e matrons of whose kin, struck by Bacchus, trample in choirs down the
pathless woods--nor is Amata's name a little thing--they too gather
together from all sides and weary themselves with the battle-cry. Omens
and oracles of gods go down before them, and all under malign influence
clamour for awful war. Emulously they surround Latinus' royal house. He
withstands, even as a rock in ocean unremoved, as a rock in ocean when
the great crash comes down, firm in its own mass among many waves
slapping all about: in vain the crags and boulders hiss round it in
foam, and the seaweed on its side is flung up and sucked away. But when
he may in nowise overbear their blind counsel, and all goes at fierce
Juno's beck, with many an appeal to gods and void sky, 'Alas!' he cries,
'we are broken of fate and driven helpless in the [595-626]storm. With
your very blood will you pay the price of this, O wretched men! Thee, O
Turnus, thy crime, thee thine awful punishment shall await; too late
wilt thou address to heaven thy prayers and supplication. For my rest
was won, and my haven full at hand; I am robbed but of a happy death.'
And without further speech he shut himself in the palace, and dropped
the reins of state.

There was a use in Hesperian Latium, which the Alban towns kept in holy
observance, now Rome keeps, the mistress of the world, when they stir
the War-God to enter battle; whether their hands prepare to carry war
and weeping among Getae or Hyrcanians or Arabs, or to reach to India and
pursue the Dawn, and reclaim their standards from the Parthian. There
are twain gates of War, so runs their name, consecrate in grim Mars'
sanctity and terror. An hundred bolts of brass and masses of everlasting
iron shut them fast, and Janus the guardian never sets foot from their
threshold. There, when the sentence of the Fathers stands fixed for
battle, the Consul, arrayed in the robe of Quirinus and the Gabine
cincture, with his own hand unbars the grating doors, with his own lips
calls battles forth; then all the rest follow on, and the brazen
trumpets blare harsh with consenting breath. With this use then likewise
they bade Latinus proclaim war on the Aeneadae, and unclose the baleful
gates. He withheld his hand, and shrank away averse from the abhorred
service, and hid himself blindly in the dark. Then the Saturnian queen
of heaven glided from the sky, with her own hand thrust open the
lingering gates, and swung sharply back on their hinges