leaning upon their spears the soldiers throng around him and attune their ready ears to his inspiring voice. “My men, so soon to bring defeat upon Gildo, now is the time to fulfil your promises and make good your threats. If you felt indignation on my behalf, now take up arms and prove it. Wash out the stain of civil war by means of a great and deserved triumph. Let the empire of the East know, let it be plain to all the world, that Gaul can only owe defeat to the badness of a cause, not to her enemies’ strength.[79] Let not Gildo affright you though he have all barbary at his back. Shall Moors stand up against the shock of your clashing shields and the near threat of your swords? You shall not oppose men armed with shields or shining blades. These savages put their trust in javelins hurled from afar. Once he has discharged his missile the enemy will be disarmed. With his right hand he hurls his spear, with his left he holds his cloak before him; no other armour has the horseman. His steed knows not the rein; a whip controls it. Obedience and discipline are unknown in their ranks. Their arms are a burden to them, their salvation lies in flight. Though each has many wives, ties of family bind them not, nor have they any love for their children whose very number causes affection to fail. Such are the troops. The chief will come to battle crowned with roses, drenched with scents, his last feast still undigested; drunken with wine, foredone with eld, enervated with disease and venery. Let the war trumpet rouse him from a bed of incest, let him beg aid of lutes and choirs, for he likes not the clarion’s note, and let him learn (all unwilling) to spend in war nights that he now dedicates to love.
[79] He appeals to the Gallic element of the army to atone for its previous support of Maximus and Eugenius.
“Is not death preferable to a life disgraced? If, in addition to the loss of Illyria, Africa is to be surrendered to Moorish kings, what lands still remain to us? The empire of Italy, once bounded by the Nile and the Red Sea, is limited to-day by the sea of Tuscany; shall Sicily now be the most distant province of Roman rule, to which in days of old neither Egypt nor India set an end? Go: win back that southern realm a rebel has reft from me. It depends on your arms whether Rome, the unconquerable mistress of the world, stands or falls. You owe me so many peoples, countries, cities lost. Fight but one battle in defence of Libya. Let empire restored attend on your oars and sails. Give back to Africa the laws of Rome she now disregards. Let history repeat itself, and the sword smite from its trunk the head of this third tyrant[80] and so end at last the series of bloody usurpers.”
An omen confirms his word and before the eyes of all, the tawny bird, armour-bearer of Jove, swoops down from the open sky and seizes a snake in his curved talons; and while the eagle tears his struggling prey with his hooked beak, his claws are embedded in its head. The severed body falls to earth. Straightway the soldiers come hurrying up, crossing rocks and streams in their eagerness at the call of this portent. Neither mountains nor woods delay them. Even as the cranes leave their summer home of Thrace clamorously to join issue in doubtful war with the Pygmies, when they desert the Strymon for warm-watered Nile, the letter[81] traced by the speeding line stands out against the clouds and the heaven is stamped with the figure of their flight.
When they reached the coast still fiercer blazed
[80] The other two being Maximus and Eugenius.
[81] i.e. the Greek Λ.
their enthusiasm. They seize upon the ships and themselves make ready the hawsers; furl the sails and fix the yards to the masts. Etruria’s shore is shaken with their uproar and Arcadian-founded Pisa cannot contain so great a number of ships. So Aulis rang with countless voices what time avenging Greece loosed the cables of Agamemnon’s fleet. No storm-blast deterred them nor threat of coming tempest nor the presence of the treacherous south wind. “Seize the rope, fellow-soldiers,” they cry, “seize the rope: let us sail against Gildo though the very seas be against us. Let the storm drive us to battle by how crooked so ever a course. Fain would I seize upon that shore though my ships’ beaks be shattered. Cowards ye, who cautiously observe whether or no the sea-gulls fly back or the crow pace the beach. What if clouds fleck the face of the setting sun or a stormy moon wear the halo that betokens hurricane? What if comets wave their spreading tails, or the constellation of the Kids threatens rain, or the cloudy Hyades lead forth the Bull and all Orion sink ’neath the waves? Put your trust in the sky, but put more in Honorius. Beneath his auspices I, his soldier, range the boundless seas nor look to the Plough or the Bear to guide me. Make no account of Boötes, sailor; launch your bark in mid tempest. If winds and storms deny me Libya, my emperor’s fortune will grant it.”
The fleet is launched. They pass Liguria on their right hand, Etruria on their left, avoiding the sunken reefs of Corsica. There lies an island formed like a human foot (Sardinia its former inhabitants called it), an island rich in the produce of its fields, and conveniently situated for them who sail either to
[82] Birt, following the MSS., si. Older editions huic … huic. I print sic.
Africa or Italy. The part that faces Africa is flat and affords good anchorage for ships; the northern shore is inhospitable, rock-bound, stormy, and loud with sudden gales. The sailor curses these wild cliffs. Here the pestilence falls on men and beasts, so plague-ridden and deadly is the air, so omnipotent the South wind and the North winds banished.
When their much buffeted vessels had given a wide berth to these dangers, they came to land at different places on the broken coast-line. Some are beached at Sulci, a city founded by Carthage of old. The sea-wall of Olbia shelters others. The city of Caralis over against the coast of Libya, a colony of great Phoenician Carthage, juts out into the sea and extends into the waves, a little promontory that breaks the force of the opposing winds. Thus in the midst a harbour is found and in a huge bay the quiet waters lie safe from every wind. For this harbour they make with every effort, and reversing their vessels they await the favouring breezes of the west wind with fleet at anchor.[83]
[83] This poem was never properly finished; see Introduction, p. xi.
IN EUTROPIUM
LIBER I
(XVIII.)
AGAINST EUTROPIUS
BOOK I
(XVIII.)
Let the world cease to wonder at the births of creatures half human, half bestial, at monstrous babes that affright their own mothers, at the howling of wolves heard by night in the cities, at beasts that speak to their astonied herds, at stones falling like rain, at the blood-red threatening storm clouds, at wells of water changed to gore, at moons that clash in mid heaven and at twin suns. All portents pale before our eunuch consul. O shame to heaven and earth! Our cities behold an old woman decked in a consul’s robe who gives a woman’s name to the year.[84] Open the pages of the Cumaean Sibyl, ye pontifs; let wise Etrurian seers consult the lightning’s flash, and the soothsayer search out the awful portent hidden in the entrails. What new dread warning is this the gods give? Does Nile desert his bed and leaving Roman soil seek to mix his waters with those of the Red Sea? Does cleft Niphates[85] once more let through a host of eastern barbarians to ravage our lands? Does a pestilence threaten us? Or shall no harvest repay the farmer? What victim can expiate divine anger such as this? What offering appease the cruel altars? The consul’s
[84] For the consulship of Eutropius see Introduction, p. xv.
[85] A mountain in Armenia.
[86] Birt begins the new paragraph at sic, printing a comma at nobis. Alternatively, read volvis for nobis (so Cuiacius’ codd.).
own blood must cleanse the consular insignia, the monster itself must be sacrificed. Whatever it be that fate prepares for us and shows forth by such an omen, let Eutropius’ death, I pray, avert it all.
Fortune, is thy power so all-embracing? What is this savage humour of thine? To what lengths wilt thou sport with us poor mortals? If it was thy will to disgrace the consul’s chair with a servile occupant let some “consul” come forward with broken chains, let an escaped jail-bird don the robes of Quirinus—but at least give us a man. There are grades even among slaves and a certain dignity; that slave who has served but one master holds a position of less infamy. Canst thou count the waves of the sea, the grains of Africa’s sands, if so thou canst number Eutropius’ masters. How many owners has he had, in how many sale-catalogues has he appeared, how often has he changed his name! How often has he been stripped while buyer consulted doctor whether there lurked any flaw by reason of some hidden disease! All repented having bought him and he always returned to the slave-market while he could yet fetch a price. When he became but a foul corpse-like body, a mass of senile pendulous flesh, his masters were anxious to rid their houses of him by giving him away as a present and made haste to foist the loathsome gift on an unsuspecting friend. To so many different yokes did he submit his neck, this slave, old in years but ever new to the house; there was no end to his servitude though many beginnings.
He is destined from his very cradle to bloody tortures; straight from his mother’s womb he is hurried away to be made a eunuch; no sooner born
[87] codd. ignem; Postgate imbrem.
than he becomes a prey to suffering. Up hastens the Armenian, skilled by operating with unerring knife to make males womanish and to increase their loathly value by such loss. He drains the body’s life-giving fluid from its double source and with one blow deprives his victim of a father’s function and the name of husband. Eutropius lay doubtful of life, and the severed sinews drew a numbness deep down into his furthest brain.
Are we to praise the hand that robbed an enemy of his strength? Or shall we rather blame the fates? It would have been better had he remained a man; his very disgrace has proved a blessing to him. Had he had his full manly vigour he would still have been a slave.
After this he is dragged from one Assyrian mart to another; next in the train of a Galatian slave-merchant he stands for sale in many a market and knows many diverse houses. Who could tell the names of all his buyers? Among these Ptolemy, servant of the post-house,[88] was one of the better known. Then Ptolemy, tired of Eutropius’ long service to his lusts, gives him to Arinthaeus;—gives, for he is no longer worth keeping nor old enough to be bought. How the scorned minion wept at his departure, with what grief did he lament that divorce! “Was this thy fidelity, Ptolemy? Is this my reward for a youth lived in thine arms, for the bed of marriage and those many nights spent together in the inn? Must I lose my promised liberty? Leav’st thou Eutropius a widow, cruel wretch, forgetful of such wonderful nights of love? How hard is the lot of my kind! When a woman grows old her children cement the marriage tie and
[88] I take Ptolemy to have been a stationarius, i.e. a servant in a public post-house, but there is possibly some covert allusion to stabulum in the sense of prostibulum, a brothel.
a mother’s dignity compensates for the lost charms of a wife. Me Lucina, goddess of childbirth, will not come near; I have no children on whom to rely. Love perishes with my beauty; the roses of my cheeks are faded. What wits can save my wretched back from blows? How can I, an old man, please?”
So saying he entered upon the skilled profession of a pander. His whole heart was in his work; he knew his business well and was master of every stratagem for the undoing of chastity. No amount of vigilance could protect the marriage-bed from his attack; no bars could shut him out. He would have haled even Danaë from her refuge in the brazen tower. He would represent his patron as dying of love. Was the lady stubborn, he would win her by his patience; was she greedy, by a gift; flighty, he would corrupt her with a jest. None could arrest the attention of a maidservant with so neat a touch as he, none twitch aside a dress so lightly and whisper his shameful message in her ear. Never was any so skilled to choose a scene for the criminal meeting, or so clever at avoiding the wrath of the cuckold husband should the plot be discovered. One thought of Lais of Corinth, to whom the enamoured youth of that city brought wealth from its twin seas, who, when her grey hair could no longer go crowned with roses, when the emulous crowd of her admirers ceased nightly to haunt her doors and but few were left to knock thereat, when before the mirror’s verdict age shrank back in horror from itself, yet stood, still faithful to her calling, and as a pander dressed others for the part, haunting still the brothel she had loved so well and so long, and still pandering to the tastes old age forbade her.
Hence sprang Eutropius’ fame; for, though a eunuch’s one virtue be to guard the chastity of the marriage-chamber, here was one (and one only) who grew great through adulteries. But the lash fell as before on his back whenever his master’s criminal passion was through him frustrated. Then it was in vain that he prayed for forgiveness and reminded his lord of all those years of faithful service; he would find himself handed over to a son-in-law as part of the bride’s dowry. Thus he would become a lady’s-maid, and so the future consul and governor of the East would comb his mistress’ locks or stand naked holding a silver vessel of water wherein his charge could wash herself. And when overcome by the heat she threw herself upon her couch, there would stand this patrician fanning her with bright peacock feathers.
And now his skin had grown loose with age; his face, more wrinkled than a raisin, had fallen in by reason of the lines in his cheeks. Less deep the furrows cloven in the cornfield by the plough, the folds wrought in the sails by the wind. Loathsome grubs ate away his head and bare patches appeared amid his hair. It was as though clumps of dry barren corn dotted a sun-parched field, or as if a swallow were dying in winter sitting on a branch, moulting in the frosty weather. Truly, that the outrage to the consul’s office might one day be the greater, Fortune added to her gift of wealth this brand upon his brow, this deformity of face. When his pallor and fleshless bones had roused feelings of revulsion in his masters’ hearts, and his foul complexion and lean body offended all who came
in contact with him, scaring children, disgusting those that sat at meat, disgracing his fellow-slaves, or terrifying as with an evil omen those that met him; when his masters ceased to derive any advantage from that withered trunk (for his wasted limbs refused even to make the beds or cut wood for the kitchen fire, while his faithless nature forbade their entrusting him with the charge of gold or vesture or the secrets of the house—who could bring him to entrust his marriage-chamber to a pander?), then at last they thrust him from their houses like a troublesome corpse or an ill-omened ghost. He was now free—for everyone despised him. So a shepherd chains up a dog and fattens him with milk while yet his strength avails to guard the flock and, ever watchful, to scare away wolves with his barking. But when later this same dog grows old and dirty and droops his mangy ears he looses him, and, taking off his collar, at least saves that.
Universal contempt is sometimes a boon. Driven out by all, he could freely range amid every sort of crime, and open a way for destiny. Oh thou, whosoe’er thou art, that holdest sway in Olympus, was it thy humour to make such mockery of mankind? He who was not suffered to perform the duties of a slave is admitted to the administration of an empire; him whom a private house scorned as a servant, a palace tolerates as its lord. When first the consular residence received this old vixen, who did not lament? Who grieved not to see an oft-sold corpse worm itself into the sacred service of the emperor? Nay, the very palace-servants, holding a prouder rank in slavery, murmured at such a colleague and long haughtily scorned his company.
See what manner of man they seek to connect with the annals of Rome: the very eunuchs were ashamed of him. At first of no account, he lay hid, the most unknown unit of an unregarded throng, till thanks to the mad folly of Abundantius[89] (who brought ruin on the empire of the East and, ere that, upon himself) he was advanced from the most menial office to the highest honours. What a happy dispensation of providence it is that in this world the results of ill counsel fall first upon its instigators! Thus the seer who advised Busiris to placate the Thunderer’s wrath, what time Nile’s flood had long run dry, with a stranger’s blood himself first stained that tyrant’s altar with his own and fell a victim of the horrid sacrifice he had advised. Thus he who made the brazen bull and devised that new form of torture, casting the deadly bronze as an instrument of torment, was (at the bidding of the Sicilian tyrant) the first to make trial of the unhanselled image, and to teach his own bull to roar. So with Eutropius: on no man’s goods did he sooner seize than on those of him by whom he had been raised to power; none did he drive sooner into exile and thus, by the condemnation of his patron, was to thank for one righteous action.
When this half-man, worn out with age, had been raised to that pinnacle of glory for which he never would have dared to pray, of which never to dream; when he had seen law at his feet, the heads of the nobility inclined before him, and fortune heaping such gifts upon one whose only hope and prayer had been to gain his freedom, he straightway forgot
[89] By birth a Scythian. Entered the Roman army under Gratian and reached the position of magister utriusque militiae under Theodosius. Consul in 393 (Zosim. v. 10. 5) and banished three years later to Pityus, thanks to the machinations of Eutropius.
his former masters, and his slave’s mind swelled high within him. The prisons were filled with degraded nobles, Meroë and the plains of Ethiopia re-echoed to the weeping of exiles; the desert rang with the punishment of men; the temple of Jupiter Ammon in Africa was stained with gentle blood.
Nothing is so cruel as a man raised from lowly station to prosperity; he strikes everything, for he fears everything; he vents his rage on all, that all may deem he has the power. No beast so fearful as the rage of a slave let loose on free-born backs; their groans are familiar to him, and he cannot be sparing of punishment that he himself has undergone; remembering his own master he hates the man he lashes. Being a eunuch also he is moved by no natural affection and has no care for family or children. All are moved to pity by those whose circumstances are like their own; similitude of ills is a close bond. Yet he is kind not even to eunuchs.
His passion for gold increases—the only passion his mutilated body can indulge. Of what use was emasculation? The knife is powerless against reckless avarice. That hand so well practised in petty thefts, accustomed to rifle a cupboard or remove the bolt from the unwatched coffer, now finds richer spoils and the whole world to rob. All the country between the Tigris and Mount Haemus he exposes for sale at a fixed price, this huckster of empire, this infamous dealer in honours. This man governs Asia for the which his villa has paid. That man buys Syria with his wife’s jewels. Another repents of having taken Bithynia in exchange for his paternal mansion. Fixed above the open doors of his hall is a list giving the provinces and their