Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/247

 a Paulus, or a Cossus, or a Drusus in character; rank them before the statues of your ancestors; let them precede the fasces themselves when you are Consul. You owe me, first of all things, the virtues of the soul; prove yourself stainless in life, one who holds fast to the right both in word and deed, and I acknowledge you as a lord; all hail to you, Gaetulicus, or you, Silanus, or from whatever stock you come, if you have proved yourself to a rejoicing country a rare and illustrious citizen, we would fain cry what Egypt shouts when Osiris has been found. For who can be called "noble" who is unworthy of his race, and distinguished in nothing but his name? We call some one's dwarf an "Atlas," his blackamoor "a swan"; an ill-favoured, misshapen girl we call "Europa"; lazy hounds that are bald with chronic mange, and who lick the edges of a dry lamp, will bear the names of "Pard," "Tiger," "Lion," or of any other animal in the world that roars more fiercely; take you care that it be not on that principle that you are a Creticus or a Camerinus!

Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you, Rubellius Blandus, that I speak. You are puffed up with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though you had done something to make you noble, and to be conceived by one glorying in the blood of lulus, rather than by one who weaves for hire under the windy rampart. "You others are dirt," you say; "the very scum of our populace; not one of you can point to his father's birthplace; but I am one of the Cecropidae!" Long life to you! May you long enjoy the glories of your birth! And yet among the 161