{"prudentius-contra-symmachum/1.1":{"o":"Paulus, praeco Dei, qui fera gentium\nPrimus corda sacro perdomuit stilo,\nChristum per populos, ritibus asperis\nImmanes, placido dogmate seminans,\nImmansueta suas ut caerimonias\nGens pagana Deo sperneret agnito;\nActus turbinibus forte nigerrimis\nHibernum pelagus iam rate debili,\nEt vim navifragi pertulerat Noti.\nSed cum caerulei proelia gurgitis\nIussisset Domini dextra quiescere,\nAd portum fluitans cumba relabitur,\nExponitque solo litoris uvidi\nContactos pluvio frigore remiges.\nTunc de litorei saepibus algidi\nArentum propere bracchia palmitum\nConvectant, rapidos unde focos struant:\nFascem quisque suum congerit ignibus,\nExspectans calidi luxuriam rogi.\nPaulus, dum fragiles cogere surculos\nEt densere foci congeriem studet,\nIncautam cumulis inseruit manum,\nTorpebat glacie pigra ubi vipera,\nSarmentis laqueos corporis implicans:\nQuae postquam intepuit fomite fumeo,\nLaxavitque ferox colla rigentia,\nIam flecti facilis, rettulit ad manum\nVibrato capite spicula dentium.\nHaerentem digiti vulnere mordicus\nPendentemque gerens Paulus inhorruit.","t":"Paul, the herald of God, who first tamed the savage hearts\nof the nations with his sacred pen,\nsowing Christ with gentle teaching among peoples\nmonstrous in their harsh rites,\nso that the pagan race might scorn its untamed ceremonies\nonce it knew God,\nhad chanced, driven by the blackest whirlwinds,\nto endure in a weak ship the wintry sea\nand the force of the ship-wrecking south wind.\nBut when the right hand of the Lord had commanded\nthe battles of the blue gulf to be still,\nthe boat, drifting, glides back into port\nand sets the rowers, struck by the rainy cold,\non the ground of the wet shore.\nThen from the hedges of the cold shore\nthey quickly gather arms of dry vine branches,\nfrom which to build quick fires:\neach heaps his bundle on the flames,\nwaiting for the luxury of a warm blaze.\nPaul, while he is busy gathering brittle twigs\nand thickening the heap of the fire,\nput his unwary hand into the piles,\nwhere a viper was numb with sluggish cold,\nentangling the coils of its body in the brushwood.\nWhen it had grown warm from the smoky kindling\nand, fierce, had loosened its stiff neck,\nnow easy to bend, it brought the darts of its teeth\nto his hand with a darting head.\nCarrying it hanging and clinging by its bite\nin the wound of his finger, Paul shuddered.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 1.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/1-1)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/1.31":{"o":"Exclamant alii, quod cute livida\nVirus mortiferum serpere crederent.\nAt non intrepidum terret Apostolum\nTristis iam subiti forma periculi:\nAttollens oculos, sidera suspicit,\nChristum sub tacito pectore murmurans,\nExcussumque procul decutit aspidem.\nAbiectus coluber verberat aera,\nAtque oris patuli solvit acumina.\nMox omnis sanies deserit et dolor,\nCeu nullo laceram vulnere, dexteram:\nSiccatusque perit vipereus liquor.\nHydrum praecipitem dum rotat impetus,\nArsurum mediis intulit ignibus.\nSic nunc post hiemem, vimque trucis freti,\nQuo iactata ratis tunc sapientiae est,\nCum sub sacricolis territa regibus\nVix panso poterat currere carbaso,\nAdflictosque suos turbine saeculi\nVectarat, rabidis fluctibus innatans,\nMorsum vulnificum lex pia pertulit.\nOccultabat enim se prius abditum\nVirus, nec gravidum protulerat caput,\nContentum involucris atque cubilibus\nSubter comprimere clausa silentia.\nSed, dum forte latens impietas riget,\nDextram iustitiae pigra momorderat,\nSuccensi stomacho fellis inaestuans.\nHeu, quam catholicam nil prope profuit\nPuppim nasse sacri remigio stili,","t":"Others cry out, because they believed that the deadly poison\nwas creeping under the livid skin.\nBut the grim form of sudden danger does not frighten\nthe fearless Apostle:\nraising his eyes, he looks up to the stars,\nmurmuring Christ in his silent breast,\nand shakes the asp off, flinging it far away.\nThe snake, thrown off, beats the air\nand loosens the points of its gaping mouth.\nSoon all the venom and pain leave his right hand,\nas though it were torn by no wound,\nand the viper’s fluid dries and perishes.\nWhile its momentum whirls the snake headlong,\nit carried it into the middle of the fire to burn.\nSo now, after the winter and the force of the fierce strait,\nin which the ship of wisdom was tossed then,\nwhen, terrified under kings who were idol-worshippers,\nit could scarcely run with its sail spread,\nand had carried its own, afflicted by the whirlwind of the world,\nswimming on the raging waves,\nthe holy law has suffered a wounding bite.\nFor the poison had previously hidden itself away,\nand had not put forth its swollen head,\ncontent to keep its silence shut up below\nin its coverings and lairs.\nBut while impiety, lurking, chanced to be numb,\nsluggish, it had bitten the right hand of justice,\nseething with the gall of its inflamed temper.\nAlas, how nearly it profited nothing that the Catholic\nship had sailed on with the oars of the sacred pen","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 1.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/1-31)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/1.61":{"o":"Quem Paulus variis gentibus edidit!\nVix portu placido tuta quieverat\nVictrix, edomitis mille furoribus:\nVix adstricta suis iam retinaculis\nVectores stabili condiderat solo,\nErumpit subito triste periculum.\nNam, dum praecalidos igniculos sibi\nSolvendis adolent et senio et gelu,\nDum virgas steriles, atque superfluas\nFlammis de fidei palmite concremant,\nNe concreta vagis vinea crinibus\nSilvosi inluviem gigneret idoli,\nPalpavit nimius perniciem tepor;\nSeps insueta subit serpere flexibus,\nEt vibrare sagax eloquii caput:\nSed dextra impatiens vulneris, inritos\nOris rhetorici depulit halitus:\nEffusum ingenii virus inaniter\nSumma Christicolis in cute substitit.\nSalvator generis Romulei, precor,\nQui cunctis veniam das pereuntibus,\nQui nullum statuis non operis tui\nMortalem, facili quem releves manu:\nHuius, si potis est, iam miserescito,\nPraeruptam in foveam praecipitis viri.\nSpirat sacrilegis flatibus inscius,\nErroresque suos indocilis fovet.\nObtestor, iubeas, ne citus impetus\nArsurum mediis inferat ignibus.","t":"which Paul gave to the various nations!\nScarcely had she rested safe and victorious in a calm harbor,\na thousand furies tamed;\nscarcely, now bound by her moorings,\nhad she set her passengers on firm ground,\nwhen a grim danger suddenly bursts out.\nFor while they kindle hot little fires for themselves,\nto loosen both age and cold,\nwhile they burn barren and superfluous rods\nfrom the vine of the faith in the flames,\nlest the vine, thick with straggling tendrils,\nshould produce the filth of an overgrown idol,\ntoo much warmth has stroked destruction into life:\na snake, unaccustomed, ventures to creep in its coils\nand to dart the shrewd head of eloquence.\nBut the right hand, impatient of a wound, drove off\nthe vain breath of the rhetorical mouth:\nthe poison of talent, poured out in vain,\nstopped at the surface of the skin of Christians.\nSavior of the race of Romulus, I pray,\nyou who give pardon to all who perish,\nwho count no mortal as not your work,\nwhom you may raise up with an easy hand:\nhave mercy now, if it is possible, on this man\nwho is falling headlong into a steep pit.\nHe breathes sacrilegious breaths without knowing it,\nand, unteachable, cherishes his errors.\nI implore you, command that no swift impulse\ncarry him into the middle of the fire to burn.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 1.61 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 61–89; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/1-61)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.1":{"o":"Credebam vitiis aegram gentilibus urbem\nNec quidquam restare mali, postquam medicina\nPrincipis immodicos sedarat in arce dolores.\nSed, quoniam renovata lues turbare salutem\nTemptat Romulidum, Patris imploranda medela est,\nNe sinat antiquo Romam squalere veterno,\nNeve togas procerum fumoque et sanguine tingui.\nInclitus ergo parens patriae, moderator et orbis,\nNil egit prohibendo, vagas ne pristinus error\nCrederet esse Deum nigrante sub aere formas?\nAut elementorum naturam, quae Patris ars est\nOmnigeni, summa pro maiestate sacraret?\nVir solus, cui cura fuit, ne publica morum\nPlaga cicatricem summa leviter cute clausam\nDuceret, et latebram tabentis vulneris alte\nImpressam, penitusque putri de pure peresam,\nSed studuit, quo pars hominis generosior intus\nViveret, atque animam letali peste piatam\nNosset ab interno tutam servare veneno.\nIlla tyrannorum fuerat medicina, videre,\nQui status ante oculos praesentibus ac perituris\nCompeteret rebus, nec curam adhibere futuris.\nHeu, male de populo meriti, male patribus ipsis\nBlanditi! quos praecipites in Tartara mergi\nCum Iove siverunt, multa et cum plebe deorum:\nAst hic imperium protendit latius aevo\nPosteriore, suis cupiens sancire salutem.\nNimirum pulchre quidam doctissimus: « Esset\nPublica res, inquit, tunc fortunata satis, si\nVel reges saperent, vel regnarent sapientes. »","t":"I believed that the city, sick with pagan vices, …\nand that no evil remained, after the medicine\nof the emperor had calmed the immoderate pains in the citadel.\nBut since a renewed plague tries to disturb the health\nof the sons of Romulus, the Father’s healing must be implored,\nso that he may not let Rome lie foul in her old lethargy,\nnor let the togas of the nobles be stained with smoke and blood.\nDid, then, the renowned father of his country, the ruler of the world,\nachieve nothing by forbidding the old error to believe\nthat shapes wandering in the dark air were gods,\nor to consecrate as the supreme majesty the nature of the elements,\nwhich are the craft of the Father of all?\nHe was the only man who took care that the public wound\nof morals should not draw a scar lightly closed on the surface\nof the skin, [leaving] a hiding place of a wasting wound,\ndeeply pressed in and eaten through with rotten pus,\nbut strove that the nobler part of man might live within,\nand that the soul, cleansed of the deadly plague,\nmight know how to keep itself safe from inner poison.\nThe medicine of the tyrants had been to see\nwhat state before their eyes suited present and perishing\nthings, and to give no thought to the future.\nAlas, they served the people ill, and flattered the fathers\nthemselves ill, letting them sink headlong into Tartarus\nwith Jupiter and with the great crowd of the gods;\nbut this one extends his empire more widely into\na later age, desiring to secure salvation for his own.\nNo doubt a certain very learned man said finely: “The state,”\nhe says, “would be fortunate enough\nif either kings were wise, or the wise were kings.”","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-1)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.121":{"o":"Diffluit in luxum cum semiviro comitatu,\nAtque avidus vini multo se proluit haustu,\nGemmantis paterae spumis, mustoque Falerno\nPerfundens biiugum rorantia terga ferarum.\nHis nunc pro meritis Baccho caper omnibus aris\nCaeditur, et virides discindunt ore chelydros\nQui Bromium placare volunt; quod et ebria iam tunc\nAnte oculos regis Satyrorum insania fecit:\nEt fecisse reor stimulis furialibus ipsas\nMaenadas, inflammante mero in scelus omne rotatas.\nHoc circumsaltante choro, temulentus adulter\nInvenit expositum secreti in litoris acta\nCorporis egregii scortum, quod perfidus illic\nLiquerat, incesto iuvenis satiatus amore.\nHanc iubet adsumptam, fervens post vina, Neaeram\nSecum in deliciis fluitantis stare triumphi,\nRegalemque decus capitis gestare coronam.\nMox Ariadnaeus stellis caelestibus ignis\nAdditur: hoc pretium noctis persolvit honore\nLiber, ut aetherium meretrix inluminet axem.\nTantum posse omnes illo sub tempore reges\nIndocilis fatui ducebat ineptia vulgi,\nUt transire suis cum sordibus induperator\nPosset in aeternum caeli super ardua regnum.\nRegia tunc omnis vim maiestatis, et omnis,\nParva licet, caeli imperium retinere potestas\nCredita: ture etiam ducibus, parvoque sacello\nImpertitus honos: quem dum metus, aut amor, aut spes\nAccumulant, longum miseris processit in aevum\nMos patrius. Coepit falsae pietatis imago","t":"dissolves into luxury with his half-man retinue,\nand, greedy for wine, drenches himself with many a draught,\nwith the foam of the jeweled bowl, and pours new Falernian\nover the dripping backs of the yoked beasts.\nFor these merits a goat is now slaughtered to Bacchus on every altar,\nand those who wish to appease Bromius tear green\nsnakes with their mouths; which the drunken madness of the Satyrs\ndid even then before the king’s eyes,\nand I think the Maenads themselves did it, goaded\nby furious frenzy, whirled into every crime by inflaming wine.\nWhile this chorus danced around him, the drunken adulterer\nfound on the beach of a lonely shore a harlot\nof outstanding body, cast away, whom a faithless youth\nhad left there, sated with an unchaste love.\nHe bids this courtesan be taken up, hot after his wine,\nand stand with him amid the delights of his loose triumph,\nand wear a royal crown as the ornament of her head.\nSoon Ariadne’s fire is added to the stars of heaven:\nLiber paid the price of the night with this honor,\nthat a harlot should light up the heavenly sky.\nThe stupidity of the unteachable, foolish crowd believed\nthat all kings at that time had such power\nthat a commander could pass, with his filth,\nabove the heights of heaven into an everlasting kingdom.\nThen every royal power was believed to hold the force\nof majesty, and every authority, however small,\nthe empire of heaven: honor was given to leaders\nwith incense too and a little shrine; and while fear or love or hope\nheaped it up, the ancestral custom went on\nfor a long age among the wretched. The image of a false piety began","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.121 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 121–150; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-121)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.151":{"o":"Ire per ignaros nebuloso errore nepotes:\nTum quia, quae vivis veneratio regibus ante\nContigerat, functis eadem iam munere lucis\nCessit, et ad nigras altaria transtulit urnas.\nInde puellarum ludibria, pignora partus,\nEt furtivus amor iuvenum, et deprensa iugalis\nCorruptela tori: quoniam regalibus aula\nFervere tunc vitiis solita est, nec perdita luxu\nDivorum suboles sancti meminisse pudoris.\nAtque ut, Roma, tuos caelesti ex sede parentes,\nQuis te semideam iactant auctoribus ortam,\nPraestringam breviter, Gradivum vel Cytherean:\nIlle sacerdotem violat: contra illa marito\nSuccumbit Phrygio. Coitus fuit impar utrique.\nNec terrestre deam decuit mortalis obire\nConiugium, nec caelicolam descendere ephebum\nVirginis ad vitium, furtivoque igne calere.\nSed Venus augusto de sanguine femina, vili\nPrivatoque viro vetitum per dedecus haesit.\nEt, si Rhea sacram lascivi Martis amore\nLusa pudicitiam fluviali amisit in ulva,\nCrediderim generosae aliquem stirpis, sed eundem\nMoribus infamem, compressa virgine per vim,\nSe dixisse deum, ne stuprum numinis ullus\nObicere auderet turpi miseraeque puellae.\nHaec Italos induxit avos vel fama, vel error,\nMartia Romuleo celebrarent ut sacra Campo;\nUtque Palatinis Capitolia condita saxis\nSignarent titulo proavi Iovis, atque Pelasgae\nPalladis, et Libyca Iunonem ex arce vocarent;","t":"to pass among ignorant descendants in a cloudy error,\nthen, because the veneration that had formerly fallen to kings\nwhile they lived passed to them when their days were done,\nand transferred the altars to the black urns.\nHence came the deceptions of girls, the offspring of childbirth,\nthe furtive love of youths, and the detected corruption\nof the marriage bed: for the royal court was then\naccustomed to seethe with vices, and the offspring of the gods,\nlost in luxury, did not remember holy modesty.\nAnd, Rome, to touch briefly on your parents from the heavenly seat,\nthe authors from whom they boast you were born a demigoddess,\nGradivus or Cytherea:\nhe violates a priestess; she, on the other hand, yields\nto a Phrygian husband. The union was unequal for both.\nIt did not befit a goddess to enter on an earthly marriage\nwith a mortal, nor a heavenly youth to descend\nto the violation of a virgin and burn with a stealthy fire.\nBut Venus, a woman of noble blood, clung to a cheap\nprivate man through a forbidden disgrace.\nAnd if Rhea, deceived by the love of lascivious Mars,\nlost her sacred chastity in the river sedge,\nI would believe that someone of noble stock, but infamous\nin his morals, having violated the virgin by force,\nsaid he was a god, so that no one should dare to reproach\nthe shameful and wretched girl with the rape of a deity.\nThis rumor or this error led the Italian forefathers\nto celebrate the rites of Mars on the Campus of Romulus,\nand to mark the Capitol, founded on the Palatine rocks,\nwith the title of their ancestor Jupiter and of Pelasgian\nPallas, and to call Juno from her Libyan citadel;","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.151 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 151–180; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-151)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.181":{"o":"Cognatos de Marte deos, Veneris quoque nudum\nAccirent proceres Erycino e vertice signum:\nUtque deum mater Phrygia veheretur ab Ida,\nBacchica de viridi peterentur ut orgia Naxo:\nFacta est terrigenae domus unica maiestatis,\nEt tot templa deum Romae, quot in urbe sepulcra\nHeroum numerare licet; quos fabula Manes\nNobilitat, noster populus veneratus adorat.\nHos habuere deos Ancus, Numitor, Numa, Tullus:\nTalia Pergameas fugerunt numina flammas.\nSic Vesta est, sic Palladium, sic umbra Penatum;\nTalis et antiquum servavit terror asylum.\nUt semel obsedit gentilia pectora patrum\nVana superstitio, non interrupta cucurrit\nAetatum per mille gradus. Tener horruit heres,\nEt coluit, quidquid sibimet venerabile cani\nMonstrarant atavi. Puerorum infantia primo\nErrorem cum lacte bibit: gustaverat inter\nVagitus de farre molae: saxa inlita ceris\nViderat, unguentoque lares umescere nigros.\nFormatum Fortunae habitum cum divite cornu,\nSacratumque domi lapidem consistere parvus\nSpectarat, matremque illic pallere precantem.\nMox umeris positus nutricis, trivit et ipse\nImpressis silicem labris, puerilia vota\nFudit, opesque sibi caesa de rupe poposcit:\nPersuasumque habuit, quod quis velit, inde petendum.\nNumquam oculos animumque levans rationis ad arcem\nRettulit; insulsum tenuit sed credulus usum,\nPrivatos celebrans agnorum sanguine divos.","t":"and that the nobles should summon gods akin to Mars, and the naked\nstatue of Venus from the summit of Eryx;\nand that the mother of the gods should be brought from Phrygian Ida,\nand the Bacchic orgies sought from green Naxos.\nRome became the one home of earth-born majesty,\nand there are as many temples of the gods in Rome as one may count\ntombs of heroes in the city; the shades whom legend\nennobles, our people venerates and adores.\nThese were the gods that Ancus, Numitor, Numa, and Tullus had;\nsuch were the divinities that fled the flames of Pergamum.\nSo it is with Vesta, the Palladium, the shade of the Penates;\nand such a terror guarded the ancient asylum.\nOnce vain superstition had besieged the pagan hearts\nof the fathers, it ran on uninterrupted\nthrough a thousand steps of the ages. The tender heir shuddered\nand worshipped whatever his gray-haired ancestors had shown him\nas venerable. The infancy of boys drank in error\nwith their milk at first: amid its wailing\nit had tasted the sacrificial meal; it had seen stones\nsmeared with wax and the black household gods dripping with ointment.\nAs a little child he had seen a figure of Fortune\nwith her rich horn and a consecrated stone standing in the house,\nand his mother turning pale there in prayer.\nSoon, set on his nurse’s shoulders, he too wore down\nthe flint with pressed lips, poured out childish vows,\nand asked wealth for himself from a hewn rock,\nand was persuaded that whatever one wished must be sought from there.\nNever did he lift his eyes and mind and bring them back\nto the citadel of reason, but credulously kept a senseless custom,\nhonoring private gods with the blood of lambs.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.181 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 181–210; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-181)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.211":{"o":"Iamque domo egrediens, ut publica festa diesque\nEt ludos stupuit, celsa et Capitolia vidit,\nLaurigerosque deum templis adstare ministros,\nAc Sacram resonare Viam mugitibus, ante\nDelubrum Romae (colitur nam sanguine et ipsa\nMore deae, nomenque loci ceu numen habetur;\nAtque Urbis Venerisque pari se culmine tollunt\nTempla: simul geminis adolentur tura deabus),\nVera ratus, quaecumque fiant auctore senatu,\nContulit ad simulacra fidem, dominosque putavit\nAetheris, horrifico qui stant ex ordine vultu.\nIllic Alcides, spoliatis Gadibus hospes\nArcadiae, fulvo aere riget: gemini quoque fratres,\nCorrupta de matre nothi, Ledeia proles,\nNocturnique equites, celsae duo numina Romae\nImpendent, retinente veru, magnique triumphi\nNuntia suffuso figunt vestigia plumbo.\nAdsistunt etiam priscorum insignia regum,\nTros, Italus, Ianusque bifrons, genitorque Sabinus,\nSaturnusque senex, maculoso et corpore Picus,\nConiugis epotum sparsus per membra venenum.\nOmnibus ante pedes posita est sua cuique sordens\nArula. Iano etiam celebri de mense litatur\nAuspiciis epulisque sacris, quas inveterato,\nHeu miseri, sub honore agitant, et gaudia ducunt\nFesta Kalendarum. Sic observatio crevit,\nEx atavis quondam male coepta: deinde secutis\nTradita temporibus, serisque nepotibus aucta,\nTraxerunt longam corda inconsulta catenam,\nMosque tenebrosus vitiosa in saecula fluxit.","t":"And now, going out from home, when he marveled at the public festivals,\nthe holidays and the games, and saw the lofty Capitol,\nthe laurel-crowned ministers standing at the temples of the gods,\nand the Sacred Way resounding with lowing [of victims] before\nthe shrine of Rome (for she too is worshipped with blood\nlike a goddess, and the name of the place is held as a deity,\nand the temples of the City and of Venus rise with equal roofs,\nand incense is burned to the twin goddesses together),\nthinking true whatever is done on the senate’s authority,\nhe gave his faith to the images, and thought them lords\nof heaven who stand in a row with dreadful faces.\nThere Alcides, the guest of Arcadia after he had plundered Gades,\nstands stiff in tawny bronze; the twin brothers too,\nbastards of a seduced mother, the offspring of Leda,\nthe riders by night, two divinities of lofty Rome,\nhang over it, a spit holding them, and plant the footprints\nthat announced a great triumph in poured lead.\nThere stand also the effigies of the ancient kings:\nTros, Italus, two-faced Janus, father Sabinus,\nold Saturn, and Picus with spotted body,\nsprinkled through his limbs with the poison his wife made him drink.\nBefore the feet of each is set his own foul\nlittle altar. To Janus too sacrifice is made in his famous month\nwith auspices and sacred banquets, which, alas, the wretches\nkeep under an inveterate honor, and they spend the festive joys\nof the Kalends. So the observance grew,\nbadly begun once by the ancestors; then, handed down\nto the following times and increased by later descendants,\nthoughtless hearts drew a long chain,\nand a dark custom flowed on into vicious ages.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.211 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 211–240; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-211)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.241":{"o":"Hunc morem veterum docili iam aetate secuta\nPosteritas mense, atque adytis, et flamine, et aris\nAugustum coluit, vitulo placavit et agno,\nStrata ad pulvinar iacuit, responsa poposcit.\nTestantur tituli, produnt consulta senatus,\nCaesareum Iovis ad speciem statuentia templum.\nAdiecere sacrum, fieret quo Livia Iuno,\nNon minus infamis thalami sortita cubile,\nQuam cum fraterno caluit Saturnia lecto.\nNondum maternam partu vacuaverat alvum,\nConceptamque viri sobolem paritura gerebat\nPronuba: iam gravidae fulcrum geniale paratur;\nIam sponsus, saliente utero nubentis, amicos\nAdvocat, haud sterilem certus fore iam sibi pactam.\nVitricus antevenit tardum praefervidus ortum\nPrivigni nondum geniti: mox editur inter\nFescennina novo proles aliena marito.\nIdque deum sortes, id Apollinis antra dederunt\nConsilium: numquam melius nam cedere taedas\nResponsum est, quam cum praegnans nova nupta iugatur.\nHanc tibi, Roma, deam, titulis et honore sacratam\nPerpetuo, Floras inter Veneresque creasti.\nNec mirum; quis enim sapiens dubitaverit, illas\nMortali de stirpe satas vixisse, et easdem\nLaude venustatis claras, in amoribus, usque\nAd famae excidium, formae nituisse decore?\nQuid loquar Antinoum caelesti in sede locatum?\nIllum delicias nunc divi principis, illum\nPurpureo in gremio spoliatum sorte virili,\nHadrianique dei Ganymedem, non cyathos dis","t":"Following this custom of the ancients, posterity, at an age\nnow teachable, worshipped Augustus with a month, shrines,\na flamen, and altars, appeased him with calf and lamb,\nlay prostrate before his couch, and asked for oracles.\nInscriptions bear witness and decrees of the senate reveal it,\nsetting up a temple to Caesar in the likeness of Jupiter.\nThey added a rite by which Livia should become Juno,\nshe who had obtained the couch of a marriage no less infamous\nthan when Saturn’s daughter burned in her brother’s bed.\nShe had not yet emptied her womb in childbirth,\nbut was carrying, near to giving birth, the child conceived by her [former] husband,\nwhen the bride’s matron [led her]; already the marriage couch is prepared for the pregnant woman;\nalready the bridegroom, while the bride’s womb leaps, calls\nhis friends, now sure that his betrothed will not be barren.\nThe stepfather, too hot to wait, forestalls the slow birth\nof a stepson not yet born; soon, amid\nthe wedding songs, another man’s offspring is born to the new husband.\nAnd the lots of the gods and the caves of Apollo gave\nthis counsel: for the answer was that the torches never\ngo better than when a pregnant new bride is joined.\nThis goddess, Rome, consecrated with titles and perpetual\nhonor, you created among your Floras and Venuses.\nNo wonder; for what wise man would doubt that those goddesses\nwere born of mortal stock and lived, and that they too,\nfamous for the praise of their charm, shone with the beauty\nof their form in love affairs, even to the ruin of their reputation?\nWhy should I speak of Antinous, set in a heavenly seat,\nthat one, now the darling of the divine emperor, that one,\nrobbed of his manhood in a purple lap,\nthe Ganymede of the god Hadrian, who [does not pour] cups for the gods,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.241 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 241–270; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-241)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.271":{"o":"Porgere, sed medio recubantem cum Iove fulcro\nNectaris ambrosii sacrum potare Lyaeum,\nCumque suo in templis vota exaudire marito?\nErgo his auspicibus Traianus, Nerva, Severus,\nEt Titus, et fortes gesserunt bella Nerones?\nQuos terrena viros inlustres gloria fecit,\nEt virtus fragilis provexit in ardua famae,\nAdscita terris sub religione iacentes.\nQuam pudet, hoc illis persuasum, talibus ut se,\nRomanasque acies censerent Martis amore\nPosse regi, dum se Paphiae male blandus adulter\nVenditat, Aeneadasque suos successibus auget!\nFelices, si cuncta Deo sua prospera Christo\nPrincipe disposita scissent! qui currere regna\nCertis ducta modis, Romanorumque triumphos\nCrescere, et impletis voluit se infundere saeclis.\nSed caligantes animas et luce carentes,\nIn Iovis Augustique adytis, templisque duarum\nIunonum, Martisque etiam Venerisque sacellis\nMactatas, taetro leti immersere barathro,\nSupremum regimen crassis in partibus orbis\nEsse rati, mersoque poli consistere fundo.\nQuidquid humus, quidquid pelagus mirabile gignunt,\nId duxere deos: colles, freta, flumina, flammas.\nHaec sibi per varias formata elementa figuras\nConstituere patres, hominumque vocabula mutis\nScripserunt statuis, vel Neptunum vocitantes\nOceanum, vel cyaneas cava flumina Nymphas,\nVel silvas Dryadas, vel devia rura Napaeas.\nIpse ignis, nostrum factus qui servit ad usum,","t":"hold out to the gods, but, reclining with Jupiter in the middle of the couch,\ndrinks the sacred wine of ambrosial nectar\nand hears prayers in the temples with her husband?\nWas it then under these patrons that Trajan, Nerva, Severus,\nTitus, and the brave Neros waged their wars?\nmen whom earthly glory made illustrious\nand frail virtue carried up to the heights of fame,\nlying on earth under an adopted religion.\nHow shameful that they were persuaded that they\nand the Roman armies could be ruled by such beings,\nby the love of Mars, while the ill-flattering adulterer of the Paphian\nsells himself and increases his descendants of Aeneas with successes!\nHappy they, had they known that all their prosperity was arranged\nby God, with Christ as Ruler, who willed that kingdoms should run\nguided in fixed ways, and the triumphs of the Romans\nshould grow, and that he should pour himself into the fulfilled ages.\nBut they plunged into the foul abyss of death\ntheir darkened souls, lacking light, slaughtered\nin the shrines of Jupiter and Augustus, in the temples of the two\nJunos, and in the chapels of Mars and Venus too,\nthinking that the supreme rule was in the gross parts\nof the world and was located at the sunken bottom of the universe.\nWhatever wonderful thing the earth or the sea brings forth,\nthat they took for gods: hills, straits, rivers, flames.\nThese elements, formed into various figures, our fathers\nset up for themselves, and wrote the names of men\non dumb statues, calling the Ocean Neptune,\nor the hollow rivers blue Nymphs,\nor the forests Dryads, or the out-of-the-way countryside Napaeae.\nFire itself, made to serve our use,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.271 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 271–300; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-271)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.301":{"o":"Vulcanus perhibetur, et in virtute superna\nFingitur, ac delubra, deus et nomine et ore\nAdsimilatus, habet: nec non regnare caminis\nFertur, et Aeoliae summus faber esse vel Aetnae.\nEst, qui conspicuis superos quaesivit in astris,\nAusus habere deum Solem; cui tramite certo\nCondicio imposita est, vigilem tolerare laborem,\nVisibus obiectum mortalibus, orbe rotundo\nPraecipitem, teretique globo per inane volantem;\nEt, quod nemo negat, mundo caeloque minorem.\nArea maior enim, quam qui percurrit in illa:\nEt longe campi spatium diffusius, in quo\nEmicat, ac volucri fervens rota volvitur axe.\nQuamvis nonnullis placeat, terram breviorem\nDicere circuitu, quam sit pulcherrimus ille\nCirculus, et flammas immensi sideris, ultra\nTelluris normam, porrecto extendere gyro.\nNumne etiam caeli minor et contractior orbis,\nCuius planitiem longo transmittere tractu\nCircinus excurrens meta interiore laborat?\nIlle Deus verus, quo non est grandior ulla\nMateries, qui fine caret, qui praesidet omni\nNaturae, qui cuncta simul concludit et implet.\nSolem certa tenet regio, plaga certa coercet,\nTemporibus variis distinguitur: aut subit ortu,\nAut ruit occasu, latet aut sub nocte recurrens:\nNec torquere facem potis est ad signa Trionum,\nOrbe nec obliquo portas Aquilonis adire,\nNec solitum conversus iter revocare retrorsum.\nHic erit ergo Deus, praescriptis lege sub una","t":"is called Vulcan, imagined as a heavenly power,\nand has shrines, made like a god in name and face;\nand he is said to reign over furnaces too,\nand to be the supreme smith of Aeolia or of Etna.\nThere is one who sought the gods in the visible stars,\ndaring to hold the Sun as god, on whom a condition\nhas been imposed to bear a sleepless labor on a fixed path,\nset before mortal sight, rushing headlong in its round orbit\nand flying through the void as a smooth globe,\nand, as no one denies, smaller than the world and the heaven.\nFor the space is greater than he who runs through it,\nand the expanse of the field in which he shines out\nand the burning wheel rolls on its swift axle is far wider.\nAlthough some like to say that the earth is shorter\nin circuit than that most beautiful circle,\nand that the flames of the immense star stretch\nbeyond the measure of the earth in an extended ring,\nis the orb of heaven also smaller and more contracted,\nwhose plane the compass, running out with a long sweep,\nlabors to cross with an inner limit?\nThat is the true God, than whom no matter is\ngreater, who has no end, who presides over all\nnature, who at once encloses and fills all things.\nA fixed region holds the sun, a fixed tract confines him;\nhe is marked by various times: he either comes up at rising,\nor rushes down at setting, or lies hidden, running back under the night;\nhe cannot turn his torch toward the signs of the Bears,\nnor approach the gates of the north wind in a slanting orbit,\nnor turn round and call back his accustomed path.\nWill this, then, be God, who, under one law,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.301 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 301–330; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-301)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.31":{"o":"Estne ille e numero paucorum, qui diadema\nSortiti, aetheriae coluerunt dogma sophiae?\nContigit ecce hominum generi, gentique togatae\nDux sapiens: felix nostrae res publica Romae\nSceptra gubernanti: monet, ut deterrimus error,\nUtque superstitio veterum procul absit avorum,\nNec putet esse Deum, nisi qui super omnia summus\nEmineat, magnique immensa creaverit orbis.\nNum melius Saturnus avos rexisse Latinos\nCreditur? edictis qui talibus informavit\nAgrestes animos, et barbara corda virorum:\n« Sum deus: advenio fugiens; praebete latebras,\nOccultate senem, nati feritate tyranni\nDeiectum solio. Placet hic fugitivus et exsul\nUt lateam: genti atque loco Latium dabo nomen.\nVitibus incurvum, si qua est ea cura, putandis\nProcudam chalybem, nec non et moenia vestri\nFluminis in ripa statuam Saturnia vobis.\nVos nemus adpositasque meo sub honore sacrantes,\n(Sum quianam Caelo genitus) celebrabitis aras. »\nInde deos, quorum patriae spectata sepulcra\nScimus, in aere hebetes informavere minores:\nAdvena quos profugus gignens, et equina libido\nIntulit Italiae; Tuscis namque ille puellis\nPrimus adhinnivit simulato numine moechus.\nMox patre deterior silvosi habitator Olympi\nNunc bove subvectam rapiens ad crimen amatam,\nNunc tener ac pluma levior, blandosque susurros\nIn mortem recinens suave immorientis oloris,\nCapta quibus volucrem virguncula ferret amorem;","t":"Is he not one of the few who, having obtained the diadem,\nhave cultivated the teaching of heavenly wisdom?\nSee, a wise leader has fallen to the lot of the human race\nand to the toga-wearing nation: happy is the commonwealth of our Rome\n… [obey] him who governs the sceptre: he warns that the worst error\nand the superstition of our ancient ancestors be far away,\nand that no one think anyone God except him who stands out\nsupreme above all and created the immensity of the great world.\nIs Saturn believed to have ruled the Latin forefathers better?\nwho instructed their rustic minds and the barbarous\nhearts of men with edicts such as these:\n“I am a god; I come as a fugitive; give me hiding places,\nhide an old man cast down from his throne\nby the savagery of his tyrant son. I am pleased to lie hidden here\nas a fugitive and exile: I will give the nation and the place the name Latium.\nFor pruning vines, if you have that care,\nI will forge curved steel, and I will also set up\nthe walls of Saturnia for you on your river’s bank.\nYou will consecrate a grove and celebrate altars set up\nin my honor (for I am, you see, begotten of Heaven).”\nFrom then, later dull generations shaped in bronze gods\nwhose tombs, seen in their own countries, we know;\nwhom that fugitive stranger begot, and whom horse-like lust\nbrought into Italy; for he was the first adulterer\nto neigh after Tuscan girls under a feigned godhead.\nSoon, worse than his father, the dweller on wooded Olympus …,\nnow carrying off his beloved on a bull’s back for crime,\nnow tender and lighter than a feather, singing sweet whispers\nlike a swan dying a pleasant death,\nby which the captured girl might bear the winged lover;","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-31)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.331":{"o":"Deditus officiis? Libertas laxior ipsi\nConcessa est homini: formam cui flectere vitae\nAtque voluntatis licitum est, seu tramite dextro\nScandere, seu laevo malit decurrere campo,\nSumere seu requiem, seu continuare laborem,\nSeu parere Deo, sive in contraria verti.\nIsta ministranti regimen sollemne dierum\nHaudquaquam Soli datur a factore potestas:\nSed famulus subiectus agit quodcumque necesse est.\nHoc sidus currum, rapidasque agitare quadrigas\nCommenti, et radios capitis, et verbera dextrae,\nEt frenos, phalerasque et equorum pectora anhela\nAeris inaurati, vel marmoris, aut orichalci,\nIusserunt nitido fulgere polita metallo.\nPost trabeas, et eburnam aquilam, sellamque curulem,\nCernuat ora senex barbatus, et oscula figit\nCruribus aenipedum, si fas est credere, equorum\nImmotasque rotas, et flecti nescia lora\nAut ornat redimita rosis, aut ture vaporat.\nHaec tamen utcumque est tolerabile. Quid quod et ipsae\nDant tibi, Roma, deos inferni gurgitis umbrae?\nEumenidum domina Stygio caput exserit antro,\nRapta ad Tartarei thalamum Proserpina regis;\nEt, si quando suos dignatur adire Quirites,\nPlacatur vaccae sterilis cervice resecta,\nEt regnare simul caeloque Ereboque putatur:\nNunc bigas frenare boves, nunc saeva Sororum\nAgmina vipereo superis immittere flagro,\nNunc etiam volucres caprearum in terga sagittas\nSpargere, terque suas eadem variare figuras.","t":"is given over to prescribed duties? A wider freedom\nhas been granted to man himself: he is allowed to bend the form\nof his life and will, whether he prefers to climb\nby the right-hand path or run down the left-hand plain,\nto take rest or to continue his labor,\nto obey God or to turn to the contrary.\nSuch power is by no means given by the Maker\nto the Sun, who ministers the solemn rule of the days,\nbut as a subject servant he does whatever is necessary.\nThey imagined that this star drives a chariot and swift four-horse team,\nand ordered the rays of his head, the whip of his right hand,\nthe reins, the trappings, and the panting breasts of the horses\nto shine, polished, in gleaming metal\nof gilded bronze, or marble, or brass.\nAfter the robes of state, the ivory eagle, and the curule chair,\na bearded old man bows his face and fixes kisses\non the legs of bronze-footed horses, if it is right to believe it,\nand either adorns the motionless wheels and the reins that cannot bend\nwith wreaths of roses or fumigates them with incense.\nYet this is somehow tolerable. What of this, that even\nthe shades of the infernal gulf give you gods, Rome?\nThe mistress of the Furies thrusts her head out of the Stygian cave,\nProserpina, snatched away to the bridal chamber of the king of Tartarus;\nand if ever she deigns to visit her Quirites,\nshe is appeased by the severed neck of a barren cow,\nand she is thought to reign in heaven and in Erebus at once:\nnow to rein a two-horse chariot of oxen, now to send\nthe savage ranks of her Sisters against those above with a viper whip,\nnow also to scatter flying arrows on the backs of roe deer,\nand the same goddess to vary her form threefold.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.331 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 331–360; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-331)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.361":{"o":"Denique cum Luna est, sublustri splendet amictu:\nCum succincta iacit calamos, Latonia virgo est,\nCum subnixa sedet solio, Plutonia coniunx\nImperitat Furiis, et dictat iura Megaerae.\nSi verum quaeris; Triviae sub nomine daemon\nTartareus colitur, qui te modo raptat ad aethram,\nSidereoque deum venerandum suadet in astro:\nPer silvas modo mortiferi discurrere mundi,\nErroresque sequi subigit, nemorumque putare\nEsse deam, quae corda hominum pavitantia figat,\nQuaeque feras perimat letali vulnere mentes:\nDepressos modo subter humum formidine sensus\nObruit, implorent ut numina lucis egena,\nSeque potestati committant noctis opertae.\nRespice terrifici scelerata sacraria Ditis,\nCui cadit infausta fusus gladiator harena,\nHeu male lustratae Phlegethontia victima Romae!\nNam quid vesani sibi vult ars impia ludi?\nQuid mortes iuvenum? quid sanguine pasta voluptas?\nQuid pulvis caveae semper funebris, et illa\nAmphitheatralis spectacula tristia pompae?\nNempe Charon iugulis miserorum se duce dignas\nAccipit inferias, placatus crimine sacro.\nHae sunt deliciae Iovis infernalis: in istis\nArbiter obscuri placidus requiescit Averni.\nNonne pudet regem populum sceptrisque potentem\nTalia pro patriae censere litanda salute?\nReligionis opem subternis poscere ab antris?\nEvocat, heu! poenis tenebrosa ex sede ministrum\nInteritus, speciosa hominum cui funera solvat.","t":"In short, when she is the Moon, she shines in a dim robe;\nwhen, girt up, she shoots arrows, she is Latona’s virgin daughter;\nwhen she sits enthroned, she is Pluto’s wife,\ncommands the Furies, and dictates laws to Megaera.\nIf you seek the truth, under the name of Trivia a demon\nof Tartarus is worshipped, who now snatches you up to the sky\nand persuades you that a god must be venerated in a starry body;\nnow forces you to run about through the woods of a deadly world\nand to follow errors, and to think that there is a goddess\nof the groves, who pierces the trembling hearts of men,\nand destroys wild minds with deadly wound;\nnow overwhelms your senses, pressed down below the earth\nwith fear, so that they implore powers without light\nand commit themselves to the power of covered night.\nLook at the wicked sanctuaries of terrifying Dis,\nfor whom the gladiator falls, laid low on the ill-omened sand,\nalas, a victim for Phlegethon from an ill-purified Rome!\nFor what does the impious art of the mad game mean?\nWhat do the deaths of young men mean? What the pleasure fed on blood?\nWhat the ever-funereal dust of the arena, and those grim\nspectacles of the amphitheatre’s show?\nCharon, of course, receives from the throats of the wretched\nofferings worthy of himself as leader, appeased by a sacred crime.\nThese are the delights of the infernal Jupiter; in these\nthe ruler of dark Avernus rests content.\nIs it not shameful that a royal people, powerful with sceptres,\nshould judge that such sacrifices must be offered for the safety of the fatherland,\nand should seek the aid of religion from caves beneath the earth?\nAlas, it calls up from his dark seat the minister of destruction,\nto pay him splendid human deaths as penalties.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.361 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 361–390; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-361)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.391":{"o":"Incassum arguere iam Taurica sacra solemus:\nFunditur humanus Latiari in munere sanguis,\nConsessusque ille spectantum solvit ad aram\nPlutonis fera vota sui. Quid sanctius ara,\nQuae bibit egestum per mystica tela cruorem?\nAnne fides dubia est tibi, sub caligine caeca\nEsse deum, quem tu tacitis rimeris in umbris?\nEcce, deos Manes cur infitiaris haberi?\nIpsa patrum monumenta probant: Dis Manibus illic\nMarmora secta lego, quaecumque Latina vetustos\nCustodit cineres, densisque Salaria bustis.\nDic, quibus hunc scribis titulum: nisi quod trucis Orci\nImperium, verae ceu maiestatis, adoras?\nEn, quibus implicita squalebat regia summi\nImperii, tractis maiorum ab origine sacris!\nCum princeps, gemini bis victor caede tyranni,\nPulchra triumphali respexit moenia vultu,\nNubibus obsessam nigrantibus adspicit urbem,\nNoctis obumbratae caligine: turbidus aer\nArcebat liquidum septena ex arce serenum.\nIngemuit miserans, et sic ait: « Exue tristes,\nFida parens, habitus; equidem praedivite cultu\nInlustrata cluis, spoliisque insigne superbis\nAttollis caput, et multo circumfluis auro:\nSed nebulis propter volitantibus obsitus alti\nVerticis horret apex: ipsas quoque livida gemmas\nLux hebetat, spissusque dies, et fumus ab ara\nSuffusus rutilum frontis diadema retundit.\nObscuras video tibi circumferrier umbras,\nCaeruleasque animas, atque idola nigra volare.","t":"We are used to censuring the Tauric rites in vain:\nhuman blood is poured out in the offering to Latiaris,\nand that assembly of spectators pays at the altar\nof its Pluto its savage vows. What is holier than the altar\nthat drinks the blood drained through mystic weapons?\nOr is it a doubtful belief for you that there is a god\nunder blind darkness, whom you search for in the silent shades?\nSee, why do you deny that the Manes are held as gods?\nThe very tombs of the fathers prove it: there I read “To the gods\nof the Shades” on cut marbles, whatever ones the Latin Way guards,\nwith its ancient ashes, and the Salarian Way with its crowded tombs.\nSay, to whom do you write this inscription? unless it is that you adore\nthe empire of cruel Orcus as of a true majesty?\nSee, in what things the palace of the supreme empire\nlay squalid and entangled, its rites drawn from the origin of the ancestors!\nWhen the emperor, twice victor in the slaughter of two tyrants,\nlooked back with triumphant face on the beautiful walls,\nhe sees the city beset by black clouds,\nby the darkness of shadowed night: turbid air\nkept the clear sky away from the citadel of the seven hills.\nHe groaned in pity, and spoke thus: “Put off your mourning\ndress, faithful mother: you are famous indeed, made glorious\nby rich adornment; you lift your head, distinguished by proud spoils,\nand you are wrapped round with much gold;\nbut the summit of your high head bristles, beset\nby the clouds flying nearby; a livid light dulls\neven the jewels, and the thick daylight and smoke spread\nfrom the altar blunt the ruddy diadem of your brow.\nI see dark shades carried about you,\nand blue-black souls and black idols flying.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.391 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 391–420; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-391)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.421":{"o":"Censeo, sublimem tollas super aera vultum;\nSub pedibusque tuis nimbosa elementa relinquas.\nOmne, quod ex mundo est, tibi subiacet: hoc Deus ipse\nConstituit, cuius nutu dominaris, et orbi\nImperitas, et cuncta potens mortalia calcas.\nNon decet, ut submissa oculos, regina, caducum\nCirca humiles rerum partes, quibus ipsa superstas.\nNon patiar, veteres teneas ut me duce nugas,\nUt cariosorum venereris monstra deorum.\nSi lapis est, senio dissolvitur, aut crepat ictu\nPercussus tenui; mollis si bractea gypsum\nTexerat, infido rarescit glutine sensim.\nSi formam statuae lamnis commisit aenis\nLima terens; aut in partem cava membra gravato\nPondere curvantur; scabra aut aerugo peresam\nConficit effigiem, crebroque foramine rumpit;\nNec tibi terra deus, caeli nec sit deus astrum,\nNec deus Oceanus, nec vis, quae subter operta est,\nInfernis triste ob meritum damnata tenebris.\nSed nec virtutes hominum deus, aut animarum,\nSpirituumve, vagae tenui sub imagine formae.\nAbsit ut umbra deus tibi sit, geniusve, locusve,\nAut deus aerias volitans phantasma per auras.\nSint haec barbaricis gentilia numina pagis,\nQuos penes omne sacrum est, quidquid formido tremendum\nSuaserit; horrificos quos prodigialia cogunt\nCredere monstra deos, quos sanguinolentus edendi\nMos iuvat, ut pinguis luco lanietur in alto\nVictima, visceribus multa inter vina vorandis.","t":"I advise you to lift your face on high above the air\nand leave the cloudy elements beneath your feet.\nAll that is of the world lies beneath you: God himself\nestablished this, by whose will you are mistress, rule\nthe world, and, being powerful, trample on all mortal things.\nIt is not fitting, queen, that you should lower your eyes\n… about the perishing, lowly parts of things above which you stand.\nI will not allow you, under my leadership, to keep old trifles,\nto venerate the monsters of worm-eaten gods.\nIf it is stone, it crumbles with age or cracks when struck\nby a light blow; if soft leaf has covered the plaster,\nit gradually thins as the treacherous glue fails;\nif the file has joined the form of the statue with bronze plates,\neither the hollow limbs bend to one side under a heavy\nweight, or rough verdigris eats the image away\nand bursts it with many holes.\nLet not earth be your god, nor a star of heaven your god,\nnor Ocean your god, nor the power hidden below,\ncondemned to the infernal darkness for its grim deserts.\nAnd let neither the virtues of men be god, nor shapes\nof souls or spirits wandering under a thin image.\nFar be it that a shade should be your god, or a genius, or a place,\nor a phantom flitting through the airy breezes.\nLet these be the pagan divinities of barbarian villages,\namong whom whatever fear has suggested as dreadful\nis sacred; whom portents compel to believe\nhorrific monsters to be gods; who delight in a bloody\ncustom of eating, that a fat victim be torn in a deep grove,\nits entrails to be devoured amid much wine.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.421 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 421–450; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-421)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.451":{"o":"At te, quae domitis leges ac iura dedisti\nGentibus, instituens, magnus qua tenditur orbis,\nArmorum morumque feros mansuescere ritus,\nIndignum ac miserum est, in religione tenenda\nHoc sapere, immanes populi de more ferino\nQuod sapiunt, nullaque rudes ratione sequuntur.\nSeu nos procinctus maneat, seu pace quietas\nDictemus leges, seu debellata duorum\nColla tyrannorum media calcemus in urbe:\nAgnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est,\nIn quibus effigies Crucis aut gemmata refulget,\nAut longis solido ex auro praefertur in hastis.\nHoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus, ultor\nServitium solvit miserabile Constantinus,\nCum te pestifera premeret Maxentius aula.\nLugebas longo damnatos carcere centum,\nUt scis ipsa, patres; aut sponsus foedera pactae\nIntercepta gemens, diroque satellite rapta,\nImmersus tenebris, dura inter vincula flebat:\nAut si nupta, torum regis conscendere iussa,\nCoeperat impurum domini oblectare furorem,\nMorte maritalis dabat indignatio poenas.\nPlena puellarum patribus ergastula saevi\nPrincipis: abducta genitor si virgine mussans\nTristius ingemuit; non ille impune dolorem\nProdidit, aut confessa animis suspiria traxit.\nTestis Christicolae ducis adventantis ad urbem\nMulvius, exceptum Tiberina in stagna tyrannum\nPraecipitans, quanam victricia viderit arma","t":"But for you, who gave laws and rights to the conquered\nnations, teaching the savage customs of arms and manners\nto grow gentle wherever the great world stretches,\nit is unworthy and wretched, in holding to religion,\nto think as the monstrous peoples think after their bestial way,\nand to follow no reason in their crudeness.\nWhether a campaign awaits us, or we dictate quiet\nlaws in peace, or trample the conquered necks\nof two tyrants in the middle of the city,\nyou must gladly recognize my standards, queen,\non which the figure of the Cross either shines set with gems\nor is carried in front, of solid gold, on long staffs.\nUnconquered by this sign, Constantine crossed the Alps as avenger\nand broke the wretched slavery,\nwhen Maxentius was oppressing you with his pestilent court.\nYou were mourning, as you yourself know, a hundred fathers\ncondemned to long imprisonment; or a bridegroom, groaning\nthat the compact of his betrothed had been broken and she snatched away\nby a dreadful henchman, wept, plunged into darkness, amid hard chains;\nor if a wife, ordered to climb into the tyrant’s bed,\nhad begun to delight the impure fury of her master,\nher husband’s indignation paid the penalty by death.\nThe workhouses of the cruel prince were full of girls\ntaken from their fathers: if a father, muttering when his virgin daughter\nwas carried off, groaned too sadly, he did not betray\nhis grief unpunished, or draw sighs that confessed his feelings.\nThe Mulvian bridge is witness, when the Christian leader came to the city,\nhurling the tyrant down into the Tiber’s pools, by what majesty\nit saw the victorious arms","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.451 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 451–480; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-451)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.481":{"o":"Maiestate regi, quod signum dextera vindex\nPraetulerit, quali radiarint stemmate pila.\nChristus purpureum, gemmanti textus in auro,\nSignabat labarum: clipeorum insignia Christus\nScripserat: ardebat summis crux addita cristis.\nIpse senatorum meminit clarissimus ordo,\nQui tunc concreto processit crine, catenis\nSqualens carcereis, aut nexus compede vasta,\nComplexusque pedes victoris, ad inclita flendo\nProcubuit vexilla iacens. Tunc ille senatus\nMilitiae ultricis titulum, Christique verendum\nNomen adoravit, quod conlucebat in armis.\nErgo cave, egregium caput orbis, inania posthac\nProdigia, et larvas stolido tibi fingere cultu,\nAtque experta Dei virtutem spernere veri.\nDeponas iam festa velim puerilia, ritus\nRidiculos, tantoque indigna sacraria regno.\nMarmora tabenti respergine tincta lavate,\nO proceres: liceat statuas consistere puras,\nArtificum magnorum opera: haec pulcherrima nostrae\nOrnamenta cluant patriae, nec decolor usus\nIn vitium versae monumenta coinquinet artis. » —\nTalibus edictis urbs informata refugit\nErrores veteres, et turbida ab ore vieto\nNubila discussit, iam nobilitate parata\nAeternas temptare vias, Christumque vocante\nMagnanimo ductore sequi, et spem mittere in aevum.\nTunc primum senio docilis sua saecula Roma\nErubuit: pudet exacti iam temporis: odit\nPraeteritos foedis cum religionibus annos.","t":"to be ruled, what sign the avenging right hand\ncarried before it, with what emblem the javelins shone.\nChrist, woven in gold set with gems, marked\nthe purple labarum; Christ had written the emblems\nof the shields; the cross, set on the tops of the crests, blazed.\nThe most illustrious order of senators itself remembers it,\nwhich then came forth with matted hair, squalid\nwith prison chains or bound with huge fetters,\nand, embracing the feet of the victor, lay prostrate\nweeping before the glorious standards. Then that senate\nadored the title of the avenging army and the venerable\nname of Christ, which shone on the arms.\nSo beware, illustrious head of the world, of inventing for yourself\nhenceforth empty portents and specters with stupid worship,\nand of scorning the power of the true God, which you have experienced.\nI would have you lay aside now your childish festivals, your ridiculous\nrites, and shrines unworthy of so great an empire.\nWash the marbles stained with putrid spattering,\nyou nobles: let the statues stand clean,\nthe works of great artists; let these be called the most beautiful\nornaments of our country, and let no discolored use\npollute the monuments of an art turned to vice.”\nInstructed by such edicts, the city fled\nits old errors, shook the turbid clouds from its wrinkled face,\nits nobility now ready to try the eternal ways,\nto follow Christ at the call of its great-souled leader,\nand to send its hope into eternity.\nThen for the first time Rome, teachable in old age,\nblushed for her ages: she is ashamed of the time gone by;\nshe hates the past years with their foul religions.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.481 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 481–510; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-481)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.511":{"o":"Mox, ubi contiguos fossis muralibus agros\nSanguine iustorum innocuo maduisse recordans,\nInvidiosa videt tumulorum milia circum,\nTristis iudicii mage paenitet, ac dicionis\nEffrenis, nimiaeque sacris pro turpibus irae:\nCompensare cupit taeterrima vulnera laesae\nIustitiae sero obsequio veniaque petenda,\nNe tanto imperio maneat, pietate repulsa,\nCrimen saevitiae, monstrata piacula quaerit,\nInque fidem Christi pleno transfertur amore.\nLaurea victoris Marii minus utilis urbi,\nCum traheret Numidam populo plaudente Iugurtham:\nNec tantum Arpinas consul tibi, Roma, medelae\nContulit, exstincto iusta inter vincla Cethego;\nQuantum praecipuus nostro sub tempore princeps\nProspexit tribuitque boni. Multos Catilinas\nIlle domo pepulit: non saeva incendia tectis,\nAut sicas patribus, sed Tartara nigra animabus,\nInternoque hominum statui tormenta parantes.\nErrabant hostes per templa, per atria passim,\nRomanumque forum et Capitolia celsa tenebant,\nQui coniuratas ipsa ad vitalia plebis\nMoliti insidias, intus serpente veneno\nConsuerant tacitis pestem miscere medullis.\nErgo triumphator latitante ex hoste togatus\nClara tropaea refert sine sanguine, remque Quirini\nAdsuescit supero pollere in saecula regno.\nDenique nec metas statuit, nec tempora ponit:\nImperium sine fine docet, ne Romula virtus\nIam sit anus, norit ne gloria parta senectam.\nExsultare patres videas, pulcherrima mundi","t":"Soon, when, remembering that the fields next to the city’s trenches\nhad been soaked with the innocent blood of the righteous,\nshe sees the thousands of tombs around, a reproach to her,\nshe repents still more of her grim judgment and of her\nunbridled rule and her excessive anger on behalf of foul rites:\nshe longs to make amends for the foul wounds of injured\nJustice by late obedience and by asking pardon,\nand, lest the crime of cruelty remain on so great an empire,\nwith piety rejected, she seeks the expiation shown her,\nand passes over into the faith of Christ with full love.\nThe laurel of victorious Marius was less useful to the city\nwhen he dragged the Numidian Jugurtha in triumph while the people applauded;\nnor did the consul from Arpinum bring you, Rome, so much healing\nwhen Cethegus was put to death in his just chains,\nas the outstanding emperor of our time has foreseen\nand bestowed good. He drove many Catilines\nfrom home, men preparing not cruel fires for houses\nor daggers for the fathers, but black Tartarus for souls,\nand torments for the inner state of men.\nEnemies were wandering everywhere through temples and halls,\nand held the Roman forum and the lofty Capitol,\nwho, plotting conspiracies against the very vitals of the people,\nwere accustomed, with poison creeping within,\nto mingle a plague with silent marrow.\nSo, a triumphant victor in the toga, from a hidden enemy\nhe brings back famous trophies without blood, and accustoms\nthe state of Quirinus to flourish for ages in a heavenly kingdom.\nIn short, he sets no limits and fixes no times:\nhe teaches an empire without end, so that the valor of Romulus\nmay not now be an old woman, nor the glory won know old age.\nYou may see the fathers exult, the most beautiful lights","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.511 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 511–540; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-511)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.541":{"o":"Lumina, conciliumque senum gestire Catonum\nCandidiore toga niveum pietatis amictum\nSumere, et exuvias deponere pontificales.\nIamque ruit, paucis Tarpeia in rupe relictis,\nAd sincera virum penetralia Nazareorum\nAtque ad apostolicos Evandria curia fontes,\nAnniadum suboles, et pignora clara Proborum.\nFertur enim ante alios generosus Anicius urbis\nInlustrasse caput: sic se Roma inclita iactat.\nQuin et Olybriaci generisque et nominis heres,\nAdiectus fastis, palmata insignis abolla,\nMartyris ante fores Bruti submittere fasces\nAmbit, et Ausoniam Christo inclinare securem.\nNon Paulinorum, non Bassorum dubitavit\nPrompta fides dare se Christo, stirpemque superbam\nGentis patriciae venturo attollere saeclo.\nIam quid plebicolas percurram carmine Gracchos,\nIure potestatis fultos, et in arce senatus\nPraecipuos, simulacra deum iussisse revelli,\nCumque suis pariter lictoribus omnipotenti\nSuppliciter Christo se consecrasse regendos?\nSescentas numerare domos de sanguine prisco\nNobilium licet, ad Christi signacula versas,\nTurpis ab idolii vasto emersisse profundo.\nSi persona aliqua est, aut si status urbis, in his est:\nSi formam patriae facit excellentior ordo,\nHi faciunt, iuncta est quotiens sententia plebis,\nAtque unum sapiunt plures simul ac potiores.\nRespice ad inlustrem, lux est ubi publica, cellam:\nVix pauca invenies gentilibus obsita nugis","t":"of the world, and the council of old Catos eager\nto put on the snow-white robe of piety, a whiter toga,\nand to lay aside the spoils of the pontiffs.\nAnd now, leaving a few on the Tarpeian rock,\nthe senate-house of Evander rushes to the pure sanctuaries\nof the Nazarenes and to the apostolic fonts,\nthe offspring of the Annii and the famous children of the Probi.\nFor the noble Anicius is said to have been the first\nto bring glory to the head of the city: so famous Rome boasts.\nAnd the heir of the Olybrian line and name,\nadded to the consular lists, distinguished in the palm-embroidered robe,\nseeks to lower the fasces of Brutus before the doors\nof the martyr, and to bow the Ausonian axe to Christ.\nThe ready faith of the Paulini and the Bassi did not hesitate\nto give themselves to Christ and to raise the proud stock\nof a patrician family to the age to come.\nWhy now should I run through in song the people-loving Gracchi,\nsupported by the right of power and first\nin the citadel of the senate, who ordered the images of the gods to be torn down,\nand consecrated themselves humbly, together with their lictors,\nto almighty Christ, to be ruled by him?\nOne may count six hundred houses of noble blood of old,\nturned to the seals of Christ, who have emerged\nfrom the vast depth of foul idolatry.\nIf the city has any person or any standing, it is in these;\nif the more excellent order makes the form of the fatherland,\nthese make it, whenever the opinion of the people is joined with them,\nand the many and the better think one thing together.\nLook at the illustrious chamber, where the public light is:\nyou will scarcely find a few minds covered with pagan trifles,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.541 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 541–570; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-541)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.571":{"o":"Ingenia, obtritos aegre retinentia cultus,\nEt quibus exactas placeat servare tenebras,\nSplendentemque die medio non cernere solem.\nPost hinc ad populum converte oculos: quota pars est,\nQuae Iovis infectam sanie non despuat aram?\nOmnis qui celsa scandit cenacula vulgus,\nQuique terit silicem variis discursibus atram,\nEt quem panis alit gradibus dispensus ab altis,\nAut Vaticano tumulum sub monte frequentat,\nQuo cinis ille latet genitoris amabilis obses;\nCoetibus aut magnis Lateranas currit ad aedes,\nUnde sacrum referat regali chrismate signum.\nEt dubitamus adhuc, Romam tibi, Christe, dicatam\nIn leges transisse tuas? omnique volentem\nCum populo et summis cum civibus, ardua magni\nIam super astra poli terrenum extendere regnum?\nNec moveor, quod pars hominum rarissima clausos\nNon aperit sublime oculos, et gressibus errat.\nQuamlibet inlustres meritis, et sanguine clari,\nPraemia virtutum titulis et honoribus aucti\nArdua rettulerint, fastorumque arce potiti\nAnnales proprio signarint nomine chartas,\nAtque inter veteres cera numerentur et aere:\nAttamen in paucis, iam deficiente caterva,\nNec persona sita est patriae, nec curia constat:\nEt quodcumque fovet studii privata voluntas,\nAc iam rara tenet: sed publica vota reclamant,\nDissensu celebri trepidum damnantia murmur.\nSic consulta patrum subsistere conscriptorum,","t":"barely keeping to their crushed cults,\nminds that like to keep a darkness already driven out\nand not to see the sun shining at midday.\nNext, turn your eyes to the people: what fraction is there\nthat does not spit on Jupiter’s altar, stained with gore?\nAll the common people who climb to the high garrets,\nwho wear the black flint with their various comings and goings,\nwhom the bread distributed from the high steps feeds,\neither throng the tomb at the foot of the Vatican hill,\nwhere those ashes, the pledge of a beloved father, lie hidden,\nor run in great crowds to the Lateran house,\nto bring back from there the sacred sign of the royal chrism.\nAnd do we still doubt that Rome, dedicated to you, Christ,\nhas passed under your laws, and wills, with all the people\nand its highest citizens, to extend its earthly kingdom\nnow above the high stars of the great sky?\nNor am I moved that a very rare part of men\ndoes not open its closed eyes on high, and wanders in its steps.\nHowever illustrious they are by their merits and famous by blood,\nhowever much, increased with titles and honors, they have brought back\nthe high rewards of virtue, and, having reached the summit of the consular lists,\nhave marked the annals with their own name,\nand are counted among the ancients in wax and bronze,\nyet in a few, now that their band is dwindling,\nneither the person of the fatherland rests, nor does the senate stand;\nand whatever pursuit private will cherishes,\nit now holds rarely; but the public wishes protest,\ncondemning the anxious murmur with a crowded dissent.\nSo the decrees of the conscript fathers stood","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.571 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 571–600; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-571)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.601":{"o":"Non aliter licitum prisco sub tempore, quam si\nTer centum sensisse senes legerentur in unum;\nServemus leges patrias: infirma minoris\nVox cedat numeri, parvaque in parte silescat.\nAdspice, quam pleno subsellia nostra senatu\nDecernant infame Iovis pulvinar, et omne\nIdolium, longe purgata ex urbe fugandum:\nQua vocat egregii sententia principis, illuc\nLibera tum pedibus, tum corde frequentia transit.\nNec locus invidiae est, nullum vis aspera terret,\nAnte oculos sic velle patet: cunctique probatum,\nNon iussum, sola capti ratione sequuntur.\nDenique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens\nMunera sacricolis summos impertit honores\nDux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum;\nNec pago implicitos per debita culmina mundi\nIre viros prohibet: quoniam caelestia numquam\nTerrenis solitum per iter gradientibus obstant.\nIpse magistratum tibi consulis, ipse tribunal\nContulit, auratumque togae donavit amictum,\nCuius religio tibi displicet, o pereuntum\nAdsertor divum, solus qui restituendos\nVulcani Martisque dolos Venerisque peroras,\nSaturnique senis lapides, Phoebique furores:\nIliacae matris Megalesia, Bacchica Nysi,\nIsidis amissum semper plangentis Osirim\nMimica, ridendaque suis sollemnia calvis,\nEt quascumque solent Capitolia claudere, larvas.\nO linguam miro verborum fonte fluentem,","t":"in no other way under the old time than if\nthree hundred old men were chosen to have voted as one.\nLet us keep our fathers’ laws: let the weak voice\nof the smaller number give way and fall silent in its small part.\nSee how our benches, in a full senate,\ndecree that Jupiter’s infamous couch and every\nidol must be driven far from the purified city:\nwhere the motion of the excellent emperor calls, there\nthe crowded house passes over freely, both with its feet and with its heart.\nThere is no room for resentment; no harsh force terrifies;\nit is plain before our eyes that they so will: and all follow\nwhat is approved, not commanded, captured by reason alone.\nFinally, repaying fair rewards for earthly merits,\nthe good leader bestows the highest honors on idol-worshippers\nand lets them compete with the glory of his own people;\nnor does he forbid men entangled in paganism to go through\nthe due summits of the world, since heavenly things never stand in the way\nof those who walk the accustomed road of earthly things.\nHe himself conferred on you the magistracy of consul, he himself\nthe tribunal, and gave you the gilded garment of the toga,\nhe whose religion displeases you, O champion of perishing\ngods, who alone plead for the restoration of the tricks\nof Vulcan, Mars and Venus,\nold Saturn’s stones, and the frenzies of Phoebus,\nthe Megalesia of the Trojan mother, the Bacchic rites of Nysa,\nthe mimic ceremonies of Isis, always mourning the lost Osiris,\nsolemnities to be laughed at by her own bald priests,\nand whatever specters the Capitol usually shuts in.\nO tongue, flowing with a wonderful fountain of words,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.601 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 601–630; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-601)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.61":{"o":"Nunc foribus surdis, sera quas vel pessulus artis\nFirmarant cuneis, per tectum dives amator\nImbricibus ruptis, undantis desuper auri\nInfundens pluviam gremio excipientis amicae;\nArmigero modo sordidulam curante rapinam,\nCompressu immundo miserum adficiens catamitum,\nPellice iam puero magis indignante sorore.\nHaec causa est et origo mali, quod saecla vetusto\nHospite regnante crudus stupor aurea finxit,\nQuodque novo ingenio versutus Iuppiter, astus\nMultiplices variosque dolos texebat, ut illum,\nVertere cum vellet pellem faciemque, putarent\nEsse bovem, praedari aquilam, concumbere cycnum,\nEt nummos fieri, et gremium penetrare puellae.\nNam quid rusticitas non crederet indomitorum\nStulta virum, pecudes inter ritusque ferinos\nDedere sueta animum diae rationis egenum?\nIn quamcumque fidem nebulonis callida traxit\nNequitia, infelix facilem gens praebuit aurem.\nSuccessit Iovis imperio corruptior aetas,\nQuae docuit rigidos vitiis servire colonos\nExpertes furandi homines. Hac imbuit arte\nMercurius, Maia genitus: nunc magnus habetur\nIlle deus, cuius dedit experientia fures:\nNec non Thessaliae doctissimus ille magiae\nTraditur exstinctas sumptae moderamine virgae\nIn lucem revocasse animas, Cocytia leti\nAst alias damnasse neci, penitusque latenti\nImmersisse chao: facit hoc, ad utrumque peritus","t":"now, the doors deaf, which bar or bolt had fixed\nwith tight wedges, a rich lover through the roof,\nthe tiles broken, pouring from above a shower of flowing gold\ninto the lap of his mistress as she received it;\nnow, with his armor-bearer looking after the sordid rape,\nafflicting the wretched catamite with unclean embrace,\nwhile his sister is now more indignant at a boy as a rival.\nThis is the cause and origin of the evil: that, while the old stranger\nreigned, crude stupidity imagined golden ages,\nand that crafty Jupiter, with new invention, wove\nmanifold tricks and various deceits, so that, when he wished\nto change his skin and face, they thought that he\nwas a bull, that he plundered as an eagle, that he lay with them as a swan,\nthat he became coins and penetrated the lap of a girl.\nFor what would the foolish rusticity of untamed men not believe,\nused to giving over its mind, lacking divine reason,\namong cattle and bestial rites?\nTo whatever belief the cunning wickedness of the rascal\ndrew them, the unhappy nation lent an easy ear.\nAn age more corrupt succeeded Jupiter’s rule,\nwhich taught hardy farmers to serve vices,\nmen without experience of theft. In this art\nMercury, son of Maia, schooled them: now that god is held\ngreat, whose skill produced thieves.\nThat most learned master of Thessalian magic, too,\nis said to have recalled extinguished souls to the light\nby the control of the wand he took up, … the Cocytian [laws] of death,\nbut to have condemned others to death and plunged them\ninto the deep hidden chaos: this he does, skilled in both,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.61 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 61–90; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-61)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.631":{"o":"Romani decus eloquii, cui cedat et ipse\nTullius, has fundit dives facundia gemmas!\nOs dignum, aeterno tinctum quod fulgeat auro,\nSi mallet laudare Deum, cui sordida monstra\nPraetulit, et liquidam temeravit crimine vocem.\nHaud aliter, quam si rastris quis temptet eburnis\nCaenosum versare solum, limoque madentes\nExcolere aureolis si forte ligonibus ulvas,\nSplendorem dentis nitidi scrobis inquinat atra,\nEt pretiosa acies squalenti sordet in arvo.\nNon vereor, ne me nimium confidere quisquam\nArguat, ingeniique putet luctamen inire.\nSum memor ipse mei, satis et mea frivola novi:\nNon ausim conferre pedem, nec spicula tantae\nIndocilis fandi coniecta lacessere linguae.\nInlaesus maneat liber, excellensque volumen\nObtineat partam dicendi fulmine famam.\nSed liceat tectum servare a vulnere pectus,\nOppositaque volans iaculum depellere parma.\nNam, si nostra Fides, saeclo iam tuta quieto,\nViribus infestis hostilique arte petita est,\nCur mihi fas non sit, lateris sinuamine flexi\nLudere ventosas iactu pereunte sagittas?\nSed iam tempus, iter longi cohibere libelli,\nNe tractum sine fine ferat fastidia carmen.","t":"the glory of Roman eloquence, to whom even Tullius himself\nwould yield, pours out these gems from its rich fluency!\nA mouth worthy to be dipped in eternal gold and to shine,\nif it had chosen to praise God, before whom it set\nsordid monsters, and defiled its clear voice with crime.\nJust as if someone should try to turn over muddy ground\nwith ivory rakes, or perhaps to cultivate sedges\nwet with mud with golden hoes,\nthe black trench defiles the splendor of the shining tooth,\nand the precious edge is fouled in the squalid field.\nI do not fear that anyone will accuse me of excessive\nconfidence, or think that I enter a contest of talent.\nI am mindful of myself, and know my trifles well enough:\nI would not dare to set my foot against him, nor, unskilled in speaking,\nto provoke the darts hurled by so great a tongue.\nLet his book remain unharmed, and let the excellent volume\nkeep the fame it has won by the thunderbolt of its speech.\nBut let me be allowed to keep my breast covered from a wound,\nand with my shield held up to ward off the flying javelin.\nFor if our Faith, safe now in a quiet age,\nhas been attacked with hostile strength and an enemy’s art,\nwhy should it not be right for me, bending my side,\nto mock the windy arrows whose throw is wasted?\nBut now it is time to check the course of this long book,\nso that the poem, drawn out without end, may not bring weariness.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.631 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 631–655; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-631)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/2.91":{"o":"Ut fuerit, geminoque armarit crimine vitam:\nMurmure nam magico tenues excire figuras,\nAtque sepulcrales scite incantare favillas,\nVita itidem spoliare alios, ars noxia novit.\nArtificem scelerum simplex mirata vetustas\nSupra hominem coluit, simulans per nubila ferri\nAligerisque leves pedibus transcurrere ventos.\nEcce deum in numero formatus et aeneus adstat\nGraius homo, augustaque Numae praefulget in arce.\nStrenuus exculti dominus quidam fuit agri,\nHortorumque opibus memorabilis: hic tamen idem\nScortator nimius, multaque libidine suetus\nRusticolas vexare lupas, interque salicta\nEt densas saepes obscena cubilia inire,\nIndomitum intendens animum, semperque paratum\nAd facinus, numquam calidis dabat otia venis.\nHic deus e patrio praenobilis Hellesponto\nVenit adusque Italos sacris cum turpibus hortos:\nSinum lactis, et haec votorum liba quotannis\nAccipit, ac ruris servat vineta Sabini,\nTurpiter adfixo pudeat quem visere ramo.\nHerculeus mollis pueri famosus amore\nArdor, et in transtris iactata efferbuit Argo.\nNec maris erubuit Nemea sub pelle fovere\nConcubitus, et Hylan pereuntem quaerere caelebs.\nNunc Saliis cantuque domus Pinaria templum\nCollis Aventini convexa in sede frequentat.\nThebanus iuvenis superatis fit deus Indis,\nSuccessu dum victor ovans lascivit, et aurum\nCaptivae gentis revehit, spoliisque superbus","t":"so that he was [skilled in both], and armed his life with a double crime:\nfor his harmful art knew how to call up thin shapes with magic\nmurmuring, and skillfully to bewitch the ashes of the tomb,\nand likewise to rob others of life.\nSimple antiquity, admiring the craftsman of crimes,\nworshipped him as more than man, pretending that he was carried through the clouds\nand ran across the light winds with winged feet.\nSee, a Greek man, shaped in bronze, stands among the gods\nand shines in the august citadel of Numa.\nThere was a certain energetic owner of a cultivated field,\nmemorable for the wealth of his gardens; yet he too\nwas an excessive fornicator, used in his great lust\nto harass the country harlots, and among the willows\nand thick hedges to go to obscene couches,\nbending his untamed mind, always ready\nfor wickedness, and never giving his hot veins rest.\nThis god, very famous from his native Hellespont,\ncame to the gardens of the Italians with his foul rites;\na bowl of milk and these cakes of vows he receives\nevery year, and guards the vineyards of the Sabine countryside,\na god whom one would be ashamed to look at, with his shameful fixed branch.\nThe passion of Hercules, notorious for the love of a soft boy,\nseethed even on the benches of the tossing Argo;\nnor did he blush, under the Nemean skin, to cherish\nthe embraces of a male, and, wifeless, to search for Hylas when he perished.\nNow the Pinarian house frequents his temple with Salian priests and song\nin the vaulted seat of the Aventine hill.\nThe Theban youth becomes a god after conquering the Indians,\nwhile, triumphant in success, he runs wild, brings back\nthe gold of the captive nation, and, proud of the spoils,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 2.91 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 91–120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/2-91)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/3.1":{"o":"Simon, quem vocitant Petrum,\nSummus discipulus Dei,\nLucis forte sub exitu,\nCum vesper croceus rubet,\nCurvam vulserat ancoram,\nCaptans flamina linteis,\nEt tranare volens fretum.\nNox ventum movet obvium,\nFundo qui mare misceat,\nClamor nauticus aethera\nPlangens atque ululans ferit,\nCum stridore rudentium:\nNec quidquam suberat spei,\nMergendis prope naufragis;\nCum Christum procul adspicit\nPallens turba periculis,\nCalcantem pedibus mare,\nAc si per solidam viam\nSiccum litus obambulet.\nHaec miracula ceteri\nVectores pavidi stupent.\nSolus non trepidus Petrus\nAgnoscit Dominum poli,\nTerraeque, et maris invii:\nCuius omnipotentiae est\nPlantis aequora subdere.\nTendit suppliciter manus,\nNotum subsidium rogat.\nAst ille placide adnuens,\nPuppi ut desiliat iubet.","t":"Simon, whom they call Peter,\nthe chief disciple of God,\nat the close of day, as it happened,\nwhen the saffron evening reddens,\nhad pulled up his curved anchor,\ncatching the winds with his sails,\nand wishing to cross the strait.\nThe night stirs up a contrary wind\nto churn the sea from its depths; …\nthe sailors’ cry strikes the sky,\nwailing and howling,\nwith the shrieking of the ropes;\nnor was there any hope left\nfor the shipwrecked, about to sink,\nwhen the crew, pale with danger,\nsee Christ far off,\ntreading the sea with his feet,\nas if he walked along a dry shore\non a solid road.\nThe other passengers, terrified,\nare astounded at these wonders.\nPeter alone, not trembling,\nrecognizes the Lord of the sky,\nof the earth, and of the pathless sea,\nto whose omnipotence it belongs\nto put the waters under his feet.\nHe stretches out his hands in supplication\nand asks for the help he knows.\nBut Christ, nodding gently,\nbids him leap down from the ship.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 3.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/3-1)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/3.31":{"o":"Sed vestigia fluctibus\nSummis tinguere coeperat,\nEt lapsante gradu pedes\nPessum mergere lubricos.\nMortalem Deus increpat,\nQuod sit non stabili fide,\nNec calcare fluentia,\nNec Christum valeat sequi.\nTum dextra famulum levat,\nSistitque, et docet ingredi\nTergum per tumidum freti.\nSic me, tuta silentia\nEgressum, dubiis loquax\nInfert lingua periculis:\nNon ut discipulum Petrum\nFidentem et merito et fide;\nSed quem culpa frequens levem\nVolvat per freta naufragum.\nSum plane temerarius,\nQui noctis mihi conscius,\nQuam vitae in tenebris ago,\nPuppem credere fluctibus\nTanti non timeam viri;\nQuo nunc nemo disertior\nExultat, fremit, intonat,\nVentisque eloquii tumet:\nCui mersare facillimum est\nTractandae indocilem ratis:\nNi tu, Christe potens, manum\nDextro numine porrigas,\nFacundi oris ut impetus\nNon me fluctibus obruat:\nInsistam fluitantibus.","t":"… But he had begun to dip his steps\nin the tops of the waves,\nand, his step slipping, to sink\nhis slippery feet to the bottom.\nGod rebukes the mortal\nfor being of unsteady faith,\nso that he could neither tread on the flowing waters\nnor follow Christ.\nThen with his right hand he lifts his servant,\nsets him up, and teaches him to walk\nover the swelling back of the sea.\nSo my talkative tongue, now that I have left\nsafe silence, carries me\ninto doubtful dangers:\nnot like the disciple Peter,\ntrusting both in merit and in faith,\nbut as one whom frequent sin\nrolls, light and shipwrecked, through the straits.\nI am plainly rash,\nwho, conscious of the night\nof life that I spend in darkness,\ndo not fear to entrust my ship to the waves\nof so great a man,\nthan whom no one now is more eloquent,\nwho exults, roars, thunders,\nand swells with the winds of eloquence;\nfor whom it is very easy to sink one\nunskilled in handling his boat,\nunless you, mighty Christ, stretch out\nyour hand with favoring power,\nso that the onrush of the eloquent mouth\nmay not overwhelm me with its waves.\n… I shall stand firm on the floods.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 3.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–63; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/3-31)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.1":{"o":"Hactenus et veterum cunabula prima deorum,\nEt causas, quibus error hebes conflatus in orbe est,\nDiximus, et nostro Romam iam credere Christo;\nNunc obiecta legam, nunc dictis dicta refellam.\nUnde igitur coepisse ferunt, aut ex quibus orsum,\nQuo mage sancta ducum corda inlice flecteret arte?\nArmorum dominos, vernantes flore iuventae,\nInter castra patris genitos, sub imagine avita\nEductos, exempla domi congesta calentes,\nOrator catus instigat, ceu classica belli\nClangeret, exacuitque animos, et talia iactat:\n« Si vobis vel parta, viri, Victoria cordi est,\nVel parienda dehinc, templum dea virgo sacratum\nObtineat, vobis regnantibus. Ecquis amicus\nHostibus, hanc vestro sancte negat esse colendam\nImperio, cui semper adest, quod laudibus implet? »\nHaec ubi legatus, reddunt placidissima fratrum\nOra ducum: « Scimus, quam sit Victoria dulcis\nFortibus, Ausoniae vir facundissime linguae.\nSed quibus illa modis, qua sit ratione vocanda\nNovimus: hac primum pueros pater imbuit arte:\nHanc genitore suo didicit puer ipse magistro.\nNon aris, non farre molae Victoria felix\nExorata venit: labor impiger, aspera virtus,\nVis animi, excellens ardor, violentia, cura,\nHanc tribuunt, durum tractandis robur in armis.\nQuae si defuerint bellantibus, aurea quamvis\nMarmoreo in templo rutilas Victoria pinnas\nExplicet, et multis surgat formata talentis,\nNon aderit, versisque offensa videbitur hastis.","t":"So far we have told of the first cradles of the old gods,\nand the causes by which dull error was kindled in the world,\nand that Rome now believes in our Christ;\nnow I will read the objections, now refute words with words.\nWhere, then, do they say he began, or from what start,\nso as to bend the holy hearts of the leaders with seductive art?\nThe masters of arms, flourishing in the flower of youth,\nborn in their father’s camp, brought up under\ntheir grandfather’s image, warm with the examples heaped up at home,\nthe clever orator urges on, as if he were sounding\nthe trumpets of war, sharpens their spirits, and throws out such words:\n“If Victory, men, whether won already or to be won\nhereafter, is dear to your hearts, let the virgin goddess\nkeep her consecrated temple while you reign. What friend\nof the enemy denies that she should be devoutly worshipped\nby your empire, which she always attends and fills with glory?”\nWhen the envoy had said this, the brother emperors answer\nwith most calm faces: “We know how sweet Victory is\nto the brave, most eloquent man of the Ausonian tongue.\nBut by what means, by what method she is to be called,\nwe know: in this art our father first instructed us as boys;\nthis he himself learned as a boy, with his father as teacher.\nHappy Victory does not come when entreated\nwith altars or sacrificial meal: tireless labor, rough valor,\nforce of mind, outstanding ardor, vigor, care\ngrant her, a hard strength in handling arms.\nIf these are lacking to those who fight, though golden\nVictory spread her glowing wings in a marble temple\nand rise, shaped from many talents of metal,\nshe will not be present, and will be seen offended, with spears turned back.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-1)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.1021":{"o":"Dura lapillorum macie, ne decidat illic,\nQuod seritur; primo quoniam praefertile germen\nLuxuriat; suco mox deficiente, sub aestu\nSideris igniferi sitiens torretur, et aret.\nNeve in spinosos incurrant semina vepres;\nAspera nam segetem surgentem vincula texunt,\nAc fragiles calamos nodis rubus artat acutis.\nEt ne iacta viae spargantur in aggere grana,\nHaec avibus quia nuda patent, passimque vorantur,\nImmundisque iacent foeda ad ludibria corvis. »\nHis Deus agricolam confirmat legibus; ille\nIus caeleste Patris non summa intellegit aure;\nSed simul et cordis segetem disponit, et agri,\nNe minus interno niteant praecordia cultu,\nQuam cum laeta suas ostentant iugera messes.\nExstirpamus enim sentos de pectore vepres,\nNe vitiosa necent germen vitale flagella,\nNe frugem segetemque animae spinosa malorum\nImpediat sentis scelerum peccamine crebro,\nGlarea ne tenuis ieiunis siccet harenis\nMarcentem sub corde fidem: ne pectoris aestus\nFlagret, et effetis urat charismata venis.\nDenique ne iecoris detrita in parte relinquat\nVilis cura Deum: ne spem, qua vescimur intus,\nDeserat, obscenisque avibus permittat edendam,\nEt proiecta fides hosti sit praeda volucri.\nTalis nostrorum sollertia centuplicatos\nAgrorum redigit fructus: quibus acrius instat,\nNec metuit, ne congestum populetur acervum\nCurculio, vel nigra cavis formica recondat.","t":"hard with the thinness of little stones, lest what is sown\nfall there; for, very fertile at first, the shoot\ngrows rank; soon, its juice failing, under the heat\nof the fiery star it is scorched with thirst and dries up.\nAnd let not the seeds run into thorny brambles;\nfor they weave harsh bonds around the rising crop,\nand the bramble chokes the fragile stalks with sharp knots.\nAnd let not the grains thrown be scattered on the embankment of the road;\nfor these lie open, bare, to the birds, are devoured everywhere,\nand lie as foul playthings for unclean crows.”\nBy these laws God strengthens the farmer; he does not understand\nthe heavenly law of the Father with the surface of his ear,\nbut arranges at once the crop of his heart and of his field,\nso that his heart may shine with inner cultivation\nno less than when the glad acres display their harvests.\nFor we root out thorny brambles from the breast,\nso that vicious shoots may not kill the vital germ,\nso that the thorny bush of evils may not hinder\nthe fruit and crop of the soul with frequent sinning of crimes,\nso that thin gravel may not dry up with fasting sands\nthe faith withering in the heart; so that the heat of the breast\nmay not blaze and burn up the spiritual gifts in exhausted veins;\nfinally, so that worthless care may not leave God in a trodden-down\npart of the heart; that it may not desert the hope on which we feed within,\nand let it be eaten by unclean birds,\nand faith, cast away, become the prey of the winged enemy.\nSuch skill in our people brings in a hundredfold\nfruits of the fields, on which it presses more keenly,\nand does not fear that the weevil will ravage the heaped-up pile,\nor the black ant hide it in its holes.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.1021 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1021–1050; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-1021)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.1051":{"o":"Sunt et virginibus pulcherrima praemia nostris,\nEt pudor, et sancto tectus velamine vultus,\nEt privatus honos, nec nota et publica forma,\nEt rarae tenuesque epulae, et mens sobria semper,\nLexque pudicitiae, vitae cum fine, peracta.\nHinc decies deni rediguntur in horrea fructus,\nHorrea nocturno non umquam obnoxia furi.\nNam caelum fur nullus adit, caelestia numquam\nFraude resignantur: fraus terris volvitur imis.\nQuae nunc Vestalis sit virginitatis honestas,\nDiscutiam, qua lege regat decus omne pudoris.\nAc primum parvae teneris capiuntur in annis,\nAnte voluntatis propriae quam libera secta,\nLaude pudicitiae fervens et amore deorum,\nIusta maritandi condemnet vincula sexus.\nCaptivus pudor ingratis addicitur aris:\nNec contempta perit miseris, sed adempta voluptas\nCorporis intacti: non mens intacta tenetur.\nNec requies datur ulla toris, quibus innuba caecum\nVulnus, et amissas suspirat femina taedas.\nTum, quia non totum spes salva interficit ignem;\nNam resides quandoque faces adolere licebit,\nFestaque decrepitis obtendere flammea canis.\nTempore praescripto membra intemerata requirens,\nTandem virgineam fastidit Vesta senectam.\nDum thalamis habilis tumuit vigor, inrita nullus\nFecundavit amor materno viscera partu.\nNubit anus veterana, sacro perfuncta labore,\nDesertisque focis, quibus est famulata iuventas,\nTransfert emeritas ad fulcra iugalia rugas,","t":"Our virgins too have most beautiful rewards:\nmodesty, a face covered with a holy veil,\na private honor, not a known and public appearance,\nrare and slender meals, a mind always sober,\nand the law of chastity carried through to the end of life.\nFrom this the hundredfold fruits are brought into the barns,\nbarns never exposed to the thief by night.\nFor no thief approaches heaven; heavenly things are never\nunsealed by fraud: fraud rolls about in the lowest earth.\nNow I will examine what is the honor of Vestal virginity,\nby what law it governs all the glory of modesty.\nFirst, they are taken as little girls in their tender years,\nbefore a free choice of their own will,\nburning with praise of chastity and love of the gods,\ncondemns the lawful bonds of the marrying sex.\nCaptive modesty is handed over to thankless altars,\nand the pleasure of the untouched body is not despised by the wretched girls\nbut taken away: the mind is not kept untouched.\nNor is any rest given to their couches, on which the unmarried\nwoman sighs for a blind wound and for lost wedding torches.\nThen, because a hope kept safe does not kill the whole fire;\nfor it will be allowed at some time to light the dormant torches,\nand to draw a festive bridal veil over decrepit gray hairs.\nWhen the prescribed time is up, Vesta, seeking undefiled limbs,\nat last disdains virginal old age.\nWhile vigor swelled fit for the marriage bed, no love\nmade the useless womb fruitful with a mother’s childbearing.\nThe veteran old woman marries, her sacred labor done,\nand, leaving the hearths that her youth served,\ntransfers her retired wrinkles to the marriage couch,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.1051 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1051–1080; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-1051)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.1081":{"o":"Discit et in gelido nova nupta tepescere lecto.\nInterea dum torta vagos ligat infula crines,\nFatalesque adolet prunas innupta sacerdos,\nFertur per medias, ut publica pompa, plateas,\nPilento residens molli, seque ore retecto\nImputat attonitae virgo spectabilis urbi.\nInde ad consessum caveae, pudor almus, et expers\nSanguinis it pietas, hominum visura cruentos\nCongressus, mortesque, et vulnera vendita pastu\nSpectatura sacris oculis. Sedet illa verendis\nVittarum insignis phaleris, fruiturque lanistis.\nO tenerum mitemque animum! consurgit ad ictus;\nEt, quotiens victor ferrum iugulo inserit, illa\nDelicias ait esse suas, pectusque iacentis\nVirgo modesta iubet converso pollice rumpi:\nNe lateat pars ulla animae vitalibus imis,\nAltius impresso dum palpitat ense secutor.\nHoc illud meritum est, quod continuare feruntur\nExcubias, Latii pro maiestate Palati;\nQuod redimunt vitam populi, procerumque salutem;\nPerfundunt quia colla comis bene, vel bene cingunt\nTempora taeniolis, et licia crinibus addunt.\nEt quia subter humum lustrales testibus umbris\nIn flammam iugulant pecudes, et murmura miscent:\nAn quoniam podii meliore in parte sedentes\nSpectant, aeratam faciem quam crebra tridenti\nImpacto quatiant hastilia, saucius et quam\nVulneribus patulis partem perfundat harenae,","t":"and, a new bride, learns to grow warm in a cold bed.\nMeanwhile, while the twisted fillet binds her straying hair\nand the unmarried priestess tends the fated coals,\nshe is carried through the middle of the streets like a public procession,\nsitting in a soft carriage, and with uncovered face\nthe conspicuous virgin presents herself to the astonished city.\nThen to the seating of the amphitheatre goes kindly modesty\nand piety that has no share in blood, to see the bloody\nencounters of men, and to watch with sacred eyes\nthe deaths and wounds sold for spectacle. She sits, distinguished\nby the venerable trappings of her fillets, and enjoys the trainers’ shows.\nO tender and gentle soul! She rises at the blows,\nand whenever the victor plunges the steel into a throat,\nshe calls it her delight, and the modest virgin,\nwith turned thumb, orders the breast of the fallen man to be broken,\nso that no part of his life may lie hidden in his inmost vitals,\nwhile the pursuer, his sword driven deeper, quivers.\nIs this the merit for which they are said to keep their watch\nfor the majesty of the Latin Palatine,\nto redeem the life of the people and the safety of the nobles:\nbecause they dress the hair well on their necks, or bind\ntheir temples well with ribbons and add threads to their hair,\nand because under the earth, with the shades as witnesses,\nthey slaughter purifying victims into the flame and mingle murmurs?\nOr because, sitting in the better part of the podium,\nthey watch how often the spears strike the bronze face\nwith the trident driven home, and how much of the sand\nthe wounded man soaks with his gaping wounds","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.1081 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1081–1110; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-1081)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.1111":{"o":"Cum fugit, et quanto vestigia sanguine signet.\nQuod genus ut sceleris iam nesciat aurea Roma,\nTe precor, Ausonii dux augustissime regni,\nEt tam triste sacrum iubeas, ut cetera, tolli.\nPerspice: nonne vacat meriti locus iste paterni,\nQuem tibi supplendum Deus, et genitoris amica\nServavit pietas? solus ne praemia tantae\nVirtutis caperet, partem tibi, nate, reservo,\nDixit; et integrum decus intactumque reliquit.\nArripe dilatam tua, dux, in tempora famam,\nQuodque patri superest, successor laudis habeto.\nIlle urbem vetuit taurorum sanguine tingui:\nTu mortes miserorum hominum prohibeto litari.\nNullus in urbe cadat, cuius sit poena voluptas;\nNec sua virginitas oblectet caedibus ora.\nIam solis contenta feris infamis harena,\nNulla cruentatis homicidia ludat in armis.\nSit devota Deo, sit tanto principe digna,\nEt virtute potens, et criminis inscia Roma;\nQuemque ducem bellis sequitur, pietate sequatur.","t":"when he flees, and with how much blood he marks his footsteps?\nThat golden Rome may no longer know this kind of crime,\nI pray you, most august leader of the Ausonian realm,\ncommand that so grim a rite be abolished, like the rest.\nLook closely: is not this place of your father’s merit left empty,\nwhich God and your father’s friendly piety have kept\nfor you to fill? “That he might not alone take the rewards\nof such great virtue, I reserve a part for you, my son,”\nhe said, and left the glory whole and untouched.\nSeize, leader, the fame deferred to your times,\nand, as successor, have what remains of glory for your father.\nHe forbade the city to be stained with the blood of bulls:\nyou forbid the deaths of wretched men to be offered in sacrifice.\nLet no one fall in the city whose punishment is a pleasure,\nnor let virginity delight its eyes with slaughter.\nLet the infamous arena, now content with wild beasts alone,\nmake sport of no homicides with bloody arms.\nLet Rome be devoted to God, worthy of so great an emperor,\npowerful in virtue and ignorant of crime;\nand as she follows her leader in wars, let her follow him in piety.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.1111 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1111–1130; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-1111)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.121":{"o":"Nos sperare iubet. « Caelestia si placet, inquit,\nScandere, terrenas animo depellite curas.\nNam quantum subiecta situ tellus iacet infra,\nDividiturque ab humo convexi regia caeli,\nTantum vestra meis distant mundana futuris,\nDira bonis, scelerata piis, tenebrosa serenis.\nQuidquid obire potest, fugiatis censeo: quidquid\nNaturae ratione capit vitium, atque senescit,\nPro nihilo, in nihilum quia sunt reditura, putetis.\nCuncta equidem, quae gignit humus, quae continet, ipse\nPrincipio institui, nitidoque insignia mundo\nOrnamenta dedi, speciosaque semina finxi.\nSed tamen esse modum volui, parcisque fruenda\nMoribus indulsi, quantum moribundus et aeger\nCorporis ac vitae volucris sibi posceret usus:\nNon ut captus homo studiis, et inaniter ardens,\nDuceret omne bonum positum in dulcedine rerum,\nEt specie tenui, quas currere tempore iussi,\nAtque aevum statui, sub quo generosa probarem\nPectora, ne torpens et non exercita virtus,\nRobur enervatum gereret sine laude palaestrae.\nInlecebrosus enim sapor est et pestifer horum;\nQuae, dum praetereunt, miro oblectamine mentes\nImplicitas, vinctasque tenent. Vincenda voluptas,\nElaquenda animi constantia: ne retinaclis\nMollibus ac lentis nexa et captiva prematur.\nLuctandum summis conatibus: inter acerba\nSectandum virtutis iter, ne suavia fluxae\nCondicionis amet: nimium ne congerat aurum,\nNec varios lapidum cupide spectare colores","t":"“If you wish to climb to heaven,” he says,\n“drive earthly cares from your mind.\nFor as far as the earth lies below in its low position,\nand the palace of the vaulted heaven is divided from the ground,\nso far do your worldly things stand from my future things,\nthe dreadful from the good, the wicked from the holy, the dark from the serene.\nWhatever can die, I advise you to flee; whatever\nby the law of nature takes on decay and grows old,\ncount it as nothing, since it will return to nothing.\nAll that the earth brings forth, all that it contains, I myself\nestablished in the beginning; I gave the shining world\nits notable ornaments and fashioned beautiful seeds.\nBut I willed that there be measure, and granted them\nto be enjoyed with sparing ways, as much as the dying\nand sick use of the body and of a fleeting life requires;\nnot so that man, captured by his pursuits and burning to no purpose,\nshould think every good lies in the sweetness of things\nand in thin appearance, things I bade run in time;\nand I set an age under which I might test noble\nhearts, lest virtue, numb and unexercised,\nshould bear an enervated strength without the glory of the wrestling-ground.\nFor the taste of these things is enticing and pestilent,\nwhich, while they pass, hold minds entangled and bound\nwith wonderful delight. Pleasure must be conquered,\nthe constancy of the mind must be roused, so that it be not\nheld down, tied and captive by soft and pliant bonds.\nOne must wrestle with the utmost efforts; amid hardships\none must follow the way of virtue, so that it does not love the sweets\nof a fleeting condition, nor heap up too much gold,\nnor wish greedily to gaze at the varied colors of stones","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.121 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 121–150; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-121)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.151":{"o":"Ambitiosa velit, nec se popularibus auris\nOstentet, pulchroque inflata tumescat honore:\nNe natale solum, patrii ne iugera ruris\nTendat, et externos animum diffundat in agros:\nEt ne corporeis addicat sensibus omne\nQuod vult, aut quod agit: ne praeferat utile iusto,\nSpemque in me omnem statuat; numquam peritura\nQuae dedero, longoque die mea dona fruenda. »\nHaec igitur spondente Deo, quis fortis et acer,\nVirtutisque capax, breve quidque perennibus in se\nPraetulerit? vel quis sapiens potiora putarit\nGaudia membrorum, quam vivae praemia mentis?\nNonne hominem ac pecudem distantia separat una,\nQuod bona quadrupedum ante oculos sita sunt? ego contra\nSpero, quod extra aciem longum servatur in aevum.\nNam, si tota mihi cum corpore vita peribit,\nNec poterit superesse meum post funera quidquam,\nQuis mihi regnator caeli? quis conditor orbis?\nQuis Deus? aut quae iam merito metuenda potestas?\nIbo per impuros, fervente libidine, luxus:\nIncestabo toros, sacrum calcabo pudorem:\nInfitiabor, habens aliquod sine teste propinqui\nDepositum: tenues avidus spoliabo clientes,\nLongaevam perimam magico cantamine matrem.\nTardat anus dominum dilata morte secundum:\nNec formido malum: falluntur publica iura.\nLex armata sedet, sed nescit crimen opertum:\nAut, si res pateat, iudex corrumpitur auro.\nRara reos iusta percellit poena securi.\nSed quid ego haec meditor? revocat Deus ecce severa","t":"ambitiously, nor show itself off to the popular breezes,\nand swell, puffed up with fine honor;\nnor stretch out its native soil and the acres of its father’s farm,\nand spread its mind over other men’s fields;\nand not give over to the bodily senses all\nthat it wills or does; not prefer the useful to the just,\nand set all its hope on me; what I shall give will never\nperish, and my gifts are to be enjoyed for a long day.”\nSince God promises these things, then, who that is brave and keen\nand capable of virtue would prefer for himself anything brief\nto things everlasting? or what wise man would think the joys\nof the limbs better than the rewards of the living mind?\nIs it not one difference that separates man and beast,\nthat the goods of four-footed beasts lie before their eyes, while I, on the contrary,\nhope for what is kept beyond sight for a long age?\nFor if all my life perishes with my body,\nand nothing of mine can survive after death,\nwho is the ruler of heaven to me? who the founder of the world?\nwho is God? or what power is now rightly to be feared?\nI will go through impure luxuries with burning lust;\nI will defile marriage beds and trample on sacred modesty;\nI will deny a deposit I hold from a neighbor\nwithout a witness; I will greedily rob poor clients;\nI will kill my long-lived mother with a magic spell:\nthe old woman delays me, her heir, by putting off her death.\nNor do I fear evil: the public laws are deceived.\nThe law sits armed, but does not know the hidden crime;\nor, if the matter comes out, the judge is corrupted with gold.\nRarely does punishment strike the guilty with the just axe.\nBut why do I think about these things? See, God, threatening","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.151 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 151–180; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-151)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.181":{"o":"Maiestate minax, negat interitura meorum\nPer mortem momenta operum: « Non occidet, inquit,\nInterior qui spirat homo: luet ille perenne\nSupplicium, quod subiectos male rexerit artus.\nNec mihi difficile est, liquidam circumdare flammis\nNaturam, quamvis perflabilis illa feratur\nMore Noti: capiam tamen, et tormenta adhibebo\nIpse incorporeus, ac spirituum sator unus.\nQuin et corporibus parilis consortia poenae\nDecernam, possum quoniam renovare favillas\nAntiquam in faciem. Nec desperanda potestas:\nQui potui formare novum, reparabo peremptum.\nNon desunt exempla meae virtutis in ipsis\nSeminibus. Natura docet revirescere cuncta\nPost obitum: siccantur enim pereunte vigore\nQuo vixere prius; tunc sicca et mortua sulcis\nAut foveis mandata latent, et more sepulcri\nObruta, de tumulis redivivo germine surgunt.\nNumquid nosse potes, vel coniectare, quis istud\nTam sollers opifex struat? aut quae vis agat intus?\nEn, ego gignendi Dominus, ac restituendi,\nQuod periit fluxitque, potens: arentia quaeque\nIn veteres formas aut flore, aut fronde reduco.\nIdque ipsum quandoque homini facturus, inani\nSurgat ut ex cinere, structuraque pristina constet,\nQuae mihi pro meritis, vel per tormenta rependat\nCrimina, vel summae virtutis in arce coruscet,\nNon peritura dehinc quacumque in sorte manebit.\nInterea, dum mixta viget substantia in unum,\nSit memor auctoris proprii, veneretur et oret","t":"with stern majesty, calls me back, and says that the weight\nof my works will not perish through death: “The inner man who breathes,”\nhe says, “will not die; he will pay an everlasting\npenalty for having ruled ill the limbs subject to him.\nNor is it difficult for me to surround with flames\na fluid nature, though it is said to be borne along\nlike the south wind, blowing through things: I will seize it nevertheless and apply torments,\nI who am myself incorporeal and the one sower of spirits.\nNay, I shall decree for bodies too a partnership\nin equal punishment, since I can restore ashes\nto their old appearance. Nor is the power to be despaired of:\nI who could form what was new will restore what was destroyed.\nExamples of my power are not lacking in seeds\nthemselves. Nature teaches that all things grow green again\nafter death: for they dry up when the vigor\nby which they lived before perishes; then, dry and dead,\nthey lie committed to furrows or pits, and, buried\nas in a tomb, they rise from their graves with reviving shoots.\nCan you know or guess what so skillful a craftsman\nbuilds this, or what force works within? …\nSee, I am the Lord of begetting and powerful to restore\nwhat has perished and flowed away: everything withered\nI bring back to its old forms in flower or leaf.\nAnd I shall do this very thing one day for man,\nthat he may rise from empty ashes and his former structure stand,\nwhich shall pay me for its deserts, either by torments\nfor its crimes, or shine in the citadel of highest virtue,\nhenceforth not to perish, in whatever lot it remains.\nMeanwhile, while the substance mixed into one flourishes,\nlet it remember its own maker, venerate and pray to","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.181 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 181–210; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-181)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.211":{"o":"Artificem submissa suum. Non condidit alter\nHalantis animae figmentum, et corporis alter:\nNec bona praesentis vitae numerosa gubernant\nNumina; non alius segetes et spicea farra\nSuppeditat Deus: aut alius dat musta racemis,\nPurpureumque gravi fundit de palmite sucum.\nIpse ego sum, virides oleas pinguescere bacis\nQui facio, Graia quas Pallade fingitis ortas,\nEt qui Lucinas tribuo nascentibus horas.\nDuplex lege mea per mutua foedera sexus\nGignere amat sobolem, generisque propagine gaudet;\nQuem vos lascivis violatis amoribus ignem,\nEt stupra vestra deae Veneris praetexitis umbra.\nUnus ego elementa rego, nec mole laboris,\nUt miser infirmusve aliquis fragilisve, fatigor.\nLux immensa mihi est, et non resolubilis aetas,\nSensibus et vestris haud intellecta vetustas.\nInde ministeriis ad tot moderamina mundi\nNon egeo, nec participes sociosve requiro.\nPorro autem angelicas legiones, quas mea fecit\nDextera, nosse meum est, et quae natura creatis\nSubsistat, qualesque mihi serventur ad usus.\nTu, me praeterito, meditaris numina mille,\nQuae simules parere meis virtutibus, ut me\nPer varias partes minuas: cui nulla recidi\nPars aut forma potest: quia sum substantia simplex,\nNec pars esse queo. Solis divisio rebus\nCompositis factisque subest: me nemo creavit,\nUt scindi valeam; cunctorum conditor unus.","t":"its maker humbly. One did not make the image\nof the breathing soul and another that of the body;\nnor do many divinities govern the goods of the present\nlife; it is not one god who supplies the crops and the grain in the ear,\nand another who gives new wine to the grapes\nand pours the purple juice from the heavy vine-branch.\nIt is I myself who make the green olives grow fat\nwith their berries, which you pretend were born of Greek Pallas,\nand who grant the hours of Lucina to those being born.\nBy my law the twofold sex, through mutual covenants,\nloves to beget offspring and rejoices in the propagation of its kind;\nthis fire you violate with wanton loves,\nand cloak your debaucheries with the shadow of the goddess Venus.\nI alone rule the elements, and I am not wearied by the mass of the work,\nlike someone wretched or weak or frail.\nMine is boundless light and an age that cannot be dissolved,\nan antiquity not understood by your senses.\nSo I have no need of ministers for so many governments\nof the world, nor do I seek partners or associates.\nMoreover, it is mine to know the angelic legions\nwhich my right hand made, what nature subsists\nin created things, and for what uses they are kept for me.\nYou, passing me by, devise a thousand divinities,\nwhich you pretend obey my powers, so as to diminish me\nthrough various parts: I from whom no part or form\ncan be cut off, since I am a simple substance,\nand cannot be a part. Division belongs only to things\ncompounded and made: no one created me,\nso that I could be split; I am the one founder of all.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.211 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 211–240; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-211)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.241":{"o":"Crede, quod ex nihilo formavi, pars mea non est.\nQuare age, mortalis, soli mihi construe templum,\nEt quae saxa Paros secat, et quae Punica rupes,\nQuae viridis Lacedaemon habet, maculosaque Synnas,\nNativum nemo scopuli mihi dedicet ostrum.\nTemplum mentis amo, non marmoris; aurea in illo\nFundamenta manent fidei: structura nivali\nConsurgit pietate nitens: tegit ardua culmen\nFlore pudicitiae pudor almus, et atria servat.\nHaec domus apta mihi est: haec me pulcherrima sedes\nAccipit, aeterno caelestique hospite digna.\nNec novus hic locus est: fluxit mea gloria in artus,\nEt lux vera Dei. Deus inlustravit alumnam\nMateriem, corpusque parens habitabile fecit\nIpse sibi, placido ut possit requiescere templo.\nCondideram perfectum hominem: spectare superna\nMandaram: totis conversum sensibus in me\nRecto habitu, celsoque situ, et sublime tuentem:\nSed despexit humum, seque inclinavit ad orbis\nDivitias, pepulitque meum de pectore numen.\nRestituendus erat mihimet, submissus in illum\nSpiritus ipse meus descendit, et edita limo\nViscera divinis virtutibus informavit,\nTranstulit, ac nostro docuit recalescere cultu. » —\nScire velim, praecepta Patris quibus auribus haec tu\nAccipias, Italae censor doctissime gentis.\nAn veterem tantum morem ratione relicta\nEligis? et dici patitur sapientis acumen,\nIngeniumque viri: « Potior mihi pristinus est mos,\nQuam via iustitiae, pietas quam prodita caelo,","t":"Believe that what I formed from nothing is not a part of me.\nCome then, mortal, build a temple to me alone,\nand let no one dedicate to me the stones that Paros cuts, or the Punic cliff,\nor that green Lacedaemon or spotted Synnada has,\nor the native purple of the rock.\nI love a temple of the mind, not of marble; in it\nthe golden foundations of faith remain; the building\nrises, shining with snowy piety; kindly modesty covers\nthe high roof with the flower of chastity, and guards the halls.\nThis house is fit for me; this most beautiful seat\nreceives me, worthy of an eternal and heavenly guest.\nNor is this place new: my glory flowed into the limbs,\nthe true light of God. God enlightened the matter\nhe nourished, and as Parent made the body habitable\nfor himself, so that he might rest in a peaceful temple.\nI had made man perfect; I had commanded him\nto look at things above, turned toward me with all his senses,\nwith upright bearing and lofty stance, gazing on high;\nbut he looked down to the ground, bent himself to the riches\nof the world, and drove my divinity from his breast.\nHe had to be restored to me: my Spirit himself\ndescended, sent down into him, and informed with divine powers\nthe flesh brought forth from the mud, …\ntransformed it, and taught it to grow warm again in our worship.”\nI would like to know with what ears you, most learned censor\nof the Italian nation, receive these precepts of the Father.\nOr do you choose only the old custom, abandoning reason?\nAnd does a wise man’s sharpness and a man’s talent allow\nit to be said: “The ancient custom is preferable to me\nto the way of justice, to the piety revealed from heaven,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.241 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 241–270; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-241)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.271":{"o":"Quamque fides veri, rectae quam regula sectae?\nSi, quidquid rudibus mundi nascentis in annis\nMos habuit, sancte colere ac servare necesse est;\nOmne revolvamus sua per vestigia saeclum\nUsque ad principium: placeat damnare gradatim\nQuidquid posterius successor repperit usus.\nOrbe novo, nulli subigebant arva coloni.\nQuid sibi aratra volunt? quid cura superflua rastri?\nIlignis melius saturatur glandibus alvus.\nPrimi homines cuneis scindebant fissile lignum:\nDecoquat in massam fervens strictura secures\nRursus, et ad proprium restillet vena metallum.\nInduvias caesae pecudes, et frigida parvas\nPraebebat spelunca domos: redeamus ad antra,\nPellibus insutis hirtos sumamus amictus.\nImmanes quondam populi, feritate subacta\nEdomiti, iam triste fremant, iterumque ferinos\nIn mores redeant, atque ad sua prisca recurrant.\nPraecipitet Scythica iuvenis pietate vietum\nVotivo de ponte patrem: sic mos fuit olim.\nCaedibus infantum fument Saturnia sacra,\nFlebilibusque truces resonent vagitibus arae.\nIpsa casas fragili texat gens Romula culmo:\nSic tradunt habitasse Remum; regalia faeno\nFulcra supersternant, aut pelle Libystidis ursae\nCompositam chlamydem villoso corpore gestent:\nTalia Trinacrius ductor, vel Tuscus habebant.\nRoma antiqua sibi non constat, versa per aevum,\nEt mutata sacris, ornatu, legibus, armis:\nMulta colit, quae non coluit sub rege Quirino:","t":"than faith in the truth, than the rule of the right way.”\nIf whatever custom held in the crude years\nof the newborn world must be devoutly kept and preserved,\nlet us roll back every age along its own footsteps\nto the beginning: let us decide to condemn step by step\nwhatever later usage found as its successor.\nIn the new world no farmers tamed the fields.\nWhat is the use of ploughs? What of the superfluous care of the hoe?\nThe belly is better filled with acorns of the holm-oak.\nThe first men split the cleavable wood with wedges:\nlet the burning furnace boil the axes back into a lump,\nand the ore drip back into its own metal.\nSlain cattle gave clothing, and a cold cave\ngave small houses: let us go back to the caves\nand put on shaggy garments of sewn skins.\nLet the once savage peoples, whose ferocity has been subdued\nand tamed, now roar grimly again, and return\nto their beastly ways, and run back to their old state.\nLet the young man hurl his shriveled father, with Scythian piety,\nfrom the bridge of vows: so the custom was once.\nLet the rites of Saturn smoke with the slaughter of infants,\nand the cruel altars resound with pitiful wailing.\nLet the Roman nation itself weave huts of fragile thatch:\nso they say Remus lived; let them strew royal couches\nwith hay, or wear on their shaggy bodies a cloak\nmade of the skin of a Libyan bear:\nsuch things the Sicilian or Tuscan chieftain had.\nAncient Rome is not consistent with herself, but turned through the ages,\nand changed in rites, dress, laws, and arms:\nshe worships many things that she did not worship under King Quirinus;","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.271 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 271–300; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-271)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.301":{"o":"Instituit quaedam melius, nonnulla refugit,\nEt morem variare suum non destitit: et quae\nPridem condiderat iura, in contraria vertit.\nQuid mihi tu ritus solitos, Romane senator,\nObiectas, cum scita patrum populique frequenter\nIn tabulis placiti sententia flexa novarit?\nNunc etiam, quotiens solitis decedere prodest,\nPraeteritosque habitus cultu damnare recenti,\nGaudemus compertum aliquid, tandemque retectum,\nQuod latuit: tardis semper processibus aucta\nCrescit vita hominis, et longo proficit usu.\nSic aevi mortalis habet se mobilis ordo:\nSic variat natura vices; infantia repit,\nInfirmus titubat pueri gressusque animusque,\nSanguine praecalido fervet nervosa iuventa:\nMox stabilita venit maturi roboris aetas,\nUltima consiliis melior, sed viribus aegra,\nCorpore succumbit, mentem purgata senectus.\nHis genus humanum per dissona tempora duxit\nCurriculis aevum mutabile: sic hebes inter\nPrimitias, mersumque solo, ceu quadrupes, egit.\nMox tenerum docili ingenio, iamque artibus aptum\nNoscendis, varia rerum novitate politum est.\nInde tumens vitiis calidos adolevit in annos,\nDonec decocto solidaret robore vires.\nTempus adest, ut iam sapiat divina, serenae\nMentis consilio, vivacius abdita sollers\nQuaerere, et aeternae tandem invigilare saluti.","t":"she has established some things better, and avoided some,\nand has not ceased to vary her custom, and has turned\nto the contrary the laws she founded long ago.\nWhy do you throw ritual custom in my face, Roman senator,\nwhen the opinion of what pleased has often renewed, by change,\nthe decrees of the fathers and of the people on the tablets?\nEven now, whenever it is useful to depart from the customary\nand to condemn past habits by a new way of life,\nwe rejoice that something has been found and at last uncovered\nthat lay hidden: the life of man always grows, increased\nby slow advances, and makes progress by long practice.\nSo the changing order of mortal life holds itself;\nso nature varies its stages: infancy crawls,\nthe boy’s step and mind totter feebly,\nsinewy youth seethes with very hot blood;\nsoon comes the age of mature strength, settled;\nthe last age, better in counsel but sick in strength,\nsuccumbs in body, old age with its mind purified.\nBy these courses the human race has led its changeable life\nthrough discordant times: so at first it lived dull\nin its beginnings and sunk in the soil like a four-footed beast;\nsoon it was tender, with teachable mind, and now fit\nfor learning arts, and polished by the various novelty of things;\nthen, swelling with vices, it grew into hot years,\nuntil it made its strength solid with ripened vigor.\nThe time is here for it now to understand divine things, with the counsel\nof a serene mind, to seek hidden things more keenly and skillfully,\nand at last to keep watch for eternal salvation.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.301 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 301–330; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-301)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.31":{"o":"Quid, miles, propriis diffisus viribus, aptas\nIrrita femineae tibimet solacia formae?\nNumquam pennigeram legio ferrata puellam\nVidit, anhelantum regeret quae tela virorum.\nVincendi quaeris dominam? sua cuique dextra est,\nNec nudo suspensa pede, strophioque recincta,\nNec tumidas fluitante sinu vestita papillas.\nAut vos pictorum docuit manus, adsimulatis\nAut lepida ex vestro sumpsit pictura sacello,\nQuod variis imitata notis, ceraque liquenti\nDuceret in faciem, sociique poematis arte\nAucta, coloratis auderet ludere fucis.\nSic unum sectantur iter, sic cassa figuris\nSomnia concipiunt et Homerus et acer Apelles,\nEt Numa; cognatumque malum pigmenta, Camenas,\nIdola conflavit fallendi trina potestas.\nHaec si non ita sunt, edatur, cur sacra vobis\nEx tabulis cerisque poetica fabula praestat?\nCur Berecynthiacus perdit truncata sacerdos\nInguina, cum pulchrum poesis castraverit Attin?\nCur etiam templo Triviae, lucisque sacratis\nCornipedes arcentur equi, cum Musa pudicum\nRaptarit iuvenem volucri per litora curru,\nIdque etiam paries tibi versicolorus adumbret?\nDesine, si pudor est, gentilis ineptia, tandem\nRes incorporeas simulatis fingere membris:\nDesine terga hominis plumis obducere: frustra\nFertur avis mulier, magnusque eadem dea vultur.\nVis decorare tuum, ditissima Roma, senatum?","t":"Why, soldier, distrusting your own strength, do you fit to yourself\nthe vain consolations of a female form?\nNever has an iron-clad legion seen a winged girl\nwho directed the weapons of panting men.\nDo you seek the mistress of victory? each has his own right hand …\nnot one hanging on a bare foot, girt with a breast-band,\nnor clothed as to her swelling breasts with flowing fold.\nEither the painters’ hand taught you, with counterfeit …,\nor charming painting took from your shrine\nwhat it might draw into a face, imitating it with various marks\nand with liquid wax, and, enhanced by the art of its partner\npoetry, dare to play with colored dyes.\nSo they follow one path; so Homer, keen Apelles,\nand Numa conceive empty dreams in figures,\nand a threefold power of deceit, akin in evil,\npigments, the Muses, and idols, has fused them together.\nIf these things are not so, let it be told why the poetic fable\nfurnishes you with sacred rites from pictures and waxes.\nWhy does the Berecynthian priest lose his mutilated\ngroin, when poetry has castrated the handsome Attis?\nWhy are horn-footed horses kept away from the temple\nof Trivia and her sacred groves, when the Muse\nhas snatched away a chaste youth along the shores in a winged chariot,\nand the many-colored wall portrays it for you too?\nStop at last, if you have any shame, pagan foolishness,\ninventing incorporeal things with counterfeit limbs;\nstop covering a human back with feathers: in vain\na woman is said to be a bird, and the same goddess a great vulture.\nDo you wish to adorn your senate, wealthiest Rome?","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-31)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.331":{"o":"Quamquam, si tantus amor est et cura vetusti\nMoris, et a prisco placet haud discedere ritu,\nExstat in antiquis exemplum nobile libris,\nInservisse Deo gentem, quae prima recentes\nIncoluit terras, vacuoque habitavit in orbe.\nUnde genus ducit nostrae porrecta propago\nStirpis, et indigenae pietatis iura reformat.\nSed quia Romanis loquimur de cultibus, ipsum\nSanguinis Hectorei populum probo, tempore longo\nNon multos coluisse deos, rarisque sacellis\nContentum, paucas posuisse in collibus aras.\nInnumeros post deinde deos, virtute subactis\nUrbibus, et claris peperit sibi Roma triumphis.\nInter fumantes templorum armata ruinas\nDextera victoris simulacra hostilia cepit,\nEt captiva domum, venerans ceu numina, vexit.\nIllud ab incensis in praedam sumpsit Athenis.\nQuasdam victa dedit capitis Cleopatra canini\nEffigies, quasdam domitis Hammonis harenis\nSyrtica cornutas facies habuere tropaea.\nRoma triumphantis quotiens ducis inclita currum\nPlausibus excepit, totiens altaria divum\nAddidit, et spoliis sibimet nova numina fecit:\nNumina, quae patriis cum moenibus eruta, nullum\nPraesidium potuere suis adferre sacellis.\nCernis, ut antiqui semper vestigia moris","t":"However, if there is so great a love and care for the old\ncustom, and it pleases you not to depart from the ancient rite,\nthere is a noble example in the ancient books, …\nthat the nation that first inhabited the new lands\nand dwelt in the empty world served God;\nfrom it the extended offspring of our stock draws its line,\nand restores the laws of native piety.\nBut since we are speaking of Roman worship, I prove that the very people\nof Hector’s blood for a long time did not worship many gods,\nbut, content with few shrines, set up few altars on the hills.\nAfterward Rome acquired countless gods\nwhen cities were subdued by her valor, and by her famous triumphs.\nAmid the smoking ruins of temples, the armed right hand\nof the victor took the enemy’s images\nand carried them home as captives, venerating them as divinities. …\nThat one she took as plunder from burned Athens;\nconquered Cleopatra gave some effigies with dog’s heads;\nsome Syrtic trophies from the subdued sands of Ammon\nhad horned faces.\nWhenever famous Rome received with applause the chariot\nof a triumphant general, she added altars of the gods,\nand made new divinities for herself from the spoils:\ndivinities which, torn up with their native walls,\ncould bring no protection to their own shrines.\nYou see how the footprints of ancient custom","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.331 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 331–360; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-331)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.361":{"o":"Gressibus incertis varie titubasse probentur,\nAdsciscendo deos maioribus incompertos,\nSeque peregrina sub relligione dicasse,\nNec ritus servasse suos? quodcumque sacrorum est,\nExsulat, externumque inimicam venit in urbem.\nFrustra igitur solitis, prava observatio, inhaeres.\nNon est mos patrius, quem diligis, improbe, non est.\nSed sollers orator ait: Fataliter Urbem\nSortitam, quonam Genio proprium exigat aevum.\nCunctis nam populis seu moenibus inditur, inquit,\nAut fatum, aut Genius, nostrarum more animarum,\nQuae sub dispari subeunt nova corpora sorte.\nCompetat, ignoro: quid possit, et unde oriatur\nSpiritus informis, sine corpore, formave, an ulla\nSit species, et quid sapiat, quae munera curet:\nContra, animas hominum venis vitalibus intus\nSic interfusas intellego, sanguis ut ex his\nAccipiat motumque levem, tenerumque vaporem,\nFrigida succendat, riget arida, dura relaxet.\nSic hominis vitam sibi temperat atque gubernat\nVivida mens, quam tu ficto componere temptas\nMurorum Genio, qui nusquam est, nec fuit umquam.\nQuin et corporibus versat mens viva regendis\nSummum consilium, fida ut tutacula nudis\nInvalidisque paret, metuenda pericula vitet:\nUtile prospiciat, varias agitetur ad artes;\nConsultet, cui se domino submittat, et orbis\nQuem putet auctorem, quem rerum summa sequatur.\nAt tuus hic urbis Genius, dicas volo, quando\nCoepit adhuc parvae primum se infundere Romae?","t":"are proved to have tottered variously with uncertain steps,\nadopting gods unknown to the ancestors,\nand dedicating themselves under a foreign religion,\nand not keeping their own rites? Whatever there is of sacred rites\nis in exile, and has come as a foreigner into a hostile city.\nIn vain, then, wicked observance, you cling to the customary.\nIt is not ancestral custom that you love, wicked man, it is not.\nBut the skillful orator says that the City was allotted by fate\nthe Genius under which it should pass its own age.\n“For to all peoples and walls,” he says, “is given\neither a fate or a Genius, in the manner of our souls,\nwhich enter new bodies under different lots.”\n… whom it suits, I do not know: what a shapeless spirit can do,\nand whence it arises, without body or form, or whether it has any\nappearance, and what it knows, what duties it cares for.\nOn the other hand, I understand that human souls are so\npoured into the vital veins within, that from them the blood\nreceives a light motion and a delicate warmth,\nkindles what is cold, waters what is dry, relaxes what is hard.\nSo the living mind tempers and governs the life of man for itself,\nthe mind that you try to compare with a feigned\nGenius of the walls, which is nowhere and never was.\nMoreover, the living mind turns over the highest counsel\nfor ruling bodies, to provide faithful protections for the naked\nand weak, to avoid fearful dangers,\nto foresee what is useful, to busy itself with various arts,\nto consider to what master it should submit itself, and whom\nit should think the author of the world, whom the sum of things follows.\nBut tell me, I want to know, when did this Genius of your city\nfirst begin to pour itself into Rome, still small?","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.361 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 361–390; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-361)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.391":{"o":"Fluxit ab uberibus nemorosa in valle lupinis,\nInfantesque aluit, dum nascitur ipse, gemellos?\nAn cum vulturibus volitans ignota per auras\nUmbra, repentinam traxit de nube figuram?\nCulminibus summis sedet, an penetralia servat?\nInstituit mores, et iura forensia condit?\nAn castrorum etiam fossis intervenit? acres\nCogit ad arma viros, lituis ciet, urget in hostem?\nQuae quis non videat sapientum digna cachinno?\nFingamus tamen esse aliquam, quae talia curet,\nUmbram sive animam, per quam res publica fatum\nHauserit, et calidis animetur tota medullis.\nCur non haec eadem de relligione colenda\nConsultat? cur non suspectat libera caelum?\nCur sibi praescriptum non commutabile fatum,\nUt captiva, putat? genesis cur vincula fingit?\nCur iam nolle licet, quod tunc voluisse licebat,\nErroresque abolere suos, ac flectere sensus?\nSic septingentis erravit circiter annis,\nLubricaque et semper dubitans, quae forma placeret\nImperii, quae regnandi foret aequa potestas.\nNon sine grandaevis curarum in parte locatis.\nMox proceres de stirpe senum tractasse videmus\nClavum consilii: plebeias inde catervas\nCollatas patribus mixtim ditionibus aequis,\nImperitasse diu, belloque et pace regendis.\nConsule nobilitas viguit: plebs fisa tribuno est.\nDisplicet hic subito status, et bis quina creantur\nSummorum procerum fastigia, quos duodeni\nCircumstant fasces: simul et sua quemque securis.","t":"Did it flow from the wolf’s udders in the wooded valley,\nand nourish the twin infants while it was itself being born?\nOr did an unknown shade, flying through the air with the vultures,\nsuddenly draw its shape from a cloud?\nDoes it sit on the highest roofs, or does it guard the inner shrines?\nDid it establish morals and found the laws of the forum?\nOr does it even intervene in the trenches of the camp? Does it drive\nkeen men to arms, rouse them with trumpets, urge them against the enemy?\nWho would not see that these things deserve the laughter of the wise?\nLet us suppose, however, that there is some shade or soul\nthat cares for such things, through which the state has drawn\nits fate and is animated in all its warm marrow:\nwhy does it not take counsel about the religion to be worshipped?\nWhy does it not look up freely to heaven?\nWhy does it think, like a captive, that fate is prescribed\nfor it and unchangeable? Why does it imagine the chains of a nativity?\nWhy may it not now refuse what it was then allowed to will,\nand abolish its errors and turn its feelings?\nSo for about seven hundred years it wandered,\nslippery and always doubting what form of empire\npleased it, what power of ruling was fair.\n… not without the aged being placed in a share of the cares.\nSoon we see the nobles from the stock of the elders handling\nthe helm of counsel; then the plebeian crowds,\njoined to the fathers with equal powers mixed together,\nruled for a long time in managing war and peace.\nThe nobility flourished under the consul; the people trusted in the tribune.\nThis state suddenly displeases, and twice five\nsummits of the highest nobles are created, whom\ntwelve fasces surround, and each his own axe.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.391 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 391–420; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-391)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.421":{"o":"Rursus se geminis reddit ductoribus omnis\nPublica res, et consulibus dat condere fastos.\nUltima sanguineus turbavit saecla triumvir.\nFluctibus his olim fatum, Geniusve, animusve\nPublicus erravit: tandem deprendere rectum\nDoctus iter, caput augustum diademate cinxit,\nAppellans patrem patriae, populi atque senatus\nRectorem, qui militiae sit ductor, et idem\nDictator, censorque bonus, morumque magister,\nTutor opum, vindex scelerum, largitor honorum.\nQuod si tot rerum gradibus totiens variatis\nConsiliis, aegre tandem pervenit ad illud\nQuod probet, ac sancto reverentia publica servet\nFoedere: quid dubitat divina agnoscere iura,\nIgnorata prius sibimet, tandemque retecta?\nGratemur, iam non dubitat; nam subdita Christo\nRomam dico viros, quos mentem credimus urbis,\nNon Genium, cuius frustra simulatur imago.\nQuamquam cur Genium Romae mihi fingitis unum?\nCum portis, domibus, thermis, stabulis soleatis\nUrbis, perque locos, Geniorum milia multa\nFingere, ne propria vacet angulus ullus ab umbra?\nRestat, ut et fatum similis dementia cunctis\nAedibus imponat, paries ut quisque sub astro\nFundatus structusque suo, qua sorte maneret:\nQuando autem rueret, primis acceperit horis.\nAdscribunt saxis Lachesis male fortia fila,\nTectorumque trabes fusis pendere rotatis\nCredunt, atque ipsis tribuunt decreta tigillis:\nCeu distet, cuius stellae sit fraxinus ortu","t":"Again the whole commonwealth returns to two leaders\nand gives the consuls the right to mark the calendar.\nThe bloody triumvir troubled the last ages.\nOn these waves the fate, or the Genius, or the public mind\nonce wandered: at length, taught to discover the right way,\nit girded an august head with the diadem,\ncalling him father of the country, ruler of the people\nand the senate, who should be leader of the army, and also\ndictator and good censor and master of morals,\nguardian of wealth, avenger of crimes, bestower of honors.\nAnd if, after so many stages of things and plans so often changed,\nit has with difficulty at last arrived at that which it approves,\nand public reverence keeps with a holy covenant,\nwhy does it hesitate to recognize the divine laws,\nunknown to it before and at last revealed?\nLet us give thanks: it no longer hesitates; for subject to Christ …\nby Rome I mean the men, whom we believe to be the mind of the city,\nnot a Genius, whose image is feigned in vain.\nAnd yet why do you make up one Genius of Rome for me,\nwhen you are accustomed to imagine for gates, houses, baths, stables …\nof the city, and through its places, many thousands of Genii,\nso that no corner may be empty of its own shade?\nIt remains that the same madness should impose a fate on all\nbuildings too, so that each wall, founded and built\nunder its own star, received in its first hours\nthe lot by which it should stand and when it should fall.\nThey ascribe to stones the ill-strong threads of Lachesis,\nand believe that the beams of roofs hang on the whirling spindles,\nand assign decrees to the very rafters:\nas if it mattered under whose star’s rising an ash tree","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.421 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 421–450; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-421)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.451":{"o":"Eruta, quae summum conscenderet ardua culmen.\nDenique nulla hominum res est, nulla actio mundi,\nCui non fatalem memorent incumbere sortem.\nQuae quia constituunt, dicant, cur condita sit lex\nBis sex in tabulis: aut cur rubrica minetur,\nQuae prohibet peccare reos, quos ferrea fata\nCogunt ad facinus, et inevitabile mergunt;\nQuin et velle adigunt, pravum insinuantia votum.\nCedite, si pudor est, gladiumque retundite vestrum:\nAspera nil meritos poenis plectentia iura:\nAntrum carcereum dissolvite, corpora sub quo\nAgminis innocui fato peccante tenetis.\nNemo nocens, si fata regunt, quod vivitur, ac fit:\nImmo nocens, quicumque volens, quod non licet, audet,\nAlterutrum quia velle suum est, nec fata reatum\nImponunt homini, sed fit reus ipse suopte\nArbitrio, placitumque nefas et facta rependit\nImpia suppliciis, merito, non sorte peremptus.\nQuisque putat fato esse locum, sciat, omniparentem\nEsse Deum, nulli vetitum fatalibus astris,\nNec mathesis praescripto aliquo pia vota repelli.\nSpirat enim maiora animus, seque altius effert\nSideribus, transitque vias et nubila fati,\nEt momenta premit pedibus, quaecumque putantur\nFigere propositam natali tempore sortem.\nHuc ades, omne hominum genus, huc concurrite et urbes:\nLux immensa vocat; factorem noscite vestrum.\nSunt aliqua, opposito vanescunt irrita Christo.\nSed multi duxere dei per prospera Romam,","t":"was dug up, which was to climb high to the topmost summit.\nIn short, there is no human thing, no action in the world,\non which they do not say a fated lot lies.\nSince they establish this, let them say why the law\nof the twice six tables was founded, or why the rubric threatens,\nwhich forbids those to sin as culprits whom iron fates\ncompel to crime and plunge into it inescapably,\nand even drive them to will it, instilling a perverse wish.\nGive way, if you have any shame, and blunt your sword,\nyour harsh laws that strike with penalties those who have deserved nothing;\ndissolve the prison cave under which you hold\nthe bodies of an innocent band, while it is fate that sins.\nNo one is guilty, if fates rule what is lived and done:\nbut rather, whoever willingly dares what is not allowed is guilty,\nsince to will one or the other is his own, and the fates do not impose\nguilt on man, but he becomes guilty by his own\nchoice, and pays for the crime he pleased to do and for his impious\ndeeds with punishments, destroyed by his deserts, not by lot.\nWhoever thinks there is room for fate, let him know that God\nis the parent of all, forbidden to no one by fatal stars,\nand that holy prayers are not repelled by any prescription of astrology.\nFor the mind breathes greater things, and lifts itself higher\nthan the stars, passes beyond the paths and clouds of fate,\nand treads underfoot all the moments that are thought\nto fix the lot set out at the time of birth.\nCome here, the whole race of men; run together here, you cities:\nthe boundless light calls you; know your Maker.\n… If there are any [fates], they vanish, powerless, when Christ is set against them.\n“But many gods have led Rome through prosperity,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.451 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 451–480; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-451)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.481":{"o":"Quos colit ob meritum magnis donata triumphis.\nErgo age, bellatrix, quae vis subiecerit, ede,\nEuropam Libyamque tibi: dic nomina divum.\nCynthius ut Delphos, tribuerunt omine dextro\nIsis Nilicolas, Rhodios Cytherea, reliquit\nVenatrix Ephesum virgo, Mars dedidit Hebrum:\nEt quam subiectis dominam dea gentibus esse,\nSi qua fata sinant, iam tum tenditque fovetque,\nIussit Romuleis addictam vivere frenis.\nPerfidiane deum indigenum cecidere tot urbes?\nDestructaeque iacent ipsis prodentibus arae?\nO pietas, o sancta fides! traduxit alumnos\nMaiestas infida locos, et creditur istis\nNuminibus, quae transfugio meruere sacrari?\nAn voluit servare suos, luctataque multum\nRelligio infestas temptavit pellere turmas,\nRomanis obnisa globis? sed fortior illam\nVirtus luctifico camporum in pulvere fregit?\nImmo ita est, armis et viribus indiga veri\nVicta superstitio est, et inanem gloria fugit.\nSed nec difficilis fuit, aut satis ardua genti\nNatae ad procinctum victoria, frangere inertes,\nMolliaque omnigenum colla inclinare deorum.\nTunc cum Dictaeis bellum Corybantibus asper\nSamnis, Marsusque Iovi sudore gerebat,\nCum mastigophoris, oleoque et gymnadis arte\nUnctis pugilibus, miles pugnabat Etruscus:\nNec petaso insignis poterat, Lacedaemone capta,\nMercurius servare suas de clade palaestras,","t":"whom she worships for their merit, having been given great triumphs.”\nCome then, warrior city, tell what power subdued\nEurope and Libya to you: tell the names of the gods.\n… as the Cynthian [gave] Delphi; with favorable omen they granted them:\nIsis gave up the dwellers on the Nile, Cytherea the Rhodians,\nthe virgin huntress left Ephesus, Mars surrendered the Hebrus; …\nand the city which the goddess, if the fates allow, even then strove and cherished\nto be mistress over subject nations,\nshe ordered to live bound to Romulus’s reins.\nDid so many cities fall by the treachery of their native gods?\nDo their altars lie destroyed, betrayed by the gods themselves?\nO piety, O holy faith! Did a faithless majesty transfer\nthe places it had nurtured, and are those divinities trusted\nwhich deserved to be consecrated for their desertion?\nOr did their religion want to save its own, and, struggling hard,\ntry to drive back the hostile squadrons, striving\nagainst the Roman masses? but did a stronger valor break it\nin the grievous dust of the fields?\nYes, so it is: lacking arms and true strength,\nsuperstition was conquered, and glory fled what was empty.\nNor was victory difficult or hard enough for a nation\nborn for the field, to break inert gods\nand bend the soft necks of gods of every kind.\nThen, when the fierce Samnite and the Marsian waged war with sweat\nagainst the Dictaean Corybants of Jupiter,\nwhen the Etruscan soldier fought with scourge-bearers\nand boxers oiled with the art of the gymnasium,\nneither could Mercury, distinguished by his hat, when Lacedaemon was taken,\nsave his wrestling-grounds from destruction,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.481 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 481–510; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-481)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.511":{"o":"Apenninicolam peditem Cybeleius hostis\nCongressu excipiens, Asiam defendere et Idam\nQui potuit, cogente acies in proelia Gallo?\nIdalias nisi forte rosas, laurum citharoedi\nVatis, silvicolae calamos arcumque puellae\nDedere servitio, calcataque sacra domare\nDifficilis operis fuit, immensique laboris.\nFluctibus Actiacis signum symphonia belli\nAegypto dederat, clangebat bucina contra.\nInstiterant tenues cumbae, fragilesque phaseli\nInter turritas Memphitica rostra Liburnas:\nNil potuit Serapis deus, et latrator Anubis.\nStirpis Iuleae ductore, exercitus ardens\nPraevaluit, Boreae quem miserat algidus axis.\nNon armata Venus, non tunc clipeata Minerva\nVenere auxilio: non divum degener ordo,\nEt patria extorris, Romanis adfuit armis.\nVictus et ipse prius, inimica nec agmina iuvit:\nSi tamen antiquum norat retinere dolorem.\nSed dicis, legisse deos, ubi sanctior usus\nTemplorum cultu celebri sine fine maneret;\nAeneadumque ultro victricia signa virorum\nRegis amore Numae, nullo cogente, secutos.\nNum Diomedis item tentoria, et acris Ulixi\nCastra volens Pallas, caesis custodibus arcis,\nLegit, ubi umenti sudaret maesta sigillo?\nAut quotiens ductor Macetum fortissimus altos\nTemplorum cineres victis cumulavit Amyclis:\nOptarunt praedis domini se numina capta\nMisceri, Assyriaeque vehi Babylonis ad arcem?","t":"nor could the Cybelean enemy, meeting the infantry of the Apennines\nin battle, defend Asia and Ida,\nwhen a Gallus drove the battle lines into combat.\nUnless perhaps it was a difficult work and an immense labor\nto hand over to slavery the Idalian roses, the laurel of the lyre-playing\nprophet, and the reeds and bow of the forest-dwelling girl,\nand to tame their trampled rites.\nOn the waves of Actium a band had given Egypt\nthe signal of war; the trumpet sounded against it.\nThin boats and fragile pinnaces had pressed on,\nMemphite beaks amid the towering Liburnian galleys:\nthe god Serapis could do nothing, nor the barker Anubis.\nUnder a leader of the stock of Iulus, the burning army\nprevailed, which the cold northern sky had sent.\nNeither armed Venus nor Minerva with her shield\ncame to help then; no degenerate order of gods,\nexiled from its homeland, aided the Roman arms.\nItself conquered before, it did not help the enemy ranks either,\nif indeed it knew how to keep its old resentment.\n“But,” you say, “the gods chose where a holier practice\nwould remain without end in the crowded worship of temples,\nand followed of their own accord the victorious standards of the sons of Aeneas\nfor love of King Numa, with no one forcing them.”\nDid Pallas likewise willingly choose the tents of Diomedes\nand the camp of keen Ulysses, when the guards of the citadel were slain,\nwhere she would sweat sadly in a wet image?\nOr, whenever the bravest leader of the Macedonians\nheaped up the ashes of high temples in conquered Amyclae,\ndid the captured gods wish to be mixed with the plunder\nof their masters and carried to the citadel of Assyrian Babylon?","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.511 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 511–540; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-511)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.541":{"o":"Non fero Romanum nomen, sudataque bella,\nEt titulos tanto quaesitos sanguine carpi.\nDetrahit invictis legionibus, et sua Romae\nPraemia deminuit, qui, quidquid fortiter actum est,\nAdscribit Veneri, palmam victoribus aufert.\nFrustra igitur currus summo miramur in arcu\nQuadriiugos, stantesque duces in curribus altis\nFabricios, Curios, hinc Drusos, inde Camillos:\nSub pedibusque ducum captivos poplite flexo\nAd iuga depressos, manibusque in terga retortis,\nEt suspensa gravi telorum fragmina trunco;\nSi Brennum, Antiochum, Persen, Pyrrhum, Mithridatem\nFlora, Matuta, Ceres, et Larentina subegit.\nHis tamen auspicibus successus dextra dederunt\nOmina laetificos, et felix adfuit ales.\nQuid sibi vult virtus? quid gloria? si Corvinum\nCorvus Apollineus penna vel gutture iuvit?\nSed tamen hic corvus cur defuit exitiali\nForte die, infaustas tegerent cum funera Cannas,\nOppeteretque super congesta cadavera consul?\nCur Cremerae in campis cornice vel oscine parra\nNemo deum monuit perituros Marte sinistro\nTercentum Fabios, vix stirpe superstite in uno?\nNullane tristificis Tritonia noctua Carris\nAdvolitans, praesto esse deam praenuntia Crasso\nProdidit? aut Paphiam niveae vexere columbae,\nCuius inauratum tremeret gens Persica limbum?\nSed video, quae te moveant exempla vetustae","t":"I do not bear that the Roman name, its wars sweated out,\nand the titles sought with so much blood should be carped at.\nHe takes away from the unconquered legions, and lessens\nRome’s own rewards, who ascribes to Venus\nwhatever was done bravely, and robs the victors of the palm.\nIn vain then do we admire on top of the arch the four-horse\nchariots, and the leaders standing in their high chariots,\nthe Fabricii and Curii, here the Drusi, there the Camilli,\nand beneath the leaders’ feet the captives with bent knees,\npressed down to the yoke, their hands twisted behind their backs,\nand fragments of weapons hung on a heavy trunk,\nif Flora, Matuta, Ceres, and Larentina subdued\nBrennus, Antiochus, Perseus, Pyrrhus, Mithridates.\n“Yet under these auspices the favorable omens gave\nglad successes, and the lucky bird was present.”\nWhat does valor mean? what glory? if the crow of Apollo\nhelped Corvinus with wing or throat?\nBut why then was this crow absent on the fatal\nday, as it happened, when deaths covered ill-omened Cannae\nand the consul fell on the heaped-up corpses?\nWhy on the fields of the Cremera did none of the gods, by crow\nor by the singing owl, warn the three hundred Fabii\nthat they would perish by unlucky war, with the stock surviving in barely one?\nDid no Tritonian owl, flying to Crassus at gloomy Carrhae,\nreveal as a forerunner that the goddess was present?\nOr did snowy doves carry the Paphian goddess,\nwhose gilded border the Persian nation would fear?\nBut I see what examples of ancient valor","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.541 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 541–570; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-541)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.571":{"o":"Virtutis: dicis domitum terraque marique\nOrbem: res laetas et prospera quaeque retexis:\nMille triumphorum memoras ex ordine pompas,\nDuctaque per mediam spoliorum fercula Romam.\nVis dicam, quae causa tuos, Romane, labores\nIn tantum extulerit? quis gloria fotibus aucta\nSic cluat, impositis ut mundum frenet habenis?\nDiscordes linguis populos, et dissona cultu\nRegna volens sociare Deus, subiungier uni\nImperio, quidquid tractabile moribus esset,\nConcordique iugo retinacula mollia ferre\nConstituit, quo corda hominum coniuncta teneret\nRelligionis amor: nec enim fit copula Christo\nDigna, nisi implicitas societ mens unica gentes.\nSola Deum novit concordia, sola benignum\nRite colit tranquilla Patrem: placidissimus illum\nFoederis humani consensus prosperat orbi,\nSeditione fugat, saevis exasperat armis:\nMunere pacis alit, retinet pietate quieta.\nOmnibus in terris, quas distinet occidualis\nOceanus, roseoque aurora inluminat ortu,\nMiscebat Bellona furens mortalia cuncta,\nArmaratque feras in vulnera mutua dextras.\nHanc frenaturus rabiem Deus, undique gentes\nInclinare caput docuit, sub legibus isdem,\nRomanosque omnes fieri, quos Rhenus et Hister,\nQuos Tagus aurifluus, quos magnus inundat Hiberus,\nCorniger Hesperidum quos interlabitur, et quos\nGanges alit, tepidique lavant septem ostia Nili.","t":"move you: you say that the world was subdued by land and sea;\nyou recount the happy events and every success;\nyou recall in order the processions of a thousand triumphs\nand the litters of spoils carried through the middle of Rome.\nDo you want me to tell you, Roman, what cause raised your labors\nso high? by what nurture glory grew so as to be famed\nfor curbing the world with reins laid upon it?\nGod, wishing to unite peoples discordant in tongue\nand kingdoms dissonant in worship, determined that whatever\nwas tractable in its ways should be subjected to one empire,\nand bear soft bonds under a concordant yoke,\nso that love of religion might hold the hearts of men joined together;\nfor there is no union worthy of Christ\nunless a single mind unites the nations bound together.\nConcord alone knows God; she alone, peaceful,\nrightly worships the kind Father; the most peaceful\nconsent of human covenant makes him propitious to the world;\nsedition drives him away, cruel arms provoke him;\nthe gift of peace nourishes him, quiet piety retains him.\nIn all the lands which the western Ocean bounds\nand the dawn lights with its rosy rising,\nraging Bellona was confounding all mortal things\nand had armed savage hands for mutual wounds.\nTo curb this madness God taught the nations everywhere\nto bow their heads under the same laws,\nand all to become Romans, whom the Rhine and the Danube,\nwhom the gold-flowing Tagus, whom the great Ebro floods,\nthrough whom the horned river of the Hesperides glides, and whom\nthe Ganges feeds and the seven mouths of the warm Nile wash.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.571 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 571–600; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-571)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.601":{"o":"Ius fecit commune pares, et nomine eodem\nNexuit, et domitos fraterna in vincla redegit.\nVivitur omnigenis in partibus, haud secus ac si\nCives congenitos concludat moenibus unis\nUrbs patria, atque omnes lare conciliemur avito.\nDistantes regione plagae, divisaque ponto\nLitora, conveniunt nunc per vadimonia ad unum\nEt commune forum, nunc per commercia et artes\nAd coetum celebrem, nunc per genialia fulcra\nExterni ad ius conubii: nam sanguine mixto\nTexitur alternis ex gentibus una propago.\nHoc actum est tantis successibus atque triumphis\nRomani imperii: Christo iam tunc venienti,\nCrede, parata via est, quam dudum publica nostrae\nNam locus esse Deo quis posset in orbe feroci,\nPectoribusque hominum discordibus, et sua iura\nDissimili ratione tuentibus, ut fuit olim?\nSic incompositos humano in pectore sensus,\nDisiunctasque animi turbato foedere partes,\nNec liquida invisit sapientia, nec Deus intrat.\nAt si mentis apex, regnandi iure potitus,\nPugnacis stomachi pulsus fibrasque rebelles\nFrenet, et omne iecur ratione coerceat una:\nFit stabilis vitae status, et sententia certa\nHaurit corde Deum, domino et subiungitur uni.\nEn ades, Omnipotens, concordibus influe terris:\nIam mundus te, Christe, capit, quem congrege nexu\nPax et Roma tenent: capita haec et culmina rerum","t":"A common law made them equal, and bound them with the same name,\nand brought the conquered into brotherly bonds.\nIn every part of the world men live just as if\none native city enclosed fellow citizens within one wall,\nand we were all united at an ancestral hearth.\nRegions far apart and shores divided by the sea\nmeet now through legal summonses at one common\nforum, now through commerce and the arts\nat a crowded gathering, now through the marriage couch\nin the right of marriage with a foreigner; for from mixed blood\none offspring is woven from alternating nations.\nThis was accomplished by the great successes and triumphs\nof the Roman empire: for Christ, already then coming,\nbelieve me, the way was prepared, which long since the public … of our …\nFor what place could there be for God in a savage world,\nand among the discordant hearts of men, guarding their own rights\nby different reasoning, as it was once?\nSo, where the feelings in the human breast are disordered,\nand the parts of the mind disjoined with their covenant troubled,\nneither does clear wisdom visit nor does God enter.\nBut if the summit of the mind, holding the right to rule,\ncurbs the impulses and rebellious fibers of the pugnacious temper,\nand restrains all the liver by one reason,\nthe state of life becomes stable, and a sure judgment\ndraws in God with the heart and is subjected to one master.\nSee, come, Almighty, flow into lands at concord:\nnow the world receives you, Christ, which Peace and Rome\nhold in a united bond: these are the heads and summits of things,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.601 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 601–630; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-601)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.61":{"o":"Suspende exuvias armis et sanguine captas,\nCongere caesorum victrix diademata regum,\nFrange repulsorum foeda ornamenta deorum:\nNunc tibi non terris tantum victoria parta,\nSed super astra etiam media servabitur aede. » —\nTalia principibus dicta interfantibus, ille\nPersequitur, magnisque tubam concentibus inflat:\nAdlegat morem veterem: nil dulcius esse\nAdfirmat solitis; populosque hominesque teneri\nLege sua. « Sicut variae nascentibus, inquit,\nContingunt pueris animae: sic urbibus adfert\nHora diesque suum, cum primum moenia surgunt,\nAut fatum, aut genium, cuius moderamine regnent. »\nAddit et arcanum rerum, verique latebras\nProsperitate aliqua deprendi posse, secundi\nPer documenta boni, si sint felicia, quae quis\nExperiendo probet; cessisse parentibus omne\nIdolium semper feliciter, et pede dextro.\nEnumerat longi vim temporis: excitat ipsam\nCrinibus albentem niveis, et fronte vietam,\nOre reposcentem querulo sua numina, Romam:\n« Libera sum, liceat proprio mihi vivere more.\nEt quis erit, qui mille meos reprehenderit annos?\nUno omnes sub sole siti, vegetamur eodem\nAere, communis cunctis viventibus aura.\nSed, qui sit, qualisque Deus, diversa secuti\nQuaerimus, atque viis longe distantibus unum\nImus ad occultum. Suus est mos cuique genti;\nPer quod iter properans eat ad tam grande profundum. »\nHis tam magnificis, tantaque fluentibus arte,","t":"Hang up spoils taken by arms and blood;\nheap up, as victor, the diadems of slaughtered kings;\nbreak the foul ornaments of rejected gods:\nnow victory has been won for you not only on earth,\nbut will be kept for you above the stars too, in the midst of the temple.”\nWhile the emperors interrupt with such words, he\ngoes on and blows his trumpet with great harmonies:\nhe cites the ancient custom; he affirms that nothing\nis sweeter than what is customary, and that peoples and men\nare held by their own law. “As various souls,” he says,\n“fall to boys at birth, so the hour and day\nbrings to cities, when their walls first rise,\neither a fate or a genius by whose guidance they reign.”\nHe adds that the secret of things and the hiding places\nof truth can be detected by some prosperity, through\nthe proofs of good fortune, if things are happy which one\nproves by experience; that every idol always turned out\nhappily and auspiciously for our forefathers.\nHe recounts the force of long time; he rouses Rome herself,\nwhite with snowy hair, her brow wrinkled,\ndemanding back her gods with plaintive mouth:\n“I am free; let me live by my own custom.\nAnd who will there be to blame my thousand years?\nWe are all set under one sun, we are quickened by the same\nair, the breath of life is common to all living things.\nBut what God is, and of what kind, we seek following\ndifferent ways, and by paths far apart we all go\nto one hidden thing. Each nation has its own custom,\nby which way it may hasten to go to so great a deep.”\nTo these words, so magnificent and flowing with such art,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.61 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 61–90; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-61)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.631":{"o":"Esse iubes, nec Roma tibi sine pace probatur.\nEt, pax ut placeat, facit excellentia Romae,\nQuae motus varios simul et dicione coercet,\nEt terrore premit: nec enim spoliata prioris\nRobore virtutis senuit, nec saecula sensit,\nNec tremulis, cum bella vocant, capit arma lacertis:\nNec tam degeneri venerandis supplicat ore\nPrincipibus, quam vult praenobilis ille senator,\nOrandi arte potens, et callida fingere doctus,\nMentitumque gravis personae inducere pondus:\nUt tragicus cantor ligno tegit ora cavato,\nGrande aliquod cuius per hiatum crimen anhelet. » —\nSi vocem simulare licet, nempe aptior ista\nVox Romae est, quam nunc eius sub nomine promam.\nQuae, quia turpe putat templorum flore repulsam,\nAegidaque in dubiis pro se pugnasse periclis\nDicere, seque gravem senio inclinante fateri,\nDuctores complexa suos, sic laeta profatur:\nPrincipis invicti, sub quo senium omne renascens\nCaniciem, nam cum mortalia cuncta vetustas\nImminuat, mihi longa dies aliud parit aevum,\nQuae, vivendo diu, didici contemnere finem.\nNunc, nunc iusta meis reverentia competit annis:\nNunc merito dicor venerabilis, et caput orbis,\nCum galeam sub fronde oleae, cristasque rubentes\nConcutio, viridi velans fera cingula serto;\nAtque armata Deum sine crimine caedis adoro.","t":"you bid to be [the heads of things], and Rome without peace does not please you.\nAnd the excellence of Rome makes peace pleasing,\nsince she both curbs various upheavals by her rule\nand presses them with terror; for she has not grown old, stripped\nof the strength of her former valor, nor felt the centuries,\nnor does she take up arms with trembling arms when wars call;\nnor does she supplicate the venerable emperors with so degenerate\na mouth as that most noble senator would have it,\npowerful in the art of pleading and skilled in feigning cunning things,\nand in bringing on the false weight of a grave character,\nas the tragic singer covers his face with a hollow wooden mask,\nthrough whose gaping mouth he may pant out some great crime.\nIf one may imitate a voice, surely this voice,\nwhich I shall now bring out in her name, is more fitting for Rome.\nShe, because she thinks it shameful to say that she was repulsed\nwhen the temples flourished, and that the aegis fought for her\nin doubtful dangers, and to confess herself heavy with stooping age,\nembracing her leaders, speaks joyfully thus:\n“… [Hail, sons] of an unconquered emperor, under whom, reborn, [I put off] all old age …\nmy white hair; for though length of time diminishes\nall mortal things, the long day brings me another age,\nfor by living long I have learned to despise an end.\nNow, now just reverence befits my years;\nnow I am rightly called venerable and the head of the world,\nwhen I shake my helmet under a garland of olive and my red crests,\nveiling my fierce belt with a green wreath,\nand, armed, I adore God without the crime of slaughter.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.631 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 631–660; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-631)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.661":{"o":"Crimen enim, piget heu, crimen persuaserat atrox\nAdsuetum bellis scelerare in funere ferrum.\nIllius instinctu primus Nero, matre perempta,\nSanguinem apostolicum bibit, ac me strage piorum\nPolluit, et proprium facinus mihi saevus inussit.\nPost hunc et Decius, iugulis bacchatus apertis,\nInsanam pavit rabiem: mox et sitis arsit\nMultorum similis, per vulnera tristia flagrans,\nExtrahere insignes animas, ac ludere poenis,\nUndantesque meum in gremium defundere mortes.\nHac me labe ream modo tempora vestra piarunt.\nVivo pie vobis auctoribus, impia pridem\nArte Iovis, fateor: quid enim non ille cruentum\nTradidit? aut quid mite sibi, placidumve poposcit?\nQui, dum praemetuit cultus inolescere Christi,\nSaeviit, ac miserum foedavit sanguine saeclum.\nEt sunt, qui nobis bella exprobrare sinistra\nNon dubitent, postquam templorum sprevimus aras;\nAdfirmentque Libyn Collinae a cardine portae\nHannibalem Iovis imperio, Martisque repulsum:\nVictores Senonas Capitoli ex arce fugatos,\nCum super e celso pugnarent numina saxo.\nQui mihi praeteritam cladem, veteresque dolores\nInculcant iterum; videant me tempore vestro\nIam nil tale pati. Nullus mea barbarus hostis\nCuspide claustra quatit: non armis, veste, comisque\nIgnotus, capta passim vagus errat in urbe,\nTransalpina meam rapiens in vincula pubem.","t":"For a crime, alas, I am sorry for it, a dreadful crime had persuaded me\nto defile with death the sword accustomed to wars.\nAt its instigation Nero first, after killing his mother,\ndrank apostolic blood, and polluted me with the slaughter\nof the holy, and cruelly branded his own crime on me.\nAfter him Decius too, raging with cut throats,\nfed his mad fury; and soon the thirst of many,\nlike him, burned, ardent to draw out, through grim wounds,\nillustrious souls, to make sport with punishments,\nand to pour out flowing deaths into my lap. …\nYour times have now cleansed me, guilty of this stain.\nI live holily under your guidance, I who was impious long ago\nby the art of Jupiter, I confess: for what bloody thing did he not\nhand down? Or what gentle or peaceful thing did he ask for himself?\nHe, while he feared that the worship of Christ would take root,\nraged and fouled the wretched age with blood.\nAnd there are those who do not hesitate to reproach us\nwith unlucky wars, since we spurned the altars of the temples,\nand who affirm that the Libyan Hannibal was driven back\nfrom the hinge of the Colline gate by the command of Jupiter and Mars,\nand that the victorious Senones were driven from the citadel of the Capitol,\nwhen the divine powers fought from the high rock.\nLet those who press upon me again the past disaster\nand the old sorrows see that in your time I suffer\nnothing of the kind now. No barbarian enemy shakes my gates\nwith his spear; no stranger in arms, dress, and hair\nwanders everywhere through a captured city,\ndragging my young men into chains beyond the Alps.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.661 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 661–690; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-661)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.691":{"o":"Temptavit Geticus nuper delere tyrannus\nItaliam, patrio veniens iuratus ab Histro,\nHas arces aequare solo, tecta aurea flammis\nSolvere, mastrucis proceres vestire togatos.\nEt Ligurum vastarat opes, et amoena profundi\nRura Padi, Tuscumque solum victo amne premebat.\nRepulit hos nimbos equitum non pervigil anser,\nProditor occulti tenebrosa nocte pericli:\nSed vis cruda virum, perfractaque congredientum\nPectora, nec trepidans animus succumbere leto\nPro patria, et pulchram per vulnera quaerere laudem.\nNumquid et ille dies Iove contulit auspice tantum\nVirtutis pretium? dux agminis imperiique\nChristipotens nobis iuvenis fuit, et comes eius\nAtque parens Stilicho: Deus unus Christus utrique.\nHuius adoratis altaribus, et cruce fronti\nInscripta, cecinere tubae: prima hasta dracones\nPraecurrit, quae Christi apicem sublimior effert.\nIllic, ter denis gens exitiabilis annis\nPannoniae, poenas tandem deleta rependit.\nCorpora famosis olim ditata rapinis\nIn cumulos congesta iacent: mirabere seris,\nPosteritas, saeclis inhumata cadavera late,\nQuae Pollentinos texerunt ossibus agros.\nSi potui manibus Gallorum excisa levare\nDe cinerum squalore caput, redeunte Camillo\nSigna renidenti fumans si fronte recepi;\nSi potui miseras sertis redimire ruinas,","t":"Recently the Getic tyrant tried to destroy\nItaly, coming sworn from his native Danube,\nto level these citadels with the ground, to dissolve the golden roofs\nin flames, and to dress the toga-wearing nobles in sheepskins. …\nHe had laid waste the wealth of the Ligurians and the pleasant\ncountryside of the deep Po, and was pressing the Tuscan soil, the river crossed.\nIt was no sleepless goose, betrayer of hidden danger\nin the dark night, that drove back these clouds of horsemen,\nbut the raw strength of men, the breasts of those who met them\nbroken through, and a spirit not trembling to fall in death\nfor the fatherland and to seek fair glory through wounds.\nDid that day, too, give so great a reward for valor\nwith Jupiter as patron? The leader of our army and empire\nwas a young man mighty in Christ, and his companion\nand father Stilicho: one God, Christ, for both.\nWhen his altars had been adored and the cross inscribed\non their foreheads, the trumpets sounded; in front of the dragons\nwent the first lance, which carried higher the monogram of Christ.\nThere the nation that had been the ruin of Pannonia for thirty years\nat last paid the penalty and was destroyed.\nBodies once enriched with notorious plunder\nlie heaped in piles: you will marvel, posterity,\nin later ages, at the unburied corpses far and wide\nthat covered the fields of Pollentia with bones.\nIf I could lift my head, cut off by the hands of the Gauls,\nfrom the squalor of the ashes, when Camillus returned,\nif, smoking, I received back the standards with a smiling brow;\nif I could crown my wretched ruins with garlands,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.691 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 691–720; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-691)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.721":{"o":"Et nuper pendentes lauro praecingere turres:\nQuo te suscipiam gremio, fortissime princeps?\nQuos spargam flores? quibus insertabo coronis\nAtria? quae festis suspendam pallia portis,\nImmunis tanti belli, ac te stante sub armis\nLibera, et aure tenus Goticos experta tumultus?\nScande triumphalem currum, spoliisque receptis\nHuc, Christo comitante, veni: dato, vincula demam\nCaptivis gregibus, manicas deponito, longo\nTritas servitio, matrum iuvenumque catervae;\nDediscat servire senex laris exsul aviti,\nDiscat et ad patrium limen genetrice reversa\nIngenuum se nosse puer: timor omnis abesto.\nVicimus, exsultare libet: quid tale, repulso\nPoenorum quondam duce, contigit? ille petitae\nPostquam perculerat tremefacta repagula portae,\nBaianis resolutus aquis durissima luxu\nRobora destituit, ferrumque libidine fregit.\nAt noster Stilicho congressus comminus ipsa\nEx acie ferrata virum dare terga coegit.\nHic Christus nobis Deus adfuit, et mera virtus:\nIllic lascivum, Campania fertilis, hostem\nDeliciae vicere tuae: non Iuppiter acrem\nProtexit Fabium, sed iuvit amoena Tarentus,\nQuae dedit inlecebris domitum calcare tyrannum.\nHis ego pro meritis quae praemia digna rependam,\nNon habeo. Membra statuis effingere vile est.\nVirtutem nil vile decet: nam vile, quod aetas\nEripit, aera cadunt, aut fulvum defluit aurum;\nAut candor perit argenti, si defuit usus,","t":"and to gird the towers lately left hanging with laurel:\nwith what embrace shall I receive you, bravest emperor?\nWhat flowers shall I scatter? With what crowns shall I\nadorn the halls? What hangings shall I hang on the festive gates,\nI who was spared so great a war, and, while you stood under arms,\nwas free, and knew the Gothic tumults only by hearsay?\nMount the triumphal chariot, and with the spoils recovered\ncome here, with Christ as your companion: allow me to remove the chains\nfrom the captive flocks; take off the manacles worn by long\nservitude, you bands of mothers and youths;\nlet the old man, exiled from his ancestral hearth, unlearn slavery,\nand let the boy, his mother returned to the paternal threshold,\nlearn to know himself freeborn: let all fear be gone.\nWe have conquered; it is a joy to exult: what such thing happened\nwhen the leader of the Carthaginians was once repulsed? He,\nafter he had struck the trembling bars of the gate he attacked,\nrelaxed by the waters of Baiae, abandoned his hardest\nstrength in luxury, and broke his steel with lust.\nBut our Stilicho, meeting him at close quarters, forced him\nto turn his back on the very battle line of armored men.\nHere Christ, God, was with us, and pure valor;\nthere, fertile Campania, your delights conquered\nthe wanton enemy; it was not Jupiter who protected keen Fabius,\nbut pleasant Tarentum helped, which allowed him to trample\nthe tyrant tamed by its allurements.\nWhat fitting rewards I shall pay for these merits\nI do not have. To shape limbs in statues is cheap.\nNothing cheap befits virtue: for what age snatches away is cheap:\nbronzes fall, or tawny gold flows away,\nor the whiteness of silver perishes if use has failed,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.721 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 721–750; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-721)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.751":{"o":"Et fuscata situ corrumpit vena colorem.\nViva tibi, princeps, debetur gloria, vivum\nVirtutis pretium, decus immortale secuto.\nRegnator mundi Christo sociabere in aevum,\nQuo ductore meum trahis ad caelestia regnum.\nNil te permoveat magni vox rhetoris, oro,\nQui sub legati specie sacra mortua plorans,\nIngenii telis et fandi viribus audet,\nHeu! nostram temptare fidem: nec te videt ac me\nDevotos, Auguste, Deo: cui sordida templa\nClausimus, et madidas sanie deiecimus aras.\nUnus nostra regat servetque palatia Christus,\nNe quis Romuleas daemon iam noverit arces,\nSed soli pacis domino mea serviat aula. » —\nSic adfata pios Roma exoravit alumnos,\nSpernere legatum non admittenda petentem,\nLegatum Iovis ex adytis ab haruspice missum:\nAt non a patria: patriae nam gloria Christus.\nPersistit tamen adfirmans, iter esse viandi\nMultifidum variumque, Deus cum quaeritur unus.\nHinc alios, ast inde alios properare seorsum\nQuemque per anfractus proprios; sed compita eodem\nFine coartari, simul et concurrere in unum.\nQuin etiam caelum atque solum, ventos, mare, nubes\nOmnibus in commune dari, vel qui colimus te,\nChriste, vel exta litant sculptis qui tabida saxis.\nNon nego communem cunctis viventibus usum\nAeris, astrorum, pelagi, telluris et imbris.\nImmo etiam iniustus pariter, iustusque sub uno\nAxe habitant, unas capit impius et pius auras:","t":"and the vein of metal, darkened by neglect, spoils its color.\nA living glory is owed to you, emperor, a living\nreward of virtue, for you have followed immortal glory.\nAs ruler of the world you will be joined with Christ for ever,\nunder whose leadership you draw my kingdom to heaven.\nLet nothing move you, I pray, in the voice of the great orator,\nwho, under the guise of an envoy, lamenting dead rites,\ndares, alas, with the weapons of his talent and the powers of speech,\nto attack our faith, and does not see that you and I,\nAugustus, are devoted to God, for whom we have closed\nthe sordid temples and thrown down the altars wet with gore.\nLet Christ alone rule and preserve our palace,\nso that no demon may any longer know the citadels of Romulus,\nbut my court may serve the Lord of peace alone.”\nHaving spoken thus, Rome prevailed on her dutiful sons\nto spurn the envoy who asked what should not be granted,\nan envoy sent from Jupiter’s shrine by a soothsayer,\nbut not by the fatherland: for Christ is the glory of the fatherland.\nYet he persists, affirming that the way of going\nis many-branched and varied when the one God is sought;\nsome hasten from here, others from there, separately,\neach by his own windings, but the crossroads are drawn together\nto the same end and run together into one;\nmoreover, that heaven and earth, winds, sea, clouds\nare given to all in common, whether to us who worship you,\nChrist, or to those who offer rotting entrails to carved stones.\nI do not deny that the use of air, stars, sea, earth, and rain\nis common to all living things.\nIndeed, the unjust and the just alike live under one\nsky; the impious and the pious breathe the same air:","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.751 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 751–780; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-751)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.781":{"o":"Castus et incestus, meretrix et nupta: nec alter\nOre sacerdotis, quam mirmillonis anhelat\nSpiritus, aerio vitam qui temperat haustu.\nNubes verna pluit zephyro impellente, sed aeque\nFuris et innocui fecundat rura coloni.\nGurgitis aestivi sic pura fluenta viator,\nUt latro fessus, adit: sic piratis mare servit,\nUt mercatori: nec fluctus secius hosti\nObsequitur, quam cum licitae fert transtra carinae.\nErgo capax utriusque rei natura creandis\nSe praebet populis, nec habet discernere dispar\nViventum meritum, quos tantum pascere iussa est:\nServit enim mundus, non iudicat: hoc sibi summus\nNaturae Dominus praescripta in tempora servat.\nNunc adsunt homini data munera legibus isdem,\nQuis concessa semel. Fons liquitur, amnis inundat,\nVelivolum ratibus mare finditur, influit imber,\nAura volat tenuis, vegetatur mobilis aer,\nEt res naturae fit publica, promptaque cunctis,\nDum servant elementa suum famulantia cursum:\nSic probus, atque reus capitalis criminis isdem\nSideribus, facilisque poli bonitate fruuntur.\nVivere commune est, sed non commune mereri.\nDenique Romanus, Daha, Sarmata, Vandalus, Hunnus,\nGaetulus, Garamas, Alamannus, Saxo, Galaula,\nUna omnes gradiuntur humo, caelum omnibus unum est,\nUnus et oceanus, nostrum qui continet orbem.\nAddo aliud: nostros potant animalia fontes:\nIpso rore mihi seges est, quo gramen onagris,\nSpurca sues nostro amne natat, nostra intrat et ipsos","t":"the chaste and the unchaste, the harlot and the wife; nor is the breath\nthat tempers life with a draught of air different\nin the mouth of a priest from that of a gladiator.\nThe spring cloud rains, driven by the west wind, but it fertilizes\nequally the fields of the thief and of the innocent farmer.\nSo the traveler comes to the pure stream of a summer pool,\nas the weary robber does; so the sea serves pirates\nas it serves the merchant; nor does the wave obey an enemy\nless than when it carries the benches of a lawful ship.\nSo nature, capable of both kinds of thing, offers itself\nto the peoples to be created, and does not have to distinguish\nthe unequal merit of the living, whom it is ordered only to feed.\nFor the world serves; it does not judge: this the supreme Lord\nof nature keeps for himself for the times he has prescribed.\nNow the gifts given are present for man by the same laws\nby which they were once granted. The spring flows, the river floods,\nthe sea is cleft by sail-winged ships, the rain pours in,\nthe thin breeze flies, the moving air is quickened,\nand the realm of nature becomes public and ready for all,\nwhile the elements, serving, keep their course:\nso the upright man and the one guilty of a capital crime\nenjoy the same stars and the easy kindness of the sky.\nTo live is common, but to deserve is not common.\nIn short, the Roman, the Dahan, the Sarmatian, the Vandal, the Hun,\nthe Gaetulian, the Garamantian, the Alaman, the Saxon, the Galaulian,\nall walk on one earth, one heaven is for all,\none ocean that encloses our world.\nI add something else: animals drink from our springs;\nmy crop grows from the same dew as the grass for wild asses;\nthe filthy sow swims in our river; the same breath that comes into us","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.781 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 781–810; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-781)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.811":{"o":"Aura canes, animatque levi fera corpora flatu.\nSed tantum distant Romana et barbara, quantum\nQuadrupes abiuncta est bipedi, vel muta loquenti:\nQuantum etiam qui rite Dei praecepta sequuntur,\nCultibus a stolidis, et eorum erroribus absunt.\nNon facit ergo pares in relligione tuenda\nAeris et caeli communio: corpora tantum\nGignit, alit, reparat, recidivaque semina servat.\nNec refert, cuius generis, cuiusve figurae,\nAut cuius meriti: modo sint, ut corpora terra\nEdita, terrenis quibus est vigor ex elementis:\nArtificis quia Patris opus discrimine nullo\nInfluit in medium, nec avaro munere currit:\nAnte datum, quam primus homo sordesceret Adam.\nNec vitio utentum restrictum deficit, aut se\nSubtrahit indignis, nec foeda et turpia vitat.\nHaud aliter solis radius conluminat omnes\nDiffuso splendore locos: ferit aurea tecta,\nSed ferit et nigro sordentia culmina fumo;\nIntrat marmoribus Capitolia clara: sed intrat\nCarceris et rimas, et taetra foramina clausi\nStercoris, et spurcam redolenti in fornice cellam.\nSed non illud erunt obscura ergastula, quod sunt\nRegia gemmato laquearia fulva metallo:\nNempe magis non illud erunt, qui numen in urnis\nQuaerunt ac tumulis, et larvas sanguine placant,\nQuod sunt qui summum caeli Dominum venerantur,\nIustitiamque litant, et templum pectoris ornant.\nSecretum sed grande nequit rationis opertae\nQuaeri aliter, quam si sparsis via multiplicetur","t":"enters dogs too, and quickens wild bodies with light breath.\nBut Roman and barbarian are as far apart as the four-footed\nis separated from the two-footed, or the dumb from the speaking;\nand as far as those who duly follow God’s precepts\nstand apart from stupid cults and their errors.\nSo the common sharing of air and sky does not make men equal\nin keeping religion: it only begets, feeds, and restores bodies,\nand preserves the seeds that return.\nNor does it matter of what kind, or of what shape,\nor of what merit they are, provided they are bodies brought forth\nfrom the earth, which have their vigor from earthly elements;\nfor the work of the craftsman Father flows out into the common stock\nwithout distinction, and does not run with a grudging gift:\nit was given before the first man, Adam, became foul.\nNor does it fail, restricted by the vice of those who use it, nor withdraw itself\nfrom the unworthy, nor avoid foul and shameful things.\nJust so the sun’s ray lights up all places\nwith its diffused splendor: it strikes golden roofs,\nbut it strikes too roofs foul with black smoke;\nit enters the Capitol, bright with marbles; but it enters\nalso the cracks of the prison, and the foul holes of the enclosed\nsewer, and the filthy cell in the reeking brothel.\nBut dark workhouses will not be what royal ceilings,\ntawny with jeweled metal, are;\nfar more those who seek divinity in urns and tombs\nand appease specters with blood will not be\nwhat those are who venerate the supreme Lord of heaven,\noffer justice in sacrifice, and adorn the temple of the heart.\n“But the great secret of hidden reason cannot be sought\notherwise than if the way is multiplied into scattered","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.811 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 811–840; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-811)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.841":{"o":"Tramitibus, et centenos terat orbita calles,\nQuaesitura Deum variata indage latentem.\nLonge aliud verum est: nam multa ambage viarum\nAnfractus dubios habet, et perplexius errat:\nSola errore caret simplex via, nescia flecti\nIn deverticulum, biviis nec pluribus anceps.\nNon tamen infitior, duplex occurrere nobis\nSemper iter, geminis mortalia partibus ire,\nCum dubitant, quonam ferat ignorantia gressum.\nAltera multifida est: at simplex altera, et unum\nUna Deum sequitur: divos colit altera plures,\nEt tot sunt eius divortia, quot templorum\nSigna, quot aereis volitant phantasmata monstris.\nAut hos thyrsigeri rapit ad Dionysia Bacchi;\nInlicit aut alios ad Saturnalia festa:\nAut docet, occultus quae sacra Diespiter infans\nTutor tinnitus solvi sibi poscat aenos.\nIamque Lupercales ferulae, nudique petuntur\nDiscursus iuvenum: Megalesius hinc spado, diris\nIncensus furiis, caeca ad responsa vocatur.\nSunt, qui quadriviis brevioribus ire parati\nVilia Niliacis venerantur holuscula in hortis:\nPorrum et cepe deos imponere nubibus ausi,\nAlliaque, et Serapin caeli super astra locare.\nIsis enim, et Serapis, et grandi simia cauda,\nEt crocodilus idem, quod Iuno, Laverna, Priapus.\nHos tu, Nile, colis, illos tu, Tibris, adoras:\nUna superstitio est, quamvis non concolor error.\nHinc alia exoritur tenebrosis tecta frutectis\nSemita, quam pecudes et muta animalia carpunt,","t":"paths, and the track wears down a hundred trails,\nto seek the hidden God by a varied search.”\nThe truth is far otherwise: for a great windingness of ways\nhas doubtful turns and wanders more confusedly;\nonly the single way is free of error, not knowing how to turn\ninto a byway, nor wavering at many forks.\nYet I do not deny that a double road always meets us,\nand that mortal things go in two directions\nwhen they doubt where ignorance should carry their step.\nOne is many-branched; but the other is single, and the one\nfollows the one God, the other worships many gods,\nand it has as many divergences as there are statues\nof temples, as many as the phantoms that fly as monsters of the air.\nIt either snatches these off to the Dionysia of thyrsus-bearing Bacchus,\nor entices others to the festivals of the Saturnalia,\nor teaches what rites the infant Diespiter in hiding\nasks to be paid him, with the clashing of bronze as his protector.\nAnd now the thongs of the Lupercalia and the naked running\nof young men are sought; from here the Megalesian eunuch,\ninflamed by dreadful furies, is called to blind oracles.\nThere are those who, ready to go by shorter crossroads,\nvenerate cheap little vegetables in the gardens of the Nile,\ndaring to set the leek and the onion as gods above the clouds,\nand garlic, and to place Serapis above the stars of heaven.\nFor Isis and Serapis, and the ape with its great tail,\nand the crocodile are the same as Juno, Laverna, Priapus.\nThese you worship, Nile; those you adore, Tiber:\nthe superstition is one, though the error is not of one color.\nFrom here another path arises, covered with dark thickets,\nwhich cattle and dumb animals crop,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.841 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 841–870; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-841)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.871":{"o":"Quaeque latens silvis operitur. Nescia caeli\nMens hominum, saevo vivens captiva tyranno,\nHaec putat esse Deum nullum: namque omnia verti\nCasibus, et nullo sub praeside saecla rotari.\nHoc iter haudquaquam magno discrimine distat\nHisce viis, quas vos teritis, qui numina multa,\nEt portenta, Deum summum, numerosa putatis.\nSimplicis ergo viae dux est Deus: ille per unam\nIre iubet mortale genus, quam dirigit ipse\nSublime dextro celsam ad fastigia clivo.\nPrima viae facies inculta, subhorrida, tristis,\nDifficilis, sed fine sui pulcherrima, et amplis\nPraedita divitiis, et abundans luce perenni,\nEt quae praeteritos possit pensare labores.\nMultiplici dux daemon adest, qui parte sinistra\nCentifidum confundit iter: trahit inde sophistas\nBarbatos, trahit hinc opibus vel honore potentes;\nInlicit et volucrum linguis, et haruspice fallit,\nInstigat bacchantis anus ambage Sibyllae,\nInvolvit mathesi, magicas impellit in artes,\nOmine sollicitat, capit augure, territat extis.\nCernis, ut una via est multis anfractibus errans,\nTalem passa ducem, qui non sinat ire salutis\nAd Dominum, sed mortis iter per devia monstret?\nDevia, picta bonis brevibus, sed fine sub ipso\nTristia, et in subitam praeceps immersa charybdim.\nIte procul, gentes: consortia nulla viarum\nSunt vobis cum plebe Dei: discedite longe,\nEt vestrum penetrate chaos, quo vos vocat ille\nPraevius infernae perplexa per avia noctis.","t":"and which, hidden, is covered in the woods. Not knowing heaven,\nthe mind of men, living captive to a cruel tyrant,\nthinks this: that there is no God; for all things are turned\nby chance, and the ages roll on under no governor.\nThis road differs by no great distance from these ways\nwhich you tread, who think that many divinities\nand portents, numerous, are the supreme God.\nSo God is the guide of the single way: he bids the mortal race\ngo by one way, which he himself directs,\nlofty, up the right-hand slope to the high summits.\nThe first face of the way is uncultivated, rather rough, grim,\ndifficult, but most beautiful at its end, endowed\nwith ample riches and abounding in everlasting light,\nand such as can repay the labors that are past.\nA demon is present as guide of the manifold way, who on the left\nconfuses the hundred-branched path: from there he draws bearded\nsophists, from here those powerful in wealth or honor;\nhe entices by the tongues of birds, and deceives by the soothsayer,\nspurs on by the riddling of the raving old Sibyl,\nentangles in astrology, drives into magic arts,\ntroubles by omens, captures by the augur, terrifies with entrails.\nDo you see how one way wanders with many turns,\nhaving suffered such a guide, who does not let one go to the Lord\nof salvation, but shows the road of death through byways?\nbyways painted with brief goods, but grim at their very end,\nand plunged headlong into a sudden Charybdis.\nGo far away, you nations: you have no fellowship of roads\nwith the people of God; depart far away,\nand enter your own chaos, to which he who goes before you\ncalls you through the tangled pathless places of infernal night.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.871 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 871–900; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-871)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.901":{"o":"At nobis vitae Dominum quaerentibus unum\nLux iter est, et clara dies, et gratia simplex.\nSpe sequimur, gradimurque fide, fruimurque futuris:\nAd quae non veniunt praesentis gaudia vitae,\nNec currunt pariter capta et capienda voluptas.\nUltima legati defleta dolore querella est:\nPalladiis quod farra focis, vel quod stipis ipsis\nVirginibus, castisque choris alimenta negentur:\nVestales solitis fraudentur sumptibus ignes.\nHinc ait et steriles frugescere rarius agros,\nEt tristem saevire famem, totumque per orbem\nMortales pallere inopes, ac panis egenos.\nQuae tanta exstiterit praesenti tempore, tamque\nInvidiosa fames, quam Triptolemi Cererisque\nMoverit ira, penu pro virginis ulciscendo,\nNon memini: nec tale aliquid vel fama susurrat.\nAudio per Pharios Nilum discurrere campos\nMore suo, viridisque sata stagnare Canopi.\nHaud venit a sicco qui flumine nuntius adfert\nIeiunam squalere siti sub pulvere Memphim,\nNec Pelusiacae linum sudare paludis.\nNum fons arcano naturae tectus operto\nAruit, et tenuem vix stillat vena liquorem?\nNum refugus nostras odit praestringere ripas\nAmnis, et exustos cursum deflectit ad Indos?\nNum tractu in medio bibulus vorat alveus undam\nFluminis, et subito stagna absorbentur hiatu?\nNe sulcos operire vadis, neve arida possint\nAegypti per plana trahi, glebasque rigentes\nInfusis ad pingue lutum mollire fluentis:","t":"But for us who seek the one Lord of life\nthe way is light and clear day and simple grace.\nWe follow by hope, we walk by faith, and enjoy things to come,\nto which the joys of the present life do not come,\nnor do pleasure grasped and pleasure to be grasped run side by side.\nThe envoy’s last complaint, lamented with grief,\nis that grain for the hearths of Pallas, or maintenance from the treasury\nfor the virgins themselves and the chaste choirs, is denied,\nand that the Vestal fires are cheated of their accustomed allowances.\nFrom this, he says, the barren fields bear fruit more rarely,\ngrim famine rages, and throughout the whole world\nmortals grow pale, needy and in want of bread.\nI do not remember that so great and so hateful a famine\nhas arisen in the present time, such as the anger of Triptolemus\nand Ceres might have stirred to avenge the storehouse of the virgin;\nnor does rumor even whisper of anything of the kind.\nI hear that the Nile runs over the Egyptian fields\nas usual, and floods the crops of green Canopus.\nNo messenger comes from a dry river to report\nthat Memphis lies parched with thirst under the dust,\nnor that the flax of the Pelusian marsh fails to sweat.\nHas the spring, hidden in the secret covering of nature,\ndried up, and does its vein barely drip a thin stream?\nDoes the river, fleeing, hate to touch our banks,\nand turn its course aside to the scorched Indians?\nDoes a thirsty channel in the middle of its course swallow\nthe river’s water, and are its pools absorbed in a sudden gap,\nso that its shallows cannot cover the furrows, nor be drawn\nover the dry plains of Egypt and soften the stiff clods\ninto rich mud with the flowing waters,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.901 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 901–930; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-901)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.91":{"o":"Respondit vel sola Fides, doctissima primum\nPandere vestibulum verae ad penetralia sectae.\nNam cum divinis agimus de rebus, et illum,\nQui vel principio caruit, vel fine carebit,\nQuique chao anterior fuerit, mundumque crearit,\nConiectare animo contendimus, exigua est vis\nQuippe minor natura, aciem si intendere temptet\nAcrius, ac penetrare Dei secreta supremi.\nQuis dubitet, victo fragilem lassescere visu,\nVimque fatigatae mentis sub pectore parvo\nTurbari, invalidisque hebetem succumbere curis?\nSed facilis Fidei via provocat, omnipotentem\nCredere, qui bona non tantum praesentia donat,\nSed ventura etiam, longisque intermina saeclis\nPromittit; ne totus eam resolutus inane\nIn nihilum, pereamque brevem post luminis usum.\nMuneris auctorem ipso de munere pendas.\nAeterna aeternus tribuit, mortalia confert\nMortalis: divina Deus, peritura caducus.\nOmnia, quae tempus peragit, quaeque exitus aufert,\nVilia sunt brevitate sui, nec digna perenni\nLargitore, cui propria est opulentia, numquam\nDesinere, idque homini dare, quod non desinat umquam.\nNam si corruptum, corrumpendumve Deus quid\nPraestat, habetque nihil, quod sit pretiosius istis,\nPauper, et infirmus, et summo indignus honore,\nEt non omnipotens, sed inanis numinis umbra est.\nHac ratione Fides sapienter conicit, immo\nNon dubitat, verum esse Deum, qui, quod sumus, et quod\nVivimus, inlaesum semper fore, si mereamur,","t":"Faith alone has answered, most skilled to open first\nthe entrance to the inner shrine of the true way.\nFor when we deal with divine things, and strive to conjecture\nin our mind him who neither had a beginning nor will have an end,\nwho was before chaos and created the world,\nthe strength is small,\nsince our nature is lesser, if it tries to direct its gaze\nmore keenly and to penetrate the secrets of the supreme God.\nWho would doubt that the frail mind grows weary, its sight overcome,\nand that the force of the tired mind is troubled in the little breast,\nand, dulled, succumbs to cares too weak for it?\nBut the easy way of Faith invites us to believe\nin an Almighty who gives not only present goods,\nbut promises also those to come, without end in long ages,\nso that I may not go wholly dissolved into empty nothing,\nand perish after a brief enjoyment of the light.\nWeigh the authors of the gift by the gift itself.\nThe eternal gives eternal things; the mortal bestows\nmortal things: God gives divine things, the perishing perishable.\nAll things that time completes and that an end takes away\nare cheap by their shortness, and not worthy of an everlasting\nGiver, whose proper wealth it is never\nto cease, and to give man what will never cease.\nFor if God grants something corrupt or to be corrupted,\nand has nothing more precious than these things,\nhe is poor and weak and unworthy of the highest honor,\nand not almighty, but the empty shadow of a deity.\nBy this reasoning Faith wisely infers, or rather\ndoes not doubt, that he is the true God who bids us hope\nthat what we are and what we live will be always unharmed if we deserve it,","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.91 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 91–120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-91)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.931":{"o":"Unde seges late crinitis fluctuet agris,\nDensius et gravidis se vestiat aequor aristis?\nRespice, num Libyci desistat ruris arator\nFrumentis onerare rates, et ad ostia Tibris\nMittere triticeos in pastum plebis acervos?\nNumne Leontini sulcator solvere campi\nCesset frugiferas Lilybaeo ex litore cumbas?\nNec det vela fretis, Romana nec horrea rumpat\nSardorum congesta vehens granaria classis?\nErgo piris mensas silvestribus implet arator\nPoenus, et avulsas Siculus depascitur herbas?\nIamque Remi populo quernas Sardinia glandes\nSuppeditat, iam corna cibos lapidosa Quiritum?\nQuis venit esuriens magni ad spectacula circi?\nQuae regio gradibus vacuis ieiunia dira\nSustinet? aut quae Ianiculi mola muta quiescit?\nQuantos quaeque ferat fructus provincia, quamque\nUbere fecundo large fluat orbis opimus,\nIndicio est annona, tua quae publica plebi,\nRoma, datur, tantaeque urbis longa otia pascit.\nSit fortasse aliquis paulo infecundior annus:\nNil mirum, nec in orbe novum: didicere priores,\nPerpessi plerumque famem: si tabidus aer\nSiccavit tenues ardenti sidere nubes,\nNec vernas infudit aquas creberrimus imber\nFruge nova et viridi: si messis adulta, priusquam\nConceptas tenero solidaret lacte medullas,\nAdflatum calido sucum contraxit ab Euro,\nAgricolae sterilis stipularum silva fefellit.\nHis, ni fallor, ager vitiis corruptus, et ante","t":"from which the crop may wave far and wide in the long-haired fields,\nand the plain clothe itself more thickly with heavy ears?\nLook whether the farmer of the Libyan country stops\nloading ships with grain and sending heaps of wheat\nto the mouth of the Tiber to feed the people.\nDoes the ploughman of the Leontine plain cease\nto launch grain-bearing boats from the shore of Lilybaeum?\nDoes the fleet not give its sails to the straits, nor burst the Roman\ngranaries, carrying the heaped-up stores of the Sardinians?\nDoes the Carthaginian farmer, then, fill his tables with wild pears,\nand the Sicilian graze on plucked herbs?\nDoes Sardinia now supply oak acorns to the people of Remus,\nand stony cornels now furnish the food of the Quirites?\nWho comes hungry to the spectacles of the great Circus?\nWhat district endures dreadful fasting with empty steps?\nOr what mill of the Janiculum stands silent?\nHow much fruit each province bears, and how\nthe rich world flows abundantly with fertile plenty,\nis shown by the grain supply, which is given publicly\nto your people, Rome, and feeds the long leisure of so great a city.\nPerhaps some year may be a little less fruitful:\nno wonder, nor anything new in the world: our forefathers learned it,\noften suffering famine, if a wasting air\ndried up the thin clouds under a burning star,\nand very frequent rain did not pour spring waters\non the new and green crop; if the grown harvest,\nbefore it made solid its marrow conceived with tender milk,\ndrew in its juice blasted by the hot east wind,\nand a barren forest of stalks deceived the farmer.\nBy these faults, if I am not mistaken, the field was corrupted, even before","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.931 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 931–960; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-931)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.961":{"o":"Subiacuit, quam Palladium, quam Vesta, Penates\nSub lare Pergameo servarent igne reposto,\nQuam Priami genitor conductis moenia fabris\nExstrueret, quam virgo suas fundaret Athenas\nPallas: in his quoniam Vestalis origo favillae\nUrbibus, ut memorant, primo de fomite sumpta est,\nSacraruntque focos, aut Phryx, aut Graius alumnos.\nAntiquis elementa labant erroribus, ac de\nLegitimo discussa modo plerumque feruntur\nIn casus alios, quam lex habet, aut iter anni.\nNunc consumit edax segetem robigo maligni\nAeris ex vitio, nunc culmum vere tepenti\nPost zephyros gelidi glacies aquilonis inurit,\nAmbustumque caput culmi fuligine tinguunt.\nSeminis aut teneri turgens dum germinat herba,\nContinuis nimiisque perit constricta pruinis,\nNec potis est tenuem telluri adfigere fibram:\nMox eiecta solo glacie sidente superfit,\nNudaque subducto radix avellitur arvo.\nAncipites tribuli subeunt, et carduus horrens:\nHos fert sicca sitis, hunc ebrius educat umor.\nTemperies effusa minus, vel plus, agit istos\nTerrarum morbos, et mundum vulnerat aegrum.\nNon aliter nostri corruptus corporis usus\nIn vitium plerumque cadit, nec in ordine recto\nPerstat, et excessu moderaminis adficit artus:\nUnus enim status est mundique et corporis huius\nQuod gerimus: natura eadem sustentat utrumque.\nEdita de nihilo crescunt, nihilumque futura.","t":"lay subject to them, before the Palladium, before Vesta, kept\nthe Penates under the hearth of Pergamum with the fire laid up,\nbefore Priam’s father built walls with hired builders,\nbefore the virgin Pallas founded her Athens:\nsince in these cities, as they say, the origin of the Vestal ember\nwas taken from the first tinder,\nand either a Phrygian or a Greek consecrated hearths for his foster-sons.\nThe elements have tottered with ancient errors, and,\nshaken from their lawful measure, they are often carried\ninto other events than the law or the course of the year provides.\nNow devouring rust consumes the crop through the fault\nof malignant air; now, in the warm spring, after the west winds,\nthe ice of the cold north wind burns the stalk,\nand they stain the scorched head of the stalk with soot.\nOr while the swelling blade of the tender seed sprouts,\nit perishes, bound by continuous and excessive frosts,\nand cannot fix its thin fiber in the earth;\nsoon, thrown out of the soil, it is left over as the ice sinks,\nand the naked root is torn out as the field sinks away.\nDouble-pointed caltrops and bristling thistle creep in:\ndry thirst brings the former, drunken moisture raises the latter.\nA temperate climate poured out too little or too much brings about\nthese diseases of the lands and wounds the sick world.\nNot otherwise does the corrupted use of our body\noften fall into fault, and not keep to right order,\nand afflict the limbs by excess of measure:\nfor the state of the world and of this body that we bear\nis one: the same nature sustains both.\nThings brought forth from nothing grow, and are destined for nothing.","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.961 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 961–990; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-961)."},"prudentius-contra-symmachum/4.991":{"o":"Aut titubant morbis, aut tempore victa senescunt.\nNec natura caret vitio, cui terminus instat.\nSemper, crede, polus variis proventibus annos\nTexuit; hos multa ditavit fruge fluentes:\nQuosdam infelices astris damnavit iniquis,\nSpe cassa et sterili curam frustratus agrestem.\nSed, si Vestales ulciscitur ista puellas\nPestis, ab infido quae gignitur improba mundo,\nCur non Christicolum tantum populatur agellos\nPer quos virginibus vestris stata dona negantur?\nUtimur et ruris reditu, et ratione colendi:\nExercere manus non paenitet: et lapis illic\nSi stetit, antiquus quem cingere sueverat error\nFasciolis, vel gallinae pulmone rogare,\nFrangitur, et nullis violatur Terminus extis:\nEt quae fumificas arbor vittata lucernas\nServabat, cadit ultrici succisa bipenni.\nNec tamen iccirco minor est aut fructus agelli,\nAut tempestatis clementia laeta serenae,\nTemperet aut pluvius qui culta novalia ventus.\nSed nec magno opus est frugi viventibus, et cum\nMaxima proveniunt, non amplo in gaudia censu\nSolvimur, inque lucrum studio exsultamus avaro.\nNam quibus aeternum spes informatur in aevum,\nOmne bonum tenue est, quod praesens ingerit aetas.\nO felix nimium sapiens, et rusticus idem,\nQui terras animumque colens, impendit utrisque\nCuram pervigilem, quales quos imbuit auctor\nChristus, et adsumptis dedit haec praecepta colonis:\n« Semina cum sulcis committitis, arva cavete","t":"either totter with diseases or, overcome by time, grow old.\nNor is nature, on which an end presses, free of fault.\nBelieve me, the sky has always woven the years with varied\nyields; these it has enriched, flowing with much fruit;\nsome unlucky ones it has condemned through hostile stars,\nfrustrating the farmer’s care with vain and barren hope.\nBut if this plague, which is wickedly produced by a faithless world,\navenges the Vestal girls,\nwhy does it not ravage only the little fields of the Christians,\nby whom the appointed gifts are denied to your virgins?\nWe too enjoy the produce of the country and the method of farming;\nwe are not sorry to exercise our hands; and if a stone\nstood there, which old error used to bind\nwith ribbons or petition with a hen’s lung,\nit is broken, and Terminus is not defiled with any entrails;\nand the tree hung with fillets that kept smoking lamps\nfalls, cut down by the avenging axe.\nYet the fruit of the little field is not less for that,\nnor the glad mildness of serene weather,\nnor the rainy wind that tempers the cultivated fallow.\nBut those who live frugally have no need of much, and when\nthe greatest crops come, we do not relax into joy at an ample estate\nor exult in gain with greedy zeal.\nFor to those whose hope is formed for an eternal age,\nevery good that the present time offers is slight.\nO too happy the man who is wise and a countryman too,\nwho, tilling his lands and his mind, spends wakeful care\non both, such as Christ, the author, trained\nwhen he took laborers and gave them these precepts:\n“When you commit seeds to the furrows, beware of fields","f":"Prudentius, <i>C. Symm.</i> 4.991 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 991–1020; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-contra-symmachum/4-991)."}}