Laudator Temporis Acti

Ammianus Marcellinus 31.4.6 (tr. John C. Rolfe):

With such stormy eagerness on the part of insistent men was the ruin of the Roman world brought in. This at any rate is neither obscure nor uncertain, that the ill-omened officials who ferried the barbarian hordes often tried to reckon their number, but gave up their vain attempt; as the most distinguished of poets says [Vergil, Georgics 2.105-106]:

Who wishes to know this would wish to know
How many grains of sand on Libyan plain
By Zephyrus are swept.

ita turbido instantium studio orbis Romani pernicies ducebatur. illud sane neque obscurum est neque incertum, infaustos transvehendi barbaram plebem ministros, numerum eius comprehendere calculo saepe temptantes, conquievisse frustratos, "quem qui scire velit" ut eminentissimus memorat vates, "Libyci velit aequoris / idem discere quam multae zephyro truduntur harenae."

ducebatur V: adducebatur Mommsen: augebatur Heraeus
truduntur V: turbentur A, codd. Vergilii

Related post: Refugees.