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SILVAE, IV. vi. 91—vii. 4
innocent of error; old-world loyalty is his, and the unfailing bond of a friendship once begun. Vestinus knows it, who even in youth equalled his mighty sires, and whose spirit Vindex breathes by night and day, and lives in the embrace of that beloved shade. Here then hast thou a welcome resting-place, Alcides, most valiant of gods, nor beholdest battles or savage fights, but the lyre and chaplets and music-loving bays. Here in solemn chant will he recount to thee in what might thou didst terrify Getic and Ilian homes and snowy Stymphalus and Erymanthus with its streaming ridges; how the owner of the Iberian herd, how the Mareotic guardian of the cruel shrine endured thy power; he will sing of the gates of Death penetrated and spoiled by thee, of the weeping maids of Libya and of Scythia.[1] Neither the ruler of the Macetae[2] nor barbarous Hannibal nor the uncouth accents of fierce Sulla could e’er have celebrated thee in such strains. And of a surety thou, Lysippus, the author of the gift, wouldst not have chosen to be approved by other eyes than these.
VII. A LYRIC ODE TO VIBIUS MAXIMUS
A Sapphic ode in which the poet expresses his desire to see his friend again, and congratulates him on the birth of a son. Vibius Maximus was serving in Dalmatia; at a later time he was prefect of Egypt, as we learn from an inscription (C.I.L. iii. 38). One may also gather that he had literary tastes.
Long time, bold Erato, hast thou had thy fill of the spreading field, but now put off thy heroic labours and contract thy mighty task to narrower circles;
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