Civil War
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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WITH canvas yielding to the southern wind
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The navy sailed the deep, and every eye
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Gazed on Ionian billows. But the chief
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Turned not his vision from his native shore
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Now left for ever, while the morning mists
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Drew down upon the mountains, and the cliffs
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Faded in distance till his aching sight
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No longer knew them. Then his wearied frame
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Sank in the arms of sleep. But Julia's shape,
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In mournful guise, dread horror on her brow,
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Rose through the gaping earth, and from her tomb
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Erect,Reading adscenso, as Francken (Leyden, 1896). in form as of a Fury spake:
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'Driven from Elysian fields and from the plains
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'The blest inhabit, when the war began,
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'I dwell in Stygian darkness where abide
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'The souls of all the guilty. There I saw
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'Th' Eumenides with torches in their hands
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'Prepared against thy battles; and the fleets So The rugged Charon fainted, And asked a navy, rather than a boat, To ferry over the sad world that came. (Ben Jonson, 'Catiline,' Act i., scene 1.)
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' Which by the ferryman of the flaming stream
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'Were made to bear thy dead: and Hell enlarged
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'To hold thy punishments: the sisters three
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' With busy fingers all their needful task
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' Could scarce accomplish, and the threads of fate
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'Dropped from their weary hands. With me thy wife,
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'Thou, Magnus, leddest happy triumphs home:
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'New wedlock brings new luck. Thy concubine,
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' Whose star brings all her mighty husbands ill,
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'Cornelia, weds in thee a breathing tomb.I take tepido busto as the dative case; and as referring to Pompeius, doomed, like Cornelia's former husband, to defeat and death.
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'Through wars and oceans let her cling to thee
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'So long as I may break thy nightly rest:
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' No moment left thee for her love, but all
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'By night to me, by day to Caesar given.
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'Me not the oblivious banks of Lethe's stream
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' Have made forgetful; and the kings of death
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' Have suffered me to join thee; in mid fight
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'I will be with thee, and my haunting ghost
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'Remind thee Caesar's daughter was thy spouse.
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'Thy sword kills not our pledges; civil war
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'Shall make thee wholly mine.' She spake and fled.
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But he, though heaven and hell thus bode defeat,
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More bent on war, with mind assured of ill,
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'Why dread vain phantoms of a dreaming brain?
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Or nought of sense and feeling to the soul
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Is left by death; or death itself is nought.'
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Now fiery Titan in declining path
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Dipped to the waves, his bright circumference
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So much diminished as a growing moon
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Not yet full circled, or when past the full;
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When to the fleet a hospitable coast
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Gave access, and the ropes in order laid,
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The sailors struck the masts and rowed ashore.
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Thus was the fleet set free and rapt from view
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By favouring breezes. On Italian soil
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Sole lord stood Caesar: but he found no joy
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In triumph over Magnus-rather grieved
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That thus in safety had his flight been sped.
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Not any gifts of fortune now sufficed
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His fiery spirit; and no victory won,
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Unless the war was finished with the stroke.
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Then arms he laid aside, in guise of peace
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Seeking the people's favour; skilled to know
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How to arouse their ire, and how to gain
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The popular love by corn in plenty given.
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Alone through famine cities can be won;
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By food a tyrant bribes the crowd to cringe;
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And starving peoples know not how to fear.
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He orders Curio to stem the waves
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And cross to lands Sicilian, where of old
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Or ocean by a sudden rise o'erwhelmed
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The land, or split the isthmus right in twain,
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Leaving a path for seas. The mighty deep
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There labours ever lest again should meet
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The mountains rent asunder. Nor were left
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Sardinian shores unvisited: each isle
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Is blest with noble harvests which have filled
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More than all else the granaries of Rome,
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And poured their plenty on Hesperia's shores.
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Not even Libya, with its fertile soil,
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Their yield surpasses, when the southern wind
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Gives way to northern and permits the clouds
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To drop their moisture on the teeming earth.
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This ordered, Caesar leads his legions on,
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Not armed for war, but as in time of peace
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Returning to his home. Ah! had he come
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With only Gallia conquered and the North,It may be remarked that, in B.C. 46, Caesar, after the battle of Thapsus, celebrated four triumphs: for his victories over the Gauls, Ptolemaeus, Pharnaces, and Juba.
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What long array of triumph had he brought!
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What pictured scenes of battle! how had Rhine
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And Ocean borne his chains! How noble Gaul,
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And Britain's fair-haired chiefs his lofty car
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Had followed! Such a triumph had he lost
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By further conquest. Now in silent fear
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They watched his marching troops, nor joyful towns
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Poured out their crowds to welcome his return.
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Yet did the conqueror's proud soul rejoice,
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Far more than at their love, at such a fear.
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Now Anxur's hold was passed, the oozy road
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That separates the marsh, the grove sublime Near Aricia. (See Book VI., 93.)
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Where reigns the Scythian goddess, and the path
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By which men bear the fasces to the feast
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On Alba's summit. From the height afar-
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Gazing in awe upon the walls of Rome
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His native city, since the Northern war
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Unseen, unvisited-thus Caesar spake:
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'Seat of the gods, have men deserted thee,
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'Thee, Rome, without a blow? Then for what town
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'Shall men do battle? Thank the gods, no host
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'From Eastern climes has sought Italia's shores
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'To wreak its fury; nor Sarmatian horde
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'With northern tribes conjoined; by Fortune's gift
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'This war is civil: else this coward chief
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'Had been thy ruin.'
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Trembling at his feet
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He found the city: deadly fire and flame,
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As from a conqueror; gods and fanes dispersed;
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Such was the measure of their fear, as though
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His power and wish were one. No festal shout
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Greeted his march, no feigned acclaim of joy.
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Scarce had they time for hate. In Phoebus' hall
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Their hiding places left, a crowd appeared
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Of Senators, uncalled, for none could call.
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No Consul there the sacred shrine adorned
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Nor Praetor next in rank, and every seat
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Placed for the officers of state was void:
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Caesar was all; his private voice was heard;He held no office at the time.
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All else were dumb. They sat prepared to vote
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For him a throne or temple; for themselves
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Or death or exile. Thank the gods that he
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Blushed more to order than did Rome to serve.
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Yet in one breast the spirit of Freedom rose
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Enraged lest force should override the laws;
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For hot Metellus, when he saw the gates
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Of Saturn's temple yielding to the shock,
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With rapid step burst in between the ranks
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Of Caesar's troops, and stood before the doors
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As yet unopened. 'Tis the love of gold
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Alone that fears not death; no hand is raised
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For perished laws or violated rights:
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But for this dross, the vilest cause of all,
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Men fight and die. Thus did the Tribune bar
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The victor's road to rapine, and with voice
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Clear ringing spake: ' Save o'er Metellus dead
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'This temple opens not; my sacred blood
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' Shall flow, thou robber, ere the gold be thine.
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'And surely shall the Tribune's power defied
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'Find an avenging god; this Crassus knew,The tribune Ateius met Crassus as he was setting out from Rome and denounced him with mysterious and ancient curses. (Plut. 'Crassus,' 16.)
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' Who, followed by our curses, sought the war
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'And met disaster on the Parthian plains.
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' All Rome is empty; draw thy falchion then,
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'Nor fear a crowd to gaze upon the crime.
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'Not from our treasury reward for guilt
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'Thy hosts shall ravish : other towns are left,
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'And other nations; seek thy gifts from them;
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'Nor drain Rome's peace for spoil: war still is thine.'
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Aroused to anger then the victor spake:
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' Vain is thy hope to fall in noble death;
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'Dost reckon Freedom safe with thee for guard?
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' With all thine honours, thou of Caesar's rage
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'Art little worthy: never shall thy blood
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' Defile his hand. Time lowest things with high
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' Confounds not yet so much that, if thy voice
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' Could save the laws, it were not better far
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'They fell by Caesar.' Such his lofty words.
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But as the Tribune yielded not, his rage
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Rose yet the more, and at his soldiers' swords
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One look he cast, forgetting for the time
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What robe he wore; but soon Metellus heard
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These words from Cotta: ' When men bow to power
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' Freedom of speech is only Freedom's bane,That is, the liberty remaining to the people is destroyed by speaking freely to the tyrant.
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' Whose shade at least survives, if with free will
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' Thou dost whate'er is bidden thee. For us
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' Some pardon may be found: a host of ills
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' Compelled submission, and the shame is less
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'That to have done which could not be refused.
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' Yield, then, this wealth, the seeds of direful war.
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' A nation's anger is by losses stirred,
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' When laws protect it; but the hungry slave
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' Brings danger to his master, not himself.'
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At this Metellus yielded from the path;
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And as the gates rolled backward, echoed loud Quoted by Dante and applied to the gates of Purgatory. 'Purg.,' ix., 129.
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The rock Tarpeian, and the temple's depths
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Gave up the treasure which for centuries
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No hand had touched: all that the Punic foe
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And Perses and Philippus conquered gave,
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And all the gold which Pyrrhus panic-struck
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Left when he fled: that gold,That is, the gold offered by Pyrrhus, and refused by Fabricius, which, after the final defeat of Pyrrhus, came into the possession of the victors. the price of Rome,
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Which yet Fabricius sold not, and the hoard
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Laid up by saving sires; the tribute sent
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By Asia's richest nations; and the wealth
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Which conquering Metellus brought from Crete,
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And Cato See Plutarch, 'Cato,' 34, 39. bore from distant Cyprus home;
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And last, the riches torn from captive kings
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And borne before Pompeius when he came
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In frequent triumph. Thus was robbed the shrine,
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And Caesar first brought poverty to Rome.
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Meanwhile all nations of the earth were moved
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To share in Magnus' fortunes and the war,
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And in his fated ruin. Graecia sent,
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Nearest of all, her succours to the host.
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From Cirrha and Parnassus' double peak
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And from Amphissa, Phocis sent her youth:
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From swift Cephisus' fate-declaring stream,
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And Theban Dirce, chiefs Boeotian came:
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All Pisa mustered and Alpheus' youths,It was generally believed that the river Alpheus of the Peloponnesus passed under the sea and reappeared in the fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse. A goblet was said to have been thrown into the river in Greece, and to have reappeared in the Sicilian fountain. See the note in Grote's 'History of Greece,' Edition 1862, vol. ii., p. 8.
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Alpheus who in far Sicilian lands
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Beyond the billows seeks the day again:
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Arcadian Maenalus, and OEta loved
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By Hercules, and old Dodona's oaks
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Are left to silence; for the sacred train
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With all Epirus rushes to the war.
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Athens, deserted at the call to arms,
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Yet found three vessels in Apollo's port
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To prove her triumph o'er the Persian king.
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Next seek the battle Creta's hundred tribes
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Beloved of Jove and rivalling the east
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In skill to wing the arrow from the bow.
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The walls of Dardan Oricum, the woods
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Where Athamanians wander, and the banks
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Of swift Absyrtus foaming to the main
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Are left forsaken. Enchelaean tribes
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Whose king was Cadmus, and whose name records
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His transformation,As a serpent. ἔγχελυς is the Greek word for serpent. join the host; and those
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Who till Penean fields and turn the share
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Above Iolcos in Thessalian lands.
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There first men steeled their hearts to dare the waves Conf. Book VI., 472.
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And 'gainst the rage of ocean and the storm
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To match their strength, when the rude Argo sailed
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Upon that distant quest, and spurned the shore,
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Joining remotest nations in her flight,
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And gave the fates another form of death.
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Left too was Pholoe; pretended home
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Where dwelt the fabled race of double form; The Centaurs.
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Arcadian Maenalus; the Thracian mount
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Named Hemus; Strymon, whence, as autumn falls,
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Winged squadrons seek the banks of warmer Nile;
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And all those isles the mouths of Ister bathe
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Mixed with the tidal wave; the land through which
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The cooling eddies of Caicus flow
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Idalian; and Arisbe bare of glebe.
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The hinds of Pitane, and those who till
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Celaenae's fields which mourned of yore the gift
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Of Pallas,Probably the flute thrown away by Pallas, which Marsyas picked up when he challenged Apollo to a musical contest. For his presumption the god had him flayed alive. and the vengeance of the god,
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All draw the sword; and those from Marsyas' flood
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First swift, then doubling backwards with the stream
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Of sinuous Meander: and from where
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Earth gives Pactolus and his golden store
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Free passage forth; and where with rival wealth
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Rich Hermus parts the meads. Nor stayed the bands
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Of Troy, but (doomed as in old time) they joined
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Pompeius' fated camp: nor held them back
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The fabled past, nor Caesar's claimed descent
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From their Iulus. Syrian peoples came
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From palmy Idumea and the walls
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Of Ninus great of yore; from windy plains
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Of far Damascus and from Gaza's hold,
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From Sidon's courts enriched with purple dye,
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And Tyre oft trembling with the shaken earth.
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All these led on by Cynosura's lightThat is, the Little Bear, by which the Phoenicians steered, while the Greeks steered by the Great Bear. (See Sir G. Lewis's 'Astronomy of the Ancients,' p, 447.) In Book VIII., line 198, the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star itself, which is much nearer to the Little than to the GreatBear, and is (I believe) reckoned as one of the stars forming the group known by that name. He may have been a Phoenician.
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Furrow their certain path to reach the war.
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Phoenicians first (if story be believed)
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Dared to record in characters; for yet
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Papyrus was not fashioned, and the priests
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Of Memphis, carving symbols upon walls
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Of mystic sense (in shape of beast or fowl)
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Preserved the secrets of their magic art.
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Next Persean Tarsus and high Taurus' groves
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Are left deserted, and Corycium's cave;
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And all Cilicia's ports, pirate no more,
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Resound with preparation. Nor the East
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Refused the call, where furthest Ganges dares,
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Alone of rivers, to discharge his stream
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Against the sun opposing; on this shoreHe did not in fact reach the Ganges, as is well known.
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The Macedonian conqueror stayed his foot
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And found the world his victor; Indus rolls
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Here his vast torrent, by Hydaspes joined
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Yet scarce augmented; here from luscious reed
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Men draw sweet liquor; here they dye their locks
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With tints of saffron, and with coloured gems
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Bind down their flowing garments; here are they,
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Who satiate of life and proud to die,
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Ascend the blazing pyre, and conquering fate,
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Scorn to live longer; but triumphant give
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The remnant of their days in flame to heaven.Perhaps in allusion to the embassy from India to Augustus in B.C. 19, when Zarmanochanus, an Indian sage, declaring that he had lived in happiness and would not risk the chance of a reverse, burnt himself publicly. (Merivale, chapter xxxiv.)
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Nor failed to join the host a hardy band
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Of Cappadocians, tilling now the soil,
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Once pirates of the main : nor those who dwell
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Where steep Niphates hurls the avalanche,
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And where on Median Coatra's sides
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The giant forest rises to the sky.
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And you, Arabians, from your distant home
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Came to a world unknown, and wondering saw
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The shadows fall no longer to the left.That is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they came from the other side of the equator. (See Book IX., 620.)
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Then fired with ardour for the Roman war
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Oretas came, and far Carmania's chiefs,
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Whose clime lies southward, yet men thence descry
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Low down the Pole star, and Bootes runs
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Hasting to set, part seen, his nightly course;
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And Ethiopians from that southern land
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Which lies without the circuit of the stars,
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Did not the Bull with curving hoof advanced
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O'erstep the limit. From that mountain zone
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They came, where rising from a common fount
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Euphrates flows and Tigris, and did earth
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Permit, were joined with either name; but now
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While like th' Egyptian flood Euphrates spreads
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His fertilising water, Tigris first
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Drawn down by earth in covered depths is plunged
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And holds a secret course; then born again
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Flows on unhindered to the Persian sea.
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But warlike Parthia wavered 'twixt the chiefs,
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Content to have made them two See Book I., 120.; while Scythia's hordes
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Dipped fresh their darts in poison, whom the stream
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Of Bactros bounds and vast Hyrcanian woods.
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Hence springs that rugged nation swift and fierce,
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Descended from the Twins' great charioteer.A race called Heniochi, said to be descended from the charioteer of Castor and Pollux.
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Nor failed Sarmatia, nor the tribes that dwell
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By richest Phasis, and on Halys' banks,
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Which sealed the doom of Croesus king; nor where
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From far Rhipaean ranges Tanais flows,
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On either hand a quarter of the world,
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Asia and Europe, and in winding course
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Carves out a continent; nor where the strait
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In boiling surge pours to the Pontic deep
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Maeotis' waters, rivalling the pride
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Of those Herculean pillar-gates that guard
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The entrance to an ocean. Thence with hair
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In golden fillets, Arimaspians came,
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And fierce Massagetae, who quaff the blood
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Of the brave steed on which they fight and flee.
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Not when great Cyrus on Memnonian realms
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His warriors poured; nor when, their weapons piled, Effusis telis. I have so taken this difficult expression. Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made to agree with that of Herodotus. Francken, on the other hand, quotes a Scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an arrow. See Mr. J. A. R. Munro's paper in vol. xxii. of the Hellenic Society's publications, at p. 296.
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The Persian told the number of his host;
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Nor when th' avenger Agamemnon. of a brother's shame
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Loaded the billows with his mighty fleet,
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Beneath one chief so many kings made war;
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Nor e'er met nations varied thus in garb
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And thus in language. To Pompeius' death
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Thus Fortune called them: and a world in arms
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Witnessed his ruin. From where Afric's god,
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Two-horned Ammon, rears his temple, came
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All Libya ceaseless, from the wastes that touch
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The bounds of Egypt to the shore that meets
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The Western Ocean. Thus, to award the prize
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Of Empire at one blow, Pharsalia brought
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'Neath Caesar's conquering hand the banded world.
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Now Caesar left the walls of trembling Rome
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And swift across the cloudy Alpine tops
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He winged his march; but while all others fled
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Far from his path, in terror of his name,
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Phocaea's Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocaea in Asia Minor about B.C. Lucan (line 392) appears to think that the founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed by the Persians sixty years later. See Thucydides I., 13; Grote, ' History of Greece,' chapter xxii. manhood with un-Grecian faith
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Held to their pledged obedience, and dared
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To follow right, not fate; but first of all
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With olive boughs of truce before them borne
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The chieftain they approach, with peaceful words
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In hope to alter his unbending will
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And tame his fury. 'Search the ancient books
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Which chronicle the deeds of Latian fame;
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Thou'lt ever find, when foreign foes pressed hard,
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Massilia's prowess on the side of Rome.After the burning of Rome by the Celts a collection was made in Massilia in aid of those who suffered by the fire. Mommsen, vol. i., p. 430.
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And now, if triumphs in an unknown world
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Thou seekest, Caesar, here our arms and swords
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Accept in aid: but if, in impious strife
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Of civil discord, with a Roman foe
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Thou arm'st for battle, tears we give thee then
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And hold aloof: no stranger hand may touch
3.1.tr
Celestial wounds. Should all Olympus' hosts
3.1.tr
Have rushed to war, or should the giant brood
3.1.tr
Assault the stars, yet men would not presume
3.1.tr
Or by their prayers or arms to help the gods:
3.1.tr
And, ignorant of the fortunes of the sky,
3.1.tr
Taught by the thunderbolts alone, would know
3.1.tr
That Jupiter supreme still held the throne.
3.1.tr
Add that unnumbered nations join the fray:
3.1.tr
Nor shrinks the world so much from taint of crime
3.1.tr
That civil wars reluctant swords require.
3.1.tr
But grant that strangers shun thy destinies
3.1.tr
And only Romans fight-shall not the son
3.1.tr
Shrink ere he strike his father? on both sides
3.1.tr
Brothers forbid the weapon to be hurled?
3.1.tr
The world's end comes when other hands are armed
3.1.tr
' Than those which custom and the gods allow.
3.1.tr
' For us, this is our prayer: Leave, Caesar, here
3.1.tr
' Thy dreadful eagles, keep thy hostile signs
3.1.tr
' Back from our gates, but enter thou in peace
3.1.tr
' Massilia's ramparts; let our city rest
3.1.tr
' Withdrawn from crime, to Magnus and to thee
3.1.tr
' Safe: and should favouring fate preserve our walls
3.1.tr
' Inviolate, when both shall wish for peace
3.1.tr
' Here meet unarmed. Why hither dost thou turn
3.1.tr
' Thy rapid march, when to Iberian fights
3.1.tr
'The war commands thee? Weight nor power have we
3.1.tr
' To sway the mighty conflicts of the world.
3.1.tr
' We boast no victories since our fatherland
3.1.tr
'We left in exile: when Phocaea's fort
3.1.tr
' Perished in flames, we sought another here;
3.1.tr
'And here on foreign shores, in narrow bounds
3.1.tr
' Confined and safe, our boast is sturdy faith;
3.1.tr
' Nought else. But if our city to blockade
3.1.tr
' Is now thy mind-to force the gates, and hurl
3.1.tr
' Javelin and blazing torch upon our homes-
3.1.tr
' Do what thou wilt: cut off the source that fills
3.1.tr
' Our foaming river, force us, prone in thirst,
3.1.tr
' To dig the earth and lap the scanty pool;
3.1.tr
' Seize on our corn and leave us food abhorred:
3.1.tr
' This people shall not shun, for freedom's sake,
3.1.tr
' The ills Saguntum bore in Punic siege; Murviedro of the present day. Its gallant defence against Hannibal has been compared to that of Saragossa against the French.
3.1.tr
' Torn, vainly clinging, from the shrunken breast
3.1.tr
' The starving babe shall perish in the flames.
3.1.tr
' Wives at their husbands' hands shall pray their fate,
3.1.tr
' And brothers' weapons deal a mutual death.
3.1.tr
' Such be our civil war; not, Caesar, thine.'
3.1.tr
But Caesar's visage stern betrayed his ire
3.1.tr
Which thus broke forth in words: ' Vain is the hope
3.1.tr
Ye rest upon my march: speed though I may
3.1.tr
Towards my western goal, time still remains
3.1.tr
To blot Massilia out. Rejoice, my troops!
3.1.tr
' Unsought the war ye longed for meets you now:
3.1.tr
The fates concede it. As the tempests lose
3.1.tr
Their strength by sturdy forests unopposed,
3.1.tr
And as the fire that finds no fuel dies,
3.1.tr
Even so to find no foe is Caesar's ill.
3.1.tr
When those who may be conquered will not fight,
3.1.tr
That is defeat. Degenerate, disarmed
3.1.tr
Their gates admit me! Not content, forsooth,
3.1.tr
With shutting Caesar out they shut him in!
3.1.tr
They shun the taint of war! Such prayer for peace
3.1.tr
Brings with it chastisement. In Caesar's age
3.1.tr
Learn that not peace, but war within his ranks
3.1.tr
Alone can make you safe.'
3.1.tr
He turns his march
3.1.tr
Upon the fearless city, and beholds
3.1.tr
Fast barred the gate-ways, while in arms the youths
3.1.tr
Stand on the battlements. Hard by the walls
3.1.tr
A hillock rose, upon the further side
3.1.tr
Expanding in a plain of gentle slope,
3.1.tr
Fit (as he deemed it) for a camp with ditch
3.1.tr
And mound encircling. To a lofty height
3.1.tr
The nearest portion of the city rose,
3.1.tr
While intervening valleys lay between.
3.1.tr
These summits with a mighty trench to bind
3.1.tr
The chief resolves, gigantic though the toil.
3.1.tr
But first, from furthest boundaries of his camp,
3.1.tr
Enclosing streams and meadows, to the sea
3.1.tr
To draw a rampart, upon either hand
3.1.tr
Heaved up with earthy sod; with lofty towers
3.1.tr
Crowned; and to shut Massilia from the land.
3.1.tr
Then did the Grecian city win renown
3.1.tr
Eternal, deathless, for that uncompelled
3.1.tr
Nor fearing for herself, but free to act
3.1.tr
She made the conqueror pause: and he who seized
3.1.tr
All in resistless course found here delay:
3.1.tr
And Fortune, hastening to lay the world
3.1.tr
Low at her favourite's feet, was forced to stay
3.1.tr
For these few moments her impatient hand.
3.1.tr
Now fell the forests far and wide, despoiled
3.1.tr
Of all their giant trunks: for as the mound
3.1.tr
On earth and brushwood stood, a timber frame
3.1.tr
Held firm the soil, lest pressed beneath its towers
3.1.tr
The mass might topple down.
3.1.tr
There stood a grove
3.1.tr
Which from the earliest time no hand of man
3.1.tr
Had dared to violate; hidden from the sunSee note to Book I., 508.
3.1.tr
Its chill recesses; matted boughs entwined
3.1.tr
Prisoned the air within. No sylvan nymphs
3.1.tr
Here found a home, nor Pan, but savage rites
3.1.tr
And barbarous worship, altars horrible
3.1.tr
On massive stones upreared; sacred with blood
3.1.tr
Of men was every tree. If faith be given
3.1.tr
To ancient myth, no fowl has ever dared
3.1.tr
To rest upon those branches, and no beast
3.1.tr
Has made his lair beneath: no tempest falls,
3.1.tr
Nor lightnings flash upon it from the cloud.
3.1.tr
Stagnant the air, unmoving, yet the leaves
3.1.tr
Filled with mysterious trembling; dripped the streams
3.1.tr
From coal-black fountains; effigies of gods
3.1.tr
Rude, scarcely fashioned from some fallen trunk
3.1.tr
Held the mid space: and, pallid with decay,
3.1.tr
Their rotting shapes struck terror. Thus do men
3.1.tr
Dread most the god unknown. 'Twas said that caves
3.1.tr
Rumbled with earthquakes, that the prostrate yew
3.1.tr
Rose up again; that fiery tongues of flame
3.1.tr
Gleamed in the forest depths, yet were the trees
3.1.tr
Unkindled; and that snakes in frequent folds
3.1.tr
Were coiled around the trunks. Men flee the spot
3.1.tr
Nor dare to worship near: and e'en the priest
3.1.tr
Or when bright Phoebus holds the height, or when
3.1.tr
Dark night controls the heavens, in anxious dread
3.1.tr
Draws near the grove and fears to find its lord.
3.1.tr
Spared in the former war, still dense it rose
3.1.tr
Where all the hills were bare, and Caesar now
3.1.tr
Its fall commanded. But the brawny arms
3.1.tr
Which swayed the axes trembled, and the men,
3.1.tr
Awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty,
3.1.tr
Held back the blow they thought would be returned.
3.1.tr
This Caesar saw, and swift within his grasp
3.1.tr
Uprose a ponderous axe, which downward fell
3.1.tr
Cleaving a mighty oak that towered to heaven,
3.1.tr
While thus he spake: ' Henceforth let no man dread
3.1.tr
'To fell this forest : all the crime is mine.
3.1.tr
'This be your creed.' He spake, and all obeyed,
3.1.tr
For Caesar's ire weighed down the wrath of Heaven.
3.1.tr
Yet ceased they not to fear. Then first the oak,
3.1.tr
Dodona's ancient boast; the knotty holm;
3.1.tr
The cypress, witness of patrician grief,
3.1.tr
The buoyant alder, laid their foliage low
3.1.tr
Admitting day; though scarcely through the stems
3.1.tr
Their fall found passage. At the sight the Gauls
3.1.tr
Grieved; but the garrison within the walls
3.1.tr
Rejoiced: for thus shall men insult the gods
3.1.tr
And find no punishment? Yet fortune oft
3.1.tr
Protects the guilty; on the poor alone
3.1.tr
The gods can vent their ire. Enough hewn down,
3.1.tr
They seize the country wagons; and the hind,
3.1.tr
His oxen gone which else had drawn the plough,
3.1.tr
Mourns for his harvest.
3.1.tr
But the eager chief
3.1.tr
Impatient of the combat by the walls
3.1.tr
Carries the warfare to the furthest west.
3.1.tr
Meanwhile a giant mound, on star-shaped wheels
3.1.tr
Concealed, they fashion, crowned with double towers
3.1.tr
High as the battlements, by cause unseen
3.1.tr
Slow creeping onwards; while amazed the foe
3.1.tr
Beheld, and thought some subterranean gust
3.1.tr
Had burst the caverns of the earth and forced
3.1.tr
The nodding pile aloft, and wondered sore
3.1.tr
Their walls should stand unshaken. From its height
3.1.tr
Hissed down the weapons; but the Grecian bolts
3.1.tr
WVith greater force were on the Romans hurled;
3.1.tr
Nor by the arm unaided, for the lance
3.1.tr
Urged by the catapult resistless rushed
3.1.tr
Through arms and shield and flesh, and left a death
3.1.tr
Behind, nor stayed its course : and massive stones
3.1.tr
Cast by the beams of mighty engines fell;
3.1.tr
As from the mountain top some time-worn rock
3.1.tr
At length by winds dislodged, in all its track
3.1.tr
Spreads ruin vast: nor crushed the life alone
3.1.tr
Forth from the body, but dispersed the limbs
3.1.tr
In fragments undistinguished and in blood.
3.1.tr
But as protected by the armour shield
3.1.tr
The might of Rome drew nigh beneath the wall
3.1.tr
(The front rank with their bucklers interlaced
3.1.tr
And held above their helms), the missiles fell
3.1.tr
Behind their backs, nor could the toiling Greeks
3.1.tr
Deflect their engines, throwing still the bolts
3.1.tr
Far into space; but from the rampart top
3.1.tr
Flung ponderous masses down. Long as the shields
3.1.tr
Held firm together, like to hail that falls
3.1.tr
Harmless upon a roof, so long the stones
3.1.tr
Crushed down innocuous; but as the blows
3.1.tr
Rained fierce and ceaseless and the Romans tired,
3.1.tr
Some here and there sank fainting. Next the roof
3.1.tr
Moves on with earth besprinkled: underneath
3.1.tr
The ram conceals his head, which, poised and swung,
3.1.tr
They dash with mighty force upon the wall,
3.1.tr
Covered themselves with mantlets. Though the head
3.1.tr
Light on the lower stones, yet as the shock
3.1.tr
Falls and refalls, from battlement to base
3.1.tr
The rampart soon shall topple. But by balks
3.1.tr
And rocky fragments overwhelmed, and flames,
3.1.tr
The roof at length gives way; and worn with toil
3.1.tr
All spent in vain, the wearied troops withdraw
3.1.tr
And seek the shelter of their tents again.
3.1.tr
Thus far to hold their battlements was all
3.1.tr
The Greeks had hoped; now, venturing attack,
3.1.tr
With glittering torches for their arms, by night
3.1.tr
Fearless they sallied forth: nor lance they bear
3.1.tr
Nor deadly bow, nor shaft; for fire alone
3.1.tr
Is now their weapon. Through the Roman works
3.1.tr
Driven by the wind the conflagration spread:
3.1.tr
Nor did the newness of the wood make pause
3.1.tr
The fury of the flames, which, fed afresh
3.1.tr
By living torches, 'neath a smoky pall
3.1.tr
Leaped on in fiery tongues. Not wood alone
3.1.tr
But stones gigantic crumbling into dust
3.1.tr
Dissolved beneath the heat; the mighty mound
3.1.tr
Lay prone, yet in its ruin larger seemed.
3.1.tr
Next, conquered on the land, upon the main
3.1.tr
They try their fortunes. On their simple craft
3.1.tr
No painted figure-head adorned the bows
3.1.tr
Nor claimed protection from the gods; but rude,
3.1.tr
Just as they fell upon their mountain homes,
3.1.tr
The trees were knit together, and the deck
3.1.tr
Gave steady foot-hold for an ocean fight.
3.1.tr
Meanwhile had Caesar's squadron left the Rhone
3.1.tr
And reached with Brutus' This was Decimus Brutus, an able and trusted lieutenant of Caesar, who made him one of his heirs in the second degree. He, however, joined the conspiracy, and it was he who on the day of the murder induced Caesar to go to the Senate House. Less than two years later, after the siege of Perusia, he was deserted by his army, taken and put to death. turret ship the strait
3.1.tr
By Stoechas'Near Toulon, and now called the Iles d'Hyeres. isles. Nor less the Grecian host-
3.1.tr
Boys not yet grown to war, and aged men,
3.1.tr
Armed for the conflict, with their all at stake.
3.1.tr
Nor only did they marshal for the fight
3.1.tr
Ships meet for service; but their ancient keels
3.1.tr
Brought from the dockyards. When the morning rays
3.1.tr
Broke from the waters, and the sky was clear,
3.1.tr
And all the winds were still upon the deep,
3.1.tr
Smoothed for the battle, swift on either part
3.1.tr
The fleets essay the open; and the ships
3.1.tr
Tremble beneath the oars that urge them on,
3.1.tr
By sinewy arms impelled. Upon the wings
3.1.tr
That bound the Roman fleet, the larger craft
3.1.tr
With triple and quadruple banks of oars
3.1.tr
Gird in the lesser: so they front the sea;
3.1.tr
While in their rear, shaped as a crescent moon,
3.1.tr
Liburnian galleys follow. Over all
3.1.tr
Towers Brutus' deck praetorian. Oars on oars
3.1.tr
Propel the bulky vessel through the main,
3.1.tr
Six ranks; the topmost strike the waves afar.
3.1.tr
When such a space remained between the fleets
3.1.tr
As could be covered by a single stroke,
3.1.tr
Innumerable voices rise in air
3.1.tr
Drowning with resonant din the beat of oars
3.1.tr
And note of trumpet summoning: and all
3.1.tr
Sit on the benches and with mighty stroke
3.1.tr
Sweep o'er the sea and gain the space between.
3.1.tr
Then crashed the prows together, and the keels
3.1.tr
Rebounded backwards, and unnumbered darts
3.1.tr
Or darkened all the sky or, in their fall,
3.1.tr
The vacant ocean. As the wings grew wide,
3.1.tr
Less densely packed the fleet, some Grecian ships
3.1.tr
Pressed in between; as when with west and east
3.1.tr
The tide contends, this way the waves are driven
3.1.tr
And that the sea; so as they plough the deep
3.1.tr
In various lines converging, what the prow
3.1.tr
Throws up advancing, from the foemen's oars
3.1.tr
Falls back repelled. But soon the Grecian fleet
3.1.tr
Was handier found in battle, and in flight
3.1.tr
Pretended, and in shorter curves could round;
3.1.tr
More deftly governed by the guiding helm :
3.1.tr
While on the Roman side their steadier keels
3.1.tr
Gave vantage, as to men who fight on land.
3.1.tr
Then Brutus to the pilot of his ship:
3.1.tr
' Dost suffer them to range the wider deep,
3.1.tr
'Contending with the foe in naval skill?
3.1.tr
' Draw close the war and drive us on the prows
3.1.tr
'Of these Phocaeans.' Him the pilot heard;
3.1.tr
And turned his vessel slantwise to the foe.
3.1.tr
Then was the sea all covered with the war:
3.1.tr
Then Grecian ships attacking Brutus found
3.1.tr
Their ruin in the stroke, and vanquished lay
3.1.tr
Beside his bulwarks; with curved hooks and chains
3.1.tr
The foe they grapple, by entangled oars
3.1.tr
Themselves held back. And now no outstretched arm
3.1.tr
Hurls forth the javelin, but sword in hand
3.1.tr
They wage a naval fight: each from his ship
3.1.tr
Leans forward to the stroke, and falls when slain
3.1.tr
Upon a foeman's deck. Deep flows the stream
3.1.tr
Of purple slaughter to the foamy main :
3.1.tr
By piles of floating corpses are the sides,
3.1.tr
Though grappled, kept asunder. Some, half dead,
3.1.tr
Plunge in the ocean, gulping down the brine
3.1.tr
Encrimsoned with their blood; some lingering still
3.1.tr
Draw their last struggling breath amid the wreck
3.1.tr
Of broken navies: weapons which have missed
3.1.tr
Find yet their victims, and the falling steel
3.1.tr
Fails not in middle deep to deal the wound.
3.1.tr
One vessel circled by Phocaean keels
3.1.tr
Divides her strength, and on the right and left
3.1.tr
On either side with equal war contends;
3.1.tr
On whose high poop while Tagus fighting gripped
3.1.tr
The stern Phocaean, pierced his back and breast
3.1.tr
Two fatal weapons; in the midst the steel
3.1.tr
Met, and the blood, uncertain whence to flow,
3.1.tr
Stood still, arrested, till with double course
3.1.tr
Forth by a sudden gush it drove each dart,
3.1.tr
And sent the life abroad through either wound.
3.1.tr
Here fated Telon also steered his ship:
3.1.tr
No pilot's hand upon an angry sea
3.1.tr
More deftly ruled a vessel. Well he knew,
3.1.tr
Or by the sun or crescent moon, how best
3.1.tr
To set his canvas fitted for the breeze
3.1.tr
The coming hours would bring. His rushing stem
3.1.tr
Shattered a Roman vessel: but a dart
3.1.tr
Hurled at the moment quivered in his breast.
3.1.tr
He falls, and in the fall his dying hand
3.1.tr
Diverts the prow. Then Gyareus, in act
3.1.tr
To climb the friendly deck, by javelin pierced,
3.1.tr
Still as he hung, by the retaining steel
3.1.tr
Fast to the side was nailed.
3.1.tr
Twin brethren stand
3.1.tr
A fruitful mother's pride; with different fates,
3.1.tr
But ne'er distinguished till death's savage hand
3.1.tr
Struck once, and ended error: he that lived,
3.1.tr
Cause of fresh anguish to their sorrowing souls,
3.1.tr
Called ever to the weeping parents back
3.1.tr
The image of the lost: who, as the oars
3.1.tr
Grecian and Roman mixed their teeth oblique,
3.1.tr
Grasped with his dexter hand the Roman ship;
3.1.tr
When fell a blow that shore his arm away.
3.1.tr
So died, upon the side it held, the hand,
3.1.tr
Nor loosed its grasp in death. Yet with the wound
3.1.tr
His noble courage rose, and maimed he dared
3.1.tr
Renew the fray, and stretched across the sea
3.1.tr
To grasp the lost-in vain! another blow
3.1.tr
Lopped arm and hand alike. Nor shield nor sword
3.1.tr
Henceforth are his. Yet even now he seeks
3.1.tr
No sheltering hold, but with his chest advanced
3.1.tr
Before his brother armed, he claims the fight,
3.1.tr
And holding in his breast the darts which else
3.1.tr
Had slain his comrades, pierced with countless spears,
3.1.tr
He falls in death well earned; yet ere his end
3.1.tr
Collects his parting life, and all his strength
3.1.tr
Strains to the utmost and with failing limbs
3.1.tr
Leaps on the foeman's deck; by weight alone
3.1.tr
Injurious; for streaming down with gore
3.1.tr
And piled on high with corpses, while her sides
3.1.tr
Sounded to ceaseless blows, the fated ship
3.1.tr
Let in the greedy brine until her ways
3.1.tr
Were level with the waters-then she plunged
3.1.tr
In whirling eddies downwards-and the main
3.1.tr
First parted, then closed in upon its prey.
3.1.tr
Full many wondrous deaths, with fates diverse,
3.1.tr
Upon the sea in that day's fight befell.
3.1.tr
Caught by a grappling-hook that missed the side,
3.1.tr
Had Lycidas been whelmed in middle deep;
3.1.tr
But by his feet his comrades dragged him back,
3.1.tr
And rent in twain he hung; nor slowly flowed
3.1.tr
As from a wound the blood; but all his veins According to some these were the lines which Lucan recited while bleeding to death; according to others, those at Book ix., line 948.
3.1.tr
Were torn asunder and the stream of life
3.1.tr
Gushed o'er his limbs till lost amid the waves.
3.1.tr
From no man dying has the vital breath
3.1.tr
Rushed by so wide a path; the lower trunk
3.1.tr
Succumbed to death, but with the lungs and heart
3.1.tr
Long strove the fates, and hardly won the whole.
3.1.tr
While, bent upon the fight, an eager crew
3.1.tr
Were gathered to the margin of their deck
3.1.tr
(Leaving the upper side as bare of foes),
3.1.tr
Their ship was overset. Beneath the keel
3.1.tr
Which floated upwards, prisoned in the sea,
3.1.tr
And powerless by spread of arms to float
3.1.tr
The main, they perished. One who haply swam
3.1.tr
Amid the battle, chanced upon a death
3.1.tr
Strange and unheard of; for two meeting prows
3.1.tr
Transfixed his body. At the double stroke
3.1.tr
Wide yawns his chest; blood issues from his mouth
3.1.tr
With flesh commingled; and the brazen beaks
3.1.tr
Resounding clash together, by the bones
3.1.tr
Unhindered: now they part and through the gap
3.1.tr
Swift pours the sea and drags the corse below.
3.1.tr
Next, of a shipwrecked crew, the larger part
3.1.tr
Struggling with death upon the waters, reached
3.1.tr
A comrade bark; but when with elbows raised
3.1.tr
They seized upon the bulwarks and the ship
3.1.tr
Rolled, nor could bear their weight, the ruthless crew
3.1.tr
Hacked off their straining arms; then maimed they sank
3.1.tr
Below the seething waves, to rise no more.
3.1.tr
Now every dart was hurled and every spear,
3.1.tr
The soldier weaponless; yet their rage found arms:
3.1.tr
One hurls an oar; another's brawny arm
3.1.tr
Tugs at the twisted stern; or from the seats
3.1.tr
The oarsmen driving, swings a bench in air.
3.1.tr
The ships are broken for the fight. They seize
3.1.tr
The fallen dead and snatch the sword that slew.
3.1.tr
Nay, many from their wounds, frenzied for arms,
3.1.tr
Pluck forth the deadly steel, and pressing still
3.1.tr
Upon their yawning sides, hurl forth the spear
3.1.tr
Back to the hostile ranks from which it came;
3.1.tr
Then ebbs their life blood forth.
3.1.tr
But deadlier yet
3.1.tr
Was that fell force most hostile to the sea;
3.1.tr
For, thrown in torches and in sulphurous bolts
3.1.tr
Fire all-consuming ran among the ships,
3.1.tr
Whose oily timbers soaked in pitch and wax
3.1.tr
Inflammable, gave welcome to the flames.
3.1.tr
Nor could the waves prevail against the blaze
3.1.tr
Which claimed as for its own the fragments borne
3.1.tr
Upon the waters. Lo! on burning plank
3.1.tr
One hardly 'scapes destruction; one to save
3.1.tr
His flaming ship, gives entrance to the main.
3.1.tr
Of all the forms of death each fears the one
3.1.tr
That brings immediate dying: yet quail not
3.1.tr
Their hearts in shipwreck : from the waves they pluck
3.1.tr
The fallen darts and furnishing the ships
3.1.tr
Essay the feeble stroke; and should that hope
3.1.tr
Still fail their hand, they call the sea to aid
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And seizing in their grasp some floating foe
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Drag him to mutual death. But on that day
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Phoceus above all others proved his skill.
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Well trained was he to dive beneath the main
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And search the waters with unfailing eye;
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And should an anchor 'gainst the straining rope
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Too firmly bite the sands, to wrench it free.
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Oft in his fatal grasp he seized a foe
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Nor loosed his grip until the life was gone.
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Such was his frequent deed; but this his fate:
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For rising, victor (as he thought), to air,
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Full on a keel he struck and found his death.
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Some, drowning, seized a hostile oar and checked
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The flying vessel; not to die in vain,
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Their single care; some on their vessel's side
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Hanging, in death, with wounded frame essayed
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To check the charging prow. Tyrrhenus high
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Upon the bulwarks of his ship was struck
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By leaden bolt from Balearic sling
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Of Lygdamus; straight through his temples passed
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The fated missile; and in streams of blood
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Forced from their seats his trembling eyeballs fell.
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Plunged in a darkness as of night, he thought
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That life had left him; yet ere long he knew
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The living vigour of his limbs; and cried,
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'Place me, O friends, as some machine of war
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Straight facing towards the foe; then shall my darts
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Strike as of old; and thou, Tyrrhenus, spend
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Thy latest breath, still left, upon the fight:
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So shalt thou play, not wholly dead, the part
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That fits a soldier, and the spear that strikes
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Thy frame, shall miss the living.' Thus he spake,
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And hurled his javelin, blind, but not in vain;
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For Argus, generous youth of noble blood,
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Below the middle waist received the spear
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And falling drave it home. His aged sire
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From furthest portion of the conquered ship
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Beheld; than whom in pride of manhood none
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More brave in battle: now no more he fought,
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Yet did the memory of his prowess stir
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Phocaean youths to emulate his fame.
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Oft stumbling o'er the benches the old man hastes
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To reach his boy, and finds him breathing still.
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No tear bedewed his cheek; upon his breast
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No blow he struck; but all his frame was stiff,
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His hands outspread : and o'er his eyes there fell
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A dark impenetrable veil of mist
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That blotted out the day; nor could he more
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Discern his luckless Argus. He, who saw
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His parent, raising up his drooping head
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With parted lips and silent features asks
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A father's latest kiss, a father's hand
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To close his dying eyes. But soon his sire,
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Recovering from his swoon, when ruthless grief
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Possessed his spirit, 'This short space,' he cried,
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' I lose not, which the cruel gods have given,
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' But die before thee. Grant thy sorrowing sire
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' Forgiveness that he fled thy last embrace.
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Not yet has passed thy life blood from the wound
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Nor yet is death upon thee-still thou may'stIt was regarded as the greatest of misfortunes if a child died before his parent.
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Outlive thy parent.' Thus he spake, and seized
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The reeking sword and drave it to the hilt,
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Then plunged into the deep, with headlong bound,
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To anticipate his son: for this he feared
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A single form of death should not suffice.
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Now gave the fates their judgment, and in doubt
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No longer was the war: the Grecian fleet
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In most part sunk; -some ships by Romans oared
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Conveyed the victors home: in headlong flight
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Some sought the yards for shelter. On the strand
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What tears of parents for their offspring slain,
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How wept the mothers! 'Mid the pile confused
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Ofttimes the wife sought madly for her spouse
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And chose for her last kiss some Roman slain;
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While wretched fathers by the blazing pyres
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Fought for the dead. But Brutus thus at sea
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First gained a triumph for great Caesar's arms.It was Brutus who gained the naval victory over the Veneti some seven years before; the first naval fight, that we know of, fought in the Atlantic Ocean.