Horace, Odes
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001:4.14
§ 4.14 DRUSUS AND TIBERIUS What care the Citizens and the Senators shall take in immortalising your virtues, granting you full honours, Augustus, with titles and memorial plaques, O, greatest of princes, wherever the sun shines over the countries where people can live, you, whose power in war the Vindelici free of our Roman laws, till now, have learnt. For, with your army, brave Drusus, demolished the Genauni, that implacable race, in more direct retaliation, the swift Breuni and their defences, established on the formidable Alpine heights: and soon Tiberius, the elder Nero, entered that fierce fight, with his favourable omens, defeating the wild Rhaetians: it was wonderful to see with what destruction, in contesting the war, he exhausted those minds intent on the deaths of our freemen, as the south wind, almost, when it troubles the ungovernable waves, while the Pleiades’ constellation pierces the clouds, he was eager to attack the hostile ranks, and drive his neighing horse through the midst of their fire. As, bull-like, the Aufidus rolls on, flowing by the domains of Apulian Daunus, when it rages and threatens fearful destruction to their cultivated fields, so Tiberius overwhelmed the armoured ranks of barbarians, his fierce impetus covering the earth, mowing down front and rear, and conquering them without loss, yours the troops, the strategy and the friendly gods. For on that date when Alexandria opened all its harbour, and empty palaces to you, in supplication, good Fortune, fifteen years later, delivered a favourable outcome to the campaign, and awarded fame, and the glory hoped-for, to your imperial action. The Spaniards, never conquered before, the Medes, the Indians, marvel at you, the roving Scythians, O eager protector of Italy and Imperial Rome. The Nile, that conceals its origin, hears you, the Danube hears, and the swift-flowing Tigris, the Ocean, filled with monsters, roaring around the distant island of Britain, and the regions of Gaul, unafraid of death, and the stubborn Iberian land, hear you: Sygambri, delighting in slaughter, stand, with grounded weapons, worshipping you.
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001:4.15
§ 4.15 TO AUGUSTUS Phoebus condemned my verse, when I tried to sing of war and conquered cities, lest I unfurled my tiny sail on Tyrrhenian seas. Caesar, this age has restored rich crops to the fields, and brought back the standards, at last, to Jupiter, those that we’ve now recovered from insolent Parthian pillars, and closed the gates of Janus’ temple, freed at last from all war, and tightened the rein on lawlessness, straying beyond just limits, and has driven out crime, and summoned the ancient arts again, by which the name of Rome and Italian power grew great, and the fame and majesty of our empire, were spread from the sun’s lair in the west, to the regions where it rises at dawn. With Caesar protecting the state, no civil disturbance will banish the peace, no violence, no anger that forges swords, and makes mutual enemies of wretched towns. The tribes who drink from the depths of the Danube, will not break the Julian law, the Getae, nor Seres, nor faithless Persians, nor those who are born by the Don's wide stream. On working days, and the same on holy days, among laughter-loving Bacchus’ gifts to us, with our wives and our children we’ll pray, at first, to the gods, in the rites laid down, then, in the manner of our fathers, bravely, in verse, that’s accompanied by Lydian flutes, we’ll sing past leaders, we’ll sing of Troy, Anchises, and the people of Venus.
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Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by A.S. (Tony) Kline. Composed ca. 13 BCE. Licence: Copyright <a href='https://www.poetryintranslation.com/Admin/Copyright.php'>A.S. Kline</a>, used by permission. Source.