Let the consular fasces of Romulus open a third year, and for the third time let the warlike procession accompany thy curule litter. More festal in array be the coming year, and let purple, folded in Gabine[138] guise, be proudly enriched with gems of Hydaspes; let the cloak of peace succeed the arms of war; let the lictor guard the consul’s tent and the Latin axes return to the standards.[139] And do thou, Honorius, who with thy brother, lord of the East, governest with equal care a world that was once thy sire’s, go thy way with favourable omens and order the sun’s new course, thyself heaven’s hope and desire, palace-nurtured even from life’s threshold, to whom the camp, gleaming with drawn swords, gave schooling among the laurels of victory. Thy towering fortune has never known the condition of a private citizen; when thou wast born thou wast born a king. Power which was thine by birth received thee, a precious pledge, amid the purple; soldiers bearing victorious standards inaugurated thy birth and set thy cradle in the midst of arms. When thou wast born fierce Germany trembled along [138] The _cinctus Gabinus_ was one of the insignia of the consulship. It consisted in girding the toga tight round the body by means of one of its _laciniae_ (= loose ends). Servius (on Virg. _Aen._ vii. 612) has a story that Gabii was invaded during the performance of a sacrifice and that the participants repulsed the enemy in their _cinctus_. [139] Claudian suggests the uniting of civil and military power in the hands of Honorius. * * * * * Page 272