“Evertêre domos totas, optantibus ipsis,
Dii faciles. Nocitura togâ, nocitura petuntur
Militiâ.”
Or, as Englished by Mr. Owen of Warrington:
“Th’ indulgent gods whole houses have o’erthrown
At men’s own prayer;—the fatal choice their own.
In war we ask but woes; in peace but woes,” etc.
The Crassi, Pompeii, and the like, are represented as ruined by the assent of Heaven to their ambitious prayers—
“Magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis.”