Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/195

 him summon them into the presence-hall, and takes his seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. It was a reverend pile, of vast proportions, raised high upon a hundred pillars, on the city's topmost ground, the palace of Picus the Laurentine, clothed in the terror of waving woods and       5 hereditary awe. Here it was held to be of auspicious presage that kings should first take in hand the sceptre, and lift up the fasces: this temple was their senate-house, the hall for their sacrificial feasts: here, when a ram was slain, the seniors were wont to banquet down long lines          10 of tables. Here, too, in succession were the effigies of past generations, carved from ancient cedar—Italus and father Sabinus, planter of the vine, preserving in that mimic form his curved hook, and hoary Saturn, and the image of two-faced Janus, all standing in the vestibule,       15 and other kings from the earliest days, and heroes who had sustained the war-god's wounds in fighting for their country. Moreover, there was hanging on the sacred doors abundance of armour, captive chariots, crooked axe-heads, helmet-crests, ponderous gates, javelins, and          20 shields, and beaks torn from vessels. There, as in life, was sitting, decked with Quirinal staff and robe of scanty border, in his left hand the sacred shield, Picus, tamer of the steed, he whom, in her bridal jealousy, Circe, by a stroke of her golden rod and the witchery of her drugs, transformed      25 to a bird, and scattered spots over his wings. Such was the temple where Latinus, seated on his ancestral throne, summoned the Teucrians to his presence within, and on their entry with placid mien bespoke them thus:—

"Tell me, sons of Dardanus—for we know your city and         30 your race, and your coming over the deep has reached our ears—what is your errand? what cause or what necessity has wafted your ships to our Ausonian coast through those many leagues of blue water? Be it from ignorance of the way or stress of weather, or any of the thousand chances      35 that happen to seamen on the main, that you have passed between our river's banks, and are resting in the haven, shrink not from our welcome, but know in the Latian