Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Epodes 16.1-14

In this epode, Horace laments that Rome is destroying itself through civil war — something no foreign enemy ever managed to accomplish. He catalogs the great threats Rome survived: the Marsians, Porsena, Capua, Spartacus, the Allobroges, the Germans, and Hannibal — yet Rome endured them all. Now, Horace warns, a cursed generation will finish what Rome's enemies could not, leaving a barbarous conqueror to trample the city's ashes and scatter the bones of Quirinus.

Tier 1

Altera aetas iam frangitur bellis civilibus, et Roma ipsa suis viribus ruit.

Roma quam neque Marsi, vicini Romae, potuerunt perdere aut Etruscus exercitus minacis Porsenae potuit perdere, nec aequa virtus Capuae potuit perdere, nec Spartacus acer potuit perdere,

infidelisque Allobrox novis rebus, nec fera Germania Romam vicit caerulea pube, Hannibalque invidus parentibus nostris:

nos, inpia aetas devoti sanguinis, perdemus rursusque terra feris animalibus occupabitur:

Heu barbarus victor in cineres Romae ambulabit et eques verberabit urbem sonante ungula,

Insolensque, horribile visu, sternet ossa Quirini quae sunt sine ventis et sole.

Written by Robert Amstutz