The Aeneid by Virgil Book 2 Page 37

daughters, and amid the altars Priam, polluting with his blood the fires he himself had hallowed. The famous fifty chambers, the rich promise of offspring, the doors proud with the spoils of barbaric gold, fall low; where the fire fails, the Greeks hold sway.

“Perhaps, too, you may inquire what was Priam’s fate. When he saw the fall of the captured city, saw the doors of his palace shattered, and the foe in the heart of his home, old as he is, he vainly throws his long-disused armour about his aged trembling shoulders, girds his useless sword, and rushes to his death among his thronging foes. In the middle of the palace and beneath the open arch of heaven was a huge altar, and hard by an ancient laurel, leaning against the altar and clasping the household gods in its shade. Here, round the shrines, vainly