Curling their bloody locks, howl dreadful things. Souls quiet and appeas'd sighed from their graves; Clashing of arms was heard; in untrod woods Shrill voices schright;[638] and ghosts encounter men. Those that inhabited the suburb-fields Fled: foul Erinnys stalked about the walls, 570 Shaking her snaky hair and crookËd pine With flaming top; much like that hellish fiend Which made the stern Lycurgus wound his thigh, Or fierce Agave mad; or like MegÊra That scar'd Alcides, when by Juno's task He had before look'd Pluto in the face. Trumpets were heard to sound; and with what noise An armËd battle joins, such and more strange Black night brought forth in secret. Sylla's ghost Was seen to walk, singing sad oracles; 580 And Marius' head above cold Tav'ron[639] peering, His grave broke open, did affright the boors. To these ostents, as their old custom was, They call th' Etrurian augurs: amongst whom The gravest, Arruns, dwelt in forsaken Leuca[640] Well-skill'd in pyromancy; one that knew The hearts of beasts, and flight of wandering fowls. First he commands such monsters Nature hatch'd Against her kind, the barren mule's loath'd issue, To be cut forth[641] and cast in dismal fires; 590 Then, that the trembling citizens should walk About the city; then, the sacred priests That with divine lustration purg'd the walls, And went the round, in and without the town; Next, an inferior troop, in tuck'd-up vestures, After the Gabine manner; then, the nuns And their veil'd matron, who alone might view Minerva's statue; then, they that kept and read Sibylla's secret works, and wash[642] their saint In Almo's flood; next learnËd augurs follow; 600 Apollo's soothsayers, and Jove's feasting priests; The skipping Salii with shields like wedges; And Flamens last, with net-work woollen veils. While these thus in and out had circled Rome, Look, what the lightning blasted, Arruns takes, And it inters with murmurs dolorous, And calls the place Bidental. On the altar He lays a ne'er-yok'd bull, and pours down wine, Then crams salt leaven on his crookËd knife: The beast long struggled, as being like to prove 610 An awkward sacrifice; but by the horns The quick priest pulled him on his knees, and slew him. No vein sprung out, but from the yawning gash, Instead of red blood, wallow'd venomous gore. These direful signs made Arruns stand amazed, And searching farther for the gods' displeasure, The very colour scared him; a dead blackness Ran through the blood, that turned it all to jelly, And stained the bowels with dark loathsome spots; The liver swelled with filth; and every vein 620 Did threaten horror from the host of CÊsar