quo latius orbem possedit, citius per prospera fata cucurrit. omne tibi bellum gentes dedit omnibus annis: te geminum Titan procedere vidit in axem; haud multum terrae spatium restabat Eoae, ut tibi nox, tibi tota dies, tibi curreret aether, omniaque errantes stellae Romana viderent. sed retro tua fata tulit par omnibus annis Emathiae funesta dies, hac luce cruenta effectum, ut Latios non horreat India fasces, nec vetitos errare Dahas in moenia ducat Sarmaticumque premat succinctus consul aratrum, quod semper saevas debet tibi Parthia poenas, quod fugiens civile nefas redituraque numquam libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit ac totiens nobis iugulo quaesita vagatur, Germanum Scythicumque bonum, nec respicit ultra Ausoniam.
The wider she lorded it o'er the world, the swifter did she run through her fair fortunes. Each war, each year, gave thee new peoples to rule thee did the sun behold advancing towards either pole; little remained to conquer of the Eastern world; so that for thee, and thee alone, night and day and heaven should revolve, and the planets gaze on naught that was not Rome's. But Emathia's fatal day, a match for all the bygone years, has swept thy destiny backward. This day of slaughter was the cause that India trembles not before the lictor-rods of Rome, and that no consul, with toga girded high, leads the Dahae within some city's wall, forbidden to wander more, and in Sarmatia drives the founder's plough. This day was the cause that Parthia still owes thee a fierce revenge, that freedom flying from the crimes of citizens has withdrawn behind Tigris and the Rhine, ne'er to return, and, sought so oft by us with our life's blood, wanders the prize of German and of Scyth, and hath no further care for Ausonia.
But this famous apostrophe closes on a truer note with six lines of unsurpassed satire (454)--
mortalia nulli sunt curata deo. cladis tamen huius habemus vindictam, quantam terris dare numina fas est: bella pares superis facient civilia divos; fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris, inque deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras.
No god has a thought for the doings of mortal men: yet for this overthrow this vengeance is ours, so far as gods may give satisfaction to the earth: civil wars shall raise dead Caesars to the level of the gods above; and Rome shall deck the spirits of the dead with rays and thunderbolts and stars, and in the temples of the gods shall swear by the name of shades.