Silvae IV.3 (Mozley): The Domitian Road

What fearful sound of hard flint and heavy iron fills the stony Appian way where it draws nigh the sea? Certainly no Libyan hordes are thundering, no foreign chieftain scours restlessly the Campanian fields in treacherous warfare, nor is Nero hewing a canal, and making a way for squalid meres through cloven mountains. Nay, he who encircles the warlike threshold of Janus with justice and courts of law, he who restores to innocent Ceres acres long denied her and a sober countryside, he who forbids the strength of sex to be destroyed, and as Censor will allow grown males no more to fear the punishment of beauteous form, he who restores the Thunderer to the Capitol, and sets Peace in her own home, he who consecrates to his father’s line lights that will aye endure, a Flavian heaven—’tis he who, brooking ill the slow journeys of his people and the plains that clog every minute of the road, sweeps away tedious windings and lays a new solid paving upon the weary sands, rejoicing to bring the Euboean Sibyl’s home and the dells of Gaurus and sweltering Baiae nearer to the seven hills.

Here on a time the tardy traveller, borne on a single axle, was balanced on the swaying pole, while the unkindly earth sucked in the wheels, and Latin folk shuddered in mid-plain at the evils of a sea-voyage; nor could carriages run nimbly, but the noiseless track made their course hampered and slow, while the fainting beast, complaining of a too heavy load, crept on beneath its lofty yoke. But now a journey that once wore out a solid day is performed in scarce two hours. No swifter fare ye through the heavens, ye birds with outstretched pinions, nor will ye more swiftly sail, ye ships.

The first labour was to prepare furrows and mark out the borders of the road, and to hollow out the ground with deep excavation; then to fill up the dug trench with other material, and to make ready a base for the road’s arched ridge, lest the soil give way and a treacherous bed provide a doubtful resting-place for the o’erburdened stones; then to bind it with blocks set close on either side and frequent wedges. Oh! how many gangs are at work together! Some cut down the forest and strip the mountain-sides, some plane down beams and boulders with iron; others bind the stones together, and interweave the work with baked sand and dirty tufa; others by dint of toil dry up the thirsty pools, and lead far away the lesser streams. These hands could hollow out Athos, and bar with no floating bridge the doleful sea of moaning Helle. These hands, did not the gods forbid the passage, had made Ino’s puny Isthmus mingle the sundered seas. The shores are astir and the waving woods, the din travels afar through the cities that lie between, and the vine-bearing Massic mount throws back to Gaurus the echoes that scatter on every side. Quiet Cyme marvels at the noise, and the Liternian lake and sluggish Savo.

But Vulturnus, his yellow head and wide-flung watery tresses entangled in soft sedge, raises his face and leaning against the mighty arch of Caesar’s bridge pours out from his strident throat such words as these: “Gracious benefactor of my plains, who, while I poured o’er trackless vales nor knew how to dwell within my banks didst bind me by the law of a strict channel, now do I, that turbulent and dangerous stream, who once scarce brooked frail vessels, already endure a bridge, and am trodden by travellers underfoot; I who was wont to whirl forest and field to ruin, shame on me! am beginning to be a river. But I give thee thanks, and my servitude is worth the while, because under thy rule and at thy command I have yielded, and because thou wilt be read of perpetually as supreme lord and conqueror of my bank. And now thou honourest me with splendid embankments, nor sufferest me to be foul, and far and wide dost purge away the evil shame of barren soil; so that the gulf of the Tyrrhenian sea need not cleanse my muddy, sky-polluting stream, like to Cinyphian Bagrada crawling between silent banks through Punic fields: nay, so brightly shall I flow that I shall challenge the calm sea with my sparkling current, or neighbouring Liris with my unstained waters.”

Thus spoke the river, and therewith a marbled stretch of roadway had arisen with mighty ridge. Its portal and auspicious threshold was an arch that shone with the warlike trophies of the Prince and all Liguria’s mines, as vast as that which rings the clouds with rain. There the wayfarer turns aside with quickened speed, there the Appian road grieves that she is left. Then swifter and more furious grows the pace, and even the beasts exult in the speed: as when the rowers’ arms are weary and the first breezes fan the sails. Come then all ye who beneath the sky of dawn owe fealty to the Roman Sire, flock hither all ye races on this easy road, come more swiftly than before, ye laurels of the East. Nought hinders your eagerness, nought delays your course: he who leaves Tiber at dawn of day, let him sail the Lucrine lake at earliest eventide.

But what woman is this with snow-white hair and fillet whom I see at the new road’s extremest end, where Apollo’s temple shows Cumae’s ancient site? Does my vision err? or does the Sibyl bring forth the Chalcidic bayleaves from her sacred grot? Let us retire; lute, lay by thy song! a holier bard begins, and we must be silent. Lo! how she whirls her head around, and rushing in frenzy far and wide about the new-made track fills all the roadway! Then thus she speaks with virgin mouth: “I said it, he will come—have patience, ye fields and river!—he will come by heaven’s favour, who will raise this rotting woodland and these pestilent sands on lofty bridges and a causeway. Lo! a god is he, at Jove’s command he rules for him the happy world; none worthier than he has held this sway since under my guidance Aeneas, eagerly searching out the future, penetrated Avernus’ prescient groves and went forth again. A friend is he to peace, and terrible in arms, more bountiful than Nature and more powerful. Were his the government of the flaming sky, thou India wouldst be moist with abundant showers, Libya would stream with waters, Haemus would be warm. Hail, ruler of men and parent of gods, foreseen by me and fore-ordained was thy godhead. No longer scan those words of mine that the fifteen men with solemn prayer unroll on mouldering sheets, but face to face, as thou deservest, hear me chant my oracle. I have seen what chain of meritorious years the Fates white-clad are weaving for thee; a mighty roll of centuries awaits thee, longer than son or grandson shalt thou bear the years that Nestor reached, as they say, in tranquil age, as many as old Tithonus counted or I myself asked of the Delian god. Already the snowy North has paid thee homage, soon the Orient will give thee mighty triumphs. Where wandering Hercules and Euhan went thou shalt go, beyond the stars and the flaming sun, and the source of Nile and the snows of Atlas, and blest in all thy wealth of noble deeds thou shalt mount and again refuse the chariots of war: so long as the Trojan fire shall abide and the Tarpeian Father thunder in his reborn shrine, yea, until under thy governance of the earth this road grows older than the Appian’s years.”