Not one who heard their music from afar,
Would think these troops an army train'd to war,
But flocks of fowl, that when the tempests roar,
With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.
Then Clausus came, who led a num'rous band
Of troops embody'd from the Sabine land,
And, in himself alone, an army brought.
'Twas he the noble Claudian race begot,
The Claudian race, ordain'd, in times to come,
To share the greatness of imperial Rome.
He led the Cures forth of old renown,
Mutuscans from their olive-bearing town,
And all th' Eretian pow'rs; besides a band
That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land,
And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,
And mountaineers, that from Severus came,
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,
And those where yellow Tyber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play.
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:
The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
And the cold Nursians come to close the rear,
Mix'd with the natives born of Latine blood,
Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
When pale Orion sets in wint'ry rain,
Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,
Or Lycian fields, when Phoebus burns the skies, Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around; Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.
High in his chariot then Halesus came,
A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name:
From Agamemnon born-to Turnus' aid,
A thousand men the youthful hero led,
Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown'd,
And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground, 1005
And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,
Cales' and Osca's old inhabitants,
And rough Saticulans, inur'd to wants.
Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
Fasten'd with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.
Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear,
And on their warding arm light. bucklers bear.
Nor, Ebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
From nymph Sebethis and old Telon sprung,
Who then in Teleboan Capri reign'd;
But that short isle th' ambitious youth disdain'd,
And o'er Campania stretch'd his ample sway,
Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea-
O'er Batulum, and where Abella sees,
From her high tow'rs, the harvest of her trees,
And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold; Sling weighty stones when from afar they fight; 1024 Their casques are cork, a cov'ring thick and light.
Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went, And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent. The rude Aquiculæ his rule obey'd;
Hunting their sport, and plund'ring was their trade.
In arms they plough'd, to battle still prepar'd: 1030
Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.
Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,
By king Archippus sent to Turnus' aid;
And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head.
His wand and holy words, the viper's rage,
And venom'd wounds of serpents, could assuage.
He, when he pleas'd with pow'rful juice to steep
Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,
To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart. 1040
Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods
In sighs remurmur'd to the Fucine floods.
The son of fam'd Hippolytus was there,
Fam'd as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;
Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore,
Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame,
In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name,
Hippolytus, as old records have said,
Was by his stepdame sought to share her bed: 1050
But, when no female arts his mind could move,
She turn'd to furious hate her impious love.
Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,
'Another's crimes th' unhappy hunter bore;
Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore.
But chaste Diana, who his death deplor'd,
With Esculapian herbs his life restor'd:
When Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,
The dead inspir'd with vital breath again,
Struck to the centre, with his flaming dart,
Th' unhappy founder of the godlike art.
But Trivia kept in secret shades alone,
Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;
And call'd him Virbius in th' Egerian grove,
Where then he liv'd obscure, but safe from Jove. For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood,
Are coursers driv'n, who shed their master's blood, Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
His son, the second Virbius, yet retain’d
His father's art; and warrior steeds he rein'd. 1070
Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
High o'er the rest in arms, the graceful Turnus rode : A triple pile of plumes his crest adorn'd,
On which with belching flames Chimæra burn'd:
The more the kindled combat rises high'r,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire.
Fair Iö grac'd his shield; but Iö now
With horns exalted stands, and seems to low-
A noble charge! Her keeper by her side,
To watch her walks, his hundred eyes apply'd; 1080
And on the brims her sire, the wat'ry god,
Roll'd from his silver urn his crystal flood,
A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields
With swords, and pointed spears, and clatt'ring shields;
Of Argive, and of old Sicanian bands,
And those who plough the rich Rutulian lands;
Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
And the proud Labicans, with painted shields,
And those who near Numician streams reside,
And those whom Tyber's holy forest hide;
Or Circe's hills from the main land divide;
Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
Or the black water of Pomptina stands.
Last from the Volscians fair Camilla came,
And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame: 1095 Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd,
She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
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