WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS: - What are we waiting for in the marketplace, assembled? The barbarians are supposed to arrive today.

- Why this inactivity in the Senate? Why are the Senators sitting there and not legislating? Because the barbarians will arrive today. What laws will the Senators make? When the barbarians come, they will legislate.

- Why has our emperor risen so early, and is sitting at the city's largest gate on the throne, official, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians will arrive today. And the emperor is waiting to receive their leader. Indeed, he has prepared a parchment to give to him. There he has written many titles and names.

- Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out today in their red, embroidered togas; why are they wearing bracelets with so many amethysts, and rings with bright, shining emeralds; why do they carry precious canes with exceptional silver and finely carved decorations? Because the barbarians will arrive today; and such things dazzle the barbarians.

- Why aren't the worthy orators coming as always to deliver their speeches, to say their own? Because the barbarians will arrive today; and they are weary of eloquence and rhetoric.

- Why has this sudden anxiety and confusion begun? (How serious the faces have become). Why are the streets and the squares quickly emptying, and everyone is returning home very thoughtful? Because it has grown dark and the barbarians have not come. And some have arrived from the borders and have said that there are no more barbarians. And now what will become of us without the barbarians? These people were a kind of solution.