First from the Tyrrhene coast savage Mezentius, scorner of the gods, opens the war and arrays his columns. By him is Lausus, his son, unexcelled in bodily beauty by any save Laurentine Turnus, Lausus tamer of horses and destroyer of wild beasts; he leads a thousand men who followed him in vain from Agylla town; worthy to be happier in ancestral rule, and to have other than Mezentius for father. After them beautiful Aventinus, born of beautiful Hercules, displays on the sward his palm-crowned chariot and victorious horses, and carries on his shield his father's device, the hundred snakes of the Hydra's serpent-wreath. Him, in the wood of the hill Aventine, Rhea the priestess [660-693]bore by stealth into the borders of light, a woman mingled with a god, after the Tirynthian Conqueror had slain Geryon and set foot on the fields of Laurentum, and bathed his Iberian oxen in the Tuscan river. These carry for war javelins and grim stabbing weapons, and fight with the round shaft and sharp point of the Sabellian pike. Himself he went on foot swathed in a vast lion skin, shaggy with bristling terrors, whose white teeth encircled his head; in such wild dress, the garb of Hercules clasped over his shoulders, he entered the royal house. Next twin brothers leave Tibur town, and the people called by their brother Tiburtus' name, Catillus and valiant Coras, the Argives, and advance in the forefront of battle among the throng of spears: as when two cloud-born Centaurs descend from a lofty mountain peak, leaving Homole or snowy Othrys in rapid race; the mighty forest yields before them as they go, and the crashing thickets give them way. Nor was the founder of Praeneste city absent, the king who, as every age hath believed, was born of Vulcan among the pasturing herds, and found beside the hearth, Caeculus. On him a rustic battalion attends in loose order, they who dwell in steep Praeneste and the fields of Juno of Gabii, on the cool Anio and the Hernican rocks dewy with streams; they whom rich Anagnia, and whom thou, lord Amasenus, pasturest. Not all of them have armour, nor shields and clattering chariots. The most part shower bullets of dull lead; some wield in their hand two darts, and have for head-covering caps of tawny wolfskin; their left foot is bare wherewith to plant their steps; the other is covered with a boot of raw hide.