Aeneid Book 7, Lines 607 - 622

Juno throws open the gates of war

by Virgil

Blood has been spilt over Iulus’s misguided wounding of a pet stag, Turnus is spoiling for a fight against the Trojan newcomers, Queen Amata has taken Princess Lavinia and is raging with her in the wilderness, and the people are streaming into Latinus’s city demanding revenge for those who have already died. Latinus cannot undo the damage, but cannot bring himself to agree to declare war: he withdraws from the turmoil. Juno herself, who has caused all this mayhem with the help of the Fury Allecto, who has kindled a blazing anger in Turnus with her firebrand, steps personally into the breach. Now that war has been declared, Book 7 will end with a catalogue of the impressive forces that Turnus assembles from his own and his allies’ resources in preparation for battle.

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Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quem protinus urbes
Albanae coluere sacrum nunc maxima rerum
Roma colit, cum prima movent in proelia Martem,
sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum
Hyrcanisve Arabisve parant seu tendere ad Indos
Auroramque sequi Parthosque reposcere signa.
sunt geminae belli portae (sic nomine dicunt)
religione sacrae et saevi formidine Martis;
centum aerei claudunt vectes aeternaque ferri
robora, nec custos absistit limine Ianus:
has, ubi certa sedet patribus sententia pugnae,
ipse Quirinali trabea cinctuque Gabino
insignis reserat stridentia limina consul,
ipse vocat pugnas; sequitur tum cetera pubes,
aereaque adsensu conspirant cornua rauco.
hoc et tum Aeneadis indicere bella Latinus
more iubebatur tristisque recludere portas.
abstinuit tactu pater aversusque refugit
foeda ministeria et caecis se condidit umbris.
tum regina deum caelo delapsa morantis
impulit ipsa manu portas, et cardine verso
belli ferratos rumpit Saturnia postes.
ardet inexcita Ausonia atque immobilis ante;
pars pedes ire parat campis, pars arduus altis
pulverulentus equis furit; omnes arma requirunt.

There was a custom in Hesperian Latium, which
the Alban towns religiously maintained, and which
Rome itself, greatest in might and wealth, now observes
when invoking Mars to open the fighting, whether to
bring mournful war against Getae, Hyrcanians and Arabs,
or head on towards the Indies and the dawn, demand
from the Parthians the return of the standards. There are
twin gates of war, so called, sanctified by reverence
and fear of fierce Mars. A hundred bronze and iron
locks hold shut the timeless oak, Janus the watchman
never leaves the threshold. These gates the consul,
resplendent in ceremonial dress, when the Senate’s vote
is final, in person opens on their screeching doorway,
and declares war; then Rome’s soldiers take up
the cry, and the brazen horns chorus in strident assent.
Just so then did the people bid Latinus to declare war
and open the dread gates. The old king would not
touch them, turned away from the grim
duty and vanished into the dark shadows. Then
the Queen of the Gods herself, Saturn’s child, swooped
from the heavens, thrust at the grinding portals
and burst open the ironclad doors, hinges swinging.
Ausonia, till now unmoving and unmoved, takes fire;
some arm to take the field on foot; some prance in dust
aloft as high horses kick; all take up their weapons.

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More Poems by Virgil

  1. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  2. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  3. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  4. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  5. New allies for Aeneas
  6. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  7. The farmer’s happy lot
  8. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  9. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  10. Mourning for Pallas
  11. The Aeneid begins
  12. Aeneas is wounded
  13. The farmer’s starry calendar
  14. The journey to Hades begins
  15. Aeneas joins the fray
  16. Turnus at bay
  17. The portals of sleep
  18. Signs of bad weather
  19. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  20. Turnus the wolf
  21. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  22. The death of Pallas
  23. Charon, the ferryman
  24. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  25. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  26. Aristaeus’s bees
  27. Juno is reconciled
  28. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  29. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  30. The infant Camilla
  31. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  32. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  33. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  34. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  35. Virgil begins the Georgics
  36. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  37. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  38. The Trojans reach Carthage
  39. Catastrophe for Rome?
  40. Storm at sea!
  41. Rumour
  42. In King Latinus’s hall
  43. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  44. The Harpy’s prophecy
  45. Love is the same for all
  46. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  47. Sea-nymphs
  48. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  49. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  50. Turnus is lured away from battle
  51. Laocoon and the snakes
  52. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  53. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  54. Rites for the allies’ dead
  55. Dido falls in love
  56. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  57. Jupiter’s prophecy
  58. Dido’s release
  59. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  60. The natural history of bees
  61. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  62. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  63. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  64. King Mezentius meets his match
  65. The Syrian hostess
  66. Aeneas’s oath
  67. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  68. The death of Priam
  69. The death of Dido.
  70. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  71. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  72. Vulcan’s forge
  73. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
    74. View Latin Poems