What must then have been thy despair, Alaric, when ruin overwhelmed thy wealth and all that gear that years of robbing had won thee, when there struck thine ear the cries of that wife of thine who, too confident in her long unconquered husband, demanded in her madness the jewelled necklaces of Italian matrons for her proud neck and Roman girls for her tire-women! The fair girls
[59] At Adrianople, Aug. 9, 378; see Introduction, p. vii.
scilicet Argolicas Ephyreiadasque puellas
coeperat et pulchras iam fastidire Lacaenas. 630
sed dea quae nimiis obstat Rhamnusia votis
ingemuit flexitque rotam: domat aspera victos
pauperies, unoque die Romana rependit
quidquid ter denis acies amisimus annis.
O celebranda mihi cunctis Pollentia saeclis! 635