Sometimes too a footpad does your business with his knife, whenever the Pontine marshes and the Gallinarian wood are kept safe by an armed guard. Consequently they all flock thence to Rome as to a great preserve.
What forge or anvil is not weighed down with chains? The greatest amount of iron used is employed in forging fetters; so that you may well fear that enough may not be left for plowshares, and that mattocks and hoes may run short. Well may you call our great-grandsires[173] happy, and the ages blest in which they lived, which, under kings and tribunes long ago, saw Rome contented with a single jail.[174]
To these I could subjoin other reasons for leaving Rome, and more numerous than these; but my cattle summon me to be moving, and the sun is getting low. I must go. For long ago the muleteer gave me a hint by shaking his whip. Farewell then, and forget me not! and whenever Rome shall restore you to your native Aquinum, eager to refresh your strength, then you may tear me away too from Cumæ to Helvine Ceres,[175] and your patron deity Diana. Then, equipped with my caligæ,[176] I will visit your chilly regions, to help you in your satires—unless they scorn my poor assistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] Prochyta. An island in the Bay of Naples, now called Procida.
[102] Sævæ, "from the ceaseless alarms it causes." "Sævus est qui terret." Donat. in Ter., Adelp., v. s. iv.
[103] Augusto. Cf. Plin., 1, Epist. xiii. "Magnum proventum poëtarum annus hic attulit; toto mense Aprili nullus ferè dies quo non recitaret aliquis."
[104] Either those of Romulus, or the aqueduct; and "moist Capena," either from the constant dripping of the aqueduct (hence arcus stillans), or from the springs near it, hence called Fontinalis; now St. Sebastian's gate. It opens on the Via Appia.
[105] Cf. vi., 542.