Aeneid X.510-605
Aeneas: no mercy run.
Now not merely a rumour of this great evil, but a more trustworthy
messenger flew to Aeneas, saying that his men were a hair’s breadth
from death, that it was time to help the routed Trojans. Seeking you,
Turnus, you, proud of your fresh slaughter, he mowed down
his nearest enemies with the sword and fiercely drove a wide path
through the ranks with its blade. Pallas, Evander, all was before
his eyes, the feast to which he had first come as a stranger,
the right hands pledged in friendship. Then he captured
four youths alive, sons of Sulmo, and as many reared
by Ufens, to sacrifice to the shades of the dead and sprinkle
the flames of the pyre with the prisoners’ blood.
Next he aimed a hostile spear at Magus from a distance:
Magus moved in cleverly, and the spear flew over him, quivering,
and he clasped the hero’s knees as a suppliant and spoke as follows:
‘I beg you, by your father’s shade, by your hope in your boy
Iulus, preserve my life for my son and my father.
I have a noble house, talents of chased silver lie buried there,
I have masses of wrought and unwrought gold. Troy’s victory
does not rest with me: one life will not make that much difference.’
Aeneas replied to him in this way: “Keep those many talents
of silver and gold you mention for your sons. Turnus, before we spoke,
did away with the courtesies of war the moment he killed Pallas.
So my father Anchises’s spirit thinks, so does Iulus.”
Saying this he held the helmet with his left hand and, bending
the suppliant’s neck backwards, drove in his sword to the hilt.
Haemon’s son, a priest of Apollo and Diana, was not far away,
the band with its sacred ribbons circling his temples, and all
his robes and emblems shining white. Aeneas met him and drove him
over the plain, then, standing over the fallen man, killed him and cloaked
him in mighty darkness: Serestus collected and carried off
his weapons on his shoulders, a trophy for you, King Gradivus.
Caeculus, born of the race of Vulcan, and Umbro,
who came from the Marsian hills, restored order.
The Trojan raged against them: his sword sliced off Anxur’s
left arm, it fell to the ground with the whole disc of his shield
(Anxur had shouted some boast, trusting the power
of words, lifting his spirit high perhaps, promising
himself white-haired old age and long years);
then Tarquitus nearby, proud in his gleaming armour,
whom the nymph Dryope had born to Faunus of the woods,
exposed himself to fiery Aeneas. He, drawing back his spear,
pinned the breastplate and the huge weight of shield together:
then, as the youth begged in vain and tried to utter a flow of words,
he struck his head to the ground and, rolling the warm trunk over,
spoke these words above him from a hostile heart:
“Lie there now, one to be feared. No noble mother will bury you
in the earth nor weight your limbs with an ancestral tomb:
you’ll be left for the carrion birds, or, sunk in the abyss,
the flood will bear you, and hungry fish suck your wounds.”
Then he caught up with Antaeus and Lucas, in Turnus’s
front line, brave Numa and auburn Camers, son of noble Volcens,
the wealthiest in Ausonian land, who ruled silent Amyclae.
Once his sword was hot, victorious Aeneas raged
over the whole plain, like Aegeaon,1 who had a hundred
arms and a hundred hands, they say, and breathed fire
from fifty chests and mouths, when he clashed
with as many like shields of his and drew as many swords
against Jove’s lightning-bolts. See now he was headed
towards the four horse team of Niphaeus’s chariot
and the opposing front. And when the horses saw him taking
great strides in his deadly rage, they shied and galloped in fear,
throwing their master and dragging the chariot to the shore.
Meanwhile Lucagus and his brother Liger entered the fray
in their chariot with two white horses; Liger handling
the horses’ reins, fierce Lucagus waving his naked sword.
Aeneas could not tolerate such furious hot-headedness;
he rushed at them and loomed up gigantic with levelled spear.
Liger said to him: “These are not Diomedes’s horses
that you see, nor Achille’s chariot, nor Phrygia’s plain:
now you’ll be dealt an end to your war and life.”
Such were the words that flew far from foolish
Liger’s lips. But the Trojan hero did not ready
words in reply, he hurled his spear then against his enemies.
While Lucagus urged on his horses, leaning forward
towards the spear’s blow, as, with left foot advanced,
he prepared himself for battle, the spear entered the lower
rim of his bright shield, then pierced the left thigh;
thrown from the chariot he rolled on the ground in death,
while noble Aeneas spoke bitter words to him:
“Lucagus, it was not the flight of your horses in fear that betrayed
your chariot, or the enemy’s idle shadow that turned them:
it was you, leaping from the wheels, who relinquished the reins.”
So saying he grasped at the chariot; the wretched brother,
Liger, who had fallen as well, held out his helpless hands:
“Trojan hero, by your own life, by your parents who bore
such a son, take pity, I beg you, without taking this life away.”
As he begged more urgently, Aeaneas said: “Those were not
the words you spoke before. Die and don’t let brother desert brother.”
Then he sliced open his chest where the life is hidden.
Such were the deaths the Trojan leader caused across
that plain, raging like a torrent of water or a dark
tempest. At last his child, Ascanius, and the men
who were besieged in vain, breaking free, left the camp.
Nec iam fama mali tanti, sed certior auctor 510
advolat Aeneae tenui discrimine leti
esse suos, tempus versis succurrere Teucris.
proxima quaeque metit gladio latumque per agmen
ardens limitem agit ferro, te, Turne, superbum
caede nova quaerens. Pallas, Evander, in ipsis 515
omnia sunt oculis, mensae quas advena primas
tunc adiit, dextraeque datae. Sulmone creatos
quattuor hic iuvenes, totidem quos educat Ufens,
viventis rapit, inferias quos immolet umbris
captivoque rogi perfundat sanguine flammas. 520
inde Mago procul infensam contenderat hastam:
ille astu subit, at tremibunda supervolat hasta,
et genua amplectens effatur talia supplex:
'per patrios manis et spes surgentis Iuli
te precor, hanc animam serves gnatoque patrique. 525
est domus alta, iacent penitus defossa talenta
caelati argenti, sunt auri pondera facti
infectique mihi. non hic victoria Teucrum
vertitur aut anima una dabit discrimina tanta.'
dixerat. Aeneas contra cui talia reddit: 530
'argenti atque auri memoras quae multa talenta
gnatis parce tuis. belli commercia Turnus
sustulit ista prior iam tum Pallante perempto.
hoc patris Anchisae manes, hoc sentit Iulus.'
sic fatus galeam laeva tenet atque reflexa 535
cervice orantis capulo tenus applicat ensem.
nec procul Haemonides, Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos,
infula cui sacra redimibat tempora vitta,
totus conlucens veste atque insignibus albis.
quem congressus agit campo, lapsumque superstans 540
immolat ingentique umbra tegit, arma Serestus
lecta refert umeris tibi, rex Gradiue, tropaeum.
Instaurant acies Volcani stirpe creatus
Caeculus et veniens Marsorum montibus Umbro.
Dardanides contra furit: Anxuris ense sinistram 545
et totum clipei ferro deiecerat orbem
(dixerat ille aliquid magnum vimque adfore verbo
crediderat, caeloque animum fortasse ferebat
canitiemque sibi et longos promiserat annos);
Tarquitus exsultans contra fulgentibus armis, 550
silvicolae Fauno Dryope quem nympha crearat,
obvius ardenti sese obtulit. ille reducta
loricam clipeique ingens onus impedit hasta,
tum caput orantis nequiquam et multa parantis
dicere deturbat terrae, truncumque tepentem 555
provolvens super haec inimico pectore fatur:
'istic nunc, metuende, iace. non te optima mater
condet humi patrioque onerabit membra sepulcro:
alitibus linquere feris, aut gurgite mersum
unda feret piscesque impasti vulnera lambent.' 560
protinus Antaeum et Lucam, prima agmina Turni,
persequitur, fortemque Numam fulvumque Camertem,
magnanimo Volcente satum, ditissimus agri
qui fuit Ausonidum et tacitis regnavit Amyclis.
Aegaeon qualis, centum cui bracchia dicunt 565
centenasque manus, quinquaginta oribus ignem
pectoribusque arsisse, Iovis cum fulmina contra
tot paribus streperet clipeis, tot stringeret ensis:
sic toto Aeneas desaevit in aequore victor
ut semel intepuit mucro. quin ecce Niphaei 570
quadriiugis in equos adversaque pectora tendit.
atque illi longe gradientem et dira frementem
ut videre, metu versi retroque ruentes
effunduntque ducem rapiuntque ad litora currus.
Interea biiugis infert se Lucagus albis 575
in medios fraterque Liger; sed frater habenis
flectit equos, strictum rotat acer Lucagus ensem.
haud tulit Aeneas tanto fervore furentis;
inruit adversaque ingens apparuit hasta.
cui Liger: 580
'non Diomedis equos nec currum cernis Achilli
aut Phrygiae campos: nunc belli finis et aevi
his dabitur terris.' vesano talia late
dicta volant Ligeri. sed non et Troius heros
dicta parat contra, iaculum nam torquet in hostis. 585
Lucagus ut pronus pendens in verbera telo
admonuit biiugos, proiecto dum pede laevo
aptat se pugnae, subit oras hasta per imas
fulgentis clipei, tum laevum perforat inguen;
excussus curru moribundus volvitur arvis. 590
quem pius Aeneas dictis adfatur amaris:
'Lucage, nulla tuos currus fuga segnis equorum
prodidit aut vanae vertere ex hostibus umbrae:
ipse rotis saliens iuga deseris.' haec ita fatus
arripuit biiugos; frater tendebat inertis 595
infelix palmas curru delapsus eodem:
'per te, per qui te talem genuere parentes,
vir Troiane, sine hanc animam et miserere precantis.'
pluribus oranti Aeneas: 'haud talia dudum
dicta dabas. morere et fratrem ne desere frater.' 600
tum latebras animae pectus mucrone recludit.
talia per campos edebat funera ductor
Dardanius torrentis aquae vel turbinis atri
more furens. tandem erumpunt et castra relinquunt
Ascanius puer et nequiquam obsessa iuventus. 605
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Also known as Briareus, a hundred-armed monster.