1. Ovid, Fasti, 1.223-1.224, 1.637-1.652 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.223. We too delight in golden temples, however much 1.224. We approve the antique: such splendour suits a god. 1.637. Near where lofty Moneta lifts her noble stairway: 1.638. Concord, you will gaze on the Latin crowd’s prosperity 1.639. Now sacred hands have established you. 1.640. Camillus, conqueror of the Etruscan people 1.641. Vowed your ancient temple and kept his vow. 1.642. His reason was that the commoners had armed themselves 1.643. Seceding from the nobles, and Rome feared their power. 1.644. This latest reason was a better one: revered Leader, Germany 1.645. offered up her dishevelled tresses, at your command: 1.646. From that, you dedicated the spoils of a defeated race 1.647. And built a shrine to the goddess that you yourself worship. 1.648. A goddess your mother honoured by her life, and by an altar |
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2. Vergil, Aeneis, 6.851, 9.621-9.637 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 6.851. Eridanus, through forests rolling free. 9.622. The Rutules seized the spoils of victory 9.623. and slowly to their camp, with wail and cry 9.624. bore Volscens' corse; and in the eamp they made 9.625. like wailing over Rhamnes lifeless found 9.626. o'er Numa and Serranus, and a throng 9.627. of princes dead. The gazing people pressed 9.628. around the slain, the dying, where the earth 9.629. ran red with slaughter and full many a stream 9.630. of trickling gore; nor did they fail to know 9.631. Messapus' glittering helm, his baldric fair 9.633. Now, from Tithonus' saffron couch set free 9.634. Aurora over many a land outpoured 9.635. the rising morn; the sun's advancing beam 9.636. unveiled the world; and Turnus to his host 9.637. gave signal to stand forth, while he arrayed |
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3. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 7.121-7.157 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 7.121. nor were many days overpast when they determined to have but one triumph, that should be common to both of them, on account of the glorious exploits they had performed, although the senate had decreed each of them a separate triumph by himself. 7.122. So when notice had been given beforehand of the day appointed for this pompous solemnity to be made, on account of their victories, not one of the immense multitude was left in the city, but everybody went out so far as to gain only a station where they might stand, and left only such a passage as was necessary for those that were to be seen to go along it. 7.123. 4. Now all the soldiery marched out beforehand by companies, and in their several ranks, under their several commanders, in the nighttime, and were about the gates, not of the upper palaces, but those near the temple of Isis; for there it was that the emperors had rested the foregoing night. 7.124. And as soon as ever it was day, Vespasian and Titus came out crowned with laurel, and clothed in those ancient purple habits which were proper to their family, and then went as far as Octavian’s Walks; 7.125. for there it was that the senate, and the principal rulers, and those that had been recorded as of the equestrian order, waited for them. 7.126. Now a tribunal had been erected before the cloisters, and ivory chairs had been set upon it, when they came and sat down upon them. Whereupon the soldiery made an acclamation of joy to them immediately, and all gave them attestations of their valor; while they were themselves without their arms, and only in their silken garments, and crowned with laurel: 7.127. then Vespasian accepted of these shouts of theirs; but while they were still disposed to go on in such acclamations, he gave them a signal of silence. 7.128. And when everybody entirely held their peace, he stood up, and covering the greatest part of his head with his cloak, he put up the accustomed solemn prayers; the like prayers did Titus put up also; 7.129. after which prayers Vespasian made a short speech to all the people, and then sent away the soldiers to a dinner prepared for them by the emperors. 7.131. there it was that they tasted some food, and when they had put on their triumphal garments, and had offered sacrifices to the gods that were placed at the gate, they sent the triumph forward, and marched through the theatres, that they might be the more easily seen by the multitudes. 7.132. 5. Now it is impossible to describe the multitude of the shows as they deserve, and the magnificence of them all; such indeed as a man could not easily think of as performed, either by the labor of workmen, or the variety of riches, or the rarities of nature; 7.133. for almost all such curiosities as the most happy men ever get by piecemeal were here one heaped on another, and those both admirable and costly in their nature; and all brought together on that day demonstrated the vastness of the dominions of the Romans; 7.134. for there was here to be seen a mighty quantity of silver, and gold, and ivory, contrived into all sorts of things, and did not appear as carried along in pompous show only, but, as a man may say, running along like a river. Some parts were composed of the rarest purple hangings, and so carried along; and others accurately represented to the life what was embroidered by the arts of the Babylonians. 7.135. There were also precious stones that were transparent, some set in crowns of gold, and some in other ouches, as the workmen pleased; and of these such a vast number were brought, that we could not but thence learn how vainly we imagined any of them to be rarities. 7.136. The images of the gods were also carried, being as well wonderful for their largeness, as made very artificially, and with great skill of the workmen; nor were any of these images of any other than very costly materials; and many species of animals were brought, every one in their own natural ornaments. 7.137. The men also who brought every one of these shows were great multitudes, and adorned with purple garments, all over interwoven with gold; those that were chosen for carrying these pompous shows having also about them such magnificent ornaments as were both extraordinary and surprising. 7.138. Besides these, one might see that even the great number of the captives was not unadorned, while the variety that was in their garments, and their fine texture, concealed from the sight the deformity of their bodies. 7.139. But what afforded the greatest surprise of all was the structure of the pageants that were borne along; for indeed he that met them could not but be afraid that the bearers would not be able firmly enough to support them, such was their magnitude; 7.141. for upon many of them were laid carpets of gold. There was also wrought gold and ivory fastened about them all; 7.142. and many resemblances of the war, and those in several ways, and variety of contrivances, affording a most lively portraiture of itself. 7.143. For there was to be seen a happy country laid waste, and entire squadrons of enemies slain; while some of them ran away, and some were carried into captivity; with walls of great altitude and magnitude overthrown and ruined by machines; with the strongest fortifications taken, and the walls of most populous cities upon the tops of hills seized on 7.144. and an army pouring itself within the walls; as also every place full of slaughter, and supplications of the enemies, when they were no longer able to lift up their hands in way of opposition. Fire also sent upon temples was here represented, and houses overthrown, and falling upon their owners: 7.145. rivers also, after they came out of a large and melancholy desert, ran down, not into a land cultivated, nor as drink for men, or for cattle, but through a land still on fire upon every side; for the Jews related that such a thing they had undergone during this war. 7.146. Now the workmanship of these representations was so magnificent and lively in the construction of the things, that it exhibited what had been done to such as did not see it, as if they had been there really present. 7.147. On the top of every one of these pageants was placed the commander of the city that was taken, and the manner wherein he was taken. Moreover, there followed those pageants a great number of ships; 7.148. and for the other spoils, they were carried in great plenty. But for those that were taken in the temple of Jerusalem, they made the greatest figure of them all; that is, the golden table, of the weight of many talents; the candlestick also, that was made of gold, though its construction were now changed from that which we made use of; 7.149. for its middle shaft was fixed upon a basis, and the small branches were produced out of it to a great length, having the likeness of a trident in their position, and had every one a socket made of brass for a lamp at the tops of them. These lamps were in number seven, and represented the dignity of the number seven among the Jews; 7.151. After these spoils passed by a great many men, carrying the images of Victory, whose structure was entirely either of ivory or of gold. 7.152. After which Vespasian marched in the first place, and Titus followed him; Domitian also rode along with them, and made a glorious appearance, and rode on a horse that was worthy of admiration. 7.153. 6. Now the last part of this pompous show was at the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, whither when they were come, they stood still; for it was the Romans’ ancient custom to stay till somebody brought the news that the general of the enemy was slain. 7.154. This general was Simon, the son of Gioras, who had then been led in this triumph among the captives; a rope had also been put upon his head, and he had been drawn into a proper place in the forum, and had withal been tormented by those that drew him along; and the law of the Romans required that malefactors condemned to die should be slain there. 7.155. Accordingly, when it was related that there was an end of him, and all the people had sent up a shout for joy, they then began to offer those sacrifices which they had consecrated, in the prayers used in such solemnities; which when they had finished, they went away to the palace. 7.156. And as for some of the spectators, the emperors entertained them at their own feast; and for all the rest there were noble preparations made for their feasting at home; 7.157. for this was a festival day to the city of Rome, as celebrated for the victory obtained by their army over their enemies, for the end that was now put to their civil miseries, and for the commencement of their hopes of future prosperity and happiness. |
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4. Martial, Epigrams, 2.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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5. Martial, Epigrams, 2.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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6. Seneca The Younger, On Anger, 3.15 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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7. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 70.14-70.15 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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8. Seneca The Younger, Thyestes, 349, 348 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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9. Silius Italicus, Punica, 3.607 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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10. Statius, Thebais, 2.482, 3.1-3.8, 3.40-3.91 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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11. Suetonius, Caligula, 41.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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12. Suetonius, Domitianus, 6.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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13. Suetonius, Nero, 57, 25 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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14. Suetonius, Vespasianus, 12 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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15. Tacitus, Agricola, 10-13, 16, 2, 21, 29, 3, 30-38, 40-46, 6, 1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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16. Tacitus, Annals, 1.11, 14.14 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.11. Then all prayers were directed towards Tiberius; who delivered a variety of reflections on the greatness of the empire and his own diffidence:â "Only the mind of the deified Augustus was equal to such a burden: he himself had found, when called by the sovereign to share his anxieties, how arduous, how dependent upon fortune, was the task of ruling a world! He thought, then, that, in a state which had the support of so many eminent men, they ought not to devolve the entire duties on any one person; the business of government would be more easily carried out by the joint efforts of a number." A speech in this tenor was more dignified than convincing. Besides, the diction of Tiberius, by habit or by nature, was always indirect and obscure, even when he had no wish to conceal his thought; and now, in the effort to bury every trace of his sentiments, it became more intricate, uncertain, and equivocal than ever. But the Fathers, whose one dread was that they might seem to comprehend him, melted in plaints, tears, and prayers. They were stretching their hands to heaven, to the effigy of Augustus, to his own knees, when he gave orders for a document to be produced and read. It contained a statement of the national resources â the strength of the burghers and allies under arms; the number of the fleets, protectorates, and provinces; the taxes direct and indirect; the needful disbursements and customary bounties catalogued by Augustus in his own hand, with a final clause (due to fear or jealousy?) advising the restriction of the empire within its present frontiers. 14.14. It was an old desire of his to drive a chariot and team of four, and an equally repulsive ambition to sing to the lyre in the stage manner. "Racing with horses," he used to observe, "was a royal accomplishment, and had been practised by the commanders of antiquity: the sport had been celebrated in the praises of poets and devoted to the worship of Heaven. As to song, it was sacred to Apollo; and it was in the garb appropriate to it that, both in Greek cities and in Roman temples, that great and prescient deity was seen standing." He could no longer be checked, when Seneca and Burrus decided to concede one of his points rather than allow him to carry both; and an enclosure was made in the Vatican valley, where he could manoeuvre his horses without the spectacle being public. Before long, the Roman people received an invitation in form, and began to hymn his praises, as is the way of the crowd, hungry for amusements, and delighted if the sovereign draws in the same direction. However, the publication of his shame brought with it, not the satiety expected, but a stimulus; and, in the belief that he was attenuating his disgrace by polluting others, he brought on the stage those scions of the great houses whom poverty had rendered venal. They have passed away, and I regard it as a debt due to their ancestors not to record them by name. For the disgrace, in part, is his who gave money for the reward of infamy and not for its prevention. Even well-known Roman knights he induced to promise their services in the arena by what might be called enormous bounties, were it not that gratuities from him who is able to command carry with them the compelling quality of necessity. |
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17. Tacitus, Germania (De Origine Et Situ Germanorum), 37 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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18. Tacitus, Histories, 1.2, 2.8 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 2.8. About this time Achaia and Asia were terrified by a false rumour of Nero's arrival. The reports with regard to his death had been varied, and therefore many people imagined and believed that he was alive. The forces and attempts of other pretenders we shall tell as we proceed; but at this time, a slave from Pontus or, as others have reported, a freedman from Italy, who was skilled in playing on the cithara and in singing, gained the readier belief in his deceit through these accomplishments and his resemblance to Nero. He recruited some deserters, poor tramps whom he had bribed by great promises, and put to sea. A violent storm drove him to the island of Cythnus, where he called to his standard some soldiers who were returning from the East on leave, or ordered them to be killed if they refused. Then he robbed the merchants, and armed all the ablest-bodied of their slaves. A centurion, Sisenna, who was carrying clasped right hands, the symbol of friendship, to the praetorians in the name of the army in Syria, the pretender approached with various artifices, until Sisenna in alarm and fearing violence secretly left the island and made his escape. Then the alarm spread far and wide. Many came eagerly forward at the famous name, prompted by their desire for a change and their hatred of the present situation. The fame of the pretender was increasing from day to day when a chance shattered it. |
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19. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 59.30.1, 67.7.4, 7372.16.3, 7372.20.1-7372.20.2, 7372.21.1-7372.21.3, 7877.17.3-7877.17.4, 8079.14.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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20. Herodian, History of The Empire After Marcus, 5.5.9, 5.6.1, 5.6.8 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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21. Augustine, Confessions, 1.13.20 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
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22. Augustine, The City of God, 18.23 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
| 18.23. Some say the Erythr an sibyl prophesied at this time. Now Varro declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one. This sibyl of Erythr certainly wrote some things concerning Christ which are quite manifest, and we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some interpreter unknown to me. For Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready eloquence and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a Greek manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythr an sibyl, in which he pointed out a certain passage which had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that these words could be read in them: ᾿Ιησοῦς Χριστος Θεοῦ υιὸς σωτηρ, which means, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour. And these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm: Ι Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat of its standard, Η Ever enduring, behold the King shall come through the ages, Σ Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at the last of the world. Ο O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold You Υ Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are ended. Σ Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His judgment. Χ Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lies the earth. Ρ Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden treasures; Ε Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searches the ocean and heaven; Ι Issuing forth, it destroys the terrible portals of hell. Σ Saints in their body and soul freedom and light shall inherit; Τ Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone forever. Ο Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish his secrets; Σ Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in the light. Θ Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and gnashing of teeth; Ε Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their chorus. Ο Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight, melted the heaven, Υ Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and cast down the mountains. Υ Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty and lowly. Ι Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans are mingled. Ο Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in pieces shall perish; Σ . . . . Swelling together at once shall the waters and flames flow in rivers. Σ Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down from heaven, Ω Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their manifold sorrows. Τ Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing chaos and hell. Η Every king before God shall stand in that day to be judged. Ρ Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the heavens. In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given, although not in the exact order of the lines as connected with the initial letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, where the Greek letter Υ occurs, Latin words could not be found beginning with the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning. So that, if we note down together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin translation except those three in which we retain the letter Υ in the proper place, they will express in five Greek words this meaning, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour. And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three. For three times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven. But if you join the initial letters of these five Greek words, ᾿Ιησοῦς Χριστος Θεοῦ υἰὸς σωτήρ, which mean, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour, they will make the word ἰχδὺς, that is, fish, in which word Christ is mystically understood, because He was able to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters. But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythr an, or, as some rather believe, the Cum an, in her whole poem, of which this is a very small portion, not only has nothing that can relate to the worship of the false or feigned gods, but rather speaks against them and their worshippers in such a way that we might even think she ought to be reckoned among those who belong to the city of God. Lactantius also inserted in his work the prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl, he does not say which. But I have thought fit to combine in a single extract, which may seem long, what he has set down in many short quotations. She says, Afterward He shall come into the injurious hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God buffets with profane hands, and with impure mouth will spit out envenomed spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes. And He will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out what word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned with a crown of thorns. And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for His thirst: they will spread this table of inhospitality. For you yourself, being foolish, have not understood your God, deluding the minds of mortals, but have both crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall. But the veil of the temple shall be rent; and at midday it shall be darker than night for three hours. And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three days; and then returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of the resurrection being shown to the recalled. Lactantius made use of these sibylline testimonies, introducing them bit by bit in the course of his discussion as the things he intended to prove seemed to require, and we have set them down in one connected series, uninterrupted by comment, only taking care to mark them by capitals, if only the transcribers do not neglect to preserve them hereafter. Some writers, indeed, say that the Erythr an sibyl was not in the time of Romulus, but of the Trojan War. |
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