d in his head-dress,
and Romulus twelve, in memory of his more happy augury. After them came
Oenomaus, King of the Greek Pisa, and also the son of Mars, who held in
one hand, as King, a royal sceptre, and in the other a little chariot
all broken, in memory of the treachery shown against him by the
charioteer Myrtilus in his combat for his daughter Hippodameia against
Pelops, her lover. And after him were seen coming Ascalaphus and
Ialmenus, likewise sons of Mars, adorned with a rich military habit;
recalling by the ships that they had in the hand, one for each, the
weighty succour brought by them with fifty ships to the besieged
Trojans. These were followed by the beautiful Nymph Britona, daughter
likewise of Mars, with a net in her arms, in memory of her miserable
fate; and by the not less beautiful Harmonia, who was born of the same
Mars and lovely Venus, and became the wife of Theban Cadmus. To her, it
is said, Vulcan once presented a most beautiful necklace, on which
account she was seen with that necklace about her neck; and in the upper
parts she had the semblance of a woman, but in the lower parts--denoting
that she was transformed, together with her husband, into a serpent--she
was seen all covered with serpent's skin. These had behind them, with a
bloody knife in the hand and across the shoulders a little kid split
open, and very fierce in aspect, Hyperion, born from the same father, by
whom it is said that men were first taught to kill brute-animals, and
with him the no less fierce AEtolus, likewise the offspring of Mars; and
between them was seen walking blind Rage, adorned with a red habit all
picked out with black embroidery, with foaming mouth, and with a
rhinoceros on the head and a cynocephalus upon the back. After these
walked Fraud, with the face of a human creature and with the other parts
as they are described by Dante in the Inferno, and Menace, truly
threatening in aspect with the sword and the staff that she had in the
hands, covered with grey and red draperies, and with the mouth open; and
they were seen to have behind them Fury, the great Minister of Mars, and
Death, pallid and not less in harmony with the same Mars; the first all
draped and tinted in dark red, with the hands bound behind the back, and
seeming to be seated, all threatening, upon a great bundle of various
arms, and the second all pallid, as has been said, and covered with
black draperies, with the eyes closed, and with a presence n