huc iter usque datur. quis iam post talia segnis ambigat aut caelo dubitet parere vocanti?” Sic ait hortatusque suos belloque viaeque 550 instruit. attollunt vanos oracula fastus. o semper tacita sortes ambage malignae eventuque patens et nescia vatibus ipsis veri sera fides! Ligurum regione suprema pervenit ad fluvium miri cognominis “Urbem,” 555 atque illic domitus vix tandem interprete casu agnovit dubiis inlusa vocabula fatis. Nec non et Stilicho pugnam poscentia movit pleno castra gradu dictisque instigat euntes: “nunc nunc, o socii, temeratae sumite tandem 560 Italiae poenas, obsessi principis armis excusate nefas deploratumque Timavo vulnus et Alpinum gladiis abolete pudorem. hic est, quem totiens campis fudistis Achivis, quem discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis, 565 non sua vis tutata diu, dum foedera fallax ludit et alternae periuria venditat aulae. credite nunc omnes, quas dira Britannia gentes, quas Hister, quas Rhenus alit, pendere paratas in speculis: uno tot proelia vincite bello. 570 Romanum reparate decus molemque labantis imperii fulcite umeris; hic omnia campus * * * * * Page 167 path is mine. Who so cowardly as to dally after this encouragement or to hesitate to obey the call of Heaven?” So he spake and made ready his army to take the road, exhorting them to combat. Prophecy serves to augment his vain pride. Ah! for the grudging oracles ever dumb with mystic utterance; ’tis the event alone that (too late) discloses the true meaning which the seers themselves could not read. Alaric reached the farthest confines of Liguria where flows a river with the strange name of the City.[57] There he suffered defeat and even then scarcely realized (though that defeat made it clear) that fate had tricked him with an ambiguous word.