“Sister, shall we never succeed in curing the East of effeminacy? Will this corrupt age never learn true manliness? Argaeus yet reeks with those heaps of dead Cappadocians not yet cold; Orontes is still pale from misery. But they only remember evil while they suffer it; give them a moment’s respite and all their slaughter fades from their minds unfelt; little they reck of bloodshed that is past. “Seest thou this foul deed? Why veil thy face with thine hair? See what crimes a short spell of peace has wrought! what a curse has the sheathèd sword proved! The year that has known no war has had a eunuch for its consul. The consulship would have been at an end had a like spirit animated Italy; this age-long office had fallen amid mockery and no traces been left of its trampled rights, had not Stilicho, heedful of the empire and of the character and morals of a past age, banished from Tiber’s city * * * * * Page 194 intactamque novo servasset crimine Romam. ille dedit portum, quo se pulsata referret maiestas Latii deformataeque secures; 130 ille dedit fastos, ad quos Oriente relicto confugeret sparsum maculis servilibus aevum. “Quam similes haec aula viros! ad moenia visus dirige: num saltem tacita formidine mussant? num damnant animo? plaudentem cerne senatum 135 et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque Quirites. o patribus plebes, o digni consule patres! quid? quod et armati cessant et nulla virilis inter tot gladios sexum reminiscitur ira? hucine nostrorum cinctus abiere nepotum? 140 sic Bruti despectus honos? “Ignosce parenti, Romule, quod serus temeratis fascibus ultor advenio: iamiam largis haec gaudia faxo compensent lacrimis. quid dudum inflare moraris Tartaream, Bellona, tubam, quid stringere falcem, 145 qua populos a stirpe metis? molire tumultus, excute delicias. Thracum Macetumque ruinae taedet et in gentes iterum saevire sepultas. damna minus consueta move; trans aequora saevas verte faces; aliis exordia sume rapinis. 150 non tibi Riphaeis hostis quaerendus ab oris, non per Caucasias accito turbine valles est opus. Ostrogothis colitur mixtisque Gruthungis Phryx ager: hos parvae poterunt impellere causae * * * * * Page 195 this shameful name and kept Rome unsullied by an unheard of crime. He has given us a harbour to which the exiled majesty of Latium and the disgraced fasces might retire; he has given us annals wherein, abandoning the East, an age polluted with servile stains might find a refuge.