Classic Poem

What care the Citizens and the Senators
shall take in immortalising your virtues,
granting you full honours, Augustus,
with titles and memorial plaques, O,

greatest of princes, wherever the sun shines
over the countries where people can live, you,
whose power in war the Vindelici
free of our Roman laws, till now, have learnt.

For, with your army, brave Drusus, demolished
the Genauni, that implacable race, in more
direct retaliation, the swift
Breuni, and their defences, established

on the formidable Alpine heights: and soon
Tiberius, the elder Nero, entered
that fierce fight, with his favourable
omens, defeating the wild Rhaetians:

it was wonderful to see with what destruction,
in contesting the war, he exhausted those minds
intent on the deaths of our freemen,
as the south wind, almost, when it troubles

the ungovernable waves, while the Pleiades’
constellation pierces the clouds, he was eager
to attack the hostile ranks, and drive
his neighing horse through the midst of their fire.

As, bull-like, the Aufidus rolls on, flowing
by the domains of Apulian Daunus,
when it rages and threatens fearful
destruction to their cultivated fields,


so Tiberius overwhelmed the armoured
ranks of barbarians, his fierce impetus
covering the earth, mowing down front
and rear, and conquering them without loss,

yours the troops, the strategy and the friendly
gods. For on that date when Alexandria
opened all its harbour, and empty
palaces to you, in supplication,

good Fortune, fifteen years later, delivered
a favourable outcome to the campaign,
and awarded fame, and the glory
hoped-for, to your imperial action.

The Spaniards, never conquered before, the Medes,
the Indians, marvel at you, the roving
Scythians, O eager protector
of Italy and Imperial Rome.

The Nile, that conceals its origin, hears you,
the Danube hears, and the swift-flowing Tigris,
the Ocean, filled with monsters, roaring
around the distant island of Britain,

and the regions of Gaul, unafraid of death,
and the stubborn Iberian land, hear you:
Sygambri, delighting in slaughter,
stand, with grounded weapons, worshipping you.