What late evening brings, where the breeze is bringing the peaceful clouds from, what tricks the rainy south wind is plotting, the Sun will tell you. Who would dare call the Sun untruthful? He often gives warning when unforeseen conflicts threaten, and treachery and hidden wars are brewing. He it was who took pity on Rome when Caesar was killed, when he hid his shining head in tawny darkness and a faithless age feared everlasting night. At that time earth and the ocean waters, evil-boding curs and birds of ill omen gave portents too. Time and again we saw Etna, pouring its flows from fractured forges, boiling over onto the fields of the Cyclopes, rolling down fireballs and molten rocks! Germany heard the sound of clashing arms all across the sky, and the Alps shook with unheard-of earthquakes. People heard a giant voice ring through the quiet woods, pale phantoms were eerily and obscurely seen at nightfall, cattle spoke, a thing that should never be heard! Rivers stood still, earth gaped, in temples sad ivories wept and bronzes sweated. The Po, king of rivers, from a madly towering height tore up woods and washed them away, and across the whole countryside swept off the herds, byres and all. In that time there was no end of threatening threads seen in the organs of inauspicious sacrifices, or blood seeping from wells, and high-built cities rang all night with the howl of wolves. Never did more thunderbolts fall from clear skies or more ominous comets blaze. And so Philippi saw a second time Roman armies, wielding identical arms, close and fight each other; nor did the gods find it unworthy that Macedon and the broad plains of Thrace should twice grow fat upon Roman blood. The time will surely come when farmers there, working the land with the curving plough, will come across javelins bitten by scabby rust, strike empty helmets with their heavy mattocks, and marvel at the huge size of the bones from graves they have dug open. You gods of our fathers, heroes of our nation, Romulus and you, mother Vesta, who protect the Tuscan Tiber and the Palatine Hill of Rome, at least may you not prevent this young man from coming to the rescue of an age turned upside down! We have long since paid enough in our blood for the broken oaths of Laomedon’s Troy, and long since has the kingdom of heaven begrudged you to us, Caesar, complaining that you care for the triumphs of men: truly, right and wrong have been reversed, so many wars are there all over the world, so many forms of crime; there is none of the respect that is due to the plough, the farmland is derelict, its landsmen led away, and curved sickles are reforged into the hard-edged sword. Here Euphrates, there Germany, make war; neighbouring cities, their legal bonds torn apart, bear arms against each other; immoral wars rage throughout the world; as when racing-chariots, bursting out of the starting-gates, gather speed lap by lap and the driver is carried along struggling vainly with the harness, nor will the chariot answer to the reins.
