
“How many realms since Troy have been o'erthrown?
How many nations captive led? How oft
Has Fortune up and down throughout the world
Changed slavery for dominion?”
Quot post excidium Trojae sunt eruta regna?
Quot capti populi? quoties Fortuna per orbem
Servitium imperiumque tulit, varieque revertit?
Book I, line 506, as reported in Dictionary of Quotations (classical) (1897) by T. B. Harbottle, p. 248.
Astronomica