From the hand is 25 scattered a shower of flaming tow and flying steel: the plains of Neptune redden with unwonted carnage. In the midst of them the queen is cheering on her forces with the timbrel of her native land; casting as yet no glance on the twin-born snakes that threaten her rear. There are 30 the portentous gods of all the nations, and Anubis[261] the barking monster, brandishing their weapons in the face of Neptune and Venus and in the face of Pallas. Midmost in the fray storms Mavors,[262] relieved in iron, and fell Fury-fiends swooping from the sky; and Discord sweeps 35 along in the glory of her rent mantle, and at her back Bellona with blood-dropping scourge. There was Actium’s Apollo, with his eye on the fray, bending his bow from above; at whose terror all Egypt and Ind, all Arabia, all the sons of Saba[263] were turning the back in flight. The queen herself was shown spreading her sails to friendly breezes, and just loosing the sheets. On her face the Lord of the Fire had written the paleness of foreshadowed 5 death, as she drove on among corpses before the tide and the zephyr; over against her was Nile, his vast body writhing in woe, throwing open his bosom, and with his whole flowing raiment inviting the vanquished to his green lap and his sheltering flood. But Cæsar, entering the walls 10 of Rome in threefold triumph, was consecrating to the gods of Italy a votive tribute of deathless gratitude, three hundred mighty fanes the whole city through. The ways were ringing with gladness and with games and with plausive peal; in every temple thronged a matron company, 15 in every temple an altar blazed; in front of the altars slaughtered bullocks strewed the floor. The hero himself, throned on dazzling Phœbus’ snow-white threshold, is telling over the offerings of all the nations and hanging them up on the proud temple gates; there in long procession 20 move the conquered peoples, diverse in tongue, diverse no less in garb and in armour. Here had Mulciber portrayed the Nomad race and the zoneless sons of Afric: here, too, Leleges and Carians and quivered Gelonians: Euphrates was flowing with waves subdued already; and 25 the Morini, furthest of mankind, and Rhine with his crescent horn, and tameless Dahæ, and Araxes chafing to be bridged. Such sights Æneas scans with wonder on Vulcan’s shield, his mother’s gift, and joys in the portraiture of things he knows not, as he heaves on his shoulder the 30 fame and the fate of grandsons yet to be. BOOK IX