Claudian, volume 2 (of 2) / With an English translation by Maurice Platnauer
Thus far the warrior’s praise! Now my gentler Muse relaxes her strings to sing not of Stilicho’s battles but of the virtues by which he governs the world, tempering fear with love. Claudian, the last great poet of classical Rome, here turns panegyrist, tracing how the general came at last to don the consular robes and lend his name to the year. He summons Clemency, eldest of the gods, who first disentangled Chaos and now dwells in Stilicho’s heart, alongside her sister Good Faith. Through them the conqueror pardons the fallen, keeps his promises, guards absent friends, and shapes the young emperor Honorius with a father’s care, honouring the dead Theodosius in his sons.
The poem celebrates mercy, loyalty, and good faith as the truest ornaments of power, insisting that to inspire awe surpasses cruelty. Composed as Rome’s political order trembled, it matters as a brilliant late flowering of Latin verse, fusing Epicurean thought, imperial propaganda, and mythic grandeur into a vision of just rule.
How it begins
Thus far the warrior’s praise! Now let my gentler Muse relax the strings and tell by what virtues he governs the world, tempering fear with love, say what counsel moved him at last to assume those consular robes that cried out to him, and bestowed on our annals a year named after himself. In the beginning Love [1] was the guardian of this vast universe, she who dwelt in the sphere of Jove, who attempers the sky ’twixt cold and heat, who is eldest of the immortals. For Love, pitying the elemental confusion, first disentangled Chaos; with a smile she scattered the darkness and bathed the world in light. She dwelleth now not in temples nor by altars warm with incense but in thy heart wherein she has made her home. Taught by her thou accountest it cruel and barbarous to batten on suffering and human slaughter; the sword that drips blood in war thou wearest unstained in peace; [1] Claudian seems to have in his mind partly the Epicurean doctrine of ἔρως and partly the personification of the Clementia Caesaris , well known as a legend on so many Roman coins. See, also, for Clementia as a goddess, Claud. xvii. 166, and Stat. Theb. xii. 481 et sqq.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.