s the left foot, as they march to fight,
And, rough with raw bull's-hide, a sandal guards the right.

XCIII. Next came Messapus, tamer of the steed,
Great Neptune's son. Fire nor the steel's sharp stroke
Could lay him lifeless, so the Fates decreed.
Grasping his sword, a laggard race he woke,
Disused to war, and tardy to provoke.
Behind him throng Fescennia's ranks to fight,
Men from Flavinia, and Faliscum's folk,
And those whom fair Capena's groves delight,
Ciminius' mount and lake, and steep Soracte's height.

XCIV. With measured tramp, their monarch's praise they sing,
Like snowy swans, the liquid clouds among,
Which homeward from their feeding ply the wing,
When o'er Cayster's marish, loud and long,
The echoes float of their melodious song.
None, sure, such countless multitudes would deem
The mail-clad warriors of an armed throng:
Nay, rather, like a dusky cloud they seem
Of sea-fowl, landward driven with many a hoarse-voiced scream.

XCV. Lo, Clausus next; a mighty host he led,
Himself a host. From Sabine sires he came,
And Latium thence the Claudian house o'erspread,
When Romans first with Sabines dared to claim
Coequal lordship and a share of fame.
With Amiternus came Eretum's band;
From fair Velinus' dewy fields they came,
From olive-crowned Mutusca, from the land
Where proud Nomentum's towers the fruitful plains command.

XCVI. From the rough crags of Tetrica came down
Her hosts; they came from tall Severus' flank,
From Foruli and fam'd Casperia's town,
Wash'd by Himella's waves, and those who drank
Of Fabaris, or dwelt on Tiber's bank.
Those, too, whom Nursia sendeth from the snows,
And Horta's sons, in many an ordered rank,
And tribes of Latin origin, and those
Between whose parted fields th' ill-omened Allia flows.

XCVII. As roll the billows on the Libyan deep,
When fierce Orion in the wintry main
Sinks, dark with tempests, and the waves upleap;
As, parched with suns of summer, stands the grain
On Hermus' fields, or Lycia's golden plain;
So countless swarm the multitudes around
Bold Clausus, and the wide air rings again
With echoes, as their clashing shields resound,
And with the tramp of feet they shake the trembling ground.

XCVIII. There Agamemnon's kinsman yokes his steeds,
Halaesus. Trojans were his foes, his friend
Was Turnus. Lo, a thous