The Praise of Drusus
Like as the winged minister of thunder (to whom Jupiter, the sovereign
of the gods, has assigned the dominion over the fleeting birds, having
experienced his fidelity in the affair of the beauteous Ganymede), early
youth and hereditary vigor save impelled from his nest unknowing of
toil; and the vernal winds, the showers being now dispelled, taught him,
still timorous, unwonted enterprises: in a little while a violent
impulse dispatched him, as an enemy against the sheepfolds, now an
appetite for food and fight has impelled him upon the reluctant
serpents;--or as a she-goat, intent on rich pastures, has beheld a young
lion but just weaned from the udder of his tawny dam, ready to be
devoured by his newly-grown tooth: such did the Rhaeti and the Vindelici
behold Drusus carrying on the war under the Alps; whence this people
derived the custom, which has always prevailed among them, of arming
their right hands with the Amazonian ax, I have purposely omitted to
inquire: (neither is it possible to discover everything.) But those
troops, which had been for a long while and extensively victorious,
being subdued by the conduct of a youth, perceived what a disposition,
what a genius rightly educated under an auspicious roof, what the
fatherly affection of Augustus toward the young Neros, could effect. The
brave are generated by the brave and good; there is in steers, there is
in horses, the virtue of their sires; nor do the courageous eagles
procreate the unwarlike dove. But learning improves the innate force,
and good discipline confirms the mind: whenever morals are deficient,
vices disgrace what is naturally good. What thou owest, O Rome, to the
Neros, the river Metaurus is a witness, and the defeated Asdrubal, and
that day illustrious by the dispelling of darkness from Italy, and which
first smiled with benignant victory; when the terrible African rode
through the Latian cities, like a fire through the pitchy pines, or the
east wind through the Sicilian waves. After this the Roman youth
increased continually in successful exploits, and temples, laid waste by
the impious outrage of the Carthaginians, had the [statues of] their
gods set up again. And at length the perfidious Hannibal said; "We, like
stags, the prey of rapacious wolves, follow of our own accord those,
whom to deceive and escape is a signal triumph. That nation, which,
tossed in the Etrurian waves, bravely transported their gods, and sons,
and aged fathers, from the burned Troy to the Italian cities, like an
oak lopped by sturdy axes in Algidum abounding in dusky leaves, through
losses and through wounds derives strength and spirit from the very
steel. The Hydra did not with more vigor grow upon Hercules grieving to
be overcome, nor did the Colchians, or the Echionian Thebes, produce a
greater prodigy. Should you sink it in the depth, it will come out more
beautiful: should you contend with it, with great glory will it
overthrow the conqueror unhurt before, and will fight battles to be the
talk of wives. No longer can I send boasting messengers to Carthage: all
the hope and success of my name is fallen, is fallen by the death of
Asdrubal. There is nothing, but what the Claudian hands will perform;
which both Jupiter defends with his propitious divinity, and sagacious
precaution conducts through the sharp trials of war."
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