“If the fate of subjects cannot move thee, yet have thou regard for princes, for your common cause, and remove this stain on royalty. The consulship is the sole office the emperor deigns to accept; alternately the honour passes to Court and Senate. Thou who hast thyself been four times consul spare succeeding consuls this infamy. I pray thee, protect the fasces, so often thine, from the pollution of a eunuch’s hand; let not the omens handed down in our sacred books, let not those robes of mine wherewith I have subdued everything within Ocean’s stream, be plunged in so great darkness and trodden under foot. What kind of wars can we wage now that a eunuch takes the auspices? What marriage, what harvest will be fruitful? What fertility, what abundance is possible beneath a consul stricken with sterility? If eunuchs shall give judgement and determine laws, then let men card wool and live like the Amazons, confusion and licence dispossessing the order of nature. [100] Arinthaeus had held the high position of _magister peditum_. He died in 379. [101] Pothinus, the creature of Ptolemy Dionysius, was instrumental in killing Pompey in Egypt in 48 B.C. * * * * * Page 176 “Quid trahor ulterius? Stilicho, quid vincere differs, dum certare pudet? nescis quod turpior hostis 501 laetitia maiore cadit? piratica Magnum erigit, inlustrat servilis laurea Crassum. adnuis. agnosco fremitum, quo palluit Eurus, quo Mauri Gildoque ruit. quid Martia signa 505 sollicitas? non est iaculis hastisve petendus: conscia succumbent audito verbere terga, ut Scytha post multos rediens exercitus annos, cum sibi servilis pro finibus obvia pubes iret et arceret dominos tellure reversos, 510 armatam ostensis aciem fudere flagellis: notus ab inceptis ignobile reppulit horror vulgus et addictus sub verbere torpuit ensis.” * * * * * Page 177