The story of Vertumnus and Pomona
took place when Proca ruled Ausonia.
And it was Numitor who should have been
Ausonia’s next king; but his false brother,
Aumalius, usurped his place as ruler:
by force of arms, he won the Latin scepter;
old Numitor did not regain the crown
till Romulus and Remus, his grandsons
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(born of his daughter, Ilia, by Mars),
came to his aid; and on the feast of Pales,
the shepherds’ tutelary goddess, Rome
was founded. Tatius and the Sabines launched
their war against the city; it was then
that traitorous Tarpeia showed the men
of Tatius how to take the secret path
into the citadel; and she—for this—
was justly punished when that very force
which she had helped repaid the girl with death.
The Sabines crushed her under their heaped shields
and then, in silence, just like stealthy wolves,
assailed the sleeping sentinels; they reached
the gates that Romulus had bolted tight
with sturdy bars. But Juno’s own hand loosed
one bar, and as the gate turned on the hinge,
there was no sound. The only one to notice
the fallen bar along the gate was Venus;
and she’d have closed the gate again, but gods
are not allowed to undo what was done
by gods. So Venus had to call upon
some Naiads of Ausonia, whose home
was near the shrine of Janus, in a grove
well watered by a crystalline, cool spring.
Those nymphs did not refuse what Venus asked:
they let their fountains stream and gush. And yet
the gates of Janus’ shrine were still not blocked;
that flood was not enough to shut the pass.
And so, into their streams’ great flow they poured
hot sulfur and ignited with hot pitch
the hollow channels where their waters coursed.
By these and other means, the blazing steam
drove down into the fountain’s deepest veins;
and you, the spring that until then had vied
with Alpine cold, are able now to boast
that you’re a match for fire and fierce coals!
Smoke rose from the two gate-posts; in the shape
the fountain now had taken, it delayed
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the sturdy Sabines: though the gate was open,
the Sabines could not pass; and so the Romans
gained time—enough to arm. When Romulus
attacked, and desecrating swords had shed
the mingled blood of sons-in-law and fathers-
in law, and corpses covered Roman soil,
a truce seemed best, an end to war—and yet
one that did not depend on total slaughter.
Peace was declared, and Tatius shared the crown.