Now spreading rumour shakes the palace, pale with terror upon terror. It told how that the army was destroyed, the troops butchered, the plain of Maeonia red with slaughter, Pamphylia and Pisidia o’errun by the enemy. On all sides rings the dread name of Tarbigilus. He is now said to be bearing down upon Galatia, now to be meditating an attack on Bithynia. Some say he has crossed the Taurus and is descending upon Cilicia, others that he has possessed himself of a fleet and is advancing both by land and sea. Truth is doubled by panic’s fancy; they say that from the ships far cities are seen ablaze, that the straits are aglow and that ashes driven by the wind catch in the sails of every ship at sea. Amid all this confusion comes a yet more terrible * * * * * Page 220 nuntius: armatam rursus Babylona minari 475 rege novo; resides Parthos ignava perosos otia Romanae finem iam quaerere paci. rarus apud Medos regum cruor; unaque cuncto poena manet generi: quamvis crudelibus aeque paretur dominis. sed quid non audeat annus 480 Eutropii? socium nobis fidumque Saporem perculit et Persas in regia vulnera movit rupturasque fidem, leto pars ne qua vacaret, Eumenidum taedas trans flumina Tigridis egit. Tum vero cecidere animi tantisque procellis 485 deficiunt. saepti latrantibus undique bellis infensos tandem superos et consulis omen agnovere sui, nec iam revocabile damnum eventu stolido serum didicere magistro. namque ferunt geminos uno de semine fratres 490 Iapetionidas generis primordia nostri dissimili finxisse manu: quoscumque Prometheus excoluit multumque innexuit aethera limo, hi longe ventura notant dubiisque parati casibus occurrunt fabro meliore politi. 495 deteriore luto pravus quos edidit auctor, quem merito Grai perhibent Epimethea vates, et nihil aetherii sparsit per membra vigoris, hi pecudum ritu non impendentia vitant nec res ante vident; accepta clade queruntur 500 et seri transacta gemunt. * * * * * Page 221