Odes 4.14 (Gladstone): Quae Cura Patrum

How may the Senate, how may Rome
Such free award of honours give,
As that thy fame through years to come
Shall still in grateful annals live?

Augustus, first of princes thou,
Through every habitable zone,
Whom the Vindelic tribes, till now
Untamed, for feats of war have known.

And those Genausi, restless race;
Fleet Breuni: and those forts, that frown
From Alpine heights of beetling face,
Drusus for thee hath stricken down,

Time after time. Then rushed apace
The elder Nero in his might,
The giant Rhaeti oft to chase,
With omens good, in headlong flight.

A portent in the thickest fight,
Oh with what havoc hath he slain
Those warriors, bold in freedom's right!
Like Auster's blast upon the main,

What time the Pleiads drive the cloud;
So the opposing squadrons bleed
When through the blazing battle's crowd
He drives his charger's fiery speed.

So bull-formed Aufidus descends
On Daunia, past Apulian shores,
Then, swollen with rain, his barriers rends,
And ruin o'er our harvest pours.

So Claudius that barbarian host
Of mailed men with might o'erthrew,
His triumph gained that nothing cost,
And van and rearward fiercely slew.

But thine the armies, omens, all,
And grace of gods. For, from the day
Of suppliant Alexandria's fall,
When town and harbour open lay,

Thy prosperous fortune, once begun,
Through three long lustres victory gave,
All praise upon thy triumphs won,
All glory that thy soul could crave.

Cantabrians thee, before untamed,
Thee migrant Scythian, Indian, Mede
Own for Hesperia's bulwark famed,
And queenly Rome's defence indeed.

Thee Nile that hides his fountain-head,
Thee hurrying Tigris, Ister thee,
And, by remotest Britain spread,
Th' obstreperous monster-breeding sea,

Thee Spain, with all her stalwart brood,
Thee Gaul obeys, that knows not fear:
Sigambrians thee, that thirst for blood,
Pile shields and targets to revere.