[qutoe] 7. Silius Italicus: Punica VII 409-493:

[...] But now, before a favouring wind, Carthaginian ships were seen ploughing with their beaks the sea by the shore of Caieta (1) and the bay of Laestrygonians. They had entered the undefended harbour, and the number of their oarsmen churned all the sea to foam. The noise startled the Sea Sisters (2), and they rose up together from the crystal seats of their grotto, and saw the shore occupied by hostile vessels. Then in great fear and consternation the train of Nereids swam off quickly to a familiar haunt, where the realm of the Teleboans (3) rises far off in mid-sea, and there are rocky caves. Proteus, the monstrous seer, hides here in his cavern among the rocks, and keeps the foaming deep at a distance by a barrier of cliffs.

He knew well the cause of their alarm; but first he eluded them by taking various shapes: he frightened them in the likeness of a black and scaly snake, and hissed horribly; again he changed into a fierce lion and roared. At last he spoke: “Tell me the cause of your coming, and why have your faces suddenly turned pale? Why seek ye to know the future?”
Cymodoce replied, the eldest of the Italian nymphs: “Prophet,” she said, “you know why we are afraid. What mean these ships of Carthage that have robbed us of our shore? Are the gods removing the empire of Rome [Rhoetaia (4)] to Libya? Or shall the seamen of Tyre possess these harbours in future? Must we leave our native seat and dwell in the caves of uttermost Atlas and Calpe?”

Then the prophet, the deity of many forms, thus began to reveal the future, beginning his tale far back in the distant past. “When the shepherd son (5) of Laomedon sat on Phrygian Ida, and his sweet piping recalled to the dewy pastures his bulls that strayed through pathless thickets, he was chosen to witness the contest of the goddesses for the prize of beauty. Then a Cupid drove the snow-white swans harnessed to his mother’s ear, and feared to be too late for the contest. A tiny quiver and a golden bow glittered at his shoulder, and he signed to his mother to have no fear, and showed her the quiver that he carried loaded with arrows. Another Cupid combed the tresses on her snow-white brow, and a third put the girdle round the folds of her purple robe.

Then Venus sighed, and her rosy lips thus addressed her pretty children: ‘See, the day has come that will prove beyond all doubt your love for your mother. Who would dare to believe, that while you still live, the claim of Venus to the prize for beauty is contested? What worse remains behind? If I gave to my children all my arrows steeped in delicious poison – if your grandsire (6), the Lawgiver of heaven and earth, stands a suppliant before you when so you please, then let my triumph bear back to Cyprus (7) the palm of Edom won from Pallas, and let the hundred altars of Paphos smoke for my conquest of Juno.’[/quote]
(1) Hafen an der Grenze zwischen Latium und Campania
(2) Nereiden
(3) Capri, hier abweichend von der sonstigen Tradition als Sitz der Proteus
(4) Vorgebirge nahe Troja, hier metaphorisch
(5) Paris
(6) Jupiter
(7) Geburtsort der Venus