Iccius, are you gazing with envy, now,
at Arabian riches, and preparing
for bitter war on unbeaten kings
of Saba, weaving bonds for those dreadful

Medes? What barbaric virgin
will be your slave, when you’ve murdered her lover?
What boy, from the palace, with scented
hair, will handle your wine-cups, one taught

by his father’s bow how to manage eastern
arrows? Who’ll deny, now, that rivers can flow
backwards, to the summits of mountains,
and Tiber reverse the course of his streams,

when you, who gave promise of much better things,
are intent on changing Panaetius’s
noble books, the school of Socrates,
for a suit of Iberian armour?