eripuit, tectisque suis redduntur et agris
damnati fato populi, virtute renati.
iam non in pecorum morem formidine clausi
prospicimus saevos campis ardentibus ignes 45
alta nec incertis metimur flumina votis
excidio latura moram nec poscimus amnes
young, though they tell of fierce Harpies, of the dragon whose unsleeping length lay curled in protecting folds about the golden fleece, of yoked bulls afire with flickering flames, of a springing crop of helmets, a field from out whose furrows grew a Martian race, of seeds of war whose increase yielded a harvest, too, of war, yet do these fictions fall short of the truth. Is it a nobler title to fame to have driven off the greedy Harpies and banished them from the table of a single man than to have had the strength to beat back those countless Getic maws that thirsted for the spoil of Latium? Am I to look with more admiration upon those earth-born warriors struck down in the very furrows from which they sprang, born and dying in a single day, than upon the slaughtered ranks of Getae whom the goddess of war reared on so many spoils and whose martial life came to grey hairs, passed ever beneath helmets?
Thou and thou alone, Stilicho, hast dispersed the darkness that enshrouded our empire and hast restored its glory; thanks to thee civilization, all but vanished, has been freed from the gloomy prison and can again advance. The old order of justice now makes distinction between magistracies which fear had made equal in a common gloom. Thy right hand has snatched us from impending death and restored to their homes and lands peoples whom fate sentenced and thy valour saved. No longer, herded together like sheep by reason of our fears, do we watch from the ramparts our fields ablaze with the enemy’s fire, no longer measure the depth of rivers which we feebly hope will retard our destruction nor ask the streams and flying clouds to