llyrian turned toward him with a threatening bearing, saying in a
stern, grave tone: "Who tells you so?"

Ausonius cast a hasty, anxious glance at the handsome, stately man;
then he tried to smile, but the attempt was not very successful. "Your
jest brought before me the possibility of a terrible earnest. If the
charming, innocent child should fall into the hands of one of our
pitiless centurions! Horrible!"

"It has been the fate of thousands--pshaw, what am I saying--of many
hundred thousands, since we Romans bore our eagles over the world. You
poets--even you, my softhearted friend--are fond of singing the praises
of war. I tell you, he who knows and directs it rarely lauds it. War is
necessary. I laugh at the foolish weaklings who, like the worthy
stoics, or the monks, imagine that some day there will be a kingdom of
eternal peace. War is grand; death for one's native land is the most
powerful feeling that rules mankind; but war is horrible! To me it does
not matter," he added, laughing, as he drained his goblet. "I need only
make war, not answer for it, and above all, I need not sing its
praises, I am neither anvil nor lyre; I am hammer, and woe to the
vanquished! For a thousand years we have carried the terrors of our
victories to all nations: an unprecedented loyalty on the part of
Fortuna. But now--I hope I shall not witness it--now her wheel is
gradually rolling backward--toward us--over us!"

"Never!" cried the poet. "What can these half-naked Barbarians do
against us? So long as we have warriors like you and, for the service
of the Muses, minds--"

"Like Ausonius's, do you mean? Enviable self-reliance! I tell you, I
consider myself--and far better soldiers than I--incapable of resisting
this ever-advancing ocean which is called 'Germans.' I have gone
through many a campaign against them--against these very Alemanni. I
think they know my name! But there is something mysterious under this
surging multitude--I know not what--a motive power unintelligible to us
all, which can no more be resisted with sword and spear than the sea
itself. I have long sought the clue to the secret, yet cannot find it.
But so far as the service of the Muses is concerned--pardon a rude
soldier--we need peasants, not poets. There are only millionaires,
beggars, and slaves. Give me a hundred thousand free peasants of the
ancient Latin stock, and I'll sacrifice in return for them all the
Latin poets, dead and living, and once more be