530There was a tower of vast height to look up at, with lofty gangways, well placed, which all the Italians strove with utmost strength to storm and with the utmost force of their resources to overturn, while the Trojans in turn defended it with stones and, crowded together, hurled weapons through the hollow loopholes. 535Turnus first threw a blazing torch and fixed the flame to its side, which, fanned by the wind, seized the planks and clung to the devoured doorposts. 538Those inside, in turmoil, panic, and wish in vain to escape their troubles. 539While they crowd together and fall back to the part that is free from the destruction, then under the weight the tower suddenly toppled, and the whole sky thunders with the crash.
542Half-dead, they come to the ground, the huge mass following, pierced by their own weapons, their breasts transfixed by the hard timber. 544Scarcely Helenor and Lycus alone escaped. 545Of these Helenor was in his first youth; the slave Licymnia had borne him secretly to the Maeonian king, and sent him to Troy in forbidden arms, lightly armed with a naked sword, and inglorious with a blank shield; 549and when he saw himself among the thousands of Turnus, Latin lines standing here and Latin lines there: like a wild beast which, ringed by a dense circle of hunters, rages against their weapons, and, not unaware, hurls itself to death and leaps above the spears, just so the young man rushes to his death into the midst of the enemy, and heads where he sees the weapons thickest.
556But Lycus, far better on his feet, in flight between enemies and between arms, reaches the walls and strives to grasp the top of the parapet with his hand and reach the right hands of his comrades. 559Turnus, following him with stride and spear alike, taunts him in victory thus: 'Did you hope, madman, that you could escape our hands?' 561At once he seizes him as he hangs there and tears him down with a large part of the wall. 563As when Jupiter's armour-bearer, seeking the heights, has snatched up in his hooked talons a hare or a swan with gleaming body, or the wolf of Mars has seized from the folds a lamb sought by its mother with much bleating.
566On all sides a shout goes up: they charge and fill the ditches with earth; 568others hurl blazing torches at the rooftops. 569Ilioneus with a rock, a huge fragment of a mountain, lays low Lucetius as he approaches the gate carrying fire; Liger fells Emathion, Asilas Corynaeus, the one skilled with the javelin, the other with the arrow that deceives from afar; Caeneus fells Ortygius, Turnus the victorious Caeneus, Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus and Promolus and Sagaris, and Idas standing in front of the highest towers; Capys fells Privernus. 576Him the light spear of Themillas had first grazed: the fool threw down his shield and put his hand to the wound; 578so the arrow glided on its wings, and his hand was pinned to his left side, and, buried within, it burst the breathing passages of his life with a deadly wound.
581There stood the son of Arcens in splendid armour, his cloak embroidered with the needle and bright with Iberian rust-red, remarkable for his looks; his father Arcens had sent him, reared in the grove of his Mother round the streams of Symaethus, where the altar of Palicus stands, rich and easily appeased: Mezentius, laying aside his spears, himself whirled the whistling sling three times round his head with the strap drawn tight, split the middle of his enemy's temples with molten lead, and stretched him out at length on the deep sand.