On the Statues of Two Brothers at Catina.[68]
See these two brothers toiling beneath a burden piety bade them bear. They deserve the tribute of divine honours at the hands of all men: at the sight of them the respectful flames ceased their ravages and Etna in admiration restrained his flooding lava. Seizing their parents they set them upon their shoulders and, with eyes raised to heaven, hasten their steps. The aged parents, thus carried aloft by their two sons, impede their flight, but dear to the children is that very delay. See, the old man points to the cruel flames; the aged mother’s trembling lips call upon the gods for help. Fear has set their hair on end, the bronze is terror-stricken and a pale shiver runs over all the metal. In the countenances of the sons is seen courage in face of danger, and, if fear, then fear for their burdens, none for themselves. The wind has blown back their cloaks. One raises his right hand; his left is enough to sustain his aged sire. But the other needs must clasp his burden with both arms, taking greater care for that it is his mother, one of the weaker sex, that he bears. This, too, as thou passest by, leave not unnoted, for well the craftsman’s dumb hands deserve such regard; both he has moulded with a likeness such as brothers bear, yet the one resembles rather his mother, the other his father.
[68] The story of the pietas of these brothers has often been told or referred to: the better known passages are Senec. De benef. iii. 37. 2; Martial vii. 24. 5; Sil. Ital. xiv. 197. Hyginus (Fab. 154) gives the story though with different names. The brothers’ heads appear both on Sicilian and Roman coins, e.g. Head, Hist. Num. 117; Brit. Mus. Cat. Sicily 52, Nos. 70-79; Babelon, Monn. de la répub. i. 539, ii. 353.
dissimiles annos sollertia temperat artis:
alter in alterius redditur ore parens,
et nova germanis paribus discrimina praebens 25
divisit vultus cum pietate faber.
O bene naturae memores, documenta supernae
iustitiae, iuvenum numina, vota senum: