For myself, ye chiefs, I veil no secret thoughts, but thus advise.
Place no reliance on the Pharian king; His age forbids: nor on the cunning Moor, Who vain of Punic ancestors, and vain Of Carthaginian memories and descent (8) Supposed from Hannibal, and swollen with pride At Varus' supplication, sees in thought Rome lie beneath him.

Wherefore, comrades, seek At speed, the Eastern world.

Those mighty realms Disjoins from us Euphrates, and the gates Called Caspian; on another sky than ours There day and night revolve; another sea Of different hue is severed from our own.

(9) Rule is their wish, nought else: and in their plains Taller the war-horse, stronger twangs the bow; There fails nor youth nor age to wing the shaft Fatal in flight.

Their archers first subdued The lance of Macedon and Baetra's (10) walls, Home of the Mede; and haughty Babylon With all her storied towers: nor shall they dread The Roman onset; trusting to the shafts By which the host of fated Crassus fell.
Nor trust they only to the javelin blade Untipped with poison: from the rancorous edge The slightest wound deals death.
"Would that my lot Forced me not thus to trust that savage race Of Arsaces! (11) Yet now their emulous fate Contends with Roman destinies: the gods Smile favouring on their nation.