The god now revealed himself. […] He again resorted to this base expedient, but as often as Mestra was sold, she was transformed, by the favor of Neptune, now into a horse, now an ox, and now a stag; and so escaped from her purchaser. […] C., at Sulmo (now Sulmona), a town about ninety miles distant from Rome. […] A career of unexampled prosperity was now opened to the poet. […] Is there any such fire now reverenced by them?