“tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem, parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.”
Remember, Roman, you will rule the peoples of the world; these will be your arts: imposing customs of reconciliation, sparing the defeated, and defeating the haughty.
After Aeneas’ father Anchises reveals a vision of Rome’s future, he makes this prescription, to remember. He’s not speaking to Aeneas, but to a Roman reader, or Romans in general who would have been experiencing the rise of the Roman Empire after the fall of the Republic. Is Virgil being ironic? Have these “arts” had fallen out of use? I chose this as the last translation because it is haunting for myself and our country. Remember your arts, your strengths. Mine are giving the truth, and accepting the truth of others. The first is easy, the second one is not.
Roger Valdez 