FROM THE
Vergil was born in Cisalpine Gaul in 70 b.c. His health being too poor to allow him to enter public life, he devoted himself to literature. When Augustus became emperor, he asked Vergil to write a monumental work to add to the glory of Rome. Vergil spent many years studying and preparing for this task and, in 19 b.c. he finally finished the first draft of his poem. He died that same year at Brundisium, before he could revise and polish the work as he intended. His Aeneid is the national epic of Rome, and one of the masterpieces of all world literature.
What god shall sing of the bitter strife, of the different Ways to their doom of the slaughtered chiefs as now Aeneas here and Turnus there quartered the battlefield?
O Jove, was it indeed your will that nations Who were to live together in peace for ever Should meet in such a clash?
Then Venus, most beautiful mother of Aeneas,
Put in his mind this thought: to march to the walls,
To switch his forces suddenly onto the city And stun the Latians in a surprise attack.
And he, as he tracked through the battle,
Hither and thither, cast his hunting eye On the safe city basking in its immunity From the turmoil of the battle, aloof and quiet.
The vision of a more telling feat of arms
Immediately gripped his mind: he summoned his captains
Mnestheus, and Sergestus, and bold Serestus,
And standing on a mount to which the rest
Of the Trojan forces rallied in close order
Their weapons at the ready, standing there
On the top of the mound he spake these words to them.
"These are my orders: to be obeyed at once.
Jove is with us. Let nobody be the slower Because this change of plan is a sudden one:
Today I propose to raze this city, the cause Of the war, Latinus' capital. Unless They acknowledge defeat and willingly submit I will level its smoking turrets with the ground.
Am I going to wait for Turnus till he is pleased To fight me? and, beaten, ask for a second chance?
O countrymen, here is the root and branch Of this evil war. Fetch faggots! Exact with fire The restoration of the broken treaty!"
Such were his words, and all his troops massed Into a wedge and advanced to the city walls.
Suddenly, in a flash, scaling ladders and torches Appeared and some of his men surprised the gateposts killing The sentries, others discharged their spinning darts And blackened the sky with weapons.
—Patrick Dickinson (translator)