virginitas Vestalis adit flammasque tuetur:

hi nullas meriti vittas semperque profani. 330

nascitur ad fructum mulier prolemque futuram:

hoc genus inventum est ut serviat. Herculis arcu

concidit Hippolyte; Danai fugere bipennem,

Penthesilea, tuam; claras Carthaginis arces

creditur et centum portis Babylona superbam 335

femineus struxisse labor. quid nobile gessit

[163]

consul, and a man about to grant to others a liberty which he has not yet himself won. He mounts the lofty platform and amid a torrent of self-laudation boasts of a prophetic dream he had in Egypt[94] and of the defeat of tyrants which he foretold. No doubt the goddess of war stayed her avenging hand and waited till that emasculate Tiresias, that unmanned Melampus, could crawl back with oracles culled from farthest Nile.