How thy father’s nobility shines in thy face! How awful is thy winning brow, how charming the majesty of a blushing emperor! Boy though thou art, thou canst wear thy sire’s helmet and brandish thy grandsire’s spear. These exercises of thy youth foreshadow vast strength in manhood and convince Rome that the ruler of her prayers is come. How fair art thou in shield and golden armour girt, with waving plumes and taller by the altitude of a helmet! So looked the youthful Mars when after the toil and sweat of his first battle he bathed him in Thracian Rhodope’s mountain stream. With what vigour thou hurlest the javelin, and, when thou stretchest the Cretan bow, what success attends thy shaft! Sure is the wound it seeks; it knows not how to fail the appointed stroke. Thou knowest in what fashion the Cretan, [163] _i.e._ Athens. * * * * * Page 326 Armenius, refugo quae sit fiducia Partho: sic Amphioniae pulcher sudore palaestrae Alcides pharetras Dircaeaque tela solebat praetemptare feris olim domitura Gigantes et pacem latura polo, semperque cruentus 535 ibat et Alcmenae praedam referebat ovanti; caeruleus tali prostratus Apolline Python implicuit fractis moritura volumina silvis. Cum vectaris equo simulacraque Martia ludis, quis mollis sinuare fugas, quis tendere contum 540 acrior aut subitos melior flexisse recursus? non te Massagetae, non gens exercita campo Thessala, non ipsi poterunt aequare bimembres; vix comites alae, vix te suspensa sequuntur agmina ferventesque tument post terga dracones. 545 utque tuis primum sonipes calcaribus arsit, ignescunt patulae nares, non sentit harenas ungula discussaeque iubae sparguntur in armos; turbantur phalerae, spumosis morsibus aurum fumat, anhelantes exundant sanguine gemmae. 550 ipse labor pulvisque decet confusaque motu caesaries; vestis radiato murice solem combibit, ingesto crispatur purpura vento. si dominus legeretur equis, tua posceret ultro verbera Nereidum stabulis nutritus Arion 555 serviretque tuis contempto Castore frenis * * * * * Page 327 with what skill the Armenian, directs his arrows; in what the retreating Parthian puts his trust. Thus was Alcides, graced with the sweat of the wrestling-ground at Thebes, wont to try his bow and Boeotian arrows on the beasts of the forest ere he turned them against the Giants and so secured peace for heaven. Stains of blood were ever upon him and proud was his mother Alcmena of the spoils he brought back home. Such was Apollo when he slew the livid serpent that enfolded and brake down forests in his dying coils.