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Accordingly the attempt was made, but the Trojans were found on their guard, and having received strict orders from Aeneas not to fight in his absence, they lay still in their intrenchments, and resisted all the efforts of the Rutulians to draw them into the field.
Then a great multitude of Latians and Rutulians hastened to the palace of King Latinus, and demanded that he should at once declare war against the Trojans. Latinus refused to do what he knew was against the decrees of the gods, and he warned the people that evil would come upon them if they persevered in their mad opposition to the will of heaven.
Brutus, thinking that the Pythian response had another meaning, as if he had stumbled and fallen, touched the ground with his lips; she being, forsooth, the common mother of all mankind. After this they all returned to Rome, where preparations were being made with the greatest vigour for a war against the Rutulians. This is attributed to Tarquinius Priscus by several writers.
'Go, mock valour with insolence of speech! Phrygians twice taken return this answer to Rutulians. Thus and no further Ascanius; the Teucrians respond in cheers, and shout for joy in rising height of courage.
"If victory in this fight shall fall to Turnus, the Trojans shall retire to Evander's city, and no more make war on the Latians or Rutulians. But if victory fall to our side, even then I shall not compel the Italians to be subject to the Trojans, for I desire not empire for myself. Both nations shall enter into alliance on equal terms, and Latinus shall still be king.
The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur, and recoils from sea. So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in flight; they have lost half their world. And we hold the land: in all their thousands the nations of Italy are under arms.
The Trojans, too, were hardy, enduring, and indomitable. The alternative with them was victory or destruction. Their protracted voyage, and the long experience of hardships and sufferings which they had undergone, had inured them to privation and toil, so that they proved to the Latins and Rutulians to be very obstinate and formidable foes.
Orodes has fallen not the meanest of our foes." The Rutulians raised a joyful shout, but the dying Orodes faintly answered, "Not long shall thou rejoice with impunity over me; a similar fate awaits thyself, and soon shalt thou also be stretched lifeless on this same field." Smiling scornfully, Mezentius returned, "Die thou, and leave my fate to the Gods, in whose hands it rests."
His example inspired other of the Rutulians; they pressed fiercely forward and drove back the troops of Æneas. Mezentius advanced at their head, and as he strode along, the Trojan hero espied him, and hastened towards him.
Volscens, the leader, ignorant whence the darts came, rushed sword in hand upon Euryalus. "You shall pay the penalty of both," he said, and would have plunged the sword into his bosom, when Nisus, who from his concealment saw the peril of his friend, rushed forward exclaiming, "'Twas I, 'twas I; turn your swords against me, Rutulians, I did it; he only followed me as a friend."
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