72
PHARSALIA
Book III
In golden fillets, Arimaspians came,
And fierce Massagetæ, who quaff the blood
Of the brave steed on which they fight and flee.
Not when great Cyrus on Memnonian realms
His warriors poured; nor when, their weapons piled,[1]
The Persian told the number of his host;
Nor when th' avenger[2] of a brother's shame
Loaded the billows with his mighty fleet, 330
Beneath one chief so many kings made war;
Nor e'er met nations varied thus in garb
And thus in language. To Pompeius' death
Thus Fortune called them: and a world in arms
Witnessed his ruin. From where Afric's god,
Two-hornèd Ammon, rears his temple, came
All Libya ceaseless, from the wastes that touch
The bounds of Egypt to the shore that meets
The Western Ocean. Thus, to award the prize
Of Empire at one blow, Pharsalia brought 340
'Neath Cæsar's conquering hand the banded world.
Now Cæsar left the walls of trembling Rome
And swift across the cloudy Alpine tops
He winged his march; but while all others fled
Far from his path, in terror of his name,
Phocæa's[3] manhood with un-Grecian faith
And fierce Massagetæ, who quaff the blood
Of the brave steed on which they fight and flee.
Not when great Cyrus on Memnonian realms
His warriors poured; nor when, their weapons piled,[1]
The Persian told the number of his host;
Nor when th' avenger[2] of a brother's shame
Loaded the billows with his mighty fleet, 330
Beneath one chief so many kings made war;
Nor e'er met nations varied thus in garb
And thus in language. To Pompeius' death
Thus Fortune called them: and a world in arms
Witnessed his ruin. From where Afric's god,
Two-hornèd Ammon, rears his temple, came
All Libya ceaseless, from the wastes that touch
The bounds of Egypt to the shore that meets
The Western Ocean. Thus, to award the prize
Of Empire at one blow, Pharsalia brought 340
'Neath Cæsar's conquering hand the banded world.
Now Cæsar left the walls of trembling Rome
And swift across the cloudy Alpine tops
He winged his march; but while all others fled
Far from his path, in terror of his name,
Phocæa's[3] manhood with un-Grecian faith
- ↑ '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.
- ↑ Agamemnon.
- ↑ Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocæa in Asia Minor about 600 B.C. Lucan (line 393) appears to think that the founders were fugitives
