These lines are the poetic and mythological justification for the long and disastrous wars between Rome and Carthage. In the fifth book the Trojans reach Sicily, and celebrate at Eryx funeral games in honor of Anchises, the father of Æneas, who had died there the year before. In the sixth book they reach Cumæ, in Italy. Æneas descends to Hades to consult with the shade of Anchises. Here he sees the fabled monsters of the lower regions, and the shades of many departed heroes. Then there pass before him the forms of those as yet unborn. This gives the poet an opportunity to praise the great men of Rome, among them Julius Cæsar and Augustus. Here he sees the form of the young Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. When this book was written, Marcellus had recently died in his twentieth year. Virgil read his lines[63] on Marcellus to Augustus and Octavia, and the bereaved mother was so moved that she fainted. Virgil’s description of the realm of the dead is in some parts unusually beautiful, and is especially interesting, because it stands, not only in date but also in many other respects, midway between the eleventh book of Homer’s _Odyssey_ and Dante’s _Divine Comedy_. [Sidenote: The last six books.] The last six books of the _Æneid_, recounting the struggles of the Trojans in Italy, contain many fine passages, but are for the most part less interesting to the modern reader than the earlier books. In many parts they are finished with most exquisite art, even showing that Virgil’s technical ability increased as the poem drew toward its close, but many other passages show the lack of the final revision. To the Roman the ancient legends of the origin of the Roman power must have been of surpassing interest, but most modern readers remember, amid the successive scenes of strife, only the heroic Turnus, the lovely Lavinia, the warlike maidens Camilla and Juturna, and the brave and devoted friends, Nisus and Euryalus, who were slain when endeavoring to carry a message in the night through the hostile camp to the absent Æneas: Blest pair! if aught my verse avail, No day shall make your memory fail From off the heart of time, While Capitol abides in place, The mansion of the Æneian race, And throned upon that moveless base Rome’s father sits sublime.[64]