But the terrible trumpet-note afar rang on the shrill brass; a shout follows, and is echoed from the sky. The Volscians hasten up in even line under their advancing roof of shields, and set to fill up the trenches and tear down the palisades. Some seek entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, where the defenders' battle-line is thin, and light shows through gaps in the ring of men. The Teucrians in return shower weapons of every sort, and push them down with stiff poles, practised by long warfare in their ramparts' defence: and fiercely hurl heavy stones, so be they may break the shielded line; while they, crowded under their shell, lightly bear all the downpour. But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. Nor do the bold Rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . Elsewhere in dreadful guise Mezentius brandishes his Etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but Messapus, tamer of horses, seed of Neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts. Thy sisterhood, O Calliope, I pray inspire me while I sing the destruction spread then and there by Turnus' sword, the deaths dealt from his hand, and whom each warrior sent down to the under world; and unroll with me the broad borders of war. A tower loomed vast with lofty gangways at a point of vantage; this all the Italians strove with main strength to storm, and set all their might and device to overthrow it; the Trojans in return defended it with stones and hurled showers of darts through the loopholes. Turnus, leading the attack, threw a blazing torch that caught flaming on the [536-570]side wall; swoln by the wind, the flame seized the planking and clung devouring to the standards. Those within, in hurry and confusion, desire retreat from their distress; in vain; while they cluster together and fall back to the side free from the destroyer, the tower sinks prone under the sudden weight with a crash that thunders through all the sky. Pierced by their own weapons, and impaled on hard splinters of wood, they come half slain to the ground with the vast mass behind them. Scarcely do Helenor alone and Lycus struggle out; Helenor in his early prime, whom a slave woman of Licymnos bore in secret to the Maeonian king, and sent to Troy in forbidden weapons, lightly armed with sheathless sword and white unemblazoned shield. And he, when he saw himself among Turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of Latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest. But Lycus, far fleeter of foot, holds by the walls in flight midway among