Statius: Thebaid, Vol. 2 & Achilleid

“Nay, proceed, while we are sending the column of the common crowd far ahead—nor is Nemea easy for traversing with such broad forces, being covered with foliage and inescapable shade—unfold the wickedness and thy praises and the groans of thy people, and from what kingdom thou wert cast down to these toils.”
It is sweet to the wretched to speak and to recall ancient griefs. She begins: “Lemnos is pressed by the surrounding Nereus of the Aegean, where Mulciber, weary from fire-bearing Aetna, draws breath; nearby, Athos clothes the land in a vast shadow and darkens the sea with the image of its groves; the Thracians plough opposite, the shores of the Thracians are fatal to us, and thence the wickedness. The land was blooming, rich in its inhabitants, nor was it inferior in fame to Samos or resounding Delos or those islands which the foam-bearing Aegon dashes against. It seemed good to the gods to disturb the homes, nor are our hearts free from fault: we consecrated no fires to Venus, no seat to the goddess; grief stirs even celestial hearts, and the Avengers (Poenae) creep in with a slow march. She, leaving ancient Paphos and her hundred altars, is said to have untied her bridal girdle and to have banished the Idalian birds far away, not as she was previously in her countenance or her hair. There were those, indeed, who in the shadow of mid-night would declare that the goddess, bearing other fires and greater weapons, had flown among the sisters of Tartarus into the bedchambers, and how she had filled the thresholds with entwined serpents and savage fear for the bride, nor had she pitied the people of the faithful husband.”