To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast:
Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men
Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny.
Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen
Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp
Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me.
The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp—
Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes,
Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood
For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome.