The Aeneid (44 page)

                I pray to you, Calliope, and to your sister Muses, to breathe
                upon me as I sing of the death and destruction wrought by the
                sword of Turnus and to tell who sent down to Orcus each
                warrior that died. Unroll with me now the mighty scroll of war.

530         There was a tower, well placed and of commanding height,
                with high connecting bridges. The Latins were trying to take it
                by main force, striving with all their powers to bring it down,
                while the Trojans packed inside tried to defend it by throwing
                rocks and sending a hail of weapons through the loopholes.
                Turnus, who was leading the attack, hurled a blazing torch
                which set fire to the side of the tower. Fanned by the wind, the
                flames took hold of the planking and ate into the upright posts.
                Inside all was confusion, terror and desperate attempts to escape
                the heat. As everyone crowded together to take refuge on the
540         side away from the flames, all at once the whole sky seemed to
                thunder and the tower toppled over with the weight, and men
                plunged to the ground in their death throes with the massive
                fabric following them down, impaling them on their own
                weapons and driving the broken timbers through their breasts.
                Only Helenor and Lycus were able to escape. Helenor was a
                young man, son of the king of Maeonia and the slave girl
                Licymnia, who had reared him in secret and sent him to Troy
                under arms although this had been forbidden. His equipment
                was light, a sword with no scabbard and an inglorious shield of
                plain white, and he found himself caught in the middle of the
550         thousands of men who fought with Turnus, looking at the battle
                lines of the Latins drawn up on all sides of him, like a wild beast
                
trapped in a dense ring of hunters; it rages against the steel, and
                with full understanding it hurls itself to its death by springing
                on to the hunting spears – just so did young Helenor leap into
                the middle of his enemies, rushing to his death where he saw the
                steel was thickest. But Lycus was far fleeter of foot. He ran the
                gauntlet of the enemy and their weapons as far as the wall.
                There as he was trying to take hold of the top of the outworks
                and reach the outstretched hands of his comrades, Turnus, who
560         had been pursuing him with his javelin, came to gloat over him:
                ‘You fool! Did you think you could escape my hands?’ and even
                as he shouted, he seized hold of him where he hung and tore
                him down, taking a great section of the wall with him, like the
                eagle, the armour-bearer of Jupiter, seizing in his hooked talons
                a hare or the white body of a swan and soaring into the air with
                it; or like the wolf of Mars tearing a lamb out of the sheep pen,
                and loud and long will be the bleating of its mother, as she looks
                for it.

                The shouting rose on every side. The attackers levelled the
                rampart, filled in the ditch and tossed blazing torches high on
570         to the roofs. Lucetius, who was coming to set fire to a gate, was
                laid low by a rock thrown by Ilioneus, a huge block torn out of
                a mountain. Liger felled Emathion with a javelin; Asilas brought
                down Corynaeus with an arrow he never saw in all its long flight.
                Caeneus slew Ortygius; Turnus slew the victorious Caeneus;
                Turnus also slew Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus and Promolus,
                then Sagaris and Idas, who was standing out in front of the
                highest towers. Privernus was killed by Capys: Themillas had
                first grazed him with a light spear and the fool had thrown his
                shield away to put his hand to the wound. So the winged arrow
580         flew and, plunging deep into his left side, it broke the passages
                of his life’s breath with a mortal wound. The son of Arcens
                stood there in gorgeous armour, resplendent in his embroidered
                cloak and Spanish purple, a noble sight to see. He had been sent
                to war by his father, who had reared him in his mother’s grove
                on the banks of the river Symaethus where the people of Sicily
                made their offerings at the rich altar of the mild god Palicius.
                Mezentius laid down his spears. Then, whirling his sling three
                times round his head, he shot the hissing bolt and struck the son
                
of Arcens full in the middle of the forehead. Melting in its flight,
                the lead bullet split his skull and stretched him full length on
                the sand.

590         It was then, men say, that Ascanius first shot in war the swift
                arrow which till this time had only driven wild animals to terror
                and flight, and his was the hand that laid the brave Numanus
                low. This was a warrior whose family name was Remulus, and
                not long before he had been joined in marriage to the younger
                sister of Turnus. His heart was swollen with pride at the royal
                rank he had newly acquired, and he stepped out in front of the
                battle line, swaggering and shouting abuse, some fit and some
                unfit to be repeated: ‘You have been sacked twice already, you
                Phrygians! Are you not ashamed to be cooped up again in a
                siege behind ramparts with only a wall between yourselves and
600         death! Are you the men who came here to fight us for our brides?
                Is it some god that has driven you to Italy? Or some madness?
                You will not find here the sons of Atreus or the fictions and fine
                words of Ulixes! We are men of a hardy stock. We take our
                babies down to the river the moment they are born and harden
                them in the icy water. Our boys stay awake all night and weary
                the woods with their hunting. For games they ride horses and
                stretch the bow to the arrow. Our men endure hard labour and
                live spare, subduing the land with the mattock and shaking the
                towns of their enemies with war. We are worn hard by iron all
610         our lives and turn our spears to goad our oxen. There is no
                sluggish old age for us to impair the strength and vigour of our
                minds. We crush our grey hair into the helmet, and our delight
                is always to bring home new plunder and live off what we take.
                But you like your clothes dyed with yellow saffron and the
                bright juice of the purple fish. Your delight is in dancing and
                idleness. You have sleeves to your tunics and ribbons to keep
                your bonnets on. You are Phrygian women, not Phrygian men!
                Away with you over the heights of Mount Dindymus, where
                you can hear your favourite tunes on the double pipe. The
                tambourines are calling you and the boxwood fifes of the Berecyntian
620         Mother of Mount Ida. Leave weapons to the men. Make
                way for the iron of our swords.’

                So he hurled his abuse and threats till Ascanius could endure
                
it no longer. Turning to face him, he drew his bow and stretched
                the horsegut string, and as he stood there with his arms straining
                wide apart, he prayed first to Jupiter with this vow: ‘All powerful
                Jupiter, bless now this my first trial of arms, and with
                my own hands I shall bring yearly offerings to your temple and
                set before your altar a milk-white bullock, with gilded horns,
                holding its head as high as its mother’s, already butting with its
630         horns and kicking up the sand with its hooves.’ The Father
                heard and thundered on the left from a clear sky, and the sound
                of the death-dealing bow of Ascanius mingled with the sound
                of the thunder. The arrow had been drawn back, and it flew
                with a fearful hiss straight through the head of Remulus, its iron
                point piercing his hollow temples. ‘Go, Remulus!’ he cried, ‘and
                mock brave men with proud words! This is the reply to the
                Rutulians from the twice-sacked Phrygians!’ Ascanius said no
                more than this, but the Trojans followed it with a shout of joy,
                their spirits raised to the skies.

                At that moment Apollo, the youthful god, whose hair is never
                cut, chanced to be seated on a cloud, looking down from the
640         expanse of heaven on the armies and cities of Italy, and he
                addressed these words to the victorious Iulus: ‘You have become
                a man, young Iulus, and we salute you! This is the way that
                leads to the stars. You are born of the gods and will live to be
                the father of gods. Justice demands that all the wars that Fate
                will bring will come to an end under the offspring of Assaracus.
                Troy is not large enough for you.’ At these words he plunged
                down from the heights of heaven, parting the breathing winds,
                and made for Ascanius, taking on the features of old Butes.
                Butes had once been armour-bearer to the Dardan Anchises and
                the trusted guard of his door, and Aeneas had then appointed
                him as companion to his son Ascanius. This was the guise in
650         which Apollo came, the old man Butes to the life – voice,
                colouring, white hair, weapons grimly clanking – and these were
                the words he spoke to Iulus in the flush of his victory: ‘Let that
                be enough, son of Aeneas. Numanus has fallen to your arms
                and you are unhurt. Great Apollo has granted you this first taste
                of glory and does not grudge you arrows as sure as his own.
                You must ask for no more, my boy, in this war.’ So began
                
Apollo, but while speaking, he left the sight of men, fading
                from their eyes into the insubstantial air. The Trojan leaders
660         recognized the god. They knew his divine arrows and the quiver
                that sounded as he flew. So, although Ascanius was thirsting for
                battle, they held him back, urging upon him the words of
                Phoebus Apollo and the will of the god. But they themselves
                went back into battle and put their lives into naked danger. The
                shouting rang round the ramparts all along the walls. They bent
                their deadly bows and twisted their spear thongs till the ground
                was strewn with missiles. Shield and round helmet rang with
                the blows as fiercer and fiercer raged the battle. It was like a
                great shower from the west drumming on the earth in the rainy
                season when the Kids are rising, or like hailstones dropping
670         from the clouds into the sea when the south wind is blowing
                and Jupiter hurls down squalls of rain in his fury and bursts the
                hollow thunderclouds in the sky.

                Pandarus and Bitias, sons of Alcanor of Mount Ida, had been
                brought up by the wood nymph Iaera in the grove of Jupiter
                and they were built like the pines and mountains of their fatherland.
                So sure were they of their weapons that they now flung
                open the gate that had been entrusted to them by their leader’s
                commands, and took it upon themselves to invite the enemy to
                come within the walls. They themselves stood inside at the
                ready, like twin towers, one on the right and one on the left,
                armed in steel, with their crests flashing high on their heads.
                They were like a pair of tall oaks by a flowing river, on the
680         banks of the Po or by the lovely Adige, holding their unshorn
                heads up to the sky with their high tops nodding in the breeze.
                As soon as they saw the gate open, the Rutulians came bursting
                in. Quercens and Aquiculus in splendid armour, impetuous
                Tmarus and Haemon, son of Mars, but instantly with all their
                men they either turned and ran or gave up their lives on the very
                threshold of the gate. The fury mounted in all their hearts as
                they fought. Trojans now came crowding to the spot and not
690         only joined in the fray but also dared to sally out further and
                further in front of the gate.

                Meanwhile Turnus, the Rutulian commander, was raging and
                storming and creating havoc in another part of the field, when
                
a message arrived to say that the enemy were hot with the
                Rutulian blood they were now spilling and that open gates were
                on offer. Turnus instantly abandoned the work he had in hand
                and rushed to the Trojan gate in a savage rage to meet these
                arrogant brothers. The first man to fall to his javelin was Antiphates
                – for he was the first to confront him. Antiphates was the
                bastard son of great Sarpedon by a Theban mother. The spear
                of Italian cornel wood flew through the unresisting air, went in
700         by his belly and twisted upwards deep into his chest. A wave of
                frothing blood welled out of the black hole of the wound, and
                the steel grew warm where it had lodged in the lung. Then
                Erymas and Meropes fell to his hand; then Aphidnus; then Bitias
                himself for all the fire that flashed from his eyes and the roaring
                fury of his heart. No javelin for him. He was not the man to
                yield his life to a javelin. It was an artillery spear with an iron
                head a cubit long and a ball of lead at its butt which came rifling
                through the air with a loud hiss and the force of a thunderbolt.
                The two bull-hides of his shield did not resist it, nor did his
                trusty breastplate with its overlapping scales of gold. His huge
                body collapsed and fell. The earth groaned and the mighty shield
710         thundered as it came down on top of him. It was like the fall of
                a stone pile by the shore at Euboean Baiae; men first build it to
                its massive height and then they let it down into the sea, and it
                spreads ruin all along its length, grinding the sea-bed as it settles
                in the shallows; the water boils, the black sand rises, the high
                rock of Procida is shaken, and Inarime with it, the hard bed laid
                for Typhoeus at Jupiter’s command.