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Notes Do not display Latin text | Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb Book II Chapter 2: Titus returns (cont.)[AD 69] | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
These and like thoughts made him waver between hope and fear; but hope triumphed. Some supposed that he [note 1] retraced his steps for love of queen Berenice, nor was his young heart averse to her charms, but this affection occasioned no hindrance to action. He passed, it is true, a youth enlivened by pleasure, and practised more self-restraint in his own than in his father's reign. So, after coasting Achaia and Asia, leaving the land on his left, he made for the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and then by a bolder course for Syria. Here he conceived a desire to visit and inspect the temple of the Paphian Venus, place of celebrity both among natives and foreigners. It will not be a tedious digression to record briefly the origin of the worship, the ceremonial of the temple, and the form under which the goddess is adored, a form found in no other place. Note 1: he = Titus Event: Titus returns | His ac talibus inter spem metumque iactatum spes vicit. fuerunt qui accensum desiderio Berenices reginae vertisse iter crederent; neque abhorrebat a Berenice iuvenilis animus, sed gerendis rebus nullum ex eo impedimentum. laetam voluptatibus adulescentiam egit, suo quam patris imperio moderatior. igitur oram Achaiae et Asiae ac laeva maris praevectus, Rhodum et Cyprum insulas, inde Syriam audentioribus spatiis petebat. atque illum cupido incessit adeundi visendique templum Paphiae Veneris, inclitum per indigenas advenasque. haud fuerit longum initia religionis, templi ritum, formam deae (neque enim alibi sic habetur) paucis disserere. |