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Quote of the day: At last, after well-merited commendation
Notes
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The Aeneid by Virgil
translated by Theodore C. Williams
Book III Chapter 12: At Actium
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So, safe at land, our hopeless peril past,
we offered thanks to Jove, and kindled high
his altars with our feast and sacrifice;
then, gathering on Actium's holy shore,
made fair solemnities of pomp and game.
My youth, anointing their smooth, naked limbs,
wrestled our wonted way. For glad were we,
who past so many isles of Greece had sped
and 'scaped our circling foes. Now had the sun
rolled through the year's full circle, and the waves
were rough with icy winter's northern gales.
I hung for trophy on that temple door
a swelling shield of brass (which once was worn
by mighty Abas) graven with this line:
SPOIL OF AENEAS FROM TRIUMPHANT FOES.
Then from that haven I command them forth;
my good crews take the thwarts, smiting the sea
with rival strokes, and skim the level main.
Soon sank Phaeacia's wind-swept citadels
out of our view; we skirted the bold shores
of proud Epirus, in Chaonian land,
and made Buthrotum's port and towering town.

Event: The wanderings of Aeneas

278-293
Ergo insperata tandem tellure potiti
lustramurque Ioui uotisque incendimus aras,
Actiaque Iliacis celebramus litora ludis.
exercent patrias oleo labente palaestras
nudati socii: iuuat euasisse tot urbes
Argolicas mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis.
interea magnum sol circumuoluitur annum
et glacialis hiems Aquilonibus asperat undas.
aere cauo clipeum, magni gestamen Abantis,
postibus aduersis figo et rem carmine signo:
aeneas haec de danais victoribvs arma;
linquere tum portus iubeo et considere transtris.
certatim socii feriunt mare et aequora uerrunt:
protinus aerias Phaeacum abscondimus arces
litoraque Epiri legimus portuque subimus
Chaonio et celsam Buthroti accedimus urbem.