And has our shame Brought us to this, that some barbarian foe Shall venge Hesperia's wrongs ere Rome her own?
Thou wert our leader for the civil war: Mid Scythia's peoples dost thou bruit abroad Wounds and disasters which are ours alone?
Rome until now, though subject to the yoke Of civic despots, yet within her walls Has brooked no foreign lord.

And art thou pleased From all the world to summon to her gates These savage peoples, while the standards lost By far Euphrates when the Crassi fell Shall lead thy columns?
Shall the only king Who failed Emathia, while the fates yet hid Their favouring voices, brave the victor's power, And join with thine his fortune?
Nay, not so This nation trusts itself.

Each race that claims A northern birth, unconquered in the fray Claims but the warrior's death; but as the sky Slopes towards the eastern tracts and gentler climes So are the nations.

There in flowing robes And garments delicate are men arrayed.
True that the Parthian in Sarmatia's plains, Where Tigris spreads across the level meads, Contends invincible; for flight is his Unbounded; but should uplands bar his path He scales them not; nor through the night of war Shall his weak bow uncertain in its aim Repel the foeman; nor his strength of arm The torrent stem; nor all a summer's day In dust and blood bear up against the foe.
They fill no hostile trench, nor in their hands Shall battering engine or machine of war Dash down the rampart; and whate'er avails To stop their arrows, battles like a wall.

(13) Wide sweep their horsemen, fleeting in attack And light in onset, and their troops shall yield A camp, not take it: poisoned are their shafts; Nor do they dare a combat hand to hand; But as the winds may suffer, from afar They draw their bows at venture.