Death of a Tyrant

𝑁𝑢𝑛𝑐 𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑚 - now we should drink!

In 30 BC, Cleopatra queen of Egypt, the last of a line of rulers descended from Alexander the Great’s general Ptolemy, placed poisonous snakes on her body and died. A year earlier, her naval forces and those of her Roman lover Marcus Antonius had been defeated in a major sea battle off Actium on the north-west coast of Greece, losing 230 ships to the followers of young Octavius, who as Caesar Augustus was to become Rome’s first emperor. Their army destroyed, the defeated couple fled to Alexandria.

The battle of Actium was celebrated by Horace in an ode (Odes 1.37) which reflected the feeling of many Romans that they had narrowly escaped becoming the subjects of a mad Egyptian queen. The opening words nunc est bibendum are a translation (in the same metre, Alcaics) of the opening of a poem by the 6th-century BC poet Alcaeus of Lesbos that begins “Now we should drink with all one’s strength, since Myrsilus [the tyrant] is dead!”

Νῦν χρὴ μεθύσθην καί τινα πὲρ βίαν 
πώνην, ἐπειδὴ κάτθανε Μύρσιλος…

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus...

Now is the time to drink and stamp the ground
with unchecked feet, my friends! To deck with feasts
the tables of the gods, and load them high
with dishes worthy of the Salian priests.

Before today it wasn't right to pick                                 5
a treasured vintage from its dusty home,
while the delirious queen was setting out
to wreak destruction on the world of Rome,

abetted by her vice-polluted crew
of neutered men and, drunk on fortune's boon,           10
setting her sights on conquests unrestrained.
But finally her madness was cut down

by scarce one ship escaping from the flames;
and then her mind, inebriate with wine,
was jolted into sober paths of fear                                15
by Caesar bearing down upon her line

en route from Italy. He, like a hawk
seizing a dove, or when upon the plains 
of Thessaly a dogged hunter tracks
a fleeing hare, strove to confine in chains                    20

his lethal foe. She sought a nobler death,
and neither like a fearful woman quailed
before the sword nor, with her ships in flight,
in panic to some secret refuge sailed.

She had the nerve to view her fallen walls                     25
with steadfast gaze, and with like hardihood
she held the scabrous snakes up to her breast 
and forced their venom deep into her blood.

Once set on death, she was yet more resolved
than savage pirates, since with proud disdain,              30
now shorn of royal rank, she scorned to grace –
no humble woman she – the triumph-train.

(My version is indebted to the work of my late friend Colin Sydenham, whose published translation of Horace’s Odes I highly recommend).

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus
  ornare pulvinar deorum
    tempus erat dapibus, sodales.

antehac nefas depromere Caecubum
cellis avitis, dum Capitolio
  regina dementis ruinas,
    funus et imperio parabat

contaminato cum grege turpium
morbo virorum quidlibet impotens
  sperare fortunaque dulci
    ebria. sed minuit furorem

vix una sospes navis ab ignibus,
mentemque lymphatam Mareotico
  redegit in veros timores
    Caesar ab Italia volantem

remis adurgens, accipiter velut
mollis columbas aut leporem citus
  venator in campis nivalis
    Haemoniae, daret ut catenis

fatale monstrum. quae generosius
perire quaerens nec muliebriter
  expavit ensem nec latentis
    classe cita reparavit oras.

ausa et iacentem visere regiam
voltu sereno, fortis et asperas
  tractare serpentes, ut atrum
    corpore conbiberet venenum,

deliberata morte ferocior
saevis Liburnis, scilicet invidens
  privata deduci superbo –
    non humilis mulier – triumpho.