Ausonius, Decimus Magnus, Mosella

non Philo Cecropius, non qui laudatus ab hoste

not Philo of Athens, not he who, praised by his enemy,

clara Syracosii traxit certamina belli,

drew out the famous struggles of the Syracusan war;

forsan et insignes hominumque operumque labores

perhaps, too, the famed labours of men and of works

hic habuit decimo celebrata volumine Marcei

the Hebdomad, celebrated in the tenth volume of Marcus,

hebdomas, hic clari viguere Menecratis artes

held here; here flourished the arts of famous Menecrates,

atque Ephesi spectata manus vel in arce Minervae

and the hand admired at Ephesus, or, on Minerva's citadel,

Ictinus, magico cui noctua perlita fuco

Ictinus, whose owl, smeared over with magic dye,

adlicit omne genus volucres perimitque tuendo.

lures birds of every kind and kills them by its gaze.

conditor hic forsan fuerit Ptolomaidos aulae

Here perhaps was the founder of the Ptolemaid's palace,

Dinochares, quadrata cui in fastigia cono

Dinochares, for whom the square pyramid, in a cone toward its apex,

surgit ipsa suas consumit pyramis umbras,

rises, and itself consumes its own shadows;

iussus ob incesti qui quondam foedus amoris

who once, commanded because of the bond of an incestuous love,

Arsinoen Pharii suspendit in aere templi.

hung Arsinoe in the air of the Pharian temple.

spirat enim tecti testudine virus achates

For the agate in the vault of the roof breathes out its force

adflatamque trahit ferrato crine puellam.

and draws the girl, breathed upon, by her iron-bound hair.

Hos ergo aut horum similes est credere dignum

These, then, or men like these, it is fair to believe

Belgarum in terris scaenas posuisse domorum,

set up the façades of houses in the lands of the Belgae,