Odes 3.5 (Martin): Caelo Tonantem

When through the heavens his thunders blare,
We think that Jove is monarch there,
So now Augustus too shall be
Esteem'd a present deity,
Since Britons he and Persians dread
Hath to his empire subjected.

Has any legionary, who
His falchion under Crassus drew,
A bride barbarian stoop'd to wed,
And life with her ignobly led?
And can there be the man so base
Of Marsian or Apulian race,
(O, on the Senate be the blame,
O, on our tainted morals shame!)
As with his spouse's sire, his foe,
And in a foeman's camp, to grow
To age beneath some Median King,
The Shields no more remembering,
Nor yet the Roman dress or name,
Nor Vesta's never-dying flame,
Whilst still unscathed stands Jove, and Rome,
His city, and his only home?

Ah, well he fear'd such shame for us,
The brave, far-seeing Regulus,
When he the vile conditions spurn'd,
That might to precedent be turn'd,
With ruin and disaster fraught
To after times, should they be taught
Another creed than this, — "They die
Unwept, -who brook captivity!"

"I've seen," he cried, "our standards hung
In Punic fanes, our weapons wrung
From Roman hands without a blow;
Our citizens, I've seen them go,
With arms behind their free backs tied,
Gates I have seen flung open wide,
Ay, Roman troops I've seen, disgraced
To till the plains they had laid waste!

"Will he return more brave and bold,
The soldier you redeem with gold?
You add but loss unto disgrace.
Its native whiteness once efface
With curious dyes; you can no more
That whiteness to the wool restore;
Nor is true valour, once debased,
In souls corrupt to be replaced!

"If from the tangled meshes freed,
The stag will battle, then indeed
May he conspicuous valour show,
Who trusted the perfidious foe, —
He smite upon some future field
The Carthaginian, who could yield
In fear of death his arms to be
Bound up with thongs submissively!
Content to draw his caitiff breath,
Nor feel such life is worse than death!
O shame! O mighty Carthage, thou
On Rome's fallen glories towerest now!"

From his chaste wife's embrace, they say,
And babes, he tore himself away,
As he had forfeited the right
To clasp them as a freeman might;
Then sternly on the ground he bent
His manly brow; and so he lent
Decision to the senate's voice,
That paused and waver'd in its choice,
And forth the noble exile strode,
Whilst friends in anguish lined the road.

Noble indeed! for, though he knew
What tortures that barbarian crew
Had ripe for him, he waved aside
The kin that did his purpose chide.
The thronging crowds, that strove to stay
His passage, with an air as gay,
As though at close of some decree
Upon a client's lawsuit he
Its dreary coil were leaving there,
To green Venafrum to repair,
Or to Tarentum's breezy shore,
Where Spartans built their town of yore.