Book IX, Epigram 101 (Ker)

Thou Appian Way, which revered Caesar in the guise of Hercules" hallows, chiefest glory of Ausonian ways, if thou desirest to know the deeds of the ancient Alcides, learn them. The Libyan he subdued, the golden apples he won; he ungirt the Amazonian targeteer of her Scythian girdle; he crowned the spoil of the lion's skin with Arcadia's boar; he freed the woods from the brazen-hoofed hind, the sky from the Stymphalian birds; from the Stygian flood he returned with its hound; the teeming hydra he let no more grow stronger by death; he laved in the Tuscan stream Hesperian oxen. These things wrought the lesser Alcides; hear what that greater did, whom men worship at the sixth stone from Alba's height. He redeemed the Palatine held by an evil power; his first wars he waged, a boy, for his own Jove; albeit alone he ah'eady held the reins of Julian power, he gave them up, and in a world that had been his own remained but the third; thrice he shattered the treacherous horns of Sarmatian Hister; his sweating steed thrice he bathed in Getic snow; loth to lead on triumphs oft resigned, he won a victor's name from the Hyperborean world; temples he gave the Gods, morals to the people, rest to the sword, immortality to his own kin, to heaven stars, wreaths to Jove. The Deity of Hercules sufficed not for deeds so great: let him, our God, lend his features to the Tarpeian Sire!