his troops, wearied by campaigning:[1] you administer [to him] moderate counsel, and graciously rejoice at it when administered. We are aware how he, who rules the inactive earth and the stormy main, the cities also, and the dreary realms [of hell], and alone governs with a righteous sway both gods and the human multitude, how he took off the impious Titans and the gigantic troop by his falling thunderbolts. That horrid youth, trusting to the strength of their arms, and the brethren proceeding to place Pelion upon shady Olympus, had brought great dread [even] upon Jove. But what could Typhoëus, and the strong Mimas, or what Porphyrion with his menacing statue; what Rhœtus, and Enceladus, a fierce darter with trees uptorn, avail, though rushing violently against the sounding shield of Pallas? At one part stood the eager Vulcan, at another the matron Juno, and he, who is never desirous to lay aside his bow from his shoulders, Apollo, the god of Delos and Patara, who bathes his flowing hair in the pure dew of Castalia, and possesses the groves of Lycia and his native wood. Force, void of conduct, falls by its own weight; moreover, the gods promote discreet force to further advantage; but the same beings detest forces, that meditate every kind of impiety. The hundred-handed Gyges is an evidence of the sentiments I allege: and Orion, the tempter of the spotless Diana, destroyed by a virgin dart. The earth, heaped over her own monsters, grieves and laments her offspring, sent to murky Hades by a thunderbolt; nor does the active fire consume Ætna that is placed over it, nor does the vulture desert the liver of incontinent Tityus, being stationed there as an avenger of his baseness; and three hundred chains confine the amorous Pirithoüs.
- ↑ It is a noble encomium of Augustus, that he was fatigued with conquest, which he was always willing to end by an honorable peace. Piso having happily terminated the Thracian war in 743, Augustus returned to Rome in the beginning of the year following, with Tiberius and Drusus, who had reduced the Germans, the Dacians, and other nations bordering upon the Danube. The empire being thus at peace, Augustus executed a decree of the senate to shut the temple of Janus. This naturally supposes the disbanding of the armies, of which Horace speaks. San.
