Bki:Xxix Off To The Wars

Iccius, are you gazing with envy, now, at Arabian riches, and preparing for bitter war on unbeaten kings of Saba, weaving bonds for those dreadful Medes? What barbaric virgin will be your slave, when you’ve murdered her lover? What boy, from the palace, with scented hair, will handle your wine-cups, one taught by his father’s bow how to manage eastern arrows? Who’ll deny, now, that rivers can flow backwards, to the summits of mountains, and Tiber reverse the course of his streams, when you, who gave promise of much better things, are intent on changing Panaetius’s noble books, the school of Socrates, for a suit of Iberian armour?