things the city through. Yea, he had wrought afar
The very house of Tartarus, and doors of Dis the deep,
And dooms of evil: there wert thou hung on the beetling steep,
O Catiline, and quaking sore 'neath many a fiendly face;
While Cato gave the good their laws in happy hidden place. 670

The image of the swelling sea amidst of these there lay
All golden, with the blue o'erfoamed with flecks of hoary spray,
And dolphins shining silver-white with tail-stroke swept the wave,
And gathered in an orbed band the flowing waters clave.
And in the midst were brazen fleets and show of Actium's wars
And all Leucate set a-boil with ordered game of Mars
There might ye see; and all the flood lit up with golden light.
Augustus Caesar, leading on Italian men to fight
With Father-folk, and Household Gods, and Gods of greater name,
Stood high on deck: his joyful brow flashed forth a twofold flame, 680
His father's star above his head is shining glory-clear.
With wind to aid and God to aid, Agrippa otherwhere
Leads on the host from high; whose brows with glorious battle-sign
Are decked; for with the crown of beaks, the ship-host's prize, they shine.

But Antony, with outland force and arms wrought diversely,
Victorious from the morning-folks and ruddy-stranded sea,
Bore Egypt and the Eastland might and Bactria's outer ends;
And after him--O shame to tell!--a wife of Egypt wends.

They rush together; all the sea is beaten into foam,
Torn by the great three-tyned beaks and oar-blades driven home: 690
They seek the deep: ye might have thought that uptorn Cyclades
Swam o'er the main, that mountains met high mountains on the seas,
With such a world of towered ships fall on those folks of war.
The hempen flame they fling from hand; they cast the dart afar
Of winged steel, and Neptune's lea reddens with death anew.
The Queen amidst calls on her host with timbrel fashioned due
In Egypt's guise, nor looks aback the adders twain to see;
Barking Anubis, shapes of God wild-wrought and diversely
'Gainst Neptune and 'gainst Venus fair, and 'gainst Minerva's weal
Put forth the spear; and Mavors' wrath was fashioned forth in steel 700
Amidst the fight: the Dreadful Ones stooped evil-wrought from heaven,
And Discord stalked all glad at heart beneath her mantle riven;
And after her, red sco