Venice masks

Saturday 13 February 2016

De Spectaculis.III (What race is set so far) - Marcus Valerius Martialis

What race is set so far,
what race so barbarous, Caesar,
wherefrom a spectator is not in thy city?

There has come the farmer of Rhodope from Orphic Haemus,
there has come too the Sarmatian fed on draughts of horses' blood,
and he who quaffs at its spring the stream of first-found Nile,
and he whose shore the wave of farthest Tethys beats;
the Arab has sped, Sabaeans have sped,
and Cilicians have here been drenched in their own saffron dew.
With hair twined in a knot have come Sygambrians,
and, with locks twined elsewise, Aethiopians.

Diverse sounds the speech of the peoples,
yet then is it one when thou art acclaimed
thy country’s Father true.

Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 40 - 104) Ancient Rome (Italy), born in Hispania (Spain)
Translated by Walter C. A Ker
Source: Martial epigrams, Volume 1, Translated by Walter C. A Ker, Heinemann, 1919-1920

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