674 literature: primary source documents (continues) Grant the rich heritage Of morals, modesty, and truth On Rome herself bestow a teaming race Wealth, Empire, Faith, and all befitting Grace Vouchsafe to Venus’ and Anchises’ heir, Who offers at your shrine Due sacrifice of milk-white kine, Justly to rule, to pity and to dare, To crush insulting hosts, the prostrate foeman spare The haughty Mede has learned to fear The Alban axe, the Latian spear, And Scythians, suppliant now, await The conqueror’s doom, their coming fate Honor and Peace, and Pristine Shame, And Virtue’s oft dishonored name, Have dared, long exiled, to return, And with them Plenty lifts her golden horn Rome Augur Apollo! Bearer of the bow! Warrior and prophet! Loved one of the Nine! Healer in sickness! Comforter in woe! If still the templed crags of Palatine And Latium’s fruitful plains to you are dear, Perpetuate for cycles yet to come, Mightier in each advancing year, The ever growing might and majesty of Rome You, too, Diana, from your Aventine, And Algidus’ deep woods, look down and hear The voice of those who guard the books Divine, And to your youthful choir incline a loving ear Return we home! We know that Jove And all the Gods our song approve To Phoebus and Diana given; The virgin hymn is heard in Heaven From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, Vol 2, Rome and the West (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912–1913) Virgil: Excerpt from the Aeneid (30–19 b.c.e.) BOOK [Anchises, in the realms of the dead, is reciting to his son, Aeneas, the future glories of the Roman race.] Lo! Caesar and all the Julian Line, predestined to rise to the infinite spaces of heaven This, yea, this is the man, so often foretold you in promise, Caesar Augustus, descended from God, who again shall a golden Age in Latium found, in fields once governed by Saturn Further than India’s hordes, or the Garymantian peoples He shall extend his reign; there’s a land beyond all of our planets Yond the far track of the year and the sun, where sky-bearing Atlas Turns on his shoulders the firmament studded with bright constellations; Yea, even now, at his coming, foreshadowed by omens from heaven, Shudder the Caspian realms, and the barbarous Scythian kingdoms, While the disquieted harbors of Nile are aff righted! [Anchises now points out the long line of worthies and conquerors who are to precede Augustus, and adds these lines.] Others better may fashion the breathing bronze with more delicate fingers; Doubtless they also will summon more lifelike features from marble: They shall more cunningly plead at the bar; and the mazes of heaven Draw to the scale and determine the march of the swift constellations Yours be the care, O Rome, to subdue the whole world for your empire! These be the arts for you—the order of peace to establish, Them that are vanquished to spare, and them that are haughty to humble! From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, Vol 2, Rome and the West (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912–1913), pp 174–179