The first passage, translated by the English poet John Dryden in the late 17th century, is addressed to Aeneas in the Underworld in Book VI and speaks to the importance of Rome against the backdrop of the Greek achievement.

Dryden's translation of Aeneid VI, lines 847-853:

Let others better mould the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
And soften into flesh the marble face;
Plead better at the bar; describe the skies
(Both when the stars descend and when they rise);
But, Rome, 'tis thine alone with awful sway
To rule mankind and make the world obey.

The second passage comes from Book VIII of the Aeneid, which contains a lengthy description of the Shield of Aeneas, modelled on the Shield of Achilles in Homer's Iliad. This lengthy passage (lines 675-723) describes the Battle of Actium in vivid detail:

Across the center of the shield were shown
the ships of brass, the strife of Actium:
you might have seen all of Leucata's bay
teeming with war's array, waves glittering
with gold. On his high stern Augustus Caesar
is leading the Italians to battle,
together with the senate and the people,
the household gods and Great Gods; his bright brows
pour out a twin flame, and upon his head
his father's Julian star is glittering.
Elsewhere Agrippa towers on the stern;
with kindly winds and gods he leads his squadron;
around his temples, glowing bright, he wears
the naval crown, magnificent device,
with its ships' beaks. And facing them, just come
from conquering the peoples of the dawn,
from the red shores of the Erythraean Sea--
together with barbaric riches, varied
arms--is Antonius. He brings with him
Egypt and every power of the East
and farthest Bactria; and--shamefully--
behind him follows his Egyptian wife.
The squadrons close headlong; and all the waters
foam, torn by drawn-back oars and by the prows
with triple prongs. They seek the open seas;
you could believe the Cyclades, uprooted,
now swam upon the waters or steep mountains
had clashed with mountains as the crewmen thrust
in their great galleys at the towering sterns.
Torches of hemp and flying darts of steel
are flung by hand, and Neptune's fields are red
with strange bloodshed. Among all this the queen
calls to her squadrons with their native sistrum;
she has not yet looked back at the twin serpents
that swim behind her. Every kind of monster
god--and the barking god, Anubis, too--
stands ready to cast shafts against Minerva
and Venus and at Neptune. In the middle
of all the struggle, Mars, engraved in steel,
rages beside fierce Furies from the sky;
and Discord, joyous, strides in her rent robe;
Bellona follows with a bloodstained whip.
But Actian Apollo, overhead,
had seen these things; he stretched his bow; and all
of Egypt and of India, and all
the Arabs and Sabaeans, turned their backs
and fled before this terror. The queen herself
was seen to woo the winds, to spread her sails,
and now, yes now, let fall the slackened ropes.
The Lord of Fire had fashioned her within
the slaughter, driven on by wave and west wind,
pale with approaching death; but facing this,
he set the Nile, his giant body mourning,
opening wide his folds and all his robes,
inviting the defeated to his blue-gray
breast and his sheltering streams. But entering
the walls of Rome in triple triumph, Caesar [= Octavian Augustus]
was dedicating his immortal gift
to the Italian gods: three hundred shrines
throughout the city. And the streets reechoed
with gladness, games, applause; in all the temples
were bands of matrons, and in all were altars;
and there, before these altars, slaughtered steers
were scattered on the ground. Caesar himself
is seated at bright Phoebus' snow-white porch,
and he reviews the spoils of nations and
he fastens them upon the proud doorposts.
The conquered nations march in long procession,
as varied in their armor and their dress
as in their languages....




From From Augustus to Nero: The First Dynasty of Imperial Rome, by R. Mellor (East Lansing, MI: 1989), pp. 44-46.