of high mettle, and of great fame on the course, degenerates
for the {purposes of} victory; and, forgetting his ancient honors, he
groans at the manger, doomed to perish by an inglorious distemper. The
boar remembers not to be angry, nor the hind to trust to her speed, nor
the bears to rush upon the powerful herds.

"A faintness seizes all {animals}; both in the woods, in the fields, and
in the roads, loathsome carcases lie strewed. The air is corrupted with
the smell {of them}. I am relating strange events. The dogs, and the
ravenous birds, and the hoary wolves, touch them not; falling away, they
rot, and, by their exhalations, produce baneful effects, and spread the
contagion far and wide. With more dreadful destruction the pestilence
reaches the wretched husbandmen, and riots within the walls of the
extensive city. At first, the bowels are scorched,[102] and a redness,
and the breath drawn with difficulty, is a sign of the latent flame. The
tongue, {grown} rough, swells; and the parched mouth gapes, with its
throbbing veins; the noxious air, too, is inhaled by the breathing. {The
infected} cannot endure a bed, or any coverings; but they lay their
hardened breasts upon the earth, and their bodies are not made cool by
the ground, but the ground is made hot by their bodies. There is no
physician at hand; the cruel malady breaks out upon even those who
administer remedies; and {their own} arts become an injury to their
owners. The nearer at hand any one is, and the more faithfully he
attends on the sick, the sooner does he come in for his share of the
fatality. And when the hope of recovery is departed, and they see the
end of their malady {only} in death, they indulge their humors, and
there is no concern as to what is to their advantage; for, {indeed},
nothing is to their advantage. All sense, too, of shame being banished,
they lie {promiscuously} close to the fountains and rivers, and deep
wells; and their thirst is not extinguished by drinking, before their
life {is}. Many, overpowered {with the disease}, are unable to arise
thence, and die amid the very water; and yet another even drinks that
{water}. So great, too, is the irksomeness for the wretched {creatures}
of their hated beds, {that} they leap out, or, if their strength forbids
them standing, they roll their bodies upon the ground, and every man
flies from his own dwelling; each one's house seems fatal to him: and
since the cause of the calamity is unknown, th