And now the cavalry had passed the city’s open gates, Æneas among the first and true Achates, and after them the other Trojan nobles; Pallas himself the centre of the column, conspicuous with gay scarf and figured armour; 20 even as the morning-star just bathed in the waves of the ocean, Venus’ favourite above all the stellar fires, sets in a moment on the sky his heavenly countenance, and melts the darkness. There are the trembling matrons standing on the walls, following with their eyes the cloud 25 of dust and the gleam of the brass-clad companies. They in their armour are moving through the underwood, their eye on the nearest path: hark! a shout mounts up, a column is formed, and the four-foot beat of the hoof shakes the crumbling plain. Near the cool stream of Cære stands 30 a vast grove, clothed by hereditary reverence with wide-spread sanctity; on all sides it is shut in by the hollows of hills, which encompass its dark pine-wood shades. Rumour says that the old Pelasgians dedicated it to Silvanus, god of the country and the cattle, a grove with a 35 holiday—the people who once in early times dwelt on the Latian frontier. Not far from this Tarchon and the Tyrrhenians were encamped in a sheltered place, and from the height of the hill their whole army spread already to the view, as they pitched at large over the plain. Hither come father Æneas and the chosen company of warriors, and refresh the weariness of themselves and their steeds.