Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

BOOK FIVE

LXVII
A TARDY NEMESIS
WHEN swallows sought a sunnier clime,
One laggard tarried, and the rest
Returned again in summer-time
And found the traitress in her nest;
So was her guilty deed confessed,
And she was slain, for tardy fate
In her an ancient wrong redressed;
But Itys was avenged too late.
LXVIII
TO LESBIA
I SEND you tresses from the North; behold
How far more lustrous is your braided gold.
* LXIX
THE DEATH OF CICERO
ANTONY, more guilty than Pothinus' knife,
Whose lists of death weigh less than Tully's life,
Why draw the sword against the mouth of Rome?
Not Cataline himself to this had come.
To your base soldiers murder was a trade,
And for that tongue a golden fee you paid.
You hushed that sacred voice in senseless hate:
Now the whole world is Cicero's advocate.
* LXX
TO MAXIMUS
SYRISCUS a full hundred thousand received
From his patron, and though it will scarce be believed,
He managed at taverns to squander the lot
About the four baths, drinking pot after pot.
What a thirst he must have such a fortune to drown,
And to do it too standing without sitting down.
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