(13) But suns excessive and a scorching air Burn all the glebe beside the shifting sands: There die the harvests on the crumbling mould; No root finds sustenance, nor kindly Jove Makes rich the furrow nor matures the vine.
Sleep binds all nature and the tract of sand Lies ever fruitless, save that by the shore The hardy Nasamon plucks a scanty grass.
Unclothed their race, and living on the woes Worked by the cruel Syrtes on mankind; For spoilers are they of the luckless ships Cast on the shoals: and with the world by wrecks Their only commerce.
Here at Cato's word His soldiers passed, in fancy from the winds That sweep the sea secure: here on them fell Smiting with greater strength upon the shore, Than on the ocean, Auster's tempest force, And yet more fraught with mischief: for no crags Repelled his strength, nor lofty mountains tamed His furious onset, nor in sturdy woods He found a bar; but free from reining hand, Raged at his will o'er the defenceless earth.
Nor did he mingle dust and clouds of rain In whirling circles, but the earth was swept And hung in air suspended, till amazed The Nasamon saw his scanty field and home Reft by the tempest, and the native huts From roof to base were hurried on the blast.
Not higher, when some all-devouring flame Has seized upon its prey, in volumes dense Rolls up the smoke, and darkens all the air.
Then with fresh might he fell upon the host Of marching Romans, snatching from their feet The sand they trod.

Had Auster been enclosed In some vast cavernous vault with solid walls And mighty barriers, he had moved the world Upon its ancient base and made the lands To tremble: but the facile Libyan soil By not resisting stood, and blasts that whirled The surface upwards left the depths unmoved.
Helmet and shield and spear were torn away By his most violent breath, and borne aloft Through all the regions of the boundless sky; Perchance a wonder in some distant land, Where men may fear the weapons from the heaven There falling, as the armour of the gods, Nor deem them ravished from a soldier's arm.
'Twas thus on Numa by the sacred fire Those shields descended which our chosen priests (14) Bear on their shoulders; from some warlike race By tempest rapt, to be the prize of Rome.
Fearing the storm prone fell the host to earth Winding their garments tight, and with clenched hands Gripping the earth: for not their weight alone Withstood the tempest which upon their frames Piled mighty heaps, and their recumbent limbs Buried in sand.

At length they struggling rose Back to their feet, when lo! around them stood, Forced by the storm, a growing bank of earth Which held them motionless.

And from afar Where walls lay prostrate, mighty stones were hurled, Thus piling ills on ills in wondrous form: No dwellings had they seen, yet at their feet Beheld the ruins.

All the earth was hid In vast envelopment, nor found they guide Save from the stars, which as in middle deep Flamed o'er them wandering: yet some were hid Beneath the circle of the Libyan earth Which tending downwards hid the Northern sky.
When warmth dispersed the tempest-driven air, And rose upon the earth the flaming day, Bathed were their limbs in sweat, but parched and dry Their gaping lips; when to a scanty spring Far off beheld they came, whose meagre drops All gathered in the hollow of a helm They offered to their chief.