Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/255

 once brave and miserable. You may take from them all the gold and silver that they have; but plundered though they be, they will still have their arms; they will still have their shields and their swords, their javelins and helmets.

What I have just propounded is no mere theme, it is the truth; you may take it that I am reading out to you one of the Sibyl's leaves. If your whole staff be incorruptible; if no long-haired Ganymede sells your judgments; if your wife be blameless; if, in your circuit through the towns and districts, there is no Harpy ready to pounce with crooked talons upon gold,—then you may trace back your race to Picus ; if you delight in lofty names, you may count the whole array of Titans, and Prometheus himself, among your ancestors, and select for yourself a great-grandfather from whatever myth you please. But if you are carried away headlong by ambition and by lust; if you break your rods upon the bleeding backs of our allies; if you love to see your axes blunted and your headsmen weary, then the nobility of your own parents begins to rise up in judgment against you, and to hold a glaring torch over your misdeeds. The greater the sinner's name, the more signal the guiltiness of the sin. If you are wont to put your signature to forged deeds, what matters it to me that you sign them in temples built by your grandfather, or in front of the triumphal statue of your father? What does that matter, if you steal out at night for adultery, your brow concealed under a cowl of Gallic wool?

The bloated Lateranus whirls past the bones and ashes of his ancestors in a rapid car; with his 169