e place that is known is
blamed. You might see persons, half dead, wandering about the roads, as
long as they were able to stand; others, weeping and lying about on the
ground, and rolling their wearied eyes with the dying movement. They
stretch, too, their limbs towards the stars of the overhanging heavens,
breathing forth their lives here and there, where death has overtaken
them.

"What were my feelings then? Were they not such as they ought to be, to
hate life, and to desire to be a sharer with my people? On whichever
side my eyes were turned, there was the multitude strewed {on the
earth}, just as when rotten apples fall from the moved branches, and
acorns from the shaken holm-oak. Thou seest[103] a lofty temple,
opposite {thee}, raised on high with long steps: Jupiter has it {as his
own}. Who did not offer incense at those altars in vain? how often did
the husband, while he was uttering words of entreaty for his wife, {or}
the father for his son, end his life at the altars without prevailing?
in his hand, too, was part of the frankincense found unconsumed! How
often did the bulls, when brought to the temples, while the priest was
making his supplications, and pouring the pure wine between their horns,
fall without waiting for the wound! While I myself was offering
sacrifice to Jupiter, for myself, and my country, and my three sons, the
victim sent forth dismal lowings, and suddenly falling down without any
blow, stained the knives thrust into it, with its scanty blood; the
diseased entrails, too, had lost {all} marks of truth, and the warnings
of the Gods. The baneful malady penetrated to the entrails. I have seen
the carcases lying, thrown out before the sacred doors; before the very
altars, {too}, that death might become more odious[104] {to the Gods}.
Some finish their lives with the halter, and by death dispel the
apprehension of death, and voluntarily invite approaching fate. The
bodies of the dead are not borne out with any funeral rites, according
to the custom; for the {city} gates cannot receive {the multitude of}
the processions. Either unburied they lie upon the ground, or they are
laid on the lofty pyres without the usual honors. And now there is no
distinction, and they struggle for the piles; and they are burnt on
fires that belong to others. They who should weep are wanting; and the
souls of sons, and of husbands, of old and of young, wander about
unlamented: there is not room sufficient for the tom