466He too pitied Rome when Caesar was dead, when he veiled his shining head in dusky gloom and an impious age feared eternal night. 469Though at that time the earth too and the levels of the sea, and ill-omened dogs and boding birds gave signs. 471How often we saw Etna boil out over the fields of the Cyclopes, surging from her burst furnaces, and roll balls of flame and molten rocks! 474Germany heard the clash of arms through all the sky; the Alps trembled with unwonted quakes. 476A voice too was heard everywhere through the silent groves, a mighty voice, and phantoms strangely pale were seen in the dusk of night, and cattle spoke, unspeakable horror!
479rivers stand still and the earth gapes open, and in the temples the ivory weeps in sorrow and the bronzes sweat. 481Eridanus, king of rivers, whirling forests in his mad eddy, swept them away, and carried off herds with their stalls over all the plains. 483Nor at that same time did threatening fibres cease to appear in grim entrails, or blood to flow from wells, and lofty cities to echo through the night with howling wolves. 487Never at other times did more lightning fall from a cloudless sky, nor dread comets blaze so often. 489Therefore Philippi saw Roman battle-lines clash with one another a second time with matched weapons; 491nor did the gods think it unworthy that Emathia and the broad plains of Haemus should twice be fattened with our blood.
493Surely the time will come too when in those lands the farmer, working the earth with his curved plough, will find javelins eaten with rough rust, or strike empty helmets with his heavy hoe, and marvel at huge bones in the graves he has dug up. 498Gods of our fathers, native gods, and Romulus and mother Vesta, who guard Tuscan Tiber and the Roman Palatine, do not at least prevent this young man from rescuing a world turned upside down! 501Long enough already have we paid with our blood for the perjuries of Laomedon's Troy; 503long already has heaven's palace begrudged you to us, Caesar, and complained that you care for the triumphs of men; 505for here right and wrong are inverted: so many wars throughout the world, so many shapes of crime; 506no fitting honour for the plough, the fields lie foul with their tillers led away, and the curved sickles are forged into the unbending sword.
509Here the Euphrates, there Germany stirs up war; 510neighbouring cities break the laws between them and take up arms; 511impious Mars rages through the whole world; 512as when chariots have poured out from the starting-gates, they gather speed lap by lap, and the charioteer, vainly pulling at the reins, is carried along by his horses, and the chariot does not heed the reins.