fall self-immolated into Etna’s fiery crater, reduces God to principles of dispersion and re-collection and binds again in resumed friendship all that discord separates. This philosopher allows no authority to the senses and denies that the truth can be perceived. Another seeks to explain the suspension of the world in space by the rapid revolution of the sky (whence else the world would fall) and kindles day’s fires by the whirl of a rushing rock. That fearless spirit, not content with the covering of but one sky, flies through the limitless void and, scorning a limit, conceives in one small brain a thousand worlds. Others make wandering atoms clash with blind blows, while others again set up deities and banish chance.
Thou dost adorn the obscure learning of Greece with Roman flowers,[173] skilled to shape speech in happy interchange and weave truth’s garland with alternate knots. All the lore of Socrates’ school, the learning that echoed in Cleanthes’ lecture-room, the thoughts of the stoic Chrysippus in his retreat, all the laughter of Democritus, all that Pythagoras spoke by silence--all the wisdom of the ancients is stored in that one brain whence it issues forth the stronger for its concentration. The ancients gain fresh lustre and, scorning Athens, the Academy migrates to Latium under a nobler master, the more exactly at last to learn by what end happiness guides its path, what is the rule of the good, the goal of the right; what division of virtue should be set to combat and overthrow each separate vice, and what part of virtue it is that curbs injustice, that causes reason to triumph over fear, that holds lust in check. How often hast thou taught us the nature
[173] Claudian’s way of saying that Manlius translates Greek philosophy into clear and elegant Latin, throwing his translation into the form of a dialogue.
materiae causas: quae vis animaverit astra impuleritque choros; quo vivat machina motu; sidera cur septem retro nitantur in ortus obluctata polo; variisne meatibus idem arbiter an geminae convertant aethera mentes; sitne color proprius rerum, lucisne repulsu 106 eludant aciem; tumidos quae luna recursus nutriat Oceani; quo fracta tonitrua vento, quis trahat imbriferas nubes, quo saxa creentur grandinis; unde rigor nivibus; quae flamma per auras 110 excutiat rutilos tractus aut fulmina velox torqueat aut tristem figat crinita cometem. Iam tibi compositam fundaverat ancora puppim, telluris iam certus eras; fecunda placebant otia; nascentes ibant in saecula libri: 115 cum subito liquida cessantem vidit ab aethra Iustitia et tanto viduatas iudice leges. continuo frontem limbo velata pudicam deserit Autumni portas, qua vergit in Austrum Signifer et noctis reparant dispendia Chelae. 120 pax avibus, quacumque volat, rabiemque frementes deposuere ferae; laetatur terra reverso numine, quod prisci post tempora perdidit auri. illa per occultum Ligurum se moenibus infert et castos levibus plantis ingressa penates 125 invenit aetherios signantem pulvere cursus, quos pia sollicito deprendit pollice Memphis: