s edge, so excellent its
temper--pierced through his brazen buckler and his tunic stiffened by bars
of gold, and penetrating his side, drained the life-blood. Next the hero
struck down Lycas; and rushing onward, encountered two stalwart rustics,
Cisseus and Gyas, who were making havoc among the Trojans by beating them
down with ponderous clubs. On the divine armor the heavy blows of these
rude weapons fell harmless, while the spear of AEneas proved fatal to both
those who wielded them. An insolent warrior named Pharus was defying the
hero from a short distance with taunting speech, when he hurled a javelin,
which struck the boaster full in the mouth, and transfixing the throat,
silenced him forever. Now a band of seven brothers, the sons of Phorcus,
all at once attacked AEneas with darts, throwing them together. Some of the
weapons struck his helmet and shield, and rebounded; others, turned aside
by the care of Venus, grazed his skin. AEneas called to Achates to bring
him more spears, and snatching one as soon as it was offered, hurled it
against Maeon, one of the brothers, with such force that it penetrated his
shield and corselet, and inflicted a mortal wound in his breast. Another
brother, Alcanor, hurrying up to Maeon's assistance, he smote with a second
spear, just where the arm and shoulder join, leaving the arm hanging to
the body only by two or three shreds of skin and muscle. Seeing the
slaughter that AEneas was spreading around him, Halaesus and Messapus
hurried up with their bands to confront him, and so in that part of the
field the battle grew still more furious.

In another part, where Pallas was fighting at the head of his Arcadian
horsemen, the ground had been rendered so uneven by the winter torrents
that they were obliged to dismount, and being unaccustomed to fight on
foot, they began to retreat before the fierce assault of the Rutulians. At
this sight their brave young leader was overwhelmed with shame and
mortification. "Whither," he cried, "my fellow countrymen, do you fly? I
implore you, by the memory of your gallant deeds in the past, by the name
of Evander, the king you love, by my own hopes of glory, not to flee. Your
way lies through your foes, not from them; with your swords must you cut a
passage where they crowd most densely. These are not gods who pursue us;
they are mortals, like ourselves, and they are not stronger or more
numerous than we. The ocean hems us in with an impassable barrier o