“Turnus, long poising a javelin tipped with sharpened steel, darts it at Pallas, and thus speaks: See whether ours be not the more penetrating dart. He said; and with a quivering stroke the point pierces through the mid-shield, through so many plates of iron, so many of brass, while the bull’s hide so many times encompasses it, and through the corselet’s cumbrous folds transfixes his breast with a hideous gash. He in vain wrenches out the reeking weapon from the wound; at one and the same passage the blood and soul issue forth. Down on his wound he falls: over him his armor gave a clang; and in death with bloody jaws he bites the hostile ground.”

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In Alba Longa, built by Ascanius, son of Aeneas, on the borders of the Alban Lake. The period of three hundred years is traditionary, not historic. ↩

The Horatii and Curatii. ↩