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 Teucrians push forward and roll down an enormous weight, which made wide havoc among the Rutulians, and burst the joints of their harness. And now the bold Rutulians care no longer to wage war in the dark, but aim at driving them from the ramparts with a storm of missiles. 5 In another quarter, terrible to look upon, Mezentius waves an Etruscan pine and hurls fire and smoke, while Messapus, tamer of the steed, of the race of Neptune, plucks down the palisade, and calls for ladders to the battlement. 10

Vouchsafe, Calliope and thy heavenly sisterhood, to aid me while I sing, what slaughter, what deaths were dealt that day in that place by Turnus' sword, what foes each warrior sent down to the grave, and help me to unfold the length and breadth of the mighty war. 15

A tower there was, vast to look on from below, with lofty bridges, placed on a vantage-ground, which all the Italians, with utmost force and utmost strain of might, were essaying to storm, while the Trojans, on their side, were defending it with stones, and hurling showers of     20 darts through its narrow eyelets. Turnus the first flung a blazing torch and fastened fire on its side; fanned by the wind, the flame seized the planks and lodged in the consuming doors. The inmates are all in confusion, and in vain seek to escape the mischief. While they huddle         25 together and retire upon the part which the plague has spared, in an instant the tower falls heavily down, and the firmament thunders with the crash. Half dead they come to the ground, the huge fabric following on their backs, pierced by their own weapons, their breasts impaled by the     30 cruel wood. Barely two escaped, Helenor and Lycus—Helenor in prime of youth, whom Licymnia the slave had borne secretly to the Mæonian king, and had sent to Troy in forbidden arms, with the light accoutrement of a naked sword, and a shield uncharged by an escutcheon. 35 Soon as he saw himself with Turnus' thousands round him, the armies of Latium standing on this side and on that, like a beast that, hemmed in by the hunters' close-set ring,