ENGLISH suppliant’s right of sanctuary and the gods on whose protection the king relies. His hybris is in striking contrast with the pietas showed to Priam by Achilles.
Aeneid, Book II, 526-58 translated by Margherita Galli
Yet now, having escaped Phyrrus’s carnage, Polites, one of Priam’s own sons, fled the darts and the enemies under the long arcades and across the empty halls, his wounds gaping open. Phyrrus chased him, burning for the blow that kills, when now he grabbed him by the hand and pushed his spear through his body. When at last Polites came under his parents’ gaze, he fell, and let his life spill out with much blood. Though death may already have marked him for her own, Priam did not yet hold back, nor did he save his voice and rage: “For this crime,” he cried out, “for such unlawful deeds may the gods, if there be any dignity in heaven to attend to such matters, render you due thanks and reward you as is most fitting, who forced me to witness my son’s death with my own eyes and defiled a father’s face with your butchery. But Achilles, of whose stock you falsely claim to be the progeny, was not so merciless to his enemy Priam, but he paid homage to the rights and trust of a petitioner, and returned Hector’s lifeless body for the burial and allowed me to go back to my kingdoms.” Having said this, the old man weakly threw a harmless spear that quickly bounced off the hollow-sounding bronze, hanging down uselessly from the boss of the shield. To him Phyrrus said: “Be then my messenger to the son of Peleus, my father, 55
