Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

TWO ELEGIES OX MAECENASApollo with learned Minerva had conferred theirart^ on thee : thou wert the ornament and gloryof both—even as the beryl " surpasses the commonsands which the wave tosses about along with it on theshore's edge. That thou wert luxurious in mind as indress is the one slander urged against thee : it is dispelledby thine exceeding plainness of life. So did they''live among whom dwelt the golden Maid who soonfled into exile from the bustle of mankind. Backbiter,say what harm his loosened tunic did you, ordress through which the air could play r Was hea whit less guardian of the citv. and less a hostagefor our absent emperor ? Did he make the streetsof Rome unsafe for you ? 'Neath the murk of nightwho could rob you in an amour, or who in excess ofheartlessness drive steel into your side ? Greater itwas to have had the power, yet not to wish for triumphs :a greater thing it was to refrain from mighty deeds.' With an allusion to Maecenas' fondness for jewels. Amongterms applied to Maecenas in a jocular letter from Augustuswere Cibriorum smaragde . . . berylle Pursennae (Macrob.Saturn. II. iv. 12). The beryl (p-qpvXXos) is a transparent gem,usually sea-green, and, though now found in many parts of theOld World and the New, was mainly known to the ancients ascoming from India (Plin. X.H. XXXVII. 5, 20, India eosgignit raro alibi repertos, a passage which tempts one to takeextreme in litore as " on a distant shore " : cf. extremos equos,56). Pliny rightly associates it with the emerald. Since onespecies was the aquamarine, some knowledge of this may haveprompted the reference to the sea-shore in 20. It is difficult,however, to imagine that this product of granitic rocks canhave been often washed up among the sands of the sea, thoughGk>rallu.s quotes Greek hexameters from Dionysius Periegetes,of which one interpretation supports the view.* Astraea, or Justice, sojourned among men in the GoldenAge, but wa^ driven from earth by the growth of depravity.123