But at once, before the rivals meet, by the instigation of Juno the truce is broken on the part of the Rutulians. They have a strong fear that their own champion, young and gallant as he is, is no equal match in arms for the great Æneas: he is but moving to his death. So speaks the seer Tolumnius, and points to an omen on the river-bank: an eagle swooping down upon a flock of swans, and bearing one off in his talons, but put to flight when they turn in a body and pursue him. Æneas is the bird of prey--they are the unwarlike swans; let them but turn on him, and he too will fly. The seer is not content with the mere exposition of auguries; at once he hurls his own javelin into the Trojan ranks, and brings down his man. The fight speedily becomes general. Æneas, unarmed and bareheaded, rushes between the ranks, and is wounded by an arrow while he calls loudly on his own men to keep the truce. None knew, or cared to know, from whose hand the arrow came: for no man, says the poet, was ever heard to boast of such a coward’s shot. Then, while Æneas is led to the camp, faint and bleeding, by his son lulus and his faithful Achates,--while the aged leech, Iapis, vainly tries all his skill upon the wound--for the barb will not quit the flesh,--Turnus spreads slaughter among the Trojan ranks. But only for a while. Venus drops a healing balsam into the water with which her son’s wound is being bathed; at once the arrow-head drops out, and the hero stands up sound and whole. Again he dons the Vulcanian armour, and re-enters the battle. The Rutulians give way before him, but he scorns to smite the fugitives, and seeks out only Turnus. And Turnus, pale and unnerved--for the presage of his fate lies heavy upon his soul--has no longer any mind to meet him. It is very strange, to our modern notions of heroism, to see this infirmity of resolution in a tried soldier and captain like Turnus. But the heroes of these elder days lose heart at once when they feel their star is no longer in the ascendant. Turnus, like Hector in the Iliad, shrinks from the fate which he foresees.