nobler name
    (With his plain russet gown and simple board)
    Than either Lydian with her golden hoard. 
    Then came the great dictator from the plough;
    And old Serranus show’d his laurell’d brow. 
    Marching with equal step.  Camillus near,
    Who, fresh and vigorous in the bright career
    Of honour, sped, and never slack’d his pace,
    Till Death o’ertook him in the noble race,
    And placed him in a sphere of fame so high,
    That other patriots fill’d a lower sky. 
    Even those ungrateful lands that seal’d his doom
    Recall’d the hanish’d man to rescue Rome. 
    Torquains nigh, a sterner spectre stood,
    His fasces all besmear’d with filial blood: 
    He childless to the shades resolved to go,
    Rather than Rome a moment should forego
    That dreadful discipline, whose rigid lore
    Had spread their triumphs round from shore to shore. 
    Then the two Decii came, by Heaven inspired,
    Divinely bold, as when the foe retired
    Before their Heaven-directed march, amazed,
    When on the self-devoted men they gazed,
    Till they provoked their fate.  And Curtius nigh,
    As when to heaven he cast his upward eye,
    And all on fire with glory’s opening charms,
    Plunged to the Shades below with clanging arms,
    Laevinus, Mummius, with Flaminius show’d,
    Like meaner lights along the heavenly road;
    And he who conquer’d Greece from sea to sea,
    Then mildly bade th’ afflicted race be free. 
    Next came the dauntless envoy, with his wand,
    Whose more than magic circle on the sand
    The frenzy of the Syrian king confined: 
    O’er-awed he stood, and at his fate repined. 
    Great Manlius, too, who drove the hostile throng
    Prone from the steep on which his members hung,
    (A sad reverse) the hungry vultures’ food,
    When Roman justice claim’d his forfeit blood. 
    Then Cocles came, who took his dreadful stand
    Where the wide arch the foaming torrent spann’d,
    Stemming the tide of war with matchless might,
    And turn’d the heady current of the fight. 
    And he that, stung with fierce vindictive ire,
    Consumed his erring hand with hostile fire. 
    Duillius next and Catulus were seen,
    Whose daring navies plough’d the billowy green
    That laves Pelorus and the Sardian shore,
    And dyed the rolling waves with Punic gore. 
    Great Appius next advanced in sterner mood,
    Who with patrician loftiness withstood
    The clamours of the crowd.  But, close behind,
    Of gentler manners and more equal mind,
    Came one, perhaps the first in martial might,
    Yet his dim glory cast a waning light;
    But neither Bacchus, nor Alcmena’s son
    Such trophies yet by east or west have won;
    Nor he that in the arms of conquest died,
    As he, when Rome’s stern