Quid enim sibi voluit princeps suorum temporum Metellus Pius, tunc cum in Hispania adventus suos ab hospitibus aris et ture excipi patiebatur? cum Attalicis aulaeis contectos parietes laeto animo intuebatur? cum immanibus epulis apparatissimos interponi ludos sinebat? cum palmata veste convivia celebrabat, demissasque lacunaribus aureas coronas velut caelesti capite recipiebat? et ubi ista? non in Graecia neque in Asia, quarum luxuria Severitas ipsa corrumpi poterat, sed in horrida et bellicosa provincia, cum praesertim acerrimus hostis Sertorius Romanorum exercituum oculos Lusitanis telis praestringeret: adeo illi patris sui Numidica castra exciderant.
For what was Metellus Pius about, the leading man of his time, when in Spain he allowed his comings to be greeted by his hosts with altars and incense? When he gazed happily at walls draped in curtains of cloth of gold? When he permitted elaborate games to be interposed between enormous feasts? When he attended dinners in palm-embroidered garments and received golden garlands let down from the ceilings on his head as though it were divine? And where all this? Not in Greece or Asia, whose luxury could corrupt Austerity herself, but in a rough, warlike province, and that when a relentless enemy, Sertorius, was dazzling the eyes of Roman armies with Lusitanian spears. So completely had his fathers Numidian warfare faded from his mind.
final_alignments\Valerius_Memorable_Book9.json