Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

GRATTIUS\'iilcan's acknowledged haunt. As one passesbeneatli, the pools lie motionless oozing in veins ofnatural bituminous oil. I have often seen dogsdragged hither fordone from mischievous wasting,and their custodians overcome by still heaviersuffering. " Thee first, O Vulcan, and thy peace,holy dweller in this place, do we entreat : grantfinal aid to our wearied fortunes, and, if no guiltis here deserving penalty so great, pity these manylives and suffer them, holy one, to attain to thyfountains " —thrice does each one call, thrice theyoffer rich incense on the fire, and the altar is piledwith fruitful branches. Hereat (wondrous to telland a portent elsewhere unknown) from the confrontingcaves and the mountain's riven breast therehas come, exultant in southern gales and dartingforth 'mid a full flood of flame, the God himself:his priest, waving in pallid hand the olive branch,proclaims aloud: " In the presence of the God, inthe presence of the altars, I ordain that all go outof the land far from here, who have put their handsto crime or contemplated it in their heart " : forthwithdroop their spirits and their nervous limbs.Oh ! whoso has ever impaired heaven's law in thecase of a wretched suppliant, whoso for a price hasdared to aim at the life of brothers or of faithfulfriend or to outrage ancestral gods—if such a manbe impelled hither by audacity, the comrade ofunutterable sin, he will learn how mighty is thepower of the God who followeth after as the avengerin >\Tath for crime committed." But he whose mindmean ira quae commissis scderibus provocata est. The senseis different in 374, Furiis commissam . . . iram, unless 455can imply " in wrath assigned to him to vent."o 2