Lucan
The Civil War (Pharsalia)
Translated by A. S. Kline ã 2014 All Rights Reserved.
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book I:1-32 The nature of the war
Book I:67-97 The motives of the leaders
Book I:98-157 Caesar and Pompey
Book I:158-182 The hidden causes of the war
Book I:183-227 Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon
Book I:228-265 Entry into Ariminum (Rimini)
Book I:266-351 The exiled tribunes: Caesar’s speech
Book I:352-391 Laelius’ speech
Book I:392-465 Caesar gathers his forces
Book I:466-525 Fear and apprehension in Rome
Book I:526-583 Ghosts and portents
Book I:584-637 Arruns reads the future
Book I:638-672 Figulus reads the heavens
Book I:673-695 Apollo inspires a prophecy
Book II:67-138 History recalled - Marius
Book II:139-233 History recalled - Sulla
Book II:234-285 Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
Book II:286-325 Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger
Book II:350-391 Cato’s morality
Book II:392-438 Pompey bases himself at Capua
Book II:439-461 Caesar advances
Book II:462-525 Defeat of Pompey’s generals
Book II:526-595 Pompey’s speech to the army
Book II:596-649 Pompey flees to Brindisi
Book II:650-703 Caesar lays siege to Brindisi
Book II:704-736 Pompey escapes by sea
Book III:1-45 Pompey’s vision of Julia
Book III:46-83 Caesar marches on Rome
Book III:84-140 Lucius Metellus defends the treasury
Book III:141-168 The treasury is seized
Book III:169-213 Greece and Asia Minor rally to Pompey
Book III:214-263 The Middle East and India rally to Pompey
Book III:264-297 The Black Sea and North Africa rally to Pompey
Book III:298-357 Marseille opposes Caesar
Book III:358-398 Caesar blockades the city
Book III:399-452 Caesar destroys the sacred grove
Book III:453-496 Caesar leaves for Spain, the siege continues
Book III:497-537 The Romans initiate a naval battle
Book III:538-582 The fleets engage
Book III:583-634 The death of Catus
Book III:635-669 The death of Lycidas
Book III:670-708 The death of Phoceus
Book III:709-751 The death of Argus
Book III:752-762 Decimus wins the encounter
Book IV:1-47 Caesar attacks Ilerda (Lleida) in Spain
Book IV:48-120 Caesar’s camp is flooded
Book IV:121-156 The campaign is renewed
Book IV:157-207 A temporary peace
Book IV:208-253 Petreius recalls his men to duty
Book IV:254-318 Caesar lays siege to the enemy camp
Book IV:319-362 Lucius Afranius surrenders
Book IV:363-401 Pompey’s army in Spain disbands
Book IV:402-447 Conflict in Dalmatia
Book IV:448-528 An incident at sea
Book IV:529-581 Vulteius and his men commit suicide
Book IV:582-660 The myth of Hercules and Antaeus
Book IV:661-714 Pompey’s African army under Varus
Book IV:715-787 Juba’s army defeats Curio
Book IV:788-824 The spectre of corruption
Book V:1-70 Lentulus addresses the senators
Book V:71-101 The Shrine of Apollo at Delphi
Book V:102-140 Appius Claudius reopens the shrine
Book V:141-197 The priestess prophesies
Book V:198- 236 The fate of Appius
Book V:237-299 Caesar’s troops on the verge of mutiny
Book V:300-373 He quells the mutiny
Book V:374-402 Caesar becomes dictator
Book V:403-460 He sails for Chaonia
Book V:461-503 Caesar summons Mark Antony
Book V:504-576 Caesar braves the sea
Book V:638-677 Caesar reaches Illyria again
Book V:678-721 Caesar’s fleet reaches Nymphaion
Book V:722-760 Pompey speaks to Cornelia his wife
Book V:761-815 Cornelia replies
Book VI:1-27 Pompey defends Dyrrachium (Durres)
Book VI:28-63 Caesar hems Pompey in
Book VI:64-117 Both camps afflicted
Book VI:118-195 Scaeva’s heroism at Minicius
Book VI:196-262 Scaeva slays Aulus
Book VI:263-313 Pompey attacks, Caesar retreats
Book VI:314-380 Caesar heads for Thessaly
Book VI:381-412 The accursed land
Book VI:413-506 Thessalian witchcraft
Book VI:507-568 The witch Erictho
Book VI:569-623 Sextus seeks her aid
Book VI:624-666 The cave of Erictho
Book VI:667-718 Erictho invokes the infernal powers
Book VI:719-774 She raises the dead to prophesy
Book VI:775-830 The prophecy of the dead
Book VII:45-86 Cicero’s speech
Book VII:87-130 Pompey’s reply
Book VII:131-184 Preparations and omens
Book VII:185-214 The augur’s cry
Book VII:215-234 Pompey deploys his army
Book VII:235-302 Caesar addresses his men
Book VII:303-336 Caesar launches the attack
Book VII:337-384 Pompey addresses his men
Book VII:385-459 The effects of Pharsalia
Book VII:460-505 Battle is joined
Book VII:506-544 Caesar destroys Pompey’s cavalry
Book VII:545-596 Caesar seizes victory
Book VII:597-646 ‘A whole world died’
Book VII:647-697 Pompey takes flight
Book VII:698-727 Pompey reaches Larissa
Book VII:728-780 The field of corpses
Book VII:781-824 Caesar denies the enemy dead burial
Book VII:825-872 Philippi anticipated
Book VIII:1-85 Pompey journeys to Lesbos
Book VIII:86-108 Cornelia speaks
Book VIII:109-158 Pompey sails from Lesbos
Book VIII:159-201 Navigation by the stars
Book VIII:202-255 Deiotarus’ mission
Book VIII:256-330 Pompey at Syhedra (Sedra)
Book VIII:331-455 Lentulus rejects Pompey’s plans
Book VIII:456-535 Pompey reaches Egypt
Book VIII:536-636 The murder of Pompey
Book VIII:637-662 Cornelia laments
Book VIII:663-711 The severed head
Book VIII:712-822 Pompey’s grave
Book VIII:823-870 A curse on Egypt
Book IX:1-50 Cato imbued with Pompey’s spirit
Book IX:51-116 Cornelia’s departure from Egypt
Book IX:167-214 Cato eulogises Pompey
Book IX:215-252 Pompey’s men prepare to defect
Book IX:253-293 Cato wins them over
Book IX:294-347 The fleet reaches Lake Tritonis
Book IX:348-410 Lake Tritonis: Cato’s speech
Book IX:511-586 The Temple of Ammon (The oracle of Amun at Siwa)
Book IX:587-618 Cato’s leadership
Book IX:619-699 The tale of Perseus and Medusa
Book IX:700-760 The Libyan serpents
Book IX:761-788 The death of Sabellus
Book IX:789-838 Further deaths by snake-bite
Book IX:839-889 The soldiers’ heroic endurance
Book IX:890-937 The Psylli combat the snakes
Book IX:938-986 Caesar visits the site of Troy
Book IX:987-1063 Caesar sails to Egypt
Book IX:1064-1108 Caesar feigns grief at Pompey’s death
Book X:53-103 Caesar’s infatuation with Cleopatra
Book X:104-135 Cleopatra’s splendour
Book X:194-267 The cause of the Nile flood
Book X:268-331 The source of the Nile
Book X:332-433 Pothinus conspires against Caesar
Book X:434-485 The conspirators attack
Book X:486-546 Caesar prepares to escape by sea
Book I:1-32 The nature of the war
I sing of a worse than civil war, of war fought between kinsmen
over Pharsalia’s plains, of wickedness deemed justice; of how
a powerful people turned their own right hands against themselves;
of strife within families; how, with the first Triumvirate broken,
the forces of the quivering globe contended in mutual sinfulness;
standard ranged against standard, eagle matched against eagle,
spear threatening spear. What madness, my countrymen, how wild
that slaughter! With Crassus’ spirit still wandering un-avenged,
while it was yet your duty to strip proud Parthia of Italian spoils,
you chose instead to grant our enemies the sight of Roman strife,
waging a war that could win no triumphs! With that blood, alas,
spilled by Roman hands, what lands and seas might not have been
won, where night hides the stars and the sun rises, where fiery air
parches the south, where the winter’s cold that no spring can thaw
freezes the Black Sea in its icy grip! China might have passed
under our yoke, savage Armenia, and those peoples who know
the secret of the Nile’s hidden source. If Rome, then, has such
a love of illicit war, let her yet bring the whole earth under her
rule, before turning on herself; she has never yet lacked enemies.
If in Roman cities now the roofs and walls are half-demolished,
and the vast stones of shattered houses litter the earth; if dwellings
are untenanted, and scarcely a soul strays through the ancient sites;
if Italy’s unploughed soil is overgrown with thorns, year by year,
and the fields cry out in vain for men to till them, such vast ruin
is not due to proud Pyrrhus, or Hannibal; no foreign sword could
thrust so deep: those blows from the hands of kinfolk strike home.
Yet we’ll complain no more, you gods, if fate could find no other
way to Nero’s advent, if even the eternal kingdom cost you dear,
and Jupiter the Thunderer could not rule without warring with fierce
giants, even such wickedness and crime is not too high a price to pay.
Let Pharsalia’s dire plains be heaped with dead; let Hannibal’s shade
revel in the carnage; let final battle be joined at fatal Munda. Though
Perusia’s famine, Mutina’s horrors, the ships sunk at stormy Actium,
the war with the slaves near burning Etna, be added, still Rome owes
a deep debt to civil war, since what was done, Caesar, was all for you.
When your role on earth is over and at last you seek the stars,
the celestial palace you expect will welcome you, the heavens rejoice.
Whether you wield Jove’s sceptre, or mount Phoebus’ fiery chariot
circling, with your shifting flame, an earth unafraid of this new sun,
every deity will yield to you, and nature leave you to choose what god
you wish to be, and where you wish to set your universal throne.
Yet do not place it in the north, or where the hot opposing skies
of the south incline, from there your light would fall aslant on Rome.
If you lean on any one region of immense space, the axis will feel
the weight; balance heaven by holding the centre of the sphere.
Let all that region of the sky be clear, and no cloud hide our sight
of Caesar. Then let the human race lay down its arms, consider
its own good, and let all nations love one another; let Peace fly
over the earth, and shut tight the iron gates of warlike Janus.
Yet to me you are already divine; and were my heart inspired
by you, I’d not trouble the god of sacred Delphi, or summon
Bacchus from Nysa: you alone grant power to Roman verse.
Book I:67-97 The motives of the leaders
My mind is moved to set down the cause of these great events.
Vast the task before me, to show what impelled a frenzied people
to arms, and drove peace from the earth. It was a chain of fatal
happenings, the swift and painful collapse of excessive weight,
a Rome unable to bear her own greatness. So when the fabric
of the world dissolves, in that final hour that gathers in the ages,
reverting to primal chaos, star will clash with star in confusion,
the fiery constellations will sink into the sea, and earth heaving
upwards her flat shores will throw off the ocean, the moon will
move counter to her brother, and claiming the rule of day disdain
to drive her chariot on its slanting path, and the whole discordant
frame of the shattered firmament will break free of every law.
Great things destroy themselves: such is the limit the gods place
on all success. It was not Fortune fuelling the envy of foreign
nations against a people that ruled earth and sea: you, Rome,
were the cause of your own ills, made a servant of three masters,
when supreme power, never so shared before, forged a deadly pact.
O, evilly joined together, blinded by excessive greed, to what end
did those three unite their strength to rule the world between them?
While earth buoys up the sea and the heavens the earth, while
the sun revolves in his endless task, while night, in the sky above,
follows day through the same circuit of the twelve constellations,
no loyalty between sharers in tyranny; power endures no partner.
Seek the evidence in no other nation: no long searching for fatal
instances: Rome’s first walls were drenched in a brother’s blood.
Nor was the prize of such madness a dominion over land and sea,
the narrow bounds of a sanctuary for criminals caused the conflict.
Book I:98-157 Caesar and Pompey
For a short while a discordant harmony was maintained, there was
peace despite the leaders’ wills, since Crassus stood between them,
a check to imminent war. So the slender Isthmus divides the waves,
and separates two seas, forbidding their waters to merge; and yet
if the land were withdrawn, the Ionian would break on the Aegean.
Thus when Crassus, who kept those fierce competitors apart, died
pitifully, drenching Syrian Carrhae with Roman blood, that defeat
by Parthia let loose the furies on Rome. In that battle the Parthians
wrought better than they knew, visiting civil war on the defeated.
Power was divided by the sword; the wealth of an imperial people
who ruled the sea, the land, possessed the globe, was not enough
for two. For now, when Julia, Caesar’s daughter, Pompey’s wife,
was cut down by fate, she bore with her to the Shades the bonds
of affinity, and a marriage turned, by that dread omen, to mourning.
She, if fate had granted her longer life, might alone have restrained
her husband’s anger on the one side, and her father’s on the other.
She might have struck aside their swords, made them clasp hands,
as the Sabine women stood between their husbands and their fathers
and brought about reconciliation. But at her death bonds of loyalty
were broken, and the generals freed to pursue armed conflict.
A powerful rivalry drove them on: for Pompey feared fresh exploits
might obscure his former triumphs, his ridding the seas of pirates
yielding second place to Caesar’s victories in Gaul; while Caesar,
used to battle, inured to endless effort, was driven by an ambition
that yearned for supremacy; Caesar could accept none above him,
Pompey no equal. It is wrong to ask who had the greatest right
to seek war; each had great authority to support him: if the victor
had the gods on his side, the defeated had Cato. The contest was
unequal, Pompey being somewhat past his prime, long used
to the toga and forgetting in peace how to play a general’s part;
courting adulation, lavish with his gifts to the people of Rome,
swayed by popularity, overjoyed by the clamour that greeted him
in the theatre he had built, trusting in former claims to greatness,
he did nothing to establish wider power, and stood as the mere
shadow of a mighty name. So some oak-tree towers in a rich grove,
hung with a nation’s ancient trophies, sacred gifts of the victors,
and though its clinging roots have lost their strength, their weight
alone holds it, spreading naked branches to the sky, casting shade
not with leaves but its trunk alone, and though it quivers, doomed
to fall at the next gale, among the host of sounder trees that rise
around it, still it alone is celebrated. But Caesar possessed more
than mere name and military fame: his energies were un-resting,
his only shame in battle not to win; alert and unrestrained, every
summons of anger or ambition his strength answered, he never
shrank from an opportunistic use of the sword; intent on pursuing
each success, grasping the gods’ favour, pushing aside every
obstacle to his supremacy, happy to clear a path through ruin.
So a storm drives a lightning-bolt through the clouds, its flare
shattering the daylight sky, with the sound of thunderous air,
with a crash of the heavens, filling the human mind with terror,
dazzling the eye with its slanting flame. Rushing to a given
quarter of the skies, nothing material prevents its course;
mighty in its descent and its retreat it spreads destruction
far and wide, before gathering its scattered energies again.
Book I:158-182 The hidden causes of the war
Such were the leaders’ motives; but there were those hidden causes
of the war, amongst the people, that will ever destroy powerful
nations. For, the world conquered, and fortune showering excessive
wealth on Rome, virtue yielded to riches, and those enemy spoils drew
men to luxury. They set no bounds to wealth or buildings; greed
disdained its former fare; men wore clothes scarcely decent on women;
austerity, the mother of virtue, fled; and whatever ruined other nations
was brought to Rome. Then estates were increased, until those fields
once tilled by Camillus’ iron ploughshare, or Curius’ spade, became
vast tracts tended by alien farmers. Such a people took no pleasure
in peace and tranquility, no delight in liberty free from the sword.
Thus they were quick to anger, and crime, prompted by need, was
treated lightly; it was a virtue to take up arms and hold more power
than the State, and might became the measure of right. Thence laws
and statutes of the people passed by force, thence the consuls
and tribunes alike confounding all justice; office snared by bribery,
popular support bought at auction, while corruption, year after year
perpetuating venal elections to the magistracy, destroyed the State;
thence voracious usury, interest greedily seeking payment,
trust readily broken, and multitudes profiting greatly from war.
Book I:183-227 Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon
Now, Caesar, swiftly surmounting the frozen Alps,
had set his mind on vast rebellion and future conflict.
On reaching the banks of the Rubicon’s narrow flow
that general saw a vision of his motherland in distress,
her sorrowful face showing clear in nocturnal darkness,
with the white hair streaming from her turreted head,
as with torn tresses and naked arms she stood before him
her speech broken by sobbing: ‘Where are you marching,
whither do you bear those standards, my warriors?
If you come as law-abiding citizens, here you must halt.’
Then the general’s limbs quaked, his hair stood on end,
faintness overcame him and he halted, his feet rooted
to the river-bank. But soon he spoke: ‘O, Jupiter, God
of Thunder, who gazes from the Tarpeian Rock over
the walls of the mighty city; O Trojan household gods
of the tribe of Iulus, and you, sacred relics of Quirinus;
O Jove of Latium, on Alba’s heights, and you, fires
of Vesta, and you, O Rome, equal in sanctity, favour
my enterprise; I bring no assault on you in wild warfare;
see me here, victorious by land and sea, always your
champion – now as ever, if that be possible. His
shall be the guilt, who forces me to act as your enemy.’
Then Caesar let loose the bonds of war, and led his
standards swiftly over the swollen stream; so a lion
in the untilled wastes of burning Libya, seeing his foes
nearby, crouches at first, uncertain, rousing himself to rage,
but soon maddened, lashing his tail, his mane erect,
sends out a roaring from his cavernous mouth, such
that if a nimble Moor pierces his flesh with the lance
he brandishes, or a spear lances at his vast chest, he
leaps over the weapons careless of such wounds.
The reddish waters of the Rubicon glide through
the valleys and serve as the boundary between
the land of Gaul and the farms of Italy. Born from
a modest spring it is parched by the heat of summer,
but then its volume was increased by winter, its waters
swollen by the third rising of a rain-bearing moon
with its moisture-laden horns, and by Alpine snows
melted by damp gales. The cavalry first met the flow,
taking position slantwise across the current, lessening
its power so the rest of the army could ford it with ease.
Once Caesar had crossed and reached the Italian shore
on the further side, he halted on territory proscribed to them:
‘Here I relinquish peace,’ he cried, ‘and the law already
scorned, to follow you, my Fortune. Let me hear no more
talk of pacts, I have placed my trust in those for far
too long, now I must seek the judgement of war.’
Book I:228-265 Entry into Ariminum (Rimini)
So he spoke, urging his men on through the shadows
of night swifter than the missile whirled from a Balearic
sling, or the arrow the Parthian looses behind him.
As the stars fled the light and the morning star shone
alone, he entered nearby Ariminum, bringing terror.
So the day dawned that witnessed the first turmoil
of the war; though, by the will of the gods, or a stormy
southerly wind, clouds veiled the mournful light.
Halting in the forum they had seized, the soldiers
were ordered to lay down their arms while a blare
of trumpets, shrill clarion calls and booming horns
sounded the civil war’s first alarm. Roused from sleep,
leaping from their beds, men snatched at the weapons
hung beside the household gods, arms of a long peace:
disintegrating shields bared to their frames, javelins
with bent points, swords scarred by the gnawing rust.
But on seeing the glitter of Roman eagles, and Caesar
on horseback with his army, they stood rooted by fear,
their chilled limbs shaking with terror, unspoken
complaint echoing in their minds: ‘Alas for our town,
so close to Gaul, doomed by its site to fatal misfortune!
Everyone else knows deep peace, profound tranquility,
but we grant the first spoils and bivouac to these madmen.
Better if Fate had set us down under an Eastern sky,
or in the frozen north guarding the tents of nomads
and not the gateway to Italy. We were the first to feel
the advance of the Senones, the swords of Hannibal,
the Cimbrian invasion, the wild onrush of the Teutones:
whenever Fate turns on Rome, its attackers take the road
that passes through here.’ Such was each man’s silent
moan, not daring to utter his fears aloud; none voiced
his grief; so the fields are silent when winter strikes
bird-life dumb, or the wide ocean, muted in calm weather.
And now, as light dispersed the chill shades of night,
Destiny lit the flames of war, setting the spur to Caesar’s
wavering heart, shattering the barriers shame interposed
and driving him on to conflict. Fate worked to justify
his rebellion, and found a pretext for his use of arms.
Book I:266-351 The exiled tribunes: Caesar’s speech
For the Senators, exceeding their powers, had threatened
the fractious tribunes and expelled them from the anxious
city, recalling the like fate of the Gracchi; and so the exiles
headed for Caesar’s camp, now advanced close to Rome.
With them was daring Curio of the venal tongue, once
the voice of the people and a bold champion of freedom,
bringing armed leaders down to the level of the crowd.
Finding Caesar turning over alternative paths in his mind,
he cried: ‘I, when my voice could serve your interests, Caesar,
when I was allowed to take the Rostrum, cementing waverers
to your cause, I extended your command, defied the Senate.
But now the strictures of war silence law; driven from our
city, we suffer exile willingly; for your victory will render us
citizens once more. While your enemies are in confusion,
be swift; to those who are on the brink, delay is ever fatal.
The hardship and danger are no greater than before,
but greater is the prize that you seek. Ten years you fought
the Gauls, yet how small a part of Earth Gaul represents!
Win a few battles and Rome that subdued the world is yours.
As things are, no long triumphal procession awaits you,
the Capitol demands no laurels of yours be consecrated;
rather gnawing envy denies you all, and your conquests
of foreign lands will meet only with reprimand. Pompey,
your son-in-law, resolves to topple you from power.
You could rule not half the world, but the whole of it, alone.’
Eager as Caesar was for war already, this speech increased
his fury, and added to his fervour, as a racehorse at Olympia,
already straining against the barrier, trying to loose the bolts
with its forehead, is encouraged further by the shouting.
There and then he summoned his legions to the standards;
a look silenced the clamour and confusion of the troops,
a gesture commanded quiet, and he addressed them:
‘Friends, who have faced with me the perils of a thousand
battles these ten years past, is this, in victory, your reward
for the blood with which you drenched the northern fields,
for winter, wounds and death beneath the Alps? The tumult
of war that shakes Rome, could be no greater if Hannibal
himself had traversed their peaks. Recruits swell the cohorts’
ranks; the forests are felled to build ships; Caesar is ordered
to be hounded by land and sea. If my standards were levelled
in defeat, if the fierce tribes of Gaul were raging at my back,
how would my enemies be acting then? Yet now, when Fate
favours me, and summons me to power, they challenge me.
Let Pompey, weakened by long peace, come and make war
with his fresh levies and his toga-wearing partisans, eloquent
Marcellus, and Cato that empty name. Shall Pompey be fed
with despotic power perpetually renewed by his mean venal
followers? Must Pompey hold the reins before lawful age?
Shall Pompey cling forever to the honours he has stolen?
Should I not complain when he grasped the whole world’s
harvest and commanded the hungry to obey him? Who
does not know how the barracks invaded the fearful courts,
how soldiers with grim blades gleaming surrounded stunned
and anxious jurors? How warriors broke into the sanctuary
of justice, Pompey’s standards laying siege to Milo in the dock?
Now once more, he plans illegal conflict, to escape the taint
of an old age buried in obscurity. He’s used to civil war,
taught wickedness by Sulla and in line to outdo his teacher.
Just as the fierce tiger, that has drunk deep of the blood
of the cattle slain as he follows his mate from lair to lair
in the Hyrcanian jungle, never again loses his fierceness,
so Pompey, who once licked Sulla’s sword, still thirsts.
Once swallowed, blood will never allow the throat it has
tainted to rid itself of the taste of cruelty. Where is the end
to power so long continued? Where, the limits to his crimes?
Let the wretch learn from Sulla’s example and relinquish power.
First the Cilician pirates, then the endless war with Mithridates,
that an infamous poisoning failed to end, and now am I, Caesar,
to be Pompey’s crowning task, for failing to surrender eagles
of victory? If they rob me of my just reward for my labours,
let my leaderless soldiers at least be paid for their long service;
let them march in triumph, whoever their new general may be.
What peaceful harbour shall they find when weakened by age?
Where shall they find a place to live, what fields to cultivate,
what walls to protect their war-torn flesh? Shall Pompey grant
colonies to his pirates? Raise your standards, long victorious!
Raise them high! Let us employ the power we have created.
He must yield all to the strong, who denies them their due.
Nor will heaven fail us. Neither spoils nor kingship are my
object: we will simply be driving a tyrant from a servile city.’
Book I:352-391 Laelius’ speech
So he spoke; but the men, doubtful, muttered anxiously
and uncertainly under their breath. Proud as they were,
and unafraid of bloodshed, they were torn by love for
their country and its gods, till recalled to fear of Caesar
and a dire propensity for slaughter. For Laelius, ranked
as chief centurion and bearing a well-earned decoration,
those oak-leaves granted for saving a Roman’s life,
called out: ‘Mightiest general of the Roman people,
if I have leave to speak, and to speak the truth, we say
you have endured too much and held back too long.
Do you lack faith in us? While the hot blood moves
and these bodies breathe, while our arms have strength
enough to hurl a javelin, must you submit to the toga,
to the Senate’s tyranny? Is it so bad to fight a civil war?
Lead us among the Scythian tribes, or the hostile shores
of Syrtes, or the burning sands of parched Libya, we
who to leave a conquered world behind us have tamed
the swelling ocean waves and the foaming waters
of Rhine: order me, I must follow with strength and will.
He is no friend of mine, Caesar, against whom your
trumpets sound. I swear by your standards of ten
victorious campaigns, and by your triumphs, whatever
the foe, if you command me to bury my blade in my
brother’s breast, in my father’s throat, in my wife’s
pregnant body, I will do all, though my arm waver.
If you’d have me despoil the gods, fire their temples,
the furnace that coins an army’s pay shall melt their
images; if you’d have me pitch camp by Tiber’s waters,
I’ll dare to invade the fields of Italy, mark out the lines;
whatever walls you’d level these arms will drive the ram,
and break their stones apart, though the city you doom
to utter destruction, be Rome herself.’ All the cohorts
shouted assent to this, raising their arms aloft together,
pledging themselves to any war to which Caesar called
them. Their cries rose to the heavens: as loud as when
a Thracian northerly falls on the cliffs of pine-clad Ossa,
and the forest roars earth-bent or rebounding to the sky.
Book I:392-465 Caesar gathers his forces
Caesar, finding civil war so eagerly welcomed by his men,
and finding fortune favourable, granted destiny no delay
due to idleness, but summoned all his forces scattered
throughout Gaul, moving every legion towards Rome.
From tents pitched in the mountains beside Lake Leman,
the soldiers came, from the fort on the heights of Vosegus
above winding shores, that controlled the warlike Lingones
with their painted weapons: others from the fords of the Isar,
that river which flows so great a distance, till its waters merge
with the more famous Danube, losing its name before
it meets the waves of the sea. The fair-haired Ruthenians
were freed from their station; the gentle Aude and the Var,
at the boundary of an enlarged Italy, joyed to bear no Roman
keels; free too that harbour of Monaco, sacred to Hercules,
its hollow cliffs encroaching on the sea and over which
neither Caurus nor Zephyrus has power; only Circius that
stirs the shoreline, holds it alone, and bars the safe roadstead;
and free that strip of Belgian coast, disputed, claimed by sea
and land in turn, when the vast ocean inundates it or ebbs away;
some onshore wind from the horizon blows perhaps, drives
the seas on then fails them, or perhaps Tethys’ wild waters
are attracted by the moon, stirred by the phases of that second
of celestial bodies, or perhaps fire-bearing Titan, to drink
the waves that nourish him raises the ocean billows skyward?
I leave the cause to those who study the workings of the world,
from me let whatever makes that endless motion, as the gods wish,
be hidden. Gone, the soldiers who held the land of the Nemes,
and the banks of the Adour, where the Tarbellians hem in the sea
that beats gently against the winding shore. Their foe’s departure
delights the Santoni and Bituriges, the Suessones, nimble despite
their long spears; the Leuci and Remi, experts in the javelin,
the Sequani who delight in wheeling their bridled horses;
the Belgae, skilled in driving war-chariots of others’ devising,
and the Arvernian tribe who falsely claim kinship with Rome
through descent from Troy; the Nervii, prone to rebel endlessly
against us, tainted by breach of treaty with slaughtered Cotta;
the Vangiones, loose-trousered like the Sarmatians; the fierce
Batavians whose courage is roused by a blare of curved bronze
trumpets. There is joy where Cinca’s waters flow, where Rhone
takes the Saône in its swift course, and bears it onwards to the sea,
where tribes live perched on the mountain heights among the snowy
cliffs of the Cevennes. The Treviri rejoiced at the army’s leaving,
and the close-cropped Ligurians who once outdid their long-haired
neighbours with flowing locks that adorned their necks, and those
who, with pitiful victims, placate their harsh Teutatis, their Esus
whose savage shrines make men shudder, their Taranis whose
altar is no less cruel than that of Scythian Diana. The bards too
who in their verses sing the praise of famous heroes killed
in battle, poured out lays at their ease. The Druids laid down
their weapons and returned to their barbaric rites and alien modes
of worship. They alone are granted the true knowledge, or the false,
of the gods and celestial powers; they live in the furthest groves
of the deep forests; they teach that the soul does not descend
to Erebus’ silent land, to Dis’ sunless kingdom, but the same spirit
breathes in another body. If what they say is true, then our death
is merely a moment in the course of continuing life. Thus the tribes
on whom the pole star gazes are sweetly deceived, since they are
free of the terror of dying, our greatest fear, and the warrior there
is eager to meet the steel, is brave in the face of death, convinced
it is cowardice to be over-protective of a life that will be renewed.
Even men posted to keep the long-haired Cayci from the Belgae
abandoned the Rhine’s savage shores, heading for Rome, and all
the empire was left exposed to the advance of foreign nations.
Book I:466-525 Fear and apprehension in Rome
Gathering his forces together, encouraged, by the vastness
of his army, to greater things, Caesar advanced through Italy
occupying the nearest towns. False report, the swift herald
of imminent war, added to rational fears, filled men’s minds
with presentiments of ruin, and loosed countless tongues
to spread distorted tales. News was of some fierce cavalry
encounter on the wide plains that pasture Bevagna’s bulls;
that Caesar’s foreign horsemen scoured the region where
the Nar meets the Tiber; that the general, advancing with
all his gathered eagles and standards led his columns in
full march, halting in crowded bivouacs. Men’s previous
view of him differs from the present. They deem him now
a monster, more savage than the enemy he has conquered.
Men say the tribes between the Rhine and Elbe, uprooted
from their northern home, are following on behind him;
the order given that Rome be sacked by savage tribesmen
before their very eyes. So, in fear, each lends strength
to rumour, and dreads the nameless evils he invents.
Nor were the people alone filled with baseless terrors,
the House was stirred, Senators leapt from their seats
and fled, leaving the Consuls the task of declaring
a war they dreaded. Then, unsure of a safe haven
or how to escape danger, they followed the crowd
in headlong flight wherever their haste might lead,
pouring onwards in long unbroken streams. You
might have thought that impious flames had seized
their houses, or that the city swayed to an earthquake’s
shock, since the frenzied crowd ran wildly through
the city, as if the one hope of escape from ruin was
to flee their native walls. So a captain abandons ship,
when a southerly gale drives the waves from Libyan
Syrtes’ shoals, and the heavy mast topples with all
its canvas, he leaping with his crew into the waves,
each man choosing shipwreck before the timbers
of the hull are shattered. So with war they fled
the abandoned city. No aged father could restrain
his son, no weeping wife her husband, none stayed
to mouth a prayer for escape from danger before
their household gods, or lingered on the threshold,
at the last, filled with the sight of their beloved city.
The crowd’s flight was irrevocable. O how easily
the gods grant us supremacy, and how grudgingly
maintain it! Rome with its citizens and subject
peoples, a Rome that could well hold the whole
human race collected, was left a ready prize
to Caesar, by cowardly hands. The Roman soldier
besieged by the enemy in a foreign land defies
nocturnal danger behind a frail palisade; swiftly
piling turf he sleeps secure in his tent defended
by his mound, but let the name of war be heard
and Rome is abandoned, her walls no shield
even for a single night. Yet such depths of fear
must be forgiven; Pompey himself in flight gave
cause for fear. And hope for a future free of dread
was lacking, since clear signs of greater ills
to come were granted; the gods filled the earth,
the sea, the sky, with their menacing portents.
Book I:526-583 Ghosts and portents
In the dark of night, unknown constellations were seen,
the sky ablaze with fire, light shooting across the void
of space, forming the hairy tail of that baleful star,
the comet, that signals a change of earthly power.
Lightning flared endlessly from a deceptively clear sky,
and the flames flickering in the heavens took sundry
shapes in the dense atmosphere, now a great javelin,
now a torch with scattered rays. A silent lightning bolt
gathering flame from the cloudless north, struck
Latium’s capital, Alba Longa, and the lesser lights
that move through the sunless sky by night were seen
at noon. The moon, at the full, her horns joined,
her orb reflecting her brother Phoebus’s light,
suddenly plunged into earth’s shadow, grew dim.
The sun himself, in raising his face to the zenith,
veiled his orb in shadow, hid his fiery chariot
in dense darkness, driving humankind to despair
of daylight; such was the darkness that swallowed
Thyestes’ city, Mycenae, when the sun turned back
to where he had risen. Fierce Mulciber, in Sicily,
opened Etna’s jaws wide; the flames not rising
skywards but leaning to engulf the Italian shore.
Charybdis the black churned bloody waves from
the ocean bed, and Scylla’s savage dogs whined.
The fire was violently doused on Vesta’s altar;
while the flames of the pyre signalling the end
of the Latin Festival split apart and, twin-tipped,
rose up like those of the royal Theban brothers.
Earth ceased turning on its axis; the Alpine chain
lost the ancient snow from its shivering summits;
and the sea flooded Calpe and far Atlas in the west.
They say the gods of the nations shed tears, while
sweat on the Lares testified to the city’s travails;
in the temples the offerings fell from the walls,
birds of ill-omen marred the day, and wild beasts
boldly made their lairs at night in the heart of Rome.
The jaws of brute creatures uttered human speech;
women bore monstrous offspring with surplus limbs,
the mothers appalled by this birth of strange infants;
while dire prophecies of the Cumaean Sibyl passed
from mouth to mouth. The faithful, inspired by fierce
Bellona, who slash their arms, chanted of heaven’s anger,
as the Galli whirled their gory locks, shrieking ruin
to the nations. Groans issued from the urns filled
with the ashes of the dead. The clash of weapons
was heard, loud cries in the forest depths, sounds
of ghostly armies locked in battle. Those who tilled
the fields near the outer walls fled on every side,
as the vast shape of a Fury stalked round the city,
tossing her hissing snaky locks, and brandishing
a burning pine-tree with its tip held downwards.
Such was the one who drove Agave to madness
at Thebes, or brandished fierce Lycurgus’ goads.
Such was Megaera, who as agent of Juno’s cruelty
terrified Hercules, though he’d seen the realm of Dis.
Trumpets blared, and as armies cry out as they clash,
so the dark of night rang out though the wind was still.
Now Sulla’s ghost was seen to rise from the midst
of the Campus Martius, prophesying doom, while
Marius, burst from his sepulchre, lifting his head
beside chill Anio’s stream, scattered the folk in flight.
Book I:584-637 Arruns reads the future
So they chose to follow ancient custom and summon
Etruscan seers. The most venerable was Arruns, who
lived in the deserted city of Luca, for whom the track
of the lightning bolt, the signs on the warm entrails,
and the significance of every bird wandering the sky
held no secrets. First he decreed that those monstrous
infants be destroyed, whom Nature at odds with herself
engendered from no true seed, ordering the vile
fruit of profitless wombs burned with inauspicious fuel.
Then, at his orders, the fearful citizens circled the city
while the pontiffs empowered to perform the task
cleansed the walls with solemn lustration, marching
around the sacred pomerium, the boundary of the city.
Behind them walked the lesser priests, girded in Gabine
fashion; the Vestal Virgins led by the priestess, her
brow bound with sacred ribbons, she alone allowed
to set eyes on Trojan Minerva; and next the Fifteen
who guard the divine prophecies and mystic chants,
who summon Cybele from her bath in Almo’s brook;
then the Augurs, who read the meaning of bird-flight
on the left; the Seven who hold the festal banquets;
the Titian Guild; the Salii who bear the sacred shields
on their shoulders in triumph; and the Flamen whose
pointed cap rises tall from his noble head. While this
long procession wound round the vast city, Arruns
gathered the scattered embers of the lightning-bolts
and buried them in the earth to a gloomy muttering.
He sanctified the place, and brought a sacrificial bull
to a holy altar, a bull chosen for its size, but when
he began to pour the wine, and sprinkle the grain
from his slanting knife, the victim struggled violently
against the unwelcome sacrifice; yet when the noble
attendants dragged on its horns it sank to earth,
helplessly offering its unprotected neck to the blow.
The liquid that flowed from the gaping wound
was not red blood but a strange and terrible slime.
Appalled by the dark outcome, Arruns grew pale,
and snatched up the entrails to read the cause
of divine anger. Their very colour alarmed him,
the organs, black with congealed gore, were marked
with signs of malignant sickness, covered everywhere
with dull patches, and spots of blood. The liver,
he saw, was flabby and rotten, with ominous streaks
on its exposed part. The branches of the panting lungs
were indistinct, with only a thin membrane separating
the vital organs. The heart was flattened, the flesh
exuded corrupted blood through gaping cracks,
and the bowels betrayed their hiding place.
Behold, he saw a horror never once witnessed
in a victim’s entrails without disaster following;
a vast second lobe grew on the lobe of the liver,
so that one part hung flabby with sickness,
while the other quivered and its veins trembled
to an a-rhythmic beat. Perceiving the prediction
of profound disaster, he cried aloud: ‘I scarcely
dare to reveal to man the evil the gods prepare.
My sacrifice finds favour, not with mighty Jove
but with the infernal gods who enter the body
of this dead bull. We feared the worst, but what
follows will be worse than our fears. May the gods
re-cast what we saw, the entrails prove false,
and the arts of our founder Tages mere invention!’
So the Etruscan seer spoke of the tortuous future,
veiling and hiding it in profound ambiguity.
Book I:638-672 Figulus reads the heavens
And Figulus, whose aim it was to know the gods
and the secrets of the heavens, he whom not even
Egyptian Memphis equalled in stellar observation
or calculation of the stars’ passage, he also spoke:
‘If the universe changes endlessly ungoverned
by laws, then the heavenly bodies wander on
errant courses, but if it be guided by fate a swift
destruction will overtake Rome and all mankind.
Shall the ground open and cities be swallowed,
and fierce heat overtake our temperate clime?
Shall the unfaithful soil refuse its produce,
the waters everywhere running with poison?
What kind of ruin, O gods, does your anger
prepare, and by what means? The lives of many
are doomed to end on the same day. Were Saturn,
the cold and baleful planet displaying his dark
rays in the zenith, then Aquarius would pour
down upon us such floods as Deucalion saw,
and Earth would vanish under a waste of waters.
If the sun’s light were streaming from Nemean
Leo, then fire would bathe the world, the upper
air burning would be consumed by the solar chariot.
Their rays are quiet now, but Mars, what dire
purpose have you in rousing the threatening
Scorpion with fiery tail, scorching its pincers?
For benign Jupiter is hidden deep in the west,
Venus’ healthful planet is dimmed, Mercury’s
swift path is retrograde, Mars keeps the heavens
alone. Why have the constellations deserted
their known paths, moving obscurely through
the sky, yet Orion’s sword-girt flank shines
all too bright? War’s madness is upon us,
where the sword’s power will wildly confound
all law, and vicious crime be called virtue.
This frenzy will last many years, and what use
our praying to the gods above that it might end?
With peace will come dictatorship. Let Rome
drag out an unbroken succession of sufferings
and prolong her agony for years, free only
henceforth while such civil strife endures.
Book I:673-695 Apollo inspires a prophecy
These dire forebodings were enough to terrify
the fearful people, but worse was to follow.
For a woman ran through the stunned city,
as a Bacchante inspired by Theban Lyaeus
will rush down from the summit of Pindus,
revealing by her cries the force of Phoebus
in her chest: ‘Where are you carrying me,
O Paean, so swiftly through the heavens,
where will you set my feet? I see Pangaeus
bright with snowy ridges, and Philippi,
beneath Haemus’ crags. Say, O Phoebus,
what madness embroils Roman arms
and spears in battle, in war without a foe?
Where now am I driven? To the east you
carry me, where Nile’s Egyptian waters
stain the sea: I recognise that headless
corpse stranded on the sandy shore.
Grim Enyo has transferred Pharsalia’s
ranks over the waves to treacherous Syrtis
and parched Libya: there you transport me;
then away over the cloudy Alps and high
Pyrenees, back to my native city where
civil war reaches the very Senate House.
Faction again rears its head, and once more
I circle Earth. Grant me to see a different
land, O Phoebus, for Philippi I have seen.’
So saying she fell, abandoned, her frenzy spent.
End of Book I
Now the gods’ anger was revealed, the world showed
every token of war, and prescient Nature overturned
consensus and the rule of law, with monster-bearing
tumult breeding wickedness. Why, lord of Olympus,
did you see fit to load this ill on suffering mortals,
of learning disaster’s approach through dire portents?
Whether some creator first formed the shapeless region
of pure matter, establishing the eternal chain of causes,
binding himself as well by universal laws, and within
inflexible limits apportioning the universe to endure
the prescribed ages; or whether nothing is pre-ordained,
Fate driving the turns and returns of alternating change,
and Chance being ruler of mankind, let your purposes,
whatever they may be, be sudden; let men’s minds
be blind to future doom; let them fear yet live in hope.
For, when men learned from the heavens’ truth-bearing
portents of the vast calamity set to overtake the world,
all business ceased and gloom descended on Rome.
The magistrates concealed themselves in normal dress,
and no purple accompanied the lictors’ rods. Mourning
was silent though, for a profound voiceless grief seized
all people. Thus at the hour of passing, before the corpse
is laid out, the whole household is stunned and speechless,
and before the mother with loosened hair summons
her attendants to beat their breasts with harsh hands
she yet clasps the limbs, stiffening with life’s departure,
gazes on the inanimate features, on eyes fixed in death.
Apprehension she feels no longer, and as yet no grief,
but robbed of thought she hangs there, stunned by loss.
Now the women doffed their normal garb and filled
the temples with their sad gatherings. Some drenched
the sacred statues with their tears, others threw themselves
on the stone floors, tearing, shedding locks of their hair
at the holy thresholds, assailing ears accustomed to prayer
with their frenzied shrieks. Nor did they simply bow before
the Mighty Thunderer in his temple: dividing their worship
between the deities, no altar was free of their cries of pain.
One, whose cheeks were lacerated, wet with tears, shoulders
blackened and bruised by blows, called out: ‘Now, women,
now is the hour to beat your breasts and tear your hair. Hold
back not a single ounce of grief to meet the crowning sorrow,
for now we are free to weep, when the fate of these generals
is unsure; while should either win we will be forced to smile.’
So grief goads and lacerates itself. The soldiers too, departing,
setting out to meet the enemy forces, poured out justifiable
complaints against the gods’ cruelty: ‘Ours is a wretched fate,
not born in the age of the Punic wars, not born to be those
who fought at the Trebia or Cannae. We do not ask for peace,
you gods! Only, stir foreign nations, rouse savage countries;
let the whole world gather itself for war, let the Medes sweep
down on us from Persian Susa, let the Danube fail to stem
the Massagetae, let the Elbe, the Rhine’s unconquered mouth
loose swarms of blonde-haired Suebians from the furthest north:
render us the enemy of every nation; but avert this civil war!
Let the Dacians press on us from one side, the Getae the other;
let Caesar confront the Spaniards, let Pompey raise his standards
against the Persian archers, let every Roman grasp a sword, or
if it is heaven’s purpose to destroy the Roman people, let the vast
firmament gather its fires and fall as lightning on the earth below.
Cruel Father, while they are yet unstained, strike both ranks, both
generals with the selfsame lightning bolt. Shall they be allowed
to wreak such monstrous havoc, choosing who rules the City?
Civil war is almost a price worth paying that neither should.’
Such were the complaints uttered by doomed patriotism.
The old were tormented too by anxieties of their own,
cursing their fate in bearing the grievous weight of years,
lamenting they had lived on to endure a second civil war.
Book II:67-138 History recalled - Marius
One of them spoke, seeking precedent for his deep fears:
‘Such were the troubles Fate prepared for us when Marius,
triumphant conqueror of the Teutones and Africa’s Jugurtha,
was driven out, and hid himself in Minturnae’s miry swamp.
Greedy quicksand and spongy marshes hid the secret
Fate had placed there; yet later that aged general’s flesh
was scarred by iron fetters reduced by long vile imprisonment.
He was to die though as Fortune’s friend, as consul in a Rome
he had ruined, though at first he had suffered for his crimes.
Death itself often fled the man; when the power to take his life
was granted to some foe who hated him, it failed: the enemy
was paralysed and the sword slipped from the weakened hand.
A great light had shone in the darkness of his prison, dread
deities that wait on wickedness were seen; a Marius yet to be;
and a fearful voice was heard: ‘You must not touch that neck.
Before he dies, by the destiny that governs ages, Marius shall
bring death to many; quench your futile anger.’ If the Cimbrian
lictor sought to avenge his slaughtered race it was right then
to let that old man live, for no divine favour but the vast wrath
of heaven protected the life of that vicious man, appointing him
its ready instrument for Rome’s destruction. Then he was borne
over adverse seas to the hostile shore of Africa, pursued through
deserted villages, penned in the ravaged realm of that Jugurtha
who had graced his triumph, the ashes of Carthage his bed.
Marius and Carthage alike found solace in their mutual destiny;
that both were equally brought low reconciled them to the gods.
There Marius nursed a hatred like Hannibal’s. As soon as fate
smiled on him again, he freed bands of slaves, the prisoners
loosed their fetters and flexed instead their arms for slaughter.
None were allowed to bear his standards but those already
inured to crime, who brought their guilt with them to the ranks.
Oh Fate! What a day that was, the day that Marius as victor
seized Rome, with what vast strides Death stalked the streets!
Nobles and commoners both perished, the sword roamed far
and wide, no breast was spared the steel. Blood pooled in
the temples, endless death drenched the red slippery stones.
Age was no protection: it did not scorn to anticipate the last
declining years or cut short a wretched child at life’s dawn.
For what crime could a tender infant deserve to die? Yet
it was deemed enough that it had a life to lose. Violence,
its own spur, saw laggards in those who sought for guilt.
Many perished to complete the numbers, the bloodstained
victors snatched up heads sliced from an unknown neck,
ashamed of their empty hands. Hope of life lay only with
those who pressed trembling lips to Marius’ accursed hand.
O degenerate nation! Though a thousand swords followed
that new emblem of death, centuries of life were hardly
worth such a price, far less a brief and shameful respite
till Sulla returned! Who has space to grieve for so many?
There is scarce time to tell of Baebius torn limb from limb,
rent by the countless hands of the mob, scattered piecemeal;
or how the head of Antonius, prophet of disaster, was swung
by its white hair, torn and dripping blood, placed by a soldier
on the festive table. Gaius Fimbria, then, mutilated the bodies
of the Crassi, both father and son; while the tribunes’ blood
drenched cruel stakes. And Quintus Scaevola the Pontifex
found no protection with outraged Vesta: they murdered him
in her very shrine before the ever-burning flame of the goddess,
though the thin stream of blood that ran from his scrawny throat
failed to quench the fire. Marius resumed the rods of office
in a seventh consulship before his life ended. He had suffered
every blow worser fortune can inflict, and enjoyed every gift
of the better, experiencing the full extremes of human destiny.
Then how many fell at Sacriportus where Sulla triumphed!
And what mounds of corpses filled the Colline Gate that day
when rule and the capital almost moved elsewhere, Samnites
thinking to deal Rome a heavier blow than the Caudine Forks!’
Book II:139-233 History recalled - Sulla
‘Then came Sulla’s vengeance to crown the endless slaughter.
He shed what little of Roman blood remained, and while he
lopped corrupted limbs, his too savage surgery passed all
bounds, his blade following too far where disease had led.
The guilty were executed, but in an hour where only guilty
men remained. Licence was give then to personal hatred;
resentment, free of the curb of law, rushed to vengeance.
The deeds were done not for a single reason, but each man
wrought evil for himself. Sulla by a single order sanctioned
all. The servant drove the accursed blade through his master’s
body; sons were drenched in their fathers’ blood and fought
for the privilege of beheading them; brother killed brother
for a price. The tombs were full of fugitives, the bodies
of the living juxtaposed with corpses, while men packed
the wild beasts’ lairs. Here one tied a noose about his throat
and broke his neck; there another hurled himself headlong
and was dashed to death on the harsh ground; in such ways
they robbed the bloodstained victor of their own destruction.
Here a man piled wood for his own pyre and then, before
his veins had emptied, leapt into the flames to immolate
himself while he could. The heads of the leading citizens
were carried on pikes through the stunned city and piled
in the midst of the forum; wherever they died the victims
were heaped. Thrace never knew so many slaughtered
in Bistonian Diomedes’ stables, nor did Greece ever mourn so
many mutilated corpses in Oenomaus’ Pisan courtyard.
When the bodies, dissolving in putrefaction, features effaced
by the lapse of time, had lost all identifying marks, wretched
parents gathered the remains they alone knew, and stealthily
removed them. I myself remember how I searched the corpses
murdered in Sulla’s ‘peace’, trying to recognise the shapeless
features of my murdered brother, to rescue him for the fire.
Round all the decapitated dead I went, seeking a neck to fit that
severed head. Why speak of the bloody atonement offered
the ghost of Catulus? It was a Marius, Gratidianus, who paid
the price, perhaps unacceptable to the dead, a dreadful sacrifice
to the insatiable tomb. We saw every aspect of him mutilated
yet no single stroke granted death; such was the evil form
of cruel savagery, not even allowing a dying man to die.
His arms were wrenched from the shoulders, his tongue,
severed, quivered and beat the empty air with mute motion;
one man pared the ears, another the nostrils of the curved nose;
a third man dragged the eyeballs from their sockets, and when
the eyes had witnessed the limbs’ fate, cut them both free.
Who can credit such atrocities, or that a single body could
command such torment? Men’s limbs look so when they
are broken and crushed beneath the weight of fallen ruins.
The drowned who perished mid-ocean, and drifted ashore
are no more disfigured. What made the murderers waste
their advantage, by obliterating Marius’ features, as if they
were of no worth? They should have left them recognisable,
so his death could be proven, and meet with Sulla’s favour.
The Fortuna of Praeneste saw all its citizens put to the sword
as one, the population dead in the time it takes one man to die.
And the only Roman soldiers who remained, the flower
of Italy, were slaughtered to drench Rome’s ‘Sheepfold’
with their blood. Famine, or storms at sea, the sudden fall
of buildings, plagues from the earth and air, war’s turmoil
may have caused the violent deaths of so many healthy
men, at one fell swoop, many times before, but never
such murderous executions. So dense were the ranks of men,
faces pale, with death upon them, the victors could barely
wield their weapons; and the slaughter done, the victims
could not even fall, but swayed together with bowed heads;
the survivors were weighed down by the heaps of corpses,
the dead took a share in dealing death, the living crushed
by the burden of the slain. Sulla, unmoved, sat at ease,
viewing dreadful deeds from on high; unabashed at his
passing sentence on so many thousands of wretched folk.
The bodies of his victims heaped together were hurled
into the Tiber, the first falling into deep water, the rest
on the sunken dead, until boats sailing downstream
stuck fast, the water dammed by a barrier of corpses,
the river sinking into its bed as far as the distant sea.
Yet the torrents of blood forced a way, drenching
the plain, carving a swift-running channel to the Tiber,
swelling the constricted lake till its bed and shoreline
could no longer hold back the flow, that drove all
the corpses aground, and violently thrust its way
to the Tyrrhene Sea, the bloody torrent sundering
the blue depths. Were these deeds such that Sulla
was worthy to be called his country’s saviour, titled
Felix, ‘the fortunate’, earning a tomb in the Campus?
Now we must suffer the same woes again, must pass
through that same field of carnage, such is the end
appointed for every civil war. Yet our fears now
presage worse and deeper damage to humankind
will come of this passage of arms. The great prize
Marius and his exiles fought for was Rome itself,
victory brought Sulla no more than the extinction
of the factions he hated; but these rivals of today
have long held power, and are called by destiny
to another goal. If either were content with what
sated Sulla he would not stir civil conflict.’ Such
the elders’ cry, recalling the past, dreading the future.
Book II:234-285 Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
But noble Brutus’ heart knew no dread, and amidst
the deep terrors of fearsome change he was no part
of that grieving populace. In the depths of night,
when Arcadian Helice slanted her Wain downwards,
he knocked at the humble door of his kinsman Cato,
and found him pondering, in sleepless anxiety,
the fate of those around him, and Rome’s plight,
fearing for others, careless of himself. Brutus spoke
thus: ‘Virtue, driven from every place, banished
long ago, finds her last remaining prop in you,
no turn of fate exiling her from your heart, so you
must guide my uncertain will, support my weakness
with your enduring strength. Let others follow Pompey
or Caesar’s standard, Brutus will have no leader but
Cato. Are you a champion of peace, following your
path, unchanged, amidst a shaken world, or have you
chosen to join with those leaders in crime, share
in the evils of a maddened nation, and so absolve
the war-makers of guilt? All others are driven to
sinful arms by personal motives, some by hidden
guilt, fearful of justice if peace returns; some by
the need to stave off hunger with the sword and end
their indigence with a world destroyed. None are
spurred on to fight by mere impulse: pure bribery
causes them to join the ranks: are you to be alone
in choosing conflict for its own sake? What good
was your standing firm so many years, untouched
by the vices of a corrupt age, if your sole reward
for the virtues of a lifetime is that the guilt which
war reveals in others is to be yours too at the last?
O, the gods forbid that this deadly conflict should
stir your arms too to conflict. No javelin launched
by you can hurtle blindly amid the cloud of missiles:
rather that virtue may not sacrifice itself in vain,
all the focus of battle will concentrate itself on you;
for who though, staggering beneath some other stroke,
would not wish to die by your blade, prove you guilty?
A life of peace and tranquil solitude are fitter for you
than war, thus the stars above hold their eternal course
unshaken. The lower atmosphere is riven by lightning,
the hollows of earth are rent by gales and forked flame,
yet Olympus rears its head above the clouds. Such is
celestial law that lesser things are troubled and stirred,
while the greater know peace. What more joyous news
for Caesar than to learn such a citizen has joined the fight!
He will not resent your preference for his rival, for
Pompey’s ranks above his own, since if Cato endorses
civil war he more than endorses Caesar himself. If
half the Senate, the consuls, and the rest choose to
wage war for a leader who holds not a single office,
there is enticement enough, but if Cato too follows
Pompey, Caesar will seem the last free man on earth.
Yet if they had chosen to bear arms for the sake of our
country’s laws, in defence of freedom; Brutus,
the enemy of neither Pompey nor Caesar then,
would still be the victor’s foe when war is done.’
So, Brutus. Cato from his heart’s holy shrine replied:
Book II:286-325 Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger
‘Brutus, I grant that civil war is evil, but wherever fate
leads, virtue must follow without fear. That even I
am rendered guilty will stand as a reproach to the gods.
Who could choose to gaze on the fall of the stars above
himself alone free from terror? Who could sit with folded
hands when high heaven shattered and the earth shook
with the massive chaos of the collapsing firmament?
When distant nations, kings who reign beneath other
stars beyond the seas, partake of Italy’s madness
and that of the Roman standards, shall I alone
be idle? Far be it from me, you gods, that the fall
of Rome, whose ruin will move Dahae and Getae
should leave me indifferent! When death robs
a father of his children, sorrow itself demands
that he leads the long procession to their grave:
he will thrust his arms into the funeral flames,
holding the smoking torch to their lofty pyre.
So I too shall never be torn from your lifeless
body, Rome. Freedom, I shall follow to the grave
your very name, your insubstantial shadow.
Let it be so: let Rome atone to the pitiless gods
utterly, let no man’s life evade the claims of war!
O that I might be condemned by all the powers
of heaven and hell to act as scapegoat for all!
As the enemy hordes fell upon Publius Decius
when he sacrificed his life, so may the Rhine’s
barbarians hurl their spears at me; may every
weapon pierce me, may I, intercepting each,
receive, myself, every blow dealt in this war!
Let my blood redeem the nations, let my death
pay the penalty that Rome’s corruption merits.
Why should those die who would willingly bear
the yoke, and fail to resent the harshest tyranny?
Point your swords towards me alone, who fight
in vain for the law and justice others despise.
My death alone would bring peace to Italy’s
peoples, and end their sufferings; aspiring
tyranny need wage no war when I am gone.
Shall I then follow the nation’s standard
with Pompey as my leader, though I know
sadly that if fortune favours him he too covets
dominion over the world? Well then, let me
aid his victory, lest he thinks his triumph
is for himself alone.’ So Cato, with forceful
reasoning urging on the younger man, stirring
his ardent spirit to intense desire for civil war.
Meanwhile, as the sun dispelled the chill of night,
the door sounded to a loud knocking, and in burst
Marcia, Cato’s former wife, in mourning for her
husband Hortensius, arriving now from his pyre.
As a girl she had wed this nobler husband, Cato,
but being granted the reward and price of marriage
in a third child, she was given to another house,
to fill it with fruitfulness, and ally two families
through her maternal blood. Now, having granted
Hortensius’ ashes their last resting place, she
had hurried there in pitiful state, her hair unkempt
and ragged, her breasts bruised by endless blows,
covered with ash from the pyre. In that state alone
she found Cato’s favour. And spoke to him sadly:
‘I have obeyed your command, Cato, while hot
blood flowed in my veins and I was fertile:
Twice wed, I have borne my husbands’ children.
I return to you, weary, worn from child-bearing,
unwilling now to be given to some other man.
Let me renew the faithful vows of our marriage;
grant me the name of wife; let them write above
my tomb: Cato’s Marcia; let them not think
in after days that you drove me out, handing
me to a second husband. I am not here to share
in happiness, or prosperous times, I am come
to bear my part of anxiety and trouble. Let me
follow the army. Why should I remain behind
in peace and safety, more distant from civil
conflict than Cornelia is, Pompey’s wife?’
Book II:350-391 Cato’s morality
These words moved her husband, and though this day
when fate called men to battle ill-suited marriage
they resolved to tie the knot and perform the rites
simply and without vain display, the gods alone
bearing witness to the ceremony. No wreaths,
no festive garlands hung from the lintel; no white
ribbon ran here and there about the doorposts.
The usual torches; the high couch above ivory
steps with its gold embroidered coverlet; the wife’s
towered crown; her care not to touch the threshold
with her feet as she crossed it – all this was absent.
No saffron veil, to screen the bride’s shy blushes
hid her downcast face; no jewelled belt bound
the flowing gown, no fair collar clasped her neck,
no scarf clung to the shoulders, or clothed bare
arms with its narrow veil. Marcia kept to her solemn
mourning dress, and embraced her husband as she
would her sons. The tunic’s purple band was hid
by wool of funereal hue. The customary happy
jests were absent too, nor was the stern husband
greeted with ritual abuse in the Sabine manner.
No kinsmen, no family members gathered, rather
they were wed in silence, Brutus playing the role
of augur. Cato refused to shave his reverend
features, nor did his severe manner allow joy.
(Since he had seen ill-omened weapons of war
raised, he had let the grey hair cover his stern brow,
and a mourner’s growth of beard darken his face,
as he alone, devoid of love or hate, had freedom
to mourn for mankind. Nor did he seek to renew
their marital relations, his iron nature was proof
even against the marriage bed. Such was Cato’s
character, the austerity of his rigid morality –
to maintain control and observe the limits set,
to follow his nature, devote his life to his country,
believing himself born to serve all men not himself.
It was a feast to him to conquer hunger; a mere roof
to ward off harsh weather a noble palace; the simple
toga, a Roman’s gown in times of peace, fine dress.
Love’s sole aim in his mind to engender children,
he was a husband and a father to serve the State;
worshipping justice, practising harsh virtues,
to communal ends; and there was not one action
of his life in which selfish pleasure claimed a share.
Book II:392-438 Pompey bases himself at Capua
Pompey, meanwhile, had marched swiftly to occupy
Capua’s Campanian walls, founded by Trojan Capys.
Choosing it as his military base, he resolved to launch
his main campaign from there, dispersing and deploying
his forces so as to encounter the foe where the wooded
slopes of the Apennines lift above central Italy, no hills
rising higher and towering more loftily into the heavens.
Those mountains lie midway between the Tyrrhenian
and the Adriatic, bounded on the west where the waves
break on Pisa’s shore, on the east by Ancona that faces
the Dalmatian billows. Deep mountain springs give rise
to mighty rivers, their streams occupying the watersheds
that face the two seas. The swift Metauro and the rapid
Conca flow eastward, the Savio joined by the Isaurus,
the Cesano, the Ofanto that meets the Adriatic waves,
and there the Po, as great a river as the land affords,
levelling forests, sweeps them to the sea, draining
the soil of Italy. As legend has it, that was the first river
whose banks were shaded by a fringe of poplars: when
Phaethon drove the sun’s car flat across its given course
and with fiery reins set the skies aflame until the waters
vanished and earth was scorched deep within, that river
alone had current strong enough to counter the sun’s fire.
It would be no less wide than the Nile, did Nile not flood
the Libyan sands beyond the levels of low-lying Egypt;
and no less mightier than the Danube, if the Danube
did not in its course gather the waters that might have
flowed to other shores, leading them to the Euxine sea.
Westward the waters leaving the Apennine’s slopes
give birth to the Tiber, and the Roya in its deep channel.
From there too the swift Volturno flows, and the Sarno
that breathes nocturnal exhalations, and the Liri driven
by Vestinian waters through the wood-nymph Marica’s
domain, the Sele that grazes Salerno’s rugged country,
and the Magra, whose shallow stream’s un-navigable,
speeding towards the sea at Luni nearby. The Apennines
close to the foothills of the Alps narrow and lift skywards
facing towards Gaul, in a tall ridge, while further south
the slopes yield harvests for the Marsians and Umbrians,
and are tamed by the Samnite plough, their piny cliffs
embracing the native tribes of Italy, not abandoning Italy
till Scylla’s waters bar the way, and reaching as far as
Juno Lacina’s Sicilian temple, for the unbroken ridge
was longer than Italy is now until the mass of water
broke through the isthmus and split the land, that end
of the Apennines crushed and severed by the two seas
being yielded to Pelorus, the Punto del Faro of Sicily.
Book II:439-461 Caesar advances
Caesar, eager for war, rejoiced that his only path
onward meant shedding blood; delighted that Italy
on which he trampled was not lacking in enemies,
the fields he attacked were undefended, and even
his marches not idle, since every battle brought on
the following battle. He preferred to assault a city
than have it open to admit him; to ravage the land,
with fire and sword, than seize it without a fight.
He scorned to move on uncontested roads, or seem
a peaceful traveller. At that time, the Italian citizens,
uncertain, hesitating in their support for one side or
the other, and ready to surrender at the first alarm,
still strengthened their defensive ramparts, crowning
them on every side with steep palisades; arming
tall towers along the walls with stones and slingshot.
Though loyalty contended with the threat of danger,
they still favoured Pompey, as when a southerly rules
the waves, and all the sea is stirred by its vast power,
so that even if Aeolus’ trident opens the solid earth,
and lets an easterly loose on the mounting breakers,
the ocean, though struck by that second force, stays
true to the first, and though the sky surrenders itself
to the rain-filled easterly, the sea asserts the southerly’s
power. Yet threat of danger soon alters men’s minds,
and events were quick to banish fragile allegiances.
Book II:462-525 Defeat of Pompey’s generals
The Etrurians were left naked by Libo’s hasty flight,
and Thermus’ rout robbed Umbria of its free action.
Sulla too, lacking his father’s good luck in civil war,
turned back at the mere sound of Caesar’s name.
When the cavalry advance reached the gates of Osimo,
Varus left by the opposite gate, the enemy now unguarded,
and fled to the forested hills. Lentulus also was driven
from Asculum, and the victor following hard cut off
the army, so only the general and the standards escaped,
bringing no troops with them. Scipio too abandoned
Nuceria’s stronghold, leaving the citizens defenceless,
though that was the station for fine soldiers recalled
from Caesar’s army due to the strength of Parthia;
these were lives Pompey leant his kinsman to make
good the losses in Gaul until he needed them again.
Yet fierce Domitius ensconced behind strong walls
in the city of Corfinio, had under his command those
men recruited to suppress bloodstained Milo. Now,
on seeing a distant cloud of dust rising from the plain,
and the sunlight glittering on ranks of enemy weapons,
he called out: ‘Friends, run to the river and destroy
the bridge. Let the stream spring fiercely from its
mountain source, bring down its weight of waters
and carry away the shattered planks in its foaming
current. Let the war halt here, let the enemy spend
himself in vain on these banks, check their general’s
headlong pace: it would be a victory for us to force
Caesar to make a stand.’ Without further speech
he hurried his men from the walls, but all in vain.
Caesar, seeing them run towards the bridge to bar
his passage, moved first, crying out in pure anger:
‘Not content with hiding your fear behind walls,
you try to barricade yourselves from the plain,
and thwart me with a river! Not if Ganges’ swollen
flood blocked his way, would Caesar be stopped
by any stream, now the Rubicon is crossed. Send
the cavalry forward, and let the infantry advance,
take the bridge before it falls.’ At this command,
the light horse charged at the gallop over the plain,
and strong arms hurled a heavy rain of javelins
towards the bank. Driving off the guard, Caesar
occupied the undefended bridge, and the enemy
were forced back to the safety of their citadel.
Then Caesar built towers from which to launch
huge missiles of stone, while a sloped roof crept
towards the walls dividing the armies. Behold,
an abomination in war, the gates were opened,
the soldiers brought out their general, a prisoner!
Domitius halted before his proud peer, and then,
with still menacing look and unbowed head, that
noble spirit demanded death by the sword. Caesar,
knowing he feared pardon, and sought punishment,
Said: ‘Live on and, against your will, know the light
because of my clemency. Be a token of hope to your
friends, when they too are defeated, an example
of my generosity. Even if you choose to take up
arms again, even if you conquer, I will never use
such favours to bargain for my life.’ With that,
Caesar ordered his bonds to be removed, yet
how easily fate might have spared a Roman’s
blushes, by ensuring Domitius was slain outright!
This was the greatest of insults, that a patriot
be pardoned for joining an army led by Pompey
and the Senate simply to fight for his country!
Domitius, unperturbed, hid his deep anger,
saying to himself: ‘Thus disgraced shall I seek
peace and quiet in Rome? Rather I’ll hasten
to the heart of the fiercest conflict and seek
death at the first onset, fly straight to the mark,
break every tie, and so escape his generosity!’
Book II:526-595 Pompey’s speech to the army
Meanwhile Pompey, unaware of his generals’
defeat, prepared to move, so as to hearten his
forces by a show of strength. Ready to sound
the advance next day, he chose now to gage
the ardour of his men before marching out.
His august voice addressed the silent ranks:
‘Avengers of wrong, followers of the true
standard, O Romans, whose Senate arms you
to defend our country, show your readiness
for battle now! The fields of Italy burn with
wild devastation, Gallic fury flows down from
the wintry Alps, already blood stains, pollutes
Caesar’s swords. Better, you gods, that we
have borne the first losses, that our enemies
begin this evil, yet now Rome, led by myself,
must seek justice and punishment. The battles
you must fight are not mere battles, they express
our nation’s anger and vengeance. This is no
more war than when Catiline prepared to burn
our homes, or Lentulus his partner in crime,
or the eager, bare-armed Cethegus. What
pitiful madness of Caesar’s! Though Fortune
was ready to raise him to the ranks of Camillus
or the mighty Metellus, he joins the likes of
Marius and Cinna. His overthrow is ordained,
as Catulus defeated Lepidus, as Carbo was
beheaded at my orders, and lies now in his
Sicilian grave, as Sertorius the exile fell,
who stirred the fierce Spaniards to rebellion.
yet, on my honour, I am loath to rank Caesar
with them, I grieve that Rome lifts my arm
against his madness. Would that a victorious
Crassus had returned alive from the Parthian
war on Scythia’s border, that he might have
conquered Caesar as he conquered Spartacus,
no less guilty. But if the gods have ordained
that Caesar too should be added to my titles,
well then, this right hand can hurl the spear,
the blood about my heart flows hot once more,
and he shall learn that men patient in peace
are no cowards in time of war. He may call me
worn out and feeble, but be not disquieted by
my age; it matters not that I am older than he,
so long as his soldiers are far older than mine!
I have risen as high as a free people can exalt
a citizen, and over me nothing but tyranny can
reign. Whoever schemes to rise above Pompey
in the city of Rome, exceeds a subject’s wishes.
Both consuls stand by me, and an army where
every man is fit to command. Shall Caesar
overthrow the Senate? No, Fortune does not
act so blindly; she is not so shameless as that.
Have ten years fighting Gallic rebels, an age
granted to the task in vain, provoked him?
Or perhaps his flight from the Rhine’s chill
waters, calling a tidal sea Ocean, and turning
his back in terror on the Britons he attacked?
Or have his idle threats increased now that
reports of his insanity have driven the people
of his native city to arms. Alas, you madman!
All are not fleeing you, but are following me.
When I bore shining standards on the waves,
the pirates, driven from the sea, abandoning
every creek within two moons, begged me
for a narrow patch of dry land to inhabit.
And when Mithridates, that indomitable king,
challenged Rome’s destiny, I drove him in flight
along the isthmus of the Scythian Sea, and more
fortunate than Sulla, brought about his death.
I have left no part of the world untouched, my
triumphs fill all the world, in whatever clime.
The north knows of my victories, by Phasis’ icy
waters; the tropics of sultry Egypt and Syene
where the shadows fall vertically, know me;
the west fears my power, where the Baetis
river, furthest towards sunset, meets the tide.
The Arabs know me their conqueror; the warlike
Heniochi, the Colchians, too, famed for the golden
fleece stolen from them. Cappadocia fears my
standards, and Judea given to an unknown god,
and effeminate Sophene, since I subdued Armenia,
savage Cilicia, and the Taurus range. I have left
my kinsman no war to wage but this civil war.’
Book II:596-649 Pompey flees to Brindisi
Little or no applause followed the general’s speech,
nor did the soldiers clamour for the promised battle.
Pompey was more than conscious of their fears, so
recalled the standards rather than expose the army,
already cowed by the rumour of Caesar’s coming
before he was yet in sight, to a decisive encounter.
A bull driven from the herd after a first defeat seeks
the depths of the forest glades and banished from
the field tests his horns against the trunks of trees
rather than his rivals, not returning to the pastures
until he has regained his strength, satisfied once more
with his innate powers; but once returned to the herd,
those rivals conquered, he leads it, the young bulls
following, wherever he wishes, defying the herdsman.
Now Pompey surrendered Italy to the stronger man,
and fled through Apulia’s open fields until he found
a much safer stronghold in the fortress of Brindisi.
That city was founded by colonists from Dicte, exiles
from Crete, borne on Athenian ships, whose sails
falsely declared Theseus had been conquered.
Italy narrows there and extends a slender tongue
of land between confined shores, into the Adriatic
whose waters are enclosed within curving horns.
yet there would be no harbour in the narrow inlet
if an island did not oppose the fierce northerlies
with its barrier of stone, and defy the breakers.
Nature has set great craggy cliffs on either side
confronting the open sea, and thwarts the gales,
so that ships ride at anchor there on slack cables.
From there the waves are visible far and wide,
for ships bound for the harbours of Corfu, or
those further north, where Illyrian Epidamnos
slopes downwards towards the Ionian Sea.
Here mariners find refuge when the Adriatic
waves exert their power, when the Ceraunian
mountains are lost in cloud, and the Calabrian
Sason is drenched with foaming waves.
Pompey lacked faith in the situation behind,
nor could he carry the fight into Spain since
the vast tract of the Alps lay between, so he
said to Gnaeus, the eldest of his two sons:
‘I beg you to explore the furthest regions,
rouse the Euphrates and the Nile, wherever
the glory of my fame reaches, wherever
Rome’s name is known through my exploits.
Tempt the Cilician colonists, now dispersed
back to the coast, then rouse the kings of Egypt,
and Tigranes of Armenia whom I made king,
Consider too the Pontian army of Pharnaces,
the nomad tribes of both Armenias, the savages
along the Black Sea shore, Carpathia’s hordes,
and those whom the sluggish Sea of Azov,
crossed by Scythian wagons when frozen,
supports on its icy expanse. Without delay then,
carry your father’s standard through the East,
and stir the cities everywhere I conquered
to arms, let all I defeated rally to my camp.
And you Lentulus and Marcellus, consuls
whose names extend the Roman calendar,
let the first northerly waft you to Epirus.
Seek fresh forces in Greece and Macedon,
while winter grants a lull to this warfare.’
So Pompey, and they all obeyed his wishes,
loosing their hollow ships from the shore.
Book II:650-703 Caesar lays siege to Brindisi
Yet Caesar, always impatient of peace, or any long
cessation of warfare, lest fate might force change,
followed close on the heels of his son-in-law.
Others might have been content with seizing cities
at the first assault, surprising strongholds, driving
out their array of garrisons, until finding Rome
itself, capital of the world, and the ultimate prize,
an easy prey. But Caesar, impetuous in everything,
thought nothing done while anything was left to do.
He pressed onwards fiercely, and though master
of all Italy, resenting that the land was still shared
while Pompey claimed a foothold on the seashore,
and yet on the other hand unwilling for his enemy
to range the seas, he blocked the harbour with a mass
of rubble, and levered rocks into the flowing waves.
The endless labour was in vain, since the eager tide
swallowed every boulder sinking them in the seabed.
If Mount Eryx was drowned so, in the Aeolian Sea,
or the toppled summit of Gaurus sunk in the Avernian
Lake, no cliffs would likewise rise above the waters.
When Caesar saw the stony masses would not hold,
he ordered trees felled and bound together, a stretch
of timber linked with chains, like the road, they say,
proud Xerxes made, joining Europe to Asia, Sestos
to Abydos, by his bridge, so his army might march
over the straits of the swift-flowing Hellespont, free
of the dread of easterly or westerly gales, conveying
his ships under full sail to the heart of Mount Athos.
So Caesar narrowed the exit to the sea by felling
all the forest, and soon the mounds of earth and tall
towers reared themselves high above the waves.
Pompey, racked by doubt and anxiety, seeing new
shores constrict his access to the water, pondered
how he might break the siege and gain the ocean.
Time after time, his vessels, driven before the wind,
ropes straining, passed and re-passed the barriers
that blocked the shore, hurled the booms into the tide
and granted the fleet sea-room; and time and again
in the dead of night his machinery wound by strong
arms launched a hail of multi-headed fire-brands.
Fixing at last a day for secret flight, he gave orders
to the crews to hold their tongues lest their shouts
alarm the shore, no signal to mark the change of watch,
no trumpet to alert the sailors, calling them on board.
When the last stars of Virgo were rising, before Libra
brought them the dawning day, silently they slipped
their moorings, Without a cry the anchor flukes were
dragged from the heavy sand; tall masts were hoisted
and the yards rigged, while the captains stood there
mute and anxious; sailors, dangling in the air, loosed
the furled sails, tightening their lines, that the wind
might not whistle through them. The general even
prayed to the goddess, Fortuna, that she allow him
to leave that Italy whose dominion she denied him.
Fortune scarcely complied, since the sea-water
struck by the prows roared chaotically, waves
rose, the whole bay churned by the mingled wakes.
Book II:704-736 Pompey escapes by sea
So the enemy, admitted through the open gates
and within the walls, as the loyalty of the citizens,
altering with their fortune, led them to yield the city,
rushed eagerly along the horns of the curving harbour
towards its entrance, angered that the ships had access
to the sea. Shame on them that Pompey’s flight was not
victory enough! The channel that led the vessels out to sea
was narrow, narrower than Euboea’s gulf, by Chalcis.
Here two ships, running aground, were seized by waiting
soldiers, the fighting moved to shore, and here the sea
was first turned crimson with the blood of civil war.
Its rear-guard lost, the remaining fleet set course. Thus,
when the Argo sailed from Thessaly for the Phasis,
the Cyanean rocks clashed in the deep, but the ship
escaped the shock, though her stern was lost, while
the closing cliffs vainly meeting empty air, were still.
Now the altered colours of the eastern sky gave notice
of the sun about to rise, and the reddened sky, not white
as yet, robbed the nearest stars of their light; the Pleiades
grew faint, Bootes circling Wain, dimming, merged
indistinguishably with the sky, the brighter stars were
quenched, the morning star fled before the light of day.
Pompey by then, had gained the open sea, but the luck
that aided his past hunts for pirates was his no longer,
and Fortune, wearied by his triumphs, proved untrue.
Taking his household with him, to war, driven out
with his wife and sons, powerful still in exile, whole
nations followed behind him. A far place was appointed
for his undeserved destruction. To spare Italy, not
to deprive him of a tomb in his native land, the gods
doomed him to a grave in Egyptian sands; destiny
would hide that wrong in a distant country, so that
Roman soil was unstained by her Pompey’s blood.
End of Book II
Book III:1-45 Pompey’s vision of Julia
As a southerly, filling the swelling sails, drove the fleet on
ploughing the open sea, the mariners gazed ahead over
the Ionian waves. Pompey alone looked back towards Italy,
as the harbours of his native land, a shore he would never
see again, the cloudy hilltops, the mountain chains dimmed
before his eyes and vanished. His weary flesh yielded then
to drowsy slumber, in which he suddenly saw a vision:
Julia, a phantom full of menace and terror, raising her
sorrowful face above the yawning earth, stood there in
the shape of a Fury amid the flames of her funeral pyre.
‘Now,’ she cried ‘now as civil war began, driven from
Elysian fields, the regions of the blessed, was I dragged
down to Stygian darkness and the realm of guilty spirits.
There I saw with these very eyes the Furies, torches in hand,
roused to work strife between you; Charon, the ferryman
of Acheron’s scorched banks, waits for endless boatloads;
Tartarus extends its borders to punish a host of sinners;
the triple Parcae’s hands are full, scarce equal to the task,
the three sisters weary of snapping threads. Magnus, while I
was your wife, you celebrated triumphs in joy, but then
your fortune altered with your bride: Cornelia, my rival,
doomed by fate to bring her husbands from rule to ruin,
supplanted me before my funeral pyre grew cold. She
can cling to your standard by land and sea, and welcome,
if I have but power to trouble your sleep, robbing you
of time for love-making; if Caesar occupies your days,
let Julia have your nights. Not even Lethe’s shore that
brings forgetfulness could banish you from my memory;
the monarchs of the dead permit me now to haunt you.
When you fight I will appear in the midst of the field;
my shade, my ghost, will not let you forget that you
were spouse to Caesar’s daughter. Sever in vain the tie
of kinship that binds you. This civil war will make you
mine.’ So saying, the phantom fled, fading from her
troubled husband’s arms. Threatened thus with disaster,
by the gods and by the dead, Pompey only hastened
more eagerly to his fate, his mind prepared for ruin.
‘Why am I fearful,’ he cried, ‘of some empty spectral
vision? Either the mind loses all sensation after death,
or if not, then death is no great tragedy.’ Now the sun
sank towards the sea, as much of its fiery disk lost
as the moon loses just before or after the full, and lo
a benign shore offered the fleet an easy approach;
they hauled in, lowered the masts, and rowed ashore.
Book III:46-83 Caesar marches on Rome
As the wind snatched the ships from his grasp, as
the sea hid Pompey’s fleet, Caesar on the Italian
shore, became a leader without rival. Yet he felt
no pleasure in having driven Pompey far away,
only resentment that his enemy had fled to safety
abroad. Success no longer satisfied his eagerness
for speed; even victory was not worth delay. Now
he banished thoughts of battle from his mind, intent
on the problems of peace, on how to win the fickle
favour of the people, knowing that the price of corn
was cause for popularity or its reverse. When men
in power feed the idle mob they buy subservience,
a starving people knows no fear, and hunger itself
gives birth to freedom. Caesar therefore ordered
Curio to Sicily, by way of Messina’s straits where
the sea inundated the land or severed it, turning
what had been mainland to shore. The waves
there work powerfully, the waters ever serving
to prevent the cliffs once more making contact.
Other troops were sent to Sardinia. Both islands
are famous for their corn; no foreign fields
supplied the granaries of Rome earlier or more
abundantly. Libyan soils scarcely outdo them,
though southerlies may fade, and northerlies
drive clouds to those warmer climes, until
rains pour down to ensure a mighty harvest.
Having taken these precautions, the general
led his troops, unarmed, victorious, wearing
the aspect of peace, to the city of his birth.
Ah, if on his return to Rome he had merely
conquered the north, and the Gallic tribes,
what scenes of his exploits and his battles
might have adorned his long procession
through the City! The fetters he had laid
on the sea and on the Rhine, his high chariot
followed by noble Gauls and blonde Britons!
How great a triumph he missed in adding
to his conquests! No happy crowds met him
on his march; but looks of silent dread, no throng
gathered there to greet him, yet he was pleased
to be feared, preferring their dread to their love.
Book III:84-140 Lucius Metellus defends the treasury
He passed the craggy cliffs of Anxur, and where
the mired way cleaves the Pontine Marshes, where
Scythian Diana rules her hill-bound grove and temple,
and where Roman consuls climb to Alba’s heights.
At last from a lofty place he sighted distant Rome.
Seeing her again after so long warring in the north,
he gazed in wonder as he addressed his native city:
‘Have men, whom no immediate threats of battle
oppress, abandoned you, a dwelling place of gods?
What other city then, dare hope to be defended?
The gods be thanked that eastern savages, swift
Sarmatians with Pannonian allies, or Getae joined
by Dacians, have not chosen to descend on Italy!
Fate is merciful that Romans, led by so feeble
a general as Pompey, have only Romans to oppose.’
So saying he entered a city paralysed by dread.
For men believed that, as if capturing the city,
he’d destroy the walls, blacken them with fire,
and scatter the statues of the gods. Such was
the measure of their fear, they felt he owned
the power to do as he wished. They could feign
no words of welcome, nor, pretending pleasure,
shout aloud with joy, scarcely free to utter curses.
He lacked authority to summon the Senate,
but a crowd of those city fathers, dragged from
their hiding places, filled Palatine Apollo’s temple.
The consuls were absent from their sacred chairs,
and the praetors, next in office, were not apparent,
so their empty seats were carted from their places.
Caesar was all in all, and the Senate forced to meet
to hear the speeches of a mere private individual.
If he had sought royal powers or divine honours,
execution or exile for the senators, the assembled
patricians would have sanctioned such. Happily,
there was more that he blushed to request than they
blushed to allow. Nevertheless, Freedom in her anger,
sought in the person of a single man, to try if might
would yield to right. Seeing brute force employed
to burst the gates of the treasury, Saturn’s temple,
Metellus stubbornly hastened there, slipped through
the ranks of Caesar’s men and before the lock was
shattered, stood before the gates. Thus we see that
love of money is a true proof against fear of death.
The loss and destruction of the constitution made
no stir, but gold, least of all things, prompted action.
This tribune, trying to bar the conqueror from theft,
cried: ‘Over my dead body shall the temple fall to your
assault; you’ll win no gold by robbery, unless drenched
in our sacred blood. The violence done our office will
surely bring down vengeance from the gods, just so
the tribune’s curse which sought defeat for Crassus
followed him to war. Draw your sword then, fear
no crowd of witnesses. The city is abandoned by its own,
yet our wealth should not go to pay your evil soldiery,
there are nations to defeat, cities for you to grant them.
Nor does indigence drive you to despoil the peace
you thrust aside; for you have war itself to enrich you.’
His speech filled Caesar with profound indignation:
‘Metellus,’ he cried, ‘you may hope for death’s glory,
but this hand of mine will not be stained by your blood.
Your office cannot make you worthy of my wrath.
Are you then the champion who will secure liberty?
The centuries have not wrought such confusion
that should the voice of Metellus defend them,
the laws would not rather be trampled on by Caesar.’
Book III:141-168 The treasury is seized
So Caesar spoke, his anger deepening, as the tribune
still refused to quit the gates; forgetting the citizen’s
part and looking instead towards his ruthless soldiers.
But now a fellow tribune, Cotta, persuaded Metellus
to forsake his over-bold intent, saying: ‘When a nation
is oppressed by tyranny, freedom of speech may rob
us of our freedom, while a semblance is preserved if we
agree to its demands. That, overcome, we have suffered
acts of coercion, such is the sole excuse for our disgrace
our abject fear, that to refuse was in no way possible.
Let Caesar carry off these baneful seeds of accursed
war, as swiftly as he may: nations protected by law
may feel a loss of wealth, the poverty of slaves is
not theirs but their master’s.’ Metellus was drawn aside
while the temple gates were swiftly opened. Loud
the Tarpeian Rock re-echoed to the grating noise
as the doors parted; then Rome’s wealth, untouched
in the vaults for many a year, was brought outside;
treasure from the Punic Wars, and those with Perses
of Macedon, the spoil of conquered Philip, the gold
that Brennus the Gaul forfeited to Rome in flight,
and that which could not bribe Fabricius to sell
the city to Pyrrhus; all that our ancestors saved
with care, all the tribute paid by the rich nations
of Asia, or given victorious Metellus by Minoan
Crete, or brought by Cato from distant Cyprus.
The wealth of the Orient, the treasure of captive
kings borne in Pompey’s triumph was revealed.
Tragic the plunder that despoiled the temple,
and first made Rome poorer than its Caesar.
Book III:169-213 Greece and Asia Minor rally to Pompey
Meanwhile Pompey’s fame had stirred nations everywhere
to war, those destined to share his fate. Greece the nearest
sent soldiers to her neighbour’s battle: Amphissa sent men
from Phocis, rocky Cirrha too, and both Parnassus’ peaks
were deserted. Boeotia’s leaders gathered, those whom
swift Cephisus’ and Cadmean Dirce’s oracular streams
embrace; men came from Pisa and the Alpheus whose
waters flow beneath the waves to the Sicilian shore.
Arcadians quit Maenalus, and the soldiers of Trachis
left Hercules’ Oeta behind. Thesprotians and Dryopes
rushed to fight, and the Selloi abandoned their silent
oracle of oak-trees on the ancient hillside of Chaonia.
The levy drained Athens of all her men, though few
of her ships gathered at Apollonia, and three vessels
alone bore witness to historic Salamis. Next to rally
to the cause was Crete, isle dear to Zeus, ancient
island of a thousand cities, Cnossos skilled in archery,
and Gortyn whose bowmen rivalled those of Parthia.
They were followed by those who dwelt in Trojan
Oricos, the scattered Athamanes who roam mountain
forests, and the Encheliae whose ancient name refers
to Cadmus’ death and his transformation to a snake.
Men came too from the Colchian Absyrtides round
which the Adriatic foams, those came who till the fields
of Haemonian Iolcos, where the untried Argo first left
the shore, challenged the waves, and forged links
between alien nations, pitting men against the storms
and ocean breakers, bringing a new manner of death.
Next Thracian Mount Haemus was abandoned, then
Pholoe with its pure myth of the bi-formed Centaurs.
Strymon was deserted, that each year sends Bistonia’s
cranes to winter by the Nile, and barbarous Cone where
one mouth of the branching Danube sheds its Sarmatian
waters and bathes Peuce’s isle sprinkled by the waves.
Mysia too was deserted; the land of Idalus drenched
by Caicus’ chill waters; Arisbe’s all too shallow soil.
The people of Pitane gathered, and those of Celaenae
who mourn Pallas’ invention of the flute, Celaenae
condemned with Marsyas when Apollo won the contest.
There the Marsya running swiftly in its straight course
meets the winding Maeander, and merging turns about,
and there earth emits the Pactolus in seams of gold,
and Hermus, rich as Pactolus, dissects the cornfields.
The soldiers of ever ill-fated Ilium joined the standards
of the doomed army too, untroubled by the tale of Troy,
or by Caesar’s boast of his descent from Trojan Iulus.
Book III:214-263 The Middle East and India rally to Pompey
The tribes of Syria followed, from the Orontes and Nineveh
of whose riches legend tells; they abandoned wind-swept
Damascus, Gaza, and Idume rich in palm-trees; Tyre
subject to earthquake; Sidon precious for its purple dyes.
Setting unerring course for war, they steered their ships
by the pole-star, that star to them above all the safest guide.
These, the Phoenicians, if the legend is true, first sought
to record language in written characters for the future,
before Egypt learned to bind papyrus reeds, when only
hieroglyphs of birds, wild beasts, and other creatures,
preserved the secrets of its speech. Men left the woods
of Tauros, Tarsus where Perseus landed, and the cave
above Corycus where the earth yawns wide in a hollow.
Mallos and far-off Aigai are loud with sounding shipyards;
the Cilicians, pirates no more, set sail in true ships of war.
News of war reached further east, where Ganges descends,
Ganges that alone on earth opens its mouths directly towards
the rising sun, and drives its current on against the easterlies;
nearby it was that Alexander was forced to halt, believing
the outer ocean beyond, yet confessing himself defeated
by the world’s vastness. Now the land was roused where
Indus too, its current flowing swiftly with additional force,
barely feels the addition of the Hydaspes to its wide waste.
The tribes rallied who drink sweet juice from sugar-canes;
those who dye their hair with saffron dye, and gird their
cotton robes with bright jewels; those who build funeral
pyres, climb on the burning logs, and immolate themselves.
How glorious to seize fate in one’s hands and, satiated
with life, let what remains be gifted back to the gods!
Savage Cappadocians rallied to the cause; those men
who find the soil of Mount Amanus far too hard; also
the Armenians who live where Niphates rolls its boulders,
And the Choatrae abandoned their sky-reaching forests.
The Arabs entered a world unknown to them, amazed
that the shadows of trees no longer fell southwards.
The madness of Rome even troubled the remote Orestae;
and the chieftains of Carmania, where the more southerly
heavens still reveal the Bear not wholly sunken below
the horizon, where Bootes, swift to set there, is visible
only for a brief part of the night; and Ethiopia, which
no part of the northern constellations would cover
if the foreleg of rearing Taurus was not bent
so that the tip of his hoof projected downwards;
and it troubled Parthia where the mighty Euphrates
and the swift Tigris raise their streams from sources
not far apart in Persia, such that if earth allowed
them to meet, who could say which would conquer.
Yet the Euphrates spreading over the land fertilises
the ground as the Nile does Egypt’s, while the Tigris
is suddenly swallowed by a chasm in the earth
which hides its course until giving birth to it again
in another place, allowing the river to reach the sea.
Book III:264-297 The Black Sea and North Africa rally to Pompey
The warlike Parthians favoured neither Caesar’s forces
nor the armies who opposed him, content to see them rivals.
But the nomadic tribes of Scythia, bounded by Bactros’ chill
streams, and the vast forests of Hyrcania, refreshed their
poisoned arrows. The Heniochi came, of Spartan descent,
dangerous on horseback, the Sarmatians too, akin
to the savage Moschi. Men marched from the regions
where the Phasis cleaves the Colchians’ rich fields,
where the Halys flows that doomed Croesus, where
the Tanais falling from the Riphaean heights, bounds
Asia on the one side and Europe on the other, granting
the names of two worlds to its banks, separating them
and with its winding adding now to one continent now
the other; and where the Black Sea gathers the flow
from the Maeotian Lake, so that men deny that Cadiz
is the only outlet to the Ocean, and Hercules’ Pillars
are robbed of their uniqueness. From another region
came the Essedonian tribes, the Arimaspians who
bind their hair with loops of gold, the brave Arians,
the Massegetae who quench their thirst after battle
with the Sarmatians by bleeding the horse they rode,
and the swift Geloni. Neither Cyrus, leading an army
from the east, his Persians numbered by each soldier
casting a dart, nor Agamemnon seeking vengeance
for the wrong done Menelaus, neither cut the waves
with so great a fleet. Never did so many kings obey
a single leader, nor so many nations, strangely garbed,
meet together with such great confusion of languages.
Fate stirred the peoples and sent them as companions
to a great disaster, as a funeral train fit for Pompey’s
exequies. Even horned Ammon was not slow to send
squadrons from Africa to battle, from all parched Libya,
from Morocco in the west to Egyptian Syrtes in the east.
So that Caesar, fortune’s favourite, might win all with
a single throw, Pharsalia brought all the world to battle.
Book III:298-357 Marseille opposes Caesar
Leaving the walls of a fearful Rome, Caesar now marched
swiftly beyond the cloud-capped Alps, where the Phocaean
colonists of Marseilles, free of Greek fickleness, dared
when others trembled in terror at the sound of his name
to be loyal and true to their oaths in a doubtful hour,
following right rather than fortune. Still, at first, they
tried to mollify Caesar’s fierce determination and harsh
will, with peaceful representations, and when his army
drew near spoke thus, proffering Minerva’s olive-branch:
‘All the annals of Italian history bear witness that Marseilles
has shared the Roman people’s destiny in their foreign wars.
Now too our swords are ready to oppose those foreigners,
should you seek fresh triumphs in some unknown land.
But if Italy is divided, if you intend ill-omened campaigns,
and cursed war, we mourn that civil strife, and step aside.
If the sky-dwellers armed themselves in anger, or the Giants,
born of Earth, attacked the heavens, pious men would shrink
still from helping Jupiter with prayers or weapons. No other
should interfere in a sacred quarrel. The human race, not
knowing of events above, would seek to learn from his
lightning bolts alone if the Thunderer still ruled the sky
without a rival. Moreover innumerable nations are rushing
to the fray from every quarter; nor are men so reluctant for
a fight, so averse to the contagion of evil, that civil war
needs involve coercion. We ourselves however wish all
men shared our resolve, to refuse to share Rome’s destiny;
and that no foreign soldier would take arms in your quarrel.
What Roman will not be troubled, or hindered from hurling
his spear, seeing father or brothers ranked among the foe?
Civil war would end swiftly if you enlisted only those whom
it is lawful to enlist. This is the burden of our petition to you:
leave the dread eagles and menacing standards far from our
city, and entrust yourself to our walls. Let us admit Caesar
and exclude the war. Let there be one place free of evil,
neutral ground for Pompey and yourself. Then if Fortune
shows mercy to an unconquered Rome, and you choose
peace, both will retain a place in which to meet unarmed.
When Spain summons you at this point of crisis, why
direct your swift forces towards us? We are of little
weight or moment; a people never victorious in war.
Driven from our ancient place, when Phocaea burnt
and her towers were razed, we fled to this foreign shore,
and owe our security to our fragile walls; our only
claim to fame is our loyalty. If you seek to blockade
the city, or storm the gates, then we are ready; our
houses will survive your burning missiles; should
you divert our springs we will dig for transient water
and lick with our parched tongues the soil we dig;
if bread is scarce we will defile our mouths by eating
things foul to see and hideous to touch. We do not fear,
in defending freedom, to share the miseries that Saguntum
bravely suffered. Let our babes, sucking in vain at breasts
run dry through famine, torn then from their mother’s arms,
be hurled into the flames; let wives seek death at the hands
of their beloved husband; let brother deal wound to brother,
choose, if forced to do so, that dire expression of civil war.’
So the Greeks spoke, and Caesar’s anger, already visible
in his darkened face, betrayed his resentment in speech:
Book III:358-398 Caesar blockades the city
‘These Greeks trust in my need for haste, but in vain;
though I may be hastening to the west there is time
to destroy Marseilles. Rejoice, men! Through a gift
of fate you are offered battle. Just as a storm loses
strength, and dissipates in the void, or a conflagration
dies when nothing obstructs its passage, so the absence
of enemies weakens me, and I deem my weapons idle
if those who might have been conquered evade me.
They say their city is open to me if I disband my army,
entering alone and vulnerable. Their true purpose
more subtle than simply to bar me, is to imprison me.
They say they wish to avoid the taint of war, but they
shall suffer for seeking peace, and learn that in my days
none are safe but those I lead to war.’ So saying, he led
an advance against the fearless city, whose gates he soon
saw closed, and its walls defended by a ring of warriors.
Not far from the walls a hill rose from the plain, with
a small stretch of level ground at its summit. This height
seemed to him ripe for fortification, providing a secure
site to pitch camp. The nearest aspect of the city rose
in a tall fortress as high as this hilltop, and the ground
between was pitted with hollows. Caesar’s strategy
involved vast labour, to link the opposing heights
with an immense earthen rampart. But first, in order
to blockade the city on its landward side, he threw out
a long line of works from his hilltop camp to the sea,
whose ditch deprived the city of its freshwater springs
and pastures, and built earthworks with soil and turf
crowned by a solid battlement. This alone was fame
enough for the Greek colony, fame and eternal glory,
that it was not overcome by mere terror, but halted
the headlong onrush of war that swept all the world,
and delayed Caesar’s total conquest, by its resistance.
How great a thing it was, to hold back destiny, cause
Fortune to lose time, as she hastened to set Caesar
above the whole world. Now all the trees must be
felled, the forests stripped of timber far and wide,
for since brushwood and soft soil made for too weak
a structure, timber was needed to constrain and bind
the earth, to stop it sinking under the turrets’ weight.
Book III:399-452 Caesar destroys the sacred grove
There was a grove, untouched through long centuries,
whose interlacing boughs enclosed cold and shadowy
depths, the sunlight banished far above. It was sacred
to no rural Pan, no Silvanus king of the wood, nor
to the Nymphs, but gods were worshipped there with
savage rites, the altars piled high with foul offerings,
and every tree drenched in human blood. On those
boughs, if ancient tales, respectful of deity, may be
believed, the birds feared to perch; in those coverts
no wild beast would lie; on that grove no wind ever
blew, no lightning bolt from the storm clouds fell;
and the trees, spreading their leaves to an absent
breeze, rustled of themselves. Water flowed there
in copious dark streams, while the images of the gods,
rough-hewn and grim, were merely crude blocks cut
from felled trunks of trees. But their very age itself,
and the ghastly colour of their rotting timber struck
terror; men feel less awe of deities in familiar forms;
their fear increases when the gods they dread appear
as alien shapes. They also say the subterranean caves
often shook and roared, that yew-trees fell and then
rose again, that flame glowed from trees free of fire,
while serpents slithered and twined about their trunks.
The people never gathered there to worship; they had
abandoned the place to the gods, and when the sun
was at the zenith, or night’s blackness seized the sky,
the priest himself dreaded those moments, afraid
of surprising the lord of the wood. This grove
Caesar ordered felled by the stroke of the axe.
Growing near his outworks, spared by earlier wars,
it stood clothed in trees among hills already bare.
But now strong arms faltered, his soldiers awed
by the solemn majesty of the place believed
that if they struck the sacred trees, their axes
would rebound to sever their own limbs. Caesar,
seeing his soldiers paralysed and afraid, seized
an axe and was the first to strike, daring to fell
a towering oak-tree with its blade. Driving his axe
into the desecrated timber, he cried: ‘Any sacrilege
falls on me: now none of you need fear to strike.’
Then all the men obeyed his orders, their minds
still uneasy, their fears not assuaged, but weighing
Caesar’s anger against the wrath of heaven.
Ash trees fell, gnarled ilexes were tumbled,
while oracular oaks, alders fitted for the waves,
cypresses that bore witness to a king’s grief,
all lost their leaves for the first time. Robbed
of their foliage they let in the light, the toppling
trunks supported, as they fell, by their neighbours.
The Gauls were grieved by the sight, yet the besieged
rejoiced in their belief that such injury to the gods
could not go unpunished, though fortune often serves
the guilty, the gods’ wrath reserved for the wretched.
When enough timber had been felled, waggons
were brought to carry it, while farmers, robbed
of their oxen, mourned for the unploughed fields.
Book III:453-496 Caesar leaves for Spain, the siege continues
But Caesar impatient of this protracted siege of the walls
led an army towards Spain and the ends of Europe,
giving orders for the blockade to continue. The rampart
was extended with a lattice of timber, two turrets tall
as the walls set on it; their foundations were not driven
into the earth but they sat on rollers moved covertly.
When it creaked under its burden, the besieged thought
it the winds trying to break from their hollow cavern,
and wondered their walls remained standing. From
these towers missiles were hurled against the citadel,
but the Greek projectiles hit the Romans harder
since their javelins not merely thrown but also
hurled from the arms of powerful catapults pierced
more than one body before they halted, cleaving
their swathe through armour and bone, gone by,
leaving death behind, having dealt it passing on.
Each boulder driven by the impulse as the tension
was released, shattered everything in its path, like
a section of weathered cliff that a sudden gale
tears from the mountain-side, not simply crushing
life from its victims, but annihilating flesh and bone.
Yet when brave soldiers approached the wall
in close formation, with shields overlapping those
behind, their heads defended by the roof they made,
the missiles which had dealt death flew by them,
while it was difficult for the Greeks to alter range
and redirect their engines designed to hurl their bolts
a certain distance. They were forced to hurl boulders
down using their arms alone, relying on the weight.
As long as it continued the mass of shields repelled
every missile, like a roof rattling harmlessly in a burst
of hail; but when the soldiers’ strength and courage
wavered, forcing gaps in the defence, the shields
gave way one by one under the relentless assault.
Next boards lightly covered with turf were brought
forward, and the besiegers screened by the boards
with covered fronts, worked to sap the foundations
with iron tools and crack the walls. Now the ram
was used, its swinging blows effective, its impact
seeking to damage the wall’s solid structure,
by dislodging stones supporting those above;
but scorched by fire from on high, struck by huge
and jagged stones, by a rain of missiles, and blows
from oak shafts hardened in the flames, the boards
with their loads of turf gave way and the besiegers,
foiled for all their efforts, retired wearily to their tents.
Book III:497-537 The Romans initiate a naval battle
To defend the walls was the most the Greeks had hoped for,
yet now they prepared a night offensive. Grasping burning
torches behind their shields, their warriors advanced boldly,
fire was their weapon not spears or death-dealing arrows,
and the wind, driving the flames carried them swiftly over
the Roman lines. Despite the green wood the fire was quick
to show its power, leaping from every torch in the wake of vast
volumes of black smoke, it ate not only timber but hard stone;
and great rocks were shattered to dust. Ramparts tumbled,
appearing even more voluminous spread over the ground.
Abandoning all hope of a victory by land, the Romans
chose to try their luck by sea. Vessels bare of paint,
unadorned with gleaming figure-heads, rough timbers,
as they were cut in the hills, were strapped together to form
platforms for waterborne attack, while Caesar’s admiral,
Decimus, sailing down the Rhone ahead of the fleet
had reached the sea and anchored off the Stoechades.
The Greeks were as ready to chance their fortunes,
mingling old men with youths in the ranks, manning
their fleet that rode at anchor, stripping the dockyards
of ships retired from service. Now Phoebus scattered
splinters of morning light over the waves, the sky was
unclouded, the northerlies and southerlies peaceful
and at rest, the sea calm as if spread for battle. Every
ship released from its moorings, the rival fleets leapt
towards each other equally, Caesar on one side, Greeks
on the other, the hulls quivering to the beat of oars,
rapid strokes driving the tall ships through the water.
The arms of the Roman fleet were a mix of vessels,
triremes, quadriremes, and even a few with extra
banks of oars, tiered one above the other, these ships,
the heaviest, set as barrier against the open water,
while the galleys with their double banks of oars,
lay further back in a crescent formation. Towering
above them all was Decimus’ flagship with its six
banks of oars, shadowing the deep as it advanced,
those of the uppermost tier reaching for the waves.
Book III:538-582 The fleets engage
When only as much water parted the fleets as each
could cover with one mighty stroke of the oars,
countless shouts rose to the heavens above, until
the splash of blades was drowned out by the cries,
and the trumpets went unheard. Then, straining
against the thwarts behind them, oars against
their chests, the crews drove forward over the sea,
backing astern again as prow clashed with prow,
while a volley of missiles plunged from the sky,
clouding the heavens and the sea as they fell.
The Romans now deployed the wings, in open
order; the space between the vessels allowing
entrance to the enemy ships. As the waves are
driven in one direction, when the tide opposes
an easterly or westerly wind, while the mass
of water moves on in another, so, as the vessels
ploughed their distinct furrows through the sea,
the water thrown back by one ship’s set of oars
was thrown by another in the opposite direction.
Though the Greek ships were handier in attack
or retreat, swiftly tacking to change course, quick
to answer the helm’s guidance, the Roman ships
had this advantage, that they offered a steadier
platform for fighting, a foothold firm as dry land.
Now Decimus hailed the helmsman at the ensign
on the poop: ‘Don’t let the fleet wander the waves,
ignore the enemy manoeuvres. Gather the ships
together, offer our side to the Phocaean prows!’
The helmsman obeyed, exposing the ship broadside
to the foe. Each ship attacking the flagship’s flank
was defeated by the blow, a captive wedded to
the vessel it had rammed. Others were caught by
grappling irons, chains, or entangled in their oars.
The waves were hidden, and the battle stationary.
Spears were no longer flung by vigorous arms,
wounds were no longer inflicted from a distance,
they fought hand to hand, the sword doing most
damage in that sea battle. Each man leaned from
the bulwarks of his own vessel to strike at the foe,
and none fell on deck. Their blood dyed the wave,
and a crimson foam veiled the sea. Ships caught
by the iron chains made no contact for the mass
of corpses. Some men sank alive in the depths,
drowning in brine and blood, others while still
breathing, struggling against slow death, died
from the sudden plunge of their doomed vessel.
Weapons that missed their target killed men
in the water randomly; every missile that fell,
its blow awry, still found a victim in the waves.
Book III:583-634 The death of Catus
One Roman ship, hemmed in by Phocaean vessels,
defended herself to port and starboard, her crew
separating to man the sides with equal courage.
Catus, fighting at the rear, grasping the ornament
on the enemy stern, boldly, was pierced in chest
and back by weapons launched together; they
met in his flesh, the blood stayed for a moment
its outlet uncertain; at last its pressure dislodged
both javelins at once, dealing a double death,
apportioning out his life between the wounds.
Here ill-fated Telo steered his craft; no ship
on stormy sea was more obedient to any hand
than his; no helmsman could better forecast
the weather from observation of sun or moon,
and so set his sails to the coming breeze. Telo
would have rammed the Romans broadside on
had not their spears pierced his chest, so that
the dying helmsman’s hand drove the ship aside.
Though Gyareus tried to clamber over and take
his friend’s place, a grapnel, flung, caught him
by the waist as he hung in the air, and there he
remained held fast by that snare to the gunwale.
Twin brothers fighting there, their mother’s pride
and joy, born of the same womb were destined
for different fates. Death’s cruel hand distinguished
between them, and the wretched parents, no longer
puzzling over which was which, found in the sole
survivor the single source of their unending sorrow,
since he recalled the lost brother to their mournful
thoughts and kept their grief ever-present. The one
had dared to grasp the gunwale of a Roman vessel,
their oars overlapping entangling the two ships. His
hand was severed by a downward blow, but still
gripped the side stiffening as the blood left it. His
courage rose though with disaster, and mutilated
he showed an even more heroic ardour. Fiercely
he continued the fight, but reaching his left hand
out to retrieve his right, that too and the whole arm
were severed. Then deprived of shield and sword,
in full view not hidden by the bulwarks, he defended
his brother with his own bared breast, standing firm
though pierced by many a weapon, and though he
had already chanced death many times, stopping
spears that would have taken many lives in their fall.
Then he gathered his remaining strength, though his
life was ebbing due to many wounds, and bracing
his dying limbs, with the power left him, he sprang
on board the Roman ship, his weight his sole
advantage, since his muscles had lost their force.
The ship was drenched with blood, piled high
with the bodies of her crew. She suffered blow
after blow on her side, that shattered let in the sea,
and filling to her decks she sank into the waves,
sucking the waters round her into a whirlpool.
The sea parted as the ship sank, and then fell back
into the space she had occupied. Many another
form of death too was seen that day on the deep.
Book III:635-669 The death of Lycidas
So Lycidas was caught by the flukes of a grappling iron
flung swiftly on board, and would have sunk in the sea
but for his friends who seized his legs as they swung
in the air. He was ripped apart though, and his blood
spurted out through the severed arteries, not trickling
as from a single wound but gushing forth, till the play
of blood flowing from the several limbs merged with
the waves. No other victim spilt his blood so widely,
the lower limbs lacking vital organs soon drained,
but the air-filled lungs and beating heart long baffled
death that wrestled with the man till it had mastered all.
On another ship the crew, over-eager for the fight,
leaning over the one gunwale where the enemy lay,
overbalanced the craft with their collective weight,
till she toppled on her side with them beneath,
unable to rise free, dying in their watery prison.
On that day too a dreadful death without precedent
was witnessed. A man in the water was pierced
by the beaks of two ships meeting, his chest split
in two by the dire impact, the bones crushed so
the body could not halt the clash of bronze prows.
The belly was flattened, blood and gore spouted
from the mouth, and when the ships backed water
and the prows disengaged, only then the corpse
with shattered breast sank, and the water poured
through its remains. Most of another crew swam
when shipwrecked to seek help from another crew,
but catching the gunwale, they were warned away,
since the ship was unstable and destined to sink
if they were taken aboard, so the other crew, pitiless,
hacked at the gripping hands with sharp swords.
Their hands still clinging to the Greek ship they fell
away, leaving their severed limbs behind, no longer
able to support their mutilated bodies on the surface.
Book III:670-708 The death of Phoceus
By now all the combatants had flung their missiles,
but empty-handed their fury still found weapons.
One hurled an oar towards the enemy, other
strong arms launched a whole stern-piece,
and turning the rowers out tore up the thwarts
as missiles, breaking up the vessel for ammunition.
Snatching at sinking corpses they robbed them
of the shafts that had killed them. Many a man,
lacking a weapon dragged the javelin from his own
wound and clutching his innards with his other hand
gathered remaining strength for a vital stroke,
hurling back the spear before his blood poured out.
No power brought more destruction in that sea-fight
however, than the element most hostile to the waves,
since fire spread everywhere carried by resinous
torches, and fuelled by sealed-in sulphur, so that
the ships, with their caulking of pitch and wax swift
to melt and burn, instantly caught fire. Nor did waves
quench the fire, the flames gripping the wreckage now
scattered over the deep. Some sailors let in the water
to try and douse the fires, others fearful of drowning
still clinging to the burning timbers; among a thousand
ways of dying, men fear that most in which death first
draws near. Courage does not falter with shipwreck:
they snatched weapons flung into the waves passing
them to the living, or dealt feeble blows with errant
aim from the water. Some, lacking other weapons,
employed the deep; enemy fiercely clasping enemy,
they gladly locked limbs and sank, drowning as they
drowned the foe. One warrior, Phoceus, could hold
his breath underwater longer than all others, used
to searching the depths for whatever the sands had
taken, or wrenching the flukes free when an anchor
biting too hard refused to answer to the cable’s tug.
He had grappled now with his enemy, dragging him
deep below, and now victorious was surfacing alive
thinking to rise unobstructed, but struck the keel
of a ship and sank again. Some men grasped the oars
of the foe to check their vessels’ flight, anxious not
to waste their lives, many a dying man stopping
an enemy craft from ramming the stern of his ship,
by presenting his own wounded body to its prow.
Book III:709-751 The death of Argus
One Lygdamus, a Balearic sling-thrower, hurled
a missile, and aiming at Tyrrhenus who stood high
at the ship’s bow crushed the hollow of his temples
with the ball of lead, so that the ligaments were torn
and the eyes bleeding driven from their sockets.
Tyrrhenus, stunned by his sudden blindness, thought
it the darkness of death, but feeling that his limbs
still had their strength, he called to his companions:
‘Set me where you have set the missile-throwers,
in the correct place for hurling spears. Tyrrhenus
must use what life remains in some warlike way.
This ruined flesh can still play the soldier’s part:
I shall find death instead of some man still whole.’
With this, he threw a javelin blindly at the foe,
but still found a mark. It struck Argus, a noble
youth, at the junction of the groin and lower
belly, and he drove the steel deeper in falling.
His unfortunate father, at the further end of the ship,
beyond the immediate fight, would in his prime
have matched any Phocaean; age had robbed him
of strength, yet though he could no longer fight
he could still direct others. Seeing his son’s deadly
wound, he stumbled sternwards among the benches
and found Argus still breathing. Bereft of tears, his
hands instead of beating at his breast flying wide
apart, his body became rigid, darkness overcame
him veiling his sight, so that he ceased to see the sad
form of Argus before him, while the son, finding his
father there, raised his bowed head, speechlessly,
no words issuing from his throat, but seeking
with a silent look, his father’s embrace at the last,
and that his father’s hand might close his eyes.
As the old man recovered from his swoon, cruel
sorrow asserted its power. He cried: ‘I shall not
waste what remaining life the ruthless gods grant,
but will use it to slit this aged throat. Argus, forgive
your father for denying you a last embrace,
a parting kiss. The blood still flows warm from
your wound, and you still breathe; you may yet
die after me.’ So saying, not content with thrusting
the sword through his body to the hilt, he sprang
headlong into the sea, so eager to die before his
son that he would not trust to a single mode of death.
Book III:752-762 Decimus wins the encounter
The issue was no longer in the balance, the outcome
of the siege was decided. Most of the Greek fleet
was sunk, others were now crewed by the victors,
only an unconquered few gaining harbour by a hasty
flight. What tears the city shed, how loud the lament
of mothers on the shore! Many a wife embraced
a Roman corpse in error, mistaking its features,
disfigured by the battle, for her husband’s. Soon,
beside the lighted pyres, wretched father struggled
with father for possession of some headless body,
while Decimus with his naval victory brought
Caesar’s forces their first glory on the waves.
End of Book III
Book IV:1-47 Caesar attacks Ilerda (Lleida) in Spain
But far off at the edge of Europe, fierce Caesar was waging war,
not with great loss of life but with warfare destined to influence
the fates of the two rivals decisively. Afranius and Petreius
were the joint leaders of Pompey’s army in Spain; of one mind,
they ruled alternately, equal in authority, sharing responsibility,
the diligent sentries guarding the ramparts honouring their
successive passwords. As well as the Roman troops they
commanded ready Asturians, nimble Vettones, and Celts,
settlers from an ancient Gallic tribe, merging their own name
to that of the Iberians, the Celtiberians. Where fertile land rises
in gentle slopes to a hill of modest height, Ilerda (Lleida) stands,
an ancient settlement. The quiet waters of the Sicoris (Segre)
flow by, not the least of European rivers, and the solid stone
arch of a bridge able to withstand winter floods spans them.
Pompey’s army occupied a steep hill nearby, while Caesar
had pitched camp on another equal height, the river flowing
between them and separating the two camps. Beyond stretch
level plains as far as the eye can see, while the fast-flowing
Cinga (Cinca) bounds the plains whose waters reach the sea
under another name, since it merges with the Hiberus (Ebro)
which gives its name to the whole country. The first days
of the war were free of bloodshed: serving only to reveal
the extent of each leaders’ forces, and their might. War
seemed loathsome; shame restrained the frenzy of battle,
a day’s respite was granted the land and the rule of law.
But as the sun sank towards night, Caesar fortified
a new site with a swiftly dug trench, while the front ranks
kept their ground, screening the place, behind the lines
of troops, and deceiving the enemy. At dawn he ordered
the men forward at speed, climbing the slopes which lay
between the site and Ilerda, those protecting the town.
Fear and shame drove the enemy to advance rapidly,
reach the slopes and occupy them. The courage
and fighting strength of Caesar’s men promised him
attainment of the ground, but the enemy relied on
actual possession. The heavily-burdened soldiers
struggled to climb the heights, the front ranks gazing
upwards, supported by the shields of those behind.
None was free to fling a weapon; each planted his
javelin again and again to secure a perilous foothold,
clutching at rocks and trees, hacking a path with his
sword, oblivious of the enemy. Seeing how risky
the position was, Caesar ordered the cavalry to advance
and wheel to the left, to shield the troops. The infantry
were quickly rescued, without pursuit; the enemy
held the slopes as their foe retreated, gaining little.
Book IV:48-120 Caesar’s camp is flooded
Such was the passage of arms; the rest of the campaign
was determined by various spells of adverse weather.
Winter constrained it with numbing cold and dry northerlies,
gripping the upper atmosphere and restricting the rainfall.
Only the mountains saw snow, while hoar frost covered
the low-lying plains, vanishing at the first glimpse of sun;
all the land towards the west hard and dry in the cloudless
winter weather. But when spring came, and Aries, the ram
from whom Helle fell, received the burning sun, and rose
before the other signs; and then, weighed once again
in unerring Libra’s balance, day gained the victory;
so the moon, retreating from the sun, and barely visible
at the new crescent, shut out the north wind, brightening
while an easterly blew, which drove the clouds westward
in blasts from Arabia, all those gathered in its own region,
all the mists the Arabs know, or Ganges exhales, all
the moisture the orient’s sun allows, all that the gale
that darkens the east impels, and all that screens India
from the sun. Day, there, was heated by a lack of clouds,
unable to release their burden of rain on the land below,
and instead carrying the moisture with them as they fled.
To north and south it was dry, while all the rainclouds
streamed towards Calpe. There where the west winds
rise, and the furthest bounds of the sky contain the sea,
the clouds, prevented from progressing, gathered into
dense masses; and the sky between earth and space
could scarcely hold the dark accumulations of mist.
Compressed beneath the heavens they flowed thickly,
the moisture condensing as rain; the lightning flashed
endlessly but was drowned in the constant downpour.
A rainbow’s broken arch spanned the sky, its spectrum
of colours dim; it seemed to drink the ocean, returning
water swiftly to the clouds, restoring that which poured
from the sky. Then the Pyrenean snows, which no sun
ever thawed, melted, the ice dissolved and the rocks
were drenched. Such a flood of water poured into every
channel, that the streams issuing from their usual founts
no longer held their banks. Now Caesar’s army afloat
on land foundered, his camp dissolved with the force
of the inundation, and the streams formed pools inside
his high ramparts. There was no way to locate cattle;
the furrows submerged the crops were ruined; the men
who sought plunder struggled over waterlogged fields,
deceived by the vanishing of tracks beneath the flood.
Now came the famine, cruel famine that follows first
in the aftermath of great disasters, the soldiers starving
with no enemy at hand, giving their little wealth, though
no spendthrifts, for a handful of grain. A plague on pale
avarice! For gold, even the starving will sell their grain.
Now even hills submerged; the rivers beneath the flood
were swallowed by the vast reaches of a single lake,
which drowned the rocks in its depths, filling the lairs
engulfing the wild creatures, its loud waters churning
with sudden eddies, and even repelling the ocean tide.
Night veiling the sky was unaware of sunrise, all
natural distinctions were lost in the endless darkness,
the dread complexion of the sky. Such are the farthest
regions of the world, in the icy zone of perpetual winter,
where no stars are visible, and the barren cold bearing
nothing only tempers the fire of the equatorial signs.
O supreme Father of the universe, and you, O Neptune,
to whom fate granted a lesser power over the ocean,
(such was the prayer) may it be your will, that one god
fills the sky with endless rain, while the other stops
the tide from ever ebbing again! Let the rivers find
no passage to the sea, but be held back by the waves!
Let the earth quake and extend the river courses, let
Rhine and Rhone flood Spanish fields! Bring down
the melted snows of the Riphaean mountains, bring
the waters of every pond and lake and stagnant marsh
throughout the world, and keep the land from civil war.
Book IV:121-156 The campaign is renewed
But Fortune, content with having troubled her favourite
a little, returned in full flow, and the gods earned pardon
with a mighty show of support, for the skies cleared,
the sun more than a match for the rain broke the dense
cloud into fleecy vapours, and the dark sky grew red
at dawn. The elements occupied their proper regions,
the heavens were free of moisture and the water that
had fallen settled to the lowest levels. Trees raised
their heads, hills rose above the flood, and valleys
grew firm again in the warmth of sunlight. As soon
as Sicoris retreating from the plains showed its banks,
osiers from hoary willows were steeped and plaited
to make coracles, covered with ox-skin, that could
carry passengers, and safely ride the swollen rivers.
So the Venetians do, to sail the flooded River Po,
and the Britons their wide estuaries; and when Nile
inundates the land, so Memphis uses parched papyrus.
Caesar’s soldiers were ferried across in such craft,
then trees were felled and quickly spanned the river,
carrying the arches far into the fields, the bridge set
distant from the river banks, for fear of its power
when in full spate. Also to prevent the Sicoris boldly
repeating its flooding, it was canalised, punished for
overflowing by having its course divided in channels.
When Petreius saw how Caesar’s destiny was carrying
all before it, he abandoned Ilerda on its heights; wary
of using existing resources, he sought dauntless tribes
in unknown regions, whom contempt for death renders
ever eager for battle, and headed for central Spain.
Caesar, seeing the hills empty and the enemy camp
deserted, told his men to arm and swim the river,
without waiting to reach the bridge or fords. They
obeyed, rushing into battle and therefore eager
for a crossing they would have feared if retreating.
Soon they dried themselves and, re-arming, marched
quickly to warm their chilled bodies, until the time
approached noon and the shadows grew shorter.
Meanwhile the cavalry harassed the enemy rear, as
the foe hesitated, uncertain whether to fight or flee.
Book IV:157-207 A temporary peace
Where a hollow valley lay between two rugged ridges
that crossed the plain, the land rose in an unbroken
range of high hills, among which a shadowy winding
trail offered a safe and hidden passage. Caesar, seeing
that the initiative would slip from his hands, if the foe
reached that gorge, and be occupied by wild tribes from
savage regions, cried: ‘Break ranks and advance, regain
the victory their flight has robbed you of; give battle
with menace, fearful though they are, let them not die
a coward’s death, but meet your swords as they retreat.’
As ordered, they overtook their enemies as they sought
to win the mountain pass. There, both sides made camp,
near each other, behind low ramparts. As gaze met gaze,
uncloaked by distance, seeing each other’s faces clearly,
the horrors of civil war were brought home. For a time,
discipline dictated silence, and they greeted friends there
with a nod of the head or a lifted sword; but as soon as
the stronger motivation of close affection weakened their
sense of duty, the men climbed their respective palisades,
and stretched out their arms in embrace. One calls a friend
by name, another greets his kinsman; shared memories
of boyhood games prompt recognition of a face, and he
who found no acquaintance opposite was no true Roman.
Their weapons were wet with tears; sighs accompanied
their embraces; and even when unstained by previous
bloodshed, they shuddered at the thought of evil actions
which if they had occurred might have involved them.
‘Fools’, conscience cried, ‘why beat your chests, groan,
and shed useless tears? Confess, you obey monstrous
orders, of your own free will! Do you so fear a leader
whom you alone make fearsome? When he sounds
the battle trumpet, close your ears to its cruel note;
refuse to advance beneath his standards, behold
the fury of civil war will end in an instant, Caesar,
a private citizen, will again befriend his son-in-law.
Harmony, embrace us now in your eternal bond,
be near us, you saviour of the world and all things,
you bearer of sacred universal love! At this moment,
our time can influence the future mightily, the cloak
of evil is removed, the guilty nation has no excuse
for these enemies recognise themselves as kinsmen.
Cursed Fortune, whose malignant power employs
this brief respite to render great evil even greater!
There was peace, and enemies mingled together,
wandering through either camp; they ate together
in harmony, seated on the hard ground, and shared
the flowing wine; fire burned on beds of turf, where
lying side by side unsleeping they told tales of war
all night, where they first fought, and how fiercely
they had flung the javelin. But in boasting of their
bravery, or in challenging the truth of others’ tales,
their friendship was strengthened, as fate designed,
such that the coming evil seemed worse by contrast.
For Petreius, learning of the fraternisation, seeing
his camp infiltrated, infamously armed his slaves.
Book IV:208-253 Petreius recalls his men to duty
Surrounded by this force he drove the unarmed enemy
soldiers from the camp, separating friends with swords,
and shattering the peace with a fierce letting of blood,
his ferocious anger prompting a speech to arouse war:
‘Soldiers, neglectful of your country, oblivious to your
standards, if you, in the Senate’s cause, will not return
as liberators, you should at least fight and be conquered.
With swords in your hands, the outcome still uncertain,
and blood in your veins to shed, will you serve a leader
and carry standards you once opposed? Must Caesar
be implored not to treat you as he does his other foes?
Have you begged quarter for us generals too? Our lives
will never be the prize, the payment for foul treason!
It is not our lives we fight for in this civil war. Shall we
be dragged to captivity in the name of a false peace?
Men do not burrow deep to mine our iron ore, cities
are not fortified with walls, spirited chargers are not
bred for battle, nor are fleets launched and turreted
vessels sent out on the seas, so that we can barter
freedom for peace. My enemies hold true to oaths
they swore, binding them to commit evil crimes;
yet your allegiance is less firm, no doubt because,
soldiers in a just cause, you might hope for pardon!
Alas that honour should meet so vile an end! Our
leader, Pompey, ignorant of his fate as yet, raises
armies through the world, rouses kings who rule
at the earth’s end, yet this peace of ours perhaps
may already have thrown away his life.’ His words
stunned them and re-awakened their sinful ardour.
Likewise wild beasts that have lost their woodland
habits, growing tame in close captivity, relinquish
their cruel aspect and learn to submit to man; yet
if their thirst is quenched with blood their furious
rage returns, the taste reminding them of their past
life, their throats swelling, and their anger boiling,
their frightened keeper scarcely winning free. So
those soldiers set their hands to every guilty action,
and the horrors that Fortune, to the gods’ discredit,
might have enacted in the blind obscurity of battle,
loyalty perpetrated here. Among the couches, amid
the tables, they pierced the breasts they had but now
embraced, and though at first they groaned to bare
their blades, yet once the sword, that counsellor
of evil, was in their hand, they felt hatred for their
friends, striking blows that confirmed their wavering
purpose. The camp now seethed in uproar, and as if
a crime hidden was valueless, they revealed every
horror to the eyes of their officers, glorying in guilt.
Book IV:254-318 Caesar lays siege to the enemy camp
Though many of his troops were lost, Caesar recognised
the hand of heaven; he was never more fortunate, neither
in the Emathian Plain at Pharsalia, nor the sea-battle off
Phocian Marseilles, nor was Pompey’s death on Egypt’s
shores a greater triumph, for by this one act of civil war
he was seen thereafter as the leader of the nobler cause.
The enemy generals dared not allow their men, polluted
by foul bloodshed, to camp nearby, but directed their
retreat towards the walls of lofty Ilerda. Caesar’s cavalry
met them and drove them from the plain, trapping them
amongst parched hills. Caesar then sought to surround
them swiftly with a deep trench, so as to prevent the men
from reaching the river banks, or their outworks from
embracing flowing founts. When the enemy saw death
before them, their fear was changed to impetuous ardour.
Slaughtering their horses, useless to men besieged, they
were forced to abandon hopes of flight, and rushed at
the foe determined to win or die. Caesar seeing them
committed to the advance, rushing towards their deaths
at headlong speed, called to his men: ‘Stand firm a while,
restrain from meeting with the sword all those who run
towards it; let no man here lose his life; he who provokes
his foe into giving up his life, gains victory at little cost.
See these men come, despising life, holding theirs cheap,
to burden me now with their deaths; oblivious to their
wounds, they rush upon the sword, happy to shed their
blood. Their wild ardour will abate, their mad eagerness
cease, their will to die vanish.’ By thus refusing battle,
he allowed their waning threats to ebb away with the sun,
night replacing its light with her own. Deprived of that
opportunity to slay and be slain, their fire abated, their
spirits cooled. So a wounded fighter has greater courage
when wounds and pain are recent, while warm blood
lends vigour to the body, before the skin has shrunk
back across the bones; but if his opponent, knowing
his blow sunk home, holds his ground but refrains
from striking, a numbing chill gripping mind and flesh,
as congealing blood tightens the open wound, robs
the loser of his strength. Afterwards, short of water,
the enemy began digging in search of hidden springs,
and subterranean channels, using their swords as well
as iron picks and rakes to pierce the ground, sinking
wells through the earth to the depths of the moist plain.
The pallid miner after Asturian gold does not delve
as deep, leaving the light so far behind. But no sound
of hidden streams met their ears, no fresh springs
gushed from the echoing rock, no damp caves oozed
scant moisture, no gravel stirred and lifted to a thin
flowing thread. The men were hauled to the surface,
exhausted by their intense effort to mine the flint;
rendered by their search for water even less equipped
to abide the heat and drought. Nor could they eat,
and refresh their weak and weary bodies, all meat
unpalatable while hungry they cried out from thirst.
Wherever the soft soil oozed moisture they squeezed
damp clods to their mouths. Wherever stagnant pools
of black mud existed, caked with filth, men eagerly
lapped at the foul water, swallowing what they would
have balked at if assured of staying alive; like wild
beasts they sucked at the swollen udders of cows,
draining blood from the empty teats if the milk failed,
or they crushed grass and leaves to extract their sap,
or the soft pith of trees, or drank dew from twigs, or
brushed the damp from the green shoots of bushes.
Book IV:319-362 Lucius Afranius surrenders
Caesar had been free to lace with blood and bodies
of wild beasts and with deadly aconite that grows
in the rocks of Crete the Spanish streams, so that
Pompey’s soldiers drank unaware of the stratagem.
O they seem fortunate whom a cruel foe, retreating,
killed in the fields by poisoning the watercourses,
for the survivors feel their innards scorched by fire,
their mouths dry and hard, their scaled tongues coarse,
their pulse drops and their lungs starved of moisture
restrict the flow of breath, and what there is pains
their cracked palates, yet still they pant eager for
the air that hurts them. They long for rain, that rain
which lately flooded the land, gazing at idle clouds.
And to increase their torment through thirst, render
them more wretched, their camp was not pitched
above parched Meroe, on the tropic of Cancer,
where the naked Garamentes live, but, besieged
between the brimming Segre and the swift Ibro,
the thirsting army saw both rivers near at hand.
At last Pompey’s generals, defeated, yielded;
and Afranius, despairing of resistance, advised
that terms be sought, led his weakened squadrons
to the enemy camp, and stood a supplicant before
Caesar. Yet he maintained his dignity, unbroken
by disaster, with the bearing of a general though
defeated, lapsed from his former fortune through
recent evil chance, and his conscience at ease he
asked pardon: ‘If I had lost to an unworthy enemy
through fate, my own strong arm would have
guaranteed my suicide; my sole reason for begging
for my life, is that you, Caesar are worthy to grant it.
We were not stirred by any partisanship; nor did we
take up arms to oppose your plans. It was civil war
that found us leaders, and we were loyal to our
former duty, while that was possible. We shall not
hinder destiny: we surrender the nations of the west
to you, and open the gateway to the east, and leave
you secure possession of the lands you leave behind.
Your victory has not been gained in blood poured
out on the field, nor by the sword wielded till arms
were weary; forgive your foes this offence alone,
that still you triumph over us. We ask little: only
rest for the exhausted, and freedom from military
service for those you let live. Consider our ranks
as prostrate on the field; your captives should not
share your triumph, warriors condemned by fate
should not join their conquerors: my army has
fulfilled its destiny, and we beg that you will not
compel the conquered to seek victory under you.’
Book IV:363-401 Pompey’s army in Spain disbands
So he spoke, and Caesar with a calm look readily agreed,
excusing them from army service and from punishment.
As soon as an appropriate peace treaty had been settled,
the men rushed down unchecked to the rivers, lay down
along the banks and muddied the streams freely. They
gulped the water steadily, in draughts that prevented
air passing to the lungs, constricting and blocking
many a throat, nor did their parching thirst soon abate,
but their craving sought still more even when the gut
was filled. Soon though, their limbs gaining strength,
the soldiers recovered. O luxury, prodigal of resources,
only satisfied by what is dear; and you, with gourmet
appetites, eager for rare foods sought by land and sea,
you who pride yourselves in feasting on delicacies,
learn how little is needed to sustain life, how little
nature herself demands. It takes no famous vintage,
sealed in the year of some long-forgotten consul,
to restore these to health; revived by pure water,
and not imbibed from gold or agate vessels; pure
flowing water and Ceres’ bread suffice mankind.
Abandoning their arms to the victor, secure now
though stripped of their defensive armour, free
from care and inoffensive, they are set at liberty
among their native townships, regretting, now
that they enjoy the gift of peace, that they ever
hurled the spear with vigorous arm, suffered
thirst, or begged the gods, wrongly, for victory.
Alas for those who still wage war! Such battles
with uncertain outcome lie ahead for the victors!
Even if Fortune, arbitrary in her favours, fails
to desert them, they must yet go on fighting,
shedding their blood everywhere, following
Caesar’s destiny. Happy these others who,
while all the world is tumbling about them,
already know the place where they may rest.
No battles will call them from their sanctuary;
no sounds of trumpets will shatter their sleep.
Their wives and babes, their simple dwellings,
their native soil not some colony, receive them.
Fortune relieves them of another burden too;
their minds are free of all allegiance: if Pompey
was their leader, Caesar grants them their lives.
They alone are the fortunate spectators of this
civil war, free of the wish for either’s success.
Book IV:402-447 Conflict in Dalmatia
The fortunes of war were not all in Caesar’s favour
daring to work against him in one instance. Where
the Adriatic waves beat against the straggling city
of Salona (Solin), where the mild Jadro runs to meet
the soft westerlies, there Gaius Antonius relying on
the warlike islanders of Curicta, who live encircled
by the Adriatic waters, was besieged in his camp
on the island’s shore, safe against attack if he could
keep famine, taker of impregnable fortresses, at bay.
The earth yielded nothing to feed the horses, golden
Ceres gave no crops, and the soldiers had stripped
the fields of grass, cropping the blades close with
their teeth, tearing dried tufts from their ramparts.
When they saw Basilus with an allied force, nearby
on the mainland, they devised a novel way to cross
the strait and join him. Unable to employ their usual
vessels, the long ships with their high sterns, they
lashed stout timbers together to carry their weight,
rafts made out of planks resting on double rows
of empty barrels linked by chains. The oarsmen
were protected against missiles against their sides
by defensive shields of wood, striking the waves
behind these, so that the rafts, carrying no sail
and without signs of flailing oars, seemed to move
mysteriously. Waiting till the tide was in full ebb
and the sands left bare by the receding flow, three
rafts were launched from the exposed shore into
the retreating waters, the leader driving onwards
through the waves, with her consorts behind her.
Each carried wooden battlements and high turrets,
nodding and menacing. Octavius, who held access
to the Adriatic, stooped short of attacking the rafts,
curbing his swift vessels until the enemy ventured
others, tempted by first success. Once they set out
on their rash attempt, he left the sea roads wide open
to encourage a second voyage. So the hunter works,
holding back the net of coloured feathers that scares
the deer with its scent, till he can pen them all, or
quieting the noise of the swift Molossian hounds,
leashing the dogs of Crete and Sparta, till he has set
his stakes and nets, leaving one hound alone to range
the ground, it puzzling out the scent and only barking
when the prey is found, content then to point toward
the creature’s lair while tugging at the leash. Soon
more rafts were manned, and the enemy embarked
eagerly, abandoning the island, at the moment when
twilight lingering holds off night’s deeper darkness.
Book IV:448-528 An incident at sea
Now the Cilicians in Pompey’s pay, relying on their
ancient cunning, prepared to set a trap for the rafts.
They hung cables at mid-depth below the surface,
fastened to the cliffs on the Illyrian side, and allowed
them to drift with the waves. Neither of the first two
rafts were caught, but the third was held and drawn
towards the cliffs as the cable tightened. The rocks
there overhang the waves, in firm masses that seem
ever about to fall, their trees overshadowing the sea.
And there ships wrecked by the northerlies, with their
crews of drowned sailors, were often carried by the tide,
to be swallowed by hidden caves: and yet whenever
the tide ebbed from those caves, the waters beneath
would cast out their prey, the boiling waves outdoing
the fury of Sicilian Charybdis. Here the raft floated,
weighed down with Caesar’s men from Opitergium,
surrounded by enemy ships loosed from their moorings,
while others of their foes covered the cliffs and shore.
Vulteius the raft’s commander tried in vain to cut free
from the cables visible below the water, until at last
he called on his men to fight without hope of escape,
or even of knowing on which side to await attack.
Yet even so courage did all that courage can do
when at a disadvantage, and a fight began between
the thousands who swarmed around the stalled raft
and those on board, numbering less than six hundred.
As twilight ebbed with the shadows of night, the fight
ended, and the ensuing darkness brought a brief truce.
Vulteius steadied his men, fearful of death’s approach,
with this noble speech: ‘Soldiers, use this brief space
of time, this little interval of darkness, to choose your
path, in extremity. No instant is too short for a man
to kill himself; suicide is no less glorious when death
at another’s hand approaches. Every man’s span of life
being uncertain, it is as well for the mind to forfeit here
the mere moment of time that remains to you as long
years of life you had hoped for, seeking death by your
own actions: for no man wishes for death involuntarily.
Flight is not an option, our countrymen surround us
eager to take our lives: choose death and lose all fear:
let each man make whatever cannot be avoided his aim.
Yet we are not forced to die in the blind mist of battle,
where army’s own missiles cloak chaos with darkness.
When piles of corpses heap the field, each death is lost
in the common disaster, courage obscured and wasted.
But the gods have set us here, visible to friend and foe
alike, the sea our witness, the island, its highest cliffs;
and the two sides on opposing headlands will look on.
Fate intends, by our deaths, a memorable and glorious
example for posterity. Our company might have shown
our loyalty and devotion in battle, and beyond all others.
Yet though we know it is all too little for Caesar’s men
to fall on their swords in his cause, hemmed in as we are
we can grant him no greater pledge of our great devotion.
Fate has greatly limited our glory, in begrudging to hold
us captive with our old men and our sons, but let the foe
learn that we are unconquerable, let them fear the fierce
courage that embraces death; and rejoice that no more
of our rafts are held. They will tempt us now with offers
of a truce, try dishonourably to bribe us with our lives.
Let them promise pardons, let them foster such hopes,
so that our peerless deaths might gain greater glory,
and they not think us desperate when hot steel pierces.
It takes a great deed of courage for Caesar, who loses
thousands, to call a mere handful of lives a vast loss.
If Fate now allowed our retreat and loosed me from
her grasp, I should refuse to turn my back on this.
Life is behind me, comrades, and I am driven by
thoughts of death’s approach as by deep passion.
Only those who touch its threshold know death
is a blessing; the gods hide it from those destined
to survive, that they might go on living.’ His words
filled the soldiers’ swelling hearts with noble ardour.
Before his speech they had gazed weeping at the stars
trembling as the pole of the Wain circled above them,
but now their thoughts firm, filled with his exhortation,
they longed for dawn. Nor did the stars overhead take
long to vanish, for the sun was leaving Gemini, his track
near its highest inclination, entering the sign of Cancer;
while Sagittarius the Archer ruled brief brooding night.
Book IV:529-581 Vulteius and his men commit suicide
Dawn revealed Pompey’s Histrians stationed on the cliffs,
and his fierce Liburnians with the Greek fleet on the sea.
They delayed attack, trying to obtain their foe’s surrender,
thinking a death postponed might make life seem sweeter
to those on the trapped raft. But the loyal troops resisted:
disdain for survival granting courage, committed to suicide,
they were indifferent to the outcome of the fight: no noise
of battle could dissuade them from their resolution: their
small band, prepared for the worst, withstood the countless
enemies who attacked them together from land and sea,
so great is a resolve inspired by the prospect of death.
When they thought enough blood had been shed in battle,
they turned their force against themselves. First Vulteius
their captain, bared his throat and summoned death: ‘Where
is the soldier worthy to take my blood, who shall truly prove
his wish for death by killing me?’ Before he could speak
again, his body was pierced by a host of swords, but while
thanking all, in his gratitude he slew in dying him to whom
he owed the first wound. The others then met together, there
the horror of civil war was enacted in full by a single party.
So Theban warriors rose from the seed that Cadmus sowed,
and were likewise slain by their kin, a dismal presage of
the royal Theban brothers. So, by the Phasis, the offspring
of Earth, who sprang from the teeth of the unsleeping dragon,
drenched the long furrows in each other’s blood, magic spells
filling them with fury, Medea herself appalled by that crime,
the first wrought by her untried herbs. So these soldiers died,
on oath to destroy each other; their own death being the least
their courage asked: as they dealt the fatal wound so they
incurred it, at the same moment, and no right arm failed them
though it struck in death. Nor were their wounds all owing
to a sword-blow; they drove their own chests against the steel,
throats meeting the approach of the blade. Though bloody fate
set brother against brother, son against father, their arms never
hesitated, driving home the swords with all their power. Only
the failure to strike a second blow gave proof of the slayer’s
affection. Half-dead, men dragged themselves along the planks
and drenched the sea with blood. They gloried in disdain for
the light of life, eyeing the victors with scornful gaze, as death
approached. When the raft was piled high with their corpses,
the victors set fire to that funeral pyre, the generals amazed
at their readiness to die for their leader they so clearly prized.
Fame, that travels the wide earth, never voiced more loudly
the glory of any death at sea. Yet even after the example set
by such heroes, nations of cowards still do not comprehend
how simple it is to escape captivity by suicide; so the tyrant’s
power is feared, freedom is constrained by savage weapons,
while all remain ignorant that the sword is there to deliver
every man from slavery. O, that death were only granted
to the brave, the coward denied a swift release from life!
Book IV:582-660 The myth of Hercules and Antaeus
The flames of war burned no less fiercely in Libya, then,
for bold Curio’s fleet had set sail from the coast of Sicily,
and a gentle northerly filled the sails, till he approached
a noted anchorage on the Libyan coast between Cape Bon
and the ruins of Carthage. He pitched his first camp some
distance from the breaking waves, where the Bagrada river
(the Medjerda) carves its slow channel through thirsty sands.
From there he marched to the rocky prominence, hollowed
out on every side, that tradition rightly calls Antaeus’ realm.
When Curio sought to learn the source of the ancient name,
a rough countryman told him the tale generations had told:
even after the Giants were born of her, Earth was capable
of childbearing, producing a dread offspring in a cave
in Libya, with more cause to boast of him than of Typhon,
Tityos or fierce Briareus, and to the gods above it seemed
a mercy she had not born him before that revolt at Phlegra.
She added to her child’s vast strength, granting him the gift
that when his limbs touched his mother earth, all weariness
would vanish and their strength would be renewed. The cave
there was his home; and men said he hid beneath the cliffs
above, and ate the flesh of the lions he hunted. When he slept,
his bed was not branches and the pelts of wild beasts, rather
he lay there on the bare ground and so refreshed his strength.
He killed the farmers in the Libyan fields, and slew strangers
the sea brought ashore; and had long found his mother’s aid
unnecessary, not needing the aid that touching the earth gave,
since he proved so strong no one could lift him from his feet.
The hero Hercules was clearing the land and sea of monsters
when reports of this bloody ogre drew him to Libya’s shores.
Challenging Antaeus, Hercules threw the Nemean lion’s skin
to the ground, while Antaeus matched it with a Libyan lion’s.
The hero, in the manner of Olympian wrestlers drenched his
limbs with oil; Antaeus, not content with feet alone touching
his mother earth, poured warm sand over his limbs to aid him.
They locked hands and twined their arms in a close embrace;
in vain, exerting powerful force, each tried to bow the other’s
neck, but both remained unbent with steady gaze, marvelling
to find their equal. Hercules slowly wore down his opponent,
not wishing to exert his full strength so early in the contest;
and soon Antaeus was left gasping, cold sweat pouring from
his tiring body. The neck bowed, the frame was dragged down,
the legs staggered, as Hercules struck his flanks with his fists.
Then the stronger grasped his foe’s bending back, gripped
the loins and squeezed the waist tight, his own legs thrusting
the other’s apart, till he laid him full length on the ground.
Yet as the dry soil swiftly drank his sweat, fresh blood filled
Antaeus’ veins, his muscles swelled, his body strengthened,
and he loosened Hercules’ grip by exerting renewed powers.
The latter was astonished by such resilience: he himself had
felt, all unknowing, less fear of the Hydra by Inachus’ flow,
when her snake-heads renewed after being severed. These
opponents were well-matched, though Antaeus fought with
the power of mother earth, Hercules his own strength alone.
Never was his cruel stepmother, Hera, more hopeful of his
defeat, seeing his body weary with the toil, shoulders bowed,
those shoulders that once supported the sky without effort.
Hercules grappled once more with his foe till he wearied;
but Antaeus willingly fell to earth without waiting for his
opponent’s clasp, and rose again filled with added strength.
All the vital powers of the earth refreshed his tired limbs;
Earth herself labouring to aid in her son’s wrestling match.
Seeing at last how his enemy was helped by contact with
his mother earth, Hercules cried: ‘I must keep you upright,
I’ll not allow you to lie down, or entrust you to the soil;
here you will stay locked in my embrace; and if you fall,
Antaeus, you’ll fall on me!’ So saying, Hercules lifted
the giant high as he tried to touch the ground, so Earth
could not strengthen her dying son’s frame with her own.
Hercules, between the two, clasped the constricted chest
already growing cold, long denying his foe the ground.
Hence that region took its name, preserved by tradition
which values the proud past. But Scipio brought greater
fame to those heights, when he drove Hannibal there
from the cities of Latium; camping there on reaching
the Libyan shore. There are the ruins of his ancient
ramparts; the fields that victorious Roman occupied.
Book IV:661-714 Pompey’s African army under Varus
Those parts of Africa which had yielded to Roman arms
were commanded at that time by Varus; and though he
relied on troops from Latium, he summoned the forces
of King Juba from every place, from the Libyan tribes,
and those from the furthest parts who followed the king.
There was no more extensive realm on earth; its width
bounded to the west by Atlas near Gades, on the east
by Ammon, bordering Syrtes; and lengthwise the fiery
regions of his huge kingdom separated the torrid zones
from the northern sea. The men reflected that vast space;
a host of tribes following the king; Autololes, wandering
Numidians, and alert Gaetulians, who ride bare-backed;
then Moors dark as Indians, ragged Nasamonians, swift
Marmaridae, and sun-burned Garamantes; the Mazaces
hurling quivering javelins to match a Parthian’s arrows,
and Massylians who also ride bare-backed and employ
a light whip to guide their horses, unbroken to the bit;
African hunters too, who stray through deserted villages,
and placing little faith in the spear, strangle fierce lions
with lengths of their robes. Juba was not roused to war
simply by his allegiance, but yielded to personal anger
too, since Curio, in the year when he was tribune, when
he offended heaven and earth, had tried to use the law
to rob Juba of his ancestral throne, wishing to seize Africa
from its ruler and at the same time set up a king in Rome.
Juba, remembering this grievance, considered civil war
was his opportunity for revenge on rescuing his crown,
and Curio was now alarmed by the rumour of the king’s
involvement, knowing his troops had not at first rallied
to Caesar’s side. No veterans, so, untested on the Rhine,
they had surrendered the citadel of Corfinium; disloyal
to Pompey’s cause then, they were distrusted by Curio
now, as men who thought it fine to fight for either side.
So when Curio saw the enervation produced by fear,
the dereliction that left the ramparts unwatched at night,
troubled in mind, he spoke these thoughts to himself:
‘Daring conceals the greatest fear; I will take the field
first. Let my soldiers, while they are still mine, descend
to the plain; inactivity always leads to wavering. Let me
by action rob them of the power to foment a plan; once
the sword is grasped, fatal passions rise, and the helm
hiding all blushes who thinks to compare their leaders
and weigh their causes? Each favours the side where
he stands. So those presented at the gladiatorial shows
in the arena, are not fed by some deep-seated anger,
they merely hate whoever is set against them.’ Then
Curio deployed his troops on the open plain, while
the gods of war seemed to welcome him, although
intending only to betray him to future ruin; for now
he drove Varus from the field, decimating his army
who fled shamefully, halting only on reaching camp.
Book IV:715-787 Juba’s army defeats Curio
Now when Juba heard of Varus’ poor showing in battle,
he rejoiced that the glory of the campaign was reserved
for him. He marched swiftly and secretly, avoiding his
movement being known by enforcing silence, his only
fear lest his incautious enemy might be fearful of him.
Sabbura, second to the king in command of the army,
was dispatched with a small force to challenge the foe
and tempt them to fight. He was to pretend to lead out
the whole army, and simulate the main attack, while
the king held back a larger force, in a deep ravine.
So the more cunning Egyptian mongoose uses his tail
to deceive the snake, rousing the reptile to anger with
its flickering shadow, the snake striking vainly at the air,
till the creature, holding his head aslant, grips the throat,
and safely bites there, far enough from the deadly venom;
until a stream of poison flows from the thwarted fangs.
Fortune favoured Juba’s deceit, and bold Curio let his
cavalry roam the plain at night, ranging far and wide
through unfamiliar country, without being able to gauge
the enemy’s hidden strength. At the first breath of dawn
he sent out his infantry, though warned again and again
to beware of Libyan cunning, and how Punic warfare
was ever filled with guile. The doom of approaching
death had given the general over to destruction; now
civil war was claiming one who’d aided its inception.
He had led his men by a perilous path over the steep
rocks and cliffs, till the enemy could be seen far off,
from the heights. The foe with native cunning, held
off a while, till Curio should leave the hills and trust
his army to defile over the open plain. He, unaware
of their hidden plans, and thinking them in retreat,
marched his men down to the fields, as if victorious.
Soon the stratagem was revealed, as the Numidian
light cavalry gained the slopes and then surrounded
the Romans on every side, stunning the soldiers and
their leader alike: the coward did not seek to flee nor
the brave man to fight. For there the horses, un-roused
by the trumpet’s blare, did not champ the bit or scatter
stones with their stamping hooves, mane floating, ears
erect, or chafe at the restraint and shift their ground
with a clatter, till the bowed head sinks, the limbs reek
with sweat, the tongue protrudes, the mouth coarse
and dry, the lungs panting roughly breath labouring
as the spent flanks work, and froth cakes and dries
on the blood-stained bit. They refused to move a step,
though urged on by whips and blows, and the force
of continual spurring to drive them on; though no man
could profit there by conquering his mount’s resistance,
for no attack was possible, any charge would only carry
the rider nearer the foe, to offer a clear mark for a spear.
But as soon as the African skirmishers launched their
steeds at them, the plain shook with that trampling,
the soil was ploughed, and a pillar of dust rose, huge
as that whirled by a Thracian storm, veiling the sky
with its cloud and bringing darkness. Now the sad
doom of war bore down on the Roman infantrymen.
the issue never in doubt, this not even war’s lottery,
for every moment of conflict was filled with death:
with no possibility of attack or closing with the foe.
So the soldiers, surrounded on every side, fell to
sideways thrusts from close quarters, as well as to
spears flung from a distance, doomed by the bloody
wounds inflicted by a hail of missiles and the sheer
weight of steel. The vast army was driven into a tiny
space, and any man crawling in fear among that host
could barely move without hurt from his comrades’
swords, the crush growing greater as the front ranks
retreated, diminishing the circle. Without space even
to deploy their weapons, the crowd of soldiers were
squeezed ever tighter, armour dented by the pressure.
The conquering Moors could scarcely enjoy a clear
view of the victory fate granted them, unable to see
collapsing limbs, bodies striking the ground, streams
of blood, as the dead were held upright by the throng.
Book IV:788-824 The spectre of corruption
Destiny should have recalled to life the hated ghost
of dread Carthage to joy in such sacrificial slaughter;
so that blood-drenched Hannibal and the Punic dead
might welcome so terrible an expiation. What outrage,
you gods, that Pompey’s cause and the Senate’s wish
should be furthered by Roman dead on Libya’s soil.
Let Africa at least conquer us for her own foul ends!
Curio, seeing the ranks destroyed, the dust laid by
the blood revealing that dreadful slaughter, did not
stoop to thoughts of flight or surviving such defeat
but eager to face death, brave with the courage of
despair, himself died among the corpses of his men.
What good was it now to him to have raised that stir
on the Rostrum, in the tribunes’ stronghold the Forum,
where he raised the standard of the people, and from
which he roused the nations to arms? What good now
that he usurped the Senate’s rights and called on
Pompey and Caesar, Pompey’s father-in-law, to meet
in war? There he lay, as the two generals approached
the fatal field of Pharsalia, that spectacle of civil war
denied him. Such is the penalty of blood and steel,
you great ones exact on your wretched country; so
death atones for conflict. How fortunate were Rome,
how happy her citizens, if the gods were as careful
to preserve her freedom as they are to avenge its loss.
Behold, the unburied corpse of Curio, noble carrion,
feeds the Libyan vultures. And yet it would be wrong
to deny those deeds of his preserved from time’s
decay by their own worth: we should grant praise
to what in his life deserved it, for Rome never bore
a man of such great promise, nor one to whom while
he trod the true path, the constitution itself owed more.
But the corruption of our age proved fatal to the State,
ambition, luxury, the vast power of wealth, sweeping
away in their adverse currents, the frail foundations
on which Curio’s principles rested. When he yielded
to Caesar’s gold, to the proceeds of Gaul, his change
of stance swayed the scales of history. Though mighty
Sulla, bold Marius, bloodstained Cinna, all Caesar’s
line won the power to use the blade to cut our throats,
to which of them was granted privilege so great as to
enact it? They only bought their country; Curio sold it!
End of Book IV
So the two leaders in turn suffered the vicissitudes of war,
and their mixed fortunes saw them still equal in strength
as the encounter of Pharsalia drew closer. Winter had now
sprinkled Mount Haemus with snow, and the Pleiades,
daughters of Atlas, were already setting in wintry skies.
The New Year was approaching, that day on the calendar
when the rites of Janus, ruler of the months, commence.
Before the last days of their office ended, the two consuls,
Marcellus and Lentulus, summoned those senators, now
dispersed on military duties, to Epirus, where a lowly room
received the great men of Rome, and under an alien roof
the Senate convened to conduct the business of the State,
for who could call the place, with all those rods and axes
there by law, a mere military camp? The venerable body
showed the world that they were not the party of Pompey,
but that they were in many respects in Pompey’s favour.
As soon as the gloomy gathering fell silent, Lentulus
rose from his high seat and spoke in a noble manner:
‘Senators, if you have firm hearts worthy of your Latin
stock and ancient lineage, take no note of this place
where we meet, or the distance separating us from
occupied Rome, but rather recognising the composition
of this body, and its power to adopt any measure, decree,
as is clear to all the nations, that we are indeed the Senate.
For wherever fate leads us, whether beneath the northern
Bear and the icy Wain, or the equator oppressed by heat
where night and day are ever equal, we are the State,
and Empire attends us. When the Tarpeian sanctuary
was burnt by the Gauls, Camillus had his seat at Veii,
and Veii was Rome. This house never forfeits its rights
simply by a change of location. Caesar may have power
over the empty buildings, the deserted rooms, the silent
law courts, and the law in dismal recess; but there are
no senators in his Senate House except those expelled
before Rome was deserted: every member of this great
body is present except those who are now exiles, there.
We were driven asunder at first, by the onset of war,
after long peace free from civil conflict, but now all
the scattered members return to the body. See how
the gods repair the loss of Italy with forces drawn
from the whole world! Enemies of ours lie drowned
In Illyrian depths, while Curio, that man of power in
Caesar’s senate, is dead in the barren sands of Libya.
Raise your standards, generals, speed fate’s course,
show the gods your confidence, and take courage
from the success the rightness of your cause granted
when you fled Caesar. The period of office conferred
on us, your consuls, expires with the year’s ending,
but your authority, senators, is free of limits, so take
counsel for us all and vote for Pompey as our leader!’
The sound of that name was applauded by the throng,
and they laid on Pompey’s shoulders the burden of
their own and their country’s fate. Then they granted
rewards of merit to kings and peoples: gifts of honour
were conferred on the tough soldiers of chilly Taygetus,
and on Rhodes, the queen of the seas, Apollo’s island;
Athens of ancient fame was commended, and Phocaea
given its freedom, as Marseilles was, its daughter city;
King Sadalas was praised and loyal Cotys, Deiotarus
and Rhascypolis the lord of frozen wastes, while Libya
by order of the Senators was bound to obey King Juba.
O cruel fate, next Ptolemy, worthy indeed to rule over
a faithless people, Ptolemy, Fortune’s shame, the gods
reproach, was permitted the burden of Egypt’s crown,
and a boy received the sword to use ruthlessly against
his people: would that his people alone had suffered!
He was granted the throne, Cleopatra lost her realm,
and Caesar the guilt for the murder of his son-in-law.
Then the Senate dispersed and took up arms again.
Yet while nations and their leaders prepared for war,
ignorant of the future and blind to their fate, Appius
Claudius alone, feared to trust an unknown outcome,
and called on the gods to reveal things yet to come,
unbarring the Delphic shrine of Apollo, long closed.
Between the bounds of east and west, the twin peaks
of Parnassus tower to the heavens. The mountain
is sacred to Apollo and Dionysus, in whose honour
the Theban Bacchantes, honouring the two deities
as one, hold their triennial festival there, at Delphi.
When the Flood drowned the Earth, this mountain
alone rose above the waves, and was all that parted
sea from sky. Parnassus’ peaks were differentiated
even so by the waters, one rocky summit on display
the other one submerged. There Apollo, his skills
as yet un-honed, killed the Python with his arrows,
avenging his mother who had been driven out when
pregnant. Themis once ruled that shrine and oracle.
Thus Apollo, hearing the deep chasm in the earth
breathe out divine truth, exhale prophetic words,
enshrined himself in the sacred cavern, brooded
over the sanctuary, and there became prophetic.
What deity is indeed hidden there? What power
from the sky deigns to exist confined in those
dark caves? What god of heaven suffers earth’s
weight, knows every secret of eternity’s course,
aware of the world’s futurity, ready to reveal
its presence to the nations, and endure contact
with humankind? A great and mighty power,
whether the utterance it produces determines
fate, or whether it merely voices destiny.
Perhaps a large portion of the divine itself,
embedded in the world to rule it, supporting
the globe balanced in empty space, emerges
in the Delphic cave and is enshrined there,
linked with the Thunderer in heaven. When
inspiration strikes a virgin priestess, it sounds
forcibly within the human spirit, and frees
her voice, as Sicilian Etna’s summit erupts
from the pressure within; or as Typhoeus
heats the Campanian rock with his stirring,
where he lies forever beneath Ischia’s mass.
That shrine, welcoming all and denied to none,
is alone free from the taint of human passions.
There no evil prayers are uttered in secretive
whispers, for the oracle, sure and immutable,
forbids mortals all further requests. It favours
the righteous, as in the case of Tyre, when
whole cities were abandoned by the people,
showing them a place to dwell; or, as Salamis
commemorates, taught others how to dispel
the clouds of war; or revealed a remedy for
earth’s barrenness, or cleared the air of plague.
No divine gift is more dearly missed now
than that Delphian oracle which fell silent
when kings grew so afraid of the future
they forbade the heavenly utterance. Yet
the Delphic priestesses did not mourn their
loss, and delighted in the shrine’s neglect;
for if the god enters her breast, an untimely
death is a priestess’s reward, her penalty,
for having so received him, since the human
body is destroyed by the dart and pulse of
that frenzy; frail life is eroded by the blow.
The great cave had long been silent, its tripods
had long been untended, when Appius sought
his goal, to probe the future destiny of Rome.
Phemonoe, the priestess, was idly wandering
beside the Castalian spring, in the quiet grove,
when Appius ordered the high priest to unbar
the holy shrine and usher the terrified priestess
into the god’s presence. He laid hands on her,
and forced her towards the doors of the temple.
Fearing to cross that dread threshold, Apollo’s
priestess sought in vain, by deceiving Appius,
to discourage his eagerness to learn the future.
‘What perverse hope of knowledge draws you
here, Roman? Parnassus’ mute chasm remains
silent, hiding its god. The breath of inspiration
fails of outlet here, finding a path in some other
place; or when the barbarians set fire to Delphi
the ashes filled the deep caverns and now block
Apollo’s passage; or Delphi is dumb at heaven’s
command, and it is thought sufficient that those
Sibylline leaves entrusted to your nation reveal
the hidden future; or perhaps Apollo, determined
to exclude the guilty from his shrine finds none
in this age worthy of opening his closed lips.’
The virgin’s guile was obvious, even her fear
proved the presence of the power she denied.
As she hesitated and malingered, the priest
thrust her forcefully into the shrine, the sacred
ribbon circling and confining the tresses above
her brow, the hair that streamed down her back
bound by white ribbon and the laurel of Phocis.
Still she halted beyond the entrance, dreading
the oracle’s recess, the inner cave, pretending
to inspiration, mimicking the prophetic words
from her unmoved breast, no inarticulate cries
of dim utterance revealing a mind inspired by
divine frenzy. She did more harm to the oracle
and Apollo’s repute than to Appius, to whom
she chanted false prophecy, for her utterance
devoid of tremulous cries, lacking the power
to fill the cave’s vast space; the laurel wreath
not lifting from a head of bristling hair; those
stones of the temple unshaken, trees unmoved,
arose from fear of entrusting herself to Apollo,
and Appius finding the tripods mute, cried out
in fury: ‘Impious woman, I and the power you
mimic will punish you as you deserve, if you
refuse to enter these depths, and still insist on
uttering only your own words as to the vast
conflicts of a fearful world.’ Cowering, at last,
the virgin fled to the tripods and, drawing near
the vast abysses, hung there, her breast filling
with the powers of the rocky cave, the divine
inspiration urged on her, a force not exhausted
by the centuries. Finally, Apollo had mastered
the Delphian priestess’s body as fully as ever,
entering within, dispelling her own thoughts,
commanding her human self to yield its frame
to him. Possessed she flung herself wildly about
the cavern, tossing her head, whirling Apollo’s
ribbons and garlands dislodged by her bristling
hair through the shrine’s empty void, scattering
the tripods obstructing her errant course, as she
burned with a fierce flame, enduring your anger
Phoebus. Nor did you use whip and spur alone,
darting flame at her vital organs; she suffered
the curb as well, not permitted to reveal all that
she knew. All time was gathered up as one mass,
all the centuries pressed on her wretched breast,
the chain of events so revealed, that all futures
struggled to the light, fates contending seeking
a voice; nor was the first day of the world, nor
its last, nor the Ocean’s ends, nor the number
of the grains of desert sand lacking. Just as
the Cumaean Sibyl, jealous lest her inspiration
be at the service of too many nations, chose,
in her Euboean cave, to utter Rome’s destiny,
picking with haughty hand among the vast heap
of fates, so now Phemonoe, possessed by Apollo,
seeking the name of Appius hidden among those
of greater men, that Appius who came to question
the god hidden in Castalia’s earth, laboured long.
Then, finding it, the wild frenzy escaped foaming
lips, groaning she uttered high inarticulate cries
with panting breath; then a dismal wailing filled
the deep cave, and when she was finally mastered
once more, the priestess gave voice: ‘Roman, you
will take no part in this great convulsion, you will
escape the endless dangers of war, you will remain
in peace in a hollow cleft on the Euboean shore.’
Then Apollo closed her throat, cutting short her tale.
You tripods, keepers of fate, you arcane mysteries
of the universe, and you Apollo, the power of truth,
from whom the heavens conceal no future day, why
did you fear to reveal the imminent ruin of empire,
the fall of captains, the destruction of kings, the ruin
of so many nations in that carnage that was Italy?
Had the gods not yet resolved on so great an evil,
was the fate of a vast multitude in doubt because
the stars hesitated to condemn Pompey to death?
Or was the purpose of your silence that destiny
might complete the work of a liberating blade,
wild ambition yet be punished, and tyranny meet
the vengeance of a Brutus once more? But now
the doors burst open as the priestess dashed her
breast against them, and driven from the temple
she escaped; although the frenzy lasted, the god
whom she could not evade controlled her still,
her tale not yet told. Her eyeballs rolled wildly,
her gaze roaming the sky, her restless features
showing now fear and now menacing grimaces.
A hectic flush mingled with the leaden pallor
of her cheeks, a pallor unlike fear but inspiring
dread, her pounding heart unstill, voiceless sighs
troubling her breast, like a swollen sea moaning
hoarsely, when the north wind ceases to blow.
As she recovered the light of everyday, after
that divine radiance in which fate had been
revealed, a darkness fell, since Apollo poured
the Stygian waters of Lethe into her inner self,
snatching the secrets of the heavens from her.
Then truth fled her breast, while the visions
of the future were hidden in Apollo’s tripods,
and there she fell, recovering only at length.
While Appius, deceived by the oracle’s words,
urged on by hope, and unaware of approaching
death, was eager, while command of the earth
was still uncertain, to stake a claim in Euboean
Chalcis. Ah, fool! What deity can grant a man
shall evade the effects of war, or escape such
world-wide suffering, apart from Death alone?
Laid in a noted sepulchre there you will occupy
a sequestered spot on Euboea’s shore, where
an arm of the sea winds narrowly twixt Carystos’
quarries, by Rhamnus that worships Nemesis,
she who hates the proud, there where the tide’s
flowing waters seethe in the narrows, where
the straits of Euripus, a flux of waters, bear
Chalcis’ ships to Aulis, unkind to alien fleets.
Meanwhile Caesar, returning in triumph from
conquered Spain, preparing to carry the eagles
to a new sphere of action, found the current of
his success almost turned aside by the gods.
Unbeaten in the field, the general feared to lose
the fruits of his ill deeds within his own camp,
when the troops loyal to him in so many wars
now sated with killing came close to mutiny;
whether the brief pause in the trumpets’ sad
notes, the cooling of blades in their sheaths
tempered the dark spirit of war, or greed for
greater pay tempted men to deny their leader
and his cause, and offer their swords, already
tainted with crime, once more for hire, no
peril taught Caesar more clearly how fragile
and unstable was the height from which he
gazed down on all the world, how unsound
the soil he stood on, that quaked beneath him.
Denied the service of so many, almost left
to his own devices, he who drove so many
nations to war learned that the drawn sword
belongs to no general but the soldier alone.
Here was an end to muttered complaint, to
anger concealed deep in the heart, for that
which often counters a wavering allegiance,
that each man fears his fellows to whom he
is a threat, and each thinks he alone resents
the injustice of tyranny, such motives lost
their hold. The weight of numbers dispelled
their fears, making them bold; so the sins of
the many often go unpunished. Complaints
poured forth: ‘Caesar, let us quit this madness
of civil war. Through land and sea you seek
more enemies to pierce us, ready to spill our
lives unvalued at the hand of any foe. Some
of us slain in Gaul, others in the hard fighting
in Spain; others lie behind in Italy; throughout
the world your victories mean soldiers perish.
What use to have shed our blood in the north,
victorious beside the Rhone and Rhine? Your
reward to us for such campaigns is civil war.
What spoils exist from driving out the Senate,
from taking Rome, our native city, what men
or gods might we rob? Though our hands, our
blades, are tainted as we pursue every form of
crime, our poverty must absolve us. What end
to warfare do you seek? What can satisfy you
if Rome does not suffice? See our grey hairs,
behold our feeble bodies, our weakened grip.
Passing all our years in fighting, we have lost
the joys of life. Let us disband, now we are old,
and die. Is that so terrible a demand: let us not
lay our limbs in death on the bitter ramparts,
or breathe our last breath through helmet bars;
but look for a hand to close our eyes in death,
sink into the arms of a weeping wife, and know
the pyre stands ready for the one corpse alone.
Let sickness end old age, not death by the sword
be the only fate for Caesar’s soldiers. Why lure
us on with promises, as if we were yet ignorant
of the horrors we shall commit? Are we the only
ones in this civil war who fail to see what crime
would earn the greatest reward? All our warfare
has been in vain if Caesar has yet to learn our
hands compass every deed. Neither our oaths,
nor the bonds of law forbid our boldness: though
Caesar was my general on the Rhine, he is my
comrade here; crime makes equal those it stains.
Our courage too is unvalued if the judge of worth
shows no gratitude; all our efforts are called luck.
Let Caesar learn we forge his fate; though he may
hope for the gods’ indulgence, it is his soldiers’
wrath that will bring peace.’ So saying, they ran
about the camp, demanding the general, anger in
their faces. So be it, you gods, when duty, loyalty
are no more, and evil deeds are our only hope,
why then let mutiny bring an end to civil war!
Many a general would have feared such tumult,
but Caesar was accustomed to stake his fortune
on desperate measures, glad to put it to the proof
in extremis, without waiting for the anger to abate
he approached them eager to counter a rising fury.
Unrestrained by him they were ready to sack cities,
Jupiter’s Tarpeian temple itself, and inflict outrage
on the mothers and daughters of senators; he only
demanded they sought his leave for every savagery,
that they yearn for the spoils of war alone, fearing
his wild soldiery should they return to their senses.
(Shame on you, Caesar! You alone delight in a war
your own men condemn! They sicken of bloodshed
before you do, resenting the tyranny of the sword,
while you run beyond all good and evil. Wearied
of it, learn to suffer a life without conflict, allow
yourself to set an end to wickedness. Ruthless man,
why this compulsion, this pressure on men who
no longer wish to fight? Civil war is slipping from
your grasp.) Now he took his stand on a tall mound
of turf, his face calm, his fearlessness inspiring fear
in others, his anger dictating the words he uttered:
‘You soldiers, who railed against me in my absence,
with angry looks and gestures, here is my bare chest
ready to meet your swords. Plant them there, and run,
if you want an end to war. Your irresolution revealed,
you lack the courage for sedition, men bent on flight,
weary of your unbeaten general’s victorious deeds.
Go, leave me to my own destiny in the fight. Swords
will find arms to wield them, and relinquishing yours
Fortune will grant me a brave man for every weapon.
If Pompey, fleeing, is followed by the people of Italy,
and a mighty fleet, will victory not grant me an army
to carry off the spoils of war, the reward for all your
labours, then follow my laurelled chariot unscathed,
while you, old men, drained of blood, a despicable
mob now, the dregs of Rome, gaze on our triumph?
Do you imagine Caesar’s cause will feel a loss by
your desertion? If all the rivers threatened to refuse
the sea their waters, its level would not fall by that
loss, any more than the sea is raised by that inflow.
Do you imagine you have given impetus to me?
The gods will never stoop so low as to care about
the lives or deaths of such as you; events depend
on the actions of great men: humankind lives for
the few. Under Caesar’s flag you were the terrors
of Spain and the North; yet you would have fled
had Pompey led you. Labienus was a great soldier
under Caesar, now a vile deserter he scurries over
land and sea with that general he preferred to me.
I shall think no more of your capacity for loyalty
if failing to fight for me you equally fail to fight
against me: any man who quits my standard yet
fails to join Pompey could never be mine. This
faction is surely favoured by the gods, who will
that I must renew my army before embarking on
great deeds. Ah, how great the burden Fortune
lifts from my overburdened shoulders! I may now
disband these legions who want all, yet for whom
a whole world will not suffice. Now I shall fight
for myself alone. Leave this camp and surrender
my standards to true men, you cowardly civilians!
Those few at whose urging this madness blazed
are captive not to their general but their crime.
Bow traitorous heads, and stretch your necks out
to the axe! And you, raw recruits, who shall be
the army’s backbone now, watch them die, learn
how to kill, and be killed.’ The dull throng shrank
at his fierce voice of menace, and a single general,
whom they could have stripped of command, that
vast army feared, as if, though they refuse, he could
still direct their swords, making the very steel obey.
Caesar himself feared hands and weapons would be
denied him, to execute this wickedness, yet they
accepted more than their cruel general conceived,
delivering him the executioners and their victims.
There is no greater bond between criminal minds
than seeing death imposed and suffered. The fatal
pact concluded, order was restored, and the army
returned to duty, their grievance appeased by death.
The army was ordered to Brindisi in a nine day march,
and ships were summoned there, all that found harbour
in remote Hydrus (Otranto), or ancient Tarentum, or by
Leuca’s quiet shores, or in the Salapinian Pool near
Sipontum below its hills where Gargano’s oak-woods
curve along the Italian shore, where it faces northerlies
from Dalmatia, and the Calabrian southerlies, itself
jutting from Apulia into the waters of the Adriatic.
Caesar himself, safer without his army, hurried off
to a fearful Rome, a city learning to obey him even
when he wore civilian dress. Yielding, naturally,
to the people’s prayer, Caesar adorned the calendar,
adding a dictator to the list of consuls, for that age
invented all the false titles that we have granted our
masters for so long, and Caesar so that he might
legitimise his use of force in every way sought
to add the Roman axes to his swords, the fasces
to his eagles. Adopting the empty titles of office,
he set a fitting mark on those sad times, for what
consul’s name more suited the year of Pharsalia?
The Campus saw a travesty of the annual ritual:
the people were excluded but their votes entered,
the names of the tribes declaimed, then the urn
shaken to no purpose. Conning the sky for omens
was banned; despite the thunder the augur played
deaf; and even though an owl flew from the left,
the signs were deemed favourable. Thereafter
the consuls’ office, once so revered, lost power,
and began its decay, until consuls appointed
month by month mark the years in the record.
Further the deity who presided in Trojan Alba,
though unworthy of the customary rites once
Latium was conquered, now bore new witness
to the night-time fire that ends the Latin festival.
Hastening from Rome more swiftly than lightning
or a mother-tigress, Caesar quickly crossed the fields
now lost to weeds that the Apulians, rendered idle,
had ceased to till with their rakes. On reaching
Brindisi, founded from Crete, he found the harbour
closed by winter storms, the weather at that season
filling the fleet with dread. He was frustrated by
being detained ashore, the chance to bring the war
to an end thwarted in idleness and sloth, while those
who were no favourites of fortune would later find
the seaways open and safe. So he sought to instil
confidence in men who knew nothing of the waves:
‘When winter gales control sky and sea, they blow
more steadily than those which vary with the fickle
rain-filled spring weather. We will not need to hug
the shoreline, but shall simply plough the waves on
a direct course, driven forward by the northerly.
Let it blow with all its power, bend our topmasts
and send us all the way to the coast of Illyria;
lest Pompey’s ships, issuing from Corcyra,
might overtake our slack sails with their oars.
Loose the cables that hold back our conquering
prows, wasting these cloudy skies, and angry seas.’
The sun had sunk beneath the waves, the first stars
risen in the sky, and the moon was casting shadows
of her own, when the whole fleet raised anchor.
Hauling the ropes, unfurling the sails, the sailors
bent the yards and sloped the canvas, setting
a course to larboard, stretching their topsails
to catch the wind that would otherwise be lost.
But scarcely had the light breeze begun to fill
the sails a little than they drooped and slackened
against the mast, and out of sight of land that
same breeze that had launched them fell away
behind the vessels. The sea was motionless,
the water dead calm, stiller than a stagnant pool.
So the Bosporus is still, closing the Black Sea,
when the frozen Danube, gripped by frost, fails
to stir the deep, the waters covered with ice.
Then every ship is gripped as in a vice, horses
clatter over the solid surface denied the ships,
and the wheel-tracks of Bessian nomads score
the Sea of Azov as the surge sounds beneath.
The raging tide is still, and the dormant waters
thicken in the gloomy depths, as though the sea
is deserted by the natural force that governs it,
forgets to obey its ebb and flow, unmoved by
any fluctuation, unstirred by any ripple, nor
glittering with any image of the sun. Becalmed,
Caesar’s fleet was open to innumerable dangers.
On one hand the enemy vessels that might stir
with oars the sluggish waters, on the other hand
the dire approach of famine, as they lay still
beleaguered by the calm. Strange prayers were
invented for strange times, prayers for violent
breakers and angry winds, that the waves might
rouse from their torpid stillness, be sea indeed.
But clouds and threatening waves were lacking;
the stillness of sea and sky held not a threat
of shipwreck. But night fleeing, day brought
the rising sun free from cloud, its heat stirring
the depths little by little, until the fleet neared
the Ceraunian mountains. The ships gathered
speed, the waves soon breaking in their wake,
speeding along with favourable wind and tide
till they dropped anchor on the coast of Palaeste.
Where the rival generals first halted and pitched camp
near together was between the swift Genusus (Shkumbin)
and the gentler Hapsus (Semeni), the latter made navigable
by reason of a lake which drains imperceptibly with a quiet
flow, while the former is filled with the snows melted by
sun and rain. Neither river flows far, the sea is nearby, so
they pass little land in their course. There was the place
Fortune matched two such men of high renown: although
the wretched world was disappointed in its hope that those
two rivals might, with so slight a distance between them,
condemn the present evil, since each might see the other’s
face and hear his voice; but rather Caesar, whom Pompey
had loved for many years as his wife’s father, never but
once saw him more closely, after their bond was broken
after the grandchildren born of that ill-starred marriage
were dead, and that was later on the sands of the Nile.
Though Caesar was eager for battle, he was obliged
by his partisans left behind in Italy to delay the conflict.
Mark Antony who boldly commanded all those forces
was even then early in the civil war planning his Actium.
Caesar begged him again and again to brook no delay:
‘O cause of so much hardship to us all, why do you thwart
the gods and fate? All else is done with my usual despatch,
Fortune now asks you put the finishing touch to a war
that has raced towards success. We are not divided by
Syrtes’ uncertain tides whose shoals mar Libya’s shores.
Am I risking your army in deeps I have not sounded,
or leading you to unknown danger? Coward! Caesar
bids you advance and not retreat. I go before, through
the midst of our enemies, and my prow is grounded on
shores held by others: is it my camp then you fear?
I bewail the loss of hours granted by fate, wasting
my prayers on wind and wave. Do not hold back
men eager to cross the treacherous seas; if I know
them they will wish to join Caesar’s army, risking
shipwreck. I must even use words of resentment:
this division of the world is unequal: Caesar with
the whole senate holds Epirus, while you have all
Italy to yourself.’ Three or four times he summoned
Antony with such pleas, but finding he yet delayed
Caesar, believing he failed the gods not they him,
dared of his own accord to brave the sea that others
had feared to do when ordered. He knew daring
would succeed by the gods’ favour, and hoped
to surmount in a little boat waves fleets must fear.
Drowsy night had eased the weary labour of war,
a brief respite for the wretches over whose bodies
their low rank granted sleep power; now the camp
was silent, and the third hour had roused the second
watch. Moving anxiously through the deep silence,
Caesar prepared to act as even the least scarcely dare,
to forsake all and take Fortune as his sole companion.
He passed beyond the tents, stepped over the bodies
of the sleeping sentries, silently vexed that he could
do so; followed the winding shore and found a boat
moored by a rope to the hollow cliffs at the sea’s edge.
The owner and skipper had a hut nearby for shelter
and security; no timber framing it, the hut was woven
of bare rushes and reeds from the marshes, its open
side protected by an upturned skiff. Here Caesar struck
repeatedly on the door, till the hut shook. Amyclas
rose from his soft bed of seaweed, asking: ‘What
shipwrecked sailor seeks my roof; whom has chance
forced to seek aid from my hut?’ So saying, he drew
a rope-torch from a tall pile of cooling ashes, fanning
the slender spark till it flamed. Untroubled by war,
he knew that poor men’s huts are no spoil in times
of civil strife. How safe and untroubled the poor man’s
life and his humble dwelling! O how blind men are
yet to the gifts of heaven! What temple, what fort
would not shake in turmoil should Caesar knock?
When this door was opened the general spoke:
‘Swell your hopes, man, and expect a reward
beyond your prayers. If you obey my orders, carry
me to Italy, you shall not owe all to your toils,
nor lead an impoverished old age. Do not hesitate
to place your fate in the gods’ hands, who wish
to fill your humble home with sudden wealth.’
So Caesar spoke, though he wore plebeian dress,
being incapable of common speech. Then the man
of poverty, Amyclas, answered. ‘Many things
warn me not to trust to the sea, tonight; the sun
drew no reddened clouds with it into the waves,
and showed no ring of rays: with fractured light,
one half of his orb summoned the south wind,
the other half the north. Also his disc was faint
and dim at sunset, and the feeble light allowed
the eye to gaze there. The moon too, on rising
failed to shine with slender horn, nor was carved
in a clear curve at the centre extending tapering
points in a upright arc. She reddened with signs
of storm, then dim with a sallow face, paled
as her face passed behind a cloud. And I mistrust
the swaying trees, the beat of the waves onshore;
how the errant dolphin thrusts against the swell,
the cormorant seeks dry land, the heron ventures
to fly trusting to water-cleaving wings, the crow
anticipating rain paces the shore with lurching gait,
his head sprinkled by the brine. Yet if great events
demand it, I cannot hesitate to lend a hand, either
I go where you command, or not I but the wind
and waves shall deny you.’ So saying he loosed
the boat, and spread canvas to the winds, at whose
motion not only the meteors seemed shaken that
leave diffuse trails behind them as they fall, but
the fixed stars too in the depths of the heavens.
A tremor of darkness blackened the sea’s ridges;
the angry flood boiled with a long swell, wave
upon wave, and the billowing waters, stirred
before the coming storm, marked the growing gale.
Then the master of the wavering craft cried: ‘See
what the cruel sea is brewing. I am unsure whether
it threatens a westerly or a southerly, the shifting
flow strikes us from both directions. A southerly
grips sky and cloud; but note the sea’s moaning,
a north-westerly tempest will overcome the waves.
In such a gale, neither shipwrecked crew nor vessel
shall ever reach the shore of Italy. Our one chance
is to renounce all hopes of the passage denied us
and retrace our course. Let me seek the shore nearby
in our battered craft, lest the land proves unreachable.’
Confident that all perils would give way before him,
Caesar cried: ‘Scorn the sea’s threats, spread our sail
to the raging wind. Seek Italy at my command though
you refuse that of heaven. Only your ignorance of whom
you carry justifies your fear. Here is one whom the gods
never desert, whom fate treats unjustly if she comes only
in answer to his prayers. Thread the heart of the tempest,
secure in my protection. This turmoil concerns the sea
and sky, not our vessel: that she bears Caesar will defend
her from the waves. The fierce fury of the winds will have
brief duration: this vessel shall thrust aside the waves.
Steady your helm, flee the nearby coastline with your sail:
believe you have won harbour in Italy only when other
shores can no longer offer safety to our vessel. You know
naught of what this great tempest signifies: by this tumult
of sea and sky it seeks to reveal what Fortune grants me.’
Before he could speak more, the raging gale struck the boat
carrying away the fluttering canvas and the torn rigging,
from the frail mast; the hull groaning as the seams gave way.
Now imminent danger loomed on every side. A westerly
first reared its head over the Atlantic, and roused the tide till
the sea enraged lifted its waves to drench the cliffs except that
cold northerly gusts blowing across it beat the flood backward
till it was doubtful which way the gouts of water would fall.
The fury of the Scythian northerly prevailed, lashing the waves
and lowering the sea above the sands below. Unable to drive
the breakers onshore, they met the ebb raised by the westerly,
and even when the gusts diminished the angry waves fought.
I doubt not a fierce easterly threatened, and a southerly, black
with storm, was freed from its prison, Aeolus’ cave, that all
the winds blowing from their accustomed quarters, guarding
each region with violent hurricanes, held the ocean in place.
Diverse seas were snatched by the storm and carried away
by the winds: the Tyrrhene fed the Aegean while the errant
Adriatic roared with the Ionian. Mountains the waves had
often beaten against in vain were buried that day! Earth
conquered yielded towering peaks to the depths! Such
waves were never born on any shore: they rolled from
another region, from the outer seas, the waters circling
the world drove on those teeming breakers. So the ruler
of Olympus, in ages past, his lightning flagging, called
on his brother’s trident, earth was added to the second
kingdom and Ocean, swallowing the human race, denied
all limit, content with no boundary but the sky. So now,
the vast mass of water would have risen to the very stars
had not the ruler of the gods weighted the sea with cloud.
The darkness was not that of night: the sky was hidden,
veiled with infernal pallor, and burdened with vapours,
and from the cloud rain poured into the sea. Even the light
ebbed in fear, no bright lightning flashed, but the stormy
sky glowed dimly. Then the dome of the heavens quaked,
the lofty sky thundered, and the axle of the poles, jarred,
was troubled. Nature feared Chaos come again: it seemed
the harmonious elements had burst their bonds, and Night
returned to confuse the shades below with the gods above;
their one hope that they might not perish in the world’s ruin.
As high as the Leucadian cliffs are seen towering over a calm
sea, such was the height the fearful mariners saw as they topped
the great waves and when those swollen monsters opened
their jaws again the mast barely showed above the billows.
The sails touched cloud, the keel rested on the sea-floor
that the water no longer covered, not sinking but piling up
in heaps to form the waves. The forces precluded exercise
of skill, and the steersmen never knew whether to confront
the rollers or yield to them. Only the conflict of the waters
aided the wretched voyagers, wave preventing wave from
drowning the vessel; when one struck her side, another sea
countered it, righting her, kept erect by all the winds at once.
It is not the shoals of low-lying Sason threaten the mariners,
nor Thessaly’s winding rocky coast, nor the unkind harbours
of the Ambracian shore, but rather the peaks of the Ceraunian
mountains. Caesar at last thought the danger worthy of his fate.
‘How the gods labour to work my ruin, threatening my little
craft with such a mighty storm! If the glory of my end, denied
the battlefield, has now been granted to the deep, I will accept
whatever death the powers that be appoint. Though that day,
hastened on by destiny, cuts short a great career, what I have
done is sufficient. I have conquered the northern nations,
and by fear alone quelled the Roman forces opposed to me;
Rome has seen Pompey take second place to me; by order
of the people I hold the consulship that force of arms denied;
no title Rome awards is missing from my record; and none
but you, Fortune, who alone are privy to my ambitions, will
grieve that, though I go down to the Stygian shades a consul
and dictator loaded with honours, I shall die a mere citizen.
No funeral is owed me, you gods! Leave my broken corpse
amongst the waves, let pyre and grave be absent, so long as
my memory is feared forever, creating dread in every land.’
As he spoke, marvellous to tell, a tenth wave lifted him in
the wind-beaten vessel, and the breaker not hurling him back
again from its tall foaming crest carried him onwards till
it beached him on shore, on a narrow strip of sand clear of
the jagged rocks. He touched Illyria again, in a moment
regaining countless realms and cities and his own destiny.
But on Caesar’s return next day to his camp and comrades
they were not deceived as by his previous secret departure.
Gathering round their general they wept, bombarding him
with not unwelcome moans and laments: ‘To what lengths,
hard-hearted Caesar, rash courage has led you! To what
fate did you abandon our worthless lives, when you gave
yourself to the destructive power of the storm? It is cruel
of you to court death, when the safety and very existence
of so many nations depends on you, when so large a part
of the world has chosen you as leader. Did none of your
friends deserve the honour of not living to survive you?
While the sea drove you onward, our bodies were lost
to idle sleep. Ah, what shame on us! You set course for
Italy, thinking it cruel to ask others to cross the savage
waves. It is usually despair that drives men headlong
into dangerous undertakings and mortal peril; yet you,
the master now of the world, grant the sea such licence!
Why weary the powers that be? Fortune has brought
you safe to shore. Is that to be the extent of her help
and favour where the war is concerned? Is this the use
you choose to make of divine aid, to be not the ruler
of the world, the master of mankind, but the happy
survivor of shipwreck?’ While they spoke, night fled,
day bathed them in bright sunlight and, the winds
permitting, the sea subdued calmed its swollen billows.
When the captains in Italy too, saw the sea’s power
exhausted and a northerly clearing the sky, calming
the force of the flood, they loosed their ships. Steered
by skillful hands these kept close together on the same
course, driven by the wind, so the fleet advanced over
the wide waters, ship beside ship, like soldiers marching
on land. But night, cruelly robbing them of a clear wind,
reduced their onward passage, breaking their formation.
So the migrating cranes, driven by winter from the icy
Strymon to the warmer Nile, first form various shapes
at random; then as wind on high strikes their outspread
wings they assemble in dense flights merging smoothly;
until those birds finally scatter, their letter-like formations
dispersing. When day returned and a brisk dawn breeze
caught the sails, the ships, attempting in vain to reach
Lissus (Lezha), sailed beyond it to reach Nymphaion,
where a southerly, succeeding the northerly, allowed
them to anchor in its waters, unprotected to the north.
Pompey, seeing Caesar’s forces gathering in full strength
from all directions, knew that his army must soon face
the ultimate test of fierce battle, and so decided to place
his wife, Cornelia, his precious charge, in a safe haven,
and conceal her in secluded Lesbos far from the tumult
of savage war. How powerfully a right affection rules
wedded hearts! Love made even you, Pompey, anxious
and fearful of battle! What he most wished to preserve
from the blows of Fortune, who would decide the fate
of Rome and the world, that thing was his wife alone.
Though his purpose was set, the words still failed him:
he preferred to yield to all the blandishments of delay,
postpone what must come, steal a reprieve from destiny.
Night was ending, the torpor of sleep banished, when
Cornelia clasped her care-laden husband in her arms,
seeking his dear lips as he turned away, and wondering
at his damp cheeks, stricken by a malaise she could not
fathom, trembling to find her husband, Pompey, in tears.
Sighing, he said: ‘My wife, dearer to me than life when
it was sweet not wearisome as now, the sad day is come
that we have fended off for so long yet not long enough.
Caesar is upon us, in force. We must accept battle, yet
Lesbos will hide you, safe from war. Do not tempt me
with prayers, I have already denied them to myself.
You will not be separated from me long, the outcome
will soon be known, the greatest ruin comes swiftly.
It is enough if you simply hear news of the risks I
take, your love for me is less than I believe if you
can bear to gaze on civil war. As for me, now war
is at hand, I would be ashamed to enjoy peaceful
sleep at my wife’s side, and stir in her embrace
while the war-trumpets rouse a suffering world.
I fear to commit myself to civil war unless I am
saddened by a sacrifice of my own. You meanwhile
must be hidden, safer than any nation or king; if
you are far away the full weight of your husband’s
destiny need not bear upon you. Should the gods
destroy my army, let the best part of Pompey survive,
prove welcoming to me if fate and the victor’s cruelty
oppress me.’ Cornelia could barely sustain so great
a sorrow, her senses fled from her stricken breast.
At last her voice could utter a sorrowful remonstrance:
‘It is not for me, Magnus, to complain of the gods, or
of our lot in marriage: it is not death or the final brand
of the dread funeral pyre that separates us, but by a fate
all too frequent and familiar I lose my husband because
he dismisses me. The enemy drawing near, it seems we
must dissolve our marriage bond and so appease your
former wife’s father! Is this how you regard my loyalty,
Magnus? Do you think my safety separate from yours?
Have we not both been long involved in the one course?
Cruel man, do you bid me offer myself to the lightning
and the world’s ruin, alone? Do you think that a fair
end for me, dying of separation while you yet dream
of success? Suppose I refuse to suffer after, and wish
to follow you swiftly to the shades, yet must live on
until the sad news of your death reaches me far away?
Besides, it is cruel to tempt fate and school me to bear
that great sorrow: pardon the thought, but I fear I might
find life endurable. And yet, if prayers have worth, if
the gods hear mine, may your wife be the last to hear
the outcome. I will haunt the cliffs of Lesbos after
your victory, and dread the ship that brings such news,
for news of victory will not quell my fears, since in
the deserted place you cast me, I might fall captive
to Caesar even though he flees. Lesbos’ shore will be
lit by an exile’s name: who will not know of the refuge
Mytilene offers, if it harbours Pompey’s wife? This
then is my last prayer: if defeat makes flight your
safest course, and you entrust yourself to the waves,
steer your ill-starred barque to any isle but Lesbos,
since where I am the enemy will look for you.’ So
saying, she sprang wildly from their bed, refusing
to delay her torment a moment longer. She could not
bear to clasp her sorrowing husband’s head or breast
in her dear arms, and the last fruits of their long love
were lost. They grieved in haste, and neither had heart
to say a last ‘farewell’; no day of their lives was more
sorrowful, for the grief to come was suffered by hearts
already strengthened and inured to their misfortunes.
The unhappy woman swooned and fell, but caught
in her attendants’ arms was carried to the sandy shore.
There she clutched the ground, till lifted on board.
She had been less stricken when, hard pressed by
cruel Caesar’s armies, they had left the coast of Italy
their homeland. Then Magnus’ loyal companion, now
she alone departed, leaving Pompey the general behind.
The next night brought no sleep, her empty bed’s
widowed coldness and silence were strange to her
in her solitude; and she felt defenceless far from her
husband. How often, weighed with drowsiness, she
clasped the empty couch with deluded arms! How often,
forgetful of exile, she sought her husband in the dark!
For though her marrow burned with hidden fires, she
found no ease in spreading her limbs across the bed,
keeping a part reserved for him. She feared she had
lost her Pompey forever; but heaven intended worse.
The sad hour loomed that would return Magnus to her.
End of Book V
So the generals, having pitched their camps on neighbouring
heights, minds set on battle, the armies came face to face,
and the gods gazed on the twin combatants. Caesar, scorning
to take Greek city after city, refusing to accept further victory
from fate, except victory over his kinsman, sought, with all
the force of prayer, the hour, fateful for the world, in which all
would be at stake, choosing that cast of the die which must
destroy one leader or the other. Showing himself never
backward in seeking the ruin of Rome, three times he deployed
his squadrons with their threatening standards on the hill-tops.
But when he saw that Pompey, trusting to his defensive works,
could not be tempted to fight by a show of force, he struck camp
and marched swiftly through wooded country that hid his plan
to seize the fortress of Dyrrachium. Pompey forestalled his move
by following the coastline and pitching camp on the hill that
the Taulantians call Petra, in order to defend that Corinthian
colony, a city protected by its cliffs. No ancient fortifications
surround it, no stones raised by mortal hand, which though
they raise their structures high, see them fall an easy prey
to siege, or all-razing time: its natural defences alone remain
bastions no siege-engine can shatter. Surrounded by a depth
of sea on all sides close to shore, and by cliffs that fling back
the breakers, only a raised neck of land of moderate size stops
the peninsula forming an island. Its walls hang over abysses
of rock, precipices feared by mariners, where southerly gales
raising the raging Ionian waves, hurl their spray high above
to the tallest roofs, shaking the walls of houses and temples.
Here Caesar’s mind was captured by an audacious plan:
though the enemy force was scattered over a wide range
of hills, he planned to surround them with a line of remote
entrenchments without their knowing. He took a survey
of the ground with the naked eye, and not content merely
to raise instant walls of crumbling turf had huge rocks
and blocks of quarry stone brought there, the remains
of houses, and shattered walls. A structure rose, that no
strong battering ram nor violent engine of war could raze.
The mountains were pierced, and Caesar raised a wall of
identical height across the hills: he opened trenches, set
defensive towers at intervals along its length; a sweeping
boundary enclosed upland pastures, wooded wastelands,
forests, trapping the wild creatures in an enclosing snare.
Pompey had plains enough and grazing in abundance,
shifting his camp within Caesar’s encircling lines; there
many streams rose to exhaust themselves and vanished,
while Caesar viewing distant works was forced to rest,
wearied, in the midst of the fields. Now let legend sing
the walls of Troy, and ascribe them to the gods, and let
the flying Parthians in retreat, cry wonder at Babylon’s
encircling wall of brick. As great a space as is bounded
by the Tigris or swift Orontes, one large enough to hold
a kingdom of Assyrians in the east, see, here enclosed
by works constructed hastily under the exigencies of war.
Such transient effort! That labour might have linked Sestos
to Abydos, piling up earth till the Hellespont was bridged;
or Corinth might have been separated from Pelops’ realm
by canal, saving ships the long haul round Cape Malea;
or men might have defied nature elsewhere, and changed
some other region for the better. But there the field of war
contracted, there blood was shed to flow thereafter over
every land; there the victims of Pharsalia and Thapsus
were penned; civil madness raging in a narrow pound.
At first the rise of these works went unnoticed by Pompey,
as a man who lives in the heart of Sicily fails to hear
the yelp of Scylla’s dogs, or as the Britons in the north
fail to hear the raging breakers when the channel tides
break on the southern shores. But on seeing his position
encircled by wide entrenchments, he led his forces down
from Petra’s stronghold and scattered them over sundry
hills to extend Caesar’s troops and overstretch them as
they attempted a blockade with sparsely ordered lines.
As for himself he claimed as much land defended by
a palisade, as separates illustrious Rome from Aricia
whose grove is sacred to Mycenaean Diana; the same
as if Tiber ran from Rome unbending direct to the sea.
No war-cry sounds, missiles fly to and fro at random,
and injury is often wrought merely testing the distance.
More urgent problems stop the leaders from engaging.
Pompey was hampered by lack of fodder: the cavalry
had destroyed it, hooves ploughing up the grassy plains.
War-horses starved on close-cropped ground, scorning
the mangers of imported hay, and neighing for fresh grass,
halting with quivering haunches in the act of wheeling,
and collapsing to die. As their corpses rotted, limb from
limb, the stagnant air rose in a dark pestilential cloud of
putrefaction. Such is the exhalation Nisida yields from
its volcanic rocks, as Typhon’s depths breathe madness
and death. The troops were stricken, and the water, more
absorbent than air of foulness, now hardened their innards
with its evils. The tightened skin grew rigid, making their
eyes start from their sockets, and the fiery pestilence, hot
with fever, inflamed their faces, their necks unable to bear
the head’s weight. Thus swift death increasingly bore all
before it; no period of illness divided life from death,
death arriving with infection; and the mass of victims
worsened the plague, since unburied corpses lay beside
the living. All the burial men could give was to throw
the bodies of their stricken countrymen beyond the line
of tents. Yet their ills were lessened by having the sea
at their backs, the air stirred by the northerlies, by ships
fully loaded with foreign grain, with access to the shore.
Caesar’s army, too, though camped on open heights, free
to range the land, untroubled by foul air or stagnant wells,
still suffered hunger pangs as though themselves besieged.
The corn was not yet ripe enough for harvest, so wretched
men were seen lying flat on the ground grazing like beasts,
plucking the foliage from trees and bushes, cutting dubious
leaves from unknown roots. Though besieging the well-fed
enemy army, they fought for food, whatever they could
seethe over a fire, shred with their teeth, swallow with
abraded throats, many things thought inedible by humans.
When Pompey first felt free to burst the confines and emerge,
permitting himself to range widely, he did not seek the secret
dark of night, scorning to steal a march while the enemy rested.
He sought instead to force a wide breach, razing their ramparts,
throwing down their towers, facing every foe, by a path that
bloodshed must open. One section of the fortifications nearby
seemed to offer opportunities, left open by Minicius’ fortress,
while broken ground screened him with a thick wooded cover.
There he marched his men, without raising dust, and his army
reached the ramparts without warning. Now, his Roman eagles
in a trice glittered on the plain, now all his trumpets sounded.
So his victory should owe less to the sword, the sudden alarm
confounded the enemy. What valour could do, they did; dying
at their posts where duty placed them. The tempest of javelins
was wasted, lacking an enemy now to be dealt such wounds.
Then brands were hurled, falling and rolling in smoky flames;
Then the echoing turrets trembled and threatened to collapse,
ramparts sounding to the hail of blows from thudding timber.
Then Pompey’s eagles passed the summit of the tall mound,
granting him command of the free spaces. Though Fortune
seemed to have conspired with those thousand squadrons,
though Caesar could not hold the place, one man yet snatched
it from the conquerors, and refused its capture, while he still
wielded weapons and was not yet laid low, denying Pompey.
Scaeva was his name: he had served in the ranks since before
the fierce tribes of the Rhone were first encountered, promoted
for shedding his blood, bearing the vine-staff with centurion’s
rank, ready for anything, not realising that valour is a heinous
crime in civil war. Seeing his comrades ground their weapons
and seek safety in flight, he cried: ‘Where is fear driving you,
that wretched fear that is a stranger to Caesar’s armies? Do you
turn your backs on death? Soldiers, are you not ashamed that
you are missing from the heaps of bodies, are unsought among
the corpses? If duty seems distant, will not anger at least ensure
you stand your ground? The enemy host elects us, of all the army,
to charge from the ranks. This day will cost Pompey no small
amount of blood. I would seek the shades more happily with
Caesar watching: but since fate denies me that, let Pompey
praise my fall. Beat against their weapons till they shatter,
and blunt their steel with your bodies. Far off the dust rises
while the roar of destruction sounds, and this clash of arms
strikes Caesar’s unsuspecting ears. We conquer, comrades:
and he will come, to claim the stronghold, where we die.’
His speech roused greater enthusiasm than the first blast
of the war-trumpet. The soldiers, marvelling at Scaeva,
eager to look on, follow, to see if courage, outnumbered
and surrounded, can offer more than death. Taking his
stand on the crumbling rampart, he first rolled the enemy
corpses from the choked turrets, burying his foes beneath
the bodies. The collapsing structures became weapons as
he menaced the enemy with wooden beams, stone blocks,
or his own body. Now with stakes, now with strong poles
he thrust his adversaries from the wall. His sword severed
hands that grasped the battlements. He crushed one man’s
skull with a rock, scattering the brains ill-protected by
their brittle shell of bone: he set another’s hair and beard
ablaze, the flames crackling as the eye sockets scorched.
The heap of dead rose level with the wall. Then he sprang
over the enemy spikes into their midst, swiftly and surely
as a leopard springs over the tips of the hunters’ spears.
Wedged tight among the foe, circled by a whole army,
he slew men at his back, until his blade no longer served
the function of a sword, so blunted and dulled by caked
blood it bruised but failed to wound. Every hand and spear
was turned towards him; no lance, no aim missed its mark,
and Fortune witnessed something new to war, one man
against an army. His hard shield-boss rang to endless blows,
his hollow helm, now shattered, galled the brow it covered,
and nothing covered his vital organs but the spear-shafts
that stuck fast in his flesh and reached down to his bones.
Madmen, why waste your javelin casts and arrow shots
that will not reach the very life? To fell him you must
employ a powered missile or the wall-defying weight
of a huge boulder; an iron battering-ram, or a catapult
alone will drive him from the threshold of the gateway.
He stands, no fragile wall defending Caesar, holding
Pompey at bay. Fearing lest his shield arm be thought
idle, or that he has sought to survive, he no longer
guards his breast, he faces the wounding blows naked,
bearing a thicket of spears in his flesh, choosing in his
weariness a foe to crush in death. So an African elephant
attacked by a dense throng, their missiles bounding from
its thick hide, shrugs the clinging spearheads from its flesh,
its vitals safely protected, so that the javelins that pierce
and hold draw little blood from the beast, the wounds
from the countless spears and barbs too slight to kill.
Behold, a Cretan arrow, fired at Scaeva from a distance
more truly aimed than anticipated, struck his head,
piercing his left eyeball. Scaeva, bravely, pulled out
the clinging arrow, with the eyeball and its ligaments,
and trampled on eye and arrow both. So in the arena,
when the Libyan has hurled his javelin from its sling,
a Pannonian bear, maddened by the wound, turns on
the injury, attacks in rage the shaft that struck, whirling
round and chasing the spear-haft that circles with it.
Rage convulsed Scaeva’s features, his mutilated face
one mass of bleeding flesh. A shout from his victors
rose to the heavens; a little blood from a wound on
Caesar’s self would not have cheered them more.
Scaeva then suppressed his emotion, hiding it deep
in his heart, and banishing warlike ardour from his
features, he said mildly: ‘Spare me, countrymen,
avert your steel. Wounds can do no more to bring
about my death; no more spears are needed, only
the drawing of those that have already pierced me.
Lift me, and set me still living in Pompey’s camp.
Do your leader this service; let me be an example
of desertion from Caesar, not of glorious death.’
Aulus, ill-fated, believed this cunning speech,
not seeing that Scaeva’s sword was at the ready,
and was about to lift captive and blade together
when, lightening-swift, Scaeva struck him full
in the throat. Scaeva’s ardour rose, his enemy’s
death reviving him. ‘Whoever thought Scaeva
finished, let him pay the price,’ he cried. ‘Let
Pompey bow his head and lower the standards
before Caesar, if he wants this sword to rest.
Perhaps you think I am like you, afraid to die?
Pompey and the Senate’s cause is less to you
than this death to me.’ Even as he spoke a cloud
of dust showed Caesar’s cohorts approaching,
that fact alone saving Pompey from shameful
defeat, and the reproach that his whole army
had fled before you alone, Scaeva. As the foe
retreated, the hero collapsed, blood draining
from him; only the fight had lent him strength.
As he fell a crowd of his friends caught him,
gladly raising his limp body on their shoulders.
They worshipped the force that seemed to live
in that mutilated frame, a still-breathing icon
of that noble deity, Valour. They vied with
each other in plucking spears from your flesh,
adorning the breast of naked Mars and statues
of the other gods with your armour, Scaeva,
happier in this claim to fame if you had routed
hardy Iberians, the Cantabrians with their short
spears, or the Teutones with their long ones.
But you can never adorn the Thunderer’s shrine
with your trophies, nor will you shout for joy
in the triumph. Unhappy man, how great your
bravery that merely paved the way for a tyrant!
Though beaten back at this point of his lines, Pompey
did not rest behind his defences, or delay the advance,
any more than the sea wearies, though driven against
the cliffs that stem its tide by rising winds, its waves
gnawing the high headlands that thus prepare for their
own later ruin. He sought the forts fronting calm bays,
attacking them simultaneously by land and sea, and he
spread his army far and wide, extending his forces on
the broad plain, using this chance to shift his ground.
So the swollen Po, its estuary flooding, will overflow
its banks, heaped into levees, and swamp the fields.
If the dykes yield and fall, failing to withstand the force
of the roaring waters, the river bursts through drowning
plains alien to it; here some flee their land, while there
they gain new fields by the river’s gift. Now Caesar had
scarce been aware of the fight, the news conveyed to him
by a signal fire from a watch-tower. He found the walls
already down, the dust cold and settled, all signs of ruin
as if ancient. The very peacefulness kindled his anger,
stirred by the Pompeians’ idleness, at rest after defeating
Caesar. He advanced even if it were towards disaster,
so long as it troubled their rejoicing. He rushed to threaten
Torquatus, who at the sight of his troops, stirred himself
like a mariner furling every sail on the trembling mast,
before the wind off Circeii. He brought his men behind
the curtain wall, to rank them closely in a narrow circuit.
Caesar had already passed the outermost ring of defences,
when Pompey launched his troops from every height,
pouring down his forces against the encircled enemy.
Caesar’s soldiers felt more fear than the valley-folk
of Enna do when the southerly blows and Etna looses
rivers of fire over the plain, from its abysses; shaken
before battle by the clouds of blinding dust, demoralised
by dread, flight sending them towards the foe, rushing
on death in panic. The civil war might have ended there,
peace following final bloodshed, but Pompey restrained
his army in their fury. If a Sulla had conquered there, you,
Rome might have ruled yourself; happily, free of tyrants!
Grievous it is, and grievous shall ever be, that you, Caesar,
gained by your deepest crime, in opposing a patriotic foe.
Cruel fate! Libya and Spain would not have mourned for
the disasters at Utica and Munda; neither would the Nile,
defiled by vile bloodshed, have borne that corpse nobler
than a Pharaoh’s; King Juba’s naked body would not have
burdened the African sand, nor Metellus Scipio appeased
the Carthaginian dead with his blood; nor the living have
lost their virtuous Cato. That day might have ended your
ills, Rome, and erased Pharsalia from the scroll of fate.
Caesar abandoned the site he had occupied against the will
of heaven, and headed for Thessaly with his battered army.
Pompey chose to pursue his father-in-law’s forces wherever
they went, and urged by his officers to change his plans,
and return to his native Italy, now his enemy was absent,
he answered: ‘I shall never return like Caesar to my country,
Rome shall not see me again till my forces are disbanded.
I might have held Italy when strife began if I had chosen
to initiate warfare in the shrines of Rome, been willing
to fight in the midst of the Forum. I would pass beyond
the furthest regions of Scythian cold, beyond the burning
sands, to relinquish war. Rome, shall I who fled to spare
you conflict, rob you of peace now when I am the victor?
Ah, rather, to spare you suffering in this struggle, Caesar
shall call you his.’ So Pompey spoke, and led his forces
eastwards, following a winding route, where Illyria’s deep
gorges open, reaching that Thessaly fate destined for war.
Mount Pelion’s ridge bounds Thessaly in the quarter where
the winter sun rises, Mount Ossa where in high summer
its shade obstructs the rays of Phoebus rising in the dawn;
while wooded Othrys dispels the flames of the southern sky,
at midsummer, opposing the brow of the all-devouring Lion;
and Mount Pindus outfacing westerlies and north-westerlies,
where daylight ebbs hastens evening on; while those who live
at the foot of Olympus never dreading the northerlies, know
nothing of the Great Bear’s stars shining a whole night long.
The low-lying lands in the region between these mountains
were once covered with endless marshes; since the plains
retained the waters, and the Vale of Tempe was insufficient
for them to reach the sea they formed continuous swampland,
and their only course was to rise. But when Hercules lifted
Ossa’s weight from Olympus, the sea felt a sudden onrush
of waters as Thessalian Pharsalos, that realm of Achilles
the hero born of a sea-goddess, rose above the surface,
a realm better drowned forever. There rose too, Phylace
whose king was first to land in the war at Troy; Pteleos;
Dorion, that laments the Muses’ anger and blind Thamyris;
Trachis; Meliboea whose Philoctetes received Hercules’
bow, for lighting that hero’s funeral pyre; Larisa, powerful
once; and the sites where the plough now passes over famed
Argos, where Echion’s Thebes once stood, to which Agave
howling bore the head of Pentheus giving it to the funeral
pyre, grieving to have carried off no other part of his flesh.
Thus the swamp was drained forming a host of rivers. From
there the Aeas, clear in its flow but of little volume, runs
westward to the Ionian Sea, the Inachus glides with no more
powerful a current (he was the river-god, father of ravished Io)
nor the Achelous (he almost won Deianeira, Oeneus’ daughter)
that silts the Echinades islands; there, the Euhenos, stained
as it is with Nessus’ blood runs through Meleager’s Calydon;
there Spercheos’ swift stream meets the Malian Gulf’s wave,
and the pure depths of the Amphrysos water those pastures
where Apollo herded cattle. There, the Asopos starts its flow,
and the Black River, and the Phoenix; there, the Anauros,
free of moist vapours, dew-drenched air, capricious breezes.
There too are the rivers which do not reach the sea themselves
but are tributaries of Peneus - the Apidanus, robbed of its flow,
the Enipeus never swift until it finds Peneus, and the Titaresos,
which alone, meeting with that river, keeps its waters intact,
glides on the surface, as though the greater river were dry land,
for legend says its stream flows from the pool of Styx, and so,
mindful of its source, scorns commingling with common water,
inspiring still that awe of its current the gods themselves feel.
Once the waters had flowed away leaving dry land, the fertile
soil was furrowed by the ploughs of the Bebryces; the labour
of Leleges drove the share deep; the ground was broken by
Aeolidae and Dolopians, by Magnesians breeders of horses,
Minyae builders of ships. There in the caves of Pelethronium,
the cloud impregnated by Ixion bore the bi-formed Centaurs –
Monychus who shattered Pholoe’s hard rock with his hooves;
bold Rhoecus who employed uprooted ash-trees as spears,
beneath Oeta’s peak, trees the northerlies failed to overturn;
Pholus who entertained great Hercules; you, presumptuous
Nessus, who ferried travellers over the river and was doomed
to feel Hercules’ arrows; and you, aged Chiron, whose stars,
those of Sagittarius, gleam in the winter sky, as they aim
their Thessalian bow at the greater constellation of Scorpio.
In this soil the seeds of cruel war quickened. From her rock
struck by the sea’s trident first emerged the Thessalian
war-horse, threatening dire conflict; here he first champed
at the steel bit, unused to his Lapith master’s bridle, that
set him foaming at the mouth. There Argo, the first ship
to cut the waves, was launched from the shores of Pagasae,
sending men, creatures of the land, out on the unknown deep.
There Ionos, King of Thessaly, was first to hammer molten
metal into shape, melting silver in the flames, forming gold
into coins, and smelting copper in huge furnaces. There it was
granted men to count their wealth, tempting them to the evils
of war. From Thessaly too, the Python, greatest of serpents,
glided south to Delphi; thus the laurels for the Pythian Games
are sourced from there. And from there rebellious Aloeus
launched his giant sons against the gods, when Mount Pelion,
piled on Olympus, almost reached the stars, and Mount Ossa,
encroaching on the planets’ orbits, obstructed their course.
Once the generals had set up camp in that accursed land
all minds were troubled by presentiments of war; it was
plain that the fateful hour, the final outcome, was upon
them, and that destiny drew near. The cowards trembled,
expecting the worst; others, strengthening themselves
to meet the unknown, experienced hope as well as fear,
while among that uncertain host was Sextus, Pompey’s
unworthy son, who later, exiled, stained Scylla’s waters
with Sicilian piracy, tarnishing his father’s naval glory.
Impatient of delay and troubled by whatever was to come,
fear drove him to seek prior knowledge of fate’s course,
but it was not the Delian tripods nor Delphi’s caverns
that he tried, nor cared he to inquire what sounds issue
from Jupiter’s cauldron at Dodona, whose oak-trees
furnished man’s first nourishment; he did not ask
who could read the future from sacrificial entrails,
interpret the flight of birds, the lightning in the sky,
or probe the stars with Babylonian lore, he avoided
knowledge which though secret was yet permitted.
He sought savage rites of witchcraft that the gods
abhor, and those funereal practices on grim altars.
He worshipped Dis and the shades below, a wretch
convinced the gods above knew too little. The place
the army camped fuelled his false and cruel delusion,
being near the dwellings of those Thessalian witches
whom no conjuring of imaginary horrors can outdo,
and whose arts concern all that is thought impossible.
Moreover Thessaly’s heights yield many baneful herbs,
its rocks bear witness to wizards chanting deadly spells.
A host of plants grow there with numinous powers;
Colchian Medea plucked herbs from Thessalian soil
to carry over the sea. The impious spells of that dire
cohort reach the ears of the gods, deaf to so many
nations and peoples. Their voices alone penetrate
the furthest depths of the heavens, bearing words
that bind the reluctant powers whose duty towards
the sky and the spinning firmament fails to distract
their listening. When the Thessalian witches’ dark
murmurings reach the stars the gods will be enticed
from other altars, though Persian Babylon, though
arcane Memphis open every shrine of their ancient
magi. Through their spells an un-predestined love
steals into resistant hearts, and severe old age burns
with illicit passion. Not their baleful concoctions
alone have power, not their stealing the caul from
the foal, a sign that the mare will love her offspring,
the caul that filled with the waters veils its forehead;
for even when unaffected by foul poisonous draughts,
the minds of men are destroyed by their incantations.
Those no marriage pledge nor allurement of beauty
binds, are drawn by the twirling magic of twisted
threads. Natural order ceases, daylight is held back
by the endless night; the ether disobeys all laws,
the swift firmament stalls at the sound of their chant,
and Jupiter, urging onward the flying heavens on their
axle, wonders why they fall still. Now those witches
drench the world with rain, and veil the burning sun
with cloud, and the heavens sound, Jupiter unaware;
now with spells they disperse the watery canopy,
and the dishevelled tresses of the thunder-clouds.
The ocean rises though the winds are still; or
instead is forbidden to feel the storm, falling
silent while the southerly blusters, though sails
speed the ships on, swelling against the breeze.
Now the waterfall on the steep cliff-face halts;
the river flows, but not on its downward course.
The Nile’s summer inundation fails; Maeander
straightens out its channel; Arar (Saône) drives
the sluggish Rhone; the mountains lower their
peaks and level their ridges; Olympus finds now
the clouds are high above; and Scythian snows
thaw in wintry cold despite the sun’s absence.
When the tide swells under the moon, the spells
cast by Thessalian witches cause its ebb, guard
the shore. Earth’s ponderous mass too is shaken
on its axis, the pressure acting towards its centre
eases, the great orb opens struck by the spell,
and reveals to sight the revolving sky beneath.
Every creature with power to cause death, born
to harm, both fears the Thessalian witches and
supplies their arts with a means of destruction.
The savage tiger, the fierce and noble lion, fawn
upon them lick their hands; the snake unwinding
his chilly coils stretches at full length on the cold
ground; knotted vipers disentangle and re-unite,
and the serpent dies blasted by human poison.
Why do the gods labour to empower these spells
and herbs, fearing to scorn them? What mutual
pact constrains them? Must they obey, or do they
delight in doing so? Do they reward some piety
unknown to us, or do they bow to silent threats?
Has witchcraft power over all the gods, or are
these tyrannical spells aimed at one alone, who
can compel the world as he himself is compelled?
By them the stars were first plucked down from
the swift-moving sky, the clear moon likewise
attacked by the dire ills of incantation, dimmed
and glowed with a dark terrestrial light, as if
Earth separated her from her brother’s glory,
casting a shadow, obstructing heaven’s fires.
Greatly troubled, she is drawn down by magic,
until she sheds spume on nearby plants below.
The witch Erictho had scorned these wicked
rites and practices of an accursed race, as still
insufficient, and had turned her vile arts to rites
unknown. It was a crime to her to shelter her
evil head under a roof by a city hearth. Dear
to the deities of Erebus, she dwelt in deserted
tombs, and haunted the graves from which
ghosts had been expelled. Neither the gods
above, nor that she was one of the living,
stopped her overhearing the silent shades,
or knowing the Stygian realm, and unseen
Dis’s mysteries. The witch’s face haggard,
vile with neglect, her dreadful countenance
of a hellish pallor, freighted with uncombed
locks, is unknown to the pure heavens above;
but when black clouds and tempests drown
the stars, she will emerge from empty tombs,
and trap nocturnal lightning. Her tread blights
the seed in the rich fields, her breath poisons
the untainted air. She never prays to heaven,
invokes no divine power with suppliant hymn,
knows nothing of the sacrificial entrails; she
delights in setting funereal fires on the altars,
scattering incense snatched from a burning pyre.
The gods grant every horror at the first cry
of her voice, dreading a second incantation.
Living spirits, still in control of their bodies,
she buries in the grave, and while fate still
owes them years death strikes against their will;
or reversing the rite she brings back the dead
from the tomb, their corpses escaping to life.
She snatches the charred bones and smoking
ashes of children from the midst of the pyre,
and the very torches from their parents’ hands;
She gathers the fragments of the funeral bier,
and the fluttering grave-clothes turned to ash,
and the cinders that reek of the corpse. And if
the dead are sealed in a sarcophagus, that dries
the internal moisture, absorbs the corruption
of the marrow-bones, and stiffens the corpse,
then she vents her anger eagerly on its limbs,
thrusting her fingers deep in the eye-sockets,
scooping out the solidified eyeballs in delight,
gnawing the yellowed nails on withered hands.
She mangles the hanged corpse, cuts the fatal
noose with her teeth, scrapes at the crucified,
tears at rain-beaten flesh and bones scorched
by the sun. She steals nails that have pierced
hands, the clotted gore and the black residues
of putrefaction that oozed over all the limbs;
and hangs her weight on sinews that resist
her teeth. She squats by any corpse exposed
on the ground, before birds or beasts arrive,
not severing the limbs with her bare hands
or a knife, but waiting for wolves to tear
the flesh, ready to snatch the morsels from
their un-slaked jaws. Nor does she hesitate
to take life if warm blood’s needed that flows
when a throat is slit, and her ghoulish feasts
demand still quivering flesh. Thus she pierces
the womb and extracts the child, not as nature
intended, in order to set it in the altar flames.
And when a cruel and forceful ghost is wanted,
she takes its life herself. Every man’s death
serves her turn. She tears the bloom from the face
on some youngster’s body, her left hand slicing
a lock of hair from the dying lad’s head. Often
too, when a loved one is buried, the dreadful
witch will hang over the body in kissing it,
mutilates the head, opens the closed mouth
with her teeth, bites the tip of the inert tongue
in the dry mouth, infuses the cold lips with
murmuring sound, and sends a wicked and
arcane message down to the Stygian shades.
Sextus heard local tales of Erictho, and made
his way to her dwelling when night ruled the sky,
at the hour in those deserted fields when the sun
is in the zenith for those on the other side of earth.
Guides, the faithful servants of her wickedness,
sought her among the empty graves and tombs
until they saw her far off sitting on a high cliff,
where the Balkan mountains slope to Pharsalia.
She was attempting a spell unknown to wizards
or the powers of wizardry, creating a charm
for a novel purpose. She feared the armies might
move to some other site, and Thessaly miss out
on mighty carnage; so the witch forbade the war
to shift from Pharsalia, darkened by her spells
and sprinkled over by her noxious compounds,
so all the dead would be hers, and all the blood,
shed there, hers to employ. She hoped to mutilate
the corpses of slain kings, plunder the ashes of
the Roman people, and the bones of noblemen,
and master the ghosts of the great. Her sole
labour and passion was to snatch what part
she could of Pompey’s outstretched corpse,
pounce on what of Caesar’s limbs she might.
Pompey’s unworthy son spoke first, saying:
‘O famed Thessalian, with the power to reveal
the future to mortal men, and alter the course
of events, I pray I might be allowed certain
knowledge of the outcome of the coming battle.
I am not the least of Romans, a son of renowned
Pompey, a lord of the world or the heir to doom.
My heart quakes, shaken by uncertainty, yet
ready also to face known dangers. Take from
events the power to rush upon us suddenly
and blindly. Trouble the gods or, abandoning
them, extort the truth from the shades below.
Reveal the Elysian realms, and summon Death
himself: force him to show which among us is his.
It is no mean task: yet for your own ends too it is
worth your labour to know how the die will fall.’
Proud of her great fame, the Thessalian witch
replied: ‘If it were a lesser decree of fate you
sought to change, young man, it would be
easy to force the gods to any course you wish.
If the planets in their aspects presage death
for one alone, our arts can summon a delay.
Likewise though all the stars foretell long years,
we can cut short a life by the use of magic herbs.
But sometimes the chain of events is fixed
from the beginning of the world; if we seek
to make a change all fates are altered, all
humankind is affected by a single blow,
and all the Thessalian coven then confess
Destiny’s greater powers. But if to foreknow
events contents you, many and easy the ways
to the truth: earth, sky, abyss, the sea, the plains,
the cliffs of Rhodope will speak. And since
there is a wealth of recent slaughter, the simplest
way is to steal a corpse from the Thessalian field;
the lips of a fresh cadaver, still warm, will speak
loud, not some dismal shade, limbs withered
from the sun, gibbering vaguely in our ears.’
So she spoke: then, night doubly darkened by her art,
her shadowy head veiled in vile mist, she strayed
among the scattered corpses of dead men denied burial.
The wolves at once fled, the vultures sheathed their
talons, and unsated took flight, as the witch picked out
her prophet, prodding the innermost organs deathly cold
seeking a corpse, its pair of lungs firm and un-wounded
whose rigid sacs might still possess power of utterance.
The fate of a multitude of slain now hangs in the balance:
which will she choose to restore to life? If she had tried
to raise up a whole army on that plain, to fight once more,
the laws of Erebus would have rested in abeyance, a host
brought from Stygian Avernus by her monstrous powers
would have warred again. Finally, she chose a cadaver
thrusting a hook through a noose tied around its neck,
then dragging the wretched corpse, doomed to live again,
along over rocks, through scree, to her lair under a high
cliff of that cavernous mountain, which cruel Erictho
had destined for her rites. There the ground fell in sheer
descent to well-nigh reach the invisible caverns of Dis.
Dark trees with bowed branches hemmed it in, yew-trees
the sunlight never penetrated, their tips shunning the sky.
Within the caves, faint shadows and pallid decay reigned
in endless night; no light illuminating them but by magic.
Even in Taenarus’ gorge the air is less stagnant; here was
the gloomy border of the unseen world and ours; so that
the gods of Tartarus had no fear in allowing the dead there.
For though the Thessalian witch has power over the fates,
it is uncertain whether she questions the dead souls by
drawing them to her, or descending to them. Now, she
donned diverse and multi-coloured raiment fit for a fiend
to wear, threw back her hair and revealed her face, tying
her dreadful locks with wreathed vipers. Seeing Sextus’
companions trembling with dread and he himself afraid,
seeing their fixed glaze and bloodless features, she cried:
‘Set aside the fears your fearful minds conceive; now
life in familiar shape will return to him, so that even
the fearful might hear him speak. Though I were to show
the pools of Styx whose shores roar with flame, though
my commands let you view the Kindly Ones, or Cerberus
shaking his snaky mane, or the chained forms of the Giants,
why, cowards, fear those shades, who themselves fear me?’
Then she began by filling fresh wounds in the breast
of that corpse with warm blood, washing the innards
clean of gore pouring into them moon-born poison.
In this was mingled all that Nature wrongly bears;
the spume of rabid dogs, a lynx’s innards, a foul
hyena’s hump, and the marrow of a snake-fed stag;
the remora was there, that echeneis, that grips ships
holding them motionless mid-ocean though the wind
fills their sails; and the eyes of dragons, and the stones
that sound when warmed by a nesting eagle; the flying
snake of Arabia, and the viper born beside the Red Sea
that guards pearl-oysters; the skin the horned Libyan
snake will shed while alive; the ashes of the Phoenix
that immolates itself in the flames of the eastern altar.
To which she added commonly-known baneful weeds,
and leaves steeped with unspeakable spells, and herbs
her own deadly mouth had spat upon at birth, with all
the venom she herself had given to the world. Then
her voice, more powerful than any herb to bewitch
the powers of Lethe, began to utter dissonant cries,
far different from any human speech. The dog’s yowl,
the wolf’s howl, were there, the restless barn-owl’s hoot,
and the screech-owl’s call, beasts’ wails and shrieks,
the hissing of snakes, they were all expressed within;
and the roar of waves beating on rocks, the forest’s
moan, the thunder through a rift in the cloud, all
such things formed that single voice. Next she began
a Thessalian spell, in accents that penetrated Tartarus:
‘You Furies, and you Stygian horrors, you torments
of the guilty, and you, Chaos, ready to confound
innumerable worlds in ruin; and you, ruler of the world
below, a god whom lingering Death torments through
long centuries; and Styx, and that Elysium no Thessalian
witch deserves; and Persephone who shuns her mother
in heaven; and the third form of our patroness, Hecate,
through whom the shades and I converse silently;
and the Janitor of the wide realm, who throws men’s
flesh to the savage hound; and the Sisters who must
re-spin the thread of life; and you, ancient ferryman
of the fiery wave, weary of rowing shades back to me:
hear my prayer! If I invoke you with sufficiently foul
and impious lips; if I never chant these spells fasting
from human flesh; if I have often slit open those breasts
filled with divinity, and laved them with warm brains;
if any infant whose head and organs were laid on your
platters might prevail with you, grant me my request.
I do not ask for one who lurks in the depths of Tartarus,
long accustomed to the dark, but for some descending
spirit fleeing the light; one who clings to the threshold
still of gloomy Orcus, who obeying my spells now will
only go down once among the shades. If this civil war
deserves your favour, let the shade of some Pompeian,
lately among us, prophesy all things to Pompey’s son.’
With this, foaming at the mouth, she raised her head
to find the shade of the unburied dead close beside her.
It feared the lifeless corpse, the loathsome confinement
of its former prison; it shrank from entering the gaping
breast, the flesh and innards ruined by the mortal wound.
Oh wretched ghost, iniquitously robbed of death’s final
gift, that is: to die no more! Erictho marvelled that fate
could be delayed so, and enraged by the dead she lashed
the inert corpse with a live serpent, and through the clefts
where the earth had been split by her spells she growled
like a dog at the shades below and shattering the silence
of their realm, cried: ‘Tisiphone and Megaera, unheeding
of my voice, will you not drive the unhappy spirit with
your cruel whips from the void of Erebus? Or shall I
summon you by your secret names, Hounds of Hell, and
render you helpless in the light above; there to keep you
from graves and funerals; banish you from tombs, drive
you from urns of the dead. And you, Hecate, all pale
and withered in form, who paint your face before you
visit the gods above, I will show them you as you are,
and prevent you altering your hellish form. I shall speak
aloud about that food which confines Proserpine beneath
the vast weight of earth above, by what compact she loves
the gloomy king of darkness, what defilement she suffered
such that you Ceres would not recall her. I shall burst your
caves asunder, Ruler of the Underworld, and admit light
instantly to blast you. Will you obey me? Or shall I call
on one at the sound of whose name earth ever quakes
and trembles, who views the Gorgon’s head without its
veil, who lashes the cowering Fury with her own whip,
who dwells in Tartarus beyond your sight, for whom you
are the gods above, who swears by Styx while perjuring
himself.’ Instantly the clotted blood grew warm, heating
the livid wounds, coursing through veins and extremities
of the limbs. The vital organs, stirred, thrilled in the cold
flesh; and a new life stealing through the numbed innards
contested with death. Each limb quivered, sinews strained,
and the dead man rose, not limb by limb, but bounding up,
swiftly, and at once standing erect. His mouth gaped wide,
his eyes opened, not with the aspect of one living as yet,
but already half-alive. Pallor and rigidity remaining, he
was dazed by his restoration to this world. And the fettered
mouth uttered no sound: a voice and tongue were granted
him but only for reply. ‘Speak as I command,’ the witch
cried, ‘and great will be your reward, for if you speak true
I shall render you immune to Thessalian arts for all time;
I will burn your body on such a pyre and with such fuel,
with such Stygian chanting, that your spirit shall be deaf
to all sorcerers’ spells. Let it be worth that to live again:
and once I again grant you death no herb or spell shall
break your long Lethean sleep. Riddling prophecies may
suit the priests and tripods of the gods; but you must let
any man who seeks truth from the shades, brave enough
to approach the oracles of fierce death, depart in certainty.
Do not begrudge this, I pray: give acts a name and place,
yield a voice through which fate may reveal itself to me.’
Then she cast a spell that gave the shade power to know
all that she asked. The sad flesh spoke, its tears flowing:
‘Summoned from the high bank of the silent river, I saw
nothing of the Fates’ mournful spinning, but this I was
able to learn from the host of shades: that savage strife
stirs the Roman ghosts, impious war shatters the peace
of the infernal regions. The great Romans, from diverse
sides, came from Elysian realms and gloomy Tartarus.
They made clear what fate intends. The blessed dead
wore sorrowful faces. I saw the Decii, father and son,
lives purified in battle, Camillus and Curius, weeping;
and Sulla railing against you, Fortune. Scipio grieved
that his unhappy scion should fall on Libyan soil; Cato
the Censor, a still fiercer enemy of Carthage mourned
the death his descendant would prefer to slavery. Among
all the pious shades I saw only you, Brutus, rejoicing,
you, Rome’s first consul after the tyrants were deposed.
But threatening Catiline, snapped and broke his chains,
and was exulting, with fierce Marius and bare-armed
Cethegus; and I saw Drusus the demagogue and rash
legislator, joyful, and the Gracchi, the greatly daring.
Hands, bound by eternal links of steel in Dis’s prison,
clapped with delight, and the wicked sought the plains
of the blessed. The lord of that bloodless realm threw
wide his pallid realm, and with steep jagged cliffs
and harsh steel for chains prepared his punishment
for the victorious. Sextus, take consolation in this:
the dead look to welcome your father and his house
to a place of peace, keeping a bright region of their
realm for them. Let no short-lived victory trouble
you: cometh the hour that makes all generals equal.
You proud, with your high hearts, hasten to die,
then descend from so pitiful a grave to trample
on the ghosts of the deified Romans. By whose
grave the Nile or by whose the Tiber will flow,
is in question, yet the conflict of generals
only settles their place of burial: of your own fate
seek nothing, the fates will tell you without my
saying, since your father, Sextus, a surer prophet
will tell you all in the land of Sicily, though even
he is unsure of where to summon you to, or what
to warn you of, what regions, what climes he ought
to order you to avoid. Fear Europe, Africa, and Asia
wretched house! Fortune divides your graves among
the continents you triumphed over. O ill-fated ones,
finding nowhere in the world safer than Pharsalia!’
So ending his prophecy, he stood there sorrowful
with silent face, ready to die again. Herbs and magic
spells were once more needed before the cadaver
could fall, since death having exerted all its power
once, could not reclaim that spirit itself. Then
the witch built a tall pyre of wood; and the dead
man approached the fire. Erictho left him to stretch
out on the burning pile, allowing him to die at last.
She accompanied Sextus to his father’s camp as
the sky took on the hue of dawn, but at her order
night held back day producing a veil of darkness
for them till they set foot in safety among the tents.
End of Book VI
A baleful Sun rose from Ocean, slow to answer the summons
of the eternal law, driving his steeds more fiercely than ever
against the revolution of the sky, urging his course backwards
though the heavens whirled him on, and ready to suffer eclipse
and the loss of his light, drawing cloud to him, not to feed his
flames but to prevent his clear rays falling on Thessalian lands.
That darkness, marking the end of his life’s happiness, troubled
Pompey’s care-filled sleep with idle phantoms. He thought he
sat in his own theatre, viewing the ghostly multitudes of Rome;
and his name was lifted to the heavens in shouts of joy, and all
the tiers of seats sounded his praise. Such the crowd’s aspect,
such their loud applause in his younger years, at his second
triumph, after he had subdued those tribes the Ebro borders,
defeating every force the elusive Sertorius threw against him,
and brought peace to the west. Now he sat, cheered by senators
while as yet no more than a Roman knight, but no less adored
in his white robe than in that which adorns the triumphal car.
Perhaps, fearful of the future and the ending of prosperity, his
dreams took refuge in happier days; perhaps sleep, as often,
presaged in her windings his dream’s opposite, foretold
a mighty lamentation; or Fortune showed him Rome so,
because he would be denied a last sight of his homeland.
Let the night-watch not break his sleep, nor the trumpet’s
blare beat against his ear. Tomorrow’s sleep will be haunted,
by sad images of the day, always the fatal field, always war.
Would that the Romans might have found such sleep, blessed
by such a night. Happy your Rome, Pompey, if she had but
seen you even in dream! One day at least the gods should have
granted you and your homeland, where knowing your fate
both might have taken a last delight in your mutual love.
You left Italy thinking to die in Rome, and Rome, finding
her prayers for you endlessly answered, could never have
believed such darkness might cling to fate, unable even
to bury her beloved Pompey, thus. Young and old, united
in grief, would have wept, and children without prompting,
and the multitude of women would have loosed their hair,
scarified their breasts as when Brutus himself was buried.
Even now, though men fear the victorious tyrant’s spear,
though Caesar himself declare you dead, they will weep,
while offering incense and laurel wreaths to the Thunderer.
O wretched people, whose groans swallow up their tears,
unable to gather and mourn you in your crowded theatre!
As daylight eclipsed the stars, the camps on both sides raised
a confused murmur, and with the fates dragging the world
to ruin, the soldiers sought the sign for battle. Most of that
wretched throng were destined not to see the day out, yet
they crowded round their leaders’ tents, muttering; in heat
and vast disorder they hastened the hour of imminent death.
A dire frenzy gripped them; each eager to bring on his own
and his country’s fate. Calling Pompey tardy and cowardly,
and too merciful to his father-in-law, they cry he has been
seduced by worldly power, wishing to hold too many sundry
nations to his rule, and mistrustful of peace. Indeed the kings
of the east and their armies detained far from their own lands,
complain that the war drags on. O gods, do you delight, when
you decide to overthrow all things, in adding rank perversity
to our errors? We rush upon disaster, and call for battles that
will ruin us, as in Pompey’s camp they begged for Pharsalia.
There the greatest of Rome’s orators, Cicero, articulated all
the protests of the multitude; Cicero, whose civil authority
caused savage Catiline to dread the power of peace; Cicero,
hating war, so long muzzled by military service, who longed
for the Forum and the rostrum. His eloquence seconded an
unsound cause: ‘Pompey, in return for all her favours to you,
Fortune makes one request, that you make use of her, while
we, the captains of your army, with the kings you created,
and a whole suppliant world beg you to humble Caesar.
Shall your father-in-law be an endless source of war for
humankind? Nations you conquered as you hastened past
have a right to resent your slowness to conquer now. Where
is your fervour, where is your faith in your star? Ungrateful
man, do you doubt the heavens, or fear to entrust the gods
with the Senate’s cause? The soldiers themselves will raise
your standards and attack: you should blush at being forced
to conquer. If the war is waged on our behalf, we who asked
you to lead us, then let us battle on whatever field we wish.
Why keep a host of sword-tips from tasting Caesar’s blood?
They shake their weapons, and can hardly wait for the signal
you delay. Make haste, or your own trumpets will outrun you.
The senators would know, Pompey, do they follow you as
combatants or mere companions?’ The general groaned, he
feeling the gods were false, that fate ran counter to his wish.
‘If this is what all desire,’ he answered, ‘if the hour demands
Pompey the soldier, not the statesman, I will defy fate no
longer. Let Fortune involve the nations in common downfall,
and let this light be the last for the best part of mankind. Yet
I bear witness, Rome, that this day of universal destruction,
is forced upon me. The labour of war might have left Rome
unwounded; I could have won a bloodless victory, handed
Caesar, a captive, to the peaceful land he violated. What
evil madness is this, what blindness! Men ready to wage
civil war yet fear to win a bloodless victory! Have we not
wrenched the land from enemy hands, and expelled them
utterly from the seas, forced their starving ranks to steal
the un-ripened corn, made them pray instead to be slain
by the sword and mingle their vanquished dead with ours?
This war is half-won already if my recruits have no fear
of battle, if indeed the spur of emulation and the fieriness
of their ardour makes them seek the signal for action. Yet
many men are driven to the heights of danger by a mere
dread of imminent death. He is truly brave who is prompt
to endure the threat if it is close, but willing also to delay.
It seems we must hand our present good fortune to chance,
and let the sword decide a world’s fate; they would rather
see a leader fight than conquer. Fortune, you granted me
the Roman state to rule: accept it now, greater yet than I
received it, and defend it in the blindness of war. Battle
will bring Pompey neither glory nor reproach. Caesar,
your wicked prayers to the gods prevail over mine: we
shall fight. What evil and suffering this day will bring
the nations! How many kingdoms will be ruined! How
dark Enipeus will flow with Roman blood. Let the first
spear hurled in this fateful war take my life, if my death
were without moment, and our cause undefeated; to me
victory is no more welcome than ruin. When today’s
carnage is over, Pompey’s name will be one for nations
either to hate or pity: for the conquered will suffer every
evil that final destruction brings, the conqueror commit
every wickedness.’ With this, he ordered the men to arms,
and loosed the reins of their furious ardour, in the same
way that a ship’s captain, defeated by the storm’s power,
his arts useless, yields the tiller to the wind, swept along
an ignominious burden. The camp hummed to a confused
and hasty tumult, as fierce hearts throbbed to the uncertain
beat within their breasts. The pallor of imminent death
was on many faces, and their aspect the image of doom.
The day had come which would decide the fate of mankind
for centuries to come, and this battle determine clearly what
Rome was to be. Each man ignored his own danger, struck
by greater dread. Who could be selfish in his fear witness
to widespread destruction, the shore drowned by the ocean,
waves above mountain crests, the sun displaced, the sky
lowering over earth? Now men are not free to tremble for
themselves: they fear for Rome and Pompey. Now soldiers
only trust to their swords once the whetted blades strike fire
from the grindstones; now every lance is sharpened on stone,
bows are re-strung with stronger cord, the quivers carefully
filled with choice arrows. Now the cavalryman lengthens
his spurs and checks the reins and bridle. Likewise, if I
might compare the actions of men and gods, likewise
when Phlegra witnessed the Giants’ fury, Mars’s sword
was heated on Etna’s anvil, Neptune’s trident glowed
in the fire for a second time, Apollo re-forged those
arrow-heads that undid Python’s coils, Pallas Minerva
spread the Gorgon’s viperous tresses over her aegis,
and the Cyclopes struck new lightning-bolts for Jove.
Now Fortune too did not hesitate to reveal the future
by diverse signs. When the army made for Thessaly’s
fields, the whole sky opposed their march, hurling
meteors against them, columns of flame, whirlwinds
sucking up water and trees together, blinding their
eyes with lightning, striking crests from their helms,
melting the swords in their scabbards, tearing spears
from their grasp while fusing them, their evil blades
smoking with air-borne sulphur. The standards too
could barely be plucked from the soil, their great
weight bowing the heads of the standard-bearers;
and the standards wept real tears, for until Pharsalia,
they had signified Rome and the State. Then a bull,
readied for sacrifice overturned the altar, and fled
headlong into the fields of Thessaly, so there was
no victim for the ill-omened rite. Yet you, Caesar,
what evil deities below, what Furies did you invoke
with your rites? What powers of the Stygian realm,
what horrors of Hell, what savagery steeped in night,
and your prayer heard, though soon to wage impious
and cruel war! Now whether deceived by portents
or their own excessive fears many believed they saw
Pindus strike Olympus, the Balkan range subsiding
into its deep valleys, Pharsalia uttering the sounds
of night battles, while lake Boebeis by Ossa turned
red with blood. Men gazed in wonder at each other’s
faces veiled with mist, at the pallid light, the darkness
brooding above their helms, at phantoms of their dead
fathers and kin flickering to and fro before their eyes.
This alone brought solace to the minds of that host,
conscious of their own wicked desire to pierce some
father’s or brother’s throat, delighting in the portents,
a belief that this tumult in their minds, this sudden
ferment, was an omen of success in their wickedness.
If it is granted to men’s minds to foreknow misfortune,
what wonder those whose last day loomed quaked with
intense fear! Every Roman, whether there in Phoenician
Cadiz, or in Armenia drinking the Araxes’ water, in all
climes and beneath every constellation of the heavens,
every Roman sorrowed, and knew not why, and chided
himself for his sadness; not realising what loss he was
suffering there and then in Thessaly. If one may credit
the legend, an augur, in the Euganean hills, that day,
sitting by the Aponus spring that smokes as it issues
from the ground, where Antenor’s Timavus river splits
into channels, cried out: ‘The great day dawns, the final
battle is waged; the armies of Caesar and Pompey meet
in impious war.’ Perhaps he heard the thunder and saw
Jove’s omen, the lightning bolt; perhaps he witnessed
all the firmament at war, the sky troubled on its axle;
or else the sad powers above marked the battle, the sun
dim and obscured. Nature at least ensured that the day
of Pharsalia differed from all others that she displays.
And if skilled augurs through human wit had viewed
every strange sign above, Pharsalia might have been
known the whole world over. How great those leaders
whose fates were signalled throughout earth, to whose
destiny the heavens in their entirety gave their attention!
Even for posterity, in generations to come, these things
will excite hope and fear and vain prayer, when the tale
of that battle is read, whether its own fame shall descend
to later centuries, or whether I by my care and effort might
do some service to those great men; all will be spellbound
when they read as if the outcome were yet to be decided
and not known, and will favour your cause Pompey, yet.
Pompey’s soldiers, illuminated by the sun’s opposing
rays, descending from the hills, flooded them with light.
Not launched randomly at the plain, the doomed ranks
were placed in definite order. Lentulus Spinther, you
held the left, with the first legion, the readiest for war,
and the fourth. The right wing of the host was entrusted
to you, Domitius Ahenobarbus, a brave but ill-starred
captain. While the strong centre of the battle line was
formed of the bravest men, whom you Scipio Metellus
had led from Cilicia, here a combatant, but later to hold
the high command in Africa. And by Enipeus’ waters
and marshy pools rode the riders from the Cappadocian
hills, and the loose-reined cavalry from Pontus. Most
of the dry ground was held by the kings, and tetrarchs,
and mighty potentates, and all wearers of purple who
served the power of Rome. Libya sent Numidians there,
Crete her Cydonians, there the arrows of the Itureans
were fired, the Gauls marched out against their known
foe, and there the Spaniards brandished battle-shields,
that Pompey might rob the victor of his subject nations,
and at once consume the source of all future triumphs
by exhausting in one battle the blood of all mankind!
That day by chance, Caesar, relinquishing his position,
was about to disperse his troops to plunder the fields,
when he saw the enemy suddenly descend to the plain.
Before him lay his opportunity, the object of a thousand
prayers, to stake all on a single throw. Tired of delay,
and burning with desire for regal power, he had learned,
in the short space of civil war, to loathe this slow-wrought
crime. Yet when he felt the advent of that decisive battle,
which would resolve their rivalry, when he saw the ruins
of fate tottering to their fall, even his rage for instant
slaughter languished for a moment, and his mind ready
to vouch success wavered, how should fear for his own
fate not exist, nor the possibility of Pompey’s hopes?
Fear subsiding, confidence returned, the better to exhort
his troops: ‘Conquerors of the world, you soldiers who
are my fortune, here is the battle you so often wished for.
Prayer is no longer needed, now summon fate with your
swords. Caesar’s greatness lies in your hands. This is
the day I recall that you promised me by the Rubicon,
the hope of which led us to take up arms, for which we
delayed our return to the triumphs denied us. This is
the day witnessed by fate that will decide which of us
was right to take up arms; this battle will pronounce
the defeated guilty. You who attacked your native land
with fire and steel for me, fight fiercely, and absolve
yourselves of sin now with the sword. In the shifting
claims of warfare, no hand is pure. Not for my fortune
I pray but that you might be free to rule all nations.
I desire myself to return to private life, wear plebeian
dress, be a mere civilian: while you rule all I’ll refuse
nothing. Reign, while I gaze on with envy. Nor will
the world you hope for cost much in blood: you meet
lads culled from the Greek training-grounds, sapped
by the practices of the wrestling-ring, scarce strong
enough to bear arms; and barbarians in disordered
dissonant ranks, unable to endure the trumpet-blast
or the sound of their own marching. Few of you will
face other Romans; most of this fighting will thin
the world of nations and crush the enemies of Rome.
Attack these cowardly tribes and infamous kingdoms,
lay a world low with the first stroke of your blades;
make clear that the many who followed Pompey’s
chariot to Rome, cannot deliver him a single triumph.
Do Armenians care who holds the power in Rome?
Would some barbarian give a single drop of blood
to grant Pompey power in Italy? They hate all Romans
and disdain their masters; those they know, the most.
Fortune has rather entrusted me to the hands of my
own men, whom I know from many a battle in Gaul.
What blade do I not recognise? And when the javelin
flies quivering through the sky, I shall not fail to name
the arm that throws it. If I see those signs that never yet
played your leader false, fierce face and menacing gaze,
victory is yours. I think to see rivers of blood, kings all
trampled as one underfoot, the mangled flesh of senators,
whole nations drowned in one vast carnage. But I delay
my destiny, holding you here while you rage for battle.
Forgive my tardiness, unsettled by hope I have never
felt the gods so close or ready to grant so much; only
this narrow field keeps us from what we pray for. I
am the man, who when this fight is done, will have
the power to grant what belongs to nations and kings.
What movement of the heavens, what constellation
shifting in the sky grants this to Thessaly, you gods?
Today before us is this war’s punishment or reward.
Imagine the chains, imagine the cross reserved for
Caesar, my head set on the Rostrum, limbs unburied.
Think of Sulla’s crime, the butchery in the Saepta’s
pound on the Campus Martius: we wage civil war
on Sulla’s pupil. My fears are for you; I shall seek
my own salvation in suicide; whoever looks back
if the foe is unbeaten, will see me stab my breast.
You gods, whose cares are drawn from heaven to
earth by Rome’s travails, give victory to one who
does not think it needful to draw cruel blades on
beaten men, nor thinks citizens commit a crime
merely by fighting him! When Pompey held you
fast, where your power was constrained, he then
sated his sword with streams of blood! This I beg
of you, my soldiers, let every fugitive pass as your
countryman, strike no man in the back. Yet while
their weapons glitter, no pious thought, no sight
of relatives in their front rank must move you;
strike confusion into every face you once revered.
If any man strikes a kinsman’s breast with the cruel
steel, let him accept the guilt, or if he violates no tie
of kinship with the blow let him do so for the death
of his unknown foe. Level the ramparts now and fill
the trenches with their ruins, so the whole army may
advance in ranks, in tight formation. Forget the camp,
you will find another in that place from which their
doomed army comes.’ Almost before Caesar ended,
each man took up his task, snatching food, and arming
in haste. Taking it as an omen of victory, they trampled
the ramparts, exiting in confusion, belying their orders,
and leaving all to fate. If every man there, entering that
deadly field had been Caesar and seeking to rule Rome,
they could not have flung themselves faster into the fray.
When Pompey saw the enemy army advance directly,
to further the battle without delay, he stood appalled,
his blood froze, knowing this day chosen by the gods.
It was an omen to so great a soldier to so dread a battle.
But swallowing his fears he rode along the line on his
great war-horse. ‘Behold the day,’ he cried, ‘that your
virtue demanded, the end of the civil war you sought.
Expend all your strength; one last trial of arms is left;
a single hour that draws all nations here. Whoever
longs for his house and homeland, his wife, children,
dear ones left behind, must wield the sword: heaven
sets all on this one battle. Ours, the better cause, gives
hope of the gods’ favour: they will guide our spears
to Caesar’s heart, they wish to sanctify Rome’s laws
with his blood. If they chose to grant my father-in-law
the command of the world, they could hasten this grey
head of mine into the grave: but if they let Pompey lead
they cannot be angry with Rome or the nations. We
have assembled all, to make victory ours. Noble men
willingly face danger, so that our army has the sacred
aspect of former times, such that Curius, and Camillus,
and the Decii, those lives devoted to death, if the fates
had restored them to our times, would stand beside us.
The nations of the eastern dawn, of countless cities, are
gathered, such hosts as never were summoned before.
A whole world at once is for us. Whoever is bounded
by the zodiac to north and south make up our army,
and shall we not encircle the enemy forces, outflank
them with our wings? Victory demands but few to fight,
mere shouting is all the rest of our army requires to do:
Caesar’s force is not enough for us. Imagine Rome’s
mothers leaning with dishevelled hair from the high
walls of the city urging you to battle; imagine those
aged senators prevented from fighting by their years,
bowing their venerable grey heads before you; that
Rome herself fearful of tyranny comes to greet you;
imagine that present generations and those to come
both address their prayers to you: the latter desiring
to be born free, the former to die in freedom. If with
such at stake, there is still room for Pompey, then
with my wife and sons, I would kneel at your feet in
supplication, if that were in accord with the majesty
of my command. Except you conquer, Pompey is
exiled, scorned by Caesar, bringing shame on you,
and I pray to escape that final misery, in my closing
years, and not learn, an old man, to bear the yoke.’
Ending thus, his mournful voice stirred their valour,
Roman courage rose, and they resolved to win or die.
So the armies ran forward both roused by the same ardour,
one driven by fear of domination, the other to achieve it.
Those right hands guaranteed, that whatever this ninth
century from Rome’s foundation might reveal, it would
be emptied of swordsmen. This war would deny birth
to a generation, and prevent the birth of unborn nations.
Thus the whole Latin race would seem a fable; Gabii,
Veii, Cora, the hearths of Alba, houses of Laurentum,
barely revealed by dust-drowned ruins, an empty land,
where no men go but senators forced by Numa’s law,
which they resent, to spend the statutory night there.
It was not the tooth of time brought such destruction,
consigned the past monuments to decay; in all those
silent towns we witness the abomination of civil war.
How the numbers of the human race were lessened!
Those born into the world are not enough to populate
those towns and country, a single city contains us all.
The fields of Italy are tilled by men in chains, no one
lives beneath our ancient roofs, rotten and set to fall;
Rome is not peopled by citizens; full of the world’s
dross we have so ruined her, civil war among such
is no longer a threat. Pharsalia was the cause of all
that evil. Those deathly names, Cannae and Allia,
so long accursed in the Roman calendar, must yield
to this. Rome marks the date of lesser disasters, yet
chooses to ignore this day. Cruel destiny! Plague
bearing air, pestilence, famine that maddens, cities
given to the flames, tremors levelling populous
townships, all these might be sated with the men
Fate drew from every quarter to wretched death,
snatching away the gifts of years while revealing
them, displaying generals and nations in the field,
to show Rome in collapse what greatness also fell.
What city ruled a broader empire or hastened from
success to success more swiftly? Every war added
more subjects, every year the sun saw you advance
towards the poles; other than a small part of the East,
night, day, all the heavens revolved for you, Rome,
and all the wandering stars saw was yours. And yet
Pharsalia’s fatal dawn reversed your fate, and undid
the work of centuries. Thanks to that blood-drenched
day, India has no fear of Roman law, no consul makes
the nomad Dahae live behind walls, or with girt robe
founds a colony in Sarmatia, tracing it with the plough;
Pharsalia is why Parthia still awaits stern retribution,
that Liberty, fleeing civil war, has not returned from
beyond the Tigris or the Rhine, and often though we
have sought her with our life-blood, wanders, a boon
to Scythians and Germans, and never turns her eye
to Italy, would she had never been known to our race.
From the day Romulus founded you, Rome, marked
by the flight of a vulture on the left, and peopled you
with the criminals from the sanctuary in the Asylum,
down to the disaster of Pharsalia, you should have
stayed a slave. Fortune, I complain to you of the Bruti;
why did we enjoy lawful rule, years named for consuls?
Happy the Arabs, Medes, the lands of the East, whom
destiny granted endlessly to tyrants. Of all the nations
under tyranny our fate is the worst, to whom slavery
is shame. No deities aid us, we lie when we say Jove
reigns, since it is blind chance drives the world along.
Would a Jupiter grasping the lightning-bolt gaze idly
from high heaven at Pharsalia’s slaughter? Would he
aim his fires at Pholoe and Oeta, the pines of Mimas,
and Rhodope’s blameless forest, yet Cassius, not he,
strike Caesar down? He brought night to Thyestes,
in dooming Argos to a premature darkness, shall he
then leave Thessaly in the light where, an equal crime,
fathers and brothers wield swords against each other?
No god watches over mankind. Yet we have vengeance
for that disaster insofar as gods can satisfy us mortals:
this civil war would make gods equal to those above;
Rome would deck the spirits of the dead with haloes,
with lightning-bolts and stars, and here, in the temples
of the gods, Romans swear their oaths by their shades.
When both armies had swiftly crossed the open ground
that lay between them and that final act of destiny, and
were only separated by a little space, each man looked
to see where his javelin might fall, or whose arm fate
might raise to threaten him. There they could see fathers’
and brothers’ faces opposite, weapons at their side, yet
chose to hold position. But their blood ran cold, torpor
seized them, numbed at the heart from that blow to all
natural affection, and whole companies grasped their
motionless javelins in a rigid grip. And may the gods
grant you, Cratinus, whose spear-blow began the battle,
staining Thessaly with Roman blood, not mere death,
which lies in store for all, but the pains beyond death.
What mad rashness! When Caesar restrained his spear,
had any other hand the precedence? Then the clarions
gave a strident blast, a horn sounded out the war-note,
the trumpets bold to give the signal, then a roar rose
to the heavens, breaking on the dome of far Olympus,
above the clouds, where no sound of thunder reaches.
The Haemus range’s echoing gorges took up the cry
and passed it onwards for Pelion’s caverns to repeat.
Pindus growled, and the Pangaean rocks resounded,
while Oeta’s cliffs bellowed, till all were terrified by
that sound of wild voices returned by Mother Earth.
Innumerable spears were thrown, with differing aim;
some hoping to wound, some to bury the spearhead
in the ground and keep their hands unstained. But
chance rules all, and random fortune renders guilty
whom it will. The Ituraeans, Medes and lone Arabs,
formidable with the bow, firing at no specific mark,
aimed only at the sky over the battlefield, and death
rained down, but no guilt stained their foreign steel,
all evil was confined to the Roman javelins. The air
was thick with metal, the gloom of the interweaving
weapons masked the plain. But the least part of that
slaughter was due to the flying metal hurled or fired!
The sword alone could satisfy the civil war’s hatreds,
drawing right hands towards the hearts of Romans.
Pompey’s forces packed in close ranks, linked arms,
shield-boss after shield-boss, in an unbroken line;
with barely space where they stood to move hand
or weapon, so crowded they feared their own swords.
Caesar’s force, with wild and headlong speed, charged
the dense ranks, finding a way through shields and men;
where the woven mail presents its heavy links, where
the breast is protected by the armour, even to the vitals,
all that lies beneath, the blows they delivered penetrated.
One army suffers this civil war that a second one inflicts:
swords hang idle there in Pompey’s ranks, while each
guilty blade of Caesar’s grows hot. And Fortune, now,
needing no great space of time to overturn so weighty
a force, sweeps away that vast ruin in its fatal flow.
When Pompey’s two cavalry wings extended their arc
over the plain beyond the flanks of infantry, his light
troops pushed on in loose order into the opposing men,
and launched fierce attacks against Caesar’s front ranks.
Each soldier wielded his usual weapons, all alike after
Roman blood, with flights of arrows, brands and stones,
and weighted bullets melted and fused by their passage.
But Caesar, fearing his vanguard might be broken, sent
the cohorts in reserve, positioned at an angle to his lines
behind the standards, into attack, while the wings waited,
against that part of the battlefield where all was in chaos.
Pompey’s cavalry fled headlong, in shameless cowardice,
showing the folly of entrusting civil conflict to barbarians.
As the first warhorse, pierced in the chest, threw its rider
headlong and trampled on his body, the rest fled the field,
their horses charging, a dense mass, into their own ranks.
Countless deaths ensued, a slaughter not a battle, as here
the steel blades waged war, and there the throats were cut.
Caesar’s army tired of killing all those men facing death.
Would that Pharsalia’s plain might have been content
with the blood of foreigners, theirs the gore that stained
her springs, their corpses the covering for her battlefield!
Or that, desiring to be glutted with Roman blood, she
might spare Galatian lives, and those of the Syrians,
Cappadocians, Gauls, Iberians from afar, Armenians
Cilicians, for when the war was ended these would
form the Roman people. Panic, now spread to all
Pompey’s force, and fate declared itself for Caesar.
It was now the turn of Pompey’s centre, his main strength.
The fight which had raged at random over the whole field
was here concentrated, and fortune checked Caesar’s attack.
Those who plied arms and waged war there were not men
drawn as auxiliaries from foreign armies; here men faced
fathers and brothers. Here, Caesar, your fury was revealed,
your madnesses, your crimes! Would that my mind might
shun these acts of war, give them to darkness, that no age
might learn from me, in verse, of such horrors, or the full
depths of civil conflict. Far better that our tears and groans
were in vain, and that I were silent as to your part, Rome!
For Caesar, rousing his soldiers’ madness and fury, went
here and there among the lines, adding fire to their burning
ardour, so that nowhere was free of guilt. He noted whose
blade was all blood, whose glittered with only its tip red,
whose sword-hand trembled, whose grip on his spear was
firm, whose was slack, who delighted in warfare, and who
merely obeyed orders, whose countenance changed when
he killed a countryman. He surveyed the bodies fallen on
the battlefield, with his own hand staunching the wounds
that would else have drained the blood of many a soldier.
Like Bellona brandishing the blood-stained scourge, or
like Mars urging on the Bistones, lashing his horses with
savage blows as they run in fear of Pallas and her aegis,
so wherever Caesar goes darkness of crime and slaughter
loom, groaning of great voices, heavy sounds of armour
falling, and the blows of steel against steel. His the hands
that grant fresh blades, new missiles, commanding that
they hack with swords the faces of the foe. He himself
leads the advance and, urging on the stragglers, rouses
the laggards with blows from the butt-end of his spear.
Telling them to spare the rank and file, he points out
to them the senators, knowing the arteries of the state,
the heart of power, how to strike at Rome, and where
Liberty might be wounded, making her last stand here.
Senators, knights and noblemen are put to the sword;
The Lepidi and Metelli are slain, the Corvini, the house
of Torquatus, once leaders of the state, ruling all men
Pompey, except only you. And, oh, why are you there,
Marcus Junius Brutus, sword in hand, hiding your face
from the enemy under a common soldier’s helm? Glory
of Rome, the Senate’s final hope, last scion of a house
famous throughout our history, do not charge so rashly
through the enemy ranks, seeking your doom before
Philippi, your own Pharsalia. To aim at Caesar’s life
is useless here: he has not reached the summit yet, not
risen far enough beyond those lawful heights of human
power that constrain all, to earn of fate so noble a death.
Let him live, to fall to Brutus’ dagger, let him reign!
There all the glory of our country perished: a great pile
of noble corpses, unmixed with common soldiers lay
there on that field. Yet one death was most noteworthy
in that carnage, that of Domitius, the stubborn warrior,
whom fate led from defeat to defeat, never absent when
Pompey’s fortunes faded. Conquered so often by Caesar,
still he died here without loss of his liberty. Thus he fell
to a host of wounds, glad not to suffer a second pardon.
Caesar found him weltering in a pool of blood, taunting
him: ‘Domitius, my successor in Gaul, now you desert
Pompey’s cause; yet the war will go on without you.’
So he spoke, but the courage still beating in Domitius’
breast sufficed for speech; in dying he opened his lips:
‘The fatal reward for your crimes, is not yet yours,
Caesar! Knowing your fate is undecided, and your
inferiority to your son-in-law, I go free, untroubled,
to the Stygian shades, with Pompey still my leader.
Though I die, I yet can hope that you, submerged
by savage conflict, will pay Pompey and myself
a heavy reckoning.’ Before he could speak again,
life left him, and a deep darkness veiled his eyes.
When a whole world died there, it seems shameful
to spend tears on each of the innumerable dead,
follow individual fates to ask whose vital organs
the death-dealing sword penetrated, who trampled
on his own bloody entrails, who facing his enemy
pulled the buried blade from his own throat, with
his last gasp, in dying. Some fell at a blow; others
stood upright though their arms were lopped; these
were pierced by spears; those pinned to the ground;
some fell on the enemy weapons, spouting blood
from their veins; one stabbed his brother’s breast,
then to spoil the body of his kin, severed the head
and flung it far off; while another slashed at his
father’s face, trying in wild fury to show those
looking-on the man he slew was not his father.
But no other death deserves a sole lament, we
have no space to mourn individual men. This
battle of Pharsalia was different than all other
disasters: Rome suffered many deaths elsewhere,
here Rome perished in the deaths of nations;
there soldiers died, here it was whole peoples;
here the blood of Pontus, Assyria, and Achaea
flowed, and all that gore a torrent from Roman
veins washed from the field, while forbidding it
to linger. The nations in this conflict were dealt
a wound too heavy for their age alone to bear;
here more than simply life and limb it was that
perished: we were laid low for centuries, all
generations doomed to slavery were conquered
by those swords. What fault did we, their sons,
their grandsons, commit that we deserved to be
born under tyranny? Did we fight fearfully or
shield our throats from the sword? The guilt
for others’ cowardice is pinned to our necks.
If fate gave us, born later, a lord and master,
it should have also granted us chance to fight!
By now, wretched Pompey had realised the god’s
no longer favoured him, nor was the fate of Rome
in his hands, compelled against his will by such
disaster to despair of his fortunes. He stood far off
on rising ground, from where he saw the carnage
grip a Thessaly darkened by the clouds of battle.
He saw the missiles aimed towards him, the piles
of corpses, his own end presaged by all that blood.
Yet he did not delight, as the wretched so often do,
in drawing the whole world to destruction with him,
and involving all mankind in his ruin. He still saw
the gods as deserving of his prayer that the majority
of Romans might survive him, a solace to him in
his downfall. ‘Refrain, you gods,’ he cried, ‘from
the destruction of the nations. Let the world remain,
let Rome survive, though Pompey should be ruined.
If you would wound me more, I have a wife and sons;
such hostages I have granted to fate. Is it not enough
that this civil war has destroyed me and mine. Is all
the world’s destruction insufficient? Why lacerate
all things? Why work at universal destruction? Now,
nothing of mine is left me, Fortune.’ So saying, he
then rode through the shattered ranks, all amongst
the troops, rallying them to the standards, halting
their flight to imminent death, saying he was not
worthy of their sacrifice. He had no fear of facing
those enemy swords, offering his chest or throat
to the fatal blow; but dreading lest if he was killed
his men might refuse to flee, and a whole world
be heaped above his corpse; or wishing to conceal
his death from Caesar’s eyes. In vain, poor man;
if his father-in-law needs gaze upon that head,
it shall be everywhere forthcoming. But you,
his wife, and your beloved face, are a further
cause for flight, the fates decreeing that he shall
not die with his better part absent. Thus Pompey
rode swiftly from the field, oblivious to the spears
around him, passing with high courage to his final
doom, without groans or tears, only a noble sorrow
filled with respect, as it was right for you to show
towards Rome’s ills, Pompey. With unchanged face
you gazed on Pharsalia: victory in war never saw
you arrogant, nor defeat downhearted, as superior
in your fall to faithless Fortune as you were when
delighting in your triumphs. Now Pompey goes
along released from care, free of the burden of fate;
now he can reflect on happier times; his unfulfilled
hopes receding, now he can dwell on what he was.
Flee from the fatal conflict, and summon the gods
to witness, Pompey, none who fight on die for you.
As in the later sad losses in Africa, as in the disaster
at Munda, and the slaughter by the Nile, most of
the fighting after Pharsalia and your flight, Pompey,
indicated not the world’s support for Pompey, nor
a passion for war, but was what we see endlessly,
the battle between power and freedom. When you
fled it was for their own cause the senators died.
Was it not joy to you, Pompey, to have desisted
in defeat from war, and not to have witnessed
the final horror? Look back at the ranks drowned
in death, the rivers turbid with the flow of blood,
and pity Caesar. With what feelings will he enter
Rome, owing his power to such a battle as this?
Whatever you had yet to suffer, exiled and alone,
in foreign lands, whatever you had to endure from
a tyrant Pharaoh, believe the word of the gods, and
fortune that long favoured you, victory was worse.
Forbid the noise of lamentation, curb the weeping,
forgo the people’s tears and grief. Let the world bow
to Pompey in misfortune as they did in his success.
No suppliant, gaze calmly on kings, gaze on the cities
you seized, the thrones of Egypt and Libya you gave,
and choose a place to die. Larissa first witnessed your
fallen greatness, and that noble head unbowed by fate.
She poured out all her citizens through her gates, met
Pompey with all her people like a victor; with weeping,
promised him gifts; opened their homes and temples
to him, begging to share in his disaster. In fact, much
of his vast authority remained and, all being inferior
to him except his former self, he might have roused
the nations again to arms, once again tempted fate.
Yet: ‘What use have the defeated for cities or nations,’
he cried, ‘offer your loyalty to the victor!’ You, Caesar,
were still trampling the life out of your country, wading
through corpses piled high, while your son-in-law was
granting you whole nations as a gift. When Pompey rode
from Larissa, the groans and tears of the people followed,
and many a reproach was levelled against the cruel gods.
That day was proof, Pompey, of the affection you enjoyed,
and of its fruits: for the victor never knows if he is loved.
When Caesar thought the battlefield drenched enough in
Roman blood, he curbed the swords in soldiers’ hands,
granting their lives to those abject souls in the ranks
whose death would serve no purpose. But fearing they
might still rally to their opposing camp, and their fear
be quelled by a night’s rest, he chose to advance on
the enemy ramparts, striking while the iron was hot
and terror gripped the foe. He felt no fear that this
order of his would tire his battle-hardened troops.
The soldiers needed little exhortation to be led
towards the spoils. ‘The victory is complete, lads,’
he cried, ‘all that remains is the repayment for all
our blood they shed, that is for me to point you to;
with no talk of granting you what each may take
for himself. Before you lies their camp and a wealth
of precious metal; all the gold stolen from the West
is there, tents crammed with the treasure of the East.
The riches of many kings and of Pompey lies there
to be claimed by its new lords: soldiers, make haste
to outrun the fugitives; or all the wealth Pharsalia
brings you the vanquished will seize.’ What ditch
or rampart could impede his men, seeking the spoils
of war and wickedness? They rushed off to discover
the wages of their sin, finding indeed many a weighty
mass torn from a plundered world, against the costs
of war; but not enough to satisfy their greedy minds.
Though they had seized what Spain mines or Tagus
yields, or rich Arimaspians gather from the surface
of Scythian sands, they would have thought it poor
reward for their crime. They’d promised all in hopes
of plundering Rome, expecting the Tarpeian citadel
would fall to the victor, these men who now pillaged
a mere camp! Impious soldiers slept on turf piled high
for patricians, blood-stained commoners lay on beds
fit for kings, and the guilty rested their bodies where
fathers and brothers had lain. But nightmares troubled
their sleep, frenzied images of the battlefield disturbed
their tormented minds. The guilt for their savage crimes
awake in every heart, their minds were still absorbed
by war, their restless hands grasping at absent swords.
I can well believe the land groaned, the guilty earth
breathed forth spirits, the air was thick with ghosts,
night in the upper world full of the terrors of hell.
Their victory rightly demands a grim retribution,
sleep bringing them flames and the serpents’ hiss.
The shades of dead countrymen stand beside them;
each man has his own shape of terror to haunt him:
one sees an old man’s face, another that of youth,
one is troubled all night by his brother’s corpse,
while a father’s ghost weighs on another’s breast,
and every phantom invaded Caesar’s dreams.
So Pelopean Orestes gazed on the Furies’ faces,
before he had been cleansed at the Scythian altar.
Neither Pentheus raving nor Agave newly sane
were subject to greater horror or mental turmoil.
That night, all those swords Pharsalia saw, all those
the day of vengeance would see drawn by senators,
were aimed at him; that night, the monsters of hell
scourged him. Yet how much that guilty conscience
of his could not yet punish, since Pompey still lived
when Caesar viewed the ghosts of the Styx, and all
of Hell, invading his sleep! All this he experienced,
yet when the clear light of day revealed Pharsalia’s
slaughter no feature of the land could drag his eyes
from that fatal field, and he gazed his fill on rivers
running with blood, and mighty mounds of corpses.
He beheld the heaps of bodies sliding to corruption,
counted nations of dead who had followed Pompey,
while a place was prepared for his meal, from which
he might study the faces and features of those corpses.
He rejoiced that the soil of Emathia was hidden from
view, the plain his eyes gazed on shrouded by corpses.
In that bloody carnage he discerned the gods’ favour
and his destiny. And loath to lose, in his madness,
the spectacle of that crime, he refused the wretched
dead a pyre and forced Emathia on a guilty heaven.
Cannae was lit by Libyan torches when Hannibal
buried Aemilius Paullus, but that example did not
serve to prompt Caesar to show humanity to his foe,
for his anger was not yet sated by slaughter against
these who he knew were his own countrymen. Yet
they asked no individual pyres, no separate burning,
the bodies might have been plunged in a single fire;
or if he had wished to punish his son-in-law, Caesar
might have heaped up Pindus’ timber and piled high
the oaks from Oeta’s forests, for Pompey, aboard
his ship, to view Pharsalia in flames. Still, such
anger achieved nothing; it mattered not whether
fire or putrefaction dissolved those corpses; nature
receives all in her gentle arms, and the dead grant
themselves their own end. If the flames do not take
them now, they will consume them with the earth
and the ocean waters later, when the communal
pyre that’s yet to come mingles dead men’s bones
with the stars. Wherever fortune summons yours,
Caesar, their spirits also will be there: you may
soar no further than they, nor seize a higher place
in Stygian darkness. The dead are free from fate;
earth takes back all she bears; he who has no urn
has the sky to cover him. You, who punish these
soldiers by denying them burial, why should you
flee this carnage, or desert these stinking fields?
Drink the water, Caesar; breathe the air if you can.
For the men who decompose there have snatched
Pharsalia from you, routed the victor, hold the field.
Not only Bistonian wolves were drawn to the dark
feast Pharsalia offered, but lions too from Pholoe,
scenting the rotting corpses. Bears left their dens
and vile dogs came from the villages, every beast
that scents foul air tainted by the smell of corruption.
Birds that had long been tracking the armies of that
civil war flocked there together. Cranes that migrate
to the Nile in Thracian winter delayed their flight
to the warm south. Never did the sky so shroud itself
with vultures nor a greater host of wings beat the air.
Every tree sent its birds, and their branches dripped
with crimson dew from those blood-stained feathers.
When the birds grew weary and dropped dead meat
from their talons, rotting flesh and drops of blood
fell on the victor’s face and his accursed standards.
That host of dead were not all picked to the bones
nor wholly devoured by those predatory creatures;
for though eating the limbs they ignored the vital
organs, not desirous of prying at the bone-marrow.
A greater part of the host they left to lie untouched;
corpses days of sun and rain dissolved, blending
them with the soil of Emathia. Wretched Thessaly,
what crime of yours offended the gods so deeply
that they forced on you such a mound of the dead,
and so evil a destiny? How many centuries suffice
for a neglectful posterity to take for granted the loss
this war incurred? When will crops grow untainted
in your blood-stained soil? To what Roman dead
must your ploughshares do violence? Fresh armies
will meet; and at Philippi, for a second time, before
this blood is dry, you will offer your land to crime.
Though we should empty the tombs of our ancestors,
those that still stand and those split by ancient roots
whose urns are broken, those ploughs of Thessaly
will turn up a greater heap of relics from the furrow,
and the harrows that till the fields strike still more.
No sailor should tie his rope to the Emathian shore,
no plough turn the soil of that grave of the Roman
people, for the farmer should flee the haunted fields;
the thickets should shelter no flocks, nor the shepherd
dare to graze his sheep on grass that grows above our
bones. And Thessaly should lie as naked and unknown
as lands made uninhabitable by zones of heat or cold,
as if it were the only soil, not merely the first, to endure
the evils of civil war. Oh, you gods above, would that
you granted us the power to curse that guilty country!
Why burden the whole earth so, and then absolve it?
The slaughter at Munda, the mournful sea off Sicily,
Mutina (Modena) and Actium have cleansed Pharsalia.
End of Book VII
Meanwhile, by winding tracks, Pompey made for
the forested wastes of Thessaly beyond that vale
of Hercules, wooded Tempe, urging on a horse
wearied by flight and unresponsive to the spur,
masking the confused traces of his retreat with
a wandering labyrinth trail. He dreaded the roar
of the wind in the swaying trees, while the sound
of his comrades falling back to join him roused
fear and agitation. Though fallen from the heights,
he knew there was no trivial price on his head,
and, remembering his past, believed his death
would earn as great a reward as he would give
for Caesar’s severed head. Seeking solitude, he
yet knew that his noble and powerful features
would not allow him to hide from fate in a safe
retreat. Many still seeking his camp at Pharsalia
while rumour had not yet spread of his defeat
were amazed to meet their general, astounded
at his loss, and he was barely believed though
telling himself of the disaster. The presence of
any witness to his woe was galling to Pompey.
He sought to be unrecognised by all, and pass
through cities safely under an obscure identity,
but Fortune who had long favoured him, now
exacted a penalty from the wretched, bringing
his weight of fame against him, and burdening
him with his previous glories. Now he feels his
honours came too swiftly, and curses those acts
of his triumphant youth in Sulla’s day; now in
his fall he hates to remember his fleet’s pursuit
of Cilician pirates, his armies in Pontus. So long
years destroy mighty hearts, and life may outlast
power. Past greatness is a mockery unless our life
and happiness end together, a swift death averting
sorrow. Should any man dare to trust good fortune,
without the means of death at hand? Pompey had
reached the shore where the Peneus, already dyed
with blood from Pharsalia’s slaughter, flowed to
the sea. From there a boat vulnerable to the winds
and waves, barely safe in the shallows, bore him,
apprehensive, over the deep. He whose oars still
beat the waters off Corcyra (Corfu), and the bays
of Leucas (Lefkada), lord of the Cilicians and of
the Liburnian lands, cowered like a frightened
passenger in that skiff. He commanded the sail be
bent towards secluded Lesbos, the isle entrusted
with his beloved Cornelia, where she lay hidden
but sadder than if she stood on Pharsalia’s field.
Her sorrow was intensified by apprehension, her
sleep broken by anxiety and fear. Her every night
was haunted by Thessaly; thus, as darkness ended,
she ran to the heights of a steep cliff by the shore;
gazing over the waves, she was always first to spy
the sails of some approaching vessel, dipping in
the distance, afraid to ask after her husband’s fate.
Behold now, a boat with sail making for your isle!
What it bears you know not; till now sad news
of war and ominous rumour fed your worst fears.
Now your husband comes to you in defeat. Why
lose a moment in mourning? Though you will
weep, as yet you only fear! But now, as the vessel
neared, she rose and marked the cruelty of guilty
heaven, her husband’s ghastly pallor, the grey
hair that hid his face, his clothes black with dust.
Faintness robbed her of the light of day, darkness
closed upon her grief, sorrow stopped her breath,
betrayed by the sinews her limbs folded, her heart
froze, and for a long time she lay expecting death.
A hawser was run to the shore, and Pompey trod
the empty sand. Her loyal attendants, seeing him
close at hand, dared not rail at fate except with
stifled moans, while trying in vain to raise their
mistress from the ground, but Pompey clasped
her in his arms, bringing life to her rigid limbs.
The blood returned to the surface of her flesh,
she became aware of his touch and was able
now to recognise her husband’s sorrowful face.
He forbade her to succumb to destiny, while
reproving her excess of grief: ‘A woman noted
for the titles, honours of such mighty ancestors,
why let the first stroke of ill-fortune sap your
strength? Here is your opportunity for centuries
of lasting fame. Neither war nor office yields
your sex glory, only a husband’s misfortune.
Rouse your courage, and let your affections
strive with fate, embrace the fact of my defeat.
Your is the greater glory now, since power,
and the dutiful ranks of senators, and all my
royal followers quit me: be you now Pompey’s
sole companion. As long as your husband lives,
such deep grief, admitting no relief, is unfitting;
the height of fidelity must be to mourn the man
himself. You suffered no loss from my defeat;
Pompey survived the battle, though his glory
perished. What you weep for, that you loved!’
Rebuked thus by her husband, Cornelia slowly
raised her trembling limbs from the ground,
and her moans gave vent to this complaint:
‘O would that I were wedded to loathsome
Caesar, being an ill-omened bride, bringing
happiness to no man! Twice I harm mankind.
The Fury and those Crassi, now shades, led
me forth as a bride, and cursed by those dead
I bring another Carrhae now to this Civil War,
sending nations headlong, and driving heaven
away from the better cause. O noble husband,
too good for such a wife, has fate such power
over such a man? Why was I chosen to plague
your marriage bed; only to bring you sorrow?
Exact then the penalty, which I will gladly pay:
give your companion to the waves, so the sea
may be calmer for you, your kings keep faith,
and the whole world more ready to serve you.
I had rather I had laid down my life to bring
your army victory; now Pompey expiate your
defeat. Unforgiving Julia, you who have cursed
our bed with civil strife, come from wherever
you are buried, and exact the penalty, and then,
appeased by your rival’s death, spare Pompey.’
With this she fell back into her husband’s arms,
and the eyes of all there were moved to tears.
Pompey’s stern heart was stirred, and Lesbos
troubled those eyes that were dry at Pharsalia.
Then the people of Mytilene, filling the shoreline,
addressed Pompey: ‘Since it will ever have been
our greatest glory to have protected so mighty
a general’s wife, we pray you will honour our city
bound to you by sacred ties, finding our homes
worthy of sheltering you for this night at least.
Make this a place that all will visit for centuries,
where men shall come from Rome to worship.
No place is more fitting for you to enter in defeat:
all others may hope for the victor’s favour, while
this is already marked. Would Caesar not need
his fleet since Lesbos is an island? Then most
of the senators, aware of this, will gather here,
you shall restore your fortune on these shores.
Accept the wealth of our temples, the treasure
of the gods; make use of our forces, whether
on land or sea, whichever serves best. Employ
Lesbos in whatever manner she is worthy of.
Accept, in defeat, what Caesar will only steal.
Acquit our island, that has served you well,
of this one crime: that in adversity our loyalty
be doubted that you enjoyed in good fortune.’
Overjoyed, in defeat, to find such devotion,
glad, for mankind’s sake, for a faith unshaken,
Pompey replied: ‘I have shown by my actions
that no place on earth is dearer to me: while
Cornelia was your hostage, Lesbos was Rome
to me, my dear and sacred hearth and home;
I sailed my ship for no other shore in flight,
and though knowing Lesbos had earned cruel
Caesar’s anger in keeping my wife from harm,
I have not hesitated to commit myself to you,
a powerful means for you to regain his favour.
But here I must cease to implicate you further.
It is for me to follow wherever fate leads me.
Ah Lesbos, happiest of all, and famed forever,
whether she shows the way to other nations
and kingdoms to receive me, or alone is loyal.
Now I mean to discover where good and evil
dwell in this world. Hear a last prayer, you gods,
if any are yet with me, grant me the likes of these
people of Lesbos, who allow a defeated man,
pursued by Caesar, to enter their harbour then
leave again.’ So he spoke and led his saddened
wife aboard. Such a lament rose along the shore
you might have thought all were leaving their
native soil for some foreign land, their hands
thrust towards heaven. Pompey’s departure,
whose ill-fortune alone had stirred their grief,
moved them less than that of Cornelia, whom
they had considered as one of their own during
the conflict; at her leaving they groaned aloud.
The women would scarcely have parted from
her without tears even if she had been joining
a victorious spouse, such love had she inspired
in them, some by her modesty, others by her
truthfulness, and her pure and reticent looks,
because humble of heart, and no burdensome
guest to them all, she lived while her husband’s
fortunes stood as if her were already defeated.
The sun’s fires by now were half-sunk in the waves,
half-seen by those from whose hemisphere he sank,
and by those, if such men exist, for whom he rose.
The thoughts that troubled Pompey’s mind turned
from allies in league with Rome to the uncertain
loyalties of kings, and the pathless lands that lay
beyond the burning skies to the south. Such was
the sad turmoil in his mind, such was his hatred
of tomorrow that he threw off the heavy burden
of uncertainty by asking the helmsman about
the stars: how did he steer for land, what aid
to cleave the waves lay in the sky, what stars
served to make for Syria, which of the Wain’s
were a pointer to Libya? The expert watcher
of the silent skies answered him thus: ‘Those
lights that glide and vanish from the starry sky,
its axle never-resting, deceiving the wretched
seaman, are not to be followed; but the un-setting
pole-star that never sinks beneath the waves,
brightest near the two Bears, guides our vessels.
When I see him always lift on high, where
Ursa Minor tops the mast-tree, then we face
the Bosphorus and the Black Sea that indents
the Scythian shore. But when the Bear-Keeper,
Bootes, hangs clear from the mast-head, when
the Little Bear sinks nearer the sea, the ship
is headed for Syrian harbour. Then there is
Canopus, a star that shuns the north and is
content to wander the southern sky: keep
that to port and sail past Pharos, your ship
will strike the Syrtes amidst the waves. But
where would you bid me sail, what should
our course be now?’ Pompey, unsure, replied:
‘Let this be your only care, in sailing onwards,
that the ship be further from Thessalian shores,
leave behind the western seas and skies, trust
the rest to the wind. I have my wife on board,
the pledge I left when I knew what shore to seek,
now chance must grant us harbour.’ So he spoke,
and the helmsman hauled hard on the level sail
stretched from the yardarms, and turned to port,
so as to cleave the rough waves roughened by
Chios and the cliffs of Asina, slacking the ropes
at the bow, while tightening those at the stern.
The waves responded, altering in sound, as their
prow sliced the sea and their course was changed
more skilfully than the charioteer who pivots on
his right wheel round the unscathed turning-post.
The sun lit the earth and hid the stars. Whoever
had fled far from the stormy field of Pharsalia
now rallied to Pompey; the first to meet with him
once he had quit Lesbos’ shore was his son Sextus,
next a loyal band of senators arrived; even now,
cast down by fate and defeated in battle, Fortune
did not rob him of kings to serve him: his friends
in exile were lords of the earth, kings of the east.
He sent Deiotarus, who had followed his leader
on his wanderings, to scour the world, saying:
‘O most loyal of rulers, since Rome’s sphere
has been eclipsed by our disaster at Pharsalia,
it remains to try the nations of the East, those
who drink the waters of Tigris and Euphrates,
as yet secure from Caesar. Seeking to change
our fate, do not hesitate to sound the reaches
of distant Scythia, and far Parthia; change skies,
carry this message to Parthia’s proud Arsaces:
‘If our former treaty holds, sworn in the name
of the Thunderer by me, and made binding by
your magi, fill your quivers, string those bows
from Armenia with Getic sinew; O Parthia,
did I not when I chased the doughty Alani,
eternally at war, towards the Caspian Gates,
did I not let you traverse the Persian plains,
refuse to force your hasty refuge in Babylon?
I passed Cyrus by, and the Chaldean realm,
where swift Ganges and Nysaean Hydaspes
flow towards the sea, closer to the flames
of the rising sun than Persia, and though
everywhere victorious I refused to add
the Parthians to my conquests and alone
among the kingdoms of the East, treated
you as equals. Twice, thanks to Pompey,
the Arcasids were saved; for who curbed
Rome’s righteous anger when wounded
by the slaughter at Carrhae? Let Parthia
now, bound to me by so many favours,
breach her borders, and pass the Euphrates,
a thing forbid for centuries, at Alexander’s
Zeugma (Birecik). Conquer Rome, Parthia,
for Pompey, and Rome will welcome you.’
Though the task was difficult, Deiotarus
did not refuse and, laying aside his royal
insignia, he left in haste, wearing a slave’s
garb. In time of danger a ruler finds it safer
to dress as a beggar; how much more secure
then the truly poor than the lords of the earth!
The king was set ashore, Pompey sailed past
the cliffs of Icaria, and shunning the placid
waters of Ephesus and Colophon, skirted
the foaming rocks of tiny Samos; a breeze
blew from the shores of Cos; he avoided
Cnidos, and Rhodes famed isle of the sun,
and by-passed the long bay of Telmessus,
keeping to open water. His ship now faced
the land of Pamphylia, and though he had
not yet dared to entrust himself to any city
Pompey now entered your gate, little
Phaselis (Tekirova), your scanty population
scarcely a threat, your homes drained of men,
such that there were more aboard ship than
behind your walls. From here he once more
set sail, until Mount Taurus rose to view,
and Dipsus descending from Mount Taurus.
Could Pompey have conceived how by suppressing
piracy he himself would benefit? He fled unharmed
along Cilicia’s shores in his little vessel. A number
of senators followed, gathering to the fugitive leader;
and at Syhedra, that little harbour that sends outward
and receives again Selinus’ shipping, Pompey spoke
sadly to the assembled statesmen: ‘Comrades, in war
and in defeat, who represent our country, though I,
who seek your counsel, to endorse fresh strategy,
stand here on the barren shores of Cilicia, with no
army about me, yet hear me with hearts held high.
I did not yield to total defeat on Pharsalia’s field,
nor are my fortunes so low I cannot lift my head
once more, and shake off the disaster we suffered.
If Marius could rise again to office from the ruins
of Carthage, and grace those annals already filled
with his name, shall Fortune’s lighter blows deny
me? A thousand ships of mine ride Greek waters,
a thousand generals are mine. Pharsalia scattered
my forces rather than destroying them. Even now
I might be secure through a whole world of deeds,
and that name of mine that the whole world loves.
Weigh well those realms of Libya, Parthia, Egypt
as regards their strength and loyalty; say which
might worthily retrieve Rome’s fortunes, though
I will reveal to you my private thoughts, and this
decision to which my mind’s inclined. I mistrust
the extreme youth of Egypt’s new Ptolemy, since
loyalty in times of danger needs adult judgement.
Then, I fear two-faced Juba’s cunning, since that
impious son of Carthage, mindful of his ancestry,
threatens Italy; his empty head is full of Hannibal,
whose remote link to his Numidian forefathers,
taints his blood. When Varus once sought his aid,
Juba swelled with pride seeing Rome a suppliant.
So, up my friends, make haste for Eastern realms.
Euphrates’ waters hide a mighty world from us,
and the Caspian gates enclose vast solitudes;
a different hemisphere dictates Assyria’s changes
of night and day, and their sea is other than ours
and its water tinged differently. Their one desire
is warfare. Their horses are swift on the plains,
their bows are strong, neither young nor old are
slow to loose the deadly shaft, death accompanies
every arrow. Their archers were the first to break
the Macedonian phalanx, taking Bactra, capital
of the Medes, and Babylon, that city of Assyria
behind proud walls. Nor do they fear the Roman
javelin, riding boldly to war, proving the power
of their Scythian arrows the day that Crassus fell.
The bolts they fire do not rely on steel alone, for
their hurtling missiles are dipped deep in poison.
A slight wound kills, death is in a mere scratch.
Would that I had not such faith in the cruel sons
of Arsaces! This destiny that rules the Medes
too closely mirrors ours, and the gods greatly
nurture them. I shall pour forth nations uprooted
from alien lands, send out all the east summoned
from its cities. But if eastern faith and barbarian
treaties fail me, let fortune bear me, in my ruin,
beyond the beaten highways of the world: I shall
not beg from kings I made. If I fall at the earth’s
end, this will be a mighty solace in dying: Caesar
shall not outrage my corpse, nor pretend respect.
When I review the tale of my life, I was always
honoured in that Eastern world, famed indeed
beyond the Sea of Azov, and by Sarmatia’s Don!
Where was my fame involved with more glorious
deeds, from where did I return in greater triumph?
Rome, favour my enterprise; what greater happiness
can the gods grant you than waging civil war with
Parthian troops, consuming their men, involving
them with our ills? When Caesar’s armies confront
the Medes, fortune avenges the Crassi or myself.’
So he spoke, but sensed from their mutterings that
the gathering condemned his plans. Lentulus, who
was most sensitive to honour’s pangs and wounded
nobility, spoke as befitted one who was once a consul:
‘Has defeat in Thessaly so broken your spirit? Must
a single day determine the world’s fate? Is this issue
to be settled by the outcome of Pharsalia? Is there
no cure for a bleeding wound? Is all that fortune
leaves you, Pompey, to fall at the Parthians’ feet?
Why flee our world, scorning whole tracts of earth
and sky, seeking hostile heavens and alien stars,
to serve the Parthians, and worship at Chaldaean
altars with barbaric rites? Why pretend to a love
of freedom as your pretext for war? If you would
be a slave, why deceive a suffering world? When
you ruled Rome the Parthian king would tremble
at your name, seeing you lead captive kings from
Hyrcanian forests and Indian shores; shall he now
witness you cast down by fate, beaten and broken,
raising his insane ambition against Rome’s power,
measuring himself and Rome by Pompey’s pleas?
Your outpourings to him will be unworthy of your
courage and deeds; ignorant of our Latin tongue, he
will demand you beg with tears. Must we suffer this
stain upon our honour, that Parthia avenges Rome’s
disaster in Thessaly before Rome does so herself?
Surely she elected you for civil war; why broadcast
our sufferings and disasters among Scythian tribes
ignorant of them? Why teach the Parthians to cross
Euphrates? Rome loses much of the solace for her
misery if she submits to a foreign king rather than
obeying her own citizen. Is it your pleasure to march
through the world and lead savages against the walls
of Rome following standards taken on the Euphrates
from the Crassi? One king was missing at Pharsalia,
while Fortune’s favours lay hidden, and will he then
challenge Caesar’s power after hearing of his victory,
and make common cause with you? That nation of his
lacks the confidence. Every man born to Northern cold
is indomitable in war, courting death: but at every step
towards the warmer East, the inhabitants grow softer as
the sky becomes more clement. There it is all flowing
garments and loose robes, even amongst the men. In
the Persian lands, over Sarmatian plains, on the levels
that extend beside the Tigris, the Parthian is free to flee,
unconquerable by any; but where the land rises, he will
not climb harsh mountain ridges, fight on in the gloom
impaired by an uncertain mark for his bow, nor cleave
the river’s swift current by swimming. Nor, his limbs
coated in blood from battle, will he suffer the stifling
dust of a summer’s day. Parthia lacks battering rams,
the engines of war, and the strength to level ditches;
anything that obstructs an arrow will foil the pursuing
Persians. They skirmish, flee as they fight, and roam
in vague squadrons. They are quicker to yield ground
than dislodge the enemy. They smear poison on their
shafts, lacking the courage to engage at close quarters,
and draw their bows at a venture, then allow the wind
to carry their arrows where it will. All strength belongs
to the sword, and every manly race fights with the blade.
But the Parthian is disarmed in the moment of attack,
and forced to retreat with empty quiver. They ever rely
on poison, and never strength of arms. Do you, Pompey,
call on those who are scared to face war’s uncertainty
with the steel alone? Is the temptation of this shameful
alliance so great, that sees you parted from your country
by half a world, so you may lie beneath barbarous earth,
hidden in a poor and vile grave, yet shameful still while
Crassus seeks burial in vain? Yours is the easier destiny,
since the ultimate penalty holds scant fear for the brave,
but Cornelia has more to fear from the power of that
infamous king. Is that barbarous lust forgotten, which
flouts the marriage vows and the sanctities of wedlock
with polygamous union, in the manner of blind beasts;
where the secrets of the bridal chamber are infamously
revealed to his harem of a thousand women? The king
madly aroused by food and wine, dares couple in ways
the law finds too monstrous to define; the whole night
through will not serve to weary the man of such charms.
Their sisters lie in the beds of kings and, though sacred,
their mothers. In unhappy legend Thebes, Oedipus’ city,
was condemned by mankind for the crime he unwittingly
committed. And how often has an Arsaces not been born
of such a union to rule the Parthians! What is thought evil
by one who thinks it right to couple with his own mother?
Metellus’ noble daughter will serve the barbarian’s bed,
one more among a thousand wives; yet the king’s lust,
Pompey, will seize on her more than another, fired by
cruelty and her husbands’ fame, since it will heighten
that Parthian’s monstrous pleasure knowing that she
was once the wife of Crassus, as if to be carried off
a slave were the fate due her for his defeat at Carrhae.
If that wretched wound we suffered in the East still
rankles, you will not merely blush to seek aid from
that death-dealing king, but for having waged war
on Romans first. What greater reproach can people
bring against you and your father-in-law than that
while you met in conflict vengeance for the Crassi
was forgotten? All our generals should have gone
to Bactra and, so that not one single weapon were
lacking, the northern frontiers of the Empire laid
bare to the Dacians, the tribes beyond the Rhine,
while Babylon and perfidious Susa were laid in
ruins above their monarchs’ tombs. Fortune, we
pray that the Assyrian truce may end, and if this
civil war was settled at Pharsalia, let whoever
conquered head for Parthia. There is the nation
I would love to witness Caesar triumphing over.
Will not the shade of Crassus, of that sorrowful
old man, pierced by Scythian arrows, hurl this
reproach at you, once you have crossed the cold
Araxes: “Do you come here to make peace, you
whom we unburied ghosts hoped would avenge
our ashes after death?” There signs of our defeat
will meet your eyes; those walls around which
they dragged the headless bodies of our generals,
where Euphrates’ waters closed over so many
famous men, and Tigris’ current bore our dead
deep underground and then once more to light.
If you can face that, Pompey, you might rather
petition Caesar ensconced on Pharsalia’s field.
Why not turn your eyes to the Roman world?
If you fear Juba’s lack of faith, whose realm
stretches far southward, then let Ptolemy’s
Egypt be our goal. His kingdom is protected
to the west by Libyan Syrtes, and to the north
the Nile, with its seven mouths, meets the sea.
A land replete with its own resources, it has no
need of trade or rainfall, so great is its reliance
on the Nile alone. The sceptre the boy Ptolemy
holds he owes to you, Pompey; it was entrusted
to your guardianship. Who can dread the mere
shadow of a name? He is harmless at that age.
Look not for justice, loyalty, or fear of the gods
in a long-established court. The habits of power
know no shame; a kingdom’s burden is lightest
when the king is new.’ Lentulus now fell silent,
but his speech had already swayed their minds.
What freedom is granted by a mere anticipation
of death! So Pompey’s proposals were defeated.
Now Pompey quit Cilicia’s shores and sailed his
ships in haste for Cyprus, which the goddess
Venus prefers to her other shrines, remembering
the Paphian waves if we are to believe the tale
of her birth, and if indeed it is right to propound
the view that the gods had a beginning. Skirting
its coast, passing the long line of cliffs projecting
southwards, they set a course across the open sea.
Unable to make Pharos, whose lighthouse at night
is a blessing, struggling with the sails, they reached
Egypt’s delta further east where of seven branches
of the dividing Nile the largest ends in the shoals
of Pelusium. It was on that day when Libra weighs
equal hours of night and daylight with level scales,
the shortening days thereafter recompensing wintry
night for the hours of darkness lost in spring. Now,
learning that Pharaoh was camped on Mount Casius,
Pompey sailed there, the sun and the sails yet aloft.
By then, a lookout, taking horse swiftly on the shore,
had filled the nervous court with news of the arrival.
There was barely time to consult; yet the counsellors
of the Pharaoh’s palace gathered, Acoreus among
them, made milder by his years, and sobered by
weakness, whom Memphis, with its vain rites, bore,
Memphis that measures the depth of the rising Nile;
and during his priesthood more than one Apis bull
had lived its quarter century assigned by the Moon.
He was first to speak at council, talking of loyalty,
mutual benefit, of the dead Pharaoh’s sacred treaty.
But Pothinus, one fitter to know and sway evil kings,
dared to argue for Pompey’s death, saying: ‘Ptolemy,
human rules and divine ones may send many wrong;
we must punish the loyalty we praise when it supports
those whom Fortune crushes. Follow fate and the gods:
court the fortunate, shun the defeated. Wrong-headed
rectitude and utility are far apart as earth from the stars,
fire from water. The sceptre’s power perishes utterly
once we begin to weigh thoughts of justice; too much
respect for virtue levels strongholds. Endless crimes,
and free use of the sword, make hated monarchs safe.
Commit every cruelty, and suffer for it unless you do.
Let the man who would be pious quit the court. Virtue
and absolute power never dwell together; for he who is
ashamed of cruelty, must live in fear. Let not Pompey
despise your youth with impunity, who believes you
incapable of driving a beaten man from your shores.
If you regret the kingship, there are others nearer you
in blood – restore Pharos and the Nile to your sister,
Cleopatra, whom you banished, rather than let some
foreigner rob us of the throne. Let us defend Egypt
from Roman arms, at least. Whatever did not belong
to Pompey during the war, is not the victor’s either.
Driven from place to place, no faith left in fortune,
he seeks a nation to share his fall. Dragged down
by the shades of the dead, it is not so much Caesar’s
sword he flies from, as the senate’s gaze, so many
senators glutted the vultures of Thessaly; he fears
the tribes he deserted, left weltering in their blood;
dreads the kings whose might he destroyed; guilty
of Pharsalia, rejected by every land, now he troubles
our country, which he has not yet ruined. And our
complaint against him, Ptolemy, is more just than
any he has of us. Why does he sully our secluded
peace-loving Pharos with the sinful stain of war,
and give Caesar grounds for mistrusting us? Why,
in his fall, choose this country above all on which
to bring Pharsalia’s doom, a punishment not ours?
Already we incur a guilt purged only by the sword.
At his persuasion the Senate granted us sovereignty
over Egypt, and so we prayed for his victory. Yet
the sword that destiny commands me to brandish
I drew for the defeated, not intentionally for him.
Pompey, I shall pierce your heart, though I had
rather it had been Caesar’s: we are caught by this
flood that sweeps away all things. Do you not see
the need to do you violence while we can? What
misguided faith in our kingdom brings you here,
unhappy man? Do you not know our ineffectual
subjects, almost too weak to till the soil moistened
by the retreating Nile? If we must take the measure
of our kingdom, then we must confess our frailty.
Ptolemy, can you sustain Pompey’s ruin, beneath
which Rome is buried? Do you dare rake the ashes
of Pharsalia’s pyre, and bring war on your realm?
Why, before Pharsalia’s battle we refused to arm;
shall we join Pompey now when all desert him?
Do you challenge the victor’s power and proven
destiny? It is right in following success not to fail
it in defeat, but we need not befriend the wretched.’
All seconded the crime. The boy-king was pleased by
a deference seldom shown him, in that his attendants
allowed him to command such a thing. Achillas was
chosen to commit that evil act, where the treacherous
land juts out among the sands of Mount Casius, where
the Egyptian shoals testify to neighbouring Syrtes,
and he manned a small boat with armed accomplices
for the wicked deed. O you gods, had the land of Nile,
barbarous Memphis, and those effeminate peoples
of Egyptian Canopus the courage for this? Had that
civil war so oppressed the world? Had Rome fallen
so far? What place had Egypt, and a Pharaoh’s sword
in our tragedy? Civil war should at least preserve this
nicety: death at Roman hands far from foreign vileness.
If Pompey’s bright name pricked a Caesar’s conscience,
should you, Ptolemy, not have feared its ruinous fall?
How did you dare, vile manikin, to involve your foul
sacrilegious self, while the heavens thundered? Had he,
Pompey, never conquered worlds, or driven thrice
to the Capitol in triumph, ruled kings, championed
the Senate, or been son-in-law to Caesar, yet still
he was a Roman, and that should have been enough
for a king of Egypt. Why probe our heart with your
blade, perverse child, who did not know where your
destiny lay? Already your claim to Egypt’s throne
was a lie, since civil war had overthrown him who
granted it. Pompey, denying the wind his sails, was
being rowed towards the accursed shore, when that
little twin-oared boat drew alongside carrying its
murderous crew. Feigning to welcome him to Egypt,
they bid him step from the stern of his tall vessel
into their little craft, pleading the shallow depth
and the surf of two seas breaking on the sandbars,
that prevented foreign ships from anchoring near.
What but the power of destiny, that tragic fate
decreed by the eternal order, drew him, doomed
to die, to that shore, such that all his comrades
felt presentiments of murder, for if the king had
been genuinely loyal, a Pharaoh would have met
him with all his fleet, and thrown open the court
to Pompey from whom its royalty derived? Yet
Pompey yielded to fate, obeying when requested
to leave his ship, choosing to die rather than show
fear. Cornelia in turn hastened to embark aboard
the hostile craft, fearing disaster and even less
willing therefore to be left behind by her husband,
but he cried: ‘Wait, my rash wife and you, my son,
I beg you; watch what occurs on shore and let my
survival prove this Pharaoh’s good faith.’ But, deaf
to his admonition, Cornelia stretched out her hands,
saying wildly: ‘Why are you leaving me, so cruelly?
Are you to desert me once more, as you so kept me
from the horrors of Pharsalia? Wretches parted with
never a happy omen! If you choose to keep me from
every shore, then you might as well, in fleeing, have
sailed past Lesbos, and left me there to my seclusion.
Is my company only pleasing to you on the waves?’
Pouring out her remonstrance in vain, she hung by
the ship’s side, fear and panic preventing her from
gazing at Pompey or averting her eyes. The fleet lay
at anchor, the crews fearful of their leader’s fate, not
that he might be attacked, but that he might bow low,
humbly petitioning one whose sceptre he had granted.
As he prepared to step across, a Roman soldier called
to him from the Egyptian boat, Septimius who, shame
on all the gods, had abandoned the javelin for the base
banner of a royal minion. Savage, violent, and brutal,
he was no more than a wild beast in his love of killing.
One might have thought Fortune was showing mercy
when she kept that blood-stained sword far distant
from Pharsalia, when he played no part in that battle,
but no, she scatters her weapons widely, so that no
place on earth is free of civil murder. In an act that
brought shame on Caesar himself, and will forever
be a reproach to heaven, it was a Roman obeyed
the boy Pharaoh’s order, and Pompey’s head was
severed by a man who had once served under him.
With what infamy Septimius’ name will descend
to posterity! If Brutus’ deed was called wicked,
what name should be granted to this crime? Now
Pompey’s day was done, borne off in the Egyptian
boat, he was already lost. Then the king’s creatures
drew their steel, and he, on seeing the approaching
blades, covered his head and face, disdaining to
expose them bare to Fortune’s stroke. Then closing
his eyes he stifled his breath, so he could not speak
or mar his eternal glory by weeping. When Achillas
drove the fatal point through his side, he gave no
cry, nor acknowledged the wicked act, remaining
motionless, proving his strength in dying, these
thoughts whirling in his mind: ‘Future ages that
never shall forget Rome’s turmoil, are watching
now; in every quarter of the world, those to come
will envision this boat, and a Pharaoh’s treachery:
think now of fame, you, to whom success flowed
throughout your long life, for men will not know
if you could endure adversity, unless you show it
by your death. Do not yield to shame nor grieve at
the author of your death: think it the hand of your
kinsman whoever slays you. Let them mutilate
and scatter my limbs, yet, you gods, I am content,
and no god can rob me of this. Life may alter our
good fortune; death can make no man wretched.
Cornelia and my son witness my murder, so then
with patience let resentment stifle its complaint;
If they admire the manner of my death, they will
love me all the more.’ Such power had Pompey
over his mind and spirit as he encountered death.
But Cornelia, readier to suffer savagery than witness it,
filled the air with her mournful cry: ‘O, my husband, I
am guilty of your death: Lesbos’ remoteness was cause
of your fatal delay, Caesar has reached Egypt’s shores
before you; for who else could command such a crime?
But whoever the gods sent to destroy him, whether you
serve Caesar’s hatred or your own, you do not see, cruel
man, where Pompey’s heart truly lies, showering your
blows in haste where, in defeat, he welcomes them. Let
him suffer a punishment as heavy as death, let him see
my head fall first. I am hardly free of guilt in this war,
a wife who accompanied him in camp and aboard ship,
undeterred by disaster, welcoming him in defeat though
kings feared so to do. Is this then my reward, husband,
to remain aboard ship, in safety? Faithless one, would
you spare me? Am I so worthy of life, while you go
seeking death? I too shall die, yet not owe it Ptolemy.
You sailors, let me leap headlong, twist a noose of rope
about my neck, or let some friend of Pompey’s prove
worthy of him by driving a sword through my flesh;
he may do it for Pompey and yet claim it for Caesar.
O you cruel men, do you thwart my readiness to die?
Though you yet breathe, husband, Cornelia is at liberty
no longer: they forbid me to summon death, kept alive
for Caesar.’ So she cried out, and fainting, was carried
off in her servants’ arms, as their ship tremulously fled.
Now those who saw Pompey’s severed head after
the blade had passed from front to back admitted
that the noble beauty of these sacred features, that
the visage that frowned at heaven had not altered,
and that the onset of death had brought no change
to the look and countenance of the hero. Savage
Septimius, in the doing of his crime, had enacted
one still worse, slitting the fabric and uncovering
the sacred features of the dying Pompey, grasping
the still-breathing head, positioning the neck over
a thwart, severing the veins and sinews, hacking
at length through the vertebrae. It was not yet
the practice to send the head spinning at a blow.
Then when that head was severed from its body,
Achillas, the Egyptian lackey, appropriated it,
fondling it in his hands. Thus a Roman soldier
sank so low as to act the inferior role, slicing
the sacred head of Pompey from his body, with
his accursed sword, yet not retaining it himself!
O what a depth of shame was his! So the impious
boy-king might know Pompey was dead, hands
grasped the manly locks kings revered, the hair
that graced his noble brow, and while the face
still looked as it had in life, the lips as if still
murmuring with dying breath, the eyes glaring;
thrust the head on a pike; that head whose call
to arms banished peace, that shook the Senate,
the Campus and the Rostrum; that face, Rome’s
Destiny, that you were proud to wear. Not sated
with the sight of it the vile king wished proof
of his crime to remain, and so by hideous arts
the blood was drained from the flesh, the brain
removed, the skin dried, the moisture causing
corruption was drawn from the innermost parts
and, by infusions of drugs, the head embalmed.
Degenerate king, last scion of Macedonian Lagus,
doomed to yield the crown to an incestuous sister,
while you preserve Alexander’s corpse in a sacred
vault, while the ashes of kings rest beneath piles
of masonry, the dead Ptolemies, their worthless
dynasty, enclosed in pyramids and mausoleums,
shamelessly; the waves strike Pompey, whose
headless trunk is tossed about in the shallows.
Was it so hard to keep the body whole for his
kinsmen to see? Thus cruel Fate faithfully granted
him success till the very end, then she sought him
at the summit of his glory, by his death exacting
the price, in a single day, for all the disasters from
which she had defended him all those years. He,
Pompey, was the only man who never knew good
mixed with ill, whose happiness no god disturbed,
and whose ultimate wretchedness no deity spared.
Fortune having restrained herself struck him that
one blow. Tossed on the sand, bruised by the rocks,
his wounds washed by the sea, he was the plaything
of Ocean and, no feature remaining, the sole sign
this was Pompey was the lack of his severed head.
Before Caesar could reach the sands of Egypt, Fortune
had granted Pompey a hasty burial, lest he lack a tomb
or receive a better. Swiftly, in fear, Cordus left the place
where he had hidden and descended to the shore; Cordus,
who as quaestor was Pompey’s unfortunate companion
on the voyage from the Icarian shore of Cyprus where
Cinyras reigned. He dared to make his way under cover
of darkness, and driven by duty, mastered his fear so as
to seek the corpse in the waves, find and drag it ashore.
A sorrowful moon shed little light through the dense
clouds, but the headless body’s darker colour made it
visible in the foam. Cordus held tightly to his master,
against the pull of the sea, then unequal to its power
waited for a wave to add its force to his efforts. Once
it was out of reach of the ocean, he clasped the corpse,
pouring tears over every wound, and cried to the faint
stars in heaven: ‘Fortune, no costly pyre heaped with
incense does Pompey, your favourite, ask of you; no
Eastern perfumes carried with its fumes to the stars;
no funeral procession displaying his former trophies
with pious Romans bearing on their shoulders a father
of their country; no sorrowful music to fill the Forum;
no army in mourning, with trailing weapons, to march
round the flames. Grant Pompey instead the wretched
bier of a pauper’s funeral, and let his wounded body
rest on a plain pyre, yet with no lack of wood for lowly
hand to kindle. Be sated then, you gods, that Cornelia
is not here to lie prostrate, with dishevelled hair, nor
will she clasp her husband or see the torches applied;
she, his unhappy wife, though not yet far distant from
the shore, cannot pay her last tribute here to the dead.’
When Cordus had spoken, he noticed at some distance
a feeble pyre, one now incinerating a corpse, untended
and unguarded. From this he hastily snatched a brand,
dragging the charred branch from beneath the body:
‘Pardon the alien hand,’ he cried, ‘whoever you were,
neglected and uncared for by your kin, yet still more
fortunate after death than Pompey; pardon the hand
that steals from your blazing pyre. If feelings remain
after death, you will yield me a flame, allow this theft
from your fire, ashamed to find your own cremation
before Pompey’s headless trunk.’ So saying, he took
the burning ember and returned to the body which
had almost been lifted by the sea from the shoreline.
He scraped at the sand then hastily laid fragments
of a broken boat found nearby in the narrow trench.
The body was not laid on a pile of wood, no pyre
exalts the noble dead, the fire was not beneath him
but all around him and, seated near to the flames,
Cordus cried: ‘O mighty general, and unique glory
of the Romans, if this fire is sadder for you than
no burial at all, than to be tossed by the sea, avert
your powerful spirit’s gaze from the rite I render;
the injuries of fate proclaim this lawful; accept
this lowly brand, all that is possible, so that no
sea-creature, beast or bird, or cruel Caesar’s wrath
dare come near: a Roman hand kindles the flames.
These sacred ashes shall not rest here if fate grants
us a return to Italy, but Cornelia will receive you,
Magnus, transferring them from my hand to an urn.
In the meantime, let me mark this place in the sand,
as a sign of your grave, so that whoever wishes to
placate the dead and pay full funeral honours may
recover your ashes and knows to what strand your
head belongs.’ With this, he added fresh fuel to
the flames. Slowly Pompey’s body was consumed,
and in melting fed the fire with the dissolving flesh.
By now the false dawn that precedes full daylight
had struck the stars; fearfully he broke off the rites
and sought his hiding place on the shore. Poor man,
what punishment should you dread for a crime for
which the voice of fame will welcome you for all
time to come? That impious father-in-law of his
will welcome the burial of Pompey’s bones: go,
certain of pardon, confessing you interred him,
demand the head. Duty demanded he complete
the task. Snatching up the charred bones not yet
fully parted from the sinews and quenching them,
oozing scorched marrow, in the sea, he piled them
together under the cover of a few handfuls of earth.
Then, lest the breeze should scatter the bare ashes,
he laid a stone in the sand, and so no sailor might
moor his boat there and disturb the grave, he wrote
the sacred name with a charred stick: ‘Pompey
lies here.’ Is fate happy to call this Pompey’s grave,
one that Caesar thought worse than no burial at all?
Rash hand, why thrust a tomb on Pompey, imprison
his wandering spirit? It roams wherever the furthest
land floats on Ocean’s encircling stream: the bounds
of his sepulchre are those of Rome’s name and power.
Away with that stone, and its reproach against heaven!
All Oeta is Hercules’, and Nysa’s hills know none
but Bacchus; why then but a single stone in Egypt
for Pompey? If no grave were attributed to his name,
he might lie anywhere in Pharaoh’s kingdom; mankind
in doubt would shun the sands of Nile, fearing to tread
on Pompey’s ashes. But if you think one stone suffices
to record his sacred name, then add his great victories,
the records of his mighty deeds; add fierce Lepidus’
rising, and the Alpine war; the victory over Sertorius
when the consul was recalled, and his triumph while
yet a knight; the seas made wholly safe for commerce,
and the Cilicians driven from the seas; add how he
subdued barbarous tribes, nomadic peoples, and all
the rulers to east and north. Say how he re-adopted
the citizen’s robes after every war, and that content
with three triumphs he deferred further celebration.
What tomb has space to record it all? Here instead
stands a little stele, with no titles, no rolls of office,
and Pompey’s name that men might read high on
the temples of the gods, and over arches decorated
with enemy spoils, is barely raised above the sands,
so low strangers must stoop to read, and travellers
from Rome would pass by were it not made known.
O land of Egypt, rendered guilty through civil war,
how right the Cumaean Sibyl was to warn in her
verses that no Roman military man should visit
the mouths of the Nile nor its margins that flood
in summer. What curse can I invoke against those
cruel shores in punishment for so dreadful a crime?
May Nile’s waters flow backwards and be penned
there in that region where it rises; may the barren
fields be devoid of those winter rains, and may all
their soil revert to the dry sands Ethiopia knows.
You, Egypt, keep our dead a prisoner in your dust,
though we admit your Isis, your half-divine jackal
Anubis, and the sistrum summoning worshippers
to mourn the Osiris you prove mortal by your grief.
And Rome, though she has now dedicated a temple
to the tyrant Caesar has not yet reclaimed Pompey’s
ashes, and his shade remains in exile. If a former
generation feared Caesar’s menace, surely now
Rome might welcome the bones of her beloved
Pompey; if they still exist, that is, in that hateful
land, and have not been washed away by the sea.
Do men fear to disturb his grave, and remove
those sacred remains so worthy of reverence?
If only Rome would command me to perform
that act, and chose to make use of my services!
I would be content, oh more than that, blessed,
if it fell to me to despoil the grave so unworthy
of those remains, exhume them, and carry them
to Italy. Perhaps when Rome requires of heaven
an end to barren fields, deathly winds, excessive
heat, or earthquakes, the gods’ advice will bid
you return, Pompey, to your city, and the Pontiff
bear your ashes. Even now, those who travel
to Syene, parched under fiery Cancer, to Thebes
dry even beneath the rainy Pleiades, to regard
the Nile; all those who seek the Red Sea’s calm
waters, and the harbours of far Arabia to trade
in Eastern wares; will be summoned by that
gravestone and those ashes, disturbed by now,
maybe, and scattered on the sand; to worship
and appease Pompey’s spirit, giving preference
to him above Casian Jupiter. That grave cannot
impair his fame, his ashes were no more precious
if buried in a gilded shrine. Fortune, pent in this
grave, is a supreme deity at last; this wave-beaten
stone on Africa’s shore prouder than all Caesar’s
altars. Many who deny the Capitol’s gods their
gift of incense, worship the lightning-struck turf
fenced by the augur. One day it may prove better
that no great heap of solid marble were raised here
as a lasting monument. In a while the little mound
of dust will be scattered, the grave collapse, and all
trace of the dead Pompey will be lost. A happier age
will arise when no credence may be given the stone
that is displayed, and our descendants think Egypt
as false regarding Pompey’s tomb as Crete Jupiter’s.
End of Book VIII
Now Pompey’s spirit found no rest among those Egyptian
embers, no heap of ash could constrain his mighty shade.
Soaring from the flames, leaving the charred flesh, and that
unworthy pyre behind, it sought the Thunderer in heaven.
Where our dark atmosphere, that fills the region between
Earth and the orbit of the moon, meets the starry spheres,
there dwell the shades of demi-gods, whose fiery virtues
fit them, their lives being guiltless, to inhabit the lower
regions of the aether, their souls gathered to the eternal
realms, barred to those shrouded with incense, entombed
in gold. Once steeped in the clear light of those regions,
Pompey’s shade gazed at the wandering planets, the fixed
stars of the heavens, saw beneath what darkness our light
lies, smiling at the headless travesty of a body that was
his. Thus his spirit flew over Pharsalia’s field, over cruel
Caesar’s standards, over the ships weaving about the sea,
to find a dwelling place in the mind of indomitable Cato,
then settle, an avenger of crime, in Brutus’ sacred breast.
Cato had hated Pompey as he did Caesar while the war’s
outcome was uncertain, and none could say whom civil
strife would make master of the world. Yet, driven on
by his country’s need, following the senators, he joined
Pompey’s camp; and now after Pharsalia’s disaster, he
wholeheartedly favoured Pompey. His country lacking
a defender, he took the role, revived the weakened body
of his nation, restoring the swords that cowardly hands
let fall, and waged civil war without ever seeking power
or fearing to serve. He did nothing warlike for his own
ends, and after Pompey’s death his whole party became
the party of freedom. Yet its adherents were scattered
round the coast and lest a victorious Caesar roll them
up in his rapid progress Cato sought refuge in Corfu,
carrying the remnants of Pharsalian disaster in a host
of vessels. Who would have thought those thousand
ships were now carrying an army in flight; who would
have thought the sea contained a fleet of the defeated?
Next Cato sailed for Dorian Malea, for Taenarus open
to the dead, then Cythera, shunning the coast of Greece,
as the north wind drove on his fleet, skirting the shores
of Crete as the waves yielded to them. When Libyan
Phycus dared to close its harbour to the ships, Cato
attacked and overthrew that town deserving of being
mercilessly ravaged. From there gentle breezes wafted
him to your shores, Paliurus, for Africa bears witness
that your quiet harbour pleased the Trojan steersman
Palinurus, remembered thus in other than Italian waters.
There the sight of sails far out to sea filled their minds
with doubt; did they carry companions in misfortune,
or their enemies? Fearful of Caesar’s rapid progress,
they conceived of his presence in every vessel seen.
Yet the ships were freighted with grief and mourning,
with misfortune to draw a tear even from stern Cato.
For Cornelia’s prayers having so restrained the flight
of her stepson and the crew, that it was clear Pompey’s
corpse would not be driven by the sea from the Egyptian
shore, and the rising smoke having indicated the flames
of his imperfect burial rite, she cried out then: ‘Fortune,
I was unworthy, it seems, to gather my Magnus’ body
from the waves, bend over his cold limbs, throw myself
on his corpse, let flow a flood of tears over every wound,
light my husband’s pyre, burn my plucked tresses, gather
to my heart scorched bone and ashes, so as to sprinkle
whatever was saved from the extinguished flames there
in the temples of the gods! The pyre burns on without
the funeral honours, and perhaps, unwelcomed by his
shade, some Egyptian hand performs this service. Well,
that the Crassi remained unburied! With these flames,
the gods show less respect to Pompey. Was there ever
a sadder fate than mine? Shall it never be granted me
to give a husband due burial? Never to mourn over
an urn filled with ashes? Yet why is a grave needful,
what trappings does grief require? Do I not, unworthy
woman, hold Pompey wholly in my heart? Does his
image not inhabit my inmost thoughts? Let a wife
who wishes to survive a husband seek out his ashes.
For now, this fire whose meagre light blazes far off,
rising from the Egyptian shore, reveals you, to me,
Magnus, still. And now the flames die, the smoke
that bears Pompey from me fades as the sun rises,
and a breeze I loathe is filling my vessel’s sails.
With sorrow, believe me, I leave Egypt’s shores.
They are more welcome to me than the conquered
lands that yielded Pompey triumphs, his chariot
rolling over the stones to the lofty Capitol. That
fortunate Pompey lapses from my mind; the one
I need is he whom Nile possesses, and I moan
I may not cling to the land that saw this crime,
a land whose guilt commends its sands to me.
Sextus, I bid you seek the throes of war, carry
your father’s standard throughout the world.
For Pompey left this command for his sons,
left this message in my care: “When the fatal
hour brings my death, take up the civil war,
my sons, and while any offspring of my line
remains on earth, never let the Caesars reign
in peace. Rouse those kings and states strong
in their own freedom; invoke our glorious name;
this role, those armies I leave to you. Should
a Pompey take to the seas he will find fleets,
my heirs shall stir many a nation to battle;
only let your hearts remain indomitable,
remember your father’s power. Cato alone,
if he should rally a party to defend liberty,
you may fittingly obey.” Now I fulfil my
trust, and have done your bidding Pompey.
So you lured me successfully into living on,
that, deceived, I might not perfidiously
carry your message to the grave. Now I
can follow you, husband into the depths
of chaos, Tartarus, if such a place there be,
uncertain how distant lies my fated death;
punished by then for surviving over-long.
My heart had the strength to see you die,
Magnus, and not yet take refuge in death:
it will end bruised by blows, melt away
among tears, for I shall never touch rope
or blade, or launch myself through the air,
and shame on me if I do not die of grief
alone, now you are dead.’ Speaking thus,
she covered her head in a mourning veil,
and choosing to endure darkness she hid
herself in the ship’s hold, clasping her
grievous sorrow to herself, enamoured
of tears and loving grief in her husband’s
stead. Neither the height of the waves nor
the howl of the east wind in the rigging
troubled her, nor the shouts rising louder
as the danger grew. Begging to suffer what
the frightened sailors now begged to escape,
she lay as one dead, in league with the storm.
First Cyprus received their ship in its foaming
waves, then an easterly, ruling the sea but with
less fury, drove them to Libya and Cato’s camp.
Gnaeus, Pompey’s elder son, gazed in sorrow
from the shore at his brother, Sextus, and his
father’s friends, then rushed wildly into the sea,
shouting: ‘Brother, where is our father; is that
summit and crown of all the world still living,
or are we destroyed, has Magnus taken Rome
with him to the shadows?’ So Gnaeus spoke,
and his brother answered: ‘O, happy are you
whom fate drove to foreign shores, who only
heard evil: my eyes, brother, were condemned
to witness our father’s death. He did not fall
to Caesar’s weapons, no worthy hand proved
author of his ruin: he died in the power of that
vile ruler of the Nile, still relying on the gods
of hospitality, and that great favour he gifted
the dynasty: he fell victim to having granted
them the crown. I saw the murderers lacerate
our noble father’s breast. Not crediting the king
of Egypt with such boldness, I thought Caesar
must have reached the Nile. But more than his
bloody wounds, I grieved their carrying his
head through the city, fixed high on a pike.
They said the king sought proof of his crime,
that it was kept for the cruel conqueror to see.
As to the body, I do not know if it was torn
to pieces by the wild dogs of Egypt or by
vultures, or burnt in the stealthy fire I saw.
Whatever injury of fate robbed us of his
body, I free the heavens above of guilt,
but moan for the part which remained.’
Gnaeus did not display his grief in tears
or groans on hearing the tale but, burning
with indignation and love of his father,
cried: ‘To the ships, my mariners; quit
this shore; drive the oars and let the fleet
head boldly into the wind. With me, my
captains, to inter the unburied dead; no
greater prize was ever offered to those
in civil conflict as this: appease the shade
of Pompey with the blood of this unmanly
king! Shall I not drag Alexander’s body
from its shrine, and sink it, with his city,
beneath the sluggish waves of Mareotis?
Shall I not haul Amasis and all those other
Pharaohs from their tombs in the Pyramids,
and send them swimming down the Nile?
Let the loss of their sepulchres atone for
Magnus who has none! I shall disclose that
funereal shrine of Isis, goddess of the nations,
and scatter Osiris, shrouded in linen, through
the streets. Their gods shall make a pyre for
my father’s head. Their land I shall give over
to punishment, leaving their fields with none
to tend them, Nile abandoned, men and gods
fleeing Egypt, which you alone, my father,
shall possess!’ So he swore, and sought in
anger to launch the fleet at once, but Cato,
while praising the youth, restrained his fury.
As the news of Pompey’s death spread along
the shore, the sky rang to the beat of lament.
Unprecedented was that mourning; unknown
to any age such grief of a people for the great.
Yet when Cornelia disembarked from her ship,
her eyes weary with weeping, her hair falling
loose over her face, they redoubled their blows,
in renewed sorrow. When she had reached that
welcoming shore, she gathered up the clothes
and insignia of her poor Magnus, the weapons,
the gilded robes he had once worn, the togas
embroidered in many colours, robes Jupiter
saw him wear thrice in triumph; and set them
all on a funeral pyre. To her they did sad duty
as her husband’s relics. All the pious followed
her example, and pyres were raised all along
the shore, lit for those who died in Thessaly.
So Garganus, Vulture’s fields, and the mild
pastures of Matinus glitter when the Apulians
burn the stubble to fertilise the soil on their
close-cropped plains, and grow fresh grass
for winter herbage. No tribute so welcome
to the shade of Pompey was uttered (though
all dared to cry against heaven, and to blame
the gods for Pompey’s death) as Cato’s words,
few, but rising from a heart filled with truth:
‘This dead citizen, though far inferior to our
ancestors in knowledge of the lawful limits,
yet served our generation, which has shown
scant reverence for justice; though powerful,
defending liberty; alone remaining a private
citizen when a nation sought to be his slaves;
leader of a senate that yet ruled. He made no
claim by right of force; wishing that others
might have the power to refuse him what he
wished; he possessed vast wealth but gave
more than he retained. He took up the sword
knowing how to lay it down. He preferred
military service to public life, but, armed,
still loved peace; he was pleased to accept
leadership, and pleased to resign its power.
His household was chaste and free of luxury,
never corrupted by its master’s fortune. His
name is known and revered among nations,
and he did much service to our own state.
True belief in liberty died long ago, once
Marius and Sulla were admitted to Rome:
But now Pompey is lost from the world,
even the fiction of freedom has perished.
None who rule in future need feel shame,
blush to usurp power, or abuse the Senate
as a front. O happy was he, whose ending
followed on defeat, the Egyptian swords
offering the death he should have sought.
He might perhaps have lived on instead
under Caesar’s rule, yet the highest fate
is to know when to die, and the second
best to have such death forced upon one.
As for myself, if fate should place me
in another’s power, Fortune, let Juba
prove such a host; I am not unwilling
to be detained at the enemy’s pleasure,
so long as my head too is first severed.’
Greater honour in death was thus rendered
the noble shade, than if Rome’s Rostrum
had sounded out his praises. But the men
were soon loud with discord, weary, now
Pompey was dead, of war and the camp.
Then King Tarcondimotus of Cilicia gave
the signal for deserting Cato. He readied
his ships for flight, but Cato followed him
to the shore and rebuked him, in these words:
‘O Cilician, never pacified, do you sail again
to plunder the shipping? Fate has removed
Pompey, and now you can return as a pirate
to the high seas!’ Then he gazed at all those
who were gathered in flight, but one whose
intention was clear addressed the commander:
‘Forgive us, Cato, our love of Pompey led us
to arm, not civil conflict, and we took sides
out of favour to him. But he lies low, whom
the world preferred to peace, and our cause
has perished; let us return to our native land,
the homes we left, and the children we love.
What end will there ever be to this warfare,
if not Pharsalia and Pompey’s death? Our
life’s effort has been lost; let our last days look
forward to the proper rites, since civil conflict
cannot even grant its leaders graves. Defeated,
no barbarous rule awaits us, savage Fortune
threatens me with no Scythian or Armenian
slavery; I pass into the civil power of Rome.
Whoever was second while Pompey lived
shall now be first, for me. I shall pay high
honour to the sacred dead; I shall own to
the master defeat forces on me, yet own to
no leader, but you, Magnus: you alone I
followed to war, now you are dead I will
follow fate; since no hope of good fortune
exists for me, nor is allowed. All fortune
follows Caesar; his victory has scattered
the forces in Thessaly; the wretched have
lost belief, and he alone in all the world
has power and will to grant the defeated
life. Civil engagement was loyalty while
Pompey lived, treachery now he is dead.
If you, Cato, are always faithful to your
country’s laws, and your homeland, then
let us seek the standard a Roman consul
bears.’ So saying, he leapt on board his
vessel, with a disordered swarm of men.
The Roman cause seemed as good as lost,
and the shore seethed with masterless men,
but speech broke from Cato’s sacred lips:
‘Soldiers, it seems you fought for the same
reason as others, for tyranny, for Pompey
and not for Rome. You now, who no longer
labour for a kingdom, whose lives are your
own and not your leader’s, who work to gain
the world for none and may safely win it for
yourselves alone; you flee the fight, and seek
a yoke now your necks are free, unable to live
without a master. Yet you have a cause now
worthy of brave men. Pompey was able to
abuse your powers, now freedom is in sight
do you refuse to fight, to die for your country?
Of the triumvirate only one remains. Shame
on you! Egypt’s Pharaoh and Parthian bows
have done more for the rule of law than you.
Depart, degenerates, spurning Ptolemy’s gift
to you and your own weapons. Who would
have ever thought your hands had dealt death?
Caesar will think you were quick to flee to him,
the first to take flight from Thessalian Pharsalia.
Go with impunity; worthy to render yourselves
to Caesar’s justice, who neither siege nor arms
conquered. O vile slaves, after your former
master’s death, you run to his heir. Why not
seek a greater prize than mere life and pardon?
Seize Magnus’ unhappy wife, that daughter
of Metellus, carry her overseas; lead Pompey’s
sons captive, and outdo Ptolemy’s munificence!
Whoever bears my head to the hated tyrant will
win no small reward: from the price on my head
your men will know they did well to follow my
standard. So rouse yourselves, gain merit from
that heinous crime; flight is the sin of cowards!’
With this speech he recalled all the ships without
exception from the waves. So, when hosts of bees
depart the hive, where their young have hatched,
they neglect the waxy cells, their wings no longer
brush one another, each takes its own way, idling,
refraining now from sipping the flowering thyme
with its bitter taste; yet if the sound of Phrygian
cymbals rises, they interrupt their flight, in alarm,
returning to the performance of their flowery task,
and their love of gathering pollen. The shepherd
in Hybla’s meadows is relieved, delighted that
his honey harvest is secured. So Cato’s speech
persuaded his men to endure the lawful conflict.
Now he resolved to keep these men busy, who could
not bear quiet, with endless tasks and military action.
First the soldiers tired themselves shifting sand on
the shore. Their next task was against the ramparts
and walls of Cyrene. Cato took no revenge for his
being refused entry, the sole punishment exacted
on the defeated was defeat. Then he chose to sail
to Juba’s Libyan realm, bordering Moorish lands,
though Nature barred their way, the Syrtes lying
between: the bold and brave hoped to defeat her.
When Nature first gave shape to the world, she
left sea and land to dispute the Syrtes, the earth
not low enough there to admit the water, nor
high enough to defend itself from the waves,
so the region is an uncertain waste, shallows
broken by shoals, land cut off by the waters,
and the breakers sound on strand after strand,
so harshly has Nature abandoned her creation
asking nothing of it. Or else perhaps Syrtis
once lay beneath deeper water, far beneath,
but the sunlight of the torrid zone evaporated
the ocean, sucking up the water, and though
the sea still resists being conquered by the sun
with fierce heat over lengths of injurious time
Syrtis will be dry land. Already the waves that
cover it are shallow, and doomed to disappear.
No sooner had oars begun to drive the sluggish
vessels through the waves, when a southerly
storm arose with dense rain. Blowing from
its own realm, defending the waters, where
the ships sailed, with a tempest, it now drove
the waves far from Syrtes, and interspersed
the sea with land. It tore the sails from any
ship with mast still standing, the rigging
straining in vain to oppose the wind, while
the canvas torn from the sailors’ grasp blew
from the ship, its folds flapping at the prow.
Any prudent captain who ran with his sails
brailed to the yard was driven off course,
defeated, under bare poles. Those vessels
met a better fate that rode over deep water,
tossed on a sea that was sea. But any ship
lightened by cutting the masts away, so
leaving the blasts of wind to scourge it,
was driven, helplessly, on a strong tide,
in an opposing direction to the gale; a tide
that carried it away and victoriously thrust
it against that countervailing southerly.
Such were left stranded in the shallows,
where the sea, eating at the land, wrecked
them, exposed to a twin danger, being
half-aground half-floating on the waves.
Then, driven further on-shore they struck
against dry land, which emerged as the sea
fell, for the waves raised by the southerly
often failed to lift above the sandbanks.
Far from the grassy shore, these ramparts
of sand, rising from the depths, defied
the waters; the wretched sailors stuck
fast, their keels aground, far from shore.
So the sea destroyed part of the fleet,
but the larger part, answering the helm,
were saved by flight, and finding pilots
familiar with that coast, they reached
its sluggish Lake Tritonis, unharmed.
The lake, as story tells, is dear to the god,
who is heard on every shore blowing his
sounding shell over the waves, and dear
also to Pallas who, born from her father’s
head, alighted first in Libya, whose hot
climate shows it most aligned to heaven:
there she stood on the lakeshore and saw
her face in the still waters, calling herself
after the lake, in delight at its far expanse.
Nearby, Lethe’s stream silently steals past,
which, they say, brings forgetfulness from
the depths of the underworld, and there is
the Garden of the Hesperides, once guarded
by the sleepless dragon, now despoiled,
its branches rifled. Invidious, those who
decry the myths of ancient times, those
who demand truth of poets. For there was
once a golden grove, its branches heavy
with a wealth of burnished fruit; a band
of virgins its custodians; and a dragon,
its eyes doomed never to close in sleep,
coiled about the trees bowed by the metal.
But Hercules relieved them of their task,
and their precious burden, leaving branches
robbed of their rich weight, carrying off
those shining apples for the king of Argos.
Now, the ships, off course, driven from
the Syrtes, clinging to the Libyan waters,
lingered on a more favourable coastline,
with Gnaeus in command. But bold Cato
impatient to move, trusting in the soldiers,
dared to commit them to unknown lands,
and bypass the Syrtes on foot. Winter too
persuaded him, by closing the high seas
to the fleet; while rain was a benefit to men
who feared excessive heat, and the passage
would be less harsh without burning sun
or freezing cold, Libya’s climate tempered
by winter. Before entering the barren desert,
Cato addressed his troops with this speech:
‘O you who choose the true path, to follow
my standards to the death, heads unbowed,
prepare yourselves for a feat of high courage,
and supreme hardship. We will march through
wastelands in an earthly furnace, where the sun
pours down endless heat, where there is rarely
water in the gullies, and the dry ground seethes
with venomous snakes. Hard is the path to law,
and a love of a ruined country. Let those march
on through the heart of Libya, finding a pathless
route, who have not a thought for turning back,
for whom it is enough to go onwards. For I have
no intent to deceive any man, nor draw the army
on by concealing danger. Let my companions be
those whom danger itself attracts, who, myself
as witness, think it glorious in a Roman to endure
even the worst. But any man who seeks a guarantee
of survival, tempted by life’s sweetness, let him
take the honeyed path to tyranny. I shall be first
to tread the desert, first to set my feet in the dust,
let the sky’s heat strike me, the poisonous snake
confront me; so test the danger first by my fate.
Let him thirst who sees me drink, or feel the heat,
who sees me seek the shade, or tire, who sees me
ride when the army marches: or find anything to
show whether I am the general or the plain soldier!
Snakes, thirst, burning sand, are sweet to the brave;
the tough delight in hardship; virtue finds joy in
its degree of constancy. Libya alone, with all her
ills, can prove that defeat makes no man unworthy.’
So he stirred courage and love of toil in their fearful
hearts, and began a march from which there would
be no return, by forging a way through the desert;
Libya determined an uncaring Cato’s fate, Libya
destined to inter his name in a humble grave.
Africa is a third of everything, if you are willing,
on the whole, to credit report; yet if you judge
by wind and weather, it is part of Europe, since
the banks of the Nile are no further than the Don
is from Cadiz in the far west, where Europe and
Africa are separated, and their coasts make room
for the sea to enter; while Asia alone is a larger
portion of the world. It takes Europe and Africa
together to pour out the west wind, while Asia,
feeling the northerlies on one side, southerlies
on the other, alone owns the winds of the east.
The fertile part of Africa is towards the west,
though even there the land is devoid of rivers,
and receives scant rain when northerlies blow
and our temperate climate refreshes its fields.
It is not worked for riches; neither copper nor
gold are smelted, its untouched soil is still pure
earth below. The people are rich in nothing but
Mauretania’s timber, which they have no idea
how to use, content to live in the citrus-tree’s
leafy shade. Our axes have invaded the virgin
groves, we seek wood for our tables as well as
foodstuffs from the ends of the earth. But that
coast which embraces shifting Syrtes, lying
beneath the parching sun under a burning sky,
burns the crops, smothers the vines with dust,
and no roots bind the crumbling soil. Living
things lack temperate air, Jove cares nothing
for the rainless land below; nature is torpid,
the unmoving sand experiences no seasons.
Yet this barren land produces a scattering
of grass, cut by the Nasamonians, a hardy
race who live in nakedness along the coast,
while cruel Syrtes sends them the world’s
salvage; for the wreckers wait on the sandy
shore, familiar with trade-goods though no
vessel harbours there; through shipwrecks
they sample the commerce of all nations!
Cato’s stern virtue bade him march there.
And there the soldiers, expecting no gales
or tempest on land, endured the equivalent
of those at sea. For the southerlies blow
more fiercely on the dry coast of the Syrtes
than over the deep, and are more damaging.
Libya has no mountains to break their force,
no tall cliffs to oppose and dissipate them,
turning the fierce gusts to tranquil breezes;
nor do they meet forest, weary themselves
bowing ancient oaks: the whole land is flat,
and an Aeolian fury freely scours the desert.
There is no moisture in the whirling clouds
of dust, driven violently in spirals, a vast
amount of sand is raised and, merged with
the air, never falls. The poor Nasamonians
see their possessions fly in the wind, their
huts razed; the Garamantians, unhoused,
see their roofs snatched up and blown away
Flames are smothered; as high as the smoke
rises to darken day the dust is already there.
Now the wind attacked the Roman columns
more fiercely than ever, the men staggering,
unable to find a footing, the very sand they
stood on being blown away. If the Libyan
land was solid, with a ponderous weight
of cliffs that confined the southerlies in
cavernous spaces, the winds would shake
the earth, wrench the globe from its place;
but because the drifting sand is so easily
disturbed, the ground offers no resistance,
earth below solid, while its surface is bared.
The storm, blowing violently, snatched at
the men’s javelins, shields and helmets,
whirling them fiercely through the sky’s
great void, perhaps to fall, like a portent,
in some remote and distant country, men
there fearful of armour from the heavens,
thinking a gift of the gods what was torn
from men’s grasp. Surely those sacred shields
that fell around Numa as he made sacrifice,
which elders elect now carry on their shoulders
were stripped from their owners by the south
or north winds, and in that way became ours.
Now, as the wind tormented the world thus,
the Roman soldiers flung themselves down,
fearful of being blown away, and buckling
their armour tight, they clutched the ground,
strength as well as weight holding them there,
barely surviving the storm, that roiled vast
piles of sand over them, burying their bodies
in the dirt. Crushed by the weight, they could
scarcely rise from the ground. Ramparts of sand
kept them anchored where they stood, prevented
from moving by the surging dust. The storm
broke down walls, tore out the stones within,
and dropped them far off, a strange quirk of fate
when, seeing no houses, people saw their ruins
fall from the sky. Now the route was totally
obscured, devoid of landmarks, and they found
their way by the stars; though the regions of sky
that cover the lands of North Africa did not show
all the usual constellations, many being concealed
below the horizon. At dawn it grew burning hot,
the sun’s heat expanding the air compressed by
the storm; sweat poured from their bodies, their
mouths parched with thirst. A meagre trickle of
a stream was found some way off, and a soldier
filled the hollow of his helm with water, won
with care from the sand, then offered it to his
general. Every mouth was dry with dust, so that
their leader holding the least drop in his hands,
was an object of envy. ‘Do you, you rascal, think
me the only man lacking fortitude in this army?
Do I seem soft as that, unequal to the first blaze
of heat? What a fitting punishment for you that
would be, made to drink, as all round you thirst!’
Thus provoked to anger he emptied out the helm,
and left what water there was to suffice for all.
They came to the shrine of the crude Garamantians,
the only temple the Libyan tribes possess. They say
Jupiter has an oracle there, but Ammon, unlike our
god, never wields the lightning bolt, and has curved
horns. It is no rich temple the Libyan peoples have
built there, no altars resplendent with eastern gems.
Though the Ethiopians and others, and the wealthy
tribes of Arabs, have but one god, Jupiter Ammon,
yet their god is a pauper, his temple has remained
untainted by riches throughout the centuries, while
the deity, in ancient mode, now defends his shrine
against Roman gold. Yet the heavenly powers are
attested by an oasis of trees, the only broad grove
in the Libyan desert. All the expanse of arid sand
that separates burning Berenice (Benghazi) from
more temperate Leptis Magna (Lebda) is devoid
of foliage; Ammon appropriated the only grove.
A local spring feeds the trees, binding the dusty
soil, its waters cementing the subjugated sands.
Yet even here nothing hinders the sun, when that
orb of light balances at the zenith, the trees barely
darkening their trunks, so small the arc of shadow
thrown by its rays. This the region, we find, where
the sun at solstice is almost overhead at midday.
The shadows of whatever people you may be who
are separated from us by these Libyan tropics, fall
southwards, where ours fall northwards. Slowly
the Little Bear ascends for you, and you may
suppose our un-wetted Wain to sink in the sea,
and every star overhead meet the ocean; either
pole equidistant, the Zodiac’s constellations
sweep through the zenith. They do not move
obliquely, Scorpio is as upright as Taurus, on
rising; Aries gives nothing away to Libra; nor
does Virgo cause Pisces to set more gradually.
Sagittarius rises high as Gemini, rain-bringing
Capricorn as burning Cancer, Leo as Aquarius.
Messengers from the east stood before the doors
of the shrine, seeking to learn the future from
the oracle of horned Jupiter; but they gave way
to the Roman general, his officers begging Cato
to try the oracle, famed throughout North Africa,
and to pass judgement on its ancient reputation.
Labienus, in particular, urged him to question
the future by means of the divine voice. ‘Chance,’
he said, ‘ and the fortunes of the way present
the word of the great god and his wisdom to us;
we can enjoy his guidance through the Syrtes,
and discover the outcome appointed for the war.
I cannot believe the heavens would reveal their
mysteries and dictate the truth more to any man
than virtuous Cato. Have you not always ruled
your life according to heavenly law, a follower
of the divine? Now behold you are free to speak
with Jove: ask as to the fate of that abomination
Caesar, and view the future state of our country:
Will the people enjoy their laws and freedoms,
or has the civil war been all in vain? Fill your
breath with the god’s voice; a lover of harsh
virtues should at least seek where virtue lies,
and demand to see the likeness of goodness.’
Then Cato, filled with the god that he bore
concealed in his heart, poured out a speech
worthy of the oracle itself: ‘What question
would you have me ask, Labienus? Whether
I would rather die, a free man, in battle, than
see a tyrant in power? Whether it matters if
a life is long or short? Whether power can
ever harm the good; if fate threatens virtue
in vain; whether the desire for the laudable
is enough, and virtue no greater for success?
The answers to these things I know; Ammon
cannot instil them more deeply in my mind.
We are all close to the divine; let the oracle
be dumb, we do nothing without the gods’
will it. The powers above have no need for
speech; whatever we are permitted to know
our maker told us once and for all at birth.
Did he choose these barren sands, so only
a few might hear his voice, burying all truth
in this desert? Has he any dwelling place
but earth, sea, air, heaven and the virtuous?
Why seek the gods beyond? Whatever you
see, whatever you do, is Jove. Let those
seek oracles who doubt, forever anxious
about what it is to come: no oracle can
grant me certainty, but only the certainty
of death. The coward and the brave man
both die: let that be enough, Jove has said.’
With that, he departed, leaving the oracle’s
reputation still intact, and Ammon, untried,
for the tribes to worship there at their altars.
Cato now led his gasping soldiers on foot,
carrying his javelin in his hand, issuing
no orders, showing them how to endure
hardship, shunning being carried on men’s
shoulders, or riding in a cart; sleeping less
than any; and when a spring was found,
and the thirsty men must queue and gaze,
he waited till the last camp-follower had
drunk. If true merit accrues great honour,
and naked virtue is separate from success,
whatever we praise regarding our ancestors
mere Fortune granted. Who has deserved
greater fame, simply by winning wars, by
shedding the blood of nations? For I would
rather have led that triumph through farthest
Libya and the Syrtes, than climb the Capitol
thrice in Pompey’s chariot, strangle Jugurtha
in his prison. Behold, the true father of his
country, a man worthy to be worshipped,
Rome, at your altars; by whom none need
blush to swear, and who, if you ever free
your neck from the yoke, shall be made a god.
Now the heat increased, they trod the sands
beyond which the heavens decree no living
thing can endure noon, and water was scarcer.
A lone spring was found deep in the desert,
flowing with water, but guarded by such a host
of serpents the place could scarcely hold them.
Parched asps held the margin, while thirsting
dipsades filled the pool. Seeing the men would
die if they shunned the water, Cato gave speech:
‘Men, do not hesitate to drink, they are harmless,
the threat of death that terrifies you is illusory.
Snake venom is only deadly in the bloodstream;
The fangs threaten death, the poison is in their
bite, but there is no death in the drinking cup.’
So saying, he drank the suspect liquid, and this
was the only spring in all the Libyan desert
where Cato chose to taste the water first.
No care or labour of ours will serve to reveal why
the Libyan climate breeds such pest, and teems
with deathly creatures, what secret noxiousness
Nature has mixed with its soil; though a vulgar
fable has concealed the true cause from all men
everywhere. At the far western limits of Africa,
where the burning earth receives an Ocean heated
by the setting sun, lay the wide, untilled land
of Medusa, Phorcys’ daughter, a land without
shade of tree, unworked by the plough, but harsh
with the stone produced by their mistress’ gaze.
Within her body nature first bred those savage
pests, from her throat slid those snakes, hissing
fiercely with strident tongues. They lashed about
the neck of Medusa, delighting her; those vipers
flowing down her back, rearing up at her brow,
in the fashion of woman’s hair; oozing venom
when the tresses were combed. These were all
of unhappy Medusa men viewed with impunity;
for who had time to fear the monstrous face, her
gaping maw, when whoever looked straight into
that face, Medusa caused their death? For she
forestalled all fear, hastening the fatal moment,
the limbs transformed while breath yet lingered,
the shade imprisoned hardening beneath the bones.
The tresses of the Furies merely brought madness;
Cerberus softened his growling when Orpheus
played; and Hercules could watch the Hydra as
he slew it; but even Phorcys, second to Neptune
her own father, in ruling the sea, feared Medusa,
as did her mother, Ceto, and her sister Gorgons;
she had power to threaten sea and sky with rare
paralysis, and clothe the world with stone. Birds
suddenly heavy fell from the sky; wild creatures
froze to the rocks; and whole tribes of Ethiopians
around were turned to statues. Nothing living
could endure her gaze, and even the Gorgon’s
serpents all reared backwards to avoid her face.
She turned Atlas, the Titan, he who supports
the Pillars of the West to a craggy mountain;
and when the gods long ago dreaded the Giants
with serpent legs, she changed them at Phlegra
to lofty summits, the Gorgon ending that fearful
battle, she who adorns the centre of Pallas’ aegis.
To this land Perseus came, he who had sprung
from Danae’s womb, sired by a shower of gold.
He flew with winged feet, as Arcadian Mercury,
the god who gave us the lyre, and wrestler’s oil.
When he suddenly raised the Cyllenian scimitar,
red with another monster’s blood, after he had
slain Argus, guard of Io the heifer, Jupiter’s love,
virgin Pallas brought aid to her winged brother.
She bargained for the Gorgon’s head, ordering
Perseus, on reaching the border of Libya to turn
towards the rising sun and fly backwards through
the Gorgon’s realm: she also set a gleaming shield
of tawny bronze on his left arm, and told him only
to view Medusa, who turned all to stone, therein.
Sleep had overcome Medusa, and yet not wholly,
a sleep that would bring death’s eternal slumber;
many of the serpents, her tresses, were vigilant,
and those hydra locks reared forward to defend
her head; the others shrouded her eyes and face.
Now Pallas herself directed the speeding Perseus;
her right hand guided the quivering Cyllenian
scimitar, which Perseus brandished, face averted,
severing the snaky head where it joined the neck.
What a look the Gorgon’s face must have had,
after her neck was sliced by the curving blade!
What foul venom was expelled from her mouth,
and how death must have flowed from her eyes!
Even Pallas could not view her, and that gaze
would have frozen Perseus’ backward glance,
had not Pallas veiled it with that snaky host.
So, seizing the Gorgon’s head, he leapt towards
the sky. He thought to shorten the route, lessen
his journey, by flying over inhabited Europe,
but Pallas ordered him to avoid fertile lands,
and spare the populace, for who might not gaze
at the sky when such things flew past? And so,
the hero flew east and passed over Libya, free
of cultivation, exposed to sky and sun, whose
path overhead parches the soil; earth’s shadow
at night nowhere higher in the sky, eclipsing
the moon, forgetful of her slanting orbit, when
she follows the zodiac neither north or south
of that shadow. Though those lands are sterile,
fecund with no good seed, they drank venom
from the blood-wet dripping head of Medusa,
soaked with the foul dew of that savage blood,
distilled by heat, and dyeing the putrid sand.
The first of the plagues of snakes that ever raised its
heads above the sand there, was of swollen-necked
sleep-inducing asps. Their throats are fuller with blood
and thick venom; in no snake is it more concentrated.
Loving heat, never travelling to cold regions, they lurk
in the sands stretching to the Nile. Yet we – are we
ever ashamed of chasing profit? – import Africa’s
bane into Italy, and make the asp an article of trade.
There too the huge haemorrhois, which causes its
victims to bleed to death, unfolds its scaly coils;
and the chersydros inhabiting the uncertain Syrtes;
the chelydrus leaving a trail of smoke; the cenchris,
that glides in a straight line, its belly more stained
and chequered than Theban serpentine, in intricate
patterns. Then there is the ammodytes, its colour
indistinguishable from scorched sand; the cerastes,
moving with curving spine; the cytale that sheds
its skin only when the frost still coats the ground;
the parched dipsas; the fell amphisbaena, its two
heads facing each other; the natrix that poisons
wells; and the flying iaculus; the parias content
to plough a furrow with its tail; the greedy prester,
distended with foaming jaws; the wasting seps that
dissolves both flesh and bone; and the basilisk that
threatens all other snakes with the hisses it pours
out, killing before its venom, compelling the host
to keep their distance, and ruling the empty sands.
You dragons too, glittering with golden sheen,
that crawl, divine and harmless, through all other
lands, burning Africa renders deadly; you draw
the air of heaven to you with your wings, then
pursuing whole herds of cattle, coil round mighty
bulls and crush them with blows from your tails;
nor are elephants saved by their bulk: you consign
all things to death, and need no venom to destroy.
Cato and his hardy soldiers marched among these
pests on the waterless way, witnessing the cruel
fate of man after man, strange manners of dying
from the slightest of wounds. Thus Aulus, a lad
of Etruscan blood, and a standard-bearer, trod on
a dipsas that reared back its head and bit him. He
scarcely felt the bite, was free of pain, the wound
not dangerous in appearance, nor threatening any
injurious effect. Behold, the hidden venom rises,
devouring heat seizes the marrow, and scorches
the innards with wasting heat. The poison drank
the humours about the vital organs, and began
to wither the tongue in his parched mouth. No
sweat ran down the weakened limbs, no flow
of tears wet the eyes. Neither a soldier’s pride,
nor Cato’s command halted the burning man,
who dared to hurl away the standard, wildly
seeking water anywhere the scorching venom
at his heart demanded. He would have burned
though plunged in the Don, the Rhone, the Po,
though he drank of the Nile’s flood in the fields.
Libya’s climate empowers death, and given
that scorching soil, the dipsas deserves less
credit for its powers. Men go seeking water
deep in the barren sand, then run to the Syrtes
and swallow brine; the liquid wave brings relief,
but not enough. Thinking it merely thirst, Aulus,
not feeling the nature of his hurt, deadly venom,
ventured to open a swollen vein with his sword,
and then filled his mouth with his own blood.
Cato quickly ordered the standards onward: none
was allowed to see what thirst could drive a man
to do. Yet a sadder death than that of Aulus occurred
before their eyes, as a tiny seps pierced the unlucky
Sabellus’ leg, and clung there with its barbed fangs;
he tore it free, pinning it to the sand with his spear.
Though small, no other snake deals such cruel death,
for the broken skin near the wound shrank all round,
showing white bone until, as the opening widened,
all was one bare fleshless wound. The limbs swam
with corruption, the calves melted, the knees were
stripped of tissue, the sinews of the thighs melted,
and a black discharge issued from the groin. Then
the membrane holding the guts snapped, the bowels
spilling out. Less than a whole body slid to the sand,
for the cruel venom dissolved the limbs, and death
reduced the total to a little pool of slime. What a
man consists of is shown by the poison’s unholy
nature: the strictures of ligaments, the texture of
the lungs, the hollow of the chest, all the vital
organs conceal is laid bare in death. The mighty
arms and shoulders melt, head and neck liquefy,
faster than snow fades and runs in a warm south
wind, or wax in the sun. Not only, I say, is flesh
consumed, and rendered down by the venom,
which fire can also do, but the bones vanish too,
which no pyre achieves, with the putrid marrow,
leaving not a trace behind of so rapid a death.
Among the snakes of Africa, seps, you win
death’s palm, all take life, you alone the body!
Behold, now, a manner of death in contrast
to liquefaction. Nasidius, earlier a farmer in
Marsian fields, was struck by a red hot prester.
His face burned fiery red, the skin was stretched,
all features lost in the swelling tumour; then as
the powerful venom worked the corruption spread
over all his limbs, inflated far beyond any human
frame, the man himself buried deep within his
bloated body, his breastplate unable to contain
the distension of his swollen chest. The cloud
of hissing steam pours out less fiercely from a
heated cauldron; canvas sails fill less in a gale.
The body no longer contained the swelling, now
a shapeless globule, the trunk a featureless mass.
Left untouched by the carrion birds, no beast
feeding there with impunity, the soldiers dared
not give the corpse to the flames, but took flight,
leaving it still swelling, its growth not yet done.
The Libyan snakes produced still greater marvels.
Tullus, a brave youth who admired Cato, was
bitten by a fierce haemorrhois. As Corycian
saffron-water can be made to spout from every
part of a statue at once, so all his members shed
venomous crimson instead of blood. His tears
ran blood; blood flowed copiously from every
orifice of his body; his mouth and nostrils filled
with it; his sweat was red; all his limbs streamed
with the content of his veins; his whole body was
one wound. Then a Nile serpent froze your blood
luckless Laevus, and stopped your heart. No pang
bore witness to the bite, the darkness of death fell
suddenly, in sleep you joined the friendly shades.
Even the poisonous plants the seers of Sais pluck,
whose deadly stems resemble the Sabaean stalks
steeped in the cup, never brought so swift a death.
Behold too, a fierce snake, the Libyans call iaculus,
reared and launched itself from a barren tree nearby,
pierced Paulus’ head through the temples, and fled.
No venom acted there; death took him too suddenly.
Then they saw how slow a stone from the sling flies,
how sluggish the flight of Parthian arrows in the air.
What matter that wretched Murrus drove his spear
through the basilisk? The venom coursed through
the weapon, seized on his hand; at once he bared
his sword and, at a stroke, sliced hand from arm,
standing there, as it stilled, watching a manner
of death that would have been his own. And who
would dream a scorpion powerful enough to cause
swift death, yet the sky bears witness that Scorpio,
with bulbous tail and menacing sting erect, bears
the glory of defeating Orion! And who would fear
to tread on the salpuga ant’s nest? Yet even to such
the Stygian Fates gave power over the spun thread.
Thus neither bright day nor dark night brought sleep
to the wretched men, fearful of the earth they lay on.
Lacking heaped-up leaves or piles of straw for beds,
they lay on the ground, exposed to the risk of death,
their warmth attracting snakes chilled by night cold,
their limbs heating the mouthing creatures, harmless
while their venom was frozen. They lacked all idea
of how far they had come, or the distance yet to go,
with only the stars as guides, and often complained:
‘You gods, bring back Pharsalia; return us the field
from which we fled. Sworn to wield the sword, why
do we suffer a coward’s death? The dipsas fights for
Caesar, the cerastes wins the civil war. Let us travel
the torrid zone instead, where the sun’s steeds scorch
the sky; happy to perish by fiery air, slain by heaven.
We do not complain of you Nature, or you, Africa;
you took a region bearing monstrosities and granted
it to the serpents, and condemned a soil, unsuitable
for crops, to lie untilled, devoid of men to be bitten.
We came to this land of snakes; receive our penance,
whatever power you are that, loathing our commerce,
bounded this region with a zone of fire to the south,
the shifting Syrtes northwards, and death in between.
Through your solitary reaches civil war marches on,
and we soldiers, now knowing this hidden world, beat
on the gates of the west. Perhaps worse things await
us, once there: the sun and hissing water will meet,
and nature be burdened by heaven; and that way no
land lies other than Juba’s gloomy realm, known to
us by report. Perhaps we shall regret this snaky land:
its climate brings one solace, that life exists here still.
We do not seek our native fields, not Europe, or Asia
under alien suns: yet by what corner of earth and sky
did we leave Africa? But now, winter gripped Cyrene;
can one short march destroy the cycle of the seasons?
We are marching towards the other pole, exiles from
our world, our backs turned for a fresh wind to strike;
perhaps Rome itself is now underneath our feet. We
seek solace in our plight: let our enemies come, let
Caesar follow where we flee!’ So stubborn patience
eases its burden of complaint. They were forced
to suffer such hardship by the virtue of their leader,
who kept watch lying on the bare sand, challenging
fate at every moment. Alone he was present at every
death; whenever they call, he goes, and confers that
mighty benefit, more than life: the courage to die;
so that, with him as witness, any man was ashamed
to die with a groan on his lips. What power did that
plague of creatures have over him? He conquered
death in another’s heart, and taught as he gazed on
the dying, that its pain possessed no great power.
Tardily, Fortune, weary of inflicting such trials,
brought help to the wretched. One African tribe
alone are immune to the bite of those cruel snakes,
namely the Psylli of Marmarica. Their spittle acts
like powerful herbs, their blood is protected, no
poison gaining admittance, even without the use
of charms. The nature of this region has dictated
that they live unharmed in the midst of serpents;
they benefit from being surrounded by venom,
as death grants them a pass. They rely greatly on
selectivity in breeding: when an infant is newly
born, fearful of some admixture of foreign blood,
they test the babe in question with a venomous asp.
As Jupiter’s eagle, when its featherless chicks are
hatched from the warm egg, turns them to the rising
sun; those who can endure the rays, gazing straight
into its light, being saved to serve the god, while
those who cannot being discarded; so the Psylli
take it as a sign of purity if the infant is unafraid
of serpents, treating the given snake as a plaything.
Not content with protecting themselves alone, they
look out for strangers, and help others against those
deadly creatures. Thus they accompanied the Roman
army, and when Cato ordered the tents to be pitched,
they first purified the sand at the designated site,
banishing the snakes with spells and incantations.
Fumigating fires surrounded the camp, dwarf-elder
crackled there, and imported aromatic gum bubbled;
the thinly-leaved tamarisk, Eastern costus (sausurrea),
powerful all-heal, and Thessalian centaury, hog’s fennel
(peucedanum), and Sicilian mullein (thapsus) hissed
in the flames, and larch wood, and bitter southernwood
(artemisia abrotanum) whose smoke the snakes loathe;
with the horns of deer from distant parts. So the soldiers
were protected at night: but if any were bitten near to
death by day, then the magical powers of this wondrous
people were seen, a mighty battle between the Psylli
and the venomous bite ensues. They first mark the flesh
with a touch of saliva that halts the poison, confining
it to the wound, then their foaming lips chant many
a spell, a continuous murmur, for the surge of venom
allows no pause for breath, not one moment’s silence
in the face of death. Often the pestilence is expelled
from the blackened marrow by incantation; but when
the poison is slower to shift, and resists eradication,
then they lean down and lick at the yellowish wound,
draining the flesh and sucking the venom out through
their teeth, until victoriously they extract all the fatal
fluid from the chill flesh, spitting it from their mouths.
The Psylli are quick to know by the poisonous taste
what kind of snake it was whose bite was overcome.
Saved by their help, the Romans now wandered far
and wide over the barren plains. Rising and setting,
the moon twice went from full to full, while Cato
was lost in the desert, but now he felt the sand grow
ever firmer under his feet, and Africa was once more
solid ground. And now the foliage of scattered trees
appeared in the distance, and rough huts compacted
of straw. How those soldiers rejoiced to reach a safer
region, where only fierce lions now confronted them!
Leptis was nearby, and they spent all winter in those
peaceful quarters, untroubled by the heat or storms.
When Caesar, satiated with slaughter, left Pharsalia,
he ignored all other projects and turned his attention
wholly to Pompey. He followed his scattered traces
on land in vain, until fresh report directed him to sea.
He sailed the Thracian strait, by Hero’s tower, through
the narrows made famous by those lovers, the gloomy
shores where Helle, Nephele’s daughter, gave her name
to the waters. No narrower stretch of water separates
Europe from Asia, though the channel’s slight by which
the Euxine divides Byzantium from Chalcedon’s oyster
beds, and Propontis bears its waters through a little strait.
An admirer of past fame, he sought out Sigeum’s sands
Simois’ stream, Rhoeteum noted for great Ajax’ grave,
and those of the many shades who owe a debt to poetry.
He walked round the ruins of Troy of glorious name,
seeking the mighty remnants of the walls Apollo raised.
Now barren woods and their rotting tree-trunks burdened
Priam’s palace, the desiccated roots clutching the temples
of the gods, Pergama wholly shrouded in thorns: the very
ruins lost. He viewed Hesione’s rock; and then Anchises’
hidden marriage-chamber in the woods; and the cavern
where Paris sat in judgement; and the place from which
the lad, Ganymede, was snatched into the heavens; and
the summit where Oenone, the naiad, lamented: a legend
attached to every stone. The stream, snaking through dry
dust, he crossed unknowingly, was Xanthus. Where he
stepped idly through rank grass, and his Phrygian guide
bade him not to tread, lay Hector’s grave. And where
scattered stones lay, with no appearance of sanctity,
the man cried: ‘Have you no respect for Zeus’ altar?’
O mighty the sacred labour of the poet! He rescues
all from fate, and grants immortality to mortal beings.
Caesar, let not your envy touch the sacred dead; for if
our Latin Muses are permitted to promise anything,
those to come will read my verse, and read of you,
and our Pharsalia shall live on, as long as Homer’s
fame endures, no age condemning us to the shadows.
When Caesar had sated himself with those views
of the ancient past, he swiftly raised a pile of turf
as an altar, then he prayed, and not in vain, over
the flames smoking with incense: ‘You gods,
of the dead, that inhabit the ruins of Troy; you
household gods of my ancestor Aeneas which
Lavinium and Alba now protect, upon whose
altars Phrygian fire still glows; and you, image
of Pallas, famous pledge of the city’s safety,
that no man may view, in your secret shrine;
here in your ancient dwelling-place, I duly
call on you, I, the most glorious descendant
of Iulus’ race, and, as is right, burn incense.
Grant good fortune to the end of my journey,
and I will restore your nation: in gratitude
Italy will rebuild the Phrygian walls, and
a Roman Troy shall rise.’ So saying, he
re-embarked, and spread billowing sails
to a favourable wind. Driven by the gale,
eager to offset his delay at Troy, he ran
past mighty Asia Minor, leaving Rhodes
behind in the foaming waves. A westerly
never slackening the rigging, the seventh
night revealed Pharos’ flame, and Egypt.
But day had dawned and hid that nocturnal
beacon before he entered harbour, where
the port was in uproar, a confused murmur
of anxious voices, and so he kept aboard,
fearing to trust so treacherous a kingdom.
But a servant of the Pharaoh set out over
the waves, bearing a vile gift, Pompey’s
head wrapped in Egyptian linen, and first
spoke infamously commending the crime:
‘Conqueror of the world, and mightiest of
the Roman people, though you knew it not
you are now secure, your son-in-law is dead.
Pharaoh spares you the toil of battle on land
and sea, gifting the one thing lacking from
Pharsalia’s conflict. The civil war has ended
while you sailed, for we slew Pompey as he
sought to recover from the ruins of Thessaly.
We repay you, Caesar, with this great pledge;
with this death we seal our treaty with you.
Receive, without bloodshed, the Pharaonic
kingdom you sought; accept dominion over
the Nile; accept all you would have given
for Pompey’s life; believe us worthy servants
of your cause, whom fate wished to grant
such power over your son-in-law. Nor must
you think our deed worth little, that it was
something that came easily. He was our
friend of old, restoring the throne to our
Pharaoh’s banished father. What more is
there to say? You shall put a name to this
great action: ask what the world says of it.
If it is called a crime, your debt to us is all
the greater, since you did not commit it.’
So saying he uncovered Pompey’s head,
and held it out in his hands. Relaxed in death
the features of that famous countenance had
altered. Caesar did not at first reject the gift,
or avert his face; he gazed at it until he was
certain; then, accepting at last that evidence
of crime, thought it safe to play the loving
father-in-law, shedding false tears, forcing
groans from his breast, delight in his heart.
He avoided showing joy, solely in this way
denigrating his obligation to the vile tyrant,
choosing to grieve at his kinsman’s severed
head rather than own to a debt. He who with
stony face trampled the corpses of senators,
gazing dry-eyed at the aftermath of Pharsalia,
dared not deny you, alone, Magnus, his tears.
Oh, this the harshest blow of fate! Did you,
Caesar, pursue the man in impious warfare
only to weep for him at the last? Does that
bond of kinship move you now? Do your
daughter and your grandchild demand you
to grieve then? Do you think it might serve
your cause among the nations that love his
name? Perhaps, touched by envy of Ptolemy,
resentment that another held power over
the body of captive Pompey, makes you groan;
vengeance in battle lost, and your son-in-law
snatched from the clutches of his arrogant
conqueror? Whatever the motive for your
weeping, it was far removed from true grief.
Is that why you coursed over land and sea
with purpose, to ensure your kinsman was
not killed quietly? Well that death snatched
him from your jurisdiction! How deep was
the shame cruel Fortune saved Rome from;
in that you, a traitor, were prevented from
granting Magnus your pardon, while he lived!
Yet Caesar dared to utter words of deceit,
and gain credit for the sorrow in his face:
‘You servants of the Pharaoh, remove his foul gift
from my sight; your crime does greater disservice
to Caesar than to Pompey; I am robbed of the sole
privilege of civil war, that of granting life to a man
defeated. If your Pharaoh did not hate his sister so,
I might have sent him Cleopatra’s head, returning
the kind of gift he deserves for such a one as this.
Why did his sword-blade move secretly, why thrust
his weapon into our business? Did Pharsalia’s field
grant rights to Macedonian steel? Was that my aim,
that your king should do as he wished? Shall I, who
would not allow Pompey to rule Rome with me, let
Ptolemy do so? If there is any power on earth save
Caesar’s, if any land owns to more than one master,
I will have troubled the world with civil war in vain.
I might have steered the Roman fleet from your shore;
care for my reputation prevented me, lest I were seen
to fear blood-stained Egypt rather than condemn her.
Do not think to deceive the victor: you would have
welcomed me in that manner too, and only victory
at Pharsalia ensures that my head’s not treated thus.
The risk that we ran in warfare was surely greater
than I feared: I dreaded only exile, my kinsman’s
threats, and Rome; yet the punishment for defeat
was Ptolemy’s! Nevertheless, I spare his youth,
and pardon his crime. Let the tyrant understand
that there can be no greater gift than pardon for
this killing. You must inter this great general’s
head, and not so that earth merely hides the crime:
grant incense for a fitting burial, placate his spirit,
collect his ashes strewn on the shore, and allow
his scattered remains to be re-united in the urn.
Let the dead know a kinsman is here; let his shade
hear my voice of piety and sorrow. Because he
preferred power above all to me, choosing to owe
his death to his Egyptian puppet, the world is
robbed of a joyful day, the nations have missed
our moment of reconciliation. My prayer, Pompey,
that I might lay down my weapons in success;
embrace you, asking for your former affection
and life; and, as sufficient reward for my labours,
rest content to be yours; that prayer lacked favour
with heaven. O then, in shared peace and trust,
I might have enabled you to forgive the gods
my victory, while you enabled Rome to forgive
me.’ So he said, but found none to share his
tears, nor did the onlookers believe his grief;
they left off groaning, hiding their misgivings
behind a joyful expression, and happily gazing
at the blood-stained relic; daring to do so –
O rare privilege – while Caesar mourned!
End of Book IX
As soon as Caesar, chasing Pompey, touched shore
and trod those fateful sands, his destiny and that of
guilty Egypt had contended as to whether that land
under Macedonian rule would yield to Roman arms
or an Egyptian sword take the victor’s life not only
the loser’s. Your shade, Pompey, did good service;
your ghost snatched your kinsman from death, lest
Rome, despite your murder, be indebted to Egypt.
Caesar, secure, transferred to Paraetonium (Mersa
Matruh), with Egypt now attached to his cause by
the bond of a ruthless crime, but found the people
angered that Roman laws and officialdom should
usurp their own, feelings split, support wavering,
and that Pompey’s death had brought him no gain.
Yet undaunted, his face forever masking his fears,
he visited the temples of the gods and the ancient
sacred shrines, witnesses to former Macedonian
greatness. He was charmed by neither the gold
nor the ornaments of religion, nor by their city,
but descended eagerly into the sepulchral vault
where lay Alexander, Macedonian Philip’s wild
son, that chance marauder, whose sudden death
solaced the world. His mortal parts that should
have been scattered throughout the earth, were
laid to rest in a holy shrine; fate spared his bones,
imperial rule was destined to endure to the end.
For, if the world had regained a shred of liberty
his corpse would have been retained as an object
of derision, not shown as an example to the world
of how a host of lands were subjected to one man.
He left his Macedonian obscurity, spurned Athens
that his father had conquered, and spurred on by
the power of destiny ran amok among the realms
of Asia, slaying humankind, putting every land
to the sword. He stained far-off rivers, Persia’s
Euphrates, India’s Ganges with blood; a plague
on earth, a lightning bolt that struck all peoples
alike, a fateful comet flaring over every nation.
He was about to launch his fleet on the Ocean’s
encircling deep. Neither water nor fire, Syrtes
nor barren Libya, nor Ammon himself stood
in his way, for, following the earth’s horizon
he’d have reached the west, circled the poles,
drunk the Nile at its source. Nature alone was
able to bring his mad reign to an end; his last
day came and jealously he stole away that
power by which he conquered the world; he
left no heir to all his greatness, but exposed
the nations to ruin. Yet he died in Babylon,
and Parthians feared him. For shame, that
the East dreaded the Macedonian lance, far
more than they now do the Roman javelin!
Though we rule the home of the north wind
and that of the west, and oppress those lands
beyond the burning southerlies, yet in the east
we yield to him who conquered the Parthians.
Parthia so fateful for the Crassi, was merely
a harmless province of tiny Macedonian Pella.
Now the boy-king came from the Pelusian mouth
of the Nile, and calmed the anger of his unwarlike
people; with the Pharaoh as his hostage for peace,
Caesar was safe at the royal court. But the sister,
Cleopatra, bribed the guards to release the chain
across Pharos’ harbour, disembarked her little
two-oared vessel, and entered the royal palace
without Caesar knowing; she, Egypt’s shame,
Latium’s Fury, her un-chastity a bane to Rome.
As the fatal beauty of Helen the Spartan harmed
Argos and Troy, so Cleopatra increased Italy’s
madness. Her sistrum even rattled the Capitol,
dare one say, and with unwarlike Canopus she
opposed our Roman standards, hoping to lead
a captive Caesar in an Egyptian triumph. By
Leucas, in Actium’s bay, she cast doubt on
whether a woman not of our race might rule
the world. That night had fuelled her insolence,
the night that first brought a wanton daughter
of the Ptolemies to pollute a Roman general’s
bed. Who can refuse to pardon Mark Antony’s
wild infatuation, when even Caesar’s unfeeling
heart took fire? Even in the grip of his mad fury,
in that palace haunted by Pompey’s ghost, still
drenched in the blood of Pharsalia, he tainted
his thoughts with adulterous lust, mixed illicit
lovemaking, bastard offspring, with the affairs
of war. For shame! Forgetful of your adherents,
Magnus, he gave Julia brothers by a vile mother,
letting the defeated rally in the depths of Libya,
frittering his time in that torrid intrigue in Egypt,
yielding the land to her rather than ruling himself.
Confident of her charms, Cleopatra came to him
in sorrow but not in tears, decked in the trappings
of mourning, her hair unkempt to the right extent
as if she had torn at it, and addressed him thus:
‘O mighty Caesar, if ancestry is important to you,
I am a noble daughter of the Ptolemies, pharaohs
of Egypt, but driven from my father’s throne, and
an exile forever unless your right hand restores me
to my former place; thus I a queen bow before you.
Like a benign star, assist our nation. I would not be
the first woman to reign over the Nile: Egypt will
allow my rule, without distinction of gender. Read
my father’s last testament, which granted me equal
share of power, gave me in marriage to my brother.
If only he were free, the boy would love his sister,
but his army and affections are ruled by Pothinus.
I myself do not seek a share of my father’s power,
only free our house from guilt and shame; destroy
Pothinus’ fatal influence, and bid the king reign.
How swollen are that underling’s ambitions! Now,
having decapitated Magnus, he threatens you; may
fate avert the danger! Was it not indignity enough,
Caesar, for you and the world to suffer, that he is
credited, this Pothinus, with murdering a Pompey?’
She would have sought to sway Caesar’s hard heart
in vain, if her beauty had not added to her prayers,
and lust pleaded for her. She passed a sinful night
with her corrupted arbiter. Caesar’s favour won,
purchased by her great gifts, the happy event was
celebrated with a feast, and Cleopatra displayed,
with tumultuous preparations, a magnificence
that Rome has not yet equalled even now. Her
palace itself was like a temple, such as a lesser
age would scarce achieve, the very ceiling panels
proclaiming riches, the rafters coated with gold.
The walls gleamed with marble, no mere façade,
agate stood there proudly, porphyry, alabaster
underfoot to tread on throughout the whole hall,
while ebony from Meroe, no mere cladding, took
the place of the usual wood in forming the great
doors, supporting the place not simply decoration.
Ivory covered the atrium; the doors were inlaid
with Indian tortoiseshell, coloured by hand, its
plates adorned with many an emerald. Jewels
gleamed from the couches, their furnishings
flickering with tawny jasper, the covers deep
dyed with Tyrian purple, dipped more than
once in the cauldron, some embroidered in
shining gold, others ablaze with scarlet, in
the Egyptian manner of weaving on the loom.
There were also a swarm of attendants, a host
of servants to the multitude, differing in age
and cast of skin, some with the dark hair of
Libya, some so tawny that Caesar declared
he had never seen hair as red on the Rhine;
some had black skin, woolly heads, the hair
receding from the brow, and there were those
wretched effeminate lads, who had lost their
manhood to the knife: ranked opposite older
youths whose cheeks showed barely any down.
There, kings, and Caesar, greater than they, were
seated. There too was Cleopatra, not content with
a crown of her own, or her brother for a husband,
her baleful beauty inordinately painted, covered
with Red Sea pearls, a fortune in her hair and
around her neck, weighed down with jewellery.
Her snowy breasts gleamed through the Sidonian
stuff, threads wound tight on the Seres’ shuttles,
that Egyptian needle-workers loosen and extend
drawing out the silk. On snowy tusks they set
round citrus-wood tables cut in Moorish forests,
such as Caesar never saw even on capturing Juba.
What a mad blind rage for display, revealing her
wealth to a general fresh from civil war, stirring
the mind of an armed guest! Even if it were not
Caesar, ready in impious warfare to gather riches
from the ruins of a world, set here the ancient
generals famous in less wealthy times, Fabricius
or stern Curius, or let Cincinnatus recline there,
snatched, soiled with sweat, from his Etrurian
plough: and each would pray to celebrate such
a splendid triumph in Rome. A banquet was
served on gold of all that earth, air, sea or Nile
affords, all that luxury, unprompted by hunger,
but wild with idle love of display, has sought
throughout the world. Many birds and beasts
divine in Egypt were served, and crystal ewers
yielded Nile water for their hands; the wine,
poured from great jewelled goblets, was not
from Egyptian grapes, but noble Falernian,
that Meroe brings to maturity in a few years,
forcing fermentation on their stubborn nature.
They donned garlands of flowering spikenard,
and never-fading roses, drenched their hair
in cinnamon that had not yet been exposed
to the outer air, or lost its natural scent; and
in cardamom culled nearby, and recently
despatched. Caesar learns how to squander
the riches of a ransacked world, ashamed
to have fought so impoverished a son-in-law,
now seeking a reason to make war on Egypt.
When enjoyment, sated, put an end to eating
and drinking, Caesar began a long discourse
to prolong the evening, engaging Acoreus,
who dressed in linen robes reclined on a high
couch, in friendly speech: ‘Devoted as you are,
sir, to holy things, and as your age shows not
unfavoured by the gods, tell me of the origins
of the Egyptian people, the country’s features,
the nation’s manners, your rites, and the forms
of your gods. Reveal what is engraved on your
ancient shrines, and disclose whatever of your
gods they themselves will make known. Since
your ancestors taught Plato of Athens their
religion, was there ever a guest of yours more
fitted to hear of it, with more capacious mind?
It is true that report of Pompey brought me to
your country, but its fame also: in the midst
of war I have always found the time to study
the stars above, celestial regions; my calendar
does not yield to that of Eudoxus. And while
such force of mind and love of truth flourishes
within me, there is nothing I would rather know
than the cause, hidden through so many ages,
of the Nile’s floods, and its unknown source.
Grant me firm expectation of seeing the fount
of that river, and I will abandon civil warfare.’
He paused, and Acoreus the priest replied thus:
‘Caesar, it is permitted me to reveal the secrets
of our mighty ancestors, unknown to this day
to the profane. Let others think it pious to hide
such wondrous knowledge, but I believe it is
the gods’ will that these things be understood,
and mankind learn their sacred laws. Diverse
powers were assigned to the stars that control
the fleeting heavens, and rule the sky. The Sun
marks time and changes night to day; his force
prevents planets progressing, and delays their
wandering courses while they seem stationary.
The changes of the Moon create the tidal surge.
The freezing ice of snowy zones was assigned
to Saturn; to Mars, winds and sudden lightning;
under Jove the temperate climate and clear air;
while fecund Venus owns the seeds of everything,
as Mercury controls the element of water. When
Mercury has occupied that region of the heavens
where Leo borders on Cancer, when Sirius emits
fierce fire, on the ecliptic that tracks the changing
seasons, that intersects the tropic of Capricorn;
and that of Cancer beneath which lie the sources
of the Nile; when that lord of the watery element
shines vertically on them, the river’s sources flow,
and as the waxing moon raises the oceans so Nile
obeys the command, and does not falter in its flow
till night regains the hours it lost to day in summer.
The ancient belief was wrong that Ethiopian snows
swell the Nile and flood the fields. No north-winds
reach those mountains, as evidenced by the colour
of the Ethiopians, blackened by sun and scorching
southerlies. Moreover, every river source that flows
when the ice melts rises in early spring when snows
thaw, but the Nile waters never rise till Sirius shines,
nor fully recede till the autumn equinox, under Libra.
Nile knows not the laws that govern other rivers, it
rises not in winter when the sunlight is faint, when
its flood lacks purpose, but commanded to temper
an adverse climate it rises in torrid midsummer heat;
and, that fire might not waste the earth, Nile comes
to aid the people; rising in the jaws of Leo, invoked
by Syene’s prayers, where it scorches under Cancer;
and not receding from the plains till the autumn sun
declines and casts noon shadow at Meroe. Who can
explain the reason? Our mother Nature commanded
the Nile to rise thus, and mankind needs it to do so.
The ancients also erred in ascribing its rise to westerly
winds that blow each day for many days at a certain
season; that either drive clouds from west to south,
and force the rain to fill the Nile, or else encounter
the river’s flow at its several mouths, and slow it by
the pressure of the waves, till it overflows the fields
since its course is hindered, and the sea obstructs it.
Some think that there are air-passages underground,
vast spaces within its hollowed mass: and that, there,
water travels to and fro invisibly, and is drawn from
the frozen north to the equator when the sun at Meroe
shines overhead and the parched earth attracts the flow;
Ganges and the Po being drawn through hidden realms
of the earth, till Nile, discharging those streams from
a single source, channels them through its many mouths
to the sea. They even say the Nile’s violent eruption is
an outflow from the distant Ocean that bounds all lands,
its saltwater freshening with the great distance travelled.
While some believe the sun and sky are fed by Ocean;
the sun in the grip of fiery Cancer, sucks up the waters,
and more than the air can absorb, which night returns
in downpours on the Nile. But if I might give my own
opinion, Caesar, in so great a matter, I say, ages after
the world was created, certain waters burst from veins
of the earth after earthquakes, not at the command of
a deity; but others, like the Nile, had their beginning
at its very foundation, with all other things, and these
latter the maker and creator bound by their own laws.
This desire you have to know the Nile’s source,
Roman, was shared by Pharaohs and the kings
of Macedonia and Persia; no age but wished to
hand this knowledge to futurity; yet Nature’s
powers of concealment have held sway till now.
Alexander, greatest of men, begrudged Memphis
its worship of the Nile, and sent picked men into
the furthest reaches of Ethiopia; but they were
thwarted by the burning zone of parching skies;
and only saw the Nile steam with heat. Sesostris
reached the western limits of the world, drove
his chariot with kings under the yoke, drank of
the Rhone and Po, yet never the sources of Nile.
Cambyses, that madman, penetrated the eastern
lands of the long-lived Macrobii; ran short of
food and ate his own dead, but returned with no
more knowledge of you, Nile. Even mendacious
legend has not ventured to speak of your source.
Whoever looks on it is intrigued, and no nation
can boast the glory of possessing Nile as its own.
I will reveal your course, Nile, as far as the deity
who conceals it grants me knowledge of the flow.
You rise on the equator, boldly lifting your shores
to burning Cancer, you flow due north towards
the heart of Bootes (yet your channel winds and
bends west and east, now adding ground towards
Arabia, now towards the sands of Libya), Seres
the first to see you, yet also query your source,
you who reach Ethiopian plains an alien river,
no land knowing to whom it owes your flow.
Nature has revealed to none your hidden source,
preventing any seeing the infant Nile, concealing
the valley where you rise, preferring the nations
to wonder than to know. It is given you to swell
at the midsummer solstice, rising in alien winter,
bringing the winter with you, and alone allowed
to wander the southern and northern hemispheres.
In the former your hidden source, your final goal
in the latter. Your wide waters part to surround
Meroe, and the fertile soil her black-skinned races
cultivate, dense with the foliage of ebony-trees;
yet though Meroe is thick with leaves, she lacks
shade to temper the summer heat, since she lies
directly beneath the sun in Leo. Then you pass
through the torrid zone with no loss of volume,
and cross a length of barren sand, at one time all
your flow gathered in a single channel, at another
straying, overflowing the banks that readily yield.
Then your many streams are gathered once more
into a sluggish channel where Philae, the gateway
to Egypt, divides that realm from the Arab nations.
Later cleaving the desert where trade links the Red
Sea to our own, your flow is gentle. Who would
think the river that glides so smoothly there, had
roused its whole turbulent fury, here? Yet where
your stream runs in a rough channel, with violent
cataracts, resentful that rock should obstruct your
flow that ran free, you trouble the stars with your
spray, drowned by your roar, as the cliffs resound
and your waters whiten with foam in the confined
gorge. Then comes the sacred island our hallowed
traditions call Abatos; that place is struck and feels
the tumult first, there are the rocks where they say
the river rises, since there are the first signs of its
flood. From this point on, nature has flanked your
wandering flow with mountains that deny you to
Libya, Nile, and between which your current flows
tamed, and silent in a deep valley. Memphis is first
to offer widening plains for you to overflow, and
forbids your channel to set borders to your flood.’
So they passed the time till after midnight, apparently
in peace and security, but Pothinus’ troubled mind,
now stained with a sacrilegious murder, was never
free of evil thoughts: and after killing Pompey he no
longer judged anything a crime; shades of the dead
possessed his breast, and the avenging Furies spurred
him on to fresh horrors. Once more his vile hands
prepared to shed blood, blood that the fates intended
to spurt for oppressed senators; a Senate’s vengeance,
their punishment for bringing civil war, was almost
yielded to the base-born. Destiny, avert the wrong,
let Caesar’s head not fall without our Brutus there,
or the punishment of a Roman tyrant would only
go to further Egypt’s guilt, and its warning be lost!
Pothinus works an audacious plot doomed to fail:
not seeking to commit murder with secret cunning,
instead attacking the undefeated leader in open war.
His crimes emboldened him to order that Caesar’s
head be severed as his son-in-law Pompey’s was,
and he told a loyal henchmen to carry the message
to Achillas, his accomplice in Pompey’s murder;
Achillas, whom the unwarlike boy, his Pharaoh,
had appointed to command all his forces and to
whom, reserving no authority for himself, he had
handed the sword to use against all, even the king
himself. ‘Is this a moment,’ Pothinus demanded,
‘to lie in your soft bed, sleeping long and soundly,
now Cleopatra has seized the palace, and Egypt,
betrayed by her, is granted to her as well? Shall
you alone fail to hasten to your mistress’ bed?
The impious sister weds her brother, now she is
wed already to the Roman, scurrying between two
spouses, possessing Egypt and servicing Rome.
Cleopatra conquered the older man’s heart with
drugs; trust the boy, at your peril, who, if a single
night brings them together, and he yields to her
embraces with incestuous passion, plunged in
illicit love masquerading as natural affection,
will grant her your head and mine, perhaps
for a single kiss. If the sister proves charming,
we’ll pay with crucifixion or at the stake. No
refuge anywhere remains: the royal spouse on
one side, adulterous Caesar on the other. We,
to confess the truth, are guilty if that cruel one
is judge; and which of us with whom she’s chaste
does Cleopatra not consider harmful? By the crime
we both committed, and lost by; by our pact sealed
with Pompey’s blood; act; stir up conflict with some
sudden disturbance; attack now, and break off their
nocturnal union, slay our cruel mistress in her bed,
be her partner who he may. Nor be deterred from
an attempt by Fortune, who has raised this Roman
general and set him over all the world: we share
his ambition, and Pompey’s death exalts us also.
Gaze at that shore whose crime fuels our hopes;
ask of the blood-stained tide what power is ours,
and look on Pompey’s grave, a little heap of dust,
that covers something less than a corpse. The man
you fear is no more than Pompey. What matter if
our blood is not noble, if we cannot command
kingdoms or the power of nations: through fate
we are great in crime. Fortune placed these men
in our grasp: behold another nobler victim comes!
Let us placate the Italians with a second killing:
cutting Caesar’s throat would bring us this, that
the people of Rome will love those who as yet
are only viewed as Pompey’s murderers. Why
dread Caesar’s great fame and his army, who
on his leaving it behind is a mere soldier? This
night shall end the civil war, yield an offering
to the dead for mankind, sending to the shades
that life the world is still owed. Go, bravely
against Caesar; let the Egyptian soldiers serve
their king, and the Romans their own. Beware
delay! You will find him sated from the feast,
drunk with wine, ripe for dalliance; be daring;
heaven will grant you what Cato and Brutus
so often pray for.’ Achillas was not slow to
obey the call to action, and gave the order to
advance but without the usual noise, no blare
of trumpets betraying the call to arms, swiftly
readying all the cruel appurtenances of war.
Most of his troops were Roman soldiers, but so
corrupted militarily by alien ways, and now so
oblivious to Rome, that though it was shameful
to serve an Egyptian king, they marched with his
slave as general, at the bidding of his henchman.
Camp-followers have no loyalty or sense of duty,
their swords are for sale: where lie easy pickings
there is their cause. They will threaten a Caesar’s
life, not on their own behalf but for a little pay.
Oh, divine law! Where did the wretched destiny
of empire fail to bring civil war? Absent from
Pharsalia, the men were nevertheless maddened,
like their nation, beside the Nile. The Ptolemies
would have shown less daring if they had made
Pompey welcome! The truth is every right hand
belongs to the powers above, and no Roman is
allowed to stand idle. It has so pleased the gods
to divide Rome’s being: and though the nations
were no longer at odds regarding Caesar or his
son-in-law, now a mere underling had stirred
civil conflict, with Achillas usurping the part
of a Roman; and unless the fates deflected their
attack on Caesar’s life, their plan would triumph.
Both were ready while, distracted by the banquet,
the court was open to every treachery, such that
Caesar’s blood might fill the Pharaoh’s drinking
cup, and his head encumber the table. But they
feared the danger and confusion of night action;
left to chance, you, Ptolemy, might be slain in
a murderous confusion. Such was their trust in
their swords, that they put off the moment; and
contemptuous of the ease of execution of their
grand design, thinking it a loss easily repaired,
these slaves let slip the chance of killing Caesar.
He was saved to meet his punishment in daylight;
and granted one more night by Pothinus, Caesar
gained a respite from death, till the sun’s rising.
The morning-star was shining over Mount Casius,
bringing the dawn to Egypt, warm even at sunrise,
when an armed forced was seen at some distance
from the walls, not a confused mass of stragglers,
but well-ordered ranks advancing towards them:
ready to charge, endure and inflict close combat.
Caesar, distrusting the city’s defences, protected
himself by closing the palace gates, submitting to
a base hiding-place. Shut in as he was, the wider
palace was no longer his: his forces penned in one
corner. His pride was assailed by rage and fear,
fear of attack and anger at his fear. So some wild
and noble creature trapped in a narrow cage roars
and furiously bites the bars, till his teeth shatter;
so your fires, Vulcan, would rage in the Sicilian
depths if Etna’s summit crater were once sealed.
Not long previously, below Mount Haemus’ cliffs,
Caesar had defied Rome’s leaders, armed senators
under Pompey’s command; his cause undeserving
of success, yet promising himself an unjust victory.
Now though, fearing the baseness of slaves, he hid
behind the walls while the missiles rained down.
He whom neither Alanians, nor Scythians, nor even
the Moors who make strangers a target, could harm;
he for whom the whole Roman world was too small,
who would have thought India to Phoenician Cadiz,
too slight a realm; like a harmless child or a woman
when a city’s captured, now sought safety indoors,
relying on barricaded entrance-ways to save his life,
wandering, anxious, uncertain, from room to room,
and not without the king, whom he took everywhere
with him, intending, if he himself must die, to exact
punishment on Ptolemy, make an example of him,
and if javelins, firebrands were lacking hurl that head
at its slaves. So, they say, Medea, the Colchian witch,
fearing vengeance for her treason and flight, awaited
her father with a sword in one hand, the head of her
brother in the other. But Caesar, in desperate straits,
was forced to explore a truce, and a royal courtier
was sent, bearing a message from their absent king,
rebuking the rebellious slaves, questioning their
authority for action. But the usual convention, those
sacred rules respected by all nations, failed to save
that seeker of peace, sent by the king. Where should
this rank among your crimes, Egypt, the land guilty
of so many atrocities? Not Thessaly nor Juba’s barren
lands, nor Pontus plagued by Pharnaces’ war against
his father, nor Spain through which the cold Ebro flows,
nor the savage Syrtes, none takes such delight in them
as you. Attacked on every side, now missiles cascade
on the palace, and batter at the walls. Lacking a ram
to shatter the gates, and break the defences at a blow;
lacking engines of war, mistrustful of fire to achieve
their aim, dividing blindly, the attackers surrounded
the vast reach of walls, unable to use their full force.
Fate denied them, Fortune acted as a defensive wall.
The palace was even attacked from the sea, at a point
where that glorious structure projected boldly above
the waters. But Caesar was everywhere in defence,
driving back some with the sword, others with fire;
such his strength of mind, he acted like the besieger.
He ordered brands steeped in resin hurled at the sails
of the crowded ships, and the fire ran swiftly along
the rigging, over the decks whose caulking melted,
till the thwarts and the towering yards blazed as one.
Soon the half-burned vessels sank beneath the waves,
the attackers being swamped, with their weapons.
Nor did flames fall only on the ships: houses nearby
caught fire with the fierce heat, and wind increased
the conflagration, till the flames, driven by the gale,
rushed whirling over the roofs, swiftly as meteors
trace furrows in the sky, though lacking material
to feed on, and burning by means of the air alone.
This danger recalled the attackers from the barred
palace to save their city. Wasting no time, Caesar
seized the respite granted by fire, and boarded
ship in the dark of night. His success in war was
ever based on speed, and now he swiftly seized
Pharos, the gateway to the sea. Once, in the days
of Proteus the seer, it was an island in the waters,
but now it was linked to the walls of Alexandria.
It was doubly useful to Caesar in this conflict: he
prevented the enemy sailing through the narrow
entrance to reach the sea, and ensured the harbour
was opened to reinforcements. Then he no longer
delayed the punishment of death that Pothinus
had earned, though not inflicted by the means
deserved; crucifixion, burning, wild beasts jaws;
but dying Pompey’s death. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s
younger sister, Arsinoe, was conveyed secretly
by a ruse of Ganymede, her servant, to Caesar’s
enemies, where, as a daughter of the Ptolemies,
she took command of them in the king’s name,
and rightly had Achillas slain, Ptolemy’s dire
instrument, by the sword. So a second victim
was offered to your shade, Magnus, yet the fates
were still not satisfied. Far be it that vengeance
should end there. Not Ptolemy nor all his house
sufficed: for until his own countrymen’s blades
pierced Caesar’s body, Pompey would remain
unavenged. There, the madness did not end with
Pothinus’ death; and led by Ganymede the host
rushed to arms and made successful skirmishes.
With Caesar in extreme danger, that day might
have been forever notable. His soldiers crowded
round him on the narrow mole, as he prepared
to embark his force on the empty ships, when
he was suddenly surrounded by all the terrors
of war: on one side close-packed vessels lined
the shore, on the other infantry attacked his rear.
Neither valour nor flight offered a path of safety,
he could barely hope for an honourable death.
No rout of the enemy ranks, no piles of dead, no
act of bloodshed was needed to conquer Caesar
then; perplexed, trapped by the very nature of his
position, torn between fearing death and praying
for death, he thought again of Scaeva in the serried
ranks, Scaeva who won eternal glory on your field,
Dyrrachium; that Scaeva who, when the walls there
were breached and Pompey trampled the ramparts
underfoot, alone withstood the forces against him.
End of Lucan’s Unfinished Book X