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The Latins were persuaded without any difficulty, though in that treaty the advantage lay on the side of Rome; but they both saw that the chiefs of the Latin nation sided and concurred with the king, and Turnus was a recent instance of his danger to each, if he should make any opposition.
Neither in tale of dead nor in glory of battle shalt thou retire outdone. Thereat Turnus: . . . 'Ah my sister, long ere now I knew thee, when first thine arts shattered the treaty, and thou didst mingle in the strife; and now thy godhead conceals itself in vain.
Then for a while Turnus stood speechless, and shame and grief and madness were in his soul; and he looked to the city, and lo! the fire went up even to the top of the tower which he himself had builded upon the walls to be a defense against the enemy. And when he saw it, he cried, "It is enough, my sister; I go whither the Gods call me. I will meet with Æneas face to face, and endure my doom."
Do thou also, if thou hast aught of might, if the War-god be in thee as in thy fathers, look him in the face who challenges. . . . At these words Turnus' passion blazed out. He utters a groan, and breaks forth thus in deep accents: 'Copious indeed, Drances, and fluent is ever thy speech at the moment war calls for action; and when the fathers are summoned thou art there the first.
For a moment Turnus seemed to hesitate, but in looking towards Lavinia who, with Amata her mother, was present at this consultation, he saw, or thought he saw, in the agitation which she manifested, proofs of her love for him, and indications of a wish on her part that he and not Æneas should win her for his bride.
Do not men assume to themselves a liberty of telling romances, and framing characters concerning their neighbour, as freely as a poet doth about Hector or Turnus, Thersites or Draucus? Do they not usurp a power of playing with, or tossing about, of tearing in pieces their neighbour's good name, as if it were the veriest toy in the world?
He was now old and had no male descendant, but had one charming daughter, Lavinia, who was sought in marriage by many neighboring chiefs, one of whom, Turnus, king of the Rutulians, was favored by the wishes of her parents. But Latinus had been warned in a dream by his father Faunus, that the destined husband of Lavinia should come from a foreign land.
Sternly the Trojan chief bade him keep his treasures for his sons; as for showing mercy, that was forbidden to him from the moment that Pallas fell by the hand of Turnus. Then grasping the suppliant's helmet, and forcing back his head so as to expose the neck, even as Magus renewed his petition he plunged the sword into his body to the hilt.
And now no rumour of the dreadful loss, but a surer messenger flies to Aeneas, telling him his troops are on the thin edge of doom; it is time to succour the routed Teucrians. He mows down all that meets him, and hews a broad path through their columns with furious sword, as he seeks thee, O Turnus, in thy fresh pride of slaughter.
Theocritus and Ovid in turn lament the short life of Adonis, whose blood was changed into flowers. And in Virgil the father of the gods, whom Pallas supplicates before facing Turnus, warns him not to confound the beauty of life with its length: Stat sua cuique dies; breve et irreparabile tempus Omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis, Hoc virtutis opus. . .
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