Importunus enim transvolat aridas Turpant et capitis nives. Nec Coae referunt iam tibi purpurae Nec cari lapides tempora, quae semel Inclusit volucris dies. Quo fugit venus, heu, quove color? decens Quae me surpuerat mihi, Felix post Cinaram, notaque et artium Cornicis vetulae temporibus Lycen, Possent ut iuvenes visere fervidi Multo non sine risu Dilapsam in cineres facem. ODE XIV. QUAE cura patrum quaeve Quiritium Per titulos memoresque fastos 5 Quid Marte posses. Milite nam tuo Alpibus impositas tremendis Deiecit acer plus vice simplici; Auspiciis pepulit secundis, Indomitas prope qualis undas Primosque et extremos metendo Stravit humum sine clade victor, Te copias, te consilium et tuos Praebente divos. Nam tibi, quo die Portus Alexandrea supplex Et vacuam patefecit aulam, Fortuna lustro prospera tertio Belli secundos reddidit exitus, Laudemque et optatum peractis Imperiis decus arrogavit. ΤΟ 15 20 25 30 35 40 Te Cantaber non ante domabilis Medusque et Indus, te profugus Scythes Italiae dominaeque Romae. Te, fontium qui celat origines, Obstrepit Oceanus Britannis, 45 50 ODE XV. PHOEBUS volentem proelia me loqui Ne parva Tyrrhenum per aequor Vela darem. Tua, Caesar, aetas Postibus et vacuum duellis Ianum Quirini clausit et ordinem Et veteres revocavit artes, Per quas Latinum nomen et Italae Porrecta maiestas ad ortus 5 10 15 Custode rerum Caesare non furor Non ira, quae procudit enses Et miseras inimicat urbes. Non, qui profundum Danubium bibunt, Non Seres infidive Persae, Non Tanaïn prope flumen orti. Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris Inter iocosi munera Liberi Cum prole matronisque nostris, Troiamque et Anchisen et almae 20 25 30 INTRODUCTION TO THE CARMEN SECULARE. AMONG the antiquarian and religious revivals of Augustus, Suetonius (Aug. 31) mentions the 'Ludi Seculares'; Dio (54. 18) fixes the date to the consulship of C. Furnius and C. Silanus, B.C. 17, but beyond this and the fact that it professed to be their fifth celebration, he tells us nothing. No full account of them is found earlier than Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 5 ‘de Seculo'), the writer on astrology in the second half of the 3rd century, who is supplemented by Zosimus (2. 5), the historian, in the middle of the 5th century. Tacitus (Ann. II. 11) mentions their repetition in the reign of Claudius, A.D. 46, but declines to describe them, on the ground that he has already given in the Histories (in one of the Books now lost) a particular account of their celebration under Domitian, on which occasion he had had the fullest cognizance of their details, as being himself one of the 'quindecimviri' and a praetor. The games of which they professed to be the revival went under the Republic by the name of Tarentini (or Terentini) and Taurii, the former name being connected by all writers with the 'stagna Tarenti' or 'Terenti,' a spot at the north edge of the Campus Martius, near the river, once a swamp, and probably a warm spring (see Burn's Rome and the Campagna, p. 300), the locality of some of the ceremonies even in Augustus' celebration; the latter variously derived,-by Servius (on Virg. Aen. 2. 140), from the 'taureae,' or sterile cows which were sacrificed. Their origin according to some of the authorities, according to others their second celebration, was ascribed to Val. Publicola. All agree that they had only been celebrated four times |