Behold Clausus, of ancient Sabine blood, leading
a great army, and worth a great army in his own right.
Now the Claudian tribe and race has spread from him
through Latium, since Rome was shared with the Sabines.
With him, a vast company from Amiternum, and ancient Quirites
from Cures, all the forces of Eretum, and olive-clad Mutusca;
those who live in Nomentum town, and the Rosean fields by Lake
Velinus, those from Tetrica’s bristling cliffs, and from Mount Severus,
and Casperia and Foruli, and from beside Himella’s stream,
those who drink the Tiber and Fabaris, those cold Nursia sent,
and the armies of Horta and the Latin peoples,
and those whom Allia, unlucky name, flows between and divides:1
as many as the waves that swell in Libya’s seas
when fierce Orion’s buried by the wintry waters,
or thick as the ears of corn scorched by the early sun
in the plain of Hermus2 or Lycia’s3 yellow fields.
The shields clang, and the earth is terrified by the tramp of feet.
Next Halaesus, Agamemnon’s son, hostile to the Trojan name,
harnesses his horses to his chariot and hastens a thousand
warlike tribes to Turnus, men who turn the fertile
Massic4 soil for Bacchus, and those the Auruncan elders
have sent from the high hills, and the Sidicine5 levels nearby,
those who have left Cales6 behind, and those who live
by Volturnus’s shallow river,7 and by their side the rough
Saticulan and the Oscan men.8 Polished javelins are their
weapons, but their custom is to attach a flexible leash.
A shield protects their left, with curved swords for close fighting.
Nor shall you, Oebalus, go un-sung in our verses,
you whom they say the nymph Sebethis bore to Telon,
who is old now, when he held the throne of Teleboan
Capreae;9 but not content with his father’s fields,
even then the son exercised his power over
the Sarrastrian peoples, and the plains that Sarnus waters,
and those who hold Rufrae and Batulum and Celemna’s fields,10
who are used to throwing their spears in the Teuton11 fashion,
and those apple-growers that the ramparts of Abella look down on,
whose head-cover is bark stripped from a cork-tree:
and their bronze shields gleam, their swords gleam with bronze.
And you too Ufens, sent to battle from mountainous Nersae,12
well known to fame and fortunate in arms, whose people
of the hard Aequian earth are especially
tough and hunt extensively in the forests.
They plough the earth while armed, and always delight
in carrying off fresh spoils and living on plunder.
There came a priest as well, of the Marruvian race,13
sent by King Archippus, sporting a frond of fruitful olive
above his helmet, Umbro the most-valiant,
who by incantation and touch was able to shed sleep
on the race of vipers and water-snakes with poisonous breath,
soothing their anger and curing their bites by his arts.
But he had no power to heal a blow from a Trojan spear-point,
nor did sleep-inducing charms or herbs found on Marsian hills
help him against wounds. For you, Angitia’s grove wept:
Fucinus’s glassy wave, for you: for you, the crystal lakes.
And Virbius, Hippolytus’s son, most handsome, went
to the war, whom his mother Aricia sent in all his glory.
He was reared in Egeria’s groves, round the marshy shores
where Diana’s altar stands, rich and forgiving.
For they tell in story that Hippolytus, after he had fallen prey
to his stepmother Phaedra’s cunning,14 and, torn apart by stampeding
horses, had paid the debt due to his father with his blood,
came again to the heavenly stars and the upper air beneath
the sky, recalled by Apollo’s herbs and Diana’s love.
Then the all-powerful father, indignant that any mortal
should rise from the shadows to the light of life,
hurled Asclepius, Apollo’s son, the discoverer
of such skill and healing, down to the Stygian waves.15
But kindly Diana hid Hippolytus in a secret place,
and sent him to the nymph Egeria, to her grove,
where he might spend his life alone, unknown,
in the Italian woods, his name altered to Virbius.
So too horses are kept away from the temple of Diana
Trivia and the sacred groves, they who, frightened
by sea-monsters, spilt chariot and youth across the shore.
Turnus himself went to and from among the front ranks, grasping
his weapons, preeminent in form, overtopping the rest by a head.
His tall helmet was crowned with a triple plume, holding up
a Chimaera, breathing the fires of Etna from its jaws,
snarling the more, and the more savage with sombre flames
the more violent the battle becomes, the more blood is shed.
But on his polished shield was Io, with uplifted horns,
fashioned in gold, already covered with hair, already a heifer,16
a powerful emblem, and Argus, that virgin’s watcher,
and old Inachus pouring his river out of an engraved urn.
A cloud of infantry followed, and the ranks with shields
were thick along the plain, Argive men
and Auruncan troops, Rutulians and old Sicanians,
and the Sacranian lines, and Labicians, their shields painted:
and those who farmed your woodland pastures, Tiber,
and Numicius’s17 holy shore, and those whose ploughshare
turns Rutulian hills or Circe’s headland, those whose fields
Jupiter of Anxur guards, or Feronia18 pleased with her green groves:
those from where Satura’s black marsh lies, and from where
chill Ufens19 finds his valley’s course, and is buried in the sea.
Besides all these came Camilla of the Volscian race,
leading her line of horse and troops gleaming with bronze,
a warrior girl, her hands not trained to Minerva’s distaff
and basket of wool, but toughened to endure a fight
and, with her quickness of foot, out-strip the winds.
She might have skimmed the tips of the stalks of uncut
corn and not bruised their delicate ears with her running,
or, hanging above the swelling waves, taken her path through
the heart of the deep and not dipped her quick feet in the sea.20
All of the young men flooding from houses and fields
and the crowds of women marvelled, and gazed at her as she went by,
in open-mouthed wonder at how the splendour of royal purple
draped her smooth shoulders, how her brooch clasped her hair
with gold, how she herself carried her Lycian quiver,
and a shepherd’s myrtle staff, tipped with the point of a spear.
Ecce Sabinorum prisco de sanguine magnum
agmen agens Clausus magnique ipse agminis instar,
Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur et tribus et gens
per Latium, postquam in partem data Roma Sabinis.
una ingens Amiterna cohors priscique Quirites, 710
Ereti manus omnis oliviferaeque Mutuscae;
qui Nomentum urbem, qui Rosea rura Velini,
qui Tetricae horrentis rupes montemque Severum
Casperiamque colunt Forulosque et flumen Himellae,
qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt, quos frigida misit 715
Nursia, et Ortinae classes populique Latini,
quosque secans infaustum interluit Allia nomen:
quam multi Libyco volvuntur marmore fluctus
saevus ubi Orion hibernis conditur undis,
vel cum sole novo densae torrentur aristae 720
aut Hermi campo aut Lyciae flaventibus arvis.
scuta sonant pulsuque pedum conterrita tellus.
Hinc Agamemnonius, Troiani nominis hostis,
curru iungit Halaesus equos Turnoque ferocis
mille rapit populos, vertunt felicia Baccho 725
Massica qui rastris, et quos de collibus altis
Aurunci misere patres Sidicinaque iuxta
aequora, quique Cales linquunt amnisque vadosi
accola Volturni, pariterque Saticulus asper
Oscorumque manus. teretes sunt aclydes illis 730
tela, sed haec lento mos est aptare flagello.
laevas caetra tegit, falcati comminus enses.
Nec tu carminibus nostris indictus abibis,
Oebale, quem generasse Telon Sebethide nympha
fertur, Teleboum Capreas cum regna teneret, 735
iam senior; patriis sed non et filius arvis
contentus late iam tum dicione premebat
Sarrastis populos et quae rigat aequora Sarnus,
quique Rufras Batulumque tenent atque arva Celemnae,
et quos maliferae despectant moenia Abellae, 740
Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateias;
tegmina quis capitum raptus de subere cortex
aerataeque micant peltae, micat aereus ensis.
Et te montosae misere in proelia Nersae,
Ufens, insignem fama et felicibus armis, 745
horrida praecipue cui gens adsuetaque multo
venatu nemorum, duris Aequicula glaebis.
armati terram exercent semperque recentis
convectare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto.
Quin et Marruvia venit de gente sacerdos 750
fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva
Archippi regis missu, fortissimus Umbro,
vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris
spargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat,
mulcebatque iras et morsus arte levabat. 755
sed non Dardaniae medicari cuspidis ictum
evaluit neque eum iuvere in vulnera cantus
somniferi et Marsis quaesitae montibus herbae.
te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda,
te liquidi flevere lacus. 760
Ibat et Hippolyti proles pulcherrima bello,
Virbius, insignem quem mater Aricia misit,
eductum Egeriae lucis umentia circum
litora, pinguis ubi et placabilis ara Dianae.
namque ferunt fama Hippolytum, postquam arte novercae 765
occiderit patriasque explerit sanguine poenas
turbatis distractus equis, ad sidera rursus
aetheria et superas caeli venisse sub auras,
Paeoniis revocatum herbis et amore Dianae.
tum pater omnipotens aliquem indignatus ab umbris 770
mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae,
ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis
fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.
at Trivia Hippolytum secretis alma recondit
sedibus et nymphae Egeriae nemorique relegat, 775
solus ubi in silvis Italis ignobilis aevum
exigeret versoque ubi nomine Virbius esset.
unde etiam templo Triviae lucisque sacratis
cornipedes arcentur equi, quod litore currum
et iuvenem monstris pavidi effudere marinis. 780
filius ardentis haud setius aequore campi
exercebat equos curruque in bella ruebat.
Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
vertitur arma tenens et toto vertice supra est.
cui triplici crinita iuba galea alta Chimaeram 785
sustinet Aetnaeos efflantem faucibus ignis;
tam magis illa fremens et tristibus effera flammis
quam magis effuso crudescunt sanguine pugnae.
at levem clipeum sublatis cornibus Io
auro insignibat, iam saetis obsita, iam bos, 790
argumentum ingens, et custos virginis Argus,
caelataque amnem fundens pater Inachus urna.
insequitur nimbus peditum clipeataque totis
agmina densentur campis, Argivaque pubes
Auruncaeque manus, Rutuli veteresque Sicani, 795
et Sacranae acies et picti scuta Labici;
qui saltus, Tiberine, tuos sacrumque Numici
litus arant Rutulosque exercent vomere collis
Circaeumque iugum, quis Iuppiter Anxurus arvis
praesidet et viridi gaudens Feronia luco; 800
qua Saturae iacet atra palus gelidusque per imas
quaerit iter vallis atque in mare conditur Ufens.
Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla
agmen agens equitum et florentis aere catervas,
bellatrix, non illa colo calathisve Minervae 805
femineas adsueta manus, sed proelia virgo
dura pati cursuque pedum praevertere ventos.
illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret
gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas,
vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti 810
ferret iter celeris nec tingeret aequore plantas.
illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus
turbaque miratur matrum et prospectat euntem,
attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro
velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem 815
auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetram
et pastoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum.
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
All of these are Sabine or Latin names:
Amiternum, Cures, Eretum, Mutusca, Nomentum, and Nursia were Sabine cities (and presumably Casperia, Foruli, and Ortina also refer to cities)
Quirites were people specifically from Cures
Lake Velinus, the Tetrican mountains, and the rivers Himella and Fabaris were all landmarks of Latium
Allia was not only a river in Latium, but also the site of a major Roman defeat, hence its unluckiness
a river in Lydia, in present-day western Turkey
a region of Asia Minor (also present-day Turkey) allied with Troy
Massicus was a mountain in Campania famous for wine.
Marruvia was a town on Lake Fucinus, near the forest of Angitia.
In legend, Phaedra was the wife of Theseus; she fell in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, which eventually led to both of their deaths, though the details vary in the telling.
Asclepius was a renowned phyisican so powerful he could bring the dead back to life. This didn’t go well.
a river of Latium
a grove on the Italian coast
the river, not the guy
cf. Iliad 20, in which Aeneas describes the speed of the stallions born to his ancestor’s horses by the North Wind: “The North Wind, enamoured of the mares as they fed, took on a black-maned stallion’s form to cover them, and twelve foals were born, that when they travelled the earth, yielder of grain, could gallop over the tops of the ears of corn without breaking them, and when they crossed a wide arm of sea, could skim across the tops of the grey salt breakers.”