Martial and the gentle lion
Martial challenges your expectations with this pithy line.Quid nunc saeua fugis placidi, lepus, ora leonis?Why do you now flee the fierce jaws of the gentle lion, hare?Quid nunc: why now?Saeua: fierce...
2 Mar 20252min
Horace on indiscriminate fate
Horace reminds us that no fate surpasses any station we may hold in lifeAequa lege Necessitas sortitur insignis et imos.Necessity assigns according to a fair law, to the high and low born alike. aequa...
27 Feb 20252min
Statius invokes the muse to continue being epic
Statius needs to invoke the muse to continue his epic, as the poem gets more dark and intense.Alias nova suggere vires, Calliope, maiorque chelyn mihi tendat Apollo.Supply new strength, Calliope, and ...
26 Feb 20253min
Valerius on the goddesses departure
The goddesses intervene in the hero’s affairs, then leave. Accepere deae celerique per aethera lapsu diversas petiere vias.The goddesses accepted and, with swift flight through the heavens, took separ...
25 Feb 20253min
Vopiscus on the soldier emperor’s youth
Quid vis, Thracisce? Num quid delectat luctari post cursum?What do you want, Thracian? Does it please you to wrestle after running?Quid: whatVis: you wantQuid vis: what do you wantThracisce: Thracian ...
24 Feb 20252min
Martial boasts of Rome's grandeur
Martial boasts of the grandeur that is RomeBarbara pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis.Let savage Memphis speak not of the wonders that are her pyramids.Barbara: foreign, barbarian, savagepyramidum: of ...
23 Feb 20252min
Vitruvius recounts a shipwreck
Knowledge gives hope, and hope, survival. Vitruvius recounts the wash up from a shipwreck.Bene speremus! Hominum enim vestigia video.Let us hope for the best! For I see the traces of men.Bene: well or...
20 Feb 20252min
Thebaid - Book VII
Great are the stakes we try to change, but fate may bind the outcome. Statius gives an account of the dilemmas of gods."Exscindisne tuas, divum sator optime, Thebas?""Will you destroy your own Thebes,...
19 Feb 20253min
