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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C4v p40]

In illaudata laudantes.

Praising the wrong things

Armour hanging on tree and elephant
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Ingentes Galatum semermi milite turmas,
Spem praeter trepidus fuderat Antiochus.[1]
Lucarum cum saeva boum vis,[2] ira, proboscis,
Tum primům[3] hostiles corripuisset equos.
Ergo trophaea locans Elephantis imagine pinxit,
Insuper & sociis occideramus ait.
Bellua servasset ni nos foedissima barrus,
At superasse iuvat, sic superasse pudet.

Antiochus, in spite of his fears, had beyond all expectation routed the huge squadrons of Galatians with his light-armed troops, when the savage might of elephants, their raging and their trunks, for the first time ever fell upon the enemy’s cavalry. So when he set up the trophy, he adorned it with the picture of an elephant and furthermore said to his troops: “We would have fallen, if this revolting beast, the elephant, had not preserved us. Pleasing as it is to conquer, it is galling to conquer like this”.

Notes:

1.  For this incident, see Lucian, Zeuxis sive Antiochus 8-11. In 276 BC Antiochus I won against fearful odds by directing his sixteen elephants against the Galatian horsemen and scythed chariots. Not only did the horses turn in panic and cause chaos among their own infantry, but the elephants came on behind, tossing, goring and trampling. Although he had won an overwhelming victory, Antiochus did not consider it a matter for congratulation.

2.  ‘Might of elephants’, lit. ‘might of Lucanian cattle’, supposedly so called by the Romans because they first saw these strange beasts in Lucania in south Italy, when King Pyrrhus of Epirus made use of them in his defeat of the Romans at the battle of Heraclea in 280 BC. See Pliny, Natural History 8.6.16.

3.  ‘For the first time ever’. The Galatians, Celtic tribes who had invaded Asia Minor, had never seen elephants before. Elephants had often been used in battle on other occasions.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C6r p43]

In fertilitatem[1] sibi ipsi damnosam.

Fruitfulness bringing its own destruction

Boys knocking nuts out of a tree with sticks
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Ludibrium pueris lapides iacientibus, hoc me
In trivio posuit rustica cura nucem.
Quae laceris ramis perstrictoque ardua libro,
Certatim fundis per latus omne petor.
Quid sterili posset contingere turpius? eheu,
Infoelix fructus in mea damna fero.[2]

A countryman’s care placed me, a nut tree, at this cross-roads, where I am the butt of stone-throwing boys. I have grown tall, but my branches are broken, my bark bruised, I am attacked with sling-stones, competing on every side. What worse fate could befall a barren tree? Alas, cursed tree that I am, I bear fruit to my own destruction.

Notes:

1.  Textual variant: foecunditatem.

2.  This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 9.3, see also Aesop, Fables 152.

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