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A/S HUMA 2105: Roman Literature and Culture Fall/Winter 2008-9 |
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Pax Romana: The Beginning of Augustus’ Reign March 23/09 |
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Horace, Ode 3.6 |
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Though innocent, Roman, you will pay for the sins Of your fathers until you restore The crumbling temples and shrines of the gods And their smoke-blackened images.
You rule because you hold yourself inferior to the gods. Make this the beginning and the end of all things. Neglect of the gods has brought many ills To the sorrowing land of Hesperia.
Our city, caught up in internal strife Has been almost destroyed By the Ethiopian with his formidable fleet, And the Dacian prevailing with his flights of arrows.
Our generation is prolific in evil First it has corrupted marriage, family, and home And from that sources disaster has flowed Over our whole land and its people... |
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Not from such parents sprang the men Who stained the sea with Punic blood And cut down Pyrrhus, mighty Antiochus And the deadly Hannibal.
These were the manly sons of farmer soldiers And their skill was to turn the sod With Sabine mattocks and carry the wood They had cut under the command
Of a strict mother as the sun moved round The mountain shadows, loosing the weary oxen From the yoke when its chariot Brought on the hour they longed for.
What has injurious time not diminished? Our parents were not the men their fathers were, And they bore children worse themselves, Whose children will be baser still. |