Virgil a.k.a. Publius Vergilius Maro, to Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga:
a span of over fifteen centuries of militant latin literary tradition!

Virgil starts out his Aeneid (Penguin Books edition, page 27) with the following:

I am that poet who in times past made the light melody of pastoral poetry. In my next poem I left the woods for the adjacent farmlands, teaching them to obey even the most exacting tillers of the soil; and the farmers liked my work. But now I turn to the terrible strife of Mars.

"This is a tale of arms and of a man. Fated to be an exile, he was the first to sail from the land of Troy and reach Italy, at its Lavinian shore. He met many tribulations on his way both by land and on the ocean; high Heaven willed it, for Juno was ruthless and could not forget her anger. And he had also to endure great suffering in warfare. But at last he succeeded in founding his city, and installing the gods of his race in the Latin land: and that was the origin of the Latin nation, the Lords of Alba, and the proud battlements of Rome."

Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga reflects a similar theme in his opening of the classic Spanish New World epic, La Araucana :

"No las damas, amor; no gentilezas
de caballeros canto enamorados,
ni las muestras, regalos y ternezas
de amorosos, afectos y cuidados;
mas el valor, los hechos, las proezas
de aquellos españoles esforzados,
que a la cerviz de Arauco no domada
pusieron duro yugo por la espada.

"Cosas diré también harto notables
de gente que a ningún rey obedecen,
temerarias empresas memorables
que celebrarse con razón merecen:
raras industrias, términos loables
que más los españoles engrandecen;
pues no es el vencedor más estimado
de aquello en que el vencido es reputado."