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Updated: June 1, 2025
AEneas was touched with pity at the sight, for he thought of his own son, and of how he himself had loved his own father. Then, he tenderly lifted the body from the ground, and consigned it to the care of his friends. They carried it to Mezentius, who was resting on the river bank, after having bathed his wounds in the water.
His heart swelling with rage and shame and grief, he thrice loudly summoned Æneas to the combat. Æneas heard, and rejoiced at the challenge; and with threatening spear advanced to meet his foe. "Barbarous wretch," cried Mezentius, "thinkest thou to affright me with thy weapons, now that thou hast robbed me of my son? That was the only means by which thou couldst destroy me.
Not far from here stands fast Agylla city, an ancient pile of stone, where of old the Lydian race, eminent in war, settled on the Etruscan ridges. For many years it flourished, till King Mezentius ruled it with insolent sway and armed terror. Why should I relate the horrible murders, the savage deeds of the monarch? May the gods keep them in store for himself and his line!
The tyrant Mezentius, finding himself engaged against his revolting subjects, raged like a wild beast. He slew all who dared to withstand him, and put the multitude to flight wherever he appeared. At last he encountered Aeneas, and the armies stood still to see the issue. Mezentius threw his spear, which striking Aeneas's shield glanced off and hit Anthor.
But so long as slavery is tolerated, no such peace can exist. Liberty and slavery cannot dwell in harmony together. There will be a perpetual "war in the members" of the political Mezentius between the living and the dead. God and man have placed between them an everlasting barrier, an eternal separation.
But from hence can we infer that the two poets write the same history? Is there no invention in some other parts of Virgil's "AEneis?" The disposition of so many various matters, is not that his own? From what book of Homer had Virgil his episode of Nysus and Euryalus, of Mezentius and Lausus?
With that he summoned the dismayed followers of Lausus, and with his own hands raised from the ground the comely body, all disfigured with blood and wounds. Meantime Mezentius had retreated to the bank of the Tiber, where he took off his armor, and bathed his wound with water.
Suppose, instead of Æneas, he had represented the impious Mezentius as entertaining himself in that manner; such a thing would not have been without probability, but it would have clashed with the very first principles of taste, and, I would say, of common sense.
The tyrant Mezentius, finding himself engaged against his revolting subjects, raged like a wild beast. He slew all who dared to withstand him, and put the multitude to flight wherever he appeared. At last he encountered Aeneas, and the armies stood still to see the issue. Mezentius threw his spear, which striking Aeneas's shield glanced off and hit Anthor.
It is even possible that, thanks to his rejection of things divine, he may be unable to induce himself to believe that it is true that I guard so reverently so many emblems and relics of mysterious rites. I care not a straw what Mezentius may think of me; but to others I make this announcement clearly and unshrinkingly.
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