Letters & Poems 1 part 2/7

'However much I recall the marriages of the ancient age, these men here surpass the heroes, those women there the heroines. These nuptials, Ricimer, virtue as your bridal-matron demands for you, and the martial laurel bestows the Dionaean myrtle. Come then: hand over a man who cherishes no sluggish ease, nor is heavy with luxuries; but one whom just now the seaman's heat scorches, and the bay of Abydos, and the Sestian shore clamored round by Hellespontine storms: which straits of the sea I would not believe even that one to have held thus, for whom Athos was cloven, for whom, with Median oarsman, the swollen sails ran through the wooded Alp. Nor, were these straits girded with Lucullan keels, was he idle, when the enemy sat before famous Cyzicus; who, compelled by hunger, chewing kindred corpses, lived by his own death. But why do I delay my prayers? Hand him over, rather.'

Then Tithonus' consort replies in a few words: 'Come now, holy mother, though I have made the greatest use of the unconquered and supreme leader — provided you show yourself the gentler, and provided we guide the reins together and not divided. For if it please you to recall the toils of old, and him who fought for our Julius' fatherland — to say no more — I was the first to send Memnon hither.' They had finished: concord joined the two parties, since Rome at last obtains the prince she has chosen. 'Now I wish that you, O antiquity, so garrulous, had read of some men with like affection — envy that is never absent from the highest and most deserving. Against the arms of Brennus set Camillus, brought back from exile; against Caeso driven out bring the axes to Cincinnatus, and summon the weeping father from the plough to the rostra, and in the wretched tumult first drive off those whom, once conquered, you would seek.'

If the Carthaginian should breach the Alps, run back to the afflicted and the condemned. That the wicked Metaurus may blush red with the Carthaginian slaughter, let a punished consul lead them — he who, pouring out the thousands of Hasdrubal and forging for himself a gleaming sword, himself carries the severed head; far otherwise is the favour of our judgement: though unharmed, he knows himself beloved. But already excessive winds drive on my sails. Cease, O Muse, your slender measures, and now, as I seek the harbour, let the anchor of my song rest for me upon a calm bed. Yet, O prince, what a fleet and arms are now handled by you, how great deeds you do, and in how short a time — if God prolongs my prayers, in due order I shall soon call you twice a father-in-law, or thrice a consul.

For now the festivals summon us, and the forums of Trajan call for you; you shall bestow liberty on those Quirites whose glad cheeks receive the ceremonial blow. Go forward, father of the fatherland: happy, and with fair omen, about to bind new captives, release the old. POEM III. PREFACE OF THE PANEGYRIC, EDITION TO PETER. What makes the crops rejoice, what season is to be loved for harvests, and for flocks, for vines, and for bees — these were once published under the name of Maecenas; hence, Maro, you afterward dared to speak of arms and the man. But for me Peter shall be the Maecenas of this age, for by his star I sail the sea of fame. If he approves, he sends it forth; if he condemns, he hides the songs, nor brands me with his snorting rhinoceros-nose. Go, little book: this man, believe me, guards my modesty. With this censor even to have displeased is pleasing.

POEM IV. PREFACE OF THE PANEGYRIC SPOKEN TO MAJORIAN AUGUSTUS. As Tityrus once, beneath the covering of a spreading beech, rolled murmurs of song through his swelling reeds — Caesar granted to the afflicted man the right of life and of his field, nor did his loftier wrath halt at the humble accused: but while in a generous prince he praises the granted farmland, his rustic Muse gave heaven in place of earth. Nor was it a lesser thing to return Apollo's gifts: this man had made a lord, and that one made also a god; and to you, Flaccus, who followed the battle-lines of Brutus and Cassius, the author of your song was he who was also the author of your pardon. So to me, lately falling under an adverse war, you, the victor, bade me be of tranquil mind; therefore let the tongue of the saved poet serve you, and let your praise be the price of my life.

I will not now gnaw at Maro with biting tooth, nor, Sabine land, will I carp at your citizen. My theme is lesser than my talent, but greater than Caesar: let them conquer in eloquence, provided we conquer in our lord. POEM V. PANEGYRIC SPOKEN TO JULIUS VALERIUS MAJORIAN AUGUSTUS. Conceive in your mind, O commonwealth, the triumphs of the past: now the empire has a consul whom the purple covers no more than the cuirass, whose brows the diadems veil not by luxury but by law, and after the palm of merit's labours comes the palm-embroidered robe: all the glories of royalty the fasces heap up, and from a consul the prince grows greater. Therefore exultant Europe sounds forth 'bravo!' to your name — in sky, in countryside, in cities, on the waters — because you are held for ruler, you who had been victor.

I confess, the world had trembled while you willed not to have conquered for yourself, and with excessive modesty grieve that you should deserve the kingship, and, undismayed by the sad rebuff, take up what you thought must be defended. Warlike Rome had seated herself, with breast bared, her towered head crested; behind, from her capacious helmet, her slipping hair pours over her back. Gravity befits her gladness, and her terror grows with modesty, and, though against her will, comeliness outdoes her valour. The weave of her purple-dyed robe a biting brooch with twisted tooth devours; then whatever covering her bosom pours out, this a gem encloses in its open recess. A ruddy boss with spacious circuit props her left side.

Here you might see, poured in thick metal, the cave of Rhea and the teeming she-wolf, whom, with jaws laid bare, it was a terror even to fawn upon, though she — depicted — fears to devour the sons of Mars; the nearest part portrays the Tiber; here, stretched out beneath the pumice of the rough tufa, he breathed forth a moist slumber through his grey-green throat. A mantle covers his breast, which Ilia his consort had woven, who, joined to her flowing couch, wishes to raise murmurs with the waters and to guard the sleep of her billowy husband. These things gleam upon her shield; the spear-point rises on an ivory shaft, drunk with the slaughter of men: beside it Bellona builds a trophy, and bends the oak beneath the captive weight. Her throne rises of stones cut and falling from the reddening mountain of the Ethiopians, where, with the sun close by, a native purple has breathed upon the scorched crags.

Here Syene-stone is joined, there Numidian marble is added, feigning ancient ivory; then, cautiously, an order of Laconian marble, grassy in hue, glimmers green between. So, when she gave herself into the midst of the throne, all the earth at once flies to her; then each province displayed its own fruits: India brings ivory, Chaldaea balsam, Assyria gems, the Seres fleeces, the Sabaean incense, Attica honey, the Phoenix palms, Sparta olive-oil, Arcadia horses, Epirus mares, the Gaul cattle, the Chalybian arms, the Libyan grain, the Campanian wine. The Lydian gold, the Arab spice, Panchaia myrrh, Pontus castoreum, Tyre purple-dye, Corinth bronze. Sardinia silver, Spain ships and the thunder-stone; the darting lightning-bolt smites the crags, and the fecund wrath of the gods weds the kindled flint.

As often as the heaven stirs itself there, the more the earth avails in that place. Suddenly Africa, weeping, fell prostrate, her dark cheeks torn, and, bowing her brow, broke upon her head the ears of grain — now ill-fruitful. And thus she began to speak: 'I come, the third part of the world, unhappy through one who is fortunate; once a slave-born man, here a plunderer, and, with the lords extinguished, long now holds a barbarian sceptre upon my soil, and, raging with nobility utterly put to flight, the alien loves not what he is not. O drowsy vigour of Latium, he laughs that your walls have yielded to his ambushes: do you not shake the spear? Do you feel no grief, even for me, a captive? Surely your destiny is thought to rise by evils, and to be loftier by ruin. But it is better where the terror departs: now it remains to conquer, if you fight, as, conquered, you are wont.'

'When Porsenna, hurling proud Tarquin against you, once filled the Janiculum with Tuscan soldiery — yet while he prepared by siege to break through the gates, he bore your whole might upon Cocles alone in his shield; many thousands of men pressed the ground upon a hanging way; nor when the bridge was loosed and he fell, did he fall in defeat. That same king, at last admonished by the death of his scribe, learned that wars were being stirred against him not only when there was open war; soon, peace being sought, he returned into his realm, put to flight not so much by the smiter as by the burning man: for Scaevola had stood with heart of ice, and had condemned his right hand to the fire set beneath it — more blessed by the sinning hand, when by chance the attendant fell, while the accused stood firm, and he who was the torturer fled the torments of the captive. Brennus you feared afterward, when you were the better.'

'Whatever is yours, whatever you are called — now the Tarpeian rock alone was left; yet one man again then repelled the whole battle-line, while the garrulous goose announced the Senones, and your shrine kept watch without a soldier. Me too — grant me pardon, that we once waged war — after the Trebia and Cannae you subdue; and Hannibal thundered before Rome's roofs sooner than Scipio saw ours. What have I deserved? By the fates I am compelled to stir up wars against you, whether I wish it or not: the trembling foe terrifies you, yet safe with the sea shutting him in, like a bristly boar lying near the high wastes, who, shut up, tapers his black snout, heavy with white weapons, and a huge throng of hounds barks around him, should he chance to wish to close in battle on the field.'

'He, through the brambles set against him, swells and grows haughty, slight in strength yet strong by his position, while the huntsman nearby sounds his cry from the hill: the known voice of the master restores his wearied rage; then blind fury disdains to feel its wounds. Why do you defer the battles? Why do you dread the sea, for whose triumphs the very heaven is often wont to fight? What of the fact that you now have a prince most excellent, whom the foreseeing ages proclaim shall come to the ruin of Libya, who, third from me, shall receive a name? This the fates owe to your toil, Majorian: were you to bid me board the fleet and enter my ports and approach the city, why I should desire it, I will tell in a few words in order. It is told that where warlike Acincum flourishes in Pannonia, his grandfather ruled the Illyrian soil with the tracts of the Ister.'

'For when Theodosius at Sirmium took the name of Augustus, this man had Majorian as master of both branches of the militia, when he was about to come to the eastern parts of the realm. The deeds of the leader are recorded in the Latin annals: how often did the war-trumpets, brought against the Scythian settlers, press hard upon the Hypanis, and the camp-follower, saluting the frosts on the ridged Peuce, mocked the snows! This man's father held him as father-in-law, an illustrious man, and, content always with no lofty height of soldiery, followed his single friend as a comrade in doubtful chances. More than once, with fasces offered, Aetius tried to snatch him for his own court; but that man stood firm, greater than the honoured: he began to be more precious, so that his fidelity was not caught by a price.'

'He was what he once had been — quaestor to the consuls; he handled the public treasury by his own right, and kept such measure that rumour told he was even sparing his son's estate. But the leader's now envious wife had by chance perceived this; that the boy's fame was being increased, and, suffused with bile, she had brewed within her barbarian heart an inward venom. At once she scans the sky, and runs through all mathematics with vowed numbers, questions the shades, searches the lightning-bolts, examines the entrails, rejoicing on every side to have snatched a secret from God: so grim, on the stern-ornament, had the Colchian woman of the Pelasgians stood, with her husband trembling, about to scatter Absyrtus for their father, and about to work, by the slaying of her brother, a wickedness worse than death, while in the death-rite she fights, and makes for herself a brother into weapons.'

'Or when she overwhelmed the fire of the Bulls, herself glowing more, and clothed the trembling man with a cold flame, whom, with the venom defending him, they say chilled amid the blazing bullocks — so this woman, long impatient of soul, after she heard that empire and long rule were decreed for that boy, tearing her arms, enters where the man's bed is spread, and with these words burst forth her raving voice: You lie secure, forgetful of your own, O sluggish one, and Majorian shall be prince of the world (so the ages demand); the stars proclaim this by their signs, men by their prayers: for him why do I seek the stars, whom another destiny has made by love? Nothing is braver than he. And a boy is never covetous, but sparing of possession. Poor as yet, already he scatters gold, urges vast counsels, and follows them; all that he plots is lofty. What he hopes for presses him.'

'If perchance I unfold his sport, one single day of his has consumed whatever you may think done with javelins: three arrows made the serpent, the stag, the boar tremble before him; not so did he balance the darts against the foe who, with his son's body encircled by a serpent, feared the more while he came to the rescue, while by those same casts he might give death and life, and hold his hand steady with trembling heart, and go forth wholly into his craft, his fear diminished by the nearer hope, dealing amid the limbs of two the death of one alone. Should it please him to contend with the boxing-glove, Sicilian Eryx yielded, nor did Sparta flourish in like art, when in the Therapnaean wrestling-ground the fat pugilist Amycus, laid low on the Bebrycian sands, looked up. What vigour in his feet!'

'In vain did Opheltes' son grant himself the palm of Sicania, nor so did the swift Arcadian lift his proud soles through parched Nemea, whose fleeting mother in the Aetolian dust Hippomenes shuddered at — she who, sent ahead in contempt over much turf of the circus, when from the cave of the barrier the nimble maiden-warrior flashed forth amid the trembling people, about to touch nothing in her whole stride, while pale he looked back to see the field's midst shrink behind him, and the long ways toward the goal-posts, and, pressed by the near breath, ran anxious now in the hostile shadow, until, near the turning of the goal, now all but abandoned, thrice with the scattered apple she broke her hastened steps.'

'Whoever sees this man as horseman scorns the Ledaean nursling and the youth, your Sthenoboea's youth, to whom antiquity grants the back of a winged horse and the Lycian Chimaera, which it tells he overcame, when with one wound he took away three lives: had the fates then given you life, fierce Majorian, you would have forbidden Castor to know the reins, Pollux the boxing-glove, Alcon the javelins, and would leap upon the Bellerophontean spoils. Should he take up the shield, he conquers the son begotten of Telamon, who among the Grecian sterns, against Hector's fire, defended even the fleet of faithless Ulysses. Should you ask with how great weight he hurls the missile — more sluggishly, trembling for the burden of his inserted Camilla, did Metabus fling the weapon, nor with so great a whirl did the whistling ash-spear of Achilles go forth against Troilus.'

'Nor so did the Attic son of Aegeus, with the Marathonian oak, break Creon who delayed the burial of the heroes: nor so did the avenger of the violated priestess of Phoebus hurl the twisted lightning-bolt against the Danaans, when Greece held the night of Troy and a like torch, and Oileus, fixed to the Caphareus rocks amid the waters, belched forth the flame. I speak of small things: what of the fact that, as often as wars are waged for you, a disciple, not a soldier, is present? And he shapes a foster-son, a rival who on the contrary looks on? What you have conquered he hates, and whom you conquer he loves: wholly Alexander the Great drowses toward that man, whom his father's glory tormented. What shall I do, unhappy? What realms shall I prepare for my son, shut out from Getic sceptres, if the commonwealth passes me by, and little Gaudentius, over and above this, is trampled by that man's destiny?'

'That man Gaul already praises, and whatever is throughout Europe: the Rhine washes him with its rigid waves, the Arar, the Rhone, the Meuse, the Marne, the Seine, the Loue, the Clitis, the Elaris, the Aude, the Vachalis, and the Loire, which he drinks, hewn into fragments by the axe; when, as they feared war, he defended the Turones, you were absent: afterward, in a short time, you fought together, where the Frank Chlogio had overrun the open lands of the Atrebates: here, as the roads converged, they closed the narrow ways, and by a bridge a rampart had carried across the village Vicus Helena, subdued by the arch, and the river at once beneath a long causeway, its joints propped by set-in beams. There, with you posted, Majorian fought as horseman beneath the very bridge: by chance, on the hill near the bank, the barbaric wedding-hymn resounded, and to Scythian dances a new bride, like a blond, was wedded to her flaxen-haired husband.'

'These, then, as they relate, he laid low; the helmet rattled at the blows, and the breastplate warded off the strokes of the spears with its opposed scales, until the enemy, put to flight, turned his back: you might see the festive channels of the barbaric marriage-couch gleam red upon the wagons, and dishes flung about everywhere, and captive banquets, and, with the perfumed lock, the garlanded cauldrons bearing fragrant wreaths. At once Mars swells, and, more ardent, Bellona shatters the pleasures of the marriage-chamber as you lie there.'

'The victor seizes the chariots and the bride, the son's wife; not so did the Semelean Evan mingle the Pholoetic monsters and the Pelethronian Lapiths, while the orgies inflame the Haemonian mothers and rouse Venus and Mars, and first consume their bloody feasts for war, and, with Bacchus whirled about, think their cups weapons, when, as the tumult grew fierce, the blood of the Centaurs polluted Haemonian Othrys. Nor let the quarrels of the cloud-born brothers be more celebrated. This man too tames monsters, from the peak of whose ruddy brain the hair, drawn to the forehead, lies, and the bared nape shines through the loss of its bristles; then with a grey-green light the watery gaze glimmers pale, and, with their faces shaved on every side, thin crests are furrowed with the comb in place of a beard. More tightly sewn garments constrain the men's tall limbs.'

'The hollow of the knee lies bare where the covering is drawn up, and a belt suspends their side and narrow belly. To hurl the swift double-axes through the vast void, and to foresee the place of the wound, and to whirl the shields, is their sport, and to precede the twisted spears with leaps, and to have come upon the foe first: in boyish years there is a ripe love of war; if by chance they are pressed, whether by number or by the position of the ground, death overwhelms them, not fear; unconquered they stand firm, and survive in spirit now almost after the soul is gone. Such men, with you as witness, he put to flight, and, praising, praised the men: who could endure it? With you he does all things; without you he does much. Many fight for the prince — I fear lest that man now fight for himself; if he shall hold the realm, for him you conquer whatever you subdue; the fates leave nothing here in the middle: for if you refuse to be a striker, you shall be a slave.'

'Surely, if the Chaldaean keeps the stars on a straight track; if the Colchian knows herbs, if the Tuscan draws forth lightnings, if the Thessalian summons shades, if the Lycian lots have wisdom, if by their flight our birds speak our fates, if Hammon with learned bleatings groans holy beneath the Syrtis, if, in short, Phoebus, Themis, and Dodona sing the truth — after our times this man shall be Julius Augustus. Moreover, he is joined in love to a youth whom the great spirit of a royal grandfather arms: whither will you turn? This man bears fame to the summit of the world, both bear spirit: rise up, and together assail the unwary; you will be able to slaughter neither, should you bid one alone to die; but weave crafty blandishments for the one, yet let that one be sought with the sword. Why do I speak in vain? There is nothing that we so guard against, that he may reign: he is destined to live as victor.'

'Moved to wrath, Aetius replies thus in few words: Restrain the impious vows of your raging soul; I shall be able to decree death — should I be silent about our own men — of an innocent man? Does anyone pray that a crime be made of being nobly born, without crimes? Who would summon the fates to punishment? Shall I seek your inward parts with the sword, Majorian? If Phoebus shines by night, the Moon by day, if the twofold Parrhasian wain is renewed upon the sea, if the Tanais beholds Atlas, if Bagrada the Caucasus, if the boat woven of the Hercynian forest's timber furrows the Nabathaean Hydaspes in place of the Rhine, if the Spaniard drinks the Ganges, and from the charming Erythraean shores to the Tartesian Iberus comes the Indian water-drawer: if Castor bathes himself in the blood of Pollux.'

'Should the mad hand of Pirithous have slain his Theseus, or of Orestes his Pylades — when the matricide, dutiful, was seizing the Tauric rites. But lest perchance I seem to have scorned your grief: let him live, and for a little while lack military service; alas for us, he could — had you not thought it grievous — have owed his fortune to us. So he speaks, and bids that man in his ancestral countryside change his accustomed toils, as the wheel of the fates runs on, that in the field he might learn what awaits a landholder, what manners at last the civil law prepares, lest he should bring to empire the soldier's art alone.'

'The veteran youth had at once hung up his arms, making the fastings of the barren earth fruitful with the ploughshare — so once, O bent consul, you used to turn the fields, if only, peace intervening, you had for a little loosed the war-trumpets, you whose brave left hand guided the plough-handle after the eagles, while, joined to the earthen hearth, the palm-clad ploughman drank in the smoke of a victor. Meanwhile, by a prince's sword, Aetius had closed his lamentable fate: whose great troops, that he might more safely join to the Palatine squadrons, he summons this man by entreaties; but the penalty of shed blood does not delay for itself; he had gathered the number, not the spirit, of the people; he unbound with the sword the evil crimes of the sword, and fell the more to our ruin. Even then the golden fates were unrolling the good empire of the present prince as a whole.'

'But public losses fled from the man's envy: whoever were chosen to the name of Augustus held the throne left to the Caesars: after you, taken captive, labour, this man has made what he holds. Nerva summoned Trajan when the pledge was already victor; that he might be Germanicus in titles, by merits he had been so; the matter runs in due order; whoever so begins courts this fame. Once, after the Capreae of Tiberius, after the foul divinities of Gaius, the censorship of Claudius, the cithara and marriage-chambers of Nero, after the pageant of the monstrous mirror in which that man beheld himself base here — because Otho was fair — after the five thousand of Vitellius, condemned to the pit of a notorious belly: chosen prince by these titles, and for a like toil, was Vespasian.'

'But lest perhaps you think me shut in by the courage of the robber, he consumed in that man the strength of his race, the vice of his life: his Scythian ferocity not his strengths but his lusts blunt, and, having gained immense spoils, he has now lost all his vigour to luxury, whereby he prevailed while he was poor; my own inward parts he now arms against me on his behalf; I am torn, captured through so many years, by his right, by my valour; and, fruitful in punishments, I bring forth those whom I suffer; with his own arms he accomplishes nothing — he is feared as sluggish by the Gaetulians, the Numidians, the Garamantes, the Autololes, the Arzuges, the Marmaridae, the Psylli, the Nasamones, and now he knows not iron from vast gold. But he himself is of bloodless colour, whom the surfeit vexes, and pale fatness holds, and, pressed by perennial gluttony, his stomach does not release the souring vapour. Their life is like their swine.'

'Not so did Barcan Hannibal perish at rich Capua, when Baiae softened bodies brave in war amid its delights, and where Gaurus slopes into the Lucrine waters, the Massylian swimmer tossed his black arms. And therefore restore to me, I pray, at least after so many ages, this man as lord and avenger, lest Carthage fight further against Italy. So she spoke, groaned with grief, and aided her prayers with rising tears. To these things Rome replies thus: Gird up your long complaints, O you devoted to me: your avenger, in the name of the gods, shall be Majorian; but in few words I shall unfold a few things. From the time that Theodosius restored the common laws to the brother of the routed author — whose throat a hand, soon to turn against itself, broke — my Gaul, still ignorant of the lords of affairs, and unknowing, serves.'

'From then much perished, because, the prince being shut up, whatever there was of the wretched world in its various parts, it became customary to lay waste: what life could please, when the ruler himself had to be governed? For so many years despised nobility lay prostrate: the commonwealth carried off, as the price of the theft, only hatred. Our prince corrects all these things, and, adding strength from the nations, comes to your war through wars; for it is the greatest labour to have gone, not to have fought: why do we waste the time in words? He arrives and conquers. With such discourse the council was concluded, and, at the goddess's words, with metal serving them, the concordant sisters drew the golden threads. These labours of Rome and Libya, which I have sung, the prayers of men taught me to speak.'

Now it is time to bear my foot toward those things which, even were Apollo mute, your War must speak for me in place of the Muses. The fierce Alaman had climbed the Alps, and, led through long silences over the ridge of the Rhaetians, had gone forth after laying waste the Roman folk, and through the plains once called after the name of the Dog he had let loose nine hundred foes for plunder: and now you were master; you direct Burco thither with a small escort accompanying; but that suffices, when you bid them fight; sure is the victory for our men that you have commanded the battle-lines; fortune completes the triumph, not for the people but for love of you; I do not wish the ranks on the field, because you send too few; that happy issue of war regards you: it was contended by the right of the master, by the destiny of Augustus. Lately the enemy was wandering slowly over the open sea.

As soon as, in order, every rank had given you the kingdom — the people, the senate-house, the soldiery, and your colleague together — entering the Campanian land while the south winds blew, secure with a Moorish soldier, he assails the husbandman; the fat Vandal sat upon the thwarts, awaiting the booty which he had bidden to be dragged thither by the captive who takes the captive; but suddenly your troops had thrown themselves between the two enemies on the plains which cut both sea and hill, and make a harbour by the withdrawn winding of the river. Terrified at first, the throng seeks the mountains, and, shut in by the abandoned timbers, became the prey of prey; then, roused with all his line, the pirate comes together for battle.

Part, in the hollowed boat, now sets forth the docile horses; part is clothed in iron mail of matching hue; part unbends the smooth bows and the darts, iron-tipped, about to bear an infused venom, which strike twice though sent but once; now the woven serpent runs to and fro through either battle-line, whose throat swells with the west winds driven in; with its gaping maw the painting counterfeits an angry hunger, and the breeze makes fury of the cloth, as often as the whirling back thickens with the blasts, and its belly now holds not the excessive void. But the trumpet, hoarse, blared grave with earth-sounding din, the shout answers the war-clarions, and courage suddenly rages, though slight, in the cowardly; on every side the iron falls, yet hence into the throats. This one the whirled falarica passes by in its cast, scarcely to cease for a second death.

This one the pike whirls with its blow; that one falls, pierced by the horseman's javelin from his horse; another by the spit; here one lies at once by the winged weapon, having suffered an absent right hand; part, with the ham cut, lives to the reproach of death; and part of the brain this one carries off with part of the helmet, and with mighty arm cleaves the wretched crown of the head with a two-edged sword. As soon as the Vandal turns his back with reversed arms, slaughter follows with no distinction of battle. They are strewn everywhere on the plains, and idle terror, in trembling flight, did all things brave; pale, he enters the sea, and the horseman passes through the ships, and by a shameful swim returned from the deep to the skiff. So was the third battle of Pyrrhus once, when Dentatus pressed him with slain thousands.

He scarcely dragged the fragments of his mangled fleet into Epirus — he who had scattered the Chaonians and Molossians, the bands of the Thracians and Macedonians, along our shores, and whose forces pale Oenotria dreaded, and Tarentum herself, the very thing she had sought, had trembled at the wave. The enemies expelled, it is now free to survey the field which stands greatest of all: you might see here, beneath that carnage, the spirits of both sides; none but was smitten in the breast, whoever was yours; none but was pierced in the back, of theirs whoever he was; this the wounds proclaim of the foremost — of the plunderers' leader by chance, to whom the sister of the greedy king is said to have wed, who, shut in by the blinding dust and crushed by javelins, still bears the base tracks of a shameful flight; so your ranks hold the field with the spoils, and enjoy the war-god.