Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/257

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SILVAE, IV. iii. 12–35

denied her[1] and a sober countryside, he who forbids the strength of sex to be destroyed, and as Censor will allow grown males no more to fear the punishment of beauteous form,[2] he who restores the Thunderer to the Capitol,[3] and sets Peace in her own home, he who consecrates to his father’s line[4] lights that will aye endure, a Flavian heaven[5]—’tis he who, brooking ill the slow journeys of his people and the plains that clog every minute of the road, sweeps away tedious windings and lays a new solid paving upon the weary sands, rejoicing to bring the Euboean Sibyl’s home and the dells of Gaurus and sweltering Baiae nearer to the seven hills.

Here on a time the tardy traveller, borne on a single axle,[6] was balanced on the swaying pole, while the unkindly earth sucked in the wheels, and Latin folk shuddered in mid-plain at the evils of a sea-voyage; nor could carriages run nimbly, but the noiseless track made their course hampered and slow, while the fainting beast, complaining of a too heavy load, crept on beneath its lofty yoke. But

  1. ↑ Domitian encouraged wheat-growing at the expense of vine-growing in Italy, and actually ordered vineyards to be destroyed in the provinces, Suet. Dom. 7.
  2. ↑ Refers to Domitian’s prohibition of the practice of castration.
  3. ↑ The restoration of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol after the fire of 69.
  4. ↑ Domitian was only completing the work of Vespasian. Cf. Suet. Dom. 5, “omnia sub titulo tantum suo, ac sine ulla pristini auctoris memoria.”
  5. ↑ The “Flavia domus” on the Quirinal was made a shrine of that family, cf. v. 1. 240.
  6. ↑ The picture seems to be of a two-wheeled gig with its wheels sunk in the mud and the unfortunate traveller precariously clinging to the pole; “crux” is not elsewhere so used, but can easily be understood of the pole with the yoke; “axe vectus uno” is perhaps “with one wheel foundered” (Slater), but Vollmer is surely wrong in making it a four-wheeled carriage.

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