No More Learning

They follow fortune, as of old, and hate
With all their soul the victim of the state.
Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd
Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud,
If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed)
Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed;
For since our votes have been no longer bought,
All public care has vanished from our thought.
Romans, who once with unresisted sway,
Gave armies, empire, everything, away,
For two poor claims have long renounced the whole
And only ask--the circus and a dole.

Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some
safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a
Pompey? Or a victorious Caesar? Why, the realisation of their own
soaring desires.

Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift
of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and
Rome--Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad
verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his
"Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).

"I do congratulate the Roman state
Which my great consulate did recreate! "
If he had always used such jingling words
He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.
A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all?
Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for
even a tree may split them!

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the paltry dust which yet remains.
AND IS THIS ALL? Yet THIS was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold.
Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds;
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps and snows. O'er these with torrent force
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.
Already at his feet Italia lies.
Yet, thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries,
"Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls,
And Afric's standards float without her walls! "
But what ensued? Illusive glory, say.
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state,
With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate,
Sits, mighty suppliant, of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian monarch's nap be out!
Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,
Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world:
The vengeance due to Cannae's fatal field,
And floods of gore, a poisoned ring shall yield!
Fly, madman, fly! At toil and danger mock,
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,
To please the rhetoricians, and become
A declamation--for the boys of Rome!