Meanwhile Stilicho, exulting in the thought of advancing upon the foe and of the narrow stretch of country that separated him from the fortifications, inflames with his words the hearts of his troops already thirsting for battle. On the left wing are posted the Armenians, farther to the right the Gauls. A beholder might have seen bits covered with warm foam, clouds of dust uprising, and on all sides waving banners bearing the device of a scarlet dragon; the very air seemed to teem with these fierce flying monsters. The glint of steel fills all Thessaly and the cave of the wise Centaur; the river whose banks supported Achilles’ baby footsteps and the forests of Oeta are agleam with arms, snowy Ossa re-echoes to the sound and Olympus smitten therewith sends it back twofold. Hearts beat high with a courage that is lavish of life. Neither precipice nor deep river could check their advance: their headlong speed would have overthrown all barriers.
If the two armies had then joined battle in this temper ruined Greece would not have witnessed such disaster as she did, the cities of the Peloponnese would still have been flourishing untouched by the hand
starent Arcadiae, starent Lacedaemonis arces;
non mare fumasset geminum flagrante Corintho 190
nec fera Cecropiae traxissent vincula matres.
illa dies potuit nostris imponere finem
cladibus et sceleris causas auferre futuri.
invida pro quantum rapuit Fortuna triumphum!
inter equos interque tubas mandata feruntur 195