Goe now fetch home fresh bayes, and pay new

Vowes

To thy dumbe capitoll gods! thy life, thy house,
And state are now secur’d: Sejanus lyes
l'th' lictors hands; ye gods! what hearts and eyes
Can one daye's fortune change ? the solemne crye
Of all the world is, Let Sejanus dye:
They never lov'd the man they sweare: they know
Nothing of all the matter, wben, or how,
By what accuser, for what cause or why,
By whose command or sentence he must dye :
But what needs this? the least pretence wil hit,
When princes feare, or hate a favourite.
A large epistle stuff?d with idle feare,
Vaine dreames, and jealousies, directed here
From Caprea does it; and thus ever dye
Subjects, when once they grow prodigious high."

'Tis well, I seeke no more; but tell me how
This tooke his friends ? no private murmurs now?
No teares? no solemne mourner seene ? must all
His glory perish in one funerall?
O still true Romans ! State-wit bids them praise
The moone by night; but court the warmer rayes
O'th' sun by day; they follow fortune still,
And hate or love discreetly, as their will

Cf. Dion. (58. 10) and Suetonius (Vit. Tib. 65.) G.

And the time leades them : This tumultuous fate
Puts all their painted favours out of date :
And yet this people that now spurne, and tread
This mighty favourite's once honour'd head,
Had but the Tuscaine goddesse, or his stars
Destin'd him for an empire, or had wars,
Treason, or policie, or some higher pow'r
Opprest secure Tyberius; that same houre
That he receiv'd the sad Gemonian doome,
Had crown'd him emp’ror of the world and Rome.
But Rome is now growne wise, and since that

she
Her suffrages, and ancient libertie,
Lost in a monarch's name : she takes no care
For favourite or prince; nor will she share
Their fickle glories, though in Cato's dayes
She rul'd whole States and armies with her voice:
Of all the honours now within her walls,
She only doats on playes and festivalls:
Nor is it strange ; for when these meteors fall,
They draw an ample ruine with them : all
Share in the storm ; each beame sets with the

sun,
And equall hazard friends and flatt'rers run.
This makes, that circled with distractive feare
The livelesse, pale Sejanus' limbes they teare,
And least the action might a witnesse need,

a

They bring their servants to confirme the deed ;
Nor is it done for any other end,
Then to avoid the title of his friend.
So fals ambitious man, and such are still
All floating States built on the people's will :
Hearken all you ! whom this bewitching lust
Of an houre's glory, and a little dust
Swels to such deare repentance ! you that can
Measure whole kingdoms with a thought or span
Would you be as Sejanus ? would you have
So you might sway as he did, such a grave ?
Would you be rich as he ? command, dispose,
All acts and offices ? all friends and foes ?
Be generalls of armies and colleague
Unto an emperour ? breake or make a league ?
No doubt you would; for both the good and bad
An equall itch of honour ever had :
But O what state can be so great or good,
As to be bought with so much shame aud bloud ?
Alas! Sejanus will too late confesse
'Twas only pride, and greatnes made him lesse :
For he that moreth with the lofty wind
Of Fortune, and Ambition, unconfin'd
In act or thought, doth but increase his height,
That he may loose it with more force and weight ;
Scorning a base, low ruine, as if he
Would of misfortune make a prodigie.

Tell mighty Pompey, Crassus, and 0 thou That mad’st Rome kneele to thy victorious brow, What but the weight of honours, and large fame After your worthy acts, and height of name, Destroy'd you in the end ? the envious Fates Easie to further your aspiring states, Us'd them to quell you too; pride, and excesse. In ev'ry act did make you thrive the lesse : Few kings are guiltie of gray haires, or dye Without a stab, a draught or trecherie : And yet to see him, that but yesterday Saw letters first, how he will scrape, and

pray ; And all his feast-time tyre Minerva's eares For fame, for eloquence, and store of yeares To thrive and live in; and then lest he doates, His boy assists him with his boxe and notes :: Foole that thou art ! not to discerne the ill These vows include; what, did Rom's consull

kill Her Cicero ?3 what, him whose very

dust

1 Julius Cæsar, who with M. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus, have been (incorrectly) called a triumvirate. G.

2 A little slave who carried a little box of books, paper, and pens. He was called capsarius from capsa' a round box for holding rolled books. G.

3 Cf. Florus, iv., 6, 5. G.

6

Greece celebrates as yet ; whose cause though just
Scarse banishment could end ; nor poyson save
His free-born person from a forraigne grave :)
All this from eloquence! both head and hand,
The tongue doth forfeit; pettie wits may stand
Secure from danger, but the nobler veine,
With losse of bloud the barre doth often staine.

CARMEN
O fortunatam natam me Consule Romam. > CICERONI-

O fortuna

ANUM

2

Had all been thus, thou might'st have scorn'd the

sword
Of fierce Antonius, here is not one word
Doth pinch ; I like such stuffe, 'tis safer far
Then thy Philippicks, or Pharsalia's war:
What sadder end then his, whom Athens saw
At once her patterne, oracle, and law ?3

1 Demosthenes. After the death of Alexander he used all his eloquence to rouse the Greek States against Antipater, and succeeded. But the Greek resistance was ineffectual, and rather than fall into the hands of Antipater Demosthenes poisoned himself. G.

? This verse occurred probably in a poem that Cicero wrote on his own times (Ad Fam. i. 9) or else in that on his consulship, from which there is a long extract in his book De Devinatione (i. 11). G.

3 Demosthenes again : but Juvenal exaggerates. G.