Book V, Epigram 65 (Ker)

The starry heaven, albeit his stepmother said nay, was granted to Alcides by his slaughter of Nemea's dread beast, and by Arcadia's boar, and by the chastisement of the oiled wrestler of Libyan lists, and by the laying low of huge Eryx in Sicilian dust, and of Cacus, the terror of the woods, wont with secret guile to drag into his den the back-turned oxen. How small a part are such things of the sights of thy Arena, Caesar! Each new day gives us at morn conflicts more great. How many massive beasts, heavier than Nemea's monster, are laid low! How many Maenalian boars does thy spear expose in death! Were the threefold fight with Iberia's shepherd fought anew, one thou hast that can vanquish Geryon. Though the heads of Grecian Lerna's beast were counted oft, what is the prodigious hydra to the brutes of Nile? Heaven for worth so great, Augustus, the gods quickly granted to Alcides; but to thee they shall grant it late.