and there among the seaweed and Glaucus wreathes his grey hair with deathless flowers. Hearing the tale the Nereids, too, came mounted on various beasts: one (maiden above but fish below) rides the dread sea-tiger of Tartessus; another is carried by that fierce ram, the terror of the Aegean, who shatters ships with his forehead; a third bestrides the neck of a sea-lion; another is borne along by the sea-calf to which she clings. They vie with one another in bringing gifts to the newly-wedded pair. Cymothoë presents a girdle, Galatea a precious necklace, Psamathe a diadem heavily encrusted with pearls gathered by herself from the depths of the Red Sea. Doto suddenly dives to gather coral, a plant so long as it is beneath the water, a jewel once it is brought forth from the waves.
The nude crowd of Nereids throng around Venus, following her and singing praises after this manner: “We beg thee, Venus, our queen, to bear these our gifts, these adornments, to queen Maria. Tell her that never did Thetis receive their like nor even our sister Amphitrite when she espoused our Jupiter.[133] Let the daughter of Stilicho hereby realize the devotion of the sea and know that Ocean is her slave. ’Tis we who bore up her father’s fleet, the hope of his victorious land, what time he set out to avenge the ruined Greeks.”
And now Triton’s foam-flecked breast had touched the Ligurian shore and his wearied coils were extended over the surface of the water. Straightway Venus flew high in the air to the city founded by the Gauls, the city that shows as its device the fleece-covered pelt of a sow.[134] At the coming of the goddess the routed clouds retire; bright shine the Alps beneath
[133] i.e. Neptune.
[134] Milan; cf. Isid. Orig. XV. 1 vocatum Mediolanum ab eo, quod ibi sus in medio lanea perhibetur inventa; Sidon. Apol. vii. 17 et quae lanigero de sue nomen habent.
the clear North wind. The soldier rejoices though he cannot tell why. The standards of war burgeon with red flowers and the spears on a sudden sprout with living leaves. Then Venus thus addresses her attendant throng. “Comrades mine, keep away for a while the god of war that the palace may be mine and mine alone. Banish afar the terror of the flashing breastplate; let its scabbard sheath the threatening sword. Advance not the standards of war, the eagles and savage dragons. This day the camp shall yield to my standards; the flute shall sound instead of the bugle, the soft strains of the happy lyre take the place of the trumpets’ blare. Let the soldiers feast even when on guard and the beakers foam in the midst of arms. Let regal majesty lay by its awful pride and power, disdaining not to associate with the people, make one the nobles with the crowd. Let joy be unrestrained and sober Law herself be not ashamed to laugh.
“Hymen, choose thou the festal torches, and ye Graces gather flowers for the feast. Thou, Concord, weave two garlands. You, winged band, divide and hasten whithersoever you can be of use: let none be slothful or lazy. You others hang numberless lamps in order from their brackets against the coming of night. Let these haste to entwine the gleaming door-posts with my sacred myrtle. Do you sprinkle the palace with drops of nectar and kindle a whole grove of Sabaean incense. Let others unfold yellow-dyed silks from China and spread tapestries of Sidon on the ground. Do you employ all your arts in decorating the marriage-bed. Woven with jewels and upborne on carved columns be its canopy, such
as rich Lydia ne’er built for Pelops nor yet the Bacchae for Lyaeus, decked as his was with the spoils of Ind and the mantling vine. Heap up there all the gathered wealth of the family, all the spoil that Honorius the elder, our emperor’s grandsire, won from Moor and Saxon, all that his dread father with Stilicho at his side gained from numberless wars, all that the Geloni and Armenians have contributed or Meroë added—Meroë encircled by furthermost Nile whose people decorate their hair with arrows; whatever the Medes sent from the banks of Persian Tigris when suppliant Parthia bought peace of Rome. Let the lofty couch be adorned with the barbaric splendour of kings’ treasuries; be all the wealth of all our triumphs gathered in that marriage-chamber.”
So spake she and all unannounced sought the bride’s home. But Maria, with no thoughts of wedlock nor knowing that the torches were being got ready, was listening with rapt attention to the discourse of her saintly mother, drinking in that mother’s nature and learning to follow the example of old-world chastity; nor does she cease under that mother’s guidance to unroll the writers of Rome and Greece, all that old Homer sang, or Thracian Orpheus, or that Sappho set to music with Lesbian quill; (even so Latona taught Diana; so gentle Mnemosyne in her cave gave instruction to meek Thalia)—when the sky from afar grows more bright, a sweeter air breathes through the astonished palace and there is spread the happy fragrance of scented locks. Soon came the proof; in all her beauty the goddess bursts upon them. Yet Venus stands amazed, admiring now the daughter’s
loveliness, now the snowy neck and golden hair of the mother. The one is like unto the crescent moon, the other to the full. So grows a young laurel beneath the shadow of its parent tree and, small as it now is, gives promise of great branches and thick foliage to come. Or as ’twere two roses of Paestum on one stalk; the one day’s fulness has brought to maturity; steeped in the dews of spring it spreads abroad its petals; the other yet nestles in its bud nor dares receive the sun’s warmth within its tender heart.
Venus stood and addressed Maria with these gentle words: “All hail! revered daughter of divine Serena, scion of great kings and destined to be the mother of kings. For thy sake have I left my home in Paphos’ isle and Cyprus; for thy sake was I pleased to face so many labours and cross so many seas lest thou shouldst continue to live a private life little befitting thy true worth and lest young Honorius should still feed in his heart the flame of unrequited love. Take the rank thy birth demands, resume the crown to bequeath it to thy children and re-enter the palace whence thy mother sprang. E’en though no ties of blood united thee to the royal house, though thou wert in no way related thereto, yet would thy beauty render thee worthy of a kingdom. What face could rather win a sceptre? What countenance better adorn a palace? Redder than roses thy lips, whiter than the hoar-frost thy neck, cowslips[135] are not more yellow than thine hair, fire not more bright than thine eyes. With how fine an interspace do the delicate eyebrows meet upon thy forehead! How just the blend that makes thy blush, thy fairness not o’ermantled with too much
[135] The viola was probably a pansy or wallflower, Gk λευκόϊον.
red! Pinker thy fingers than Aurora’s, firmer thy shoulders than Diana’s; even thy mother dost thou surpass. If Bacchus, Ariadne’s lover, could transform his mistress’ garland into a constellation how comes it that a more beauteous maid has no crown of stars? Even now Boötes is weaving for thee a starry crown, even now heaven brings new stars to birth to do thee honour. Go, mate with one who is worthy of thee and share with him an empire co-extensive with the world. Ister now shall do thee homage; all nations shall adore thy name. Now Rhine and Elbe shall be thy slaves; thou shalt be queen among the Sygambri. Why should I number the peoples and the Atlantic’s distant shores? The whole world alike shall be thy dowry.”
She spake and fitted to Maria’s neck and shining limbs the rich gear which the happy Nereids had just given her. She parted her hair with the spear’s point, girded up her dress, and with her own hands set the veil over the maiden’s hair.[136] The procession is halted singing at the door; brightly gleams the holy chariot in which the new bride is to fare. The prince burns to run and meet her and longs for the sun’s tardy setting. Even so the noble steed when first the smell that stirs his passions smites upon him proudly shakes his thick, disordered mane and courses over Pharsalia’s plains. His nostrils are aflame and with a neighing he greets the streams that saw his birth. His masters smile at the hope of their stud’s increase, and the mares take pleasure in their handsome mate.
Meanwhile the army has laid aside its swords: the soldiers are dressed in white and throng around Stilicho, the bride’s father. No standard-bearer nor
[136] Venus acts as pronuba. The parting of the hair with the spear was a relic of marriage by capture (cf. Catullus lxi.).
common soldier fails to scatter flowers like rain and to drench their leader in a mist of purple blossoms. Crowned with laurel and myrtle they sing: “Blessed father, whether the vault of heaven is thy home, or thou walkest in Elysium, the mansion of the blest, behold Stilicho hath now fulfilled the promises he made thee. A happy interchange has now been made: he compensates thee for his upbringing, and renders marriage in return for marriage, giving back to a son what thou, that son’s father, gave to him. Never needst thou repent of thy choice; a dying father’s love misled thee not. Worthy is he to be thine heir, worthy to be entrusted with the child of so powerful a prince and to hold the reins of government. Now could I tell of the battles fought beneath the slopes of Mount Haemus, the contests wherefrom Strymon reeked red with blood; I could sing the fame of his arms and how, like a thunderbolt, he falls upon his foes, but the marriage-god says me nay. Our song must be such as now befits the singing. Who can surpass Stilicho in counsel? who in knowledge of law and equity? In thee are two opposèd qualities reconciled, wisdom and strength, prudence and fortitude. Was e’er so noble a brow? Whom would Rome’s highest place more befit? What heart but thine is strong enough to bear so many troubles? Shouldst thou stand amid the crowd whoe’er shall see thee would exclaim, ‘That is Stilicho.’ It is thus that the aspect of supreme majesty brings its own witness—not with arrogant voice, or pompous walk, or haughty gesture. The graces which others affect and strive to seem to possess are thine by nature’s gift. Modesty shines forth together with a noble sternness,
and white hairs come hastening to increase the reverence of thy face. Though dignity be the crown of age and strength, by a far different lot, of youth, yet either season decks thee with its own peculiar honours. Thou art the ornament of fortune. Never tookst thou up the sword for hurt nor ever didst steep its blade in citizens’ blood. No cruelties on thy part aroused men’s hatred; favouritism never slacks the reins of justice. We love thee, yet we fear thee. Our very fear testifies to our love, O thou most righteous interpreter of Law, guardian most sure of peace with honour, greatest of our generals, most blessèd among the fathers of our country. We all confess that now we owe our emperor an even firmer allegiance for that thou, hero invincible, art the father of his bride. Crown thy head with a garland, lay aside thy rank for a moment and join our dances. An thou dost this, so may thy son Eucherius[137] surpass the virtues of his sire; so may the fair Thermantia, thy daughter, live to see a marriage such as this; so may Maria’s womb grow big and a little Honorius, born in the purple, rest on his grandsire’s lap.”
[137] Eucherius (born about 388) was the son, and Thermantia the younger daughter, of Stilicho and Serena. After the death of Maria she became Honorius’ second wife.
(VI.)
(VI.)
Eagles may not rear their young without the sun’s permission and the goodwill of heaven. So soon as the chicks have shattered their shells and issued forth, after that the warmth of their mother’s body has cracked the opening egg, the father bird makes haste to carry the unfledged nestlings aloft and bids them gaze at the sun’s fires with unblinking eye. He takes counsel of those bright beams and under light’s schooling makes trial of the strength and temper of his sons. The angry father strikes with pitiless talons the degenerate who turns away his glance, but he whose eye can bear the searching flame, who with bolder sight can outstare the noonday sun, is brought up a king of birds, heir to the thunderbolt, destined to carry Jove’s three-forked weapon. So mighty Rome fears not to send me, oft tested e’er now in the Muses’ caverns, to face the emperor, her god. Now have I won an emperor’s ear, the entrance to an emperor’s palace and the emperor himself as judge of my lyre’s song.
(VII.)
(VII.)
Let the consular fasces of Romulus open a third year, and for the third time let the warlike procession accompany thy curule litter. More festal in array be the coming year, and let purple, folded in Gabine[138] guise, be proudly enriched with gems of Hydaspes; let the cloak of peace succeed the arms of war; let the lictor guard the consul’s tent and the Latin axes return to the standards.[139] And do thou, Honorius, who with thy brother, lord of the East, governest with equal care a world that was once thy sire’s, go thy way with favourable omens and order the sun’s new course, thyself heaven’s hope and desire, palace-nurtured even from life’s threshold, to whom the camp, gleaming with drawn swords, gave schooling among the laurels of victory. Thy towering fortune has never known the condition of a private citizen; when thou wast born thou wast born a king. Power which was thine by birth received thee, a precious pledge, amid the purple; soldiers bearing victorious standards inaugurated thy birth and set thy cradle in the midst of arms. When thou wast born fierce Germany trembled along
[138] The cinctus Gabinus was one of the insignia of the consulship. It consisted in girding the toga tight round the body by means of one of its laciniae (= loose ends). Servius (on Virg. Aen. vii. 612) has a story that Gabii was invaded during the performance of a sacrifice and that the participants repulsed the enemy in their cinctus.
[139] Claudian suggests the uniting of civil and military power in the hands of Honorius.
the Rhine’s full course, Caucasus shook his forests in fear, and the people of Meroë, confessing thy divinity, laid aside their quivers and drew the useless arrows from their hair. As a child thou didst crawl among shields, fresh-won spoils of monarchs were thy playthings, and thou wert ever the first to embrace thy stern father on his return from rude battles, when that, reeking with the blood of northern savages, he came home victorious from his conquest over the tribes of the Danube. Then wouldst thou demand thy share of the spoils, a Scythian bow or a belt won from the Geloni, a Dacian spear or Suabian bridle. Often would he smile on thee and uplift thee, eager for the honour, on his shining shield, and clasp thee to his still panting bosom. Thou fearedst not his coat of mail nor the dread gleam of his helmet but stretchedst out thy hands to grasp its lofty plumes. Then in his joy thy father cried: “King of starry Olympus, may this my son return in like manner from the lands of conquered foes, rich with the spoils of Hyrcania or proud with the slaughter of the Assyrians; his sword thus red with blood, his countenance thus roughened by the constant blasts and stained with the welcome dust of heroic combat, may he bring back to his happy father the arms of his conquered foes.”
Soon when thou couldst stand upright and walk with firm step thy sire forbade thee enervating sloth, luxurious ease, time-wasting slumbers. He strengthened thy young limbs with hard toils and rude was the training wherewith he exercised thy tender powers. Thou wert taught to bear winter’s cruel cold, to shrink not before storm and tempest, to face the heat of summer, to swim across loud-roaring torrents, to
climb mountains, to run o’er the plain, to leap ravines and hollows, to spend sleepless nights of watching under arms, to drink melted snow from thy casque, to shoot the arrow from the bow or hurl the acorn-missiles with a Balearic sling. And the more to inflame thy heart with love of battle he would recount to thee the deeds of thy grandsire, object of dread to Libya’s sun-scorched shores and Thule whither no ship can sail. He conquered the fleet Moors and the well-named[140] Picts; his roaming sword pursued the flying Scot; his adventurous oars broke the surface of the northern seas. Crowned with the spoils of triumphs won beneath the northern and the southern sky he trod the wave-swept strand of either Ocean. Thus did he spur thy courage, thus sow the seeds of fame; these were the examples he gave. Not more avidly did Achilles himself drink in the Centaur’s precepts when he learnt of him how to wield the spear or play the lyre or discern healing plants.
Meanwhile the world forgot its loyalty: the thunder of civil war sounded afresh and discord shook the tottering earth. O ye guilty gods! O shame everlasting!—a barbarian[141] exile had possessed himself of the cities of Italy and had entrusted the government of Rome to some low-born dependent. But Theodosius was already afoot, rallying to his standard the distant nations of the East, the dwellers on the banks of flooding Euphrates, clear Halys, and rich Orontes. The Arabs left their spicy groves, the Medes the waters of the Caspian Sea, the Armenians the river Phasis, the Parthians the Niphates.
What lust of battle then filled thy heart, what longing to accompany thy father! What would not
[140] Pict, to a Roman, means “painted.” They were. “well-named Picts” because they painted themselves with woad or other stain.
[141] Arbogast is the “barbarian,” Eugenius (by trade a rhetorician) the “dependent.” See Introduction, p. ix.
thine eager spirit have given to hear the beloved clarion’s note and to revel in the bloody storm of battle, trampling upon the slaughtered bodies of thy foes! Like a young lion in a cave, accustomed to look for nourishment to the teats of its tawny mother, who, so soon as he finds talons beginning to grow from out his paws and a mane sprout from his neck and teeth arm his jaws, will have none of this inglorious food but burns to leave his cavern home and accompany his Gaetulian sire, to bring death upon the herds and steep him in the gore of some tall steer. But Theodosius said thee nay, and put the reins of government into thy hands, crowning thy head with the sacred diadem it wore so meetly. And so did thy virtue show in earliest years, so did thy soul out-range thy youth that all complained that to thee empire was granted late.
Swiftly beneath thy auspices was victory achieved. Both fought for us—thou with thy happy influence, thy father with his strong right arm. Thanks to thee the Alps lay open to our armies, nor did it avail the careful foe to cling to fortified posts. Their ramparts, and the trust they put therein, fell; the rocks were torn away and their hiding-places exposed. Thanks to thine influence the wind of the frozen North overwhelmed the enemy’s line with his mountain storms, hurled back their weapons upon the throwers and with the violence of his tempest drove back their spears. Verily God is with thee, when at thy behest Aeolus frees the armed tempests from his cave, when the very elements fight for thee and the allied winds come at the call of thy trumpets. The Alpine snows grew red with slaughter, the cold Frigidus, its waters turned to blood, ran hot and steaming, and would
have been choked with the heaps of corpses had not their own fast-flowing gore helped on its course.
Meanwhile Arbogast, the cause of this wicked war, had pierced his side deep not with a single blade: two swords[142] reeked with his blood, and his own hand, learning justice at last, had turned its savage fury against himself. Thus was liberty restored; but though Nature demanded the return to heaven of divine Theodosius whose work was now accomplished, though the sky threw open the golden palaces of its starry vault and Atlas staggered knowing the burden he was to bear, yet did the emperor forbear to entrust him to expectant Olympus until he could in thy presence hand over to thee a world at peace. Straightway didst thou, Honorius, leave the coasts of Thrace, and, braving the dangers of the journey, pass without a tremor through the hordes of barbarians. Thou leavest the rocks of Rhodope to which Orpheus’ lyre gave life; thou quittest the heights of Oeta, scene of Hercules’ ill-omened funeral pyre; next thou climbest Pelion, famed for the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. Fair Enipeus and lofty Dodona look upon thee in amaze, and the oaks of Chaonia, finding tongues once more, utter oracles in thine honour. Thou skirtest the extreme coasts of Illyria and, passing over Dalmatia’s fields, dost cross in turn the nine sources of Trojan Timavus.[143] The high-walled cities of Italy rejoice in the blessings of thy presence. Eridanus bows his head and worships, bidding his waves flow gently to the sea; and Phaëthon’s leafy sisters, that ever weep their brother’s death, check the flow of their dewy amber.
How many youths, how many matrons set modesty aside in eagerness to behold thee! Austere greybeards
[142] This is obscure. Zosimus (iv. 58. 6) and Socrates (v. 25) merely mention suicide, but from Claudian’s account it looks as though, like Nero, Arbogast’s courage had failed him and an attendant had had to help him to his death.
[143] The Fons Timavi (near Aquileia and the river Frigidus) is called Trojan from the story of the colonization of Venetia by the Trojan Antenor (Livy i. 1. 3).