Lucan, Civil War Book 10 Translated by H. T. Riley (1853) Formatted and by C. Chinn (2008) WHEN Caesar, following the head of Pompey, first reached the shore, and trod upon the direful sands, the fortune of the chieftain and the fate of guilty Egypt struggled, as to whether the realms of Lagus should come under the Roman sway, 5 or whether the Memphitic sword should snatch from the world the head of both conqueror and conquered. Magnus, thy shade prevailed, thy ghost rescued thy father-in-law from bloodshed, that after thee the Roman people might not esteem the Nile. Thence is he borne into the Paraetonian city, secure in the 10 pledge of a crime so ruthless, following his own insignia. But, in the shouts of the mob complaining that the fasces and the Roman authority are encroaching upon their own, he perceives discordant breasts and doubtful feelings, and that Magnus has perished not for him. Then, his looks always concealing his fears, 15 without hesitation he goes about the abodes of the Gods of heaven and the Temples of the ancient Divinity, that attest the former strength of the Macedonians; and, touched by no beauty of the objects, not by the gold and the rites of the Gods, not by the walls of the city, he eagerly descends into a cavern dug out among the tombs. 20 There, the mad offspring of Pellaean Philip, the fortunate robber, lies interred, snatched away by Fate, the avenger of the earth. The members of the man that should have been scattered over the whole globe they placed in a shrine. Fortune spared his shade, and the fortunes of his kingdom lasted until recent times. 25 For, if Liberty had ever taken unto herself the earth, as a laughing-stock he would have been kept, shown as no useful precedent to the world, that countries so numerous could be under a single man. The limits of the Macedonians and the lurking-holes of his own people he forsook, and Athens, subdued by his father, he despised; 30 and driven onward through the nations of Asia by the impelling fates, amid human slaughter he rushed on, and thrust his sword through all nations; unknown streams he stained, the Euphrates with the blood of the Persians, the Ganges with that of the Indians; a deadly mischief to the earth, and a thunderbolt that 35 shook all peoples alike, and a star malevolent to nations. Fleets he was preparing to launch on the ocean in the Outer Sea. No heat withstood him, nor waves, nor sterile Libya, nor Ammon on the Syrtis. To the west he would have gone, following the incline of the world, 40 and he would have compassed the poles, and have drunk of Nile at its source; his last day met him, and nature alone was able to put this period to the frantic King; who, with the same greed with which he had taken the whole earth, bore off with himself the empire, and, no heir to all his 45 fortune being left, gave the cities to be rent asunder. But he died, feared in Babylon, his own, and by the Parthian. O shame! the Eastern nations dreaded the lances more close at hand, than now they dread the javelins. Though we reign even beneath Arctus, and frequent the abodes of Zephyrus and lands behind 50 the back of scorching Notus, we shall yield in the East to the lord of the descendants of Arsaces. Parthia, not fortunate to the Crassi, was a secure province to little Pella. Now, coming from the Pelusian mouth of the Nile, the effeminate boy king had appeased the wrath of the unwarlike multitude; 55 who being the security for peace, Caesar was safe in the Pellaean court; when, in a little two-oared boat, Cleopatra, the guard having been bribed to loosen the chains of Pharos, betook herself, unknown to Caesar, to the Emathian abodes; the disgrace of Egypt, the fatal Erinys of Latium, 60 unchaste, to the undoing of Rome. As much as did the Spartan female by her fatal beauty bring ruin on Argos and the homes of Ilium, so much did Cleopatra increase the frenzy of Hesperia. She, if so it is allowable to say, alarmed the Capitol by her sistrum, and with unwarlike Canopus attacked the Roman standards, 65 about to conduct the Pharian triumph, Caesar her captive; and doubtful was the event on the Leucadian main, whether in fact a woman should not hold our sway. This pride did that night create which first united in the couch with our chieftains the unchaste daughter of Ptolemy. 70 Who will not, Antony, grant thee pardon for thy frantic passion, when the hardy breast of Caesar caught the flame, and in the midst of frenzy and the midst of fury, and in a palace haunted by the shade of Pompey, the paramour, sprinkled with the blood of the Thessalian carnage, 75 admitted Venus amid his cares, and mingled with his arms both illicit connection and issue not by a wife? O shame! forgetful of Magnus, to thee, Julia, did he give brothers by an obscene mother; and, suffering the routed faction to unite in the distant realms of Libya, he disgracefully 80 prolonged his stay for an amour of the Nile, while he was preferring to present her with Pharos, while not to conquer for himself. Confiding in her beauty, Cleopatra approaches him, sad without any tears, arrayed for simulated grief, so far as is consistent with beauty, as though tearing her disheveled hair, 85 and thus she begins to speak : "If there is, O most mighty Caesar, any nobleness, I, the most illustrious offspring of Pharian Lagus, an exile for everlasting, expelled from the scepter of my father, a queen, embrace thy feet, if thy right hand may restore me to my former destiny. A gracious Constellation to our race 90 thou dost appear. I shall not be the first woman to rule the cities of the Nile; making no distinction of sex, Pharos knows how to endure a queen. Read the last words of my deceased father, who gave me common rights to the sway, and a union with my brother. That boy, if only he were free, 95 loves his sister; but he holds his inclination and his sword under the control of Pothinus. Nothing of my paternal rights do I myself ask to gain; from a censure and a stain so great do thou free our house; remove the ruthless arms of the courtier, and command the king to rule. What swelling pride does 100 the menial feel in his mind, the head of Magnus struck off! Now (but may the Fates avert that afar!) he even threatens thee. Caesar, disgrace enough has it proved to the world and to thee that Pompey has been the guilt and the merit of Pothinus." In vain would she have appealed to the obdurate ears of Caesar, 105 but her features aid her entreaties, and her unchaste face pleads for her. A night of infamy she passes, the arbitrator being thing corrupted. When peace was obtained by the chieftain and purchased with vast presents, feasting crowned the joyousness of events so momentous, and Cleopatra amid great tumult displayed her luxuries, 110 not as yet transferred to the Roman race. The place itself was equal to a Temple, which hardly a more corrupt age could build; and the roofs adorned with fretted ceilings displayed riches, and solid gold concealed the rafters. Nor did the palace shine resplendent, encrusted with marble on the surface 115 and in sections; the agate and the purple stone stood of themselves in no infirm way; and, laid down throughout the whole palace, onyx was trodden upon. Ebony from Meroë did not cover the massive posts, but it stood as though common oak, the support, and not the ornament of the palace. Ivory covers the halls, 120 and backs of Indian tortoises, fastened by the hand, are placed upon the doors, dotted in their spots with plenteous emeralds. Gems shine upon the couches, and the furniture is yellow with jasper; the coverlets glisten, of which the greater part, steeped long in the Tyrian dye, have imbibed the drug not in one cauldron only. 125 A part shines, embroidered with gold; a part, fiery with cochineal, as is the method of mingling the threads in the Pharian webs. And then, the number of the servant train and the attendant crowd! Some, the blood differing in color, others, their ages had distinguished; this part has Libyan hair, another part has hair so light, 130 that Caesar declares that in no regions of the Rhine has he seen locks so bright; some are of scorched complexion, with curly hair, wearing their locks thrown back from their foreheads. Unhappy youths, as well, rendered effeminate by the iron, and deprived of virility. Opposite stands an age more robust, 135 still with hardly any down darkening the cheeks. There do kings recline, and Caesar a still higher power; and having immoderately painted up her fatal beauty, neither content with a scepter her own, nor with her brother her husband, covered with the spoils of the Red Sea, upon her neck and hair 140 Cleopatra wears treasures, and pants beneath her ornaments. Her white breasts shine through the Sidonian fabric, which, wrought in close texture by the sley of the Seres, the needle of the workman of the Nile has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out the web. Here do they place circles , cut from the snow-white teeth in 145 the forests of Atlas, such as not even when Juba was captured, came before the eyes of Caesar. O frenzy, blind and maddened by ambition, to him who is waging a civil war to disclose one's own riches, to inflame the mind of an armed stranger! Although he were not prepared in accursed 150 warfare to seek riches in the downfall of the world; set there the ancient chieftains and the names of poorer days, the Fabricii and the grave Curii; here let that humble Consul recline, taken away from the Etrurian ploughs, he would long to gain for his country a triumph so great. 155 They poured forth the viands into gold, whatever the earth, whatever the air, whatever the sea and the Nile afforded, whatever luxury, raging with vain ambition, had sought in the whole earth, hunger not demanding it. Both many birds and many wild beasts did they set before them, the Gods of Egypt; and crystal supplied the water 160 of the Nile for their hands; and capacious bowls, studded with gems, received the wine, but not of the grape of Mareotis, but noble Falernian, to which in a few years Meroë had imparted maturity, compelling it, otherwise full of roughness, to ferment. They received chaplets wreathed with the flowering nard, 165 and the never-fading rose; and upon their dripping locks they poured forth plenteous cinnamon, that had not yet faded in the air nor lost its scent in a foreign land. The fresh amomum, too, of the adjacent harvests was brought. Caesar learnt how to waste the wealth of the despoiled world, 170 and was ashamed to have waged war with a poor son-in-law, and longed for a cause of strife with the Pharian race. After pleasure wearied with feasting and with wine had put an end to the revelry, Caesar began with long discourse to prolong the night, and in gentle words addressed the 175 linen-clad Achoreus, who reclined at the highest sent : "O aged man, devoted to sacred rites, and, what thy age proves, not neglected by the Gods, disclose the origin of the Pharian race, and the situation of the country, and the manners of the people, and the rites and the forms of the Gods; and relate whatever 180 is engraved in characters in the shrines of ancient days, and reveal the Gods that are willing to be known. If thy forefathers taught Cecropian Plato their rites, what stranger was there ever more worthy to be heard than this one, or more able to scan the world? Rumour, indeed, about my son-in-law brought me to the Pharian cities, 185 but still about yourselves as well. Always in the midst of battles have I spared time for the courses of the stars and of the heavens and for the Gods above, nor shall my year be surpassed by the Calendar of Eudoxus. But although aspirations thus great exist beneath my breast, thus great is my love of truth, there is nothing that I would rather wish 190 to know than the causes of the stream that have lain hid through so many centuries, and its unknown head. Let me have an assured hope of seeing the sources of the Nile, I will forego civil war." He had finished, and on the other hand thus began the sacred Achoreus: “Let it be allowable for me, Caesar, to disclose the secrets of my 195 mighty forefathers, hitherto unknown to the profane multitude. Let it be piety to others to be silent on miracles so great; but I deem it pleasing to the inhabitants of heaven for these works to be disclosed to all, and for the sacred laws to be revealed to nations. To the planets, which alone modify the course of the heavens 200 and run counter to the sky, a different power was given by the original laws of the world. The sun divides the seasons of the year, he changes the day for the night, and with his powerful rays forbids the stars to move onward, and modifies their wandering courses in their track. The moon, by her changes, mingles Tethys and the regions of the earth. 205 To Saturn has fallen the cold ice and the snowy zone. The winds and the uncertain thunderbolts has Mars. Under Jove is a moderate temperature, and an atmosphere never rendered dense. But fruitful Venus holds sway over the seeds of all things; the Cyllenian God is the ruler of the boundless waves. 210 When the part of the sky has received him where the stars of the Lion are mingled with the Crab, where Sirius puts forth his glowing fires, and where the Circle, the changer of the varying year, possesses Aegoceros and the Crab, placed beneath which the mouths of the Nile lie concealed; when the ruler of the waters has smitten these 215 with his fires hovering above, then does the Nile, its fountains opened, spring forth, just as the ocean, bidden at the increase of the moon, moves on, and it does not check its own increase before the night has recovered the hours of summer from the sun. "Vain was the opinion of the ancients that the snows of the Aethiopians 220 aid the Nile for it to swell upon the fields. No Arctos is there in those mountains, or any Boreas. Your witness is the color itself of the scorched people, and the south winds warm with vapors. Besides, every head of a river, which thawed ice hurries onward, on the approach of spring, swells with the first washing 225 away of the snow; but the Nile neither raises its waves before the rays of the Dog-star, nor confines its stream to the banks before Phoebus is equaled with the night, under Libra for arbitrator. From this, likewise, it knows not the laws of other streams: nor does it swell in the winter, when, the sun far removed, 230 the wave performs not its duties; ordered to give a moderate temperature to the oppressive weather, in the midst of summer it comes forth. Under the torrid tracts, lest fire should impair the earth, the Nile comes to the aid of the world, and swells in opposition to the inflamed face of the Lion; and, the Crab scorching its own Syene, 235 implored it comes: nor does it liberate the fields from the waves until Phoebus declines in the autumn and Meroë extends the shades. Who can explain the causes? Thus has the parent Nature commanded the Nile to run; thus has the world need of it. The Zephyrs, also, does antiquity vainly 240 allege as the cause of these waters, the times of whoso blasts are fixed and the days continuous, and of long duration is their sway over the air; either because from the western sky they drive so many clouds beyond the south, and compel the showers to hover over the river; or because so often they beat back with constancy the waters of the Nile 245 when bursting forth at the sea-shore, and compel the waves to flow back. Through the impeding of its course, and the resistance of the opposing sea, it overflows upon the plains. Some there are who think that there are channels in the earth, and vast inlets in the hollow structure. This way through secret courses does the water glide from the interior, 250 attracted to the mid region of the earth from the arctic colds, when Phoebus presses upon Meroë, and the scorched earth thither draws the waters. Both Ganges and Padus are drawn through the secret regions of the world. Then is Nile, discharging all the rivers from one source, unable to give them vent at a single mouth. 255 There is a report that from the Ocean which bounds all lands, overflowing, the impetuous Nile breaks out afar, and that the salt of the sea becomes tasteless from the length of the course. Besides, we believe that both Phoebus and the sky are fed by the Ocean; it, when he has touched the claws of the heated Crab, 260 the sun draws up, and more waters are raised than the air can digest. This do the nights draw back, and discharge again into the Nile. But I, Caesar, if it is permitted me to dispose of a question so great, imagine that certain waters, since the ages of the completion of the world, burst forth from the ruptured veins of the earth, 265 God not willing it, and that certain waters at the very creation took their origin with the universe, which last the Creator himself and the Maker of things restrains by certain laws. “The desire that thou hast of knowing the Nile, O Roman, existed both in the Pharians and in the Persians and in the tyrants of the Macedonians; 270 and no age is there that has not wished to bestow the knowledge on posterity; but still does its propensity for concealment prevail Alexander, the greatest of the kings whom Memphis adores, envied the Nile its concealment, and sent chosen persons through the remotest regions of the land of the Aethiopians; them the red zone of 275 the scorched sky kept back, they beheld the Nile warm. Sesostris came to the west and to the extremities of the world, and drove the Pharian chariots over the necks of kings; still, Rhone and Padus, of your streams did he drink at their sources before the Nile. The mad Cambyses 280 came to the long-lived people in the East, and, falling short of food and fed by the slaughter of his men, he returned, Nile, thee undiscovered. No lying fable has dared to speak about thy source. Wherever thou art seen, thou art enquired into; and the glory falls to no nation's lot for it 285 to be joyous over the Nile its own. Thy streams will I disclose so far as, Nile, the God, the concealer of thy waves, has granted me to know of thee. From the southern pole dost thou rise, venturing to raise thy banks towards the scorching Crab; towards Boreas and the midst of Bootes dost thou go straight onward with thy waters; 290 then with windings is thy course turned towards the west and the east, now favoring the tribes of the Arabians, now the Libyan sands; and thee do the Seres first see, yet even these, as well, seek to trace thy source; and with a foreign stream thou dost beat upon the plains of the Aethiopians, and the earth knows not to what region it is indebted for thee. 295 Thy hidden source nature has not disclosed to any one, nor has it been allowed peoples to behold thee, Nile, but small; and thy springs has she removed, and has willed rather that nations should wonder at than know thy sources. At the very solstice it is thy privilege to rise, and, winter removed, to increase, 300 and to bring on wintry floods of thy own; and to thee alone is it permitted to wander between each pole. At the one is sought the rising, at the other the end of thy waters. Far and wide with thy divided stream is Meroë surrounded, fruitful for black husbandmen, joyous with the foliage of the ebony tree; which, although 305 it is green with many a tree, moderates its summer with no shade, so straight through the Lion does that line of the world cut. Thence art thou conveyed past the tracks of Phoebus, suffering no loss of thy waters, and long dost thou wander along the desert sands, at one time collecting all thy might into a single stream, at another 310 wandering and undermining the banks that readily yield to thee. Again does thy sluggish channel recall the waves, divided into many parts, where Philae, the key of the kingdom, divides the fields of Egypt from the tribes of the Arabians. Next, a gentle course speeds thee on, cutting through the deserted regions, where the track of commerce divides 315 our sea from the Red. Who, Nile, could suppose that thou, so gently flowing, couldst arouse such mighty anger of a stream so impetuous? But when the abruptness of the path and the precipitate cataracts have intercepted thy passage, and thou art indignant that any rocks should resist thy waters 320 nowhere forbidden, then with foam dost thou challenge the stars; all sides roar with thy waters; and with a vast murmur of the mountains does the foaming river grow white with unconquered waves. After this, a powerful land, which our revered antiquity styles Abatos, assaulted by it, feels the first attacks, and the rocks 325 which they have thought fit to call the springs of the river, because they first give the manifest signs of its recent swelling. After this, nature has placed mountains around the wandering waves, which, Nile, deny thee to Libya; among which, in a deep valley, the waves now speed on, lying within dams thin regained. 330 First does Memphis allow to thee the fields and the open country, and forbid banks to place an obstacle to thy increase." Thus without care, as though in the safety of peace, do they prolong the course of midnight; but the frenzied mind of Pothinus, once stained with blood so sacred, does not rest from the 335 contemplation of crimes. Magnus slain, nothing does he now deem to be wickedness; his ghost dwells in his breast, and the avenging Goddesses direct his frenzy to new misdeeds. He is for gracing vile right hands with that blood as well, with which Fortune is preparing to drench the vanquished Senators; 340 and punishment for the civil war, vengeance for the Senate, is almost granted to a slave. Avert afar, ye Fates, this crime, that, Brutus absent, this neck should be smitten! The punishment of the Roman tyrant is going to be counted a Pharian crime, and the example is being lost. Audaciously did he plan things not 345 purposed by the Fates; nor did he prepare to entrust the murder to secret fraud, and in open warfare he challenged the unconquered chieftain. Courage so great did his crimes afford that he gave orders to strike off the head of Caesar, and thy father-in-law, Magnus, to be joined unto thee; and he bade faithful slaves to carry these commands to Achillas, 350 his partner in the murder of Pompey, whom the weak boy had appointed over all arms, and had given to him the sword, against all and against himself as well, no authority being retained for himself: "Now lie down on thy bed," said he, 355 "and enjoy sound slumbers; Cleopatra has surprised the palace. Nor has Pharos been betrayed only, but given away. Dost thou delay, alone, to run to the couch of thy mistress? The guilty sister is married to her brother, guilty, I say, for already is she married to the Latian chieftain; and running to and fro between her husbands she sways Egypt and has 360 won Rome. Cleopatra has been able to subdue an old man by sorceries; trust, wretched one, a child; whom if one night shall unite with her, and he shall once, submitting to her embrace with incestuous breast, satisfy an obscene passion under the name of affection, probably between each kiss he will be granting to her myself, 365 and thy own head. By crosses and by flames shall we atone for it, if his sister shall prove beauteous. No aid remains on any side; on the one hand there is the king the husband, on the other, Caesar the paramour. And we are, though I confess it, convicted before so vengeful a judge; which one of us will Cleopatra not deem guilty, with regard to whom 370 she has been chaste? By the deed which we jointly committed, and did in vain, and by the treaty ratified by the blood of Magnus, do thou come; with a sudden outburst arouse the warfare; rush on by night; let us quench the marriage torches in death; and the cruel mistress let us slaughter in the very bed 375 with either husband. Nor let the fortune of the Hesperian chieftain deter us from the enterprise. The glory which has elevated him and set him over the earth is common to ourselves; us, too, does Magnus render illustrious. Look upon the shore, the hope of our guilt; consult the stained waves what we may 380 attempt; and behold a tomb with its little sand covering not even all the limbs of Pompey. He whom thou dost dread was but his peer. We are not illustrious in blood; what matters? Nor do we wield the resources of nations and the sway of kings: we have mighty powers for criminality. Fortune betrays them 385 into our hands. Behold, another more noble victim comes! Let us by a second murder propitiate the Hesperian nations. The divided throat of Caesar can afford this for me, that the Roman people will love us, though guilty in the death of Pompey. Why do we shudder at names so 390 great, and the forces of the chieftain, which, left behind, he will be but a common soldier? This night will put an end to the civil wars, and will offer an appeasing sacrifice to the people, and will send to the shades the head which is still due to the world. Rush fiercely upon the throat of Caesar; let the Lagaean band do this 395 for their king, the Roman for themselves. Do thou forbear delaying; filled with the banquet and drenched with wine, and prepared for lust, thou wilt find him; dare the deed; the Gods of heaven will bestow on thee the fulfillment of so many aspirations of the Catos and of the Bruti.” Achillas is not slow to obey one persuading to villainy. To his camp, 400 about to be moved, he does not give, as is the wont, a loud signal, nor does he betray his arms by the sound of any trumpet; in his temerity he employs all the appurtenances of savage warfare. The greatest part of the multitude are of the Latian commonalty, but so great obliviousness has taken possession of their minds, the soldiers being corrupted by foreign manners, 405 that they can serve under a slave for their general, and under the command of a dependant of the court, whom to obey the Pharian tyrant it would have disgraced. No faith and piety is there in men who follow camps, and let out for a little money their venal hands, there the right is where are the highest wages; and they engage to attack the life of Caesar not 410 for themselves. O right! where has not the wretched fate of our empire met with civil war? Troops far removed from Thessaly rage after the manner of their country on the banks of the Nile. What more, Magnus, thyself received with hospitality, could the house of Lagus have dared? Every right hand performs, forsooth, 415 that which is due to the Gods of heaven; and to no Roman is it permitted to be unemployed. Thus has it pleased the Gods to rend the Latian body; the people do not separate in partisanship for the father-in-law and the son-in-law: a dependant on a court arouses the civil war, and Achillas sides with a faction of the Romans. 420 And unless the Fates avert their hands from the blood of Caesar, this faction will prove the conqueror. Ready prepared did each come, and, engaged in feasting, the palace was exposed to all treachery, and the blood of Caesar might have been poured forth amid the royal cups, and his head have fallen on the table. 425 But they feared the startling alarms of war in the night, lest the slaughter, promiscuous and sanctioned by the Fates, might, Ptolemy, destroy thee. So great was their confidence in the sword. They did not hasten on their guilt; the opportunity for a deed so momentous was despised; it seemed to the slaves a loss that 430 might be made good to let that hour pass for slaying Caesar. To pay the penalty in open light was he reserved. One night was granted to the chieftain, and Caesar, reprieved till the rising of Phoebus, lived by the favor of Pothinus. Lucifer looked down from the Casian rock, and sent 435 the day over Egypt, warmed even by the rising sun, when, afar from the walls, troops were beheld, not scattered in maniples, nor yet unmarshaled, but just as they march with straight front against an equal foe. Ready to stand the attack hand to hand and to make it, they rushed on. But Caesar, distrusting the walls of the 440 city, protected himself within the gates of the closed palace, submitting to an unworthy retreat. Nor for him, pent up, was the whole palace available; in the smaller portion of the house he had collected his forces; both anger and fear affected their minds; he both dreaded the onset and he disdained to dread. 445 Thus rages the noble brute confined within the narrow cage, and, the prison gnawed, breaks his frantic teeth; not otherwise would thy flames grow furious, Mulciber, in the caverns of Sicily, if any one were to block up the summits of Aetna for thee. He who, in his boldness, so lately, beneath the heights of Thessalian Haemus, 450 feared not all the nobles of Hesperia and the ranks of the Senate and Pompey their leader, the cause forbidding him to look at them, and promised for himself an unmerited success, dreaded the guilty attempts of slaves, and within a house was assailed with darts; he, whom not the Alanian would have provoked, not the 455 Scythian, not the Moor, who sports with the stranger fastened up; he, for whom the space of the Roman world does not suffice, and who deems the Indians with the Tyrian Gades a trifling, realm, just like an unwarlike boy, just like a woman in a captured city, seeks the safe retreats of a house; his hope of life he places in a closed 460 threshold, and, wandering about with uncertain steps, surveys the halls; not without the king, however, whom he takes in every quarter with him, to exact vengeance and a grateful expiation for his death, and determined to hurl, Ptolemy, thy head against the slaves, if there be not darts or flames. Thus is the barbarian fair one of Colchis 465 believed, fearing the avenger both of his kingdom and of her flight, with her sword and with the head of her brother as well, ready prepared, to have awaited her father. However, the emergency of affairs forces the chieftain to have recourse to hopes of peace; and a royal attendant is sent to corrupt the slaves in the name of their absent monarch, 470 to tell by whose advice they commenced the attack. But neither does the law of the world avail, nor the ties that are ratified by nations. The ambassador of the king and the pleader for peace, guilty of so many misdeeds, gives proof of what is to be placed in the number of thy crimes. Not the Thessalian land, 475 and the vast realms of Juba, not Pontus, and the impious standards of Pharnaces, and the region flowed around by the cold Iberus, not the barbarian Syrtis, have perpetrated crimes so great as thy effeminacy. The warfare presses him on every side, and now within the house the darts are falling, and the household Gods are trembling. 480 No battering-ram is there to move the threshold at a single shock, and to break down the house; no engine of war is there; nor is the work entrusted to flames; but the troops, devoid of counsel, straggling, surround the vast abode, and nowhere does a body attack with its entire force. 485 The Fates forbid, and Fortune, in place of a wall, defends Caesar. With ships likewise is the palace attempted, where the luxurious abode extends itself with proud extremities into the midst of the waves. But Caesar is present everywhere defending, and these does he keep from entering with the sword, those with flames; 490 and, blockaded (so great is his presence of mind), he does the work of the besieger. He orders torches dipped in pitch and fat to be hurled against the sails in the joined barks. Nor is the fire slow amid shrouds of tow and amid planks dripping with wax; and at the same moment do both the benches 495 of the sailors and the topmost ropes of the sailyards catch fire. Now almost are the half-burnt ships sunk in the deep, and now both enemies and weapons are floating. Nor on the ships alone do the flames take hold; but the roofs which are near to the sea, with extending smoke, catch fire. 500 The south winds, too, feed the destruction, and the flame, smitten by a whirlwind, runs along the roofs with no other motion than a meteor is wont to run along the aethereal track, both lacking fuel, and burning in the desert air.This disaster for a short time called away the people from the besieged palace to the aid 505 of the city. Nor did Caesar lose the moments for destruction in sleep, but in the darkness of the night he leapt aboard ship, always successfully employing the sudden turns of war and the opportunity seized. Then he took Pharos, the key to the main. Once did it stand 510 as an island in the mid sea, at the time of the prophet Proteus; but now it is adjoining to the Pellaean walls. A double aid in war did that afford to the chieftain: it cut off the power of making incursions and the outlets of the main from the foe; and to the aid of Caesar, it left an inlet and free access 515 to the sea. Nor then did he any further delay the punishment of Pothinus; but not with the wrath his due, not with the cross, not with the flames, not with the ravenous teeth of wild beasts. Oh shame! his head unbecomingly struck off with the sword atoned; he died by the death of Magnus! Moreover, escaping by a stratagem 520 prepared by the slave Ganymedes, Arsinoë goes over to the foes of Caesar; and she holds the camp deprived of its monarch, as the offspring of Lagus, and pierces the grim Achillas, the slave of the king, with a righteous sword. Now, Magnus, another victim is dispatched to thy shade; 525 nor does Fortune deem this enough. Afar be it, that this should be the sum of thy vengeance. Not the tyrant himself suffices for retribution, not the whole palace of Lagus. Until the swords of his country reach the vitals of Caesar, Magnus will be unrevenged. But, the author of the commotion removed, 530 the frenzy did not cease; for again did they have recourse to arms, under the guidance of Ganymedes; and many battles did they fight with successful warfare. That day might, with fatal results to Caesar, have been handed down to fame and to future ages. His arms being crowded within the compass of a slight rampart, 535 while the Latian chieftain is preparing to disembark his forces in empty ships, he is surrounded with all the dangers of a sudden attack; on the one side, numerous ships line the shores; on the other, foot soldiers are attacking in the rear; no way is there for safety, no flight, no room for valor; hardly, even, is there the hope of an honorable death. 540 With no army routed, and with no heaps of vast carnage, was Caesar then about to be conquered, but with no bloodshed, captured through the fatality of the spot. He hesitates whether, in his doubt, to fear, or whether to wish to die. He recollects Scaeva amid the dense mass, who had already earned the glory of everlasting fame, 545 Epidamnus, on thy plains, when, alone, the ramparts thrown open, he besieged Magnus treading upon the walls -----