文集 第 1 章 第 2/2 段

You reckon an empire to be diminished which does not grow. After, however, the contrivances of Trasericus had clearly become apparent, you appointed the most noble of the Goths, Pitzia and Herduic, and a young manhood not yet dedicated to any battles, so that, if he should acquiesce in the compacts offered, he might once for all gain by judgment the places he had invaded. But, accustomed to inconstancy, he obeyed your good fortune: he fled of his own accord, another's man, and without the impulse of your army deserted what he owed. Forthwith Pitzia, who had both taken useful issues from you and weighed the momenta of counsels, believed the land to be not acquired but poured back, nor did he, as one plundering for gain, ravage it with robberies, but, by good administration, preserved it as his own.

While these men were moderating the ordering there, through the meddling of the federate Mundo, Greece professed discord, leading with herself her own Bulgars into protection, with whom, having used a fortress in place of the conflicts among the Marii, she made threats. Then Mundo, believing it enough for a safeguard if your cohorts should learn what he was suffering, committed the proof of his peril to swift messengers—he who beheld defenders entering into contests for his parts before he had learned to set them in motion. As soon, however, as from afar Pitzia spied out the untamed youth of the Bulgars, he armed the burning onsets of the young men with the more powerful flames of words: 'You remember, comrades, by whose command you have journeyed to these places.

Let no one believe the eyes of our king absent, for whose fame we must fight. If a shower of lances should cover the sky, he who hurls his weapon more bravely will not lie hidden. Plunge your breasts into the iron, that from the horror of life there may come a manifest hope of victory. I believe the witness of the royal strength to be now dead, and that there survives no one who was wont to point out to them what lord we have. Or do they perchance disdain to judge our nation from its prince? Let them understand that what we do has flowed from him, nor let it be permitted them to owe to one person only what our ruler has transmitted to its origin.' These speeches he exchanged for the war-trumpets: forthwith, as a black storm-cloud is wont to bellow with the running about of tempests upon crackling roofs, so the soldiery of Mars hurled itself headlong into the fray.

Long the conflict wavered with uncertain scale, while an equal harshness of fighting arose from either side. Two nations clashed, to whom flight amid swords had never come to aid. They marvelled to find themselves mutually alike, and in the human race to see either Goths resisting or Bulgars. Meanwhile, while the fortune of the contest was doubtful and winged deaths claimed the upper air for themselves, the memory of our prince prevailed, while they acted so that the field might assert each man's merits before him. The nation was turned to flight, punished the more grievously because it escaped. The earth, stirred up, trembled at the shaking of horses' hooves. With huge lamentation they hastened, after they saw that they were not doubtful of their safety. O God, arbiter of heaven, multiply the gifts you have bestowed!

They never doubtful of triumphs, they whom the whole company looked up to, depart with the standards of war lost and stricken by their own survival, crying again and again that thrice and four times blessed are those whom it befell to fall. Why should I unroll the slaughter of soldiers and the most shameful departure of the leader Sabinianus, since it is divorced from reason to relate, with patronage exterminated, what befell the undefended one? Then, lest Pitzia should seem one to be celebrated through the ages as having served not so much glory as greed, he left to the wild beasts or the birds the labor of the field, since he in no way ordered the fasting soldier to strip the opulent corpses. But by what tongues are these things to be sufficiently set forth? By what dower of eloquence can they be unlocked?

Long have you conquered in all encounters, now beginning to have victors in your service. Meanwhile the Roman realms returned to their own frontier: you dictate precepts to the Sirmians after the manner of the ancients; concerning their own, through your neighborhood, those doubt who have hitherto held what is ours. XIII. Why should I speak of the chastised plunderings of the Vandals, with their forebears now winds, for whom, in place of an annual tribute, your friendship is enough? They know not how to roam beyond what is possible, with wisdom as their leader: they have deserved to be kindred, because they do not refuse to obey. XIV. These things, out of the heaps of your deeds—greater than my wish than my eloquence—I have briefly arranged and unfolded, leaving the better things untouched. I shall see who may surpass me in eloquence; no one shall be able to transcend me in affection toward you.

You possess, by God's inspiration, this gentleness: that you believe yourself able to accomplish more by diligence than by fear. The excellences of your goodness are set within the monuments of your glory, so that kings fear you and servants love you. For whatever you command to be granted from the resources of your subjects, you believe might also be refused. O king, composed in every tranquillity, who reckons to our devotion what we expend in service! XV. And what shall we say of this — that by you the whole nation of Alamannia has been enclosed within the borders of Italy without any loss to Roman possessions, a people to whom it fell to have a king after it had deserved to lose one? She who was ever ravaged by the plundering of our people has been made the Latin guardian of the empire, to whom it turned out happily to have fled her own homeland: for thus she gained the wealth of our soil.

You have acquired lands that have learned to submit to the mattock, though it has been our lot to know no losses. Under you we have seen the best outcomes born of adversity, and occasion of peril become the mother of prosperity. Set free from the marsh, the dweller rejoices to inhabit the land, which until now used to emerge from gaping dwellings only by the favor of solid mire. XVI. It was fitting also that you should spur on eloquence with the rewards of praise, lest we lose your glories in silence. The industry of no art ceases: the skilled man, wherever he lies hidden, is sought out. He who deserves it claims office, even if he has dwelt far off. Never is he hidden whom innocence has revealed, since you, a discerning judge, are won over not by speech but by deeds.

The good deeds of our forebears who fell asleep in your time are preserved: whosoever's faithfulness has become known to your clemency, you will soon repay to his offspring, by right of inheritance, what you owed to the originator. We have the fruit of our elders' services, and yet we do not fear punishments for their transgressions. A measured indignation ends with the man himself, since for the sake of recompense your piety seeks out his successor. — Many things still remain that I would say, but among the many heralds of your deeds it is fitting that something be kept undiminished. Venerable studies owe to you the fact that they speak at all. Your predecessors loved ignorance, because they never did anything worthy of praise. The most eloquent man lay despised among the ploughs, and force denied what skill had granted.

The courts mourned with a mute advocate, nor was any palm of victory granted to the speaker. In the hazard of affairs the outcome wavered, when no genius was given to letters. Everywhere a single grief had crushed men's talents, because idleness wore away the powers of the eloquent: gluttonous neglect possessed the dignity of the elders, nor was the novice kindled by any rivalry to be pursued. Behold the riches of your age: then the forums scarcely had men of accomplishment, now the Church furnishes a man of praise. XVII. Let antiquity go now and boast of Alexander in its buskined declamations — Alexander, for whom the dowry of speakers begot a wealth of fame, so that through borrowed eloquence a beggared encomium might seem to grow with his exploits. The merits of our king demand no solace from one who asserts them:

They are less than his true deeds, however much the exploits of the ancients have been swollen by lies. You poets feigned grand things, but you ought to confess that our present lord has accomplished greater. Pelleus' leader willed that the sum of his own panegyrics should stand by the favor of Choerilus, lest the multitude detect his desire to deceive and become a witness to the shamelessness of one who was enlisted to corroborate the victory. I take nothing away from the elders whom antiquity would have held foremost — had not the exaltation of the Roman name given you to us. Ignorance, the mother of error, possessed that man, ignorant of the true religion: you, a worshiper of the most high God, a life-giving instruction trained from the very threshold of light. You never ascribe to your own labors what a favorable outcome has offered:

you know that the care lies in you, but the substance of perfection rests with God. You act so as to deserve to attain prosperity, but having gained all things you ascribe them to their Author. By your strength you show yourself a prince in vigilance and prosperity, by your gentleness a priest. Why — in vain did our forebears call those gods and pontiffs upon whom scepters were conferred. It is a rare thing to fulfill what is most holy and not to bear venerable names. Let my king be by right 'the Alamannic'; let him be called a stranger to such titles. Let him live like a god from the fruit of his conscience, and not seek the bare words of pompous boasting — he in whose character the charms of his ancestors do battle for the truth. XVIII.

I confess I would wish, overcome by the enormousness of your deeds, to descend to the close of my oration, and, dazzled, to pass over your fresh glories by the light of the ancients. Just as, if I had wished to reduce the ornaments of the ethereal vault to a number, and, grasping the brightness of the Wagon-stars, to describe the splendor of heaven with an inadequate tongue, mortal obscurity would yield to the divine splendor, and the spark of lowly words would not match the lamp of that radiance: so this condition unseals me as unequal, which has borne witness that I am obedient. XIX. For with what mouth is that to be celebrated — that, while you take care lest our leisure be disturbed, you guard the implements of Getic strength and, before your eyes, amid the blessings of tranquillity, make the untamed youth rehearse mock wars?

Still the victorious troops remain in their solid strength, and others have already grown up. Their arms are hardened by javelins and fulfill the action of brave men, while they play; what in a later time may well suffice for valor is carried on in the guise of a spectacle. While supple spear-shafts are hurled by boyish thongs, while bows daily aim from afar the slaying of heads, the whole circuit of the city's pomerium is worn by the semblance of an encounter. The figure of combat is enacted, lest real wars arise with peril. Who would believe that one heart can suffice — to conquer in battles through untamed campaigns, and to act by counsel, lest cause for fighting should arise at all?

We have learned that Rutilius and Manlius, while foresight governed the peoples, instituted gladiatorial combat, so that the populace, long possessed of peace, might recognize amid the theater's tiers what was done in the battle-line. But then, with idle hands, the deaths of comrades were heaped before their gaze in vain. Never are the things good that come instituted by cruelty: that minds might be armed against enemies, they first beheld the destruction of their own. Meanwhile that encounter, as the outcome taught, bred increase not so much for valor as for fear: amid prosperity the unwarlike spirit learned what to dread. See how far apart the diversities of inventions stand on their full course:

in the one, real bloodshed withdrew minds from fighting; here the vigor of the young men was kindled by the image of a feigned contest, whom their early age taught to hold in reserve as many of their adversaries' deaths as they have darts — not, like those accustomed to outlandish wanderings, carelessly to squander the spending of their quivers nor to hurl manifest destruction into the air, but to exact as many lives as they have brandished weapons. XX. But amid your warlike successes, by which you train all and win for them the favorable omens of victory, do you reserve nothing for the sweetness of civility? Who would believe that your heroes do not, while times are peaceful, spurn foreign dread? For the law restrains spirits untamed amid the battle-lines:

after the laurels they bow their necks to your precepts, and with the enemy's wedges trampled, to whom their arms have yielded, your decrees hold sway. You alone are composed by both merit and nature, whose magnanimous commands they may follow. Your origin indeed gave you as lord, but your virtue laid claim to it. The splendor of your lineage won you the scepter, but had its insignia been wanting, the mind of men would have made you chosen as prince. XXI. Nor is the grace of your form to be reckoned among the least, since the purple of your royal countenance irradiates the crimson of dignity. Bring forth, you Seres, your garments which you dye with precious murex, and prolong the coverings that drink in nobility from no single cauldron. Let a garland be woven of many-colored gems, and let the stone which a fiercer viper guards arrive.

Whatever ornaments the obedient world has sent across, adorned by the genius of your venerable body, will shine the more. Your stature is such as to mark out the ruler by its loftiness; the snow of your cheeks holds concord with their blush; your eyes are fresh with unbroken serenity; worthy are your hands to deal destruction to rebels and the votive gifts of honors to your subjects. Let no one untimely boast of station, since what diadems accomplish in other lords, in my king nature, with God as craftsman, has wrought. Those men so many helps of riches make conspicuous, but this one a simple and unchangeable form has set forth as better. Why — let those toil at adornment who desire to obtain a borrowed beauty.

The ruler of Italy unites in friendship two most opposite things, so that in anger he is, beyond all comparison, lightning-swift, and in joy, cloudlessly fair. With unmoved countenance his image either promises peace, alluring, to the envoys of the nations, or, terrible, promises wars. You consist of such tokens, as, distributed one by one among men, would make them perfect. But would that the blessings of a golden age might multiply from you a purple-born offshoot! Would that an heir of the kingdom might play in your bosom! So that this offering of words which we present to you, a sacred little one may demand of us with the witness of like joys. Behold, having satisfied my debt and obeyed my duty, I have closed my oration with a prayer.