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Ausonius-Ordo Urbium Nobilium PDF
Ausonius-Ordo Urbium Nobilium PDF
1
The original name of Byzantium (see Pliny, N.H. iv.
xi. 18).
268
BOOK XI
I. ROME
FIRST among cities, the home of gods,, is golden
Rome.
2
The citadel of Carthage :
Virgil, Aen. i. 367.
269
AUSONIUS
VI. TREVERIS
faithless Persians.
Ye, too, go forward equal and uphold the Mace-
9
VI. TREVES
LONG has Gaul, mighty in arms, yearned to be
3
praised, and that royal city of the Treveri, which,
though full near the Rhine, reposes unalarmed as if
in the bosom of deep profound peace, because she"
feeds, because she clothes and arms the forces of the
Empire. Widely her walls stretch forward over a
spreading hill beside her bounteous Moselle glides
;
27!
AUSONIUS
VII. MEDIOLANUM
ET MEDIOLANI mira omnia, copia rerum,
innumerae cultaeque domus, facunda virorum
ingenia et mores laeti turn duplice muro
;
VIII. CAPUA
NEC CAPUAM pol agri
l
cultuque penuque potentem,
opibus famaque priore silebo,
deliciis,
fortuna variante vices, quae freta secundis
nescivit servare modum. nunc subdita Romae
aemula, mine fidei memor ante infida, senatum
; 5
272
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
VIL MILAN
VIII. CAPUA
273
VOL. I. T
AUSONIUS
quin etiam rerum dominam Latiique parentem
adpetiit bello, ducibus non freta togatis. 10
Hannibalis iurata armis deceptaque in hostis
servitium demens specie transivit erili.
mox ut in occasum vitiis communibus acti
IX. AQUILEIA
1
See Livy, xxm. vi. 6. After the battle of Cannae, Capua
agreed to aid Rome against Hannibal, on condition that one
of the consuls (curnles) should be a Capuan.
2
Magnus Maximus, a Spaniard, is said by Pacatus (Paneg.
in Theod. 31) to have been a menial and hanger-on (negle-
274
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
IX. AQUILEIA
X. ARELAS
XV. ATHENAE
NUNC et terrigenis patribus memoremus ATHENAS,
Pallados et Consi quondam certaminis arcem,
1
V: Emerita, P 1
.
1
Ancient Arelate lay partly on the east bank of the
Rhone, partly on an island in the stream.
2
The epithet is either commemorative of Q. Martius Rex,
who with M. Porcius Cato was consul when Narbo was
founded (B.C. 118), or of the military origin of the colony.
3
Vienne was the chief city of the Alpine Allobroges.
4
Or, possibly, "thou makest him (Rhone) thy central
276
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
X. ARLES
OPEN thy havens with a gracious welcome, two-fold :
Arelate Arelas, the little Rome of Gaul, to whom
Narbonne, to whom Vienne, rich in Alpine
2
Martian
3
peasantry, is neighbour divided by the streams
of headlong Rhone in suchwise that thou mak'st a
4
bridge of boats thy central street, whereby thou
gatherest the merchandize of the Roman world and
scatterest it, enriching other peoples and the towns
which Gaul and Aquitaine treasure in their wide
bosoms.
XV. ATHENS
Now also let us tell of Athens with her earth-born
8
fathers, the stronghold for which Pallas and Census 9
street, spanned (covered) as he is with ships, and along
him . . .'
5
Seville. 6
The Baetis (Guadalquivir).
Probably because it was the residence of the vicarius,
7
the olive-tree.
277
AUSONIUS
paciferae primum cui contigit arbor olivae,
Attica facundae cuius mera gloria linguae,
unde per loniae populos et nomen Achaeum 5
versa Graiamanus centum se effudit in urbes.
XVIIL TOLOSA
278
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
XVIIL TOULOUSE
NEVER will I leave unmentioned Toulouse, my
nursing-mother, who is girt about with a vast circuit
of brick-built walls, along whose side the lovely stream
of the Garonne glides past, home of uncounted people,
lying hard by the barriers of the snowy Pyrenees and
the pine-clad Cevennes between the tribes of Aqui-
taine arid the Iberian folk. Though lately she has
poured forth from her womb four several cities, she
feels no loss of her drained populace, enfolding in
her bosom all whom she has brought forth, though
5
emigrants.
4
Ai-ethnsa and Alpheus, believed to emerge, with their
streams still fresh, on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse see :
XIX. NARBO
NEC tu, Martie NARBO, silebere, nomine cuius
fusa per inmensum quondam Provincia regnum
optinuit multos dominandi iure colonos.
insinuant qua se Grais Allobroges oris
excluduntque Italos Alpina cacumina fines, 5
cusque ?
quid populos vario discrimine vestis et oris ?
quodque tibi Pario quondam, de marniore templum
tantae molis erat, quantam noil sperneret olim 15
Tarquinius Catulusque iterum, postremus et ille,
aurea qui statuit Capitoli culmina, Caesar ?
te maris Eoi merces et Hiberica ditant
1
See note on x. 2.
2
The Belcae (Volcae) were subdivided into the Volcae
Arecomii and the Volcae Teutosagi (in Caesar, E.G. vi. 20,
Ptol. ii. x. 8 called Tectosages) : the latter lived in the west
of Gallia Narbonnensis, with Toulouse as their chief town.
3
In 121 B.C., after the defeat of the Allobroges and Arverni
by Gn. Domitius and Q. Fabius Maximus.
280
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
XIX. NARBONNE
NOR shalt thou be unsung, Martian x Narbonne, who
gav'st thy name
to that Province (Provence) which
once spread over a vast realm and held sovereign
sway over its numerous inhabitants. Where the
Allobroges encroach upon the Graian borders and
Alpine peaks shut out Italy, where the Iberians are
parted from thee by Pyrenaean snows, where Rhone
sweeps headlong from his sire Leman, and the
Cevennes thrust deep into the plains of Aquitaine,
2
right on to the Teutosagi and Belcae, rustic folk,
all was Narbonne thou in all Gaul wast first to
:
281
AUSONIUS
XX. BURDIGALA
IMPIA iamdudum condemno silentia, quod te,
o patria, insignem Baccho fluviisque virisque,
moribus ingeniisque hominuin procerumque senatu,
non inter primas memorem, quasi conscius urbis
exiguae inmeritas dubitem contingere laudes. 5
non pudor hinc nobis nee enim mihi barbara Rheni
;
282
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
XX. BORDEAUX
LONG have I censured my unduteous silence in
that of thee, my country famed for thy wine, thy
rivers, thy famous men, the virtue and the wit of
thy inhabitants and for the Senate of thy nobles, I
did not tell among the foremost;
as though, well
1
knowing thee a town, I shrank from touching
little
8
Platea, the Greek TrAoreta (o5os) "broad," is the modern
3 =
ench place. Virgil, A en. x. 269.
4
See note on Mosella, 1. 290.
283
AUSONIUS
marginis extent! bis sena per ostia cursu,
innumeros populi non umquam exhaustus ad usus ! 25
hunc cuperes, rex Mede, tuis contingere castris,
flumina consumpto cum defecere meatu,
huius fontis aquas peregrinas ferre per urbes,
unum per cunctas solitus potare Choaspen.
Salve, fons ignote ortu, sacer, alme, perennis, 30
vitree, glauce, profunde, sonore, inlimis, opace.
1
See Herodotus, vii. 108 cp. Juv. *? 176, Credimus altos
:
284
THE ORDER OF FAMOUS CITIES
30 3
Hail, fountain of source
unknown, holy,
gracious, unfailing, crystal-clear, azure, deep, mur-
murous, shady, and unsullied Hail, guardian deity
!
Nemausus is Nimes.
6
Now the Timao, between Aquileia and Trieste cp. :
285