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248 Whom none might harm, so willed his sire,

With force of iron or of fire,

Awakes his people's slumbering zeal

Long time unused to war's appeal,

And from the scabbard bares the steel.

With him Fescennia's armed train,

The dwellers in Falerii's plain,

Who hold Soracte's lofty hill

Or fair Flavinia's cornland till,

Capena's woods their dwelling make

Or haunt Ciminius' mount and lake.

With measured pace they march along,

And make their monarch's deeds their song;

Like snow-white swans in liquid air,

When homeward from their food they fare,

And far and wide melodious notes

Come rippling from their slender throats,

While the broad stream and Asia's fen

Reverberate to the sound again.

Sure none had thought that countless crowd

A mail-clad company;

It rather seemed a dusky cloud

Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud,

Press landward from the sea.

Lo! Clausus there, the Sabines' boast,

Leads a great host, himself a host:

From whom the Claudii till the land

Since Rome with Sabines joined her hand.

With him the Amiternians came

And Cures' sons of ancient name.

The squadron that Eretum guards

And green Mutusca's olive-yards,

Those whom Nomentum's city yields,

Who till Velinus' Rosean fields,

Who Tetrica's rude summit climb

Or on Severus sit sublime,