Book 1
and sacred laws shall be a mighty bond
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about his gathered people. Summers three
shall Latium call him king; and three times pass
the winter o'er Rutulia's vanquished hills.
His heir, Ascanius, now Iulus called
(Ilus it was while Ilium's kingdom stood),
full thirty months shall reign, then move the throne
from the Lavinian citadel, and build
for Alba Longa its well-bastioned wall.
Here three full centuries shall Hector's race
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have kingly power; till a priestess queen,
by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear;
then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad
in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive
the sceptre of his race. He shall uprear
and on his Romans his own name bestow.
To these I give no bounded times or power,
but empire without end. Yea, even my Queen,
Juno, who now chastiseth land and sea
with her dread frown, will find a wiser way,
and at my sovereign side protect and bless
the Romans, masters of the whole round world,
who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind.
Such my decree! In lapse of seasons due,
the heirs of Ilium's kings shall bind in chains
Mycenae's glory and Achilles' towers,
and over prostrate Argos sit supreme.
Of Trojan stock illustriously sprung,
lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds,
whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name
Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he.
Him to the skies, in Orient trophies dress,
thou shalt with smiles receive; and he, like us,
shall hear at his own shrines the suppliant vow.
Then will the world grow mild; the battle-sound
will be forgot; for olden Honor then,
with spotless Vesta, and the brothers twain,
Remus and Romulus, at strife no more,
will publish sacred laws. The dreadful gates
whence issueth war, shall with close-jointed steel
