to their various prayers, gives tardy assent to their entreaties and of his great bounty bestows upon them peace. A covenant with Germany gave glory to the Drusi of old, but purchased by what uncertain warfare, by how many disasters! Who can recall the Rhine conquered by terror alone? That which others were enabled to win by long wars--this, Honorius, Stilicho’s mere march gives thee.
Thou biddest Stilicho after restoring peace in Gaul save Greece from ruin. Vessels cover the Ionian sea; scarce can the wind fill out so many sails. Neptune with favouring currents attends the fleet that is to save Corinth, and young Palaemon, so long an exile from the shores of his isthmus, returns in safety with his mother to the harbour. The blood of barbarians washes their wagons; the ranks of skin-clad warriors are mowed down, some by disease, some by the sword. The glades of Lycaeus, the dark and boundless forests of Erymanthus, are not enough to furnish such countless funeral pyres; Maenalus rejoices that the axe has stripped her of her woods to provide fuel for such a holocaust. Let Ephyre[161] rise from her ashes while Spartan and Arcadian, now safe, tread under foot the heaps of slain; let Greece’s sufferings be made good and her weary land be allowed to breathe once more. That nation, wider spread than any that dwells in northern Scythia, that found Athos too small and Thrace too narrow when it crossed them, that nation, I say, was conquered by thee and thy captains, and now, in the persons of the few that survive, laments its own overthrow. One hill now shelters a people whose hordes scarce the whole world could once contain. Athirst and hemmed within their rampart they
ereptas quaesivit aquas, quas hostibus ante 480 contiguas alio Stilicho deflexerat actu mirantemque novas ignota per avia valles iusserat averso fluvium migrare meatu. Obvia quid mirum vinci, cum barbarus ultro iam cupiat servire tibi? tua Sarmata discors 485 sacramenta petit; proiecta pelle Gelonus militat; in Latios ritus transistis Alani. ut fortes in Marte viros animisque paratos, sic iustos in pace legis longumque tueris electos crebris nec succedentibus urges. 490 iudicibus notis regimur, fruimurque quietis militiaeque bonis, ceu bellatore Quirino, ceu placido moderante Numa. non inminet ensis, nullae nobilium caedes; non crimina vulgo texuntur; patria maestus non truditur exul; 495 impia continui cessant augmenta tributi; non infelices tabulae; non hasta refixas vendit opes; avida sector non voce citatur, nec tua privatis crescunt aeraria damnis. munificus largi, sed non et prodigus, auri. 500 perdurat non empta fides nec pectora merces adligat; ipsa suo pro pignore castra laborant; te miles nutritor amat. Quae denique Romae