“When Hannibal's eyes were sated with the picture of all that valour, he saw next a marvellous sight—the sea suddenly flung upon the land with the mass of the rising deep, and no encircling shores, and the fields inundated by the invading waters. For, where Nereus rolls forth from his blue caverns and churns up the waters of Neptune from the bottom, the sea rushes forward in flood, and Ocean, opening his hidden springs, rushes on with furious waves. Then the water, as if stirred to the depths by the fierce trident, strives to cover the land with the swollen sea. But soon the water turns and glides back with ebbing tide; and then the ships, robbed of the sea, are stranded, and the sailors, lying on their benches, await the waters' return. It is the Moon that stirs this realm of wandering Cymothoe and troubles the deep; the Moon, driving her chariot through the sky, draws the sea this way and that, and Tethys follows with ebb and flow.”

— Silius Italicus , Punica

Postquam oculos varia implevit virtutis imago,
mira dehinc cernit: surgentis mole profundi
injectum terris subitum mare nullaque circa
litora et infuso stagnantis aequore campos.
nam qua caeruleis Nereus evoluitur antris
atque imo freta contorquet Neptunia fundo,
proruptum exundat pelagus, caecosque relaxans
Oceanus fontis torrentibus ingruit undis.
tum uada, ceu saevo penitus permota tridenti,
luctantur terris tumefactum imponere pontum.
mox remeat gurges tractoque relabitur aestu,
ac ratis erepto campis deserta profundo,
et fusi transtris expectant aequora nautae.
Cymothoes ea regna vagae pelagique labores
Luna mouet, Luna, immissis per caerula bigis,
fertque refertque fretum, sequiturque reciproca Tethys.
Book III, lines 45–60
Punica

Original

Postquam oculos varia implevit virtutis imago, mira dehinc cernit: surgentis mole profundi injectum terris subitum mare nullaque circa litora et infuso stagnantis aequore campos. nam qua caeruleis Nereus evoluitur antris atque imo freta contorquet Neptunia fundo, proruptum exundat pelagus, caecosque relaxans Oceanus fontis torrentibus ingruit undis. tum uada, ceu saevo penitus permota tridenti, luctantur terris tumefactum imponere pontum. mox remeat gurges tractoque relabitur aestu, ac ratis erepto campis deserta profundo, et fusi transtris expectant aequora nautae. Cymothoes ea regna vagae pelagique labores Luna mouet, Luna, immissis per caerula bigis, fertque refertque fretum, sequiturque reciproca Tethys.

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Silius Italicus 31

Roman consul, orator, and Latin epic poet 26–101

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Silius Italicus 31

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