Elsewhere too the wretched Latins built innumerable pyres.
Some of the many corpses they buried in the earth, some they took
and carried to the fields nearby or sent onwards to the city.
The rest, a vast pile of indiscriminate dead, they burnt
without count and without honours: then the wide fields
on every side shone thick with fires in emulation.
The third dawn dispelled chill shadows from the sky:
grieving, they raked the bones, mixed with a depth of ash,
from the pyres and heaped a mound of warm earth over them.
Meanwhile, the main clamour and the heart of their prolonged
lamentation was inside the walls, in the city of rich Latinus.
Here mothers and unhappy daughters-in-law, here the loving hearts
of grieving sisters and boys robbed of their fathers, cursed the dreadful
war and the marriage Turnus had intended, and demanded that he
and he alone should fight it out with armour and blade, he who
claimed for himself the kingdom of Italy and the foremost honours.
Cruelly, Drances added to this and testified that Turnus alone
was summoned, that he alone was challenged to battle.
At the same time many an opinion in varied words was against it
and for Turnus, and the queen’s noble name protected him,
while his great fame and the trophies he’d earned spoke for him.
Amongst this stir, at the heart of the blaze of dissension,
behold, to crown it all, the ambassadors brought an answer
from Diomedes’s great city, sad that nothing had been achieved
at the cost of all their efforts, presents and gold
and heartfelt prayers had been useless, the Latins must find
other armies or seek peace with the Trojan king.
King Latinus sank beneath this vast disappointment:
the angry gods and the fresh graves before his eyes had given
warning that this fateful Aeneas was clearly sent by divine will.
So, summoning his high council, the leaders of his people,
by royal command, he gathered them within his tall gates.
They convened, streaming to the king’s palace through
the crowded streets. Latinus, the oldest and most powerful,
seated himself at their centre, with no pleasure in his aspect.
And he ordered the ambassadors, back from the Aetolian city,
to tell their news, asking for all the answers in order.
Then all tongues fell silent and, obeying
his order, Venulus began as follows:
“O citizens, we have seen Diomedes and his Argive camp,
completed our journey, overcome all dangers,
and grasped that hand by which the land of Troy fell.
As victor over the Iapygian fields,1 by the Garganus hills, he was
founding the city of Argyripa, named after his father’s people.
When we had entered and were given leave to speak to him
in person, we offered our gifts and declared our name and country,
who had made war on us, and what had brought us to Arpi.
He listened and replied in this way with a calm look:
‘O fortunate nations, realms of Saturn, ancient peoples
of Ausonia, what fortune troubles your peace
and persuades you to invite base war?
We who violated the fields of Troy with our blades
(forgetting what we endured in battle beneath her high walls,
or those warriors Simois drowned) have paid in atrocious suffering,
and every kind of punishment, for our sins, throughout the world,
a crew that even Priam would have pitied; Minerva’s dark star
and that cliff of Euboea, Caphereus the avenger, know it.2
Menelaus, son of Atreus, driven from that warfare to distant shores,
was exiled as far as Egypt and the Pillars of Proteus,
while Ulysses has viewed the Cyclopes of Aetna.3
Even Mycenean Agamemnon, leader of the mighty Greeks,
was struck down at the hand of his wicked wife when barely
over the threshold: he conquered Asia, but an adulterer lurked.4
Need I speak of the kingdom of Neoptolemus, Idomeneus’s
household overthrown, or the Locrians5 living on Libya’s coast?
How the gods begrudged me my return to my country’s
altars, the wife I longed for, and lovely Calydon?6
Even now visitations pursue me, dreadful to see:
my lost comrades, as birds, sought the sky with their wings
or haunt the streams (alas, a dire punishment for my people!)
and fill the cliffs with their mournful cries.
This was the fate I should have expected from that moment
when, in madness, I attacked Venus’s heavenly body
with my sword and harmed her hand by wounding it.7
Do not, in truth, do not urge me to such conflict. Since Troy’s
towers have fallen I have no quarrel with Teucer’s race,
nor have I joyful memories of those ancient evils.
Take the gifts you bring me from your country
to Aeneas. I have withstood his cruel weapons and fought him
hand to hand:8 trust my knowledge of how he looms
tall above his shield, with what power he hurls his spear.
Had the Troad produced two other men like him,
the Trojans would have reached the Greek cities,
and Greece would be grieving, their fates reversed.
During all that time we spent facing the walls of enduring Troy,
a Greek victory was stalled at the hands of Hector
and Aeneas, and denied us till the tenth year.
Both were outstanding in courage and weaponry:
Aeneas was first in virtue. Join hands with him in confederation,
as best you can; but beware of crossing swords with him.’
Noblest of kings, you have heard in one what their king replies
and what his counsels are concerning this great war.”
Nec minus et miseri diversa in parte Latini
innumeras struxere pyras, et corpora partim
multa virum terrae infodiunt, avectaque partim 205
finitimos tollunt in agros urbique remittunt.
cetera confusaeque ingentem caedis acervum
nec numero nec honore cremant; tunc undique vasti
certatim crebris conlucent ignibus agri.
tertia lux gelidam caelo dimoverat umbram: 210
maerentes altum cinerem et confusa ruebant
ossa focis tepidoque onerabant aggere terrae.
iam vero in tectis, praedivitis urbe Latini,
praecipuus fragor et longi pars maxima luctus.
hic matres miseraeque nurus, hic cara sororum 215
pectora maerentum puerique parentibus orbi
dirum exsecrantur bellum Turnique hymenaeos;
ipsum armis ipsumque iubent decernere ferro,
qui regnum Italiae et primos sibi poscat honores.
ingravat haec saevus Drances solumque vocari 220
testatur, solum posci in certamina Turnum.
multa simul contra variis sententia dictis
pro Turno, et magnum reginae nomen obumbrat,
multa virum meritis sustentat fama tropaeis.
Hos inter motus, medio in flagrante tumultu, 225
ecce super maesti magna Diomedis ab urbe
legati responsa ferunt: nihil omnibus actum
tantorum impensis operum, nil dona neque aurum
nec magnas valuisse preces, alia arma Latinis
quaerenda, aut pacem Troiano ab rege petendum. 230
deficit ingenti luctu rex ipse Latinus:
fatalem Aenean manifesto numine ferri
admonet ira deum tumulique ante ora recentes.
ergo concilium magnum primosque suorum
imperio accitos alta intra limina cogit. 235
olli convenere fluuntque ad regia plenis
tecta viis. sedet in mediis et maximus aevo
et primus sceptris haud laeta fronte Latinus.
atque hic legatos Aetola ex urbe remissos
quae referant fari iubet, et responsa reposcit 240
ordine cuncta suo. tum facta silentia linguis,
et Venulus dicto parens ita farier infit:
'Vidimus, o cives, Diomedem Argivaque castra,
atque iter emensi casus superavimus omnis,
contigimusque manum qua concidit Ilia tellus. 245
ille urbem Argyripam patriae cognomine gentis
victor Gargani condebat Iapygis agris.
postquam introgressi et coram data copia fandi,
munera praeferimus, nomen patriamque docemus,
qui bellum intulerint, quae causa attraxerit Arpos. 250
auditis ille haec placido sic reddidit ore:
"o fortunatae gentes, Saturnia regna,
antiqui Ausonii, quae vos fortuna quietos
sollicitat suadetque ignota lacessere bella?
quicumque Iliacos ferro violavimus agros 255
(mitto ea quae muris bellando exhausta sub altis,
quos Simois premat ille viros) infanda per orbem
supplicia et scelerum poenas expendimus omnes,
vel Priamo miseranda manus; scit triste Minervae
sidus et Euboicae cautes ultorque Caphereus. 260
militia ex illa diversum ad litus abacti
Atrides Protei Menelaus adusque columnas
exsulat, Aetnaeos vidit Cyclopas Ulixes.
regna Neoptolemi referam versosque penatis
Idomenei? Libycone habitantis litore Locros? 265
ipse Mycenaeus magnorum ductor Achivum
coniugis infandae prima inter limina dextra
oppetiit, devictam Asiam subsedit adulter.
invidisse deos, patriis ut redditus aris
coniugium optatum et pulchram Calydona viderem? 270
nunc etiam horribili visu portenta sequuntur
et socii amissi petierunt aethera pennis
fluminibusque vagantur aves (heu, dira meorum
supplicia!) et scopulos lacrimosis vocibus implent.
haec adeo ex illo mihi iam speranda fuerunt 275
tempore cum ferro caelestia corpora demens
appetii et Veneris violavi vulnere dextram.
ne vero, ne me ad talis impellite pugnas.
nec mihi cum Teucris ullum post eruta bellum
Pergama nec veterum memini laetorve malorum. 280
munera quae patriis ad me portatis ab oris
vertite ad Aenean. stetimus tela aspera contra
contulimusque manus: experto credite quantus
in clipeum adsurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam.
si duo praeterea talis Idaea tulisset 285
terra viros, ultro Inachias venisset ad urbes
Dardanus, et versis lugeret Graecia fatis.
quidquid apud durae cessatum est moenia Troiae,
Hectoris Aeneaeque manu victoria Graium
haesit et in decimum vestigia rettulit annum. 290
ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus armis,
hic pietate prior. coeant in foedera dextrae,
qua datur; ast armis concurrant arma cavete."
et responsa simul quae sint, rex optime, regis
audisti et quae sit magno sententia bello.' 295
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
a region of southern Italy; the Garganus is a mountain therein
Likely the cliff where Ajax the Lesser was skewered as punishment for raping Cassandra.
Ulysses has viewed a lot more than that.
Agamemnon was killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, for sacrificing their daughter, Iphigenia; in most versions of the story, Clytemnestra has taken Agamemnon’s cousin Aegisthos as lover in the meantime.
Ajax the Lesser’s people; they were displaced to Libya and also pretty cursed.
the Greek city that was Diomedes’ ancestral homeland
See Iliad 5 for this as well, though Diomedes is being generous.