sed tamen hic corvus cur defuit exitiali forte die, infaustas tegerent cum funera Cannas oppeteretque super congesta cadavera consul? cur Cremerae in campis cornice vel oscine parra nemo deum monuit perituros Marte sinistro tercentum Fabios vix stirpe superstite in uno? nullane tristificis Tritonia noctua Carrhis advolitans praesto esse deam praenuntia Crasso prodidit, aut Paphiam niveae vexere columbae, cuius inauratum tremeret gens Persica limbum? sed video quae te moveant exempla vetustae virtutis: dicis domitum terraque marique orbem, res laetas et prospera quaeque retexis, mille triumphorum memoras ex ordine pompas ductaque per mediam spoliorum fercula Romam.
But after all why did this crow happen to be missing on the fatal day when corpses covered the ill-starred ground at Cannae and a consul met his death on top of a pile of bodies? Why on the plains of the Cremera did no god give warning by rook or lapwings prophetic cry that the three hundred Fabii were to perish in luckless battle and their stock scarce to survive in a single person? Did none of Tritonias owls fly up at sorrowful Carrhae to tell Crassus that the goddess was by his side, no snow-white doves bring the Lady of Paphos that the Persian race might tremble before her gold-wrought girdle? But I see the instances of ancient valour which move you. You say the world was conquered on land and sea, you recount every success and victory, and recall a thousand triumphal processions one after another, with their loads of spoil passing through the midst of Rome.
final_alignments\Prudentius_Reply_to_Symmachus_Book2.json