints and shrieks of the weeping women or by the laments of the troubled senators, prayed for an end to her sufferings and a limit to her hardships. Virrius, the arch-traitor, was discomfited.

§ 13.263  Expelling from his heart all desire of life, he told the assembled senate that they must not rely on Hannibal to save them. "I hoped" — so he cried aloud — that we should rule Italy; and I promised that, if Fortune and Heaven favoured the Carthaginian armies, the empire of Trojan Quirinus should be transferred to Capua. I sent a force to batter down the walls of Rome and the Tarpeian citadel; and I had the boldness to demand that one of the two consuls should be of our nation, carrying the rods of office and ranking with his colleague. I am content to have lived till now. To-night is ours: if any man would fain go down to the river of Acheron with Freedom as his companion for ever, let him come to my table and sup with me. There the wine shall spread through his frame and overpower his senses; death shall lose its sting, and he shall swallow the antidote for defeat, and disarm Fate by means of merciful poison." Thus he spoke and went back to his house, and many went with him. In the centre of the house a great pyre of oak-wood was raised, to receive them all alike after death.
The populace meanwhile were still maddened by rage and fear. Now, too late, they remember Decius and the harsh sentence of exile passed upon his noble courage. The goddess Loyalty looked down from heaven and troubled their traitorous hearts. A mysterious voice was heard and filled all the air: "Ye mortals, break not your oaths with the sword, but keep faith unstained. Loyalty outshines the purple sheen of monarchs. If a man rejoices to break his plighted word in the hour of danger, and betrays the dwindling hopes of his friend, neither his household, nor his wife, nor his life, shall ever be free from mourning and tears.

§ 13.290  Loyalty, whom he despised and wronged, shall hound him ever over land and sea, and persecute her victim day and night." Hidden in a cloud, a Fury was present now at every meeting and every meal, lying on the couches and boldly sharing the feast. In person she hands to the guests the foaming cup of deadly poison, and offers them with lavish hand the penalty of death. Meanwhile Virrius gave time to the deadly drink to reach his inmost parts; then he ascended the pyre, embraced the friends who were dying together with him, and bade the fire to be kindled at once.
Darkness was near its ending, and the conquerors came rushing on. And now the people of Capua saw Milo standing on the wall and calling to his comrades to follow. Then the gates were thrown open by the terrified citizens; and those who had lacked courage to escape punishment by death made their way with faltering steps to the hostile camp. The city stood open; the people confessed their mad folly and unbarred their houses polluted by hospitality to the Carthaginians. Women and children came flocking, and sorrowing senators, and the rabble whom none could pity. There stood the Roman soldiers, leaning on their javelins, and gazed at those men, unable to bear either prosperity or adversity, who now swept the ground with beards that covered their breasts, and now defiled their grey hairs in the dust, while, shedding unmanly tears and putting up shameful prayers for mercy, they filled the air with womanish wailings.
While the soldiers looked with wonder at such weakness, and waited eagerly for the command to raze the walls, a sudden awe, felt but not expressed, came over them, and some divine power tamed their

§ 13.318  ferocity, making them loath to hurl their fire-brands and reduce all the temples of Capua to ashes in a single conflagration. A merciful god made his way by slow degrees into their inmost hearts. Unseen by any eye, he taught them all that Capys had laid the foundations of that proud city in ancient times, and showed that it was expedient to leave human habitations for that vast extent of plain. By degrees their angry passions died down, and their violence was softened and weakened.
It was Pan whom Jupiter had sent, in his desire to save the city founded by the Trojan — Pan, who seems ever to stand on tiptoe, and whose horny hoof leaves scarce any print upon the ground. His right hand plays with a lash of Tegean goat-skin and deals sportive blows among the holiday crowd at the cross-ways. Pine-needles wreathe his locks and shade his temples, and a pair of little horns sprout from his ruddy brow. He has pointed ears, and a rough beard hangs down from his chin. He carries a shepherd's crook, and the soft skin of a roe-deer gives a welcome covering to his left side. There is no cliff so steep and dangerous, but he can keep his balance on it like a winged thing, and move his horny hoofs down the untrodden precipice. Sometimes he turns round and laughs at the antics of the shaggy tail that grows behind him; or he puts up a hand to keep the sun from scorching his brow and surveys the pasture-lands with shaded eyes. Now, when he had duly done the bidding of Jupiter, calming the angry passions of the soldiers and softening their hearts, he went swiftly back to the glades

§ 13.345  of Arcadia and to Maenalus, the mountain that he loves; on that sacred height he makes sweet music far and wide with his melodious pipe, and all the flocks from far away follow it.
Then, when the Roman general ordered that the gates should not be fired and the walls should be left standing — such moderation did him honour — the soldiers put away swords and fire-brands. From the temples of the gods and from houses glittering with gold, booty was brought forth in abundance, and all the appliances of luxurious living, and the delights that had brought ruin to their possessors — womanish garments stripped from the backs of men, tables imported from foreign lands, and cups whose orient pearls whetted the taste for extravagance. Of silver plate there was no end, and there was heavy gold plate also, embossed with carving and intended only for feasts. There were long processions of slaves everywhere; and money enough to carry on a protracted war was taken from private houses; and the hordes of menials who had waited at the banquets of the rich were past counting.
When Fulvius sounded the recall and stopped the plundering of the houses, he spoke from his lofty seat, a zealous rewarder of brave deeds: "Milo, son of Lanuvium, whom Juno the Preserver gave to us, receive now the decoration which Mars confers on the conqueror, and bind your brows with the turrets of the mural crown." Then he summoned those of the nobles whose guilt marked them out as the first victims, and punished their crime as it deserved by the headsman's axe.

§ 13.369  But here Taurea, brave in defiance — I cannot think it right to conceal a noble deed, even if done by an enemy — shouted out in anger: "Will you take with the steel the life of one greater than yourself, and take it with impunity? Shall the lictor do your bidding and lay the severed head of a hero before the feet of cowards? Never shall Heaven give this power to the Romans." Then, fronting his judge with a fierce stare and a frenzied laugh, he drove his trusty sword instantly through his own breast. Fulvius answered him thus: "Die with your country and share her fall! Mars will judge each of us, for courage and for bravery in battle. You, if you thought it beneath you to submit to just punishment, might have met death in battle."
While Capua thus atoned with blood for her fatal error, meanwhile cruel Fortune, who deals out sorrow and joy together, had slain the two Scipios on Spanish territory — once the boast of their country and now her grief. It chanced that young Scipio was then resting in the city of Dicaearchus. Fighting was over, and he was revisiting his home, when rumour brought him bitter tears to shed for the untimely death of his kinsmen. Though it was not his wont to yield to misfortune, he beat his breast now and rent his garments in the violence of his grief. No efforts of his friends, no regard for his high station and military command, could restrain him: his love raged against the cruelty of Heaven and refused all consolation. Day followed day, and was spent by him in lamenting. The faces of his lost kinsmen were ever present before his eyes. Therefore he determined to call up the dead, the spirits of his dear ones, and to soothe his great grief by speech with them.

§ 13.397  He was encouraged by the nearness of that swamp, where the stagnant water of Acheron marks the unsightly descent to Avernus. He was eager to learn at once the secrets of the future.
Thus young Scipio bent his steps to Cumae, where Autonoe then ruled, as Apollo's priestess, the sacred tripods and grotto; and to her he revealed the purpose of his sad heart, and asked to see his kinsmen face to face. The priestess did not tarry long: "It is customary," she said, "to slay black-fleeced sheep before the dawn, as offerings to the dead in their graves, and then to bury in an open trench the blood that flows from the throats of the still living victims. Then the pale kingdoms will render up their inhabitants to your view. As to your further demands, a greater priestess than I shall answer you. For I will summon up a response all the way from the Elysian Fields, and will permit you to see at your sacrifice the shade of that ancient Sibyl who declares the mind of Apollo. Up, then! and when dewy night has moved past her middle point, then purify yourself and go to the neighbouring gorge of Avernus and take with you the animals I have named, as a sacrifice to soften the stony heart of Pluto. Take honey also with you and an offering of unmixed wine."
Encouraged by this advice and by the name of the priestess whose aid was promised him, Scipio made ready in secret the prescribed victims. Then, when night in her course had reached the hour appointed and the darkness past was equal to the darkness yet to come, he rose from his bed and went to the stormy entrance of the gate to Tartarus, where the priestess, faithful to her word, was sitting in the deep recess of the Stygian grotto.

§ 13.424  Then, where the earth begins to part and the hollow hateful to heaven opens up, while its wide mouth pants and belches forth acrid air from the marsh of Cocytus, she led him on and bade him hasten to dig a trench in the earth with his sword and slay the victims in due order; and with quick-drawn breath she muttered mystic words. First of all, a black bull was offered to the Invisible King, and next an unmated heifer to the goddess of Henna. Lastly, chosen sheep with woolly fleeces were slain in honour of Alecto and of Megaera, the Fury who never smiles. And over them honey was poured, with an offering of wine and milk. "Stand firm, young man," she cried, "and endure the sight of those who are rising from all Erebus. I see all Tartarus approaching, and the Third Kingdom of the world presents itself to our sight. Lo, shapes of all kinds come flocking, and all mankind who have been born and have died since the primal chaos; soon you shall see everything — Cyclopes and Scylla, and the Thracian horses that fed on human flesh.- Fix your gaze firmly upon them all, and grasp your drawn sword undaunted. If any spirits press forward to drink of the blood before the form of the chaste Sibyl advances, hew them in pieces. But meantime look at yonder unburied ghost which comes quickly hither and desires to have speech with you. Until the funeral fire has consumed his body, he is permitted to speak as he was wont, without tasting of the blood." Scipio looked at him, and was appalled by the sudden sight: Great leader," he said, "what mishap has robbed

§ 13.451  your suffering country of your aid, at a time when cruel war calls for such men as you? For Appius need yield to no man either in valour or in craft. Ten times has the dawn returned since I came back from Capua and saw you under cure for your wounds; and you regretted nothing, except that your wounds prevented you from approaching the walls of the city and sharing the glory of victory." The general answered: "It was only one day later that the pleasant sight of the sun's coursers was taken from me on my sickbed, and I sank for ever in the dark stream of death. But the piety of my friends is slow to act, and seeks to observe the meaningless rites and customs of the people; hence they delay to burn my body, meaning to carry it far away to the tomb of my fathers. Therefore I entreat you by our rivalry in feats of arms, keep away from me those drugs which preserve the body from corruption, and suffer my wandering spirit to enter Acheron without delay."
And Scipio replied: "Noblest scion of ancient Clausus, no business of my own (and I have heavy tasks to perform) shall take precedence of your request. All over the world the practice is different in this matter, and unlikeness of opinion produces various ways of burying the dead and disposing of their ashes. In the land of Spain, we are told (it is an ancient custom) the bodies of the dead are devoured by loathly vultures. When a king dies in Hyrcania, it is the rule to let dogs have access to the corpse. The Egyptians enclose their dead, standing in an upright position, in a coffin of stone, and worship it; and they admit a bloodless spectre to their banquets. With the peoples of the Black Sea it is the custom to empty the skull by extracting the brain and to preserve the embalmed body for centuries.

§ 13.478  The Garamantes, again, dig a hole in the sand and bury the corpse naked, while the Nasamones in Libya commit their dead to the cruel sea for burial. Then the Celts have a horrid practice: they frame the bones of the empty skull in gold, and keep it for a drinking-cup. The Athenians passed a law, that the bodies of all who had fallen in battle in defence of their country should be burnt together on a single pyre. Again, among the Scythians the dead are fastened to tree-trunks and left to rot, and time at last is the burier of their bodies."
While thus they spoke, the ghost of the Sibyl approached, and Autonoe bade them stop their discourse: "Here," she said, "here is the priestess, the fountain of truth; to her so much is revealed that Apollo himself would not claim to know more. The time has come for me to depart in company with your band of followers, and place the victims upon the fire."
But when the ancient dame of Cyme, that depository of hidden things, had tasted with her lips the blood of the victims, she gazed on the goodly face of the young hero: "While yet I enjoyed the light of heaven," she said, "my voice was not silent but rang out to the nations from the cave of Cyme. And then I prophesied of you and your part in the future fortunes of the Roman people. But your nation did not give due heed to my sayings. For your ancestors lacked the wit to collect or preserve my oracles. But mark me now, my son, and you shall learn, since you would fain know it, your own destiny and the destiny of Rome that depends on yours. For I see that you are eager to learn from

§ 13.506  me a forecast of your life, and to have sight of your kinsmen's ghosts. Trusted with command before the proper age, you shall be victorious in battle on the Ebro, and shall avenge your sire; with the sword you shall put an end to the rejoicing of the Carthaginians; and, when you have conquered the Carthage in Spain, you will welcome the conquest as an omen for the war. Then you will be chosen for a higher office; and Jupiter will continue to watch over you until he has driven all the invaders back to Africa and himself brought Hannibal to be conquered by you. Shame on the unjust citizens, who will deprive of home and country a hero who has done such things!" Thus spoke the prophetess and was turning her steps to the dark pools of Hades.
Then Scipio said: "However hard the lot in life assigned me, I shall struggle to overcome it; the consciousness of innocence is all I ask. But, famous Maiden, since the purpose of your life was ever to help mankind in their troubles, I entreat you to stay your steps a while, that you may name the spirits of the speechless dead and reveal to me the dreadful abode of Hades."
She consented, but said: The realm you seek to see is not one to be desired. The countless generations of past ages dwell here in darkness and flit through the shadows. For all alike there is but one habitation. In the midst there is a vast extent of empty space; and down hither, driven by one common doom, come all things — whatever has been born of earth or sea or the fiery air since the beginning of the world; and the barren plain has room for all the dead and for those who have yet to be born. Round this realm there are ten gates.

§ 13.532  One of these admits warriors, men born to endure war's hardships; the second opens to those who made laws and famous statutes for their nations, and were the first to found walled cities; the third admits honest countryfolk dear to Ceres, who come down to Hades untouched by the poison of unfair dealings. The next gate is reserved for those who discovered fine arts and a civilized way of life, and uttered poems which their father, Phoebus, need not despise. The next, called the gate of shipwreck, lets in those whom winds and fierce storms destroyed. The sixth gate opens wide for the multitude who are oppressed by sin and confess their guilt; close by the entrance sits Rhadamanthus and demands penalties and punishes unsubstantial death. The seventh gate is unbarred for the companies of women, and here chaste Proserpina tends her dewy groves. The next gate is known for the crying of infants; and hither come a multitude of babes who died on the threshold of life, and maidens whose wedding-torches lighted their funerals instead. Next, in a place apart and radiant with gloom dispersed, stands a shining portal which leads to the Elysian Fields by a secret shady path; and here dwell the righteous, not in the realm of Hades nor under the cope of heaven, but, beyond the Ocean stream and hard by a sacred spring, they drink the water of Lethe and forget their past. Last is the tenth gate; glittering with gold, it enjoys the privilege of light and shines as if the moon's disk were close beside it. By this gate souls rise again to heaven and, after the lapse of five thousand years, enter new bodies and forget Pluto. Here pale Death, with her hideous jaws agape, paces to and fro continually and wanders from gate to gate.

§ 13.562  Then there lies stretching far and wide a lifeless morass, with no creature to be seen, and muddy pools. Here fierce Phlegethon burns its banks with overflowing stream and rolls along fiery rocks, resounding with a roaring blast of flame. Elsewhere Cocytus rushes down, raving with eddies of black blood and foaming as it flows. Next is the Styx, by which the high gods and even the king of the gods deign to swear; dreadful with its stream of pitch, it carries down sulphur and steaming mud together. Acheron, more terrible than these, seethes with venom and clotted poison, and spouts up icy sand with a rumbling noise, as its black current goes slowly down through the stagnant pools. From this foul stream Cerberus drinks with more than one mouth; this is the drink of Tisiphone also, and black Megaera thirsts for it, though no draught can slake her fury. Last of all, a river of tears takes its rise before the entrance to the ruler's palace and the threshold that no prayers can soften. How great a company of terrible shapes keep watch and have their abode in the courtyard, terrifying the dead with the noise of their mingled voices! Consuming Grief is there, and Leanness which waits upon sore disease; and Sorrow that feeds on tears, and bloodless Pallor; Remorse and Treachery are there; here is querulous Old Age, and there Jealousy which strangles herself with both hands; and Poverty, an unsightly plague that leads men to crime; Error, with staggering gait, and Discord that delights to confound sea with sky. There sits Briareus, ever accustomed to open the gates of Pluto with his hundred hands; and the Sphinx whose maiden mouth is stained with human blood; and

§ 13.590  Scylla and the fierce Centaurs, and the ghosts of the Giants. Cerberus is here; when he bursts his bonds and moves through Tartarus, not even Alecto or Megaera, the mother of madness, dares to face the savage hound, when, after snapping a thousand chains, he bays and twines round his loins his snakelike tail.
" On the right hand, a great yew-tree spreads its foliage and leafy arms; and the running water of Cocytus refreshes its growth. Here birds of ill omen dwell — vultures who feed on carrion, troops of owls, and screech-owls with blood-spotted plumage; and Harpies have their nests here and cling in clusters to every leaf: the tree resounds with their harsh cries.
" Surrounded by these shapes and sitting on a lofty throne, the husband of Avernian Juno tries guilty kings. They stand before him in chains and repent of their crimes too late before their judge: Furies and Penalties in every shape hover round. How great now their regret that they ever held the glittering sceptre of tyranny! Those who in life suffered undeserved and unjust punishment from them now mock their harsh rulers; and the complaints they could not utter in life they have leave at last to express. Then one of them is bound upon a rock with fetters of iron, and another pushes a stone up a steep mountain, and a third is for ever lashed by Megaera with her scourge of snakes. Such are the penalties in store for death-dealing tyrants. But it is time for you to look on your mother's face; her ghost is the first to come, and comes with speed."
Pomponia now stood near. The secret love of Jupiter had made her Scipio's mother.

§ 13.616  For, when Venus learnt that the arms of Carthage were rising against Rome, she strove to anticipate the wiles of Juno, and entrapped her father's heart with a slowspreading flame. But for this foresight, a Carthaginian virgin would now be kindling the altars of Ilium. So, when the ghost had tasted of the blood and the Sibyl had informed her and suffered the pair to recognize one another, Scipio thus began: "Dear mother, as sacred to me as a mighty god, how gladly would I even have died and so entered the Stygian darkness, for a sight of you! What a lot was mine! The first day of my life was a day of disaster that snatched you from me and laid you in the grave." His mother replied: "My son, no suffering attended my death: when I was delivered of the divine burden I carried, the god born on Cyllene conducted me with gentle hand by the command of Jupiter and gave me a place of equal honour in Elysium, where Leda and the great mother of Alcides are permitted by the god to dwell. But mark me, my son, and at last you shall learn what I am permitted to disclose — the secret of your birth; then no wars will affright you, and you may be confident of rising to heaven by your achievements. It chanced that I was alone at midday, enjoying the sleep that my weariness required, when suddenly I was clasped in an embrace — no common and familiar union, as when my husband came to me; and then in radiant light, though my halfclosed eyes were full of sleep, I saw — doubt me not — I saw Jupiter! Nor was I deceived by the god's disguise; for he had changed himself into a serpent covered with scales and drew his coils after him in huge curves. But I was not permitted to live on after my delivery.

§ 13.647  What grief was mine, that my spirit departed before I could tell you these things!" Hearing this, Scipio strove eagerly to embrace his mother; but thrice the unsubstantial ghost eluded his grasp.
Her place was taken by the spirits of his father and his uncle — a pair of loving brothers. Scipio rushed through the gloom, seeking to embrace them; in vain, for the spirits he was fain to clasp were like mist or drifting smoke. "Beloved father, what god so hated Latium that he carried off you, the pillar of Roman rule? Alas! why was I ever unfeeling enough to be absent one moment from your side? I might have thrown myself in front of you and died in your stead. How sorely all Italy mourns for your deaths! By decree of the Senate, a double tomb is now rising in your honour on the grassy Field of Mars." They suffered him to say no more: even while he spoke, thus they began reply. His father's ghost spoke first: "Virtue is indeed its own noblest reward; yet the dead find it sweet, when the fame of their lives is remembered among the living and oblivion does not swallow up their praises. But make haste, glorious scion of our house, and tell how great is the burden of war you are now bearing. Alas, how often dread comes over me, when I remember your fiery onset in the face of great peril! I entreat you, my hero, bear in mind what brought us two to our deaths, and control your ardour in battle. Be warned by the experience of your kinsmen. The eighth summer was thrashing the rattling ears of ripe corn; eight years had passed since I had set my foot on the neck of all Spain and my brother had conquered the land and made it pass beneath the yoke. We rebuilt hapless Saguntum and gave her new walls;

§ 13.676  we made it possible to drink the water of the Baetis and fear no foe; again and again we forced the invincible brother of Hannibal to retreat. But, alas, barbarians are ever foul traitors. Hasdrubal was crippled by defeat, and I was in victorious pursuit of him, when suddenly the Spanish cohorts, a mercenary rabble whom Hasdrubal had enslaved to Libyan gold, broke their ranks and deserted our standards. Thus left in the lurch by our allies, we were far inferior in number to the enemy; and they formed a dense ring round us. We died not unavenged, my son: we played the man on that last day and ended our lives in glory."
Then his brother added the story of his own death: "When all was over and I was hard beset, I sought the protection of a lofty tower and fought my last battle there. Smoking torches and a thousand fire-brands were hurled at the building, and the conflagration spread far. I have no grudge against the gods on the score of my death: by them my limbs were consigned for burning to no humble sepulchre, and I kept my armour in death. But I grieve to think that, after the disaster that brought me and my brother low, Spain may have yielded under pressure to the attacks of Carthage."
The young man answered, and his face was marred with weeping: "Ye Gods, I pray that Carthage may be punished as she deserves for such doings. But the fierce tribes of the Pyrenees are now held in check by Marcius, a famous warrior who proved his worth in your army; he protected our defeated forces and carried on the war; report even said that the Carthaginians had been routed in a battle and paid the penalty for your death." Cheered by these tidings,

§ 13.703  the generals went back to the pleasant places of the blest, while the young man gazed after them as they went, and worshipped them.
Next Paulus came, hard to recognize in the dim light, and drank of the blood, and spoke thus: "Bright star of Italy, whose martial feats, too great by far for a single arm, these eyes beheld, who forces you to descend into darkness and to visit this realm where those who enter must dwell for ever?" Scipio spoke thus in answer: "O mighty captain, how long did all Rome mourn your death! How nearly you carried down the Roman city in your fall to Stygian darkness! Also the Carthaginian, our foe, built a tomb for your dead body and sought to gain glory by honouring you." While Paulus shed tears to hear of his burial by the enemy, Flaminius came in sight, and Gracchus, and the sad face of Servilius who fell at Cannae. Scipio was eager to call them by name and converse with them; but his strong desire to look on the heroes of the past carried him away.
He saw Brutus who gained eternal fame by the merciless axe, and then Camillus, peer of the gods in glory, and Curius next who never welcomed gold. The Sibyl revealed to him their faces and names as they came up. "This blind man drove Pyrrhus from his door and spurned the king's dishonest overtures for peace; that other withstood the king who attacked the Tiber banks, and, when the bridge was broken down behind him, kept out the returning tyrants by his valour, single-handed. If you desire to see the man who concluded the peace after

§ 13.730  the first war with Carthage, here Lutatius stands, the famous conqueror whose fleet won the great seabattle. If you wish to look also on the ghost of fierce Hamilcar, yonder he moves — you can see him I in the distance — and his frown is not relaxed even by death but still retains its fierce resentment. If you would fain converse with him, suffer him to taste the blood and speak." When leave was given and the thirsty ghost had drunk his fill, Scipio thus began to reproach him, frowning upon him: "Is this the way, O father of lies, that Carthage keeps her treaties? Is this the compact you made when a prisoner in Sicily? Your son, breaking all covenants, is waging war all over Italy; he has burst all barriers and fought his way over the Alps, and is upon us; all the land is ablaze with barbarous warfare, and our rivers run backwards, choked with corpses." The Carthaginian answered: "Hannibal had hardly completed his tenth year when he vowed at my bidding to make war against Rome; and he may not deceive the gods by whom his father swore. But if he is now laying Italy waste with fire and striving to destroy her power, then I hail him as my true son, dutiful to me and faithful to his oath; and I pray that he may regain the glory that we lost." Then, with head held high, Hamilcar departed in haste; and his ghost seemed taller as it went away.
Next the priestess pointed out the men who held the sword and, in answer to their demand, gave laws to the people; they were the first to borrow statutes from the shore of the Piraeus and blend them with the laws of Italy. Scipio saw the decemvirs with gladness and could not gaze long enough at them; he would have addressed them all, but the great

§ 13.757  priestess reminded him that the number of ghosts was infinite. "How many thousands, my son, do you suppose have come down to Erebus from all the world, while you look at this and that? Every moment an overflowing torrent of the dead is driven hither, and Charon ferries the host across in the roomy bark that cannot hold them all, despite its size." Then the priestess pointed to a young man and spoke thus: "That is he, who ranged in arms over every land, who found a way through Bactra and the Dahae, and drank of the Ganges — the Macedonian who threw a bridge over the Niphates, and whose city, named after himself, stands on the sacred Nile.' The Roman addressed him thus: "O true-born son of Libyan Ammon, since your undisputed fame eclipses that of all other commanders, and my heart is fired with the same thirst for glory, tell me the path by which you rose to your proud eminence and the topmost pinnacle of achievement." Alexander made answer: "Cunning and caution disgrace a general. Boldness is the way to win a war. Valour without speed has never risen triumphant over danger. When there is great work to be done, do it instantly; dark death hovers over your head while you are acting." Thus he spoke, and departed. Next the ghost of Croesus flitted up; in the upper world he was rich, but death had set him on a level with beggars.
And now Scipio saw a figure moving along the Elysian path, whose hair rippled over his shining shoulders and was duly confined by a purple fillet. "Say who is this. Maiden," he asked; "for his sacred brow shines with a light beyond compare, and many souls follow him and escort him with cries of wonder and delight.

§ 13.784  What a countenance is his! Were he not in the darkness of Hades, I should have said confidently that he was a god." "You are right," answered the wise handmaid of Trivia ; "he deserved to seem divine; a great genius dwelt in his mighty mind. His poetry embraced earth and sea, the sky and the nether world; he rivalled the Muses in song and Apollo in glory. All this region also, before he ever saw it, he revealed to mortals; and he raised the fame of Troy to heaven — Troy the mother of Rome." Scipio gazed with joyful eyes at the ghost of Homer and said: "If Fate would suffer this poet now to sing of Roman achievements, for all the world to hear, how much deeper an impression the same deeds would make upon posterity, if Homer testified to them! How fortunate was Achilles, when such a poet displayed him to the world! The hero was made greater by the poet's verse."
When Scipio asked who pressed forward in such crowded ranks, he was told that they were the spirits of heroes and the mighty among the dead. He marvelled at Achilles the invincible and gigantic Hector; the vast stride of Ajax and the reverend face of Nestor moved his wonder; he looked with delight at the two Atridae and the Ithacan, as great in counsel as Achilles in battle. And next he saw the shade of Castor, Leda's son; he would soon return to life; and Pollux now was spending his turn of life in the upper world.
But suddenly Lavinia was pointed out to him and attracted his gaze. For the Sibyl warned him that it was time to review the ghosts of women; for, if he delayed, dawn might summon him to depart.

§ 13.809  She was happy as the daughter-in-law of Venus, and the offspring of her marriage bound Trojans and Latins together for all time to come. Would you see also the consort of Quirinus, the son of Mars? Yonder is Hersilia. When the neighbour nation despised such unkempt suitors in days gone by, she was carried off by a shepherd-bridegroom and entered his hut, and lay well pleased upon his bed of straw, and forced her kinsmen to throw down their arms. See where Carmentis moves; she was the mother of Evander, and her prophecies hinted at this present war. Would you look also on the face of Tanaquil? Chaste of heart, she too had the gift of prophecy, and foretold the kingly rule of her husband, recognizing the favour of heaven in the flight of a bird. Next see Lucretia, famous for her death, the glory of Roman chastity; her face and eyes are fixed upon the ground. Not long, alas, was Rome permitted to enjoy this boast which ought to be preferred to any other. Beside her see Virginia; her bleeding breast still shows the wound — the sad record of maidenhood defended by the sword — and she still approves of her father's hand that struck the piteous blow. Yonder is Cloelia, the maiden who stemmed the Tiber and stopped the Etruscan army, triumphing over her sex; ancient Rome prayed to have sons as brave as she." Then a sudden sight appalled Scipio, and he asked who was the guilty shade and why she was punished. The priestess answered; "This is Tullia; she crushed her father's body beneath her chariot-wheels, and pulled the reins till she halted above his quivering features; therefore she floats on the burning stream of Phlegethon and will never

§ 13.836  come to an end of her suffering: the water rushes madly forth from dark furnaces, bringing up calcined rocks to the surface and lashing her face with burning stones. That other, whose heart-strings are gnawed by an eagle's beak, — hark to the sound of flapping wings with which the armour-bearer of Jove returns to its meal, — is Tarpeia, a maiden guilty of a monstrous crime. She loved gold, and for its sake betrayed the citadel to the enemy, and opened the gates to the Sabines who had promised to reward her. Near her — do you not see } no venial crimes are punished here — Orthrus, who once guarded the cattle of the Spanish monster, is barking at a victim with famished throat, biting and tearing out her inward parts with his filthy claws. Yet her punishment is not equal to her crime: a priestess of Vesta," she profaned the shrine by losing her maidenhood. But enough, enough, of all these sights."
Soon she added: "I purpose now to end by pointing out to your view a few of the spirits who are drinking forgetfulness here, and then I shall go back to the darkness. Here is Marius, soon to ascend to the upper world; from small beginnings he will rise to hold power for long as consul. Nor can Sulla put off compliance with the summons, or drink long of the river of oblivion. Life calls for him, and the destiny which no god may alter. He will be the first to seize supreme power; but, criminal as he is, he can boast that he alone will surrender it; and no man who rises to such greatness will ever be willing to follow the example of Sulla. That comely head which the world loved is the head of Magnus, with its fleece of hair rising from the forehead; the

§ 13.863  other, whose high head is crowned with a star, is Caesar, the offspring of gods and the descendant of Trojan lulus. When these two at last break forth from their seclusion in Hades, what fearful disorder they will stir up on land and sea! Alas, unhappy men, how often will you wage war over the whole earth! And the victor will pay no less dearly for his crimes than the vanquished."
Scipio answered weeping: "I grieve at the harsh destiny in store for the Roman state. But, if there is no forgiveness in the land of darkness and death itself is justly punished, how shall Hannibal suffer enough for his treachery? Will the waters of Phlegethon serve to burn away his sin, or will some bird tear with its beak for ever his body for ever renewed?" "Fear not," cried the priestess: no life of untroubled prosperity shall be his; his bones shall not rest in his native land. For all his strength will be broken in a great battle; he will suffer defeat and stoop to beg for his life; and then he will try to wage a fresh war with the armies of Macedon. Condemned as a traitor, he will leave his faithful wife and darling son behind him, abandon Carthage, and flee across the sea with a single ship. Next he will visit the rocky heights of Mount Taurus in Cilicia. Ah, how much easier men find it to bear cold and heat and hunger, bitter slavery and exile, and the perils of the sea, rather than face death! After the war in Italy he will serve a Syrian king," and, cheated of his hope to make war against Rome, he will put to sea with no certain destination, and at last drift idly to the land of Prusias, where, too old to fight any more, he will suffer a second slavery and find a hiding-place by the king's favour.

§ 13.891  At last, when Home persists in demanding the surrender of her foe, in hasty stealth he will swallow a draught of poison, and free the world at last from a longenduring dread."
Thus the priestess spake, and returned to her dark cavern in Erebus; and Scipio went back joyfully to his comrades in the harbour.

§ 14.1  BOOK XIV
Turn your song now, ye goddesses of Helicon, to the sea of Ortygia and the cities of the Sicilian coast. Such is your toilsome task — to visit now the Daunian realm of the Aeneadae and now the harbours of Sicily, or to traverse the land of the Macedonians and the country of Greece, or to dip your wandering feet in the sea of Sardinia, and to behold either the reed-huts once ruled by Carthage, or the World's End where the sun goes down. War waged in many separate lands requires this of us. Come, then, let us follow whither the trumpets and the wars summon us!
The Isle of Three Capes is a large fragment of Italy. It has lain there ever since, battered by the fury of winds and waves, and pushed forth by Neptune's trident, it let in the sea.

§ 14.14  For long ago the main, with the invisible force of a tornado, dashed itself unseen against the bowels of the land and tore it apart; then rushing over the fields in full flood, it uprooted whole cities with their inhabitants and carried them to a distance. From that time the fast-running tide maintains the separation, and its fierceness forbids those thus parted to come together again. But the space between the severed lands is so small that, as the story goes, the barking of dogs and early crowing of cocks can be heard across the water; so narrow is the strait. The soil of the island has many virtues. Here it gives a rich return to the plough, and there the hills are shady with olive-trees; its vines are famous, and it breeds swift horses, fit to endure the sound of the war-trumpet; nor is the nectar of Hybla inferior to the honeycombs of Athens. Here you will admire healing springs, whose sulphur waters have secret virtue; and here you will marvel at the utterance of mighty poets, bards worthy of Apollo and the Muses, who make the sacred groves re-echo with song and Helicon resound with the Muse of Syracuse. The Sicilians are ready of tongue; but also, when they made war, they often adorned their harbours with trophies won by victories at sea.
The first rulers of the island were the Cyclopes and cruel Antiphates; and next the virgin soil was ploughed by the Sicani, who came from the Pyrenees and named the uninhabited country after a river of their native land. Then Siculus led a band of Ligurians into the island, and conquered it, and once more changed its name. Nor was the land disgraced by settlers from Crete, whom Minos, when he sought

§ 14.41  punish Daedalus, brought forth from his hundred cities to suffer defeat. For, when Minos, slain by the horrid treachery of the daughters of Cocalus, went down to everlasting darkness to sit in judgement there, his war-wearied army settled in Sicily. Then two Trojans, Acestes and Helymus, brought in a Phrygian stock; they had followers with them and gave their own names to the cities they built — names that were to last for ages. The walls of Zancle too are not unknown to fame; for Saturn made it famous when he laid down his sickle there. But the land of Henna can boast nothing more beautiful than the city which has built herself a name from the Isthmus of Sisyphus, and outshines all the other cities by reason of its Corinthian inhabitants. Here Arethusa welcomes her loved Alpheus to her waters abounding in fish, when he comes bearing trophies from the sacred games.
But the Fire-god, no friend to Sicily, loves to dwell in her hollow caverns. Thus Lipare, whose interior is devoured by huge furnaces, vomits forth sulphurous smoke from its hollow summit. Then Etna belches forth the noise of her pent-up fire from her tottering cliffs; night and day alike she rages like an angry sea with unceasing thunder-roll and muffled roaring. A torrent of flame wells forth, as if from the fatal stream of Phlegethon, and hurls out a pitchy shower of red-hot stones from its molten depths. But, though the interior of Etna boils over with an inexhaustible storm of flame, and though fresh fire is constantly generated below and streams

§ 14.66  forth, yet — marvellous to tell — the mountain-top is white and harbours ice and flame side by side. The burning peaks are stiff with perpetual frost, eternal winter lies on the lofty summit, and hot snow is hidden beneath black ashes.
I need not mention the realm of Aeolus, where the winds are at home and the storms are kept in prison. On the South coast Pachynus stretches far towards the Peloponnese, and its rocks reply to the Ionian waves that dash against them. On the West famous Lilybaeum faces Libya and its fierce Westwinds, and sees the Scorpion sink down. And lastly Pelorus, the third headland of Sicily, the Northeast coast, turns toward Italy, prolonging its stony ridge to the sea, and raising high its mountain of sand.
During a long life a kindly ruler had governed the island with gentle sway. Hiero had power to rule his people in peace, and harassed his subjects with no terrors; he was slow to violate a pledge sanctioned by oath, and had for many years kept unstained the tie of alliance with Rome. But when the Fates laid him low with old age and decrepitude, the sceptre passed in a fatal hour to his youthful grandson, and the peaceful palace admitted a prince of unbridled passions. The young man's head — he was not yet sixteen — was turned by his elevation to the throne; he could not support the burden of his crown and trusted overmuch to transient prosperity. Thus in a short time, while his crimes were protected by the sword, right disappeared and wrong in every form was rife; decency was the last thing that the monarch thought of; and his headlong passions were
years old, and was succeeded by his grandson, Hieronymus, a boy of fifteen.

§ 14.94  heated by his mother's descent from Pyrrhus, and by his noble ancestry, the Aeacidae and Achilles immortalized in poetry. Therefore he was in eager haste to further the designs of Carthage; nor did he postpone his crime but made a new treaty at once, stipulating that Hannibal, having conquered Rome, should withdraw from Sicily. But retribution was at hand, and the Fury denied him a grave in that very soil from which he had just bargained that his ally should be excluded. For a band of conspirators could not endure the young man's ferocity and pride, his extravagance and thirst for blood, his contempt for decency together with his inhuman cruelty, and were so wrought up by fear and anger that they murdered him. Nor did the sword stop there: they went on to kill women also, and his innocent sisters were seized and slain. New-found freedom brandished the sword and threw off the yoke. Some favoured the army of Carthage, and others the Romans, their ancient allies; nor were there wanting wild spirits who preferred to join neither alliance.
Such was the disturbance and excitement which the king's death had aroused in Sicily, when Marcellus brought his fleet to anchor at Zancle; he held high office; for the purple had brought him the consular rods for the third time. And when he had heard all — the murder of the tyrant, the division of opinion among the people, the number of the Carthaginian troops and the points occupied by them, what cities remained friendly to the Romans, and how Syracuse, puffed up with pride, obstinately refused to open her gates — then Marcellus took the field in indignation and speedily poured forth all the horrors of war upon the surrounding country. So the North-wind, when it has rushed down headlong from Rhodope's height

§ 14.122  and hurled the tenth rolling wave upon the shore, follows with a roar the flood of water it has thrown up and rages with boisterous wings. The army first laid waste the plains of Leontini — the land once ruled by the savage Laestrygonian king. The general pressed on fast: in his eyes, delay in defeating Greek troops was as shameful as defeat. He flew all over the field — it seemed like a contest of men against women — and enriched with blood the fields that Ceres loves. The enemy fell in heaps, and the speed of battle made it impossible for any to escape death by flight. For whenever a fugitive hoped to save his life, Marcellus was before him and barred the way with his sword. "On, on!" he cried; "mow down this feeble folk and lay them low with the steel"; and he pushed the laggards on with the boss of his shield. "Cowards stand before you, men who have learnt to endure easy bouts of wrestling in the shade, and who delight to oil their limbs till they glisten; and those who conquer them in battle get little glory. To beat them at sight is the only credit you can gain." Thus addressed by their general, the whole army advanced to the attack; their only rivalry now was with one another, as they contended who should excel in deeds of valour and take the choicest spoil. The current of the Euripus by Euboea does not rage more fiercely when it dashes through its rocky channel upon Caphareus," nor the Propontis when it drives out the sounding waves from its narrow mouth; nor does the narrow sea that beats upon the Pillars of Hercules near the setting sun boil and rush on with louder uproar.
So fierce was the battle, and yet a noble deed of mercy that was done there became famous.

§ 14.150  A Tuscan soldier, named Asilus, taken prisoner earlier at Lake Trasimene, had found easy service and a kind master in Beryas, his captor, and had returned to his native land with the consent and aid of his owner. Now he had gone back to active service and was making good his former mishap by fighting in Sicily. And now, while fighting in the centre of the fray, he came upon Beryas, who had been sent by the Carthaginians to make a treaty with the king of Syracuse and was fighting side by side with the Syracusans; but his face was concealed by the brazen helmet that he wore. Asilus attacked him with the steel, and, as he tottered feebly backwards, hurled him to the ground. Then, when he heard his conqueror's voice, the poor wretch, recalling his life as it were from Hades in fear and trembling, tore from his chin the straps that bound his useless helmet, and asked for mercy at the same time. He was about to say more, when the Tuscan, startled by the sudden sight of that familiar face, withdrew his sword and thus addressed his antagonist, ere he could speak, with sighs and tears: "Sue not, I pray, to me for life with doubts and entreaties. For me it is right to save my enemy. The noble warrior is he, whose first and last thought is to keep faith even in time of war. You began it and saved me from death before I saved you. I should deserve the troubles I have met, and should deserve to meet again with worse troubles, if my right hand failed to clear a path for you through fire and sword." With these words he raised Beryas willingly from the ground and granted a life in exchange for the life he had received.
Then Marcellus, having won his first battle on Sicilian soil, moved forward with his army unmolested

§ 14.180  and turned his victorious standards against the walls of Syracuse, surrounding the fortifications with his troops. But he felt less eagerness for battle: he hoped to calm the blind passion of the citizens by his warnings and to expel the anger from their hearts. Yet, in case they defied him and ascribed to cowardice his choice of forbearance, the siege was strictly carried on, and his grasp was not loosened: on the contrary, he kept a closer watch than ever, with fearless brow and wary strategy, and in secrecy contrived surprises for the enemy. So a white swan floats on the still waters of the Eridanus or by the bank of Cayster, and lets the current carry its motionless body, while its feet row on beneath the unruffled stream.
Meantime, while the besieged Syracusans were divided in their minds, Marcellus summoned forth the peoples and cities; and they brought their forces to aid him. Such were — Messana, famous for its Oscan founders, a coast-town that lies nearest to Italy of all Sicilian towns; and