ergo his auspicibus Traianus, Nerva, Severus et Titus et fortes gesserunt bella Nerones, quos terrena viros inlustres gloria fecit et virtus fragilis provexit in ardua famae, adscita e terris sub religione iacentes! quam pudet hoc illis persuasum talibus, ut se Romanasque acies censerent Martis amore posse regi, dum se Paphiae male blandusadulter venditat Aeneadasque suos successibus auget! felices, si cuncta Deo sua prospera Christo principe disposita scissent, qui currere regna certis ducta modis Romanorumque triumphos crescere et inpletis voluit se infundere saeclis! sed caligantes animas et luce carentes in Iovis Augustique adytis templisque duarum Iunonum Martisque etiam Venerisque sacellis mactatas taetro leti inmersere barathro, supremum regimen crassis in partibus orbis esse rati mersoque poli consistere fundo.
Such then were they under whose favour Trajan, Nerva, Severus, Titus, and the brave Neros waged their wars! Earthly glory made these men famous and mortal valour raised them to the heights of renown while they lay under the power of a superstition adopted from the earth. How shameful that such men as they should have been persuaded to believe that they themselves and the armies of Rome could be directed by the passion of Mars; that adulterer, for no good end, making himself agreeable to the Lady of Paphos and courting her favour by heaping victories on the seed of Aeneas, his descendants! Happy had they been had they known that all their successes were ordered by the governance of the God Christ, whose will it was that kingdoms should run their appointed courses and the triumphs of Rome grow from more to more, and that He should enter the world in the fulness of time. But they made sacrifice of their darkened, blinded souls in the sanctuaries of Jupiter and Augustus, the temples of the two Junos, the shrines of Mars and Venus, and plunged them into the foul abyss of death, supposing supreme power to reside in the gross parts of the world and to be established in the sunken depths of the universe.
final_alignments\Prudentius_Reply_to_Symmachus_Book1.json