their new movements; now they clap their bucklers to their sides, now they brandish them above their heads; deeply sound the clashing shields, sharply ring the engaging swords, and, to the rhythm of beaten targes, the echoing song of steel is punctuated by the interclash of weapons. Suddenly the whole phalanx falls on its knees before thee and a thousand helmets bow down in reverence. Then the companies separate, wheeling and counter-wheeling with ordered skill, following a course more tortuous than the corridors of the Minotaur’s Cretan palace or the reaches of Meander’s wandering stream. Then wheeling apart they form with circular masses, and Janus,[43] emprisoning war behind his ever unopening doors, after a happy mimicry of battle bestows on peace the innocent rewards of combat. And now, his double head crowned with laurel, Janus opens the new year with auspicious calendar; now Tiber sees united in Honorius Brutus’ consular robe and Romulus’ kingly sceptre. The Palatine hill rejoices after many generations again to look upon a consul; the rostra learn to know the curule chair famed of old among our forefathers, and royal lictors, a long unwonted sight, encircle with their golden fasces the Forum of Trajan; while Honorius, wreathing with Getic laurels the axes borne for the sixth time before him, places a conqueror’s foot upon the neck of subdued Danube. Let this year springing from its true source go forth among the nations more glorious than any--a year the consul inaugurated, not a stranger in a strange land, whose cradle the Senate-house guarded, that Roman citizens first beheld, that Victory, all wars o’ercome, auspiciously [43] Mentioned, no doubt, as symbolical of the New Year. * * * * * Page 122 hunc et privati titulis famulantibus anni et, quos armipotens genitor retroque priores 655 diversis gessere locis, ceu numen adorent; hunc et quinque tui vel quos habiturus in urbe post alios, Auguste, colant. licet unus in omnes consul eas, magno sextus tamen iste superbit nomine: praeteritis melior, venientibus auctor. 660 * * * * * Page 123 brought to birth. Years in which mere commoners held the consulship, and ye years when Theodosius and his predecessors graced that office in Rome or elsewhere, count your honours as nought and worship this present year. Ay, you five previous consulships of Honorius, even you that our emperor shall hold in Rome in the days to come, give place to this one. Wert thou, Honorius, to be consul every year, yet is this thy sixth to be magnified above all thy consulships, excelling all that are past and model of all that are to come. * * * * * Page 124 DE BELLO GOTHICO PRAEFATIO (XXV.)