Thursday, June 30, 2022
Ruins
Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo 1.409-414 (tr. J.Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff):
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The memorials of an earlier age cannot be recognised;
devouring time has wasted its mighty battlements away.
Traces only remain now that the walls are lost:
under a wide stretch of rubble lie the buried homes.
Let us not chafe that human frames dissolve:
from precedents we discern that towns can die.
agnosci nequeunt aevi monumenta prioris:
grandia consumpsit moenia tempus edax. 410
sola manent interceptis vestigia muris:
ruderibus latis tecta sepulta iacent.
non indignemur mortalia corpora solvi:
cernimus exemplis oppida posse mori.
