Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/293

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SILVAE, IV. vii. 33–56

Maximus comes to us! Childlessness[1] must be shunned by every effort; the heir with hostile vows presses hard upon it, asking—ah! for shame!—that his best friend soon may die. Childlessness wins no tears at the grave; in the captured house stands the greedy survivor, eager for the spoils of death, and counts the cost of the very pyre. Long live the high-born babe, and, by a path that few may tread, may he grow into his father’s virtues, and rival his grandsire by his deeds! Thou shalt tell thy child how thou didst lead thy swordsmen to Eastern Orontes, commanding ’neath Castor’s favour[2] the banners of thy well-curbed squadrons. He shall relate how he followed the swift-flashing brand of invincible Caesar, and imposed a hard law on the fugitive Sarmatians,[3] to live under one sky.[4] But first let the lad learn thy skill, whereby retracing all the old age of the world thou dost render again the work of brief Sallust[5] and the foster-son of Timavus.

  1. ↑ The poet himself was childless, but adopted a slave boy; the death of this boy was deeply felt by him (see v. 3).
  2. ↑ As a cavalry leader he would be under the protection of Castor and Pollux, patrons of the Roman knights.
  3. ↑ Domitian’s campaign against the Sarmatians, 92–93.
  4. ↑ i.e., to cease to be nomads.
  5. ↑ Apparently a sort of handbook of world-history, with an epitome of Sallust and Livy.

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