Authors: Virgil
With these words she threw a burning torch at the warrior
and it lodged deep in his heart, smoking with black light. A
great terror burst in upon his sleep, and the sweat broke out all
460 over his body and soaked him to the bone. In a frenzy of rage
he roared for his armour. ‘My armour!’ he shouted, ransacking
his bed and the whole palace for it. The lust for battle raged
within him, the criminal madness of war and, above all, anger.
It was as though a heap of brushwood were crackling and
burning under the sides of a bronze vessel, making the water
seethe and leap up, a great river of it raging in the pot, with
boiling foam spilling over and dense steam flying into the air.
The peace was violated. Turnus gave orders to the leaders of his
army to march to king Latinus, to prepare for war, to defend
Italy and thrust the enemy out of its borders. When he arrived,
470 that would be enough for the Trojans, and enough for the
Latins. These were his words and he called upon the gods to
witness them. The eager Rutulians urged each other to arms,
some of them inspired by the rare grace of his youthful beauty,
some by the long line of kings that were his ancestors, some by
his brilliant feats of arms.
While Turnus was filling the hearts of the Rutulians with
boldness, Allecto flew off with all speed to the Trojans on her
wings of Stygian black. Here, spying out the ground where
lovely Iulus was hunting along the shore, trapping and coursing,
she hatched a new plot. Into his hounds the virgin goddess of
480 Cocytus put a sudden fit of madness by touching their nostrils
with the familiar scent of a stag and sending them after it in full
cry. This was the first cause of all the suffering. It was this that
kindled the zeal for war in the hearts of the country people. It
was a huge and beautiful stag with a fine head of antlers, which
had been torn from the udders of its mother and fed by Tyrrhus
and his young sons – Tyrrhus looked after the royal herds and
was entrusted with the wardenship of the whole broad plain.
Silvia, the boys’ sister, had given this wild creature every care
and trained it to obey her. She would weave soft garlands for
490 its horns, combing and washing it in clear running water. It
became tame to the hand and used to come to its master’s table.
It would wander through the woods and come back home of its
own accord to the door it knew so well, no matter how late the
night. This is the creature that was roaming far from home,
floating down a river, cooling itself in the green shade of the
bank when it was startled by the maddened dogs of the young
huntsman Iulus. He himself, Ascanius, burning with a passionate
love of glory, bent his bow and aimed the arrow. The god
was with him and kept his hand from erring. The arrow flew
with a great hiss and passed straight through the flank into the
500 belly. Fleeing to the home it knew so well, the wounded stag
came into its pen moaning, and stood there bleeding and filling
the house with its cries of anguish, as though begging and
pleading. Silvia was the first to call for help. She beat her own
arms in grief and summoned the country people, who came long
before she expected them, for savage Allecto was lurking in the
silent woods. Some came armed with stakes burned to a point
in the fire; some with clubs made from knotted tree trunks; each
man searched for what he could find and anger taught him how
to make a weapon of it. Tyrrhus was calling up the troops. He
510 had been driving in wedges to split an oak into four and he
snatched up his axe, breathing furiously.
The cruel goddess saw from her vantage point that this was a
moment when harm might be done and, flying to the top of the
farm roof, from the highest gable she sounded the herdsman’s
signal with a loud call on the curved horn, and its voice was the
voice of Tartarus. The trees shivered at the noise and the whole
forest rang to its very depths. Far away the lake of Trivia heard
it. The white sulphur-laden streams of the river Nar heard it
and its springs in Lake Velinus, and terrified mothers pressed
520 their babies to their breasts. Swift to answer the call of that
dread horn, the hardy countrymen snatched up their weapons
and gathered from every side. The Trojans, for their part, opened
the gates of their camp and streamed out to help Ascanius. They
drew up in line of battle, and this was no longer a village brawl
with knotted clubs and stakes sharpened in the fire. They fought
with two-edged steel, and a dark crop of drawn swords sprouted
all over the field while bronze gleamed in answer to the challenge
of the sun and threw its light up to the clouds, like the sea
whitening at the first breath of wind and slowly stirring itself,
530 raising its waves higher and higher till it reaches from the depths
of the sea-bed to the heights of heaven. Suddenly there was the
hiss of an arrow and a young man standing out in front of the
leading line of battle fell to the ground. It was Almo, the eldest
son of Tyrrhus. The shaft had stuck deep in his throat, blocking
the moist passage of the voice and closing off the narrow channel
of his life in blood. The bodies of slain men soon lay around
him, among them old Galaesus, who died when he stepped
between the armies to make peace. He was the justest man in
the broad fields of Ausonia in these far days, and the richest.
Five flocks of sheep and five herds of cattle came back at evening
to his stalls and he turned the soil with a hundred ploughs.
540 While the battle was evenly poised on the plain, the mighty
goddess, having fulfilled her promise when the first blood was
spilt in war and the first clash of arms had led to death, left
Hesperia and returned through the breezes of the sky to address
Juno in these words of proud triumph: ‘You asked and I have
given. Discord is made perfect in the horror of war. Now tell
them to come together and form alliances when I have sprinkled
the Trojans with Italian blood! And I shall do more than this, if
such be still your will for me. I shall spread rumours to draw
550 the neighbouring cities into the war. I shall set their hearts ablaze
with a mad lust for battle and they will come from all sides to
join in the fray. I shall sow a crop of weapons in all their fields.’
Juno gave her answer: ‘There is enough terror and lying. The
causes of war are established. They are fighting at close quarters
and fresh blood is staining whatever weapons chance first puts
into their hands. Let this be the wedding they will celebrate, the
noble son of Venus and great king Latinus. Let this be their
wedding hymn. The Father of the Gods, the ruler of high
Olympus, would not wish you to rove too freely over the breezes
of heaven. You must withdraw. Should there be any need for
560 further effort, I shall take the guidance into my own hands.’ No
sooner had the daughter of Saturn spoken these words than
Allecto lifted up her wings, hissing with snakes, and flew down
to her home on the banks of the Cocytus, leaving the steeps of
the sky. At the foot of high mountains in the middle of Italy,
there is a well-known place, whose fame has spread to many
lands, the valley of Amsanctus. A dark forest presses in upon it
from both sides with its dense foliage and in the middle a
crashing torrent roars over the rocks, whipping up crests of
foam. Here they point to a fearful cave which is a vent for the
breath of Dis, the cruel god of the underworld. Into this cave
570 bursts Acheron and here a vast whirlpool opens its pestilential
jaws, and here the loathsome Fury disappeared, lightening
heaven and earth by her absence.
But none the less the Queen of the Gods, the daughter of
Saturn, was at that moment putting the finishing touches to
the war. A whole crowd of herdsmen came rushing from the
battlefield into the city, carrying the bodies of young Almo and
Galaesus with his face mutilated. They were all imploring the
help of the gods and appealing to Latinus. Turnus was there,
and when the fire of their fury and the accusations of murder
were at their height, he heaped fear upon fear by claiming that
the Trojans were being invited to take a share in the kingdom;
their own Latin blood would be adulterated by Phrygians while
he was being turned from the door. At this there gathered from
all sides, wearying Mars with their clamour for war, those whose
580 mothers had been crazed by Bacchus and were now dancing in
wild rout in the pathless forests – the name of Amata had great
weight with them. In an instant they were all demanding this
wicked war against all the omens, against divine destiny and
contrary to the will of the gods. They rushed to besiege the
palace of king Latinus, who stood unmoved like a rock in the
ocean, like a solid rock in the ocean pounded by breakers,
standing fast with the waves howling round it, while reefs and
590 foam-soaked scars roar in helpless anger and the seaweed is
forced against its side, then streams back with the undertow.
But there was no resisting the counsels of blind folly. All things
were taking their course according to the nod of savage Juno.
Again and again the king, the father of his people, called upon
the gods and the empty winds to witness: ‘We are caught in the
gale of Fate,’ he cried. ‘Our ship is breaking under us. You, my
poor people, will pay for this sacrilege with your blood. You
are the guilty one, Turnus, and a grim punishment lies in store
for you. You will supplicate the gods but your prayers will be
too late. I have already reached calm water and here at the
harbour mouth I lose all the happiness I might have had in the
hour of my death.’ He said no more, but shut himself away in
600 his palace and gave up the reins of power.
In Hesperia, in the lands of Latium, there was a custom, later
inherited and revered in the cities of Alba, and now observed by
Rome, the greatest of the great, when men first rouse Mars for
battle, whether they are preparing to bring the sorrows of war
to the Getae, the Hyrcani or the Arabs, or whether they are
heading for India and the rising of the sun and reclaiming the
standards from the Parthians. There are two gates known as the
Gates of War, sanctified by religion and the fear of savage Mars.
These gates are closed by a hundred bolts of bronze and the
610 everlasting strength of iron, nor does their sentry Janus ever
leave the threshold. When the Fathers are resolved on war, the
consul himself, conspicuous in the short toga of Quirinus girt
about him in the Gabine manner, unbars the doors. They grind
in their sockets and he summons war. The whole army takes up
the call and the bronze horns breathe their shrill assent. So too
in those days Latinus was bidden to declare war upon the men
of Aeneas by opening these grim gates. The old king, father of
his people, would not lay his hand upon them, but recoiled from
this wickedness and refused to perform the task, shutting himself
620 up in the darkness away from the sight of men. At this, the
Queen of the Gods came down from the sky and struck the
stubborn doors, bursting the iron-bound Gates of War and
turning them in their sockets. Till that moment Ausonia had
been at peace and unalarmed, but now the foot-soldiers
mustered on the plain and high in the saddle came the excited
horsemen stirring up the dust. Every man was looking for
weapons, polishing shields with rich fat till they were smooth,
burnishing spears till they shone and grinding axes on the whetstone.
What joy to raise the standards and hear the trumpets
630 sound! Five great cities, no less, set up anvils to forge new
weapons, mighty Atina, proud Tibur, Ardea, Crustumerium
and Antemnae with its towers. They hollowed out helmets to
protect the heads of warriors. They wove frames of willow
shoots to form shields. They made bronze breastplates and
smooth shields of ductile silver. This is what had become of all
their regard for the sickle and the share. This is what had become
of all their love for the plough – the swords of their fathers were
now retempered in the furnace. Now the trumpets blew and out
went the signal that called them to war. In high excitement they
tore down their helmets from the roof, yoked their trembling
640 horses to the chariot, buckled on their shields and their breastplates
of triple-woven gold and girt their trusty swords about
them.