Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

1PANEGYRICOX PISOWhether the spear of the decemviri summonstire.the panic-stricken to trial and ordains the estabhshmentof cases before the centumviri,** or whetherwith busy skill you refute a capital charge, thevery courts resound with your praises. As youcarry along with you a judge's feelings, assailinghis captured heart, vanquished he follows of hisovm accord wherever you call—weeps if you say"weep," rejoices if so compelled; and you are thegiver from whom a judge gets an anger not hisown. So the Thessalian rider is wont on the openplain to guide his horse's steaming mouth withmobile bit. now spurring his rapid steed and notmerely giving him rein, now jerking high the openjaws in his control, and now starting to wheel thehorse's neck round and pull its wild rush into a circle.What judge fails to watch your lips in wonderment.^\^ ho orders his own mind save by your weightyarguments? For whether it be rain along withhail and repeated thunder-bolts that you choose tohurl with whirling tongue, or whether you pleaseto condense compact expressions in a period andlend enduring words to the graceful texture of yourspeech, you surpass Ulysses' force and Menelaus'brevity ; or whether with no concealed but withopen flowers of speech you prefer to embellish sweetwords as they floM' on their clear course, the famous" Decemviri and centumviri took cognisance of civil lawsuits.The spear, as a symbol of magisterial power, was set in theground to mark the holding of a centumviral court :cf.Mart. VII. Ixiii. 7 centum gravis hasta virorum ; Stat. Silv.IV. iv. 43 cenieni moderatrix iudicis hasta. Suet. Aug. 3Gshows that decemviri (stlitihus iudicandis) were required fromAugustus' time to call together the " Court of One Hundred "{at centumviralem hnstam . . . decemviri cogerent).299