Book 8
' Nor think, Pompeius, thou shalt plead thy cause
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' In that proud tongue unknown to Parthian ears
' Of which thy fame is worthy; sobs and tears
' He shall demand of thee. And has our shame
' Brought us to this, that some barbarian foe
' Shall venge Hesperia's wrongs ere Rome her own?
' Thou wert our leader for the civil war:
' Mid Scythia's peoples dost thou bruit abroad
' Wounds and disasters which are ours alone?
' Rome until now, though subject to the yoke
' Of civic despots, yet within her walls
' Has brooked no foreign lord. And art thou pleased
' From all the world to summon to her gates
' These savage peoples, while the standards lost
' By far Euphrates when the Crassi fell
' Shall lead thy columns? Shall the only king
' Who failed Emathia, while the fates yet hid
'Their favouring voices, brave the victor's power,
' And join with thine his fortune? Nay, not so
'This nation trusts itself. Each race that claims
' A northern birth, unconquered in the fray
' Claims but the warrior's death; but as the sky
' Slopes towards the eastern tracts and gentler climes
' So are the nations. There in flowing robes
' And garments delicate are men arrayed.
'True that the Parthian in Sarmatia's plains,
' Where Tigris spreads across the level meads,
' Contends invincible; for flight is his
' Unbounded; but should uplands bar his path
' He scales them not; nor through the night of war
' Shall his weak bow uncertain in its aim
' Repel the foeman; nor his strength of arm
' The torrent stem; nor all a summer's day
' In dust and blood bear up against the foe.
' They fill no hostile trench, nor in their hands
' Shall battering engine or machine of war
' Dash down the rampart; and whate'er avails
' To stop their arrows, battles like a wall.That is, can be as easily defended.
' Wide sweep their horsemen, fleeting in attack
' And light in onset, and their troops shall yield
