The Aeneid (40 page)

                When he had said this, he rose from his high throne. First of
                all he stirred the fires smouldering on the altar of Hercules and
                approached with joy the humble gods of home and hearth whom
                he had worshipped on the day before, and then Evander and
                the warriors of Troy made sacrifice together of duly chosen
                yearling sheep. When this was done Aeneas went back from
                Evander’s house to his ships and his comrades, from whom he
                chose men of outstanding courage to follow him to war. The
                rest sailed downstream, floating effortlessly on the current, to
550         bring Ascanius news of his father and tell him what had happened.
                The Trojans going to Etruria were given horses. The
                mount picked out for Aeneas was caparisoned in one great
                tawny lion skin with gleaming gold claws.

                Swiftly round the little city flew the rumour that they were
                
riding to the gates of the king of Etruria. Frightened mothers
                heaped prayer upon prayer, their fear increasing with the
                approach of danger, and the vision of Mars loomed ever larger
                before them. As they left, Evander took the right hand of his
560          son Pallas and clung to it inconsolably: ‘If only Jupiter would
                give me back the years that are past,’ he cried, ‘when I laid low
                the front rank of the enemy’s battle line under the very walls of
                Praeneste, heaping up their shields and burning them to celebrate
                my victory, with this right hand sending down to Tartarus
                their king Erulus, whose mother Feronia had given him three
                lives at birth – I shudder to remember it – three sets of armour
                to carry into battle, and three times I had to lay him dead on the
                ground, but in those days this one right hand was able to take
                all his lives and strip him of all those sets of armour…no
                power on earth would be tearing me from your arms, O my
                beloved son, and Mezentius would never have been able to
570         trample upon his neighbour, putting so many of my countrymen
                to the sword and emptying the city of so many of its people. But
                O you gods above, and you, Greatest Jupiter, ruler of the gods,
                I beseech you, take pity on an Arcadian king, and hear a father’s
                prayers. If your divine powers and the Fates are keeping Pallas
                safe for me, if I am going to live to see him again and be with
                him again, then I pray for life and harden my heart to endure
                any suffering. But if Fortune has some horror in store, let me
                die now, let me break off this cruel life here and now, before I
580         can put a name to my sorrow, before I know what the future
                will bring and while I still hold you in my arms, O my dear son,
                my only source of joy, given to me so late in life. I want no grim
                news to come and wound my ears.’ These are the words that
                poured from the lips of Evander at his last parting with his son.
                When he had uttered them, he collapsed and was carried into
                his house by his attendants.

                And now the gates had been opened and the horsemen had
                ridden out, Aeneas among the first of them and his faithful
                Achates with him, then the other Trojan commanders with
                Pallas conspicuous in the middle of the column in his Greek
                military cloak and brightly coloured armour. He was like the
590         Morning Star, which Venus loves above all other starry fires, as
                
he leaves his ocean bath and lifts up his holy face into the sky
                 to scatter the darkness. Mothers stood on the city walls, full of
                dread and following with their eyes the cloud of dust and the
                glint of bronze from the squadrons. They were riding in their
                armour by the shortest route over rough scrub and their shouts
                rose to the sky as the four-hoofed beat of the galloping column
                drummed on the dusty plain. Near Caere’s cold river there was
                a wide glade, revered for generations as a holy place by peoples
                near and far. It was enclosed on every side by a ring of hills clad
                in black firs. The story is told that the ancient Pelasgians, who
                in days long past were the first inhabitants of Latium, consecrated
600         this grove and a holy day to be observed in it to Silvanus,
                the god of field and flock. Not far from here Tarcho and the
                Etruscans were occupying a strong position and their whole
                army could be seen from the heights of the hills, encamped on
                the broad fields. Aeneas and his chosen warriors had come down
                to the camp and, weary from the ride, were seeing to their horses
                and refreshing themselves.

610         But the goddess Venus, bringing her gifts, was at hand, shining
                among the clouds of heaven. When she saw her son at some
                distance from the others, alone in a secluded valley across the
                icy river, she spoke to him, coming unasked before his eyes:
                ‘Here now are the gifts I promised you, perfected by my husband’s
                skill. When the time comes you need not hesitate, my
                son, to face the proud Laurentines or challenge fierce Turnus to
                battle.’ With these words the goddess of Cythera came to her
                son’s embrace and laid the armour in all its shining splendour
                before him under an oak tree.

                Aeneas rejoiced at these gifts from the goddess and at the
                honour she was paying him and could not have his fill of gazing
620         at them. He turned them over in his hands, in his arms, admiring
                the terrible, crested, fire-spurting helmet, the death-dealing
                sword, the huge, unyielding breastplate of blood-red bronze like
                a dark cloud fired by the rays of the sun and glowing far across
                the sky, then the polished greaves of richly refined electrum and
                gold, the spear and the fabric of the shield beyond all words to
                describe. There the God of Fire, with his knowledge of the
                prophets and of time that was to be, had laid out the story of
                
Italy and the triumphs of the Romans, and there in order were
                all the generations that would spring from Ascanius and all the
                wars they would fight.

630         He had made, too, a mother wolf stretched out in the green
                cave of Mars with twin boys playing round her udders, hanging
                there unafraid and sucking at her as she bent her supple neck
                back to lick each of them in turn and mould their bodies into
                shape with her tongue.

                Near this he had put Rome and the violent rape of the Sabines
                at the great games in the bowl of the crowded Circus, and a new
                war suddenly breaking out between the people of Romulus and
                the stern Sabines from Cures led by their aged king Tatius. Then,
640         after these same kings had put an end to their conflict, they
                stood in their armour before the altar of Jupiter with sacred
                vessels in their hands, sacrificing a sow to ratify the treaty.

                Close by, four-horse chariots had been driven hard in opposite
                directions and had torn Mettus in two – the man of Alba should
                have stood by his promises – and Tullus was dragging the
                deceiver’s body through a wood while a dew of blood dripped
                from the brambles.

                There too was Porsenna ordering the Romans to take Tarquin
                back after they had expelled him, and mounting a great siege
                against the city while the descendants of Aeneas were running
650         upon the drawn swords of the enemy in the name of liberty.
                There you could see him as though raging and blustering because
                Horatius Cocles was daring to tear the bridge down and Cloelia
                had broken her chains and was swimming the river.

                At the top of the shield Manlius, the keeper of the citadel on
                the Tarpeian rock, stood in front of the temple and kept guard
                on the heights of the Capitol. The new thatch stood out rough
                on the roof of Romulus’ palace, and here was a silver goose
                fluttering through the golden portico, honking to announce that
                the Gauls were at the gates. There were the Gauls close by,
                among the thorn bushes, climbing into the citadel under the
                cover of darkness on that pitch-black night. Their hair was gold,
660         their clothing was gold, their striped cloaks gleamed and their
                milk-white necks were encircled by golden torques. In each right
                hand there glinted two heavy Alpine spears and long shields
                
protected their bodies. Here too Vulcan had hammered out the
                leaping Salii, the priests of Mars, and the naked Luperci, the
                priests’ conical hats tufted with wool, the figure-of-eight shields
                which had fallen from heaven and chaste matrons leading sacred
                processions through the city in cushioned carriages.

                At some distance from these scenes he added the habitations
                of the dead in Tartarus, the tall gateway of Dis and the punishments
                of the damned, with Catiline hanging from his beetling
                crag and shivering at the faces of the Furies. There too were the
670         righteous, in a place apart, and Cato administering justice.

                Between all these there ran a representation of a broad
                expanse of swelling sea, golden, but dark blue beneath the white
                foam on the crests of the waves, and all round it in a circle swam
                dolphins picked out in silver, cleaving the sea and feathering its
                surface with their tails.

                In the middle were the bronze-armoured fleets at the battle of
                Actium. There before your eyes the battle was drawn up with
                the whole of the headland of Leucas seething and all the waves
                gleaming in gold. On one side was Augustus Caesar, leading the
                men of Italy into battle alongside the Senate and the People of
680         Rome, its gods of home and its great gods. High he stood on
                the poop of his ship while from his radiant forehead there
                streamed a double flame and his father’s star shone above his head.
                On the other wing, towering above the battle as he led his
                ships in line ahead, sailed Agrippa with favouring winds and
                favouring gods, and the beaks of captured vessels flashed from
                the proud honour on his forehead, the Naval Crown. On the
                other side, with the wealth of the barbarian world and warriors
                in all kinds of different armour, came Antony in triumph from
                the shores of the Red Sea and the peoples of the Dawn. With
                him sailed Egypt and the power of the East from as far as distant
                Bactria, and there bringing up the rear was the greatest outrage
                of all, his Egyptian wife! On they came at speed, all together,
690         and the whole surface of the sea was churned to foam by the
                pull of their oars and the bow-waves from their triple beaks.
                They steered for the high sea and you would have thought that
                the Cycladic Islands had been torn loose again and were floating
                on the ocean, or that mountains were colliding with mountains,
                
to see men in action on those ships with their massive, turreted
                sterns, showering blazing torches of tow and flying steel as the
                fresh blood began to redden the furrows of Neptune’s fields. In
                the middle of all this the queen summoned her warships by
                rattling her Egyptian timbrels – she was not yet seeing the two
                snakes there at her back – while Anubis barked and all manner
700         of monstrous gods levelled their weapons at Neptune and Venus
                and Minerva. There in the eye of battle raged Mars, engraved
                in iron, the grim Furies swooped from the sky and jubilant
                Discord strode along in her torn cloak with Bellona at her heels
                cracking her bloody whip. But high on the headland of Actium,
                Apollo saw it all and was drawing his bow. In terror at the sight
                the whole of Egypt and of India, all the Arabians and all the
                Shebans were turning tail and the queen herself could be seen
                calling for winds and setting her sails by them. She had untied
                the sail-ropes and was even now paying them out. There in all
710         the slaughter the God of Fire had set her, pale with the pallor of
                approaching death, driven over the waves by the Iapygian winds
                blowing off Calabria. Opposite her he had fashioned the Nile
                with grief in every line of his great body, opening his robes and
                with every fold of drapery beckoning his defeated people into
                his blue-grey breast and the secret waters of his river.