by Petronius
Hinc Numidae accusant, illinc nova vellera Seres
atque Arabum populus sua despoliaverat arva.
Ecce aliae clades et laesae vulnera pacis.
Quaeritur in silvis auro fera, et ultimus Hammon
Afrorum excutitur, ne desit belua dente
ad mortes pretiosa; fame premit advena classes,
tigris et aurata gradiens vectatur in aula,
ut bibat humanum populo plaudente cruorem.
Heu, pudet effari perituraque prodere fata,
Persarum ritu male pubescentibus annis
surripuere viros, exsectaque viscera ferro
in venerem fregere, atque ut fuga mobilis aevi
circumscripta mora properantes differat annos,
quaerit se natura nec invenit. Omnibus ergo
scorta placent fractique enerui corpore gressus
et laxi crines et tot nova nomina vestis,
quaeque virum quaerunt. Ecce Afris eruta terris
citrea mensa greges servorum ostrumque renidens,
ponitur ac maculis imitatur vilius aurum
quae sensum trahat. Hoc sterile ac male nobile lignum
turba sepulta mero circum venit, omniaque orbis
praemia correptis miles vagus esurit armis.
Ingeniosa gula est. Siculo scarus aequore mersus
ad mensam vivus perducitur, atque Lucrinis
eruta litoribus vendunt conchylia cenas,
ut renovent per damna famem. Iam Phasidos unda
orbata est avibus, mutoque in litore tantum
solae desertis adspirant frondibus aurae.
Nec minor in Campo furor est, emptique Quirites
ad praedam strepitumque lucri suffragia vertunt.
Venalis populus, venalis curia patrum:
est favor in pretio. Senibus quoque libera virtus
exciderat, sparsisque opibus conversa potestas
ipsaque maiestas auro corrupta iacebat.
Pellitur a populo victus Cato; tristior ille est,
qui vicit, fascesque pudet rapuisse Catoni.
Namque — hoc dedecoris populo morumque ruina —
non homo pulsus erat, sed in uno victa potestas
Romanumque decus. Quare tam perdita Roma
ipsa sui merces erat et sine vindice praeda.
Praeterea gemino deprensam gurgite plebem
faenoris inluvies ususque exederat aeris.
Nulla est certa domus, nullum sine pignore corpus,
sed veluti tabes tacitis concepta medullis
intra membra furens curis latrantibus errat.
Arma placent miseris, detritaque commoda luxu
vulneribus reparantur. Inops audacia tuta est.
Hoc mersam caeno Romam somnoque iacentem
quae poterant artes sana ratione movere,
ni furor et bellum ferroque excita libido?
[119] “The conquering Roman now held the whole world, sea and land and the course of sun and moon. But he was not satisfied. Now the waters were stirred and troubled by his loaded ships; if there were any hidden bay beyond, or any land that promised a yield of yellow gold, that place was Rome’s enemy, fate stood ready for the sorrows of war, and the quest for wealth went on. There was no happiness in familiar joys, or in pleasures dulled by the common man’s use. The soldier out at sea would praise the bronze of Corinth; bright colours dug from earth rivalled the purple; here the African curses Rome, here the Chinaman plunders his marvellous silks, and the Arabian hordes have stripped their own fields bare.
“Yet again more destruction, and peace hurt and bleeding. The wild beast is searched out in the woods at a great price, and men trouble Hammon deep in Africa to supply the beast whose teeth make him precious for slaying men; strange ravening creatures freight the fleets, and the padding tiger is wheeled in a gilded palace to drink the blood of men while the crowd applauds.
I shrink from speaking plain and betraying our destiny of ruin; boys whose childhood is hardly begun are kidnapped in the Persian way, and the powers the knife has shorn are forced to the service of lust, and in order that the passing of man’s finest age may be hedged round with delay and hold back the hurrying years, Nature seeks for herself, and finds herself not. So all take their pleasure in harlotry, and the halting steps of a feeble body, and in flowing hair and numberless clothes of new names, everything that ensnares mankind.
“Tables of citron-wood are dug out of the soil of Africa and set up, the spots on them resembling gold which is cheaper than they, their polish reflecting hordes of slaves and purple clothes, to lure the senses. Round this barren and low-born wood there gathers a crowd drowned in drink, and the soldier of fortune gorges the whole spoils of the world while his weapons rust.
“Gluttony is a fine art. The wrasse is brought alive to table in sea-water from Sicily, and the oysters torn from the banks of the Lucrine lake make a dinner famous, in order to renew men’s hunger by their extravagance. All the birds are now gone from the waters of Phasis; the shore is quiet; only the empty air breathes on the lonely boughs.
“The same madness is in public life, the true-born Roman is bought, and changes his vote for plunder and the cry of gain. The people are corrupt, the house of senators is corrupt, their support hangs on a price. The freedom and virtue of the old men had decayed, their power was swayed by largesse, even their dignity was stained by money and trodden in the dust.
“Cato is beaten and driven out by the mob; his conqueror is more unhappy than he, and is ashamed to have torn the rods of office from Cato. For the shame of the nation and the fall of their character lay in this, that here was not only one man’s defeat. In his person the power and glory of Rome was humbled. So Rome in her deep disgrace was herself both price and prize, and despoiled herself without an avenger. Moreover filthy usury and the handling of money had caught the common people in a double whirlpool, and destroyed them. Not a house is safe, not a man but is mortgaged; the madness spreads through their limbs, and trouble bays and hounds them down like some disease sown in the dumb flesh. In despair they turn to violence, and bloodshed restores the good things lost by luxury. A beggar can risk everything in safety. Could the spell of healthful reason stir Rome from the filth where she rolled in heavy sleep, or only madness and war and the lust wakened by the sword?
[CXX] “Tres tulerat Fortuna duces, quos obruit omnes
armorum strue diversa feralis Enyo.
Crassum Parthus habet, Libyco iacet aequore Magnus,
Iulius ingratam perfudit sanguine Romam,
et quasi non posset tot tellus ferre sepulcra,
divisit cineres. Hos gloria reddit honores.
Est locus exciso penitus demersus hiatu
Parthenopen inter magnaeque Dicarchidos arva,
Cocyti perfusus aqua; nam spiritus, extra
qui furit effusus, funesto spargitur aestu.
Non haec autumno tellus viret aut alit herbas
caespite laetus ager, non verno persona cantu
mollia discordi strepitu virgulta locuntur,
sed chaos et nigro squalentia pumice saxa
gaudent ferali circum tumulata cupressu.
Has inter sedes Ditis pater extulit ora
bustorum flammis et cana sparsa favilla,
ac tali volucrem Fortunam voce lacessit:
‘Rerum humanarum divinarumque potestas,
Fors, cui nulla placet nimium secura potestas,
quae nova semper amas et mox possessa relinquis,
ecquid Romano sentis te pondere victam,
nec posse ulterius perituram extollere molem?
Ipsa suas vires odit Romana iuventus
et quas struxit opes, male sustinet. Aspice late
luxuriam spoliorum et censum in damna furentem.
Aedificant auro sedesque ad sidera mittunt,
expelluntur aquae saxis, mare nascitur arvis,
et permutata rerum statione rebellant.
En etiam mea regna petunt. Perfossa dehiscit
molibus insanis tellus, i
am montibus haustis
antra gemunt, et dum vanos lapis invenit usus,
inferni manes caelum sperare fatentur.
Quare age, Fors, muta pacatum in proelia vultum,
Romanosque cie, ac nostris da funera regnis.
Iam pridem nullo perfundimus ora cruore,
nec mea Tisiphone sitientis perluit artus,
ex quo Sullanus bibit ensis et horrida tellus
extulit in lucem nutritas sanguine fruges.’
[120] Fortune brought forth three generals, and the goddess of War and Death buried them all, each beneath a pile of arms. The Parthian has Crassus in keeping, Pompey the Great lies by the Libyan water, Julius stained ungrateful Rome with his blood; and as though the earth could not endure the burden of so many graves, she has separated their ashes. These are the wages paid by fame.
“Between Parthenope and the fields of the great town of Dicarchis there lies a spot plunged deep in a cloven chasm, wet with the water of Cocytus: for the air that rushes furiously outward is laden with that baleful spray. The ground here is never green in autumn, the field does not prosper or nurture herbage on its turf, the soft thickets never ring nor are loud in springtime with the songs of rival birds, but chaos is there, and gloomy rocks of black pumice-stone lie happy in the gloom of the cypresses that mound them about. From this place the father of Dis lifted his head, lit with funeral flames and flecked with white ashes, and provoked winged Fortune with these words:
“‘Disposer of life in earth and heaven, Chance, always angry against power too firmly seated, everlasting lover of change and quick for saker of thy conquests, dost not thou feel thy spirit crushed under the weight of Rome, and that thou canst not further raise up the mass that is doomed to fall? The youth of Rome contemns its own strength, and groans under the wealth its own hands have heaped up. See, everywhere they squander their spoils, and the mad use of wealth brings their destruction. They have buildings of gold and thrones raised to the stars, they drive out the waters with their piers, the sea springs forth amid the fields: rebellious man turns creation’s order upside down. Aye, they grasp even at my kingdom. The earth is hewn through for their madmen’s foundations and gapes wide, now the mountains are hollowed out until the caves groan, and while men turn precious stones to their empty purposes, the ghosts of hell declare their hopes of winning heaven. Arise, then, Chance, change thy looks of peace to war, harry the Roman, and let my kingdom have the dead. It is long now since my lips were wet with blood, and never has my loved Tisiphone bathed her thirsty limbs since the sword of Sulla drank deep, and the earth stood thick with corn fattened on blood and thrust up to the sun.’
SECTIONS CXXI TO CXXX.
[CXXI] “Haec ubi dicta dedit, dextrae coniungere dextram
conatus, rupto tellurem soluit hiatu.
Tunc Fortuna levi defudit pectore voces:
‘O genitor, cui Cocyti penetralia parent,
si modo vera mihi fas est impune profari,
vota tibi cedent; nec enim minor ira rebellat
pectore in hoc leviorque exurit flamma medullas.
Omnia, quae tribui Romanis arcibus, odi
muneribusque meis irascor. Destruet istas
idem, qui posuit, moles deus. Et mihi cordi
quippe cremare viros et sanguine pascere luxum.
Cerno equidem gemina iam stratos morte Philippos
Thessaliaeque rogos et funera gentis Hiberae.
Iam fragor armorum trepidantes personat aures,
Et Libyae cerno tua, Nile, gementia claustra,
Actiacosque sinus et Apollinis arma timentes.
Pande, age, terrarum sitientia regna tuarum
atque animas accerse novas. Vix navita Porthmeus
sufficiet simulacra virum traducere cumba;
classe opus est. Tuque ingenti satiare ruina,
pallida Tisiphone, concisaque vulnera mande:
ad Stygios manes laceratus ducitur orbis.’
[121] “He spoke and ended, and strained to take her hand in his, till he broke and clove the earth asunder. Then Fortune poured forth words from her fickle heart: ‘Father, whom the inmost places of Cocytus obey, thy prayer shall prosper, if at least I may foretell the truth without fear; for the anger that rises in my heart is stern as thine, and the flame that burns deep in my bones as fierce. I hate all the gifts I have made to towering Rome, and am angry at my own blessings. The god that raised up those high palaces shalldestroy them too. It will be my delight also to burn the men and feed my lust with blood. Lo, already I see Philippi’s field strewn with the dead of two battles, and the blazing pyres of Thessaly and the burial of the people of Iberia. Already the crash of arms rings in my trembling ears. And in Libya I see the barriers of the Nile groan, and the people in terror at the gulf of Actium and the army loved by Apollo. Open, then, the thirsty realms of thy dominion, and summon fresh souls. The old sailor, the Ferryman, will scarcely have strength to carry over the ghosts of the men in his boat; a whole fleet is needed. And thou, pale Tisiphone, take thy fill of wide destruction, and tear the bleeding wounds; the whole world is rent in pieces and drawn down to the Stygian shades.’
[CXXII] “Vixdum finierat, cum fulgure rupta corusco
intremuit nubes elisosque abscidit ignes.
Subsedit pater umbrarum, gremioque reducto,
telluris pavitans fraternos palluit ictus.
Continuo clades hominum venturaque damna
auspiciis patuere deum. Namque ore cruento
deformis Titan vultum caligine texit:
civiles acies iam tum spirare putares.
Parte alia plenos extinxit Cynthia vultus
et lucem sceleri subduxit. Rupta tonabant
verticibus lapsis montis iuga, nec vaga passim
flumina per notas ibant morientia ripas.
Armorum strepitu caelum furit et tuba Martem
sideribus tremefacta ciet, iamque Aetna voratur
ignibus insolitis, et in aethera fulmina mittit.
Ecce inter tumulos atque ossa carentia bustis
umbrarum facies diro stridore minantur.
Fax stellis comitata novis incendia ducit,
sanguineoque recens descendit Iuppiter imbre.
Haec ostenta brevi soluit deus. Exuit omnes
quippe moras Caesar, vindictaeque actus amore
Gallica proiecit, civilia sustulit arma.
“Alpibus aeriis, ubi Graio numine pulsae
descendunt rupes et se patiuntur adiri,
est locus Herculeis aris sacer: hunc nive dura
claudit hiemps canoque ad sidera vertice tollit.
Caelum illinc cecidisse putes: non solis adulti
mansuescit radiis, non verni temporis aura,
sed glacie concreta rigent hiemisque pruinis:
totum ferre potest umeris minitantibus orbem.
Haec ubi calcavit Caesar iuga milite laeto
optavitque locum, summo de vertice montis
Hesperiae campos late prospexit, et ambas
intentans cum voce manus ad sidera dixit:
‘Iuppiter omnipotens, et tu, Saturnia tellus,
armis laeta meis olimque onerata triumphis,
testor ad has acies invitum arcessere Martem,
invitas me ferre manus. Sed vulnere cogor,
pulsus ab urbe mea, dum Rhenum sanguine tingo,
dnm Gallos iterum Capitolia nostra petentes
Alpibus excludo, vincendo certior exul.
Sanguine Germano sexagintaque triumphis
esse nocens coepi. Quamquam quos gloria terret,
aut qui sunt qui bella vident? Mercedibus emptae
ac viles operae, quorum est mea Roma noverca.
At reor, haud impune, nec hanc sine vindice dextram
vinciet ignavus. Victores ite furentes,
ite mei comites, et causam dicite ferro.
Iamque omnes unum crimen vocat, omnibus una
impendet clades. Reddenda est gratia vobis,
non solus vici. Quare, quia poena tropaei
s
imminet, et sordes meruit victoria nostra,
iudice Fortuna cadat alea. Sumite bellum
et temptate manus. Certe mea causa peracta est:
inter tot fortes armatus nescio vinci.’
Haec ubi personuit, de caelo Delphicus ales
omina laeta dedit pepulitque meatibus auras.
Nec non horrendi nemoris de parte sinistra
insolitae voces flamma sonuere sequenti.
Ipse nitor Phoebi vulgato laetior orbe
crevit, et aurato praecinxit fulgure vultus.
[122] “She had scarcely ceased to speak when a cloud shook and was riven by a gleam of lightning, and flashed forth a moment’s burst of flame. The father of darkness sank down, closed the chasm in earth’s bosom, and grew white with terror at the stroke of his brother. Straightway the slaughter of men and the destruction to come were made plain by omens from on high. For Titan was disfigured and dabbled in blood, and veiled his face in darkness: thou hadst thought that even then he gazed on civil strife. In another quarter Cynthia darkened her full face, and denied her light to the crime. The mountain-tops slid down and the peaks broke in thunder, the wandering streams were dying, and no more ranged abroad between their familiar banks. The sky is loud with the clash of arms, the trumpet shakes to the stars and rouses the War God, and at once Aetna is the prey of unaccustomed fires, and casts her lightnings high into the air. The faces of the dead are seen visible among the tombs and the unburied bones, gibbering in dreadful menace. A blazing light girt with unknown stars leads the way for the flames of cities, and the sky rains down fresh showers of blood. In a little while God made these portents plain. For now Caesar shook off all his lingering, and, spurred by the passion of revenge, threw down his arms against Gaul and took them up against Rome.
“In the high Alps, where the rocks trodden by a Greek god slope downward and allow men to ap proach them, there is a place sacred to the altars of Hercules: the winter seals it with frozen snow, and heaves it up on its white top to the sky. It seems as though the sky had fallen away from there: the beams of the full sun do not soften the place, nor the breezes of the springtime, but the soil stands stiff with ice and winter’s frost: its frowning shoulders could support the whole globe. When Caesar with his exultant army trod these heights and chose a place, he looked far over the fields of Hesperia from the high mountaintop, and lifted his voice and both hands to the stars and said: ‘Jupiter, Lord of all, and thou land of Saturn, once proud of my victories and loaded with my triumphs, I call you to witness that I do not willingly summon the War God to these hosts, and that my hand is not raised willingly to strike. But I am driven on by wounds, by banishment from my own city, while I dye the Rhine with blood and cut off the Gauls from the Alps on their second march to our Capitol. Victory makes my exile doubly sure. My rout of the Germans and my sixty triumphs were the beginning of my offences. Yet who is it that fears my fame, who are the men that watch me fight? Base hirelings bought at a price, to whom my native Rome is a stepmother. But I think that no coward shall bind my strong arm unhurt without a blow in return. Come, men, to victory while anger is hot, come, my comrades, and plead our cause with the sword. For we are all summoned under one charge, and the same doom hangs over us all. My thanks are your due, my victory is not mine alone. Wherefore, since punishment threatens our trophies, and disgrace is the meed of conquest, let Chance decide how our lot shall fall. Raise the standard and prove your strength. My pleading at least is accomplished; armed amid so many warriors I cannot know defeat.’ As he spoke these words aloud, the Delphic bird in the sky gave a happy omen, and beat the air as it flew. And from the left quarter of a gloomy grove strange voices sounded and fire flashed thereafter. Even Phoebus glowed with orb brighter than his wont, and set a burning halo of gold about his face.