Teucrians

“ Thus Jupiter in brief; but not brief was the answer 20
of golden Venus: “O Father! O eternal sovereignty of
man and nature! for what else can there be which is left
us to implore? Seest thou how the Rutulians insult? how
Turnus is whirled through the battle by his haughty
coursers, borne on the floodtide of war? No longer are 25
the Teucrians safe even in the shelter of their walls; within
the gates, amidst the very mounds of the ramparts combat
is waged, and the trenches overflow with carnage. Æneas
is away in his ignorance. ”

“ There suddenly Æneas sees amidst a concourse wrapped
Antheus, Sergestus, and the strong Cloanthus draw anigh,510
And other Teucrians whom the whirl, wild, black, all utterly
Had scattered into other lands afar across the sea.
Amazed he stood, nor stricken was Achates less than he
By joy, by fear: they hungered sore hand unto hand to set;
But doubt of dealings that might be stirred in their hearts as yet;
So lurking, cloaked in hollow cloud they note what things betide
Their fellows there, and on what shore the ships they manned may bide,
And whence they come ”

“ On this Mars armipotent raised the spirit and strength of the Latins, and goaded their hearts to rage, and sent Flight and dark Fear among the Teucrians. From all quarters they gather, since battle is freely offered; and the warrior god inspires. ”

“ Did the fires of Troy consume her people? Through the midst of armies and through the midst of flames they have found their way. But, I think, my deity lies at last outwearied, or my hatred sleeps and is satisfied? Nay, it is I who have been fierce to follow them over the waves when hurled from their country, and on all the seas have crossed their flight. Against the Teucrians the forces of sky and sea are spent. What hath availed me Syrtes or Scylla, what desolate Charybdis? they find shelter in their desired Tiber-bed, careless of ocean and of me. ”

“ With loud shouts the Teucrians pour
themselves through all the gates and through the bulwarks. 10
For such had been the charge of Æneas, that best of soldiers,
when going on his way; should aught fall out meantime,
let them not venture to draw out their lines or try
the fortune of the field: enough for them to guard camp
and wall safe behind their earthworks. So now, though 15
shame and anger prompt to an engagement, they shield
themselves nevertheless with closed gates in pursuance of
his bidding, and armed, within the covert of their towers,
await the foe. ”

“ But good Æneas, though yearning to solace and soothe
her agonized spirit, and by his words to check the onset of
sorrow, with many a groan, his whole soul upheaved by
the force of love, goes nevertheless about the commands
of Heaven, and repairs to his fleet. The Teucrians redouble 15
their efforts, and along the whole range of the shore
drag their tall ships down. The keels are careened and
floated. They carry oars with their leaves still on, and
timber unfashioned as it stood in the woods, so strong their
eagerness to fly. ”

“ Night's sheltering shadow flutters dark around us. Who may unfold in speech that night's horror and death-agony, or measure its woes in weeping? The [Pg 35] [363-397] ancient city falls with her long years of sovereignty; corpses lie stretched stiff all about the streets and houses and awful courts of the gods. Nor do Teucrians alone pay forfeit of their blood; once and again valour returns even in conquered hearts, and the victorious Grecians fall. Everywhere is cruel agony, everywhere terror, and the sight of death at every turn. ”

“ The fashioning of Neptune's hand, amid the flame sink down?
But ye, my chosen, who is dight with me to break the wall,
That we upon their quaking camp with point and edge may fall? [Pg 250]
No need I have of Vulcan's arms or thousand ships at sea
Against these Teucrians; yea, though they should win them presently,
The Tuscan friendship: deeds of dusk and deedless stolen gain
Of that Palladium, and the guards of topmost castle slain,150
Let them not fear: we shall not lurk in horse's dusky womb:
In open day to gird your walls with wildfire is the doom. ”

“ Aye, I remember Teucer coming to Sidon, driven
from the borders of his fatherland, hoping to gain a new 35
kingdom by the aid of Belus. Belus, my sire, was then
laying waste the rich fields of Cyprus, and ruling the isle
with a conqueror’s sway. Ever since that time I knew [21]
the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the
Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol
the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that
he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come
then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. ”

“ Thus Jove; but Venus of the golden hair,
Less brief, made answer: "Lord of earth and air!
O Father! Power eternal! whom beside
We know none other, to approach with prayer,
See the Rutulians, how they swell with pride; 19 See Turnus, puffed with triumph, borne upon the tide.
IV . "Their very walls the Teucrians shield no more.
Within the gates, amid the mounds the fray
Is raging, and the trenches float with gore,
While, ignorant, Æneas is away.
Is theirs no rest from leaguer—not a day?
Again a threatening enemy hangs o'er
A new-born Troy! ”

“ But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. Nor do the bold Rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . Elsewhere in dreadful guise Mezentius brandishes his Etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but Messapus, tamer of horses, seed of Neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts. ”

“ Thus they one with another strove together in uncertainty; Aeneas moved from his camp to battle. Lo, a messenger rushes spreading confusion through the royal house, and fills the town with great alarms: the Teucrians, ranged in battle-line with the Tyrrhene forces, are marching down by the Tiber river and filling the plain. Immediately spirits are stirred and hearts shaken and wrath roused in fierce excitement among the crowd. Hurrying hands grasp at arms; for arms their young men clamour ”

“ Yet if untimely death awaited my son, it will be good to think he fell leading the Teucrians into Latium, and slew his Volscian thousands before he fell. Nay, no other funeral than this would I deem thy due, my Pallas, than good Aeneas does, than the mighty Phrygians, than the Tyrrhene captains and all the army of Tyrrhenia. Great are the trophies they bring on whom thine hand deals death; thou also, Turnus, wert standing now a great trunk dressed in arms, had his age and his strength of years equalled thine. ”

“ There is a Xanthus in Lycia and in the Troad, and the name Tros seems to be identical with the name of the Lycian city of Tlos, which lies high up in the valley of the Xanthus under Taurus. In any case, from this close combination of the Teucrians and Lycians in Homer, we may conclude that with the Greeks of the coast the Lycians passed for a tribe who had already been for a long time in possession of their settlements. None but native Asiatic tribes could be represented as fighting beside the native Teucrians as their closest confederates. ”

“ None can sustain 25
in combat the Teucrians’ deadly onset or resist the stream;
they throw their unstrung bows on their unnerved
shoulders, and the hoof of four-foot steeds shakes the
crumbling plain. On rolls to the ramparts a cloud of dust,
thick and murky; and the matrons from their sentry-posts, 30
smiting on their breasts, raise a shriek as women
wont to the stars of heaven. Who first pour at speed
through the open gates are whelmed by a multitude of
foemen that blends its crowd with theirs ”

“ Since nowise the Ausonian folk the plighted troth may blend
With Teucrians, and your contest seems a strife without an end;
What fortune each may have today, what hope each one shears out,
Trojan or Rutulan, will I hold all in balanced doubt,
Whether the camp be so beset by fate of Italy,
Or hapless wanderings of Troy, and warnings dealt awry.110
Nor loose I Rutulans the more; let each one's way-faring
Bear its own hap and toil, for Jove to all alike is king;
The Fates will find a way to wend. ”

“ But we need no words to fill our senate-house, safely as thou wingest them while the mounded walls keep off the enemy, and the trenches swim not yet with blood. Thunder on in rhetoric, thy wonted way: accuse thou me of fear, Drances, since thine hand hath heaped so many Teucrians in slaughter, and thy glorious trophies dot the fields. Trial is open of what live valour can do; nor indeed is our foe far to seek; on all sides they surround our walls. Are we going to meet them? Why linger? Will thy bravery ever be in that windy tongue and those timorous feet of thine? ”

“ It does not appear that this can, with Frank, Callinus, p. 31, he understood only of a mention of the name of the Teucrians.946.The latter fact is supported by the ancient name of Cephalion, an inhabitant of the Teucrian city of Gergis (ap. Steph. Byz. in Ἀρίσβη. Eustath. ad Il. p. 894.) : but his Τρωικὰ was the forgery of an Alexandrine writer named Hegesianax (Athen. IX. p. 393 B) . Lycophron, v. ”

“ But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence; nay, he [Pg 197] [127-158] raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them: 'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire. So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in flight; they have lost half their world. And we hold the land: in all their thousands the nations of Italy are under arms. In no wise am I dismayed by those divine oracles of doom the Phrygians insolently advance. ”

“ Nay, their eyes would scan all the story in order, were not Achates already returned from his errand, and with him the priestess of Phoebus and Trivia, Deïphobe daughter of Glaucus, who thus accosts the king: 'Other than this are the sights the time demands: now were it well to sacrifice seven unbroken bullocks of the herd, as many fitly chosen sheep of two years old.' Thus speaks she to Aeneas; nor do they delay to do her sacred bidding; and the priestess calls the Teucrians into the lofty shrine. ”

“ Pieria, or whether it is not more probable that these barbarous nations43 received from the Greeks their general name of Thracians, with which they had been familiar from early times, are questions which I shall not attempt to determine. Into these nations, however, a large number of Pæonians subsequently penetrated, who had passed over at the time of a very ancient migration of the Teucrians, together with the Mysians.44 To this Pæonian race the Pelagonians, on the banks of the Axius, belonged; who also advanced into Thessaly, as will be shown hereafter. ”

“ And thou, O prophetess most holy, foreknower of the future, grant (for no unearned realm does my destiny claim) a resting-place in Latium to the Teucrians, to their wandering gods and the storm-tossed deities of Troy. Then will I ordain to Phoebus and Trivia a temple of solid marble, and festal days in Phoebus' name. Thee likewise a mighty sanctuary awaits in our realm. For here will I place thine oracles and the secrets of destiny uttered to my people, and consecrate chosen men, O gracious one. Only commit not thou thy verses to leaves, lest they fly disordered, the sport of rushing winds ”

“ Secondly, the Pæonians. A numerous race divided into several small nations,2023 inhabiting the districts on the rivers Strymon and Axius and the countries to the north of Macedonia,2024 together with Pannonia, according to the Greeks.2025 This race, according to their own tradition (if Herodotus's account is correct) ,2026 derived their origin from the ancient Teucrians in the Troad ”

“ Down go Arcadia's chivalry that day,
Down go the Etruscans, and the Teucrians, those
Whom Grecian conquerors had failed to slay.
Man locked with man, amid the conflict's throes, 514 With strength and leaders matched, the rival armies close.
LIX . On press the rearmost, crowding on the van,
So thick, that neither hand can stir, nor spear
Be wielded; each one struggles as he can.
Here Pallas, there brave Lausus, charge and cheer,
Two foes, in age scarce differing by a year. ”

“ These when they had crossed over into Asia came to be called Bithynians, but formerly they were called, as they themselves report, Strymonians, since they dwelt upon the river Strymon; and they say that they were driven out of their abode by the Teucrians and Mysians. Of the Thracians who lived in Asia the commander was Bassakes the son of Artabanos. ”

“ Who scorned the Gods, ride foremost. Far away
They scour the fields; the shepherd and the swain 1 Rush to the war, and bare of ploughmen lies the plain.
II . To Diomed posts Venulus, to crave
His aid, and tell how Teucrians hold the land;
Æneas with his gods hath crossed the wave,
And claims the throne his vaunted Fates demand.
How many a tribe hath joined the Dardan's band,
How spreads his fame through Latium. What the foe
May purpose next, what conquest he hath planned,
Should friendly fortune speed the coming blow, 10 Better than Latium's king Ætolia's lord must know. ”

“ I had no dearer friend. Dead, too, is ill-starred Ufens,
all because he would not see me disgraced: his body and
his arms are the Teucrians’ prize. Am I to let the nation’s 25
homes be razed to the ground, the one drop that was
wanting to the cup, and not rather with my own right
hand give Drances’ words the lie? Shall I turn my back?
shall this land see Turnus flying? is death after all so
bitter? Be gracious to me, gentle powers of the grave, 30
since the gods above are against me! ”