complecti. placet ipse sibi laxasque laborat
drunken with riches, makes sport of wretched law and the affairs of men. A eunuch is judge. Why now wonder that he is consul? Whatever he does is a prodigy. Can the annals of the law show cases so mishandled? What age or what country has ever witnessed a eunuch’s jurisdiction? That nought might remain undisgraced, nought unattempted, he even makes him ready to outrage arms, heaps portent on portent and wanton folly seeks to outdo itself. Mars blushed, Bellona scoffed and turned her from the disgrace of the East whene’er with arrows strung and flashing quiver the aged Amazon practises battle or hurries back as arbiter of peace and war to hold parley with the Getae. Our enemies rejoiced at the sight and felt that at last we were lacking in men. Towns were set ablaze; walls offered no security. The countryside was ravaged and brought to ruin. Mid-ocean alone gave hope. Women of Cappadocia were driven into captivity across the river Phasis; stolen from the stalls of their homesteads, the captive herds drink the snowy streams of Caucasus, and the flocks exchange the pastures of Mount Argaeus[91] for the woods of Scythia. Beyond the Cimmerian marshes, defence of the Tauric tribes, the youth of Syria are slaves. Too vast for the fierce barbarians are the spoils; glutted with booty they turn to slaughter.
Yet Eutropius (can a slave, an effeminate, feel shame? Could a blush grace such a countenance?), Eutropius returns in triumph. There follow companies of foot, squadrons like their general, maniples of eunuchs, an army worthy Priapus’ standards. His creatures meet him and embrace their saviour on his return.[92] Great is his self-esteem; he struggles
[91] A mountain in Cappadocia.
[92] Claudian is scarcely fair to Eutropius. The reference here is to the campaign of 398 in which Eutropius succeeded in driving the Huns back behind the Caucasus.
distendisse genas fictumque inflatus anhelat,
pulvere respersus tineas et solibus ora 260
pallidior, verbisque sonat plorabile quiddam