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Nec Coæ referunt jam tibi purpuræ,1

Nec clari lapides tempora, quæ semel
Notis condita fastis

Inclusit volucris dies.2

Quo fugit Venus? heu, quove color? decens
Quo motus? quid habes illius, illius,
Quæ spirabat Amores,

Quæ me surpuerat mihi,

Felix post Cinaram, notaque et artium
Gratarum facies ?3 Sed Cinaræ breves
Annos fata dederunt,

Servatura diu parem

Cornicis vetulæ temporibus Lycen;
Possent ut juvenes visere fervidi,

Multo non sine risu,

Dilapsam in cineres facem,

ODE XIV.

TO AUGUSTUS, AFTER THE VICTORIES OF TIBERIUS.

The introduction to Ode iv. in this book has, sufficiently for the purpose, sketched the outline of the events which led to the composition of this ode. As the former was devoted

to

By what care can the Senate of Rome, and Rome's people,
With a largess of honours sufficiently ample,

By what titles, what archives to time,
Eternise thy virtues, Augustus,

Prince supremest, wherever the sun lights a region
That man can inhabit? What in war thou availest,
The Vindelici lately have learned,

Free till then from the law of the Roman.

By no even exchange in the barter of bloodshed,'
Drusus, leading thy hosts, overthrew the fleet Breuni-
The Genauni-implacable race-
And the citadels piled upon Alps

Horror-breathing; then Nero the elder completed
Glories due to thine auspice in one crowning battle;
Closed the raid of the savage, and crushed
The grim might of the giant-like Ræti.

All conspicuous he rode where the fight raged the fiercest,
Wasting down, to what wrecks! that array of stern bosoms,
Self-surrendered as offerings to death,

In the stubborn devotion to freedom.

Through the foe went his way, as the blast o'er the billows When the Pleiads are cleaving the rain-clouds asunder,

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1 Plus vice simplici.' This does not mean more than once,' as the scholiasts interpret, 'with double loss to the enemy;' or litera

to the praises of Drusus, so the latter commemorates the subsequent and completing conquests of Tiberius, and refers all to the honour of Augustus in the establishment of his empire, and the consummation of his fortunes and his glory.

CARM. XIV.

Quæ cura Patrum, quæve Quiritium,
Plenis honorum muneribus tuas,
Auguste, virtutes in ævum

Per titulos memoresque fastos

Æternet, O, qua sol habitabiles
Illustrat oras, maxime principum ?
Quem legis expertes Latinæ,
Vindelici didicere nuper,

Quid Marte posses. Milite nam tuo
Drusus Genaunos, implacidum genus,
Breunosque veloces, et arces

Alpibus impositas tremendis,

Dejecit acer plus vice simplici;1
Major Neronum mox grave proelium
Commisit, immanesque Rætos
Auspiciis pepulit secundis :

Spectandus in certamine Martio,
Devota morti pectora liberæ
Quantis fatigaret ruinis;

Indomitas prope qualis undas

Exercet Auster, Pleïadum choro
Scindente nubes, impiger hostium

as Macleane renders it, 'with more than an even exchange'-i.e., of blood.

And the snort of his war-horse was heard

In the midst of the lightnings of battle.1 .

As when Aufidus, laving the kingdoms of Daunus,
Bursts in wrath, and in form of the wild bull,2 his borders,
And prepares the dread deluge he drives

O'er the fields that are rife with the harvest,

So in storm, through that barbarous array swept the Nero,
Mowing, foremost to hindmost, ranks serried in iron,
Till a victor he stood, without loss,

On a ground that was strewn with the foemen;

But he owed to thyself the resources, the counsels,
And the gods. From the day that her port and void palace,
Suppliant Egypt threw open to thee,

Had thy reign reached its third happy lustre,

When, in crowning thy wish and completing thy glory, Fortune ended the wars which her favour had prospered,3 And established in triumph the peace

Of a world underneath thy dominion.

Thee the dauntless Cantabrian, before never conquered; Thee the Mede and the Indian, and Scyth, the wild Nomad, Mark in wonder and awe, guardian shield

Of Italia, and Rome the earth's mistress.

Thee the Nile, unrevealing the source of its waters ; Thee the Danube; and thee the swift rush of the Tigris;

Medios per ignes'-i.e., 'per medium ardorem belli' (COM. CRUQ.).

2 Tauriformis Aufidus;' literally, 'tauriform' or 'bull-formed Aufidus.' The image is applied to many rivers by the Greek and Latin poets. Macleane suggests that the branches of so many large streams at the mouths of rivers might have suggested the idea of the horns; but it seems to me that the comparison to the bull in general applies to the blind and senseless violence of the animal, who runs on

Vexare turmas, et frementem

Mittere equum medios per ignes.1

Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus,2
Qui regna Dauni præfluit Apuli,
Cum sævit, horrendamque cultis
Diluviem meditatur agris,

Ut barbarorum Claudius agmina
Ferrata vasto diruit impetu,
Primosque et extremos metendo
Stravit humum, sine clade victor,

Te copias, te consilium et tuos
Præbente divos. Nam tibi, quo die
Portus Alexandrea supplex

Et vacuam patefecit aulam,

Fortuna lustro prospera tertio
Belli secundos, reddidit exitus,3
Laudemque et optatum peractis
Imperiis decus arrogavit.

Te Cantaber non ante domabilis,
Medusque, et Indus, te profugus Scythes
Miratur, O tutela præsens

Italiæ dominæque Romæ :

Te, fontium qui celat origines
Nilusque et Ister, te rapidus Tigris,

indiscriminately, trampling and destroying everything in his way-just as the inundation of a torrent does.

3

' Horace, here addressing Augustus, ascribes it to him as his crowning victory that he has at last got the wish of his heart, which was peace-the peace of the world, subjected to the Roman Empire. The victory of Tiberius was on the fifteenth anniversary of the day on which Augustus entered Alexandria, and, thus terminating the civil war, became supreme.

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