their weapons a sheaf of arrows, light quivers for the 10
shoulder, and a bow of deadly aim. With him grim
Abas: his whole band ablaze with gleaming armour,
his vessel shining with a gilded Apollo. Populonia had
sent him six hundred of her sons, all versed in war: Ilva
three hundred, an island rich in the Chalybes’ unexhausted 15
mines. Third comes Asilas, the great interpreter
’tween gods and men, at whose bidding are the
victims’ entrails, the stars of the sky, the tongues of augurial
birds, and the flame of the prophetic lightning. With