the grove this altar, which shall ever be named by us the greatest, and shall ever be the greatest in truth. Come then, warriors, and in honour of worth so glorious 10 wreathe your locks with leaves, and present in your hands brimming cups, and invoke our common deity, and pour libations with gladness of heart.” As he ended, the white-green poplar cast its Herculean shade over his locks and hung down with a festoon of leaves, and the sacred goblet 15 charged his hand. At once all with glad hearts pour libations on the board and make prayers to heaven. Meantime evening is approaching nearer the slope of heaven, and already the priests and their chief Potitius were in procession, clad in skins in ritual sort, and bearing 20 fire in their hands. They renew the solemn feast, and bring delicious offerings for a fresh repast, and pile the altars with loaded chargers. Then come the Salii to sing round about the blazing altars, their temples wreathed with boughs of poplar, a company of youths and another 25 of old men; and these extol in song the glories and deeds of Hercules: how in his cradle, by the pressure of his young hand he strangled his stepmother’s monstrous messengers, the two serpents; how in war that same hand dashed to pieces mighty cities, Troy and Œchalia; 30 how he endured those thousand heavy labours, a slave to king Eurystheus, by ungentle Juno’s fateful will. “Yes, thou, unconquered hero, thou slayest the two-formed children of the cloud, Hylæus and Pholus, thou slayest the portent of Crete, and the enormous lion that dwelt 35 ’neath Nemea’s rock. Thou never quailedst at aught in bodily shape, no, nor at Typhœus himself, towering high, weapons in hand; thy reason failed thee not when Lerna’s serpent stood round thee with all her throng of heads. Hail to thee, authentic offspring of Jove, fresh ornament of the sky! come to us, come to these thine own rites with favouring smile and auspicious gait.” Such things their songs commemorate; and they crown all with Cacus’ 5 cave and the fiend himself, the fire panting from his lungs. The entire grove echoes with their voices, and the hills rebound.