decidit! in qualem paulatim fluximus umbram! 45 armato quondam populo patrumque vigebam conciliis; domui terras urbesque revinxi legibus: ad solem victrix utrumque cucurri. postquam iura ferox in se communia Caesar transtulit et lapsi mores desuetaque priscis 50 artibus in gremium pacis servile recessi, tot mihi pro meritis Libyam Nilumque dedere, ut dominam plebem bellatoremque senatum classibus aestivis alerent geminoque vicissim litore diversi complerent horrea venti. 55 stabat certa salus: Memphis si forte negasset, pensabam Pharium Gaetulis messibus annum, frugiferas certare rates lateque videbam Punica Niliacis concurrere carbasa velis. cum subiit par Roma mihi divisaque sumpsit 60 aequales Aurora togas, Aegyptia rura in partem cessere novae. spes unica nobis restabat Libyae, quae vix aegreque fovebat; solo ducta Noto, numquam secura futuri, semper inops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni. 65 hanc quoque nunc Gildo rapuit sub fine cadentis autumni. pavido metimur caerula voto, puppis si qua venit, si quid fortasse potenti vel pudor extorsit domino vel praedo reliquit. pascimur arbitrio Mauri nec debita reddi, 70 * * * * * Page 103 and the might of Rome? To what a shadow of our former glory are we by gradual decline arrived! Time was when my men bore arms and my greybeards met in council; mistress of the world was I and lawgiver to mankind. From rising to setting sun I sped in triumph. When proud Caesar had transferred my people’s power to himself, when manners became corrupt and forgetful of war’s old discipline I declined into the servile lap of peace, the emperors rewarded me with Africa and Egypt that they might nourish the sovereign people and the Senate, arbiter of peace and war, by means of summer-sped fleets, and that the winds, blowing alternately from either shore, should fill our granaries with corn. Our provisioning was secure. Should Memphis perchance have denied us food, I would make up for the failure of Egypt’s harvest by the African supply. I saw competition between grain-bearing vessels, and where’er I looked I beheld the fleet of Carthage strive in rivalry with that of the Nile. When a second Rome arose and the Eastern Empire assumed the toga of the West, Egypt fell beneath that new sway. Africa remained our only hope and scarcely did she suffice to feed us, whose corn-ships none but the south wind wafted across. Her promise for the future was insecure, as, ever helpless, she demanded the loyalty of the wind and of the season.[64] This province, too, Gildo seized towards the close of autumn. Anxiously and prayerfully we scan the blue sea to glance a coming sail in the fond hope that perchance a sense of shame