city is your home?
And wherefore ride ye in such guise
Before the ranks of Rome?" 600

XXXIV

"By many names men call us;
In many lands we dwell;
Well Samothracia[55] knows us,
Cyrene knows us well.
Our house in gay Tarentum[56] 605
Is hung each morn with flowers:
High o'er the masts of Syracuse[57]
Our marble portal towers;
But by the proud Eurotas[58]
Is our dear native home; 610
And for the right we come to fight
Before the ranks of Rome."

XXXV

So answered those strange horsemen,
And each couched low his spear;
And forthwith all the ranks of Rome 615
Were bold, and of good cheer;
And on the thirty armies
Came wonder and affright,
And Ardea wavered on the left,
And Cora on the right. 620
"Rome to the charge!" cried Aulus;
"The foe begins to yield!
Charge for the hearth of Vesta![59]
Charge for the Golden Shield![60]
Let no man stop to plunder, 625
But slay, and slay, and slay:
The Gods who live forever
Are on our side to-day."

[_The Latins turn and flee. Many of their chiefs are slain, and
above all false Sextus, who dies a coward's death_.]

XXXVI

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish
From earth to heaven arose. 630
The kites know well the long stern swell
That bids the Romans close.
Then the good sword of Aulus
Was lifted up to slay:
Then, like a crag down Apennine, 635
Rushed Auster through the fray.
But under those strange horsemen
Still thicker lay the slain:
And after those strange horses
Black Auster toiled in vain. 640
Behind them Rome's long battle
Came rolling on the foe,
Ensigns dancing wild above,
Blades all in line below,
So comes the Po in flood-time 645
Upon the Celtic plain:[61]
So comes the squall, blacker than night,
Upon the Adrian main.
How, by our Sire Quirinus,[62]
It was a goodly sight 650
To see the thirty standards
Swept down the tide of flight.
So flies the spray of Adria
When the black squall doth blow,
So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 655
Spin down the whirling Po.
False S