wrote an Epic upon Troy! For of all the deeds of Nero's cruel and bloody tyranny, which was there that more deserved to be avenged by the arms of a Verginius,1 of a Vindex2 or a Galba? These were the deeds, these the graces of our high-born Prince, whose delight it was to prostitute himself by unseemly singing upon a foreign stage, and to earn a chaplet of Greek parsley! Let thy ancestral images be decked with the trophies of thy voice! Place thou at the feet of a Domitius 3 the trailing robe of Thyestes or Antigone, or the mask of Melanippa,⭑ and hang up thy harp on a colossus 5 of marble! 231 Where can be found, O Catiline, nobler ancestors than thine, or than thine, Cethegus?6 Yet you plot a night attack, you prepare to give our houses and temples to the flames as though you were the sons of trousered7 Gauls, or sprung from the Senones,8 daring deeds that deserved the shirt of torture. But our Consul 10 is awake, and beats back your hosts. Born at Arpinum, of ignoble blood, a municipal knight new to Rome, he posts helmeted men`at every point to guard the affrighted citizens, and is alert on every hill. Thus within the walls his toga won for him as much name and honour as Octavius 5 This is doubtless meant as a hit at the famous bronze Colossus of Nero. C. Cornelius Cethegus was the most prominent associate of Catiline in the long-nursed conspiracy which was crushed by Cicero as consul in B. C. 63. Narbonese Gaul was called bracata because its inhabitants wore trousers. 8 The Gauls who defeated the Romans in the battle of the Allia, B. C. 390. "A shirt lined with pitch in which the victims were burnt to death. See above i. 115 and Tac. Ann. xv. 44. 10 Cicero. nominis ac tituli, quantum [in 1] Leucade, quantum Thessaliae campis Octavius abstulit udo caedibus adsiduis gladio; sed Roma parentem, Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit. Arpinas alius Volscorum in monte solebat poscere mercedes alieno lassus aratro, 245 nodosam post haec frangebat vertice vitem, si lentus pigra muniret castra dolabra; hic tamen et Cimbros et summa pericula rerum excipit et solus trepidantem protegit urbem. atque ideo, postquam ad Cimbros stragemque volabant qui numquam attigerant maiora cadavera corvi, nobilis ornatur lauro collega secunda. 250 Plebeiae Deciorum animae, plebeia fuerunt nomina; pro totis legionibus hi tamen et pro 255 omnibus auxiliis atque omni pube Latina sufficiunt dis infernis Terraeque parenti; 260 1 If we read in with PSGU the line is deficient metrically. has non: Owen conj. vi. 1 The island of Leucas here stands for the battle of Actium, though it was many miles distant from the place where the battle was fought. 2 The battle of Philippi (B.c. 42) is meant, though Philippi was in Macedonia, not in Thessaly. The battle fought in Thessaly was the battle of Pharsalia, B.C, 49. The Roman poets confound the two battles, પડ 3 gained by battle in Leucas1; as much as Octavius won by his blood-dripping sword on the plains of Thessaly2; but then Rome was yet free when she styled him the Parent and Father of his country ! Another son of Arpinum used to work for hire upon the Volscian hills, toiling behind a plough not his own; after that, a centurion's knotty staff would be broken over his head if his pick were slow and sluggish in the trench. Yet it is he who faces the Cimbri,5 and the mightiest perils; alone he saves the trembling city. And so when the ravens, who had never before seen such huge carcasses, flew down upon the slaughtered Cimbri, his high-born colleague is decorated with the second bay. 254 Plebeian were the souls of the Decii, plebeian were their names; yet they were accepted by the Gods beneath and by Mother Earth in lieu of all the Legions and the allies, and all the youth of Latium, for the Decii were more precious than the hosts whom they saved. 259 It was one born of a slave who won the robe and diadem and fasces of Quirinus-the last he of our good Kings 7-whereas the Consul's own sons, who should have dared some great thing for endangered liberty-some deed to be marvelled at by 3 C. Marius. 4i.e. he served as a private soldier. 5 The Cimbri and Teutones were utterly defeated by Marius and his colleague Q. Lutatius Catulus on the Raudian plain in B.C. 101. Catulus shared in the triumph, but all the honour was given to Marius. P. Decius Mus, in the Latin War, B.C. 340, gained the victory for the Romans by devoting himself and the enemy to destruction; his son did the same in the battle of Sentinum, B.C. 295. 7 Servius Tullius. 179 magnum aliquid dubia pro libertate deceret, quod miraretur cum Coclite Mucius et quae imperii fines Tiberinum virgo natavit : occulta ad patres produxit crimina servus matronis lugendus, at illos verbera iustis adficiunt poenis et legum prima securis. Malo pater tibi sit Thersites, dummodo tu sis Aeacidae similis Vulcaniaque arma capessas, quam te Thersitae similem producat Achilles. et tamen, ut longe repetas longeque revolvas nomen, ab infami gentem deducis asylo: maiorum primus, quisquis fuit ille, tuorum aut pastor fuit aut illud quod dicere nolo. 265 270 275 SATVRA IX SCIRE velim, quare totiens mihi, Naevole, tristis occurras, fronte obducta ceu Marsya victus. quid tibi cum vultu, qualem deprensus habebat Ravola, dum Rhodopes uda terit inguina barba ? nos colaphum incutimus lambenti crustula servo. non erit hac facie miserabilior Crepereius 5 1 Horatius Cocles, who "kept the bridge so well"; Mucius Scaevola, to show his courage, put his hand into the flames in Porsena's camp. Mucius or Cocles, or by the maiden 2 who swam across the river-boundary of our realm-were for traitorously loosing the bolts of the city gates to the exiled tyrants. It was a slave-well worthy he to be bewailed by matrons—who revealed the secret plot to the Fathers, while the sons met their just punishment from scourging and from the axe then first used in the cause of Law. 269 I would rather that Thersites were your father if only you were like the grandson of Aeacus,3 and could wield the arms of Vulcan, than that you should have been begotten by Achilles and be like Thersites. Yet, after all, however far you may trace back your name, however long the roll, you derive your race from an ill-famed asylum: the first of your ancestors, whoever he was, was either a shepherd or something that I would rather not name. SATIRE IX THE SORROWS OF A REPROBATE I SHOULD like to know, Naevolus, why you so often look gloomy when I meet you, knitting your brow like a vanquished Marsyas. What have you to do with the look that Ravola wore when caught playing that dirty trick with Rhodope? If a slave takes a lick at the pastry, he gets a thrashing for his pains! Why do you look as woe-begone as Crepereius Pollio 2 Cloelia, the hostage who escaped by swimming across the Tiber. 3 Achilles is called Aeacides as he was the grandson of Aeacus. Flayed by Apollo when beaten in a musical contest. |