Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/563

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THEBAID, IV. 228–254

Arcadian god[1] himself trains them in the dust of combat, and implants in them the ways of naked valour and warlike temper; hence dauntless courage and the welcome consecration of a glorious death. Their parents rejoice in their children’s fate and urge them on to die; and while the whole band of youths makes lamentation, the mother is content with the wreath that crowns the victim. They hold the reins and two javelins with thong attached, bared are their mighty shoulders, from which a rough cloak hangs; a Ledaean crest[2] is on their helms. Not these alone, Amphiaraus, are in thy service: the slopes of Elis swell thy array, and low-lying Pisa’s folk, who swim thy waters, yellow Alpheus, thou who farest to Sicanian lands, yet art never tainted by so long a passage through the deep. Countless chariots vex their crumbling fields far and wide, their beasts are broken to war: that glory of the race endures even from the impious ways and broken axles of Oenomaus[3]; the champed bits foam between the jaws, and the white spume bedews the churned earth.

Thou too, Parthenopaeus, unknown to thy mother—unschooled alas! in arms, such lure hath young ambition—speedest onward thy Parrhasian[4] cohorts. Thy warlike parent,[5] so it chanced—not otherwise could the boy have left her—was bringing peace with her bow to distant glades, and the farther slopes of cool Lycaeus. No fairer face was there of any marching to the grim hazard of war, none wins such favour for pre-eminent beauty; nor lacks he courage, so he but come to sterner years. What forest-queens and spirits

  1. ↑ Mercury, cf. Hor. C. i. 10. 4.
  2. ↑ i.e., a crest of swan’s feathers.
  3. ↑ King of Elis, who challenged the suitors of his daughter Hippodamia to a chariot-race, and slew them when he defeated them; he was finally defeated and slain himself by Pelops.
  4. ↑ i.e., Arcadian.
  5. ↑ Atalanta, a comrade of Diana, and so vowed to virginity, but Diana “forgave her the crime” of becoming the mother of Parthenopaeus (l. 258).

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