Messapus, eager to confound the peace,

Spurred his hot courser through the fighting prease,

}

{ At king Aulestes, by his purple known

{ A Tuscan prince, and by his regal crown;

{ And, with a shock encountering, bore him down.

Backward he fell; and, as his fate designed,

The ruins of an altar were behind:

There pitching on his shoulders and his head,

Amid the scattering fires he lay supinely spread.