of birth or from lust of power. It was his own merit secured his election. Unsought the purple begged his acceptance of itself; he alone when asked to rule was worthy to do so. For when unrest at home drove barbarian hordes over unhappy Rhodope and the now deserted north had poured its tribes in wild confusion across our borders, when all the banks of Danube poured forth battles and broad Mysia rang beneath the chariots of the Getae, when flaxen-haired hordes covered the plains of Thrace and amid this universal ruin all was either prostrate or tottering to its fall, one man alone withstood the tide of disaster, quenched the flames, restored to the husbandmen their fields and snatched the cities from the very jaws of destruction. No shadow of Rome’s name had survived had not thy sire borne up the tottering mass, succoured the storm-tossed bark and with sure hand averted universal shipwreck. As when the maddened coursers broke from their path and carried Phaëthon far astray, when day’s heat grew fierce and the sun’s rays, brought near to earth, dried up both land and sea, Phoebus checked his fierce horses with his wonted voice; for they knew once more their master’s tones, and with a happier guide heaven’s harmonious order was restored; for now the chariot again accepted government and its fires control.
Thus was the East entrusted to him and thus was its salvation assured; but the other half of the world was not so entrusted: twice was the West gained by valour, twice won by dangers. In those lands of the sunset by manifold crime there arose to power tyrants twain: wild Britain produced one (Maximus), the other (Eugenius) was chosen
hunc sibi Germanus famulum delegerat exul:
ausus uterque nefas, domini respersus uterque 75
insontis iugulo. novitas audere priori
suadebat cautumque dabant exempla sequentem.
hic nova moliri praeceps, hic quaerere tuta
providus; hic fusis, collectis viribus ille;
hic vagus excurrens, hic intra claustra reductus. 80