PANEGYRIC
(VII.)
Let the consular fasces of Romulus open a third year, and for the third time let the warlike procession accompany thy curule litter. More festal in array be the coming year, and let purple, folded in Gabine[138] guise, be proudly enriched with gems of Hydaspes; let the cloak of peace succeed the arms of war; let the lictor guard the consul’s tent and the Latin axes return to the standards.[139] And do thou, Honorius, who with thy brother, lord of the East, governest with equal care a world that was once thy sire’s, go thy way with favourable omens and order the sun’s new course, thyself heaven’s hope and desire, palace-nurtured even from life’s threshold, to whom the camp, gleaming with drawn swords, gave schooling among the laurels of victory. Thy towering fortune has never known the condition of a private citizen; when thou wast born thou wast born a king. Power which was thine by birth received thee, a precious pledge, amid the purple; soldiers bearing victorious standards inaugurated thy birth and set thy cradle in the midst of arms. When thou wast born fierce Germany trembled along
[138] The cinctus Gabinus was one of the insignia of the consulship. It consisted in girding the toga tight round the body by means of one of its laciniae (= loose ends). Servius (on Virg. Aen. vii. 612) has a story that Gabii was invaded during the performance of a sacrifice and that the participants repulsed the enemy in their cinctus.
[139] Claudian suggests the uniting of civil and military power in the hands of Honorius.
intremuit movitque suas formidine silvas
Caucasus et positis numen confessa pharetris 20
ignavas Meroë traxit de crine sagittas.