And shall we fling to the South-wind’s blasts all the terrors we endured, lest mid feasting sadness trouble our ears? Or rather does such memory delight and does precursive pain ever changefully heighten unexpected joy? Even as to sailors storm-tossed at the Pleiads’ setting the rudeness of the sea commends the harbour’s calm, so to me does Stilicho appear greater when I compare happiness with hazard and all those troubles come again before my mind. Did not our steel-girt walls seem to fall at the enemy’s attack, feeble as the towers that crowned them, and our doors of iron to open of their own accord to give him entry? It seemed as though * * * * * Page 142 nec vallum densaeque sudes arcere volantes cornipedum saltus? iamiam conscendere puppes Sardoniosque habitare sinus et inhospita Cyrni saxa parant vitamque freto spumante tueri. ipsa etiam diffisa brevi Trinacria ponto, 220 si rerum natura sinat, discedere longe optat et Ionium refugo laxare Peloro. fultaque despiciens auro laquearia dives tutior Aeoliis mallet vixisse cavernis; iamque oneri creduntur opes tandemque libido 225 haesit avaritiae gravioribus obruta curis. utque est ingenioque loquax et plurima fingi permittens credique timor, tunc somnia vulgo narrari, tunc monstra deum monitusque sinistri: quid meditentur aves, quid cum mortalibus aether fulmineo velit igne loqui, quid carmine poscat 231 fatidico custos Romani carbasus aevi. territat adsiduus lunae labor atraque Phoebe noctibus aerisonas crebris ululata per urbes. nec credunt vetito fraudatam Sole sororem 235 telluris subeunte globo, sed castra secutas barbara Thessalidas patriis lunare venenis incestare iubar. tunc anni signa prioris et si quod fortasse quies neglexerat omen, addit cura novis: lapidosos grandinis ictus 240 molitasque examen apes passimque crematas * * * * * Page 143