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(From Æneid, Book VIII) Translated by C. P. Cranch
EVANDER then, Rome’s earliest founder, spoke: | |
| “These groves were once by native Fauns and Nymphs | |
| Inhabited, and men who took their birth | |
| From tough oak-trunks. No settled mode of life | |
| Had they, nor culture; nor knew how to yoke | 5 |
| Their steers, or heap up wealth, or use their stores | |
| With frugal hands; but the rough chase supplied | |
| Their food, or boughs of trees. Then Saturn came | |
| From high Olympus, fleeing before Jove. | |
| An exile from the kingdoms he had lost. | 10 |
| This stubborn race through mountain wilds dispersed | |
| He brought together, and to them gave laws; | |
| And called the region Latium, since he had lurked | |
| In safety on its shores. Beneath his reign | |
| The golden age, so called, was seen. In peace | 15 |
| He ruled his people; till by gradual steps | |
| There came a faded and degenerate age, | |
| And love of war succeeded, and of gain. | |
| Then came Ausonians and Sicanians; | |
| And oft the name Saturnia was changed. | 20 |
| Then kings succeeded, and the form immense | |
| Of rugged Thybris, from whom came the name | |
| Tiber; while that of Albula was lost. | |
| Me, from my country driven to lands remote, | |
| Chance and inevitable fate have placed | 25 |
| Upon these shores; the nymph Carmentis too, | |
| My mother, urging me with warnings dread, | |
| And great Apollo who first prompted me.” | |
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| Then moving onward, he an altar shows, | |
| And gate, which now the name Carmental bears | 30 |
| In Rome; an old revered memorial | |
| Of the prophetic nymph who first foretold | |
| The future heroes of Æneas’ line, | |
| And noble Pallanteum; next, the grove | |
| Points out, which Romulus the Asylum named; | 35 |
| Then the Lupercal cool beneath the rocks, | |
| Named after Pan, by old Arcadian wont; | |
| And Argiletum’s grove he shows, and tells | |
| Of Argus’ death, his guest; and calls the spot | |
| To witness, he was guiltless of the deed. | 40 |
| Then on to the Tarpeian rock he leads | |
| The way, and to the Capitol, now decked | |
| With gold, then rough with bushes wild. | |
| E’en then the dark religion of the place | |
| Haunted the timorous peasants with vague fears. | 45 |
| “Within this grove, upon this wooded hill,” | |
| He said, “some deity his dwelling made; | |
| But who or what, none knows. The Arcadians | |
| Think they have seen great Jove himself, when oft | |
| With his right hand he shook his darkening shield, | 50 |
| And called his clouds around him. Yon two towns | |
| With ruined walls thou seest, the relics old | |
| And monuments of ancient days: this one | |
| Was reared by Janus, that by Saturn built; | |
| Saturnia and Janiculum their names.” | 55 |
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