countest ill omen was for the East. Yet no facts confirm the tale I have heard; Rumour’s self scarce smiled at such a tale of guilt.[7] The disgrace has no proof; no letter came to divulge the wicked secret. In this lies thine especial virtue, that, while consulting the senate on every question, thou hast not mentioned this portent. No decree for the suppression of this scandal has impaired the dignity of this august assembly, nor has that ill-omened name been heard in my senate. To have hesitated would have been to share his guilt. All letters telling of this profanation that came from the far East were destroyed e’er they could cross the sea, that fortune’s shameful turn should not offend the chaste ears of Italy. That infatuation of a people was best rewarded with silence—and how strenuous were thine endeavours that it should so be! Joy should be his who needs no longer pen the annals of the East. Our Latin story knows no such blot: let others take pains to conceal their own disgrace. Why should I applaud the downfall of one of whose elevation I never heard nor knew? ’Tis for the guilty to repent; we have never even believed.
“Yet had the guilt of all been one and this pollution stained our axes, all the more shouldst thou have taken the high office thou dost shun lest that ancient dignity—ever the goal of all dignities—should be destroyed. No consul, save Stilicho alone, can repair that ruin. With what foreknowledge had thy soul delayed the hour: once it would have added lustre unto thee, now thou dost add lustre unto it. Do thou as consul wipe out the insult offered to all consuls that have been and yet shall be. Give thy name to the year that posterity
[7] Claudian is referring to the consulship of Eutropius.
posteritas nec iam doleat defensa vetustas.
sic trabeis ultor Stilicho Brutusque repertor.
libertas populi primo tunc consule Bruto
reddita per fasces; hic fascibus expulit ipsis
servitium. instituit sublimem Brutus honorem; 325