Better life the Scythians lead,Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home,Or the hardy Getan breed,As o'er their vast unmeasured steppes they roam;Free the crops that bless their soil;Their tillage wearies after one year's space;Each in turn fulfils his toil;His period o'er, another takes his place.There the step-dame keeps her handFrom guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean;There no downed wives commandTheir feeble lords, or on adulterers lean.Theirs are dowries not of gold,Their parents' worth, their own pure chastity,True to one, to others cold;They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die.O, whoe'er has heart and headTo stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls,Would he that his name be read“Father of Rome” on lofty pedestals,