Unknown author

English translation

Edited by Whitley Stokes

In Cath Catharda: The Civil War of the Romans

1. Of the Civil War of the Romans, which the Gaels call the Cath Catharda

In former times, by dint of strength and heroism, six abodes of lordship gained dominion and supremacy over the countries and provinces of the mundane globe, to wit, (first) the beautiful dominion of the Assyrians,— as the poet said:

1. A king of the Assyrians before everyone
   gained the truly constant dominion;
   a man with wreathed hair, with clear sense,
   Assur son of Shem, son of Noah.

And (secondly) the most noble dominion of the Medes. And (thirdly) the primary dominion of the Persians. And (fourthly) the pure-formed dominion of the Chaldees. And (fifthly) the fierce-great dominion of the Greeks. And the royal Roman senate (was) the sixth dominion.

Howbeit, the beginning and commencement of the high realm of the Assyrians are taken from Ninus, son of Belus, son of Ploscus, of the clans of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech. By him was built the famous chief-city, even Babylon. Vast was the size of that city: fouredged was its shape: a  p.5 hundred brazen doors upon it: sixty thousand paces in its circumference: fifty cubits the thickness of its wall: two hundred cubits the height thereof. There were two full-great lines of houses on the top of its wall: between those two ranges they used to drive a score of four-horsed carriages, such was the thickness of the wall besides. That city was the abode of lordship, and the anvil of knowledge, and the dwelling-place of king Ninus, son of Belus, and king of all the Assyrians.

Ninus son of Belus (was) the first king of the Assyrians, and Tonus (?) their last king. Eleven hundred and six score (years) was the length of their dominion.

Two hundred and fifty-nine years was the length of the dominion of the Medes. Eight men assumed the kingship of them. Arbaces (was) their first king and Astyages their last king.

Now Cyrus son of Darius, the first king of the Persians, was the son of Astyages' daughter. 'Tis he that dethroned his mother's father. By him Babylon was sacked, and its king, Belshazzar, was slain, and he freed the Children of Israel from the seventy years' captivity in Babylon, and he let them go to Jerusalem with the utensils of Solomon's Temple, to wit, five thousand vessels of gold and four hundred vessels of silver.

Darius (Codomannus) was the last king of the Persians. Twelve kings reigned over them. Two hundred and thirty years was the length of their dominion.

The first king of the soldiers of Greece was Alexander son of Philip, overlord of the whole world from Spain in the west to India in the east, and from Ethiopia in the south to the Riphaean mountains in the north. 'Tis by that Alexander the fleet was sent upon the fiery sea to discover the southern temperate zone; for to know only the northern temperate zone did not suffice him. At the end of his twelfth year Alexander proceeded to invade (Greece). Two and thirty years was his age when poison killed him in Babylon. Now Philip was the last king of the Greeks.

The royal Roman dominion had a beginning in manner different from those of the high dominions aforesaid; for not at all with overkings did Rome's supremacy abide. But whenever it was desirable, the chiefs of the senate, together with men of rank and honourable degrees, gave orders to levy their tribute for them from foreign races, and to invade the several tribes of the world, to rule and to guide the royal Roman right.

Now Decanus was the appellation of the lowest of those ranks. He was chief of ten: he was the man who used to punish every theft and robbery and outrage that was committed amidst the City.

Centurio above the Decanus: chief of a hundred was that man.

Tribunus above the Centurio: chief of two hundred or three hundred was he.

Vicarius above the Tribunus: that man used to assume the function of the Comes when the Comes would go to converse with the king.

Comes above the Vicarius: chief of one city was he.

Tóissech ('chieftain') above the Comes: twelve cities were subject to him.

Patricius above the Tóissech; the righthand man of a King or Emperor; and this was his work, to pass judgments and decrees instead of the overlord when the king himself was weary.

King above the Patricius: three tribes were his domain.

Emperor above the King. Howbeit the Romans had not that rank until Julius Caesar took it by dint of his hand, as the tale hereafter will tell. The Emperor, now, was overlord of the world above everyone, and there was no one superior to him.

There were, moreover, two grades, the rank of Consul and the rank of Dictator. Now the Consul had (only) one year in his rank, and at the end of the year he was changed lest he should become proud or arrogant from the strength of his power and  p.9 the height of his rank. If it happened that during that year he prospered in his consulate he was re-appointed to the same rank by the will of the senate and the finding of the people. Junius Brutus was the first to obtain that rank among the Romans.

Now the Dictator, whether he did well or ill, was not changed from his rank till the end of five years. If then everyone was thankful for him, he was not changed at all. Wherefore that rank is the most esteemed that they had, until an Emperor's might rested upon them.

Thus then the Roman realm extended and spread out to the four airts of the world, so that pride and glory grew thereout in the Romans, and vast quarrels and civil warfare arose among some of those nobles in the provinces wherein they dwelt outside throughout the world, and others in Rome itself in the midst, for the greatness of their pride, and because of the exceeding great power which they had acquired over the nations and kindreds of the globe.

For the space of two-hundred-and-fifty-three years the royal dominion of the Romans remained in that wise, without an Emperor, without a monarch over them, but the men of diverse ranks directing their government. Until once upon a time, by decision of the senate and by advice of the people, (a Dictator) was made by them, for the dictatorship is the one rank they had that is noblest and most honorable.

Three persons equally high were then ordained by them, and the whole world was parted among them to be put by free-will or perforce under the Romans' tax and tribute. And this is why they appointed three to that grade, because if one of them should exalt himself against the senate// the third man would  p.11 be at peace between and because the three of them would not agree in rising against the fatherland, for rare is accordant union with a trio.

Now these are three to whom was then entrusted the guidance of that grade, to wit, Pompey the Great and Marcus Crassus and Julius Caesar. As to that Caesar, his father's name was Ferius, and he was of the Rutulians. On his mother's side he was of the race of Ilus son of the Trojan Aeneas, and therefore it was that the dictatorship was conferred upon him by the Romans. He was called by the name of Caesar, because he was a furbaide ('excised') and his mother's womb was severed when he was taken from her. Now Caesar in the Roman language is tesctha 'severed' in the Gaelic.

That Caesar had a queenly, very beautiful daughter named Julia. She became the wife of Pompey the Great, one of the three dictators then appointed.

So the nations of the world were divided among that trio. The southwest of the world from Spain in the west, and the tribes of the whole of Africa, were entrusted to Pompey the Great.

To Caesar was appointed the ruling of the northwest of the world, to wit, the land of Gallia and the isles of Britain and the broad-long lands of Lochlann.

Marcus Crassus, to him was given the supremacy of Asia and the east of the world.

Then vast companies of the great army of Rome and of the youth of Italy went with them to the territories and the kindreds to conquer them.

Marcus Crassus, he seized the tribes of Asia in the east, till he came to the country of the Parthians. And from every tribe that he conquered he levied tribute, and he accepted from them no other treasure but gold, for little he deemed the burden of carrying it on a hosting, and great was its profit  p.13 after he reached his home. When the Parthians heard that, they gathered their hosts, so that they were in one place. Plans were made by them as to how they should act towards the Romans, whether they should submit to them or resist them. This is what the Parthians decided, to wait and meet them in battle. So then a bloody battle, side by side, was delivered by the Parthians, and full-many warriors fell among them; but finally the Romans were defeated, and their slaughter was inflicted upon them, and they left their standards with the victors.

Then Marcus Crassus was captured, and he was brought by main force to the assembly of the Parthians, and this is the plan they determined on, to give him his bellyful of gold, for he was seeking it greedily throughout the world. Then they melted the full of an earthen pot of golden ingots, and they spilled it as a molten fluid into his mouth, and he died at once, his entrails being burnt by the boiling fluid of the molten gold.

Pompey the Great, however, he obtained the tribes of the southwest of the world, from Spain in the west; and he left two leaders of his household in supremacy of Spain, Petreius and Afranius were their names. He himself returned to Rome, after gaining victory and triumph from everyone to whom he came.

2. Caesar's Hosting in the Island of Britain

In the six-hundred-and-ninety-third year from the building of Rome by Romulus, and in the sixtieth year before the birth of Christ, Caesar was appointed to the dictatorship by the Romans, with full-many legions of the loveless youths of Italy, at the rough land of Gaul and of the broad-long country of Lochlann, for those are one country save for the intervention  p.15 of the very pure river Rhine which divides and separates the two lands.

In those countries he fought great battles, and he came forward westward into the territory of the Morini and into the island of Britain. Never before had the might of the Romans reached that island. Caesar came to the arm of the sea that is there, and on its brink eighty ships were built by him that he might convey the army in them over it westward into the neighbouring harbours of the territory of Britain.

That expedition was not easy for him, for a great storm fell on his fleet, and most of his ships foundered. Moreover the folk of the country slew a multitude of his foot-soldiers, and almost all his cavalry was killed. A huge tempest and the intolerable storm of the rough weather of winter came thereunder, so Caesar turned his hosts and dismissed his soldiers to their winter-quarters. He trusted and enjoined them to build six hundred wide, full-spacious vessels, so that they might be ready for sea on the return of the following spring. They were all made ready, as Caesar said.

During the season of winter he waited in the Alps, and at the beginning of the vernal serenity he came, having a great host from his son-in-law Pompey the Great; and his army was taken in those six hundred ships again to the island of Britain.

That night he himself pitched a camp on the shore of the haven, with his ships at anchor in front of him; and he sent his cavalry to raid the country, with Labienus, a tribune of the Romans, at their head. On that night there came on the sea the movement of a mighty tempest, and the storm struck Caesar's vessels, and sixty of them were shattered so that they  p.17 could never be repaired. The folk of the country routed the cavalry, and Labienus fell at their hands.

Thereafter Caesar himself encountered the folk of the island of Britain. A bloody battle was fought between them: the Britons were vanquished: their slaughter was inflicted upon them; and Caesar on that occasion avenged all his people, and ravaged the country before him up to the river Thames westward. There was a large army of Britons on the brinks of that river, awaiting him. Cassivellaunus was the name of their leader. Great rows of sharp spikes were planted by him in the banks of the river on the path by which they desired the Romans to come. Still are seen certain butt-ends of those spikes on the strand in summer, and each of the butts is as thick as a warrior's thigh, and (there are) wraps of lead around them in the deep of the river.

Caesar turned from the ford when he knew of the preparation that was (made) there, and he crossed by another ford on the river, and hunted the host of Britons, and took not (his) hands away from them until the shelter of the woods hid them from him.

Then on that night forty hostages were brought to him out of the city called Trinovantum, and thereout came guides, so that after a great contest he took the city of the chief named Cassivellaunus.

Thereafter he conquered the whole of the island of Britain, and thence returned to the lands of Gaul.

For the space of five years Caesar was subduing and violently seizing that land of the northwest of the world. And yet there were certain tribes there who were not obedient to him during that time.

3. The Cause of the Civil War here

It came to pass at that time and season that the lady Julia, Caesar's daughter and Pompey the Great's wife, died,  p.19 and after her Pompey wedded another, to wit, the wife that Crassus had when he was in the country. Cornelia was her name.

Thereafter came the end of Caesar's dictatorship, for with the Romans no one remained in that grade for more than five years unless he was reappointed to the same grade by the senate. Now this was necessary for Caesar, at the end of the five years to go to the Roman senate to advise that the grade (should be given) to himself, or that some one else should be appointed thereto.

Thereafter he did not do this at all, save when he found the way and the issue of conquering those lands wherein he was: for he was afraid that after him some one would be appointed by the senate to attack them, and that he should have the credit of conquering Gaul after almost all of it had been conquered by Caesar. Wherefore Caesar delayed, for the space of another five years, to reduce the same nations to obedience, contrary to the decision, and in despite, of the whole Roman senate.

Then great envy and a vast feud grew between Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. Thereafter Pompey the Great persuades the Roman senate to proscribe Caesar, and to decide that he was constantly guilty as regards the royal Roman law, for contravening their decisions.

Thence arose in Rome matter of disunion, and a civil war, and a war that was greater than (that) from the decision in the senate. For this is civil war, in the first place, a war in which everyone rises to attack another of the folk of the same city; and it was a war that was greater than (that), for not only did the folk of the same city arise to begin that war, but even gossips and friends, so that son was against father, and (one) brother against another.

Now there were many causes and reasons why the mishaps of civil war were fated to arise at that time in Rome and in the senate. The first of these causes, the cause by which every mighty, powerful people on the globe  p.21 is abated and cast down, to wit, pride and glory and high spirit filled them because of the greatness of their strength and their lordship and the abundance of their treasure: for at that time the wealth of the Romans was immeasurable, because of the abundance of their gold and silver and matchless garments, and the beauty of the ornaments of their resplendent houses, and their covered canopies and their shining sollers, their ships, their galleys, their chariots and their four-horsed carriages, their beakers and horns and cups and abundance of every other good thing, and because of the extravagance of their consumption of food and drink by day or at night. For of all the Romans there was not one man who deemed it honorable to say that any of the people was better than himself; so that for sake of gold and treasure base clans were arranged among them into high clans and into high mighty grades; and neither the laws nor the decisions of the senate were rightly with them, so that everyone in the City had great hatred and ill-will for another; and they all desired that a cause of war should grow among themselves and also among their leaders, so that each of them might attain his ill-will and his evil design on another.

Another cause of the Civil War was the disparting of dominion among three lords; for so long as water remains above earth and air above water, and so long as the restless, fading moon and the pure-radiant, golden sun are on their immoveable, unstaying course, ordering day and night, harmonious fellowship or loyal union will never be found in the world or on earth among sharers of dominion before or after.

Another cause of the Civil War: the killing of Marcus Crassus, for, as the mountain named Isthmus forbids the triumphant  p.23 wave-displaying confluence of the Ionian Sea and the sea of Aegeus, and lets them not (go) against each other, so Marcus Crassus, as long as he was alive hindered the disuniting storm which afterwards arose between Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar.

Another cause of the Civil War was the death of the high queen Julia, Caesar's daughter. For so long as she remained with Pompey in wedlock she would hinder the uprising of her father and her husband, so that she would let neither of them (go) against the other.

Another cause of the Civil War: was the great swelling of spirit and the internal glorying which was in the heart of each of the two high kings, Pompey and Caesar. Such was the number of the nations of the world that Pompey had subdued, and such was the amount of fortune that he had found till then, that he did not deign that anyone in the world should equal him. As to Caesar, such was the height of his spirit that he was humiliated that anyone in the world should excel him; and (there were) no means of checking his pride save only by decision of battle.

Still another cause of the Civil War was the great delay of five additional years which Caesar made in the lands of Gaul against the will of the Roman senate. Wherefore almost the whole senate was always united for crowning Pompey and expelling Caesar.

Well, then, when those causes and many reasons of the Civil War arose in Rome itself between the two chief leaders of the royal Roman rule, the kingly Roman dominion was confused and greatly perturbed. The peaceful sway of the Italian empire was severed and swiftly scattered throughout the four airts of the globe, and the whole world became a “sod of trembling” from the point near which the sun rises to the place at which he sets, and from the borders of the  p.25 torrid zone in the south to the edges of the cold, icy frigid zone in the north, so that the like or semblance of the ever-rough disturbance which then moved the Roman senate and the districts and nations of the world was never found, save the confusion and turmoil which sages and authors say the mundane elements will suffer at the completion and end of the world— that is, when the pure stars shall fall from their stations and their proper places, and when a vast and awful sea of wondrous waters shall swiftly spread over the face of the earth, and when there will be a mutual crushing and collision of the contrary elements among themselves at being loosened and severed from the harmonious friendship and from the law of nature wherein they are: so that all will be cast into the common confusion of the unique formless mass wherein they were at first.

After the killing of Marcus Crassus there was nothing comparable to the vehemence and the hastiness with which there arose a storm of nature and a flood of great pride the fury and wrath of Pompey and Caesar, except the mountain of Isthmus were cast out of the place it held between the Ionian and the Aegean seas, and immediately afterwards the strong outburst of flood and the multitude of green-sided waves of either sea (rushed) towards the other.

Woe to the country and tribeland, woe to the people and senate, woe to the kings and chieftains among whom arose that which then arose in Rome, to wit, the Civil War! Woe to the folk of Rome and Italy, for great evils came to them thereby, since many an ancient honourable city they had without habitation, and many a house without household, and rampart razed, and land untilled, and cornfield unreaped. Woe to the human race was the same war, for there was no nation from which men came not to the civil strife to help either Pompey the Great or Julius Caesar. Woe to the people who invited  p.27 the war, for on them defeat was inflicted! Woe to Caesar his undertaking, for through it came his death! As if good would accrue to every one of them from the warfare, so had they all desire and rage for it, so that not one among them was found to hinder it.

As to those two royal, gracious, mighty soldiers, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar, there was great inequality and vast distinction between the order of their lordship and the achievement (?) of their nature and their age. Pompey the Great, in the first place, (had been) a man highspirited, mighty, wealthy, pacific, giving good counsel, with excellence of bounty, with loftiness of nature. Howbeit at that time he was a sedate warrior and unfit to respond to a soldier's deeds, but he relied on his own valiant deeds to which he responded on another occasion. Such was the length of his rest and his goodly fortune in Rome till then that he was not fit to act in the service of warfare or battle; but his renown and his great fame made him conspicuous throughout every people. The senate, too, venerated him for their opinion of his nobility and his honourableness, and for the excellence of his bounty; so that there was nothing like him save the stem of a huge oak whereon the spoils of the vanquished were usually hung by heathens to offer them to the gods in guerdon of triumph, so that that huge oak may remain thus for a long space of time, till it withers and decays, barkless, leafless, without rind or fruit, till its roots beneath it were moving. You would think that it would fall at the tumult of the first-coming wind; yet though many a bushy, luxuriant tree be around it at every point, it alone would be venerated by everyone because of its nobility and honourableness. Thus it was with Pompey the Great and the Roman senate.

4. A Description of Caesar here

Caesar, now, (was) a man angry, valourous, fair, bulky, madly-bold, high-spirited, very difficult, haughty, dour and grievous, vehement-natured, firm, strong, contemptuous, self-willed, unsimple, severe, keen, unloved, famous, wrathful, cunning (?), eloquent (?), unashamed, indefatigable, venomous, hostile.

A king in kingship and a soldier in deeds of valour and bravery, a battle-tower in courage, a soldier in activity. In the floodtide of his grace and his age was he then. He used to fawn on no one. No empty fame was his celebrity, but force of his hand and hardness of his heart. Never befell him aught that he deemed a shame, save the non-defeat of his enemies in battle. He spared neither friend nor foe; but when his wrath would arise he would day by day greaten and increase his deeds of valour and bravery.

No strong one used to rise up against him whom he did not overcome.

Thus it was his pleasure to wend every way that he would go, through rout of armies and pouring of blood: so that this was his semblance, a bright fiery thunderbolt coming from the upper region of the air towards the earth, with the crashing of a mighty noise through the centre of the pure-cold wind, and an exceeding light aerial cloud through which it comes, obscuring the splendour of the full-bright day, to the terrified peoples who are in its neighbourhood, so that no one opposes it strong enough to check it, wherefore it slaughters men as it falls down, and again as it returns upwards, after collecting and gathering its fires scattered by the thunderbolt.

Thus then was it with Caesar, for a bright thunderbolt of fire in lustre and beauty and size was afflicting (?) everyone. The coming of the thunderbolt from above towards earth, that is, Caesar coming out of the rooftree and the upper part of  p.31 the world, that is, out of Rome into the lands of Gaul. The darkening of daylight by the thunderbolt, that is, Caesar surpassing Pompey the Great in fame and distinction. The great slaughters (caused) by the thunderbolt in coming and turning were the great slaughters (committed) by Caesar on the people of Gaul when he came from Rome, the great slaughters on the people of Italy when he turned on the plain of Thessaly. Its strown fires collected by the thunderbolt were his armies and his fiery soldiers collected by Caesar out of Rome and the lands of Gaul and the island of Britain, towards the Civil War.

So far the causes and reasons of the Civil War. The story itself is now related hereinafter.

5. The Sack of the Fortress of Ariminum here below

When Caesar had finished subduing and violently seizing the country of Gaul and the folk of Lochlann and of the island of Britain, for the space of the ten years that we have mentioned, he turns forward to Italy. He sent legates and envoys to the senate to ask them for a triumph, and to demand the extension of (his) consulate, for he had finished the reduction of all the nations that had been committed to him. When the Roman senate heard that, through Pompey's direction and persuasion, they passed a decree, that Caesar should never be allowed into the city together with his army; but that, if he desired to have a triumph from the senate, he should leave his armies in the Alps and he himself come to the city.

When that was told to Caesar, he was sure and certain that they were separating him from his troops in order to kill him; and he resolved that he would never go to Rome without an army around him.

Then came Caesar forward in his royal course, and marched right on eastward over the ancient, snowy peaks of the  p.33 lofty Alps, with the few of the army that stayed with him, 5500, till he halted and encamped on the bank of the river Rubicon, on the border of his own land and country of Italy.

He was there searching and scrutinizing in his mind how he should carry on his warfare and deliver his battle. On the bank of the river Caesar then saw a wonderful vision and a strange dream. It seemed to him that Rome came to him in guise of a woman with a fair and goodly, ever-bright form, through the dark covert of the shadowy night above her. An appearance of grief and sorrow was on her face. Grey, full-many tresses dishevelled and spread round her covered head: arms all bare awaiting the battle: tremulous fear and dread were upon her: great sighing and vast lamentation she had.

It seemed to him that she began converse with him and said valourously: “On what path is this course going, ye men?” quoth she. “Whither do ye bring my standards? If ye follow law or ancient custom, stay here at the river Rubicon, for it is not meet to cross it with attendance of standards or arms.”

So Caesar fretted terribly, fearfully, hugely, from crown to sole, and the hair round his head hardened and stiffened (?) at the greatness of the horror and the terror which befell him. He afterwards began to supplicate the adorable gods to prosper his course, and he said: “O almighty Jove, O gods of the Trojans of the Julian race, and O Romulus royal-creative (?), and O everliving fires of the Vestal temples, let your help and succour be along with me. O rival of the all-golden powers on earth!” saith he, that is, “O Rome most noble, mayst thou  p.35 help us, for not to injure thee nor to persecute thee is this expedition set on foot, but to save thee from the haughty lords who are over thee. Seest thou not thine own, own soldier, Caesar, after triumphing over thine enemies on land and on sea? He is the guilty one therein, he who tries to separate us”, to wit, Pompey.

When Caesar finished that supplication, a floodtide of anger and indignation filled him, through his own search and scrutiny, and he came vehemently and hastily with his soldiers to cross the river Rubicon; just as most vehemently the African lion would charge his foes, after being infuriated and enraged by lashing himself with his own tail; for they who know say that the lion's wrath does not arise until he himself or some one else attacks (?) him. Wherefore this he doth when he sees his foes approaching him, a vast lashing with the huge tuft on his tail he puts over his own shoulders, so that his wrath arises thereby, and he rushes at once towards his foes, without fear of blow or missile upon him.

Thus then Caesar's wrath and rage arose from the searching and meditation which he made: so he came anon to cross the river Rubicon with his armies. That river rises from a little dropping well, and is the boundary between the folk of Gaul and the battalions of Italy. Small and moderate and easy is its flow in time of summer. There were three causes for its increase when Caesar came to it, namely (first), it was the wintry time, and (second) it was the third (night) as regards the moon's age, when abundant moisture is usual. The third  p.37 cause was the abundance of the Alpine snow which dropped there with the forthright blast of the south-east wind, and it filled the floods of heavy deluge, and came over the brink of the river Rubicon, so that it was difficult to cross from the greatness of the spate.

Caesar arranged his cavalry against that river, from one brink to the other, and put the infantry beside them, so that on that occasion they (all) came safe through the stream, without breaking (a rank) without drowning a horse or man of the army.

When putting his foot on the further bank of the river, Caesar said: “Here we quit our peace and our friendship with the folk of Rome! What is there now save to follow Fortune, until the adjudication and decision of the great battle come between us.”

That night Caesar proceeds unslackly, unlazily, with the greatest swiftness that a stone would speed from a sling or an arrow from a bow; and he brought his numberless host and army to sack the fortress of Ariminum, that town near to him, which was under the sway of Pompey and the Roman senate. On the morrow the troops reached the town in the twilight of early morning on the morrow.

There was a heavy dark cloud of black mist in the morning at the beginning of that day. So dense was the mist that Caesar's troops came still and silently towards the fortress of Ariminum, and pitched their standards in the midst of the town. The market-folk did not perceive them till they heard the sonorous clang of the fair-sided, smooth-bright trumpets, of the straight horns, and of the pipes of battle, the snorting of the horses, the panting of the soldiers, the screaming of the keen, edged javelins, and the confused noise of the great host seizing the market-place.

The rest of the people of the fortress of Ariminum was broken thereby. A “wakening of foes”, and an “attack by foreigners”, and a “disturbance by enemies” was then inflicted on the warriors of the town. Then the braves of the place went to their weapons; and swords blunt and rusty, and spears crook-pointed, quivering, and ancient shields with decayed rims, were taken, for they had not needed them for long spaces of time, because of the rigidity and strong firmness of the peaceful disciplinary law to which they were subject.

Then they came on the rampart of the town and recognised the standards of the Romans. Well-known was their colour, and easy it was to recognise them, for the form of an eagle was on each side of the standard. For three reasons the Roman standards were arranged in that wise. The first cause was that every one might understand that the Romans were of the race of Jove, for the eagle is a bird sacred to Jove. The second cause was that every one might understand that the Roman dominion was near to the dominion of the gods, since the eagle is the bird whose flight is highest on earth. The third cause was that everyone might understand that the lordship of the Romans was over all the men of the world, as the lordship of the eagle is over all the birds.

So when the people of the fortress of Ariminum recognised the well-known eagles and the Roman standards, and when they saw Caesar (standing) as a high, formidable yewtree amid the army, they started at once, and fear and dread filled them at beholding Caesar. They began to groan and to lament in stillness and silence. “Alas”, said every man of them in his mind, “woe to him whose “proper sod” is this land! woe to him that  p.41 built his city on the height (?) of this place, to wit, on the border of Italy and the land of Gaul; for though there be peace in every (other) place there is warfare here. It would have been lucky had Fortune settled us in the east or in the south of the world: for every leaguer and every raid and every hosting which would come to harry Italy, its first attack is on us. So came the furious folks of the Cimbri, when they marched against the Roman senate. This is the way that Hannibal came, along with the army of Africa, to sack Rome. This is the same (way) also that the warriors of Lochlann came to harry Rome. What then, as often as Fortune has been turned against Rome, this is the way of every host and the path of every battalion towards it.”

That was the reflection and secret lamentation of everyone apart in the fortress of Ariminum. For fear of Caesar, no one durst let it be heard from him; but they were thus in their bands and multitudes, roaming and unsteady, even as are irresolute flocks of fluttering birds after the wintry cold has smitten them.

Thereupon came the full light of the day, and after that Caesar took the town.

6. The Muster of Caesar's Armies

Torches for kindling anger, and persuaders and enjoiners of the great battle, then came to Caesar, to wit, four choice  p.43 tribunes of the Romans, named Marcus Antonius and Publius leg. Quintus? Cassius, and Caelius and Curio; and other friends of Caesar's, who had been in Rome after the Roman senate had expelled them and banished them from the City because they had been helping Caesar and contending on his behalf in the Roman Curia. That was the better in Caesar's opinion, for he was not ashamed of the evil he would do to the folk of Rome after his followers had been banished by them.

The fourth tribune that came to Caesar, namely Curio, was an eloquent, covetous man, a truly cunning creditor (?) whose word and deed were strong in Rome till then; one to whom Caesar had given many presents of gold and wealth for supporting him and arguing on his behalf in the Roman Curia: wherefore he was then banished from the City and came to Caesar.

When Curio saw the troubles that were in Caesar's heart, he began to converse with him, to strengthen him to battle; and he said:

“O Caesar”, quoth he, “so long as we were able, we gave our voice for thee in Rome, though this was displeasing to the Roman senate: we took thy side and refused the realm to Pompey, as far as we could, so long as we had power and might in Rome, and men were following righteousness therein. But when the laws of righteousness were checked by the senate, and all united with Pompey, we quitted Rome and the land of our fathers and grandsires for thee, since we expect that thy victory will set us in our own places again. Do bravely, then”, says Curio. “While Pompey is inadvertent, and since every good thing is ready and fitted for thee, attack him before he collects his people: for often groweth hurt from delaying and procrastinating things always prepared: as hath been said “ready  p.45 over unready”! And another thing, then. For sake of a trifling portion of the world thou hast been for the space of ten years making war and enduring hardship in the lands of Gaul, how much more is it meet for thee to fight valiantly for sake of the army, that is, for sake of Rome! For on the day that thou wilt capture Rome thou wilt capture the headship of the whole globe. Thou hast strong reasons for going to war with Pompey the Great and Rome; for thou hast not received what they usually do for every general, that is, the people to ordain him and to give him a triumph for his victory: but envy of everyone against thee for thine excellence, his is what brings on thee each of those things. Tis a marvel if the nations whom thou hast conquered by dint of thy sword are willingly left to thee. Pompey has determined not to share dominion with thee, and save only by decision of battle canst thou take from him the share of the globe.”

That incitement and exhortation which Curio gave to Caesar succeeded; for as the heart of a horse in the Elean race grows high through the clamour and shouts of the people around him, so Caesar's spirit was enhanced by Curio's incitement.

His standards were then pitched by Caesar, and he called  p.47 on all the hosts to listen to his voice and his speech and his eloquence.

“O comrades”, saith he, “for the space of ten years ye have endured much hardship in battles and conflicts, in vanquishing together with me the nations of the north of the world. Much cold ye have endured from the ice of the water of the Alps, and yet, after those victories, it was decided that you should never be let into Rome and that I should not find shelter on sea or on land. Well, if I should come to Rome after defeat in battle, after leaving my standards with my foes and fleeing before the folk of Gaul, what would they do to me now when, after I have triumphed over every nation, and moved fortunately from one felicity to another, they are proceeding to rise against me? Let Pompey come forth towards us, if he pleases, along with the seniors of the senate, after their peace and their long slothfulness. I am certain that I will not leave him any longer his kingship and his dominion without sharing them with him. Pompey had not attained his thirtieth year when the Romans gave him his first triumph. He is not sure, methinks, to relinquish that honour which he once obtained, though at present, because of his old age, he cannot exercise his dominion.”

“Why should I be complaining of all the tyranny and misrule, he has wrought during that time, for they are known to everyone. As for me, no fault is found with me by the folk of Rome, save that I have not severed myself at their command from my victorious standards and from my troops. Moreover, if I am guilty, is it not enough for them to deprive me alone of my triumph, while giving the guerdon of their toil to the army that was along with me? Let the Romans appoint the lord over them that they like, if it is on my account that my armies are expelled.”

“Can ye tell me, O warriors,” quoth he, “what place of rest will be for our veterans after parting from their military service; and in what easy stations will our old soldiers settle? what grassy fields will our herds and flocks and horses graze? what lands will be tilled by ourselves? within what walls and great cities will our (invalid) heroes be healed when they desire? since we are banished from Rome and from our own birthright, and these (rewards) are given, before our eyes, to Pompey's soldiers.”

“Howbeit, my good people,” quoth he, “since right is not granted to us, raise up your victorious standards! Let your deeds of valour serve you, so that we may take the whole world from him who refuses to part with half to us. The gods will be helping us, for we march, not to destroy Rome, but to free her from the haughty lords who are over her.”

So far the speeches of Caesar.

Great muttering there was then for a long time with all the army, for though the spirits of those soldiers were fierce, and though their natures were valiant, great affection and  p.51 abundance of tenderness and love for their fatherland came to them, and was hindering them from demanding the civil war. But nevertheless the burning of anger and the craving to wield their weapons came to them by means (?) of the fury, and through dread of the fierce, haughty general who had urged them to battle.

Then a single warrior arose in the assembly and declared the secret of the mind and spirit of every one in the whole army. Laelius was his name, a first centurion of Caesar's; and none of Caesar's people dared to cast a javelin or (shoot) an arrow before him in shock of battle or in hurdle (?) of conflict. He looked at Caesar and said:

“O supporter of the royal Roman right,” that is O Caesar, “at present it is meet and lawful for us to say true words to thee. Knowest thou at all that in the minds of these soldiers, vast is the lamentation and great is the complaint for the length of time that thou art enduring the contempt of the people of Rome? Is this what brings that upon thee, our disloyalty to thee? That was not customary for thee, for so long as our stalwart arms are able to whirl a javelin in battle or combat thou shalt never endure the contempt of anyone. Not idle do we deem the destruction of the Roman dominion in order that no one's contempt be upon thee. This army will follow thee, by whatever path in the world, difficult or easy, to which thou wilt guide it. Not harder is that for them than every path (whereon) they have hitherto followed thee.”

“It were great and dear to us if we could follow thy command as we should wish: and we resolve that the folk against whom thy battle-trumpets will urge us will never be fellow-citizens of ours, or at peace with us. In presence of our weapons of war, we pledge our words that if thou bid us  p.53 plant these swords in the breasts of our brothers and our fathers, or in the entrails of our wives at the time of childbed, we would do it for thee, without delay or contest.”

“Even though it be the images of the gods and their temples that thou biddest us to burn, their remains will be a blaze of fire; and though thou order us to set thy camp on the brink of the Tuscan Tiber in the midst of Rome, we will make thy camp there boldly and strongly. Every rampart and every great city which thou tellest us to destroy, yea including even Rome itself, our arms are ready to impel battering rams against them, and to scatter their rocks so long as one stone in them shall rest upon another.”

To that speech, all the cohorts that were there assented; for what Laelius said to Caesar was the heart's secret and the mind's desire of everyone of them. Then they all lifted their hands simultaneously, and pledged themselves that those arms were ready to achieve the assaults of war that Caesar desired.

Not trifling did that seem to him. The uproar and tumult of those armies in assenting was likened, to wit, as the wrathful blast of the rough wintry wind would come from the land of Thrace especially, and give forth its sonorous clamour and its prolonged sounding to the peaks of the hills and heights, the woods and sacred groves of Mount Ossa, so that it put a strong compressing twist on the top of the rough-haired woods, and many of their bushy, plentiful branches, and their bending, lengthy boughs it beat and turned in the grasp of others; and a rough noise and a rude destructive crashing arose in the air through the midst of the trees bending down, falling,  p.55 and rising up strongly again in the same place with the movement of the wind which comes to them in that wise.

When Caesar saw the mighty hosts given up utterly to the demand of battle, all his army and force were gathered and collected at once, so that nothing might delay or postpone him in reaching Rome while Fortune was helping him. So then came to him the hosts and armies of the countries which he had been conquering during the last ten years, and his own soldiers who were greatly scattered in the lands of Gaul and in Lochlann and in the island of Britain, subduing their people, and levying their tribute, and preserving for Caesar their regal discipline.

7. Of the Mustering of Caesar's Army out of every country and every province in the world as far as the place in which he was

Came there to the battle the dwellers of the land about the river Lemanus, and such of Caesar's soldiers as were beleaguering them.

Came there to the battle the dwellers of the land about the river Vogesus, and such of Caesar's soldiers as were beleaguering them.

Came there to the battle the people of the Ruteni, and such of Caesar's soldiers as were beleaguering (them).

Came there to the battle the dwellers of the land about the river Varus, and such of Caesar's soldiers as were beleaguering (them).

Came there the dwellers of the land about the river Atax.

Came there the dwellers of the harbour of Monoecus.

Came there the dwellers of the dangerous coast of the Tyrrhene sea.

Came there the dwellers of Nemetis.

Came there the dwellers of the land about the river Aturus, and what there was of Caesar's people.

Came there the dwellers of the land of the Tarbelli.

Came there the dwellers of the land about the river Bitis.

Came there the dwellers of Paris and the land about the river Sequana.

Came there the people of the Santones.

Came there the people of the Leuci.

Came there to the battle the people of the city Belgae, and all Caesar's soldiers that were besieging (it).

Came there the people of the Nervii.

Came the people of the Vangiones.

Came there the people of the Batavi.

Came there the dwellers round the river Cinga.

Came there to the battle the dwellers of the land wherein the river Rodanus and the river Arar meet in flowing to the great sea, and all the soldiers of Caesar who were besieging (them ).

Came there the people of the Gebennae.

Came there the people of the Treviri.

Came there the people of the Ligures.

Came there the people of the Teutones: by them men's bloods used to be offered in the temple of Jove (Taranis) and Mercury (Teutates) and Mars (Hesus).

Came there to the battle the people named Bardi - those that used completely to make poetry and songs of praise.— hence is said baird 'bards' and bairdne 'bardism' in Scotic— and all the soldiers of Caesar who were besieging (them).

Came there the people of the Druids— that people whom science and soothsaying used to serve to find out (the future)  p.59 from the courses of stars and constellations; and this is what they would say through the diabolical sciences, that the souls of those that died in this (northern) temperate zone were taken southward through the torrid zone, and placed in other bodies in the southern temperate zone. Druids the names of those folks, and Druis the name of their city. Hence is said druí 'druid' and druidecht 'druidism' in Scotic (Irish).

There came the people of the Cauci.

There came the inhabitants of the city of Rheims of the kings, and the dwellers of the land about the river Rhine, and all the soldiers of Caesar who were besieging them.

So far the names of the territories and the nations whence men came to help Caesar, and whence were gathered to him his own soldiers who were there greatly scattered in Rome, and in the lands of Gaul, and in the island of Britain, and in Lochlann, controlling their peoples and levying their tribute and (maintaining) their royal discipline.

When those numerous hosts arrived and were in Caesar's camp; and when boldness and appetite for proceeding to battle came into their spirit through confidence in the strength and the valour of the numerous hosts that reached them, he began at once to march forward to Rome along the roads of Italy, so that on that night the whole country was filled with his fame and the tales about him, and his hosts and his multitudes filled the Italian cities and towns that were near them.

Many false rumours were then forged on account of Caesar. Howbeit, though the accounts were mendacious, real fears and terrors  p.61 arose because of them in the hearts and minds of the Roman people. False was the account which they had of Caesar's proceedings; for one of them would say that he had seized a position and camp near the wood of Mevania. Another would say that he had encamped at the meeting of the rivers Nar and Tiber. Another would say: “it is not right to hold the same opinion of Caesar now as when he had been at another time in Rome. For greater and more soldierly, fiercer and harder, vaster and haughtier is he now after defeating the people of the west. Moreover there are with him all the hosts and multitudes of the territories and the provinces, from the river Rhine to the Alps.” Another of them would say that the right to plunder and destroy the cities of Italy and the temples of the gods had been given by him to outlanders and to the neighbouring tribes who were along with him.

Howbeit, every man of them who told another tidings of Caesar would himself add to them; and the fear and dread of the inventions which they themselves used to frame oppressed them as if they were related by some one else. And that startling and terror moved not only the rabble of the City, but even the Roman Curia itself, so that for dread of Caesar the Fathers and Senators of the City left their places of lordship and their seats of ease, and they, both old and young, simultaneously brake forth in flight from Rome.

And the Senators entrusted the decisions and arrangements of the warfare to the Roman consuls, as they left the City to them.

So excessive was their fear that they knew not what places to seek as safe, or what places to leave as unsafe. But they took the path to which the onset of the flight and haste impelled them, and they came forth from the City as a dense  p.63 and lengthy rank, so that every troop of the host and multitude jostled against another.

Anyone then looking at them would have imagined that the houses and buildings of the City were breaking up and falling at the same time, or that kindlings of swiftly-speeding fire were making a holocaust of the town after them, so great was their hurry and frenzy in quitting the City, as if their one expectation of safety was in deserting Rome. There was nothing to compare to that tumult save when the disturbance of the southern wind comes northward over Africa and tosses the long blue galleys of the billowy sea, so that the tall masts of one of them are broken by the whirling storm of the ocean, and it urged the helmsman and the rest of the ship's company to swim out of the vessel over the sea-waves, so that all are drowned, while the vessel is safe behind them. Thus then, at Caesar's approach, Pompey and the senate left Rome.

Although they went fleeing from the battle, it was to battle that they fled. It was not delayingly that one fled there, for though wife were calling her husband, or son were calling his father, or father calling his son, no one would stay for another. Many of them there were who looked for the last time on Rome then, for to Rome they never came again. It is manifest from the inhabitants of Rome that it is harder and more difficult to preserve honour that to obtain prosperity. A great part of the kindred of the folk that quitted the City was left there. Many of the nations of the world came to that City after their defeat by the folk of the City itself. Regal was the size of the City which the Romans forfeited on that day, for if the human race had come together to it in one journey there would have been room for all of them at the same time in the middle of Rome.

It was obvious on that day that the Romans should remain, for when in foreign regions they used to make petty ramparts round their camps, they used to stay amid them without anxiety, though their foes were around them on every side. Yet the Romans stayed not for the space of a single night behind the mighty, royal ramparts of Rome, but they left it in one day merely on hearing of Caesar. Howbeit, it was no shame to make that hasty flight, when such a man as Pompey fled there.

8. The Sure Signs of the Civil War

On the occurrence of that season and time prophecies and forecasts of the evils that were ahead of them were shown to the Romans; for the heaven above them, and the earth below them, and the sea at every airt around them were filled with strange and wondrous portents, and with vast sure signs, foretelling and predicting the Civil War that would be fought by them.

These are the signs that were seen by the Romans:

In those nights there appeared unknown stars that had never before appeared in the sky, and their like in size and number and horror had never come in sight.

Then they beheld the blue, crystalline plain of the heavenly firmament as a fringe of flame and fire above their heads.

They beheld a certain star there, with brightest rays and fiery tresses spreading from it: that is the Comet; and never has it appeared save at the shaking of a dominion, or defeat in battle, or death of an overking. Those three things were then foretold in Rome, for Pompey was shaken out of his dominion by Caesar, and the Great Battle on the plain of Thessaly was also lost by Pompey; and through the occasion of that battle Pompey died, and even Caesar after a time.

They beheld fiery torches and blazing lamps and the diversity of various forms of luminous lightnings throughout the air from every point. One of these lightnings shone there, which surpassed all other fires of heaven in size and splendour and swiftness. Out of the north it came southwards to Rome. It gathered and collected all the other aerial fires, so that they crashed around the head of the royal Capitol and the temple of Jove in Rome. Thereby this was foretold, that Caesar was coming from the north of the world to capture Rome.

The nocturnal stars appeared in the midst of midday. The eclipse of the moon was seen by them in the full light of the fifteenth (day).

At the very middle of the day they beheld darkness upon the splendid rays of the sun; and so great was that darkness that they did not expect day with its full brightness even to shine to them.

Mount Etna vomited a river of red-rushing fire on the side nearest to the land of Italy, so that it inflicted slaughter on men and cattle. Then for the space of a day and a night the hue of blood appeared on the whirlpools of the Tyrrhene sea.

The flame of the eternal fire, which used to be in the temple of the goddess Vesta, was scattered and divided into two fragments. This is what was foretold thereby, that the Roman dominion should be parted in twain between Pompey and Caesar.

A great trembling and strong commotion arose in the foundations and in the bases of the earth, so that a vast earthquake grew from it; and such was the greatness of that earthquake that the Alps shook off all the ancient snowy heaps in the clefts of their mountains and in the forks of their hills, so that they (the avalanches) all fell thence simultaneously on the wild plains and on the sloping glens of the country that was nearest thereto.

There arose a movement of a huge storm, the like or semblance of which had never been found in the bosom of the Tyrrhene sea, so that the strong burst of the flood tide and the summit of its blue-browed, bright-sided billows filled the tops of the high mountains that are about it on each side, to wit, Mount Calpe in Italy leg. Spain, and Mount Atlas in the countries of Africa.

The forms and images of the adored gods were seen wailing and shedding tears. Great floods of sweat were seen flowing out of the sides and walls of every house in Rome, figuring (thereby) the great trouble which they would afterwards endure.

There came a great trembling of arms in all the temples of the gods in Rome, so that there was neither spear nor sword nor battle-shield on rack therein that did not fall against the floor of earth.

The nocturnal birds were seen flying in the light of day throughout the City, namely the écthach and the bat and the horned owl. Deer and the savage wild beasts of the neighbouring deserts used to come every night and make lairs and sleeping-places in the midst of Rome. The dogs and hounds and wolves of Italy used to utter great howls throughout the City every night. The cattle used to speak with a human voice, for it is told in the histories that when a certain Roman was urging his ox with its load of corn upon it, the ox spoke to him and said: “Why art thou driving me on, thou youth? for the Romans will perish sooner than they consume all the corn they have (already).”

Many monstrous births were at that time brought forth in Rome, with (unnatural) bulk of body, and number of hands and feet and heads, so that fear and horror filled their own mothers on seeing them.

The beating together of the bones amid the coffins in all the burial-places of the City is heard every night. Loud awful voices and terrible cries were heard in the woods and sacred groves of Italy, and whoso used to cause that was unseen.

The shades and the phantoms and the ghosts of hell were seen every night around Rome, so that the market-folk and the foreign inhabitants of the town left their abodes and their houses from horror and terror at the appearances that were revealed to them.

The Badb of battle Erinnys was seen every night, with her torch of pine red-flaming in her hand, and her snaky, poisonous tresses rattling around her head, urging the Romans to battle.

In the night they heard the trumpets resounding, the clashing of the shields, the whistling of the javelins, the smiting of the swords, the clamour of the battalions coming together: and no one saw what was causing that.

The ghost manes of Sulla was heard by them, prophesying the Civil War.

Certain shepherds who were on the marches of the river Anio saw Marius raising (his) head out of the sepulchre. Thereby it was foretold that the like of the civil war which had been waged between Marius and Sulla would be wrought again by the Romans.

The priests of the gods and the goddesses began to lament and wail throughout the City, and to entreat the gods, asking for the lightening of that plague upon them. This is what every man in Rome was saying: “Now is the fulfilment of the prophecy of the prophetess Sibyl to the Romans”; for this is what she foretold, the destruction of the Roman dominion after a time.

Great dread and terror grew in Rome at the appearance of those prodigies therein, and by the folk of the City counsel  p.73 taken as to what they should do. This, then, is what they decided, to invite men of knowledge and wisdom to (come to) them out of the Tuscan country; for men skilled in art magic were common there, and the Romans were accustomed to invite the prophets of at country whensoever a perilous pass used to threaten them.

So Tuscan soothsayers were then fetched, so that they were in Rome. The Romans bade them declare through their augural sciences what great evils were foretold by the awful prodigies that had appeared. With the soothsayers were two famous chief prophets, named Aruns and Figulus. Of these Aruns was the nobler and bolder, and as to age he was the elder. Luca was the name of his dwellingplace. Three of the nine kinds of augury he possessed; for there are nine kinds of augury, four of them in connection with the four mundane elements, to wit, fire and earth, water and air. The fifth kind was ascertainment by the flashings of lightnings; the sixth, by the entrails of animals in fires; the seventh, by the flight of birds; the eighth, by the voices of birds; the ninth, by the courses of the stars and constellations. Of those the three that Aruns possessed were ascertainment by the movements of lightnings, by the flight of birds, and by entrails of animals.

This is what that man then told the Romans: to build a tower of red-rushing fire and a hill-flame, and to burn up in that fire all the monstrous births that were brought forth in Rome. He also ordered them to make a lustration and circumambulation of their City, and to carry round it the figures and images of the gods.

So then all the inhabitants of Rome came around, in their bands and crowds, with the priests and priestesses of the gods and the goddesses along with them. While the folk of Rome were circumambulating their city in that wise, Aruns collected all the relics of the lightning that he found throughout the town, and he sang chants and wizards' spells over them, and hid them afterwards in the depth of the earth.

A certain rounded, thick-shouldered bull was brought to him to be sacrificed to the gods. Then Aruns began to perform on the bull the dues of sacrifice, to wit, pouring wine into the holes of his ears, and between his horns, and into his nostrils. Then he practised on him every other due that was meet to practise on a sacrificial bull. The bull then began to struggle violently against the sacrificial attendants, and that they deemed an evil sign. So Aruns himself slew the bull. No streams of crimson blood, such as usually spurt forth from the freshly severed necks, dropped out of the wounds, but pools of black darksome blood, with the look of impurity and great virulence upon them. Great horror seized the augur when he beheld the many symptoms which appeared on the entrails of the bull, for those that were not pale green were dark green; and he deemed all that an evil token.

He disparted and divided the bull's entrails into two portions. The first portion he assigned to Pompey and the senate: the other portion to Caesar and his soldiery. Greatly did he marvel at the manner in which those portions of the entrails behaved, for never before had entrails behaved more unduly. For the part which had been assigned to Pompey began to shrivel and dwindle, to shrink and to wither: it grew poor and empty; it sank down against the earth, so that neither strength nor stoutness appeared therein. But (as to) Caesar's  p.77 part, pride and glory filled it: it grew and increased: it swelled and extended, so that all the things that were therein became one mighty threatening heap.

When Aruns saw those fearful signs and the forecasts of great evil that accompanied the sacrifice, he began to wail and complain to the gods, and he said: “O righteous, all-golden gods”, quoth he, “hardly is it meet or right for me to declare the prophesied things to the folks that have invited me to them. For though unto thee, O Jove, I proposed to make this sacrifice, the infernal demons came and filled the entrails of the sacrificial bull.”

“Great is the dread that we suffer therefrom, so that we dare not set forth the evils that have been foretold to us; but alas! the evils will be greater than our fear. It were good news that what we all say is false, and that the signs which the prophet Tages left on the entrails of animals are deceptive.”

That Tages, then, if anyone should ask, was he who invented the science of augury. He had neither father nor mother, but was found alive under the sods of the plough.

So far the prognostications of Aruns the Tuscan, and his forecasts by means of the entrails of animals.

The other chief prophet whom they had, to wit, Figulus, was (skilled) in understanding the decrees of the gods and the secret things of heaven, in diligently gazing at the firmament, and in the courses of the stars and constellations, so that never in the lands of Egypt was there found one equally wise in the arrangements of heaven. 'Tis in Egypt the men of that science were most numerous, because the firmament is clearer and less cloudy to them than to the folk of the rest of the earth.

That man resorted to his prophetic science. He began to gaze aloft at the clear, bright firmament and the radiant stars of the fair, speckled-cloudy heaven on every airt, until he had seen them, as he deemed, enough. This he said to the Romans: “There is”, quoth he, “one of two things on those arrangements that I see: the motion of the firmament and the stars from this land past every land is greatly astray, so that our prognostications are not rightly therein. Or if it be through the medium of the Fates comes the great diversity which I see, the gods are ripe and ready to cause quickly the perishing and destruction and depopulation of the human race. The adored gods know,” saith he, “the means by which this great calamity will come, namely, is it an earthquake that is caused there? i.e. whether it is the earth that will open its bowels to swallow up the cities and castles of the whole world, together with their inhabitants? Or whether it is the heavy-dense tearshedding of the Flood, which will again pour upon the face of the earth to drown the children of Adam? Or whether it will be the scorching of fiery lightnings and heat of air that will come to burn up the world? Or whether it will the heavy-sodded earth that will refuse her growth and her corn and her increase, and not let her fruits through, so that all the human race will perish by famine?”

“I know not what kind of plague will be there, or what disease through which it comes. But this I know, that that plague will be the stopping of the life of a multitude.”

“Now there is another kind of these observations, namely: if the easy planet of Saturn were at this time in watery Aquarius the punishment of a flood would be inflicted to destroy the world. If the Sun should be at this time in flamy Leo, the glow of the air and the burning would set the world on fire. Howbeit meseems that it is not evil from them that is there; but it is the star of Mars, the great battler, that is in Scorpio, and of the stars which would be able to restrain his  p.81 fervour, the star of Jupiter or Venus or Mercury, not one is near him for Jupiter is now setting, and Venus is near the Sun, under the earth, and Mercury has not hitherto risen; so that the virulent glow of Mars has filled all the air, because no other star is near him, save only the star of swordgirt Orion; and even that is an increase of the injury that he still foretells.”

“A woeful thing”, quoth he, “these stars are foretelling in the stations which they occupy, to wit, madness of battle, rising of heroes, ardour of wielding weapons in warriors' hands, concussion of furious, high-spirited soldiers and champions, cessation of peace and good-will, raising up warfare between friends, mustering of foreign tribes, flood-tide of anger of fierce and haughty kings in a field of battle and conflict, ramparts of bodies of nobles under the feet of wolves and dogs.”

“Why am I concealing it?” quoth he; “for what is foretold there will come at last, to wit, the Civil War. Great evils will arise in Rome because of that, for in it everyone will be strong by dint of his might and his valour. Neither law nor justice will be preserved therein by them. The killing of his father will be praised by the son: the killing of his son by the father. Whoever then spares (another) from gossipred or friendship will be blamed. For many years it will be thus in Rome, until the lordship of one king shall come over it; and meseems that the Romans do not prefer that to the Civil War.”

So far the predictions of the Tuscan augurs.

The presages of the war that till then had appeared were enough to impose fear and dread on the Romans. But there came to them a cause of terror which was not less than that:  p.83 For a demoniacal spirit entered a certain noble matron in Rome, and reduced her to darkness and frenzy. So that madwoman began to foretell the same evils to the Romans. She related and declared to them, from first to last, all the prophecies of the Civil War. Thus she made her declaration, conversing with the demoniacal Spirit in presence of all the folk of Rome.

It was clear to the Romans that the wrath and rage of the adored gods were then against them, for all the mundane elements gave them manifest signs and sure presages of the Civil War.

When all of them had conceived in their minds the knowledge that the awful prodigies which had appeared to them were foretelling vast slaughters and battle-breaches, both freeman and serf yielded themselves to grief and gloom and sorrow. Their nobles and their high lords cast off their royal ornaments and their honoured robes. They all clad themselves in wretched garments in token of mourning and sorrow. They were still and silent, concealing that grief while his inward trouble was in the heart of everyone, and nevertheless as yet they did not display it. Just as the households of honorable kings, when their lords go to death, are at first in hidden grief, so long as concealment of the tidings is possible.

Their wives and their mothers, their soldiers and their champions, their elders and their old men entered the temples of the gods and goddesses. Therein they loosed their hair, and beat their breasts with their hands. They began sorrowing and weeping, wailing together and lamenting in the presence of the images and altars of the adored gods.

9. The Life of Cato here below

There was one man in the City whom those great commotions did not affect, Brutus by name, a choice consul of the Romans, a man brave and highspirited, whose heart would not sink though he should receive much evil. He uplifted not his mind though Fortune should give him much wealth. That man came in the dusk of the end of the night to the house of his mother's brother, that is, to Cato's house, to know and to take counsel with him as to what proceeding they should take in waiting on the battle, that is, should they go to the battle with Pompey or with Caesar? Or should they wait until they knew which of the leaders would be routed? For whichever of them was victorious would be eager to get peace with Brutus and Cato, for of the Romans there were not two consuls who could often be equalled to them.

This is the counsel that was approved by him, to wit, Brutus, not to go with either, but to wait till they knew which of the two leaders would be victorious. For he would deem it wrong to be preparing for a battle in which a son would kill his father, or a father his son, or one brother another. And also he did not deign to unite with that immoral folk who were going to the Civil War in order to avenge their (private) wrongs (?), for they were not strong (enough) to avenge them in time of peace or goodwill.

So Brutus came and discussed that counsel in Cato's presence. Thus was Cato when he came to him, gloomy, sad, uneasy, sleepless, searching and scrutinizing how should be the arrangements of the City and the proceedings of the people and of the Roman senate in prospect of the great injury which was threatening them. This is the answer which he gave to the speech that Brutus made to him:

“'Tis true, indeed”, quoth he, “that it is wrong in the extreme any one to proceed to Civil War. Still who could endure without fear to abate (his) strength and hands if he saw the stars of heaven and the firmament itself rushing down and falling before him on the swarded surface of the earth? No more shall I endure to see the fall of Rome without helping her. Great would be the pity if I were to be alone in solitude, when the stranger nations of the world are astir at this uprising that has happened in Rome. It shall not be so, but I will give my war-service in the way that the whole senate will give it, namely, with Pompey; for he has not come against Rome as Caesar has done. And another thing then: if we are together helping Pompey, not to himself will he ascribe the victory that he will gain, but it will be to us, and his pride will be the less after grasping the kingship again.”

There is Cato's speech.

So Brutus agreed with that speech of his mother's brother. The pride of his spirit arose, and the pressing on of the Civil War grew in his mind, so that there was none of the Romans with whom the waging of the Civil War was more desirable.

Now when they were there, when the darkness of the end of the night is divided from the pale light of the beginning of day, they heard a blow of the knocker on the door of the house. 'Tis there was the wife whom Cato had in his youth once upon a time. Marcia was her name, and in the space of three years she had borne three sons to Cato. He happened to have a certain male friend in Rome, named Hortensius. No children were borne to him. That was a great grief to Cato, so he did this: he gave his own wife to Hortensius to bear children to him, she being prolific. So in three years the woman bore him three sons. Thereafter Hortensius came and offered the same woman to Cato that she might bear more children to him. “Nay”, said Cato, “so great is my honour in Rome  p.89 that all the Roman youth are children of mine; and since it is thou that needs children, let the woman be with thee as long as thou wishest.”

Some time afterwards Hortensius died. When Hortensia had performed his burial rites and his wailing lamentations she came tearfully and sadly to Cato's house just when the colloquy occurred between him and his sister's son Brutus. She began speaking to Cato and entreating him to let her wait on him and serve him like any of his handmaids. For she said that she came not with a mind to wedlock: for her it would be enough of good from him when her name should be inscribed on the forefront of her tomb, and that (there) she should be styled Cato's wife.

She said that she was not asking for quiet or ease, for she came with a view to battle and the uprise of great warfare, but (only) to be waiting on him and serving him wherever Fortune would cast him in preparing for the great battle. She also said that he should not be ashamed of her being in his company, even in exile, since Pompey's consort Cornelia was in company of that high-king.

By that entreaty Cato's mind was influenced, and he gave leave to Marcia to dwell along with him. Without pomp or superstitious rite was that arrangement made between Cato and Marcia. Save Brutus only, neither sureties nor witnesses were sought by them. Neither soothsayers nor sages were asked, as is customary at weddings. No tabu was avoided by them, and no luck was venerated. No wedding ornament was on the man or the woman, for there was a (lasting) look of sorrow on her face after her husband's death. No less did grief appear on Cato, for from the first hour that he perceived the stirring up and uprising of the great warfare, he never washed or bathed, he never cleansed his face or laved his s  p.91 hands. But he was mournfully and sadly searching and pondering how he should save the City from the hands of its enemies. For never did anyone save Cato alone think of that war except for love or hate of some one else. As to Cato, it was to free the City, and to protect the fatherland, and to spare the whole human race, that he stirred up the war. For in his time there was not in the world one man whose character was choicer than his.

One of his customs was to complete and bring to an end every thing to which he put his hand. All his anxiety and care used to be to safeguard the fatherland. Sure and certain was he that it was not for his own sake he had been sent into the world, but for the sake of everyone whom he could benefit therein. His enjoyment never went beyond what was meet. What would deprive him of hunger was food enough for him. Enough of clothing was the protection of his limbs from cold and nakedness. Of houses it was enough to protect him from foul weather and storm. One of his customs was not to have connexion with his wife save only at the season of conception. So long as he remained in the City he was its father and husband. There was no one in Rome who did not profit by him. While he lived he was reverencing righteousness and answering beautiful deeds. His desire never marred the response of his good works.

So far the tidings of Cato and the folk of Rome.

10. Caesar's Hosting into Italy here below

Now when those preparations were (made) in Rome Pompey came with his crowds of army and multitude into the sheltering recesses of Campania, and took up his station and  p.93 camp within the ramparts of the town called Capua. That was a city founded in Italy by a warrior of the people of Aeneas son of Anchises, named Capys; and that place was greatly to Pompey's mind, and it seemed good to him to await battle there, for it was strong and impregnable. The Apennine mountain-range was behind it, a mountain-range the highest and roughest of the ranges of the world. There is a haven of the Tyrrhene Sea on the southern side of that range, and a haven of the Adriatic on the north. Northward is an Island (Ancona) in the sea opposite it, and southward opposite it is the island of Pisa.

And on each of its sides are many rivers pouring out of it into the sea, to wit, the river Metaurus and the river Crustumium, and the Sapis, the Isaurus, the Sena and the Aufidus, and the river Eridanus, pouring out of its northern flank. The rivers pouring out of its southern flank are the Tiber, the Rutuba, the Vulturnus, the Sarnus, the Liris, the Siler near Salernum, the Macra near the city of Luna. And when one reaches the summit of that mountain-range the fields of the whole of Gaul are seen, and anyone would suppose that the peaks of the Alps are down below it. And there was not in the world a mountain-range longer than it: for it extended at first from Italy to the island of Sicily in the Tyrrhene sea, until the strong burst of the sea on either hand broke through its intervening portion, so that now one of the two ends of it is in Italy, called the Apennine, and the other end is in the island of Sicily, called Mount Pelorus. It seemed safe to Pompey to be in the neighbourhood of that range, hearing news of Caesar and awaiting the battle.

As to Caesar, fury and eagerness to wield weapons filled his mind and his spirit; and he was sorry to find the provinces of Italy before him without the power of an army in them to give battle, their lords and leaders having gone from them to avoid himself. For it pleased him more to capture husbandmen by dint of his hand and by bloodshed than by peace and good will. And he preferred to break down and shatter the gates and ramparts of their cities than to be let willingly into them.

The folk of the cities and towns of Italy, though they were determined, and though it was certain that they would not resist Caesar when he would come to them, yet they began to strengthen their ramparts, and arrange their floorings, and give the battle. And they knew not what counsel to follow, for so great was their love for Pompey that they wished none but he to be enthroned, since they had given their word to him, and such was their dread of Caesar that they did not dare to disobey him. There was nothing to be likened to them save the rising of the great sea when the wind from the south meets with it, and the van of its storm and the multitude of all its waves are on the same path as that wind; and (then) the wind from the east comes to the same sea, and brings along with it the storm and the swelling in the waves (caused) by the former wind. 'Twas thus with the people of Italy; for they were all at first on the side of Pompey, so long as Caesar came not, and though he came, still their wish was to help Pompey.

Now when Caesar reached the centre of Italy with the crowd of his army and his multitude, everyone whom Pompey  p.97 had appointed to the kingship and leadership and headship of the cities and towns in Italy left them and fled to the secret shelters of the country for fear and dread of Caesar. Of those was Libo the leader of the Etruscans, and Thermus the leader of the Umbrians, and Sulla son of Sulla, and Varus from the fort of Auximum, and Lentulus from the city of Asculum, and Scipio from the city of Luceria.

There chanced to be one leader who went not with every one in that crash of flight, namely, Domitius captain of the city Corfinium; and there was not in Italy a city that was stronger or harder to sack than it, with a great river beside it, crossed by a bridge out opposite the city. When Domitius beheld Caesar's armies in their troops and multitudes marching towards him over the fields of Italy, and saw the burning brilliance of the terrible, naked weapons above the heads of the host with the gleaming and lightnings of the pure-rayed sun ashining past the edges of the earth, he mustered and gathered the forces of the city to break up and loosen the bridge, and then to hold the river against the outlanders. For he deemed it a great victory if he should delay Caesar (even) for the space of a single day.

When Caesar saw that proceeding against him, he said: “Great is the cowardice that the folk of the country show towards us! They do not deem it enough to hold their towns and fortresses against us: they are also stopping up the common roads against us.”

Then he sent forward his horsemen to seize the bridge and save it from destruction, and after them he sent his foot-soldiers with all the speed they could. The horsemen gave  p.99 rein to their horses as they sped across the plain; and there was nothing save the lightning-flash and the snowflake over the plain to compare with the speed and haste, the closeness and extent, with which they raced towards the bridge.

Now when they reached the brink of the river they cast a sanguinary, truly-rough shower of smooth, polished, sharp-sided darts and of arrows out of bows forward forth over the river, so that they fell on the heads and the helmets, on the river bodies and the battle-shields, on the breasts and chests of their enemies as closely as the raindrops of a shower would fall upon them, The horsemen were there until Caesar came to them at the head of the bridge. When he reached them they made no delay; but Domitius fled with his people, and they closed the gates of their city behind them.

Caesar with his troops crossed the river and at once began to destroy the city. Now when the destroyers came to the middle ramparts, they see the gates being opened, and the troops of the town in their bands going towards them, and having their own lord Domitius a captive for Caesar. For he it was that had persuaded them to resist Caesar and to rise against him. Then Domitius sat down in Caesar's presence: he preferred to be put to death rather than to remain alive; and he was asking the general to kill him, “Nay”, quoth Caesar, “but on this occasion give me thanks for thy life: go unhurt as thou camest. Surely everyone will be the more loyal from my letting thee go safe. Even if it pleases thee to renew battle against me, I am willing that thou shouldst do so. I give my word of truth, that, if thou be the stronger, I will not ask thee for the equivalent of this pardon.”

Domitius was then loosed from his bonds and Caesar took the city, and stayed therein that night.

Now Pompey the Great knew not that Domitius was captured, and this was his desire, to send the succour of an army to him on the morrow. And on that night Pompey began to address and to hearten his army to the battle, and this he said to them, that it were right for them to do valiantly in their own fatherland against Franks and Lochlanners and against the broken army of outlanders which stood in Caesar's company. He said, moreover, that it was fitter for them to do well than for Caesar's people, for they (Pompey's forces) stood for truth, while the others stood for falsehood; and, moreover, their lord was better than Caesar, and thitherto he had found more success. He said, also, that the senate's having with him left Rome was no reason for Caesar uplifting his spirit. It was not for fear of him that they had quitted it, but for love of their own lord; and they were fain to follow him whithersoever he came before them, for good was his exchange with them in giving them (for their service) jewels and treasures. Furthermore, he had never left in the world a nation without making it tributary, from the borders of the frigid zone in the north to the city of Syene in the south. (Therein the sun casts no shadow of a body to the north or to the south, but appears vertically above the city.) And he also said that of the nations of the world he had left Caesar no material of battle, unless he should wage war with the Roman folk itself, as he did at that time.

In that wise Pompey began to hearten his people. Howbeit the troops gave no shout to bear witness to what he said: he uplifted none of them by the speech he had made; and  p.103 they made him no promise to do well or ill. For fear and dread of Caesar filled them only from hearing the tales about him.

Now when Pompey perceived that great fear on his hosts, he shifted camp, and marched forward over the fields of the Apulians to the city named Brundusium. That city was built by Theseus, son of Aegeus, son of Neptune, when he came from the island of Crete after killing the Minotaur therein. And there that city was, on the northern coast of Italy, to wit, a sharp promontory that extends out of Italy into the Adriatic sea, and on the outer side of that promontory are two narrow horns of land which between them shut in a great portion of the sea. A craggy, rugged mountain on each side of them, a stony, rough island opposite them on the sea, where their ends meet each other. A narrow road for ships between those two horns and the island out in the bosom of the main-sea.

At that city Pompey established a station and camp, with his ships at anchor in the harbour before him. This is the plan that he then formed, to send away Pompeius Sextus, the eldest male of his children, together with nobles of his household, into the east of the world to gather towards him their host and their army, to await the battle. Then his son was fetched to him, and he said to the youth: “Go, my son, and gather my troops towards me, and bring the peoples that dwell about the river Euphrates and the river Nile. And bring the Sicilians and the folk of Egypt. Bring the peoples of Pontus and Armenia. Bring the tribes of the Rhipaean mountain-range and the folk of Scythia. Why reckon them?” saith he, “but go to every people in the east from whom I gained victory and triumph, and on whom is the discipline of my reign; and let them all come with thee towards me.”

His officers and his commanders were then brought to him, and he said to them: “Go”, saith he, “to the island of Epirus and into the countries of the Greeks and the Macedonians, and gather their armies and their hosts to me while I am in peace and at leisure for the winter-time, for methinks that Caesar will not attempt warfare again until the season of summer and fine weather.”

Then that troop did as they were ordered. They unmoored and loosed their crook-headed hollow vessels from the strand, and they set out on their great sea-road towards the countries and provinces to which they had been sent.

Now Caesar captured the countries and cities and fortalices of Italy on every path by which he came, and he was ready to take Rome as soon as he reached it. That would be wealth and triumph enough in the opinion of every other king in the world. However as to Caesar, he deemed no deed of his a triumph if he were delayed or resisted.

Therefore, then, he came at once on the track and trace of Pompey, to expel him from Italy; for though at this time the whole country remained in his power he had torment of heart that Pompey should be on a border of its borders or on a strand of its strands. And he liked not that Pompey should get an outlet of escape for his ships to the main-sea from the narrow haven in which they were. Wherefore this is the plan which he hit upon: to transport the stones and crags of the neighbouring mountains, and to cast them all into the narrow neck between the haven and the main-sea, so that Pompey's ships might not win way or path of escape to the  p.107 sea. However that labour was vain and profitless; for as no one sees the top or summit of Mount Eryx or Mount Gaurus if it be swallowed in the depth of the Ionian or Aegean sea: thus then no profit by these stones or crags which Caesar's people had cast into the sea was seen or found after they had all been sunk in the depth and very bottom of the vast, profound ocean into which they were thrown.

When Caesar saw that great labour go to naught, he made this plan: the huge yewtrees of the nearest forests to be collected by him and tied and bound to each other, so that he might build of them a bridge and great hurdles and vast rafts across the same haven, and so that the serried battalions might march in their course, without stop or stay, from one brink to the other. He also built over those rafts sure and strong turrets, and high parapets of wickerwork, and galleries for wounding, to await the conflict of mutual casting with the crews of the vessels. Never was there the like of those proceedings save the arrangement that had once been made by the Assyrians with Xerxes the king of the world.

Two unusual things were done by him, namely, his ships sailing on land and his cavalry marching on sea. And thus those things and those great deeds were achieved, to wit, wains and light barrows (?) were fastened under the ships till they were all through Mount Athos, and a bridge of planks tied together was made by him on the sea, from the island Sestos in the country of Europe to the island Abydos on the coast of Asia, so that his cavalry were passing the sea on that bridge. Like that was the bridge which was then built by Caesar.

Now when Caesar finished that labour he rested that night on the brink of the haven. Pompey, however, seeing that the haven was taken from him, began sadly and mournfully to ponder in his mind how he should fetch his ships and his troops out of the narrow harbour wherein they were. This is the plan that he formed, the most knowing and the strongest ships that he had, and those that were most used to the sea, to be put at the head of the line to the bridge, so that they should make a road for themselves and for the other ships through it, without being perceived or heard by Caesar's people.

When the bridge was broken up, then came the end of night; and Pompey arose and ordered his people to depart and his ships to steal out with them from the haven in stillness and silence, without sound of trumpet, or cry of signal, or one speaking to another, until they should reach the main-sea.

So they came to the ships; and though great was the labour in heaving their anchors, and raising their masts, and hauling the ropes while putting their vessels from land, not a voice nor a cry nor an incitement was heard from them. And Pompey began to entreat the adored gods that he should be allowed to leave Italy since he was not allowed to stay therein. And then a great storm and vast murmuring arose in the sea, so that men heard throughout the neighbouring districts the side-beating and crashing of the blue-fronted waves against the sides and breasts and bows of the well-manned vessels and long gray galleys of the full-great fleet proceeding to sea.

Then at that uproar the city-folk of Brundusium, together  p.111 with great companies of Caesar's soldiery, came to the shore, and saw that the fleet had escaped them. They ran alongside of them on the land till they reached the narrow neck of the harbour, and there, when the ships came near the land at that neck, Caesar's people stretched grappling-irons upon the fleet, detained two ships, straightway killed their crews, and dragged the ships themselves on shore. Then came the twilight of early morning, and great was Caesar's joy at what had happened to him there, the shaming of Pompey's people at his first encounter with them. But he deemed it a great disgrace that they had gone without his knowledge from the strait in which they were.

When a fair wind came to that fleet of Pompey, the wide-breasted barques passed into the bosom of the main-sea, and the crews of the fleet began to look at the blue-rimmed abyss, and the bursting of the floodtide, and the hilly shower-stormy waves of the Ionian sea, on every point around them,— save only Pompey, for, as to him, his eye never ceased from gazing at Italy, so long as he saw a hill of its hills or a mountain of its mountains.

When the high mountains of Italy were hidden from the general, a slumberous trance of sleep fell upon him in the poop of his vessel. Then appeared to him in his sleep a very fearful, awful vision, namely, the queen whom he had lost by death, Julia, Caesar's daughter, rose up, as seemed to him, out of her tomb in his presence, and said: “From the sunny fields of the underworld have I come to speak with thee and to tell thee tidings.”

“Say on then”, says Pompey. “The battle which thou and Caesar fight”, she saith, “lightens the torments of all that are in hell, for the crowd  p.113 coming from you will share their torments with those that are there. Ships and vessels are a-launching on the ferry of the river Styx, that is by Charon, awaiting the same battle: for never before has there come from a single battle as many as will come from you on this occasion. Great in truth was thy prosperity, O Pompey, so long as I was thy consort, and too quickly thou broughtest another wife into my bed. Yet am I glad of that, for when this battle shall be fought, thou wilt come to me, and after that we shall always be without parting.”

Thereat Pompey awoke from his sleep, and a great horror to him was the vision he had seen. Howbeit he had but little regard for it, and it did not interfere with the future proceeding that was in his mind. Then came the darkness of the night and the end of day, and the cnatur-barques of the fleet took haven and harbour in the districts of Greece.

As to Caesar, when the sea-surface had hidden the fleet from him, and when he stood alone in Italy, he began to complain and lament greatly because of his distress in not having taken full vengeance on his enemies. However he let calm into his nature, and was seeking and considering by what means he should obtain provisions for the numerous forces along with him. So he dispatched one of his captains, named Curio, with a legion of soldiers, to the island of Sicily, to seek for provisions in the east. He himself came forward to Rome under the aspect of peace and goodwill, with his multitudes of host and army, lazily, undistressed, without waiting attendance of weapon or standard, and without preparing for strife or contest. And in fear and dread were the folk of the towns and  p.115 fortresses of Italy a-watching him. Still their love was not more pleasing to him than their hatred and than their dread of him in that wise.

This is the road by which Caesar marched to Rome, by the city of Anxur, and past the great wood in which was a temple of Diana in the return of the road by which one goes from Rome to Alba Longa. And then he began to gaze at Rome from the top of a great crag which was above the city. There it was pleasant to Caesar, for he had not seen it for the space of ten years. “Badly have thy nobles deserted thee, O Rome!” quoth Caesar: “what city in the world would it be right to contend for, since battle was not given in contending for thee? Blessing on the gods that it is not thy ancestral foes that have come to contend for thee with those that have deserted thee in that wise! Good is what Fortune has done to thee, thine own people (coming) to thee after them!”

Then Caesar entered the city, and great fear seized the people of Rome before him, for they supposed that he would do therein all the evil in his power; and they believed that by murky mist of smoke and by fringe of flame he would lay the whole city low. Yet this he did not do, for more shameful to him than to the people of Rome themselves was the startling of fear that filled them in the presence of the foreign nations who were along with him.

On that day Caesar himself assumed every worshipful rank and every honourable grade that was in the whole of Rome, from the rank of the dictatorship to the minister, and from the minister to the decanuss; for the holders of all those ranks  p.117 had gone with Pompey, and Caesar appointed no one but himself to any of them. And then he came to the Treasury wherein was the wealth of the Romans; and it was opened by him, and all the treasures were given out of it, in despite of Metellus, a tribune of the Romans. And vast was the amount that was then taken out. For many years had it been accumulating: many beakers and horns and cups were taken thence: many swords and helmets and venomous spears and bucklers belonging to shieldburghs; many ingots of red gold and silver and electron were taken out: much crystal and brass and precious stones.

Howbeit, on that day there was brought by Caesar out of the Treasury all the wealth that the Romans had obtained from Hannibal the African, and from Philip the Greek, and from Pyrrhus the king of Epirus, from the Medes and the Persians and the peoples of Asia, and from the islands of Crete and Cyprus. And Caesar gave all that wealth in kingly bounties and in guerdons and wages and travelling-money to his satellites and his soldiers and the other good men of his army.

11. The Mustering of Pompey's army here below

While Caesar was deciding those matters in Rome, Pompey's armies and warlike multitudes were mustered and gathered unto him from every country and city and province in the world which had come under his law and discipline and his orders and his royal rule. A multitude, then, came in that gathering to the high-king, even Pompey.

The nations of Greece, which was near him, came at once.

Came there the inhabitants of Phocis and Amphissa.

Came there the inhabitants of Cirrha and Nysa, two cities of Mount Parnassus.

Came there the kindreds of the land of Boeotia.

Came there the dwellers by the river Cephisus and the river Dirce.

Came there the inhabitants of the isle of Pisae.

Came there the kindreds that dwell about the river Alpheus.

Came there the nations of the Arcadians and the Trachynians.

Came there the nations of the Thesproti and the Dryopes.

Came there the inhabitants of the town of Sellae.

Came there the choice soldiers of Athens.

Came there crews of ships from the city of Salamis in the district of Egypt.

Came there the hundredfold kindreds of the isle of Crete.

Came there the inhabitants of the island Gortyna.

There came the inhabitants of the city Oricon.

There came the kindreds of the Athamanes and the Enchelians.

There came the kindreds of the island of Colchis.

There came the inhabitants of the river Absyrtis and the river Peneus.

There came the Thessalians and the Haemonians.

There came the kindreds of Pholoe and Cone.

There came the inhabitants of the river Strymon and the river Peuce.

There came the kindreds of Idalia and Arisbe.

There came the kindreds of Mount Pitane and the river Marsyas.

There came the kindreds of the river Pactolus and the river Hermus, and all golden is the sand that is got in that river.

There came the nations of Phrygia and of the land of Troy.

There came the nations of Syria and the river Orontes.

There came the inhabitants of the city of Ninus (Niniveh) and of the city Damascus.

There came the inhabitants of the island of Gaza and the island of Edom.

There came the Tyrians and the inhabitants of the city of Sidon.

There came the inhabitants of Phoenicia; 'tis by them that letters were first invented.

There came the inhabitants of the city of Tarsus and the mountain-range of Taurus.

There came the kindreds of Antioch and of the city of Aegae.

There came the Sicilians.

There came the eastern nations of the whole world.

There came the inhabitants of India and the river Ganges.

There came the peoples of the Brahmans. 'Tis they that go voluntarily into the fires, to be burnt alive when old age comes to them.

There came the inhabitants of Cappadocia and Armenia.

There came the sylvan races of the Coatrae.

There came the peoples of the land of Arabia. They marvel much that the shadows of the trees fall northward from the sun, since with them it casts (the shadows) southward.

There came the Oretae and the Caramanians. So far are they to the south that they never see more than a small part of the Great Bear.

There came the Ethiopians, and the inhabitants of the land out of which from one spring flow the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.

The Parthians came not to that gathering, for they deigned not to help the Romans, since they had killed one of the three best captains in Rome, namely, Marcus Crassus.

There came the peoples of Scythia and the Lacedaemonians.

There came the nations of the Hyrcanians and the Heniochi and the Sarmatians.

There came the inhabitants of the Rhipaean mountain-range, and the inhabitants of the river Tanais on the boundary of Europe and Asia.

There came the inhabitants of the island of Colchis and the inhabitants of the river Halys.

There came the nations who dwell at the Maeotic marshes.

There came the nations who dwell near the pillars of Alexander the Great on the eastern edge of the world.

There came the nations of the Arii and the Massagetae.

There came the nations of the Geloni from the northern frigid zone.

There came all the nations of the Africans, from the peoples of the Moors in the west to the borders of Egypt in the east.

Howbeit, though many hosts were gathered by Cyrus son of Darius, the king of the Persians, to conquer the world, or by Xerxes the king of the Assyrians, or by Agamemnon the Great, son of Atreus, the king of the Greeks, when he went to sack Troy, or by any other king by whom a mighty host was gathered, never had there been collected that number of the nations of the world by any other king. And never was there found with an old man or an historian, or on a column of clay, or in a book of annals, that number of nations and kings controlled by one king awaiting one battle.

And never in one camp had there been the medley of distinctions that was in that camp of Pompey, with difference of speech and voice and deed, difference of usages and customs and languages, difference of knowledge and nature and intellect, difference of form and gait and battle-cry, difference of arms and dress and habit, difference of fatherland and country and race.

Great was the fortune of Pompey in getting that innumerable host to go with him to battle. And not less was  p.125 Caesar's fortune to find them all in one place amid the single plain of Thessaly, so as to destroy and triumph over them all in one day, rather than to have to march to each of these nations in its own country.

So far the mustering of Pompey's army.

12. The Sack of the city of the Massilians here below

Now when Caesar had attained such decision of every advantage he desired in Rome as satisfied his mind, he brought his countless army out of the City to march across the snowy ancient peaks of the Alps westward forthright to Spain. This is the cause of his taking that course. Two viceroys (legates) of Pompey's people, named Petreius and Afranius, were in possession of it, with vast troops of Roman warriors along with them, and this was Caesar's desire, to expel them from the whole of Spain, unless they would submit to him.

Every town and every fortress by which he came throughout Italy used to give him pledges and hostages, through fear and dread of him, until he reached the city of the Massilians at the end and edge of the land. Of the Greeks by origin were the folk of that city. Phocis was the name of their city so long as they were in Greece, and that city was sacked, and then they came into Italy, and therein a city was built by them on the edge of the land on the brink of the sea. Massilia was its name.

There was a “knot of friendship” between them and Pompey, that neither of them would forsake the other so long as they existed. Well was that friendship maintained by them: for, though Caesar with his armies came to them, they clave  p.127 not to the fickleness or the nonperformance of their Greek kindred and not the more did they turn to Pompey.

This was the plan they then formed: to send to Caesar messengers bearing branches of palm in sign of peace, to find out whether they could, by guile or by fair speaking, abate the fury of his wrath and his spirit, and escape without giving him hostages.

So those messengers came and sat down before Caesar, and this they said to him: “O Caesar, it will be found in your own books of history and annals that the folk of this city take part with you against every (foreign) nation in the world that shall rise against you. That is what we have hitherto boasted of, but not to help you to make internal war amongst yourselves.”

“For sake of thy righteousness, do not enjoin us by force (to do) what you have not hitherto been accustomed to enjoin: for without us thou hast troops enough; and we have not the same mind about civil war as have the other nations of the whole world. That indeed were not fortunate (for thee), for if we all had the same desire, never would the civil war be waged.”

“This is our errand to thee: if thou desire to make peace and good-will, leave thy troops in their camp, and do thou thyself come with us that we may attend thee and minister to thee. And when Pompey shall arrive he will come to us in like manner. And leave the city in that wise as a common dwelling-place between you.”

“If it be thy purpose to pass into the countries of Spain, it is not on account of persons like us that thou shouldst interrupt thy hosting. We have here neither gold nor silver nor wealth, and it is not easy to ourselves to carry on war. It is the worse for him with whom we shall go to battle, for he will be defeated if we are together with him, and we have no wealth in the world save only fulfilment of friendship.”

“However, if thou art determined to capture us perforce, and to scale our ramparts, and to break the gates of our city, the proceeding will be unprofitable to thee; for though our houses be burnt, and though it should befall us, from drought and thirst, to be sucking at the clay and drinking our own blood, and from hunger, to be devouring our children and our wives, we would accept that rather than contravene the word we gave to Pompey, and deliver hostages perforce to thee.”

Then a vast flaming heat and a great reddening mounted up in Caesar's face and countenance, from the boiling of the rugged wrath that arose in his mind from that answer which the Massilians made to him.

This then he said: “Vain for the Greek exiles is the matter that deceives them; for though I am in haste to Spain, not from them will I go until I sack their city. 'Tis right for you, my gallant followers”, says Caesar to his troops, “to rejoice at this godsend of war that your own success has cast upon your road. For as the tempestuous wind when alone becomes still and silent unless it meet resistance, and as the glow of great  p.131 fires retreats unless they get something to gnaw or burn, even so the valorous spirit of warriors an champions goes to the gound unless they find enemies or foes to resist them on a field of battle or conflict.”

“Hateful to me”, he says, “is what they tell me to do, to leave my troops and go alone into their city. What they come to avoid is that which they shall get, namely, war. I have pledged my princely word that on this occasion we shall not part until they are sure and certain that in my time there is no prince or chieftain more successful in battle than I.”

With that answer the envoys went home. Caesar, however, diverted his troops from the course on which they were, and came to the city of the Massilians. As to them, then, the preparation which they made awaiting the troops was neither timid nor fearful, neither gentle nor friendly, neither tender nor courteous. That was not the attendance of a friend on a friend, or of a household on a master, but the attendance of an enemy on an enemy and of a foe on a foe, the attendance and ministry which they bestowed upon them. The gates of the city were closed and firmly strengthened with beams and bars, with wedges and locks, with ropes and cords and chains, so that in the whole wall there was no place that was stronger or more impregnable than those gates. They filled their fighting-places and their strong firm towers with broad blue lances, and sharp-sided spears, and fair, gilded arrows, and sharp, iron sickles, and front-attacking stones, and rough-headed rocks.

The striplings and the youths went up in their crowds and multitudes on the galleries of the town, and they made  p.133 of themselves a wall of battle and a dense impregnable circle, elbow to elbow, forearm to forearm, shoulder to shoulder in the circuit of the rampart. And a shieldburgh of gold-bossed beautiful bucklers was lifted up on them, so that the edge of one shield struck another in its circumference, so that it was enough of delight to be gazing at them then, to be looking at the limewhite wall at the bottom, and at the manifold various colours of the ornamented battle-shields in the middle, and, along the top, at the ruddiness of the faces of the soldiers, and the gleaming of the helmets above the edges of the shields.

When Caesar beheld them thus arrayed, he did this: he established a station and camp on a high hill that was near the town and had on its top a roomy camping-ground. There was another hill equally high on the side nearest to the city. This was Caesar's desire, to fill up with clay and sods (the space) between those two hills, so that his troops might pass with him into the city across its walls. However, that he did not do, but when he had finished arranging his camp, and when his tents were pitched and huts were built by the troops, he made a vast fosse round the city on the land side, so that that fosse extended from the edge of the camp down to the seaport. The wells and springs and streams of fresh water of the whole plain were (then) let by him into that fosse, so that they all flowed past the city into the sea, and the citizens did not get enough water to quench their thirst or their drought. Even though they should attempt to flee, they could not go any other way but against the camp. Caesar made two fortified dykes along the two sides of the fosse from the camp to the sea, and he raised towers and fighting-mounds of clay and sods over the  p.135 forefront of those dykes, so that from them the troops might be battling and casting missiles on the folk of the city.

Even if the Massilians had never done any good thing save compelling Caesar's forces to labour so great, this was enough to raise their renown and honour to the edge of Doom; for in all Italy the folk of not a single city, save the Massilians alone, delayed in submitting to Caesar.

This is the project which Caesar formed, to build him a siegetower to breach the walls and from it to overcome the city. So he sent his troops to the woods and forests that were near them to cut the material of that siege-tower, wattling and boards, stakes, beams and joists. They felled the forests, and their vast yewtrees were put on the ground and dragged and delivered to the camp on the forearms of warriors, and on the shoulders of soldiers, and by the strengths of oxen and asses.

And yet Caesar did not deem what they brought enough. A dense, dark sacred grove stood before him beside the camp; and no one dared to visit it or to fell one of its trees, because it was a sacred grove, consecrated to the adored gods from the beginning of the world. The horror and loathsomeness of it were very great. On every single tree therein was the colour of human blood. No bird nor winged thing durst make its nest or dwelling in the top of one of its trees. No fire used to burn them, nor wind lay them low. Dragons and serpents and venomous beasts (were) at every point and at every end of it.

Caesar ordered his people to cut down that sacred grove, for it was very near to them. Howbeit the troops durst not go to cut it down, since they expected that every blow that each of would give to the tree would alight on his own limbs.

When Caesar saw that great fear on his troops, he himself grasped a large axe and began to fell the oak which he deemed the highest he saw in that grove, and he desisted not till he cast it lying on the ground, and then he said: “Get ye gone to the grove, my lads; let the gods (take) vengeance on me if the felling thereof displeases them.”

Thereat they all arose at the high-king's orders; and yet the fear of the gods did not leave them, but greater was their fear of Caesar, and less did they dare to delay his word. The grove was laid low by them at once. Such was the closeness and density with which the trees tumbled, that, after being felled from its butt, a tree would remain aloft owing to the closeness and abundance of the other trees at every point beneath it.

That Caesar had done that deed seemed good to the Massilians, for they deemed that the gods would at once avenge the doing of that deed. But not for that was his trouble, but only that what he had taken in hand should succeed.

The wagons and oxen and asses of the neighbouring districts were gathered unto him that the siege-tower might be moved from the camp to the city, for it was not possible to build it near the town.

When Caesar had finished collecting and gathering all those materials, a propraetor of his people, Decius Brutus by name,  p.139 was brought to him, and he instructed Brutus how to build the siege-tower, and ordered him, together with four legions of troops to beleaguer the city, and not to separate from it until no stone was left on another therein. And Caesar himself marches busily and speedily with his troops into the districts of Spain. For he did not deign that the folk of a single city in the world should interrupt his hosting.

Then Brutus caused that siege-tower to be built, as Caesar had ordered, and all the wheels and wagons were collected into one place; and upon them from above boards and beams and huge yewtrees were arranged in rows equally high. And a vast mound of clay and sods was also built upon them, with a work of boards and wattling on every side around it, so that no part of it might separate or scatter from another. Many windows and portholes (were) on it. A concealed place in the midst of it for the asses and the oxen which were moving the wagons and the engines beneath it, and for the soldiers who were urging them on. Above that great mound they built two strong towers of sods, from which to skirmish on behalf of the people who were along the lower part.

Now when Brutus saw the completion of that work, it was filled and arranged with chosen heroes and warriors under arms. His asses and oxen were yoked to drag and to move the wagons and the engines which were beneath it, and men to drive them were brought beside them, and then, at one time and with one movement, they were all urged on.

With that they gave the siege-tower a valiant shove, and a savage, frantic haul, and a fierce, destructive drag from the edge of the camp to the neighbourhood of the wall of the city.

The Massilians beheld the semblance of a huge hill moving to them over the green; and when they heard the rumbling of the wheels, and the creaking of the hurdles and the thunderous clash of the boards a-shaking, and the noise of the wagons a-moving, and the shouts of the champions, and the smiting of the rods and horsewhips in the hands of the warriors vehemently inciting and urging and exhorting the oxen and the horses and the asses; when, too, they heard the snorting and panting of the irrational animals, and the smiting of their hoofs against the surface of the plain as they approached, tremulous fear and terror seized them. They supposed that an universal earthquake had come into the sods and paths of the whole earth. Marvelling and great wonder they had that the ramparts of the city were not laid low thereby.

However, that siege-tower came to the end of the green, and it was not stopped until it was set, side by side, against the walls of the town. So much higher was it than the ramparts that the darts fell down on the men who were on the higher places on the gallery of the town. So then Caesar's people and the Massilians fought manfully, strongly. Howbeit, more powerful was the hurling of the Massilian forces than that of Caesar's followers; for stronger and firmer were the fighting-places in which the former were, and moreover they had in addition their balistas ready. The half-javelin that was hurled from one of these balistas used to make a path for itself through the battle-hurdle of weapons that was in front of Caesar's followers.  p.143 For the force with which it was hurled did not cease after passing through two or three of them. The stone or the front-attacking crag that was cast out of that engine used to kill three or four before it Just as a vast rock from the summit of a great mountain would make a perverse mingling, both flesh and bone, of every body to which it would come.

When Caesar's people saw that the folk of the city did not abide their casting, they resorted to the strong centres of their thick straight spears, and to the hard hilts of their swords, and moved near the Massilians. Thus they came, with a dense circle of shields around them, and a battle-hurdle of their spears above their heads, and each of them guarding another, that is, he who had a shield protecting him who had no shield. The balistas of the citizens then became useless, for their missiles did not strike Caesar's people at all, but used to fall behind their backs because of their nearness to the combatants.

So the Massilians left off (working) their balistas, and took to waiting on their enemies with front-attacking stones and broad-blue lances, and their own fists and forearms. Yet it was not easy for Caesar's people, for at the hurlings the powers of their engines departed, and the stones and the weapons burst forth on the hoods of the corslets and the bosses of the shields, and the crests of the helmets, and the galleries of the siege-tower, and the battle-hurdles of spears, even as showers of hailstones burst forth on works of stone or buildings of boards.

Some of Caesar's people put great hurdles of wattling above their heads, with layers of sods over them outside, and began to undermine the wall with battering-rams and iron  p.145 spears. Thereat ardour and force were kindled in the hearts of the Massilians, and it was a “fight of loyal brothers” that they made against their foes. They go at once towards them. The battle-hurdles are scattered and broken by them with iron pikes, and brands hardened by fire, and heaps of huge crags, so that a slaughter was made of the warriors under them.

Thereafter the arms of Caesar's people are wearied, and their vast battle-hurdles give way, and their labour goes for nought. They leave the city and repair, gloomily, sadly, to their camp. Though at first the citizens deemed it success enough to protect their town and guard its walls, yet, when they beheld the other army leaving the place of battle and seeking their camp, they came straightway out of the city, and brought fiery torches and blazing lamps, and kindled a fire at every point and end of the siege-tower, so that one flame of fire was made of it, both boards and wattling and stone, and so that its smoke was not higher than its blaze. And that blaze was swept by the blast of the wind to the camp of Caesar's people, so that a large part of it was burnt. The Massilians returned to their city cheerfully and spiritedly; and on that night pleasant was their sleep.

Caesar's people then lost hope of success in fighting on land; and this is the plan they formed, to try their luck at sea and ascertain whether their success in naval warfare would not be greater. So they prepared, swiftly and speedily, their ships to come from the sea-side to sack the city. The shaping  p.147 of those ships was not ordained (to be) elaborate. No figure-heads or carvings were made upon them. Only the bark-scales were stripped from the timbers, and between them and the trees of the forest there was neither distinction nor difference, save only that their boards were bent. With Caesar's men it was enough that they should be stable for fighting from them.

When they had finished building that huge fleet, they let their ships go with the wave of the river Rhone to the great sea, till they took harbour on that night in the haven of the city.

As to the warriors of the Massilians on that night, there was no silence for them; for their new ships were equipped for sailing, and their old ships were strengthened, and they were furnished and filled with the chosen soldiers of the town, both old and young, so that they were waiting and ready in the same harbour.

When the twilight of the early morning ended on the morrow, and when they beheld the radiance and lightnings of the clear bright sun with his beams broken against the billows of the sea, and when the shower-storms of the night retreated, and the sea became a smooth, silent, calm surface before the battle, the soldiers fiercely strong and valiant, and the heroic crews of the fleet arose and began to attack the capacious vessels and the wide-bellied barques and the long blue galleys from near the land. And they sat down on the rowing-benches, and they gave a regular oarstroke to the cnatur-barques of the fleet  p.149 out of the havens, so that throughout the neighbouring districts was heard the noise of the huge vessels and the storm of the great sea at the strong smiting of the oar-blades from the forearms of the warriors, so that the full-great vessels were trembling and shaking, both nails and planks, from prow to stern.

After coming forth out of the harbour Caesar's people arranged their fleet. They put their galleys and their small vessels in the centre of their fleet, and their larger vessels, which had three, or four, or five ranks of oars, they put around it, inside and outside, towards the open sea, and at the edge of the battle.

The chosen leader whom they had, namely, Brutus, commanded his own ship to be in the forefront of the fleet against his foes. Vast was the size of that ship, loftier than all the ships of the fleet: great towers with fighting-castles above them: six ranks of oars it bore: great and vast was the distance from the upper rank of them to the sea.

Thereafter when the fleets drew so near (each other) that there was only one oarstroke between them, the soldiers and champions of each fleet began to urge and hearten their troops so that they might be bold against their enemies.

With that they gave great shouts on high. Though vast was the rumbling of the rowing and the noises of the oars, nought thereof was heard at the mighty shout which arose from them into the air. So then that impulse was given by them, eagerly and willingly, and they ceased not from it until the one fleet crashed into the side of the other. Such was  p.151 the force with which they struck that they threw the ships back again so that their prows were in the (former) places of their sterns.

So then the crews arose from the benches, and they let fly between them murderous swarms and virulent showers of arrows from bows, and of pointed javelins, and of long-broad lances, so that the air was not seen past them when they were aloft, and the sea was not seen through them when they fell into the space between the two fleets.

Another impulse was then given to the fleets, so that some of the ships on each side went round others in turns. It made a perverse mixture of the sea and a confusion under them. The waves that the ships of Caesar's people used to cast from them would turn at once from the ships of the Massilians, so that the sea under them was like nothing save the full sea when it shall happen to be racing (?) in its strong burst of a springtide against the wind. But yet there is something: it was easier for the Massilians to fight the battle there than for Caesar's people; for their ships were active and light, and it was easy to steer them and to direct them and to turn them, and it was facile to approach and to avoid enemies. But the ships of Caesar's people, they were heavy, new, tardy, and it was not easier to direct them than to turn them. Nevertheless, fighting on dry land was not more stable than (fighting) from them.

When the chosen chieftain, Brutus, saw the manner in which the ships of the Massilians were (coming) to him and (retreating) from him, he began to hold speech with his helmsman, and told him to lay the side of his ship against the prows of  p.153 the ships of the Massilians. The helmsman did thus, and the ships that were nearest were arrayed in like manner. The ships that used to come to him afterwards turned not from him, but were held fast by grappling-irons and bound by smooth stiff chains. Then the fighting was made close, and the wilderness of the sea that lay between the two fleets was hidden and the vessels of each fleet were held and coupled together, side against side and gunwale against gunwale, so that rowers who were shoulder to shoulder with himself were not nearer to one of them than his foes on the other side. They did not deliver their casts or their shots from that time forward. Hands were mingled by them, blows were exchanged, helmets were smitten: they resorted to pressing forward their bucklers and giving blows of their swords; and they began, steadfastly and generously, to attend and wait for the deadly blows of their enemies over the edges of the ships.

A multitude of them fell there in sorrows and in gore-beds and in the holds of their own ships; and the streams and rivers of red blood poured out of the bodies of the heroes and the points of the tooth-hilted swords, so that they were as thick clots and foams of gore on the summit of the billows of the sea. And then the slaughter increased, and the headless bodies fell into the sea between the ships, so that the iron chains could not unite them, from the density and the abundance of the mangled corpses and the bodies red with blood. And the warriors half-dead used to fall into the deep, so that some of them were drinking their own blood mingled with the bitter brine of the green sea, while others were at their last gasp and sinking till they found their deaths from the benches and boards of the  p.155 shattered ships a-breaking and a-falling upon them from above. In that fight neither blow nor cast was delivered in vain or in error. None went without mangling a champion's breast or tearing the plank of a ship: whatever fell into the sea remained in the bodies of warriors.

Then did the heroes and champions of either fleet urge the hosts to upraise their effort of battle and to multiply deeds of valour. Then two of the Massilian ships approached and hemmed in the ship of a warrior of Caesar's force, named Tagus, and Tagus divided his crew in two, each half-crew against each of the two ships. He himself stood up in his own place, namely, on the poop of his vessel, and began attending the two steersmen on his right and on his left. He put his taffrail upon the helm of one of the two ships, and began to hold it strongly and bravely. But the two steersmen simultaneously drove their two spears into him, so that one pierced the edge of his back, and the other the top of his breast opposite his heart. In the hollow of his chest the two blades met. He remained standing, and knew not by which wound his (life-)blood would first pour out. He closed his mouth and swelled his breath: the two darts sprang together out of him, and in their track two jets of red blood broke forth; so thus he died.

Gelon, a soldier of the Massilians, directed his ship to Caesar's people. Good in sooth was that man; no  p.157 hand was better to steer a ship in time of storm. No man was more skilled in fine weather or in bad weather. Such was the strength and violence wherewith that man steered his ship that he broke the lastening and joints of his enemy's vessel with his vessel's prow. Howbeit a warrior of Caesar's people directed a riveted spear at him, and it pierced the summit of his breast, and divided it; and he quitted his soul while he was drawing the helm towards him in order to turn the ship away.

Then Gyareus, (another) soldier of the Massilians, to escape from drowning, raised himself up from the sea, and seized the rail of Gelon's ship so that his breast was at the edge. Then one of the Caesarians drove a spear through him, and thereby pinned him to his ship, so that he was hanging out of it, supported by the spear.

Two noble warriors of the Massilians were in the battle, two own brothers, who had been born at one birth. There was neither difference nor distinction of form between them. Such was their resemblance that no man recognised one from the other until death had severed them. To look on the one of them while he was alive when the other had died was a reminder of grief to their friends. As that pair was there, ship of Caesar's force came side by side with the ship in which they were, and made a mingling of the oars. One of the two men stretched his right hand out of the poop on which he stood, so that his grasp closed on the edge of his enemy's ship. A warrior of Caesar's force bared a hero's hand-length of his  p.159 sword, and gave a rending blow over the hand, so that he cut the forearm in two and left the hand clinging to the vessel. The Massilian stretched out his left arm to seize the severed hand. The same warrior gave him a proper blow with his sword and cut off the left arm from the butt of the shoulder. And yet, though the hero's hands were cut off, so that he was unable to hold his weapons or his shield, hardiness of heart did not let him fear or flee, and he went not to hide under the benches of the vessel, but came to protect his twin brother; and he would intercept every blow and every thrust that was aimed at one of his people, so that it chanced on himself. When he perceived the signs of death approaching him and his blood pouring forth in a pool from his body at the gashes of the spears and the swords, he took a (great) breath, attained a soldier's exaltation, leapt on board a vessel of Caesar's men, and by his own weight delivered a blow, so that his heaviness (alone) injured them, for he was unable to ply his weapons upon them.

Thereafter his ship was filled with clots of blood and corpses of heroes, and its bolts separated, and it was filled with the bitter brine of the green sea. Its timbers were pierced and swallowed together with its crew into the depth and very bottom of the ocean. In its place after it the mighty outburst of the springtide ran in like a whirlpool.

Many kinds of wondrous premature deaths did the nobles find on that day.

Once upon a time one of Caesar's people threw a grappling-iron to fasten a Massilian vessel, and it fell on Lycidas,  p.161 a hero-soldier of the Massilians, and dragged him out over the edge of the ship. His comrades seized him by the calves of his legs and began to pull him (back) so that the iron sickle rent him in two, carrying with it the part (of his body) from the girdle upwards, and leaving in the ship the part from the girdle down, and his entrails and the filth of his belly fell into the sea. There was no movement of soul or of life in his lower half. The upper half, however, was for a long time at the last gasp. For it is there were the vital members and the seats of the soul, to wit, liver and brain and heart and throat-apple. And when the crew of the Massilians' ship were crowded on one side of the vessel, holding Lycidas, and fighting against Caesar's people, that side went before them under the sea, and the other side was turned upon them, and the ship capsized, and they could not move their feet or their hands, and the brine was smothering them in the hold of the ship till they died.

A certain champion was overwhelmed there, and that man was swimming the waves, boldly and bravely, on from one ridge-mound over another. The path on which his ill-luck brought him was the place in which two full-swift vessels met together at one impulse of rowing in the fleet. He chanced to be on the crest of the wave between the two prows of those two vessels, so that they made between them bone-fragments and separate heaps. of his bones and all his entrails, and these did not prevent  p.163 the resounding blow of the prows as they struck together. When the ships backed from him he fell into the sea, and the bitter brine was springing over his wounds, and he was spouting forth over his lips the slime of his entrails and bowels, and the blood of his heart in its floods of dark blood and in its waves of gore. And thus he died.

Moreover, a large crew of Massilians were shipwrecked, and they rushed together to the nearest Massilian vessel and stretched their arms simultaneously to the gunwale. Thereat the vessel began to tremble and swing to and fro, and then her crew go and with their swords begin to cut off the arms (of the shipwrecked sailors), so that their hands clave to the edge of the vessel and their truncated bodies fell opposite them into the deep of the sea.

And at that time there was a great lack of weapons. Their lances and spears broke in their fittings. Their pikes and edged javelins broke in the hollows of their thongs (amenta): Their swords broke in their hilts, and their sickles in their bendings.

Howbeit their champions' valour and their heroes' fury ministered other weapons to them: for each of them plied on another the oars and the benches and the rudders of the vessels, and the ships themselves were broken up by them in order to hurl the planks at their enemies.

The entrails and the mangled bodies which were in the ships or on the surface of the sea near them, they used to sever and afterwards hurl. Many of them used to wrench out  p.165 of themselves the weapons that were holding in their bowels and entrails, and put their (left) hands on their wounds while they were hurling the weapon or delivering the blow.

Then a strange invention and cunning science was discovered by Caesar's people, to wit, waxed torches and lights of pine were kindled by them, and were flung, red-flaming, along the sides and prows and poops of the Massilians' vessels. At once the old ships blazed, aflame with pitch and tallow and wax. Sad indeed was it in the fleet thereafter. One of the men, to avoid being burnt, would plunge into the sea, to drown: while another, to avoid being drowned, would board the blazing ship, to burn; and none had fear of any death save the death by which he had begun to perish.

Even those who were drowning, made no feeble effort in that fight; for some of them were gathering the weapons of the vessels that were next them, while others were waging battle against the foes with whom they were struggling in the water. And when they could get no other arms, they were cleaving the brine between them (and their foes); and then one would clasp his arms over his foe, so that they went together to the depth of the sea. Glad was he to be drowned, provided he drowned his enemy along with him.

At that time, in that conflict, Phoceus had a mighty hand. He was a wondrous warrior of the Massilians, a wondrous and famous diver, one who searched and sought for every thing that was drowned at sea, one who used to go and move the anchor whenever it happened to stick in the bottom of the ocean. That man used to clasp his forearms round one of the Caesarians, carry him down to the sand of the  p.167 sea, leave him there, and himself come from below into the space empty of the fleet, and let forth his breath, and in like manner take down another of his foes. Once, however, he believed he was coming from below into the space vacant of the fleet; but he came not at all, but chanced (to rise) under the keels of the ships; and thenceforward he never appeared.

Another troop, when they were drowning, used to seize the oars of the hostile ships, so that they let them neither retreat nor advance; and they would come to protect their own ships, so that the blow or the cast inflicted on the side or the prow of the ship might strike into their own bodies.

Then Tyrrhenus, a Caesarian champion, arose at the prow of his vessel, and began to display his deeds of valour and to act bravely in the battle. Lygdamus, a Massilian champion and a choice slinger, beheld that, put a round leaden ball into his sling, and hurled it at Tyrrhenus so that the ball came into the hollow of his forehead, shattered it from one temple to the other, and cast forth each of his eyes. Tyrrhenus was silent after being deprived of his sight: it seemed to him that the darkness of death had come to him, and yet he felt that the forces of life existed in his limbs. He said to the Caesarians: “Set my face against my foes that I may hurl (darts) even as they are hurling, and that I may spend the remains of the life that is in me in killing my enemies and defending my friends. Henceforward my mind does not regard my life.”

When he had finished speaking, he set his face towards the Massilians, and hurled a doubtful cast upon them. Howbeit  p.169 the random shot lit on the place where Argus, a noble youth of the Massilians, was standing on the poop of his vessel. The dart flew past the rim of his shield and through the gap of the corslet, and it stuck in the soft part of his belly down from the navel. Argus fell on the dart, so that its shaft followed the grey iron, the length of a warrior's hand, out through his back.

Then the old man, Argus' father, was at the prow of the same vessel— and no Massilian was a stronger soldier than he had been in the time of his youth. When he saw his son falling he came towards him, tripping over ropes and stumbling over the benches of the lengthy vessel, to the poop where his son was, and he found him at his last gasp. He made no wailing or lamentation over him, but he stretched his arms by his sides. His body grew hard and stiff, and gloom and darkness came upon his eyes. When Argus saw his father near him he raised his head and breast feebly and weakly from the edge of the vessel to ask a kiss, for he was unable to speak to him, and drew his right hand to him to close his eyes. “No, by no means”, exclaims the father, “it shall not be so, my son; but it is I that will sooner go to death!” Thus he spoke, and he gave a thrust of a sword into his own chest, so that the point went through him, and he leapt at once after this into the sea. Such was his haste to die before his son that one way of death was not enough for him.

Hardily and strongly was that battle of the Caesarians and Pompeians fought in the absence of both their lords; howbeit  p.171 the lucks of the kings, separated, and the success of Caesar's battle exceeded Pompey's fortune. And then the battle ceased on both sides (?), for the folk of the city were overthrown in fight. Their champions of valour were wounded, and their heroes were maimed, and their mighty men and chieftains were overthrown, and their soldiers were mutilated. The greater part of their ships was sunk: the fire destroyed others; and the Caesarians boarded such of them as were not sunk or burnt, manned (?) them with choice troops, beheaded all they found of troops half-dead and youths at the last gasp. A few fugitives of the Massilians escaped by the strength of their rowing and by the swiftness of their ships, and they took their vessels half-broken to their shipyards.

Enough of wretchedness it was to listen thereafter to the folk of the city, with the greatness of their wailing and their lamentation, and with the abundance of their cries of sorrow and sound of weeping, at seeing their troops fleeing towards them. Good reason indeed they had, for at that time there was many a fatherless son, and sonless father and brotherless sister, and wife without her dear husband. And their women and old men, in their bands and crowds on the shore, began to recognise the bodies and heads of the friends and comrades which the billows of the great sea were casting to them on land. Unshapely were the countenances (of the dead), and it was hard to recognise them; and the (Massilian) wife was  p.173 kissing a Caesarian husband as if he were her own man, and two fathers were disputing and fighting about the same corpse, each of them supposing it to be the body of his own son that he was contending for.

But Decius Brutus, the admiral of Caesar's fleet, sound and strong was his spirit after routing the Massilians, for he was the first to gain a naval battle on Caesar's behalf. His people however, were sighing and mournful as they parted from the Massilians, and that was not a “mourning without cause”, for with them were many bodies hacked, and sides pierced, and bold warriors mangled, and youths severely wounded; and many were the bleeding hurts and incurable gashes upon them. However “with men battle is not companionship”. They cared little for that, since they had the victory.

They brought their fleet into the haven and harbour of the Massilians, and their vessels were equipped and cleansed, and they flung their enemies' corpses and bodies and clots of gore and particles of blood and masses of bones over the edges of their ships into the sea. The city was seized by them, and they let no one else into it or out of it until Caesar came to them from Spain; and after his arrival the whole city was laid low.

That night they spent easefully, having put from them the anxiety of battle, and their foes having fallen by them in the time of conflict.

So far is one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Sack of the City of Massilia is the name of that story.

13. Tidings of Caesar we now set forth below

The Hosting of Spain

Now while he was carrying on those conflicts in Italy, Caesar began, in the outer borders of the whole world, in the remotest districts of Spain, to beleaguer Petreius and Afranius, the two chiefs of Spain who were Pompey's lieutenants. And though the slaughters were not great on that expedition, still thereout accrued to the leaders much distress and change of prosperity and fortune. Close was the friendship of those legates, Petreius and Afranius, and strong was their combat as against Caesar's, and it was easy for them to proceed to battle and warfare, for their hosts were numerous and their army was wealthy, since there was a huge host of Italian soldiers under their conmand, and together with them were many multitudes of the warriors of Spain, to wit, the tribes of the Asturians and the Vectones and the nations of the Celtiberians.

Then those hosts marched to one place, and established a station and camp at the city called Ilerda, in tryst of battle to Caesar. That city was built on a low hill on the edge of the river Sicoris. An arched bridge of stone crossed that river, and when there was a wintry flood the water would come over it. There was a high hill near the city, and on it the standards of the Pompeians were planted, and their camp was laid out. Caesar pitched his camp on another hill that was not lower, face to face with them. There was nothing between the two camps save only the river Sicoris. Behind Caesar's camp was a space of level plain as far as ever the eye could reach: the river  p.177 Cingis around that plain as far as the confluence of the river Iberus so that they flow together into the great sea.

The first day, then, that the armies came together, neither battle nor conflict was fought between them, for their effort and their work was to reckon their standards, and number their battalions, and display their tribes and their musters. Moreover, brothers and folk of the same city were slack and ashamed to contend in battle between themselves in the presence of the foreign nations.

When the darkness of the day's end came, Caesar caused his troops to dig a huge trench on one side of the camp of the Pompeians, and on the other he brought an innumerable crowd of champions, so that the Pompeians might have no way of escaping save only the one path to the huge hill that was near them, between them and the city of Ilerda.

When light and the twilight of early morning came, Caesar ordered his soldiers to be the first to reach that hill. When the Pompeians saw that, their troops advanced vehemently and speedily, and were the first to occupy the hill, for it was nearer to them, and also their road to it was easy, while the road of the Caesarians was very difficult, for the soldiers under their armour were with difficulty struggling up a hill that sloped upon them. None of them could raise his hand against his enemy, for their javelins (fixed in the ground) were props to them: the boss of the buckler of the man behind was supporting the man before; and none of them could  p.179 return by the same way for fear of his foeman's attack behind him.

When Caesar saw that great pressure on his people, he despatched his cavalry to fall on the Pompeians at the other side, so that his footsoldiers came safe over the difficulty of the way.

The obstacles of the path and the divisions of the borders and the lands prevented the battle till then, and the storm of the air prevented it thenceforward, for then it was midspring, and at the beginning of winter great snows had fallen and filled the mountains and the plains of Spain. And under them the earth hardened and congealed, and by ice and hoarfrost the dropping of the clouds was prevented during the season of winter and the beginning of spring.

At the first lunar kindling caused by the vernal equinox, the eastern air grew red and ruddy, while the sun arose in his fiery pavilion up over the ascending colure. And the sun warmed and swelled all the watery clouds of the tumultuous air, from the countries of India in the east till they were above Spain as a dense, dark swamp of black mist, so that he could hardly illumine so much of the space as came between the sky and the earth; and thereafter the verdant semicircle of the rainbow shone in the clouds.

Then by the heat of the sun they were compressed, and they poured in their rain-showers and hailstorms and heavy-sleeting  p.181 floods on the lands of Spain. Then the snows of the mountains and the hills near the high city Ilerda dissolved from the abundance of the rain, and the tepid warmth of springtime so that they trickled in their streamlets and rills till they became rivers and vast lakes on the firm, level plains of the land.

The original rivers of the country flowed far over their banks on every side; and at every point that flood burst over the ramparts of Caesar's camp, so that the booths and tents, and the shields and weapons of the soldiers, and the provisions of the armies were a-floating and crowding (?) throughout the camp with the flood of water that reached them.

The troops were therefore unable to raid or forage in that country, and their horses found no way to pasture nor grass to graze on. The roads were hidden and the ground was level with them, so that they saw no path save the tops of the hills, and the peaks of the mountains.

Then came the disease that is chief of every disease and is cause of every great evil, to wit, famine. Even though they suffered nought but beleaguerment by foes, great was their need, for none of them could barter, even by giving all his wealth for a little sustenance, and the covetous man there was willingly enduring famine, after selling his little food for very great wealth.

Disfigured and barren then were the fields of Ilerda the city from the increase of the water over the hills and woods of the districts, after causing the death of their stags and wild beasts, their herds and horses. And in them day was not known from  p.183 night. There was nothing like it save what is said of the icy frigid zone, that it is without dwelling of animals and without proffer of fruit. Howbeit Fortune was content with a little startling and a slight opposition to Caesar's prosperity, and the adored gods allowed not the king to be baulked, for though the foregoing flood and famine were great, manifold prosperity came to Caesar subsequently, for the gods succoured him in an unusual manner. And that night the air assumed a crimson colour at the fall of the evening-clouds, and on the morrow in the morning the sun shone with his full heat, and thereby the waters began to grow shallow and dry up, and the hills and woods commenced to appear, and all the earth took to drying.

Now when the flood of the river Sicoris withdrew from the neighbouring plains, so that the river was only as high as its bank, the Caesarians build the frameworks of boats of the willow-branches and the twigs of the plain, and they cover and strengthen them with hides of asses and bullocks in imitation of the boats used by the Veneti on the river Padus, or by the inhabitants of Egypt on the depths of the river Nile, or by the folk of the island of Britain on the surface of the sea of Wight. The neighbouring woods were cut down by them, and the water of the great river was let out into channels and rillets. A bridge of boards clamped together is built across it.  p.185 Far from the brink the beginning of the bridge was brought, for the troops feared the growth of the river again over that plain.

When Petreius and Afranius saw those great designs taken in hand by Caesar, they abandoned their camp and (left) the city of Ilerda without defence or protection, and set out with their armies to march into the outskirts of Spain, to seek reinforcements and meanwhile to postpone the battle.

When Caesar saw the camps empty and the hills forsaken after the army, he ordered his soldiers to pursue their enemies, and not to seek ford or bridge, but to cross the river opposite them. That was done for him, and he was answered unweariedly. Without questioning, on went his men, and eagerly, fearlessly they crossed the bed of the river Sicoris to attack their foes, a path, by which, had they been routed, they would not have easily retreated.

With that they donned their arms, and cast the water from their limbs. They then made a vehement rush after their enemies. Their cavalry pressed on, so that they overtook (?) the rearmost troops of the Pompeians, and those were in doubt as to whether they should flee, or stay and do battle against the Caesarians.

There were two high hills before them separated by a narrow glen with a lofty ridge across it. A strong place that was, and the Pompeians were sure that, if they reached it, Caesar's soldiers would not stop them. When Caesar observed  p.187 that, he said to his army: “March on”, says he, “and do not stay for the sake of re-forming your ranks, but press forward as swiftly as ye can, so that ye may get between your enemies and the narrow road to which they are marching.” Then he suddenly turns with his forces, so that he came between his foes and the safe place to which they marched.

Then came the end of day, and the camps were pitched very near each other by either army. There was no division between them save the little trench which they made round the camps. When each caught sight of the other, and when on either side the sons recognised their fathers and the fathers their sons, and the brothers each other, then they understood the full wickedness of civil war. They used to wave their swords between them in token of joy, for they durst not hold speech or colloquy for dread of the generals, since it was a common custom with the Romans that the soldiers of opposing generals should not go from one camp into another, how great soever were their affection, until peace had first been made between the lords. And yet love for their neighbours grew strong and increased in the hearts of the Caesarians, and they went in troops and crowds into the Pompeians' camp.

There was no Roman with Caesar who had not some friend in that camp, a neighbour, or son-in-law, or fosterbrother, or a playmate or housemate in Rome. So everyone attained his friend. Then the warriors' arms were closed over the sides and necks of others. Kisses were redoubled between them. Their tears dropped on their weapons from the greatness of the joy, and also from the fear of mutual swording of friends after a while.

So thence there was peace between the two armies, and on that night each of them was in the other's camp feasting and banqueting. Each man deprived (the rest) of that night's sleep, telling another of his conflicts during the ten previous years. Though friendly was that meeting, they could not any longer resist the Fates and Fortune. For when Petreius saw the peace and friendliness between the armies, and when he saw the Caesarians unarmed in the midst of his camp, he brought his slaves and his own household and attacks (?) them. Wherever two friends were found in one place he separated them with the sword. Then he began to egg on and exhort the whole force of the camp, and to command them to join battle against their friends and companions. He ceased not until he implanted in the heart of every hero and in the spirit of every soldier the love of combat and the burning desire to wield weapons.

Nothing was like them save fierce wild beasts who are for a time tamed and petted, until the tasting of blood befalls them, so that then their fury and madness arise, and it is impossible to tame or restrain them. Even so the Pompeians were at first feeble and tepid, until they saw the streams of blood on the heroes' skins. Thereat arose the madness of their nature and the fury of their valour, so that they committed great hostilities and enormous monstrosities, that is, they began to strike and lay low the warriors who had just before been sharing food and bed with them.

Though great was their sighing and lamentation when they first unsheathed their swords, soon came hatred and dislike of their friends, and eagerness to mangle them and desire to destroy them. An exceeding great slaughter was there inflicted on the Caesarians. Gladly (?) did the Pompeians return  p.191 to their generals. With boasts and displays they brought to their chieftains the heads of their friends and their brothers and their parents. Each of them praised to another the deeds they had done.

But Caesar, though he had lost many troops, deemed it a great success that the conflict was begun by the Pompeians. When the treachery was completed by Petreius and Afranius, they durst not, for dread of Caesar, abide in their camp; but the pick of the victors pressed on and they take flight again to the city of Ilerda. Caesar sent his cavalry ahead by a contrary path (to cut off their retreat), and brought his footsoldiers behind them, and on each of the two sides, so that he enclosed them on a high, mounded hill which was in the midst of the plain. He did not withdraw the troops from them till he had made a deep entrenchment around them, so that neither horse nor man could cross it, and so that they could not reach river or well or springwater.

So when they saw that the road of their death (?) and the path of their perishing was gotten by Caesar, and that they had no way of escape, their fear and dread were turned into anger and rage. They killed their horses, for these are not usually profitable to a beleaguered army, and moreover they preferred to destroy them than to benefit their enemies therewith. Then they came savagely, impetuously (?) towards their foes, to combat with them and themselves to be killed; for little they recked to endure every tragic death, provided they did not perish of hunger and thirst.

When Caesar saw them rushing on vehemently and eagerly to the edge of the entrenchments, he said to his soldiers: “Do not wield your weapons”, saith he, “so that their rage may  p.193 abate and that their valour may subside.” For it was the desire of their mind and the eagerness of their nature to find their foes and fight against them, but it was Caesar's wish for them to behave in that wise until the mists of the day's end and the fall of the evening cloud came upon them.

Thereat their rage subsided and their spirits were abated, since they found no resistance. Just like wounded heroes; for the greater is their courage from their bodies being transfixed, so long as their gashes are fresh and their wounds are recent; but, unless they meet with resistance and battling, their spirits abate, from the congelation of their gore, and the hardening of the blood, and the drying up of the wounds.

'Tis thus, then, their thirst wrought upon them, so that they did this: they dug up the earth opposite them, seeking for water; and they were digging it, not only with mattocks and sickles, but with their swords and their other weapons. And the mounded hill whereon they were is dug down till they came to the level of the plain on which the rivers were running. Never in the territories of the Asturians had there been diggings as deep as those; and in that country men are accustomed to mine the mountains while seeking golden ore, and sometimes the mountains smother the miners, so that they never come back again.

And though great was that labour of the Pompeians, it went for nought, for neither gush of stream nor source of spring was found by them. Then they ceased that digging, for they were wearied with excavating the earth and cleaving the rocks. Their drought was the more, and their thirst was the greater, from doing that great work in seeking water. And in order that their thirst might be the less, they did not consume food. Wherever they found clods of moist clay or watery sods they used to be squeezing them over their mouths. Wherever they chanced on a mess of excrement or cowdung they had a fight and a tussle for it. They used to drink the water that they would not drink at another time for sake of their life, though this were promised to them for it: and if they expected to live they would not drink it.

Some of them were sucking the mares and the female cattle that remained to them, so that they used to squeeze the blood over the teats (?) before their mouths separated from them. And others were crushing the tops of the trees and the lush grasses of the earth in order to drink their juice.

Wretched indeed were those troops, for so great was their thirst that, though poison were spilt on the waters before them, not the less would they drink them, provided that Caesar would permit. Then their bowels and entrails were burning, their lips dried up, their palates grew hard, their tongues were parched, and constricted were the sinews of their gullets, and the passages of their lungs, and the apertures of their windpipes; and no intake of breath used to come over their lips.

Their mouths were open towards the clouds, awaiting the drip of water therefrom. They began to swallow the air when the coolness of the night came to them, and it was the harder for them to suffer the great thirst, seeing the rivers of fresh water facing them at every point around them; for thus they were, the river Sicoris on one side of them and the river Iberus on the other.

At last, then, for sake of their lives, they made submission to Caesar. So they cast down their weapons in one place, and Afranius went before them into Caesar's camp and sat down between the General's legs, with his troops half dead along with him.

An “acknowledging voice” he uttered to the General, and yet he made no speech that disgraced his dignity or was a reproach to his chieftainship. This he said: “O Caesar, if anyone less noble than thou had conquered us, we would sooner have killed ourselves than come to ask him for pardon. We deem it no shame that a man like thee should grant us our lives. It is unjust for thee to be wrathful against us, for leadership was not conferred upon us in order to rise against thee, and we held our present rank before the outbreak of this great warfare between thee and the people of Rome. Make now no question as to the west of the world, since we have submitted to thee, and go thyself to conquer the east. But grant us one little boon, not to bring us at present on this hosting, for we are weary and strengthless, and meseems our fortune in battle is bad; wherefore it would not be right to mingle us with the successful army.”

Caesar agreed in that speech of Afranius, so that sincere welcome and great serenity were manifest on his countenance, and he did not avenge the killing of his people. He permitted the Pompeians to remain behind the great hosting, as they had requested. They confirmed the bonds of their peace; and the troops of Afranius ran in throngs and crowds down to the streams and rivers that were nearest, and they quenched their thirst immoderately. They troubled the pools by the strength and the greed with which they sped to the streams. Some of them put their breasts on the brinks and their mouths on the rivers. So great was the rush of water which they gulped to them that no passage was found for their breath, inwards or outwards; so that was a cause of death to them. Still this did not quench their thirst, and the craving of their gullets was not the less. And though the bellies were full the necks were thirsty. And thereafter they went from the waters, and their own strengths and powers returned to them. Some of them came in the night to converse with their friends in Caesar's camp. Others went scatteringly to their own dwellings and cities.

Caesar marched forward to Varro, another Roman general who was still in Spain, and Varro at once submitted to him, and gave him two legions of his troops, that is, twelve thousand armed men. Then he marched forward to his own people whom he had left destroying the city of Massilia in the districts of Italy. The city shook at his presence, and it was completely  p.201 destroyed with all its treasures. Caesar granted their life and their freedom to the remnant of the host that remained therein.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. Caesar's Expedition into Spain is the name of the story.

14. The Martyrdom of the Vulteians

At that time Fortune showed her lovely face to Caesar, and Success aided him in destroying the city of Massilia and in raiding Spain. However, something different happened to some of his troops in other countries in the world. For at every airt on the globe in which Pompeian and Caesarian governors and viceroys used to meet, there would be an uprising of the Civil War between them, and they did not separate without a conflict.

Then (Caius) Antonius, a valiant Caesarian viceroy, happened to be along with a force in the territories of the Curectes, where the billows of the Adriatic sea rise against the shores of the longsided island of Salona. M. Octavius, a leader of the fleets and seamen of the Pompeians, came towards him with very many troops, and encamped on the island against him. Strong and impregnable was the place in which Antonius happened to be, so that no one durst attack it. Nothing could destroy it so long as that which loosens everything firm and destroys everything safe did not come thither, to wit, Famine; for such was the narrowness of the place occupied (by the Pompeians) against the (Caesarian) forces that their horses could not get grazing there. And such was the scarcity of food for the soldiers that they were eating the grasses side by side with the horses.

Basilus, one of the Caesarian viceroys, heard of that. He came with his army to succour Antonius, and encamped on the other shore opposite, for the sea-surface prevented them coming  p.203 to the same place. When Antonius recognised the standards of the Caesarians and the signals of the friendly armies, he was searching and scrutinizing in his mind how he should leave the place in which he lay, and how his people should proceed without being overheard by his enemies who were besieging him.

Then he made unwonted preparations: lengthy, huge beams and thick spars were arranged side by side, and empty casks at their ends on every point. Those were bound and secured by smooth stiff chains and by dark blue cables of iron, so that they formed one huge raft on the edge of the strand. Amidst it there was a hidden place in readiness for the rowing, so that missiles did not reach the oarsmen; and the oars were not exposed, for they used to strike (only) so much of the sea as came between the two sets of casks. Of those (materials) they made three rafts.

The Pompeians perceived that Antonius and his troops were longing to abandon the island and desirous of joining their people on the other shore. So they marched in serried battalions to protect the harbours while the sea was ebbing. Thereafter came the mists of the day's end. The strong rush of the floodtide began to advance and collide (?) on the sandspits of the shore, and in a very short time made deep water of the path by which the battalions were passing a while before.

Thereat the floodtide went under the rafts aforesaid, so that they were moving and floating on the edge of the island. Lofty towers and turrets of conflict were upon them. The Pompeians beheld that. Forthwith they began to drag down their vessels. Their leader Octavius came to them. Like a hunter holding back his hounds so that the deer should come out on the open, he withheld and delayed his vessels so that the  p.205 rafts should move from land, and so that the (escaping) troops might expect not to be overheard. Then the twilight of the beginning of night drew nigh, and the Caesarians quitted the island, and they all went on board the three rafts, and began eagerly and strongly to seek the great sea and to voyage vehemently on the ocean.

The Pompeians marvelled much at the way the rafts went forward. For they espied the huge masses moving, and they saw neither sailing nor rowing upon them. Thus then was Octavius with a concealed apparatus ahead of them in the narrow part of the haven, the way that the Caesarians went, that is, very strong ropes and rough iron chains across the seastrait before them, and the ends of those chains tied and bound to the rocks of the Illyrian seacoast on every side.

The Caesarians came towards the chains. The chains were slackened by the Pompeians so that the first raft and the raft that was next came across them. But then they were drawn tight, and were dragged against the forepart of the last raft, so that it was pulled and violently dragged at once to the craggy rock-edge that was on the brink of the sea.

Thereat the Pompeians loosed their ships from land and cut their cables. They sped from the harbour as swiftly as hounds run at deer. They made one row of them, so that each ship touched another around the raft on the side from the sea. The other host filled the plains and rock-harbours of the strand, and the peaks of the mountains and crags above them.

Vulteius beheld that— he was the leader and steersman of the raft that was stopped there. He marvelled at the cheering  p.207 and the pouring together which his foes made upon him by sea and by land. Then he perceived that the chains of fresh iron under the sea were holding and detaining him. Thereat he began to ply his sword upon them; howbeit he was unable to cut the chains because of the hard-stiffness of the blue iron and the great height of the seawaves over them.

Then they took to fighting with their foes manfully and mightily. Howbeit the battle was not easy for them, for they knew not to which of the armies they should set their breasts or turn their backs. Nevertheless, they did very valiantly and sent a multitude on to death. Never had an equal number shown greater valour than they displayed, for they had not full five hundred fighting against the many thousands who were on every side of them.

Then the full darknesses of the night fell upon them, and on either side they ceased the conflict. Howbeit the Pompeians did not withdraw from the Caesarians, but kept around them at every point, in serried battalions and in warlike circles, awaiting to divide their weapons and armour, and to utter their triumphant paean on the morrow, in the early morning.

When they ceased the conflict and each of the hosts was silent, Vulteius began to address and hearten his people. And he said: “Make ye a firm resolve, O warriors! for short is the time for consultation allowed to you, for save only for tonight ye will have no power over yourselves. Howbeit, the time during which one can make a choice of death should not be  p.209 regarded by him as a short life. And to kill himself for sake of honour is not more praiseworthy in one who should expect length of life than in one destined to fall that very hour. Moreover it is an universal proverb: Pleasant is to be made of Necessary. It is necessary for you to meet death tomorrow, though it be not pleasant for you: for ye have no path of flight nor outlet of escape, with your foes on every side around you.”

“Great, however, is your success if hardiness be shown, the number and excellence of your witnesses, to wit, the chiefs of the Pompeians and the Caesarians, and Antonius with his soldiers on the sea before you, and Basilus with his champions on land, and Octavius with his warriors in the forefront of the island Salona. They will all testify that never have men done, for sake of their word or for love of their lords, such glorious deeds as we have done; for so great is the love we have for our lord that we take it as a misfortune that our wives, our children and our old men do not fall here along with ourselves. A blessing upon them! Let your foes find in you the form of goodly warriors. The demand of your fellow-soldiers behind you requires that ye shall act fearlessly in their presence, so that they may be glad that every company of you meets with distress among them (?).”

“The Pompeians will try to beguile you, and will offer you quarter and peace. That indeed would be good luck to us, for surely if they offered us peace they would not suppose that fear or lamentation caused what we should do in their presence. Great is your guerdon, if ye do bravely, when Caesar is told that ye are a loss to his forces. I myself”, quoth he, “O valiant youths, I have ended my life; and though I should find a means of escape from this, it would be displeasing to me, for  p.211 the longing for death has filled me. For none knows the happiness of death save those who are near it— the gods concealing from others the knowledge (of approaching death), so that the life in which they are may seem to them to be the sweeter.”

“Therefore, then, the moment you are weary of slaying your foes on the morrow, turn against yourselves, and let each of you inflict death on another, so that your foes may not brag about you, and may not utter over you their paean of triumph.”

That speech uplifted the natures of the warriors and the spirits of the nobles, so that desire of their tragic death came to them; and their leaders undertook to act fearlessly and kill themselves for love of their lord, so that their foes should not brag about them afterwards. And though at first they were gloomy, tearful, sad, beholding the stars, and though they were startled and afraid of the end of night and the beginning of day, yet so great was the influence which the leader's exhortation had upon them, that the spirits of the soldiers and the natures of the nobles rose with the truly eager precepts which the gallant warrior declared to them. Wherefore the night seemed long to them, and they were impatient for the early light of the morning, in order to wreak their wrath on their foes.

Not long did they wait, for the radiant season of summer was there, and the nights were very short. Soon afterwards the stars of heaven were hidden, and the sun arose to them, in his round ball of blood and his fiery pavilion, over the face of the earth. So the haven shone at every airt and every end around them. On every side they beheld their foes in their warlike border surrounding them, to wit, the shameful tribes of  p.213 the Istrians before them on the borders of the shore and on the rocks of the harbour: the fleet and the Pompeians; and the folks of the Liburnians in their venomous semicircle flanking them by land and by sea.

Then that chosen leader Vulteius arose with his valiant followers. They hastily donned their garbs of battle and conflict. They set their backs, each to another of themselves, but all their faces to their foes on every side.

When the Pompeians saw them, longingly, zealously (preparing) for the conflict, they stilled the fighting for a while, and began to offer them peace and guileful friendship, if perchance their hearts would be humbled or their wrath be abated, and so that through every delay granted them in their lifetime the love of their lives might be the greater.

Sanguinary was the answer from the Caesarians; for neither outcry nor noise was found from them; but they cast on their foes virulent showers of deadly javelins and slingstones and arrows from bows, so that the missiles fell in rains and heavy-pouring floods on the heads and bodies, on the chests and forebreasts of the soldiers; on the bosses of their shields, on the hoods of the hauberks, on the baldrics of the breasts, so that thereby the Pompeians had many vigorous youths severely wounded, and soldiers killed, and fierce warriors mangled, and death-doomed men overthrown, and champions slain.

Great cries were then uttered by the Pompeians; but this did not shake the minds of Caesar's followers from the decision they had taken. Neither fear not flight nor weakness of nature came to them because of the multitude of the oppressions  p.215 and the abundance of the foreigners, and the shouting of their foes at every point around them. But they continued in their deadly anger and their phalanx of battle and their compact mass in the midst of their enemies, and each one striking them from east and west, from south and north, on their right hand and on their left.

They sustained that combat manfully. They waited on their foemen fearlessly. They saw no sequel to their lives, for they did not hope to live, and they determined to die, for they put their contest forward for their death. They plied (their weapons) valiantly on their enemies, so that the nearest ships were full of their maimed bodies and their corpses red with gore. The surface of the rough waves of the green sea around them was foam of blood and froth of gore; and four-wheeled chariots would run on the compact hurdle that grew and waxed in the centre of the fleet from the planking of the shattered ships, from the breakage and fragments of the bucklers fit for shieldburghs, from the handles of the strong oars, from the trimmed shafts of the spears and the darts and the edged javelins, so that it was difficult for the ships to move through them and over them.

When the Caesarians beheld those great slaughters, and when it seemed to them enough, they turned a way from their enemies. They ceased the killing of their foes, and each of them attacked another of their fellows in order that their enemies might not brag about them. Then spoke the chieftain, Vulteius, with a great voice—and while delivering the speech he cast his raiment from his breast. “O beloved youths”, quoth he, “draw nigh to me, and let me be killed by one of your good warriors, who is worthy to inflict death upon me, and who cares little for his own life, for it is certain that he will at once die by my hands.”

Unquestioningly that man was answered by his people. Not by one man alone was it left to inflict death upon him, but every man who reached him thrust the sword into his body. He began to speak graciously and to commend them all, and he suddenly raised his hand and, with the sharp-edged sword that he grasped, he dealt a felling blow to the man who first wounded him, and severed his head from the nape, so that his head and his trunk came at the same time on the floor of the great raft on which he was. In delivering that stroke a weighty blow fell from himself, so that his soul parted from his body, and thus he died.

When his people beheld that, each of them turns to another, and they perform at once their own share of the warfare and the share concerning the enemy, so that each took to killing and destroying another of them. Never was the like thereof save what is told in stories of the uprising and killing performed by the seed of Cadmus son of Agenor, or the magical men that appeared to Jason son of Aeson in the isle of Colchis, when they grew out of the teeth of the sleepless serpent which was guarding the Golden Fleece.

When the Pompeians saw their enemies behaving thus, mutually smiting themselves, they withheld their hands from them; for they marvelled much at the slaughter wrought by the Caesarians, namely, sparing their foes and killing themselves. That valourous deed was done roughly by them. Mightily did Death ply his powers upon them. No ill-aimed shot was made by them. No one there gave a counter-blow to another. At one time and one moment every man of them was overthrown, and each overthrew and slew another. He killed and was killed. They answered and delivered the blow. Such was their haste to death that they put their naked breasts under the points of the swords.

There the sons fell by their fathers' hands, the fathers by the sons, and one brother by another. They tumbled head against head and side against side on the floor of the raft, so that their outbursts of blood and their foam of gore filled the  p.219 sea around them and made thereof one crimson plain. Proud and heroic, joyful and scornful, was the look which those men when dying gave at their enemies, for they did not deign that their enemies should perceive that they deemed life brighter than death.

Ill-fated was that valiant deed of the Caesarians among themselves, for from the place in which were almost five hundred warriors, no fugitive escaped alive, nor one man to tell tidings of them. But they all fell together on the floor of the raft whereon they were. Never before in the world was there a crew of a single vessel that gained more distinction or fame or subsequent praise.

The Pompeians saw them afterwards in their vast heaps of rent and reddened corpses on the floor of the raft. Their spirit and their nature overcame them. Distress and great sadness arose in their hearts at beholding them. This they said, that they deemed it a great wonder and a mighty marvel that there were men in the world to love their lord like that, to wit, to kill themselves out of affection for him. They then towed the raft to land, and they buried the warriors' bodies in the island of Salona at the hollows of the harbours (?).

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Martyrdom of the Vulteians is the story's name.

15. The tragic death of Curio

Not less spirited than that was the conflict that grew up in the countries of Africa between the forces of the same generals. Thus did that happen. Caesar sent one of his lieutenants, together with two legions of his soldiers, to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily on the Tyrrhene sea, to seek provisions for him, as we have said before. The lieutenant's name was Curio. When he came to Sicily he determined to pass into the countries of  p.221 Africa, to seek wealth therein, and to withdraw it from the power of Pompey, under whose sway it had been till then.

So he unmoored his ships from the southern sea-shore of Sicily, and their sloping sail-canvasses were hoisted upon them, and they began joyfully, with the shrill cry (?) of the southerly wind, to traverse the sea towards Africa, slowly and straightly, till he took harbour and haven near the ancient city of Carthage.

Curio then came through the land and pitched a camp on the brink of the river Tigir (Bagrada?), a long distance up from the sea-haven. While the troops were settling their camp, Curios, together with a few of his bodyguard, went to scout and reconnoitre on a lofty hill which was above the camp. A peak of a great mountain-range, and a rough stony cliff, and many rough-headed rocks were above that hill. Very delightful was that place, and it was a point of outlook into all the country. Curio then began to visit one height after another, until one of the countryfolk came to him. Curio fell to a fitting converse with him, and the African warrior answered him. “Art thou acquainted with this country?” says Curio. “That am I indeed”, he answers. “Hast thou a story about its forts and its heights and its cities?” asks Curio. “Yea”, says the warrior, “such as our fathers and our grandsires have left with us.” “What then is the name of this hill whereon we are”, asks Curio, “and the name of this rock behind us?” “Truly”, says the warrior, ““the Rock of Antaeus” is the name of the rock, and the “Hill of the Struggle” is the name of the hill whereon thou art.” “Why are these names upon them?” asks Curio. “If it were not wearisome to thee I would tell thee all”, says the African warrior. “Tell it exactly”, says Curio.

“There was a wondrous champion in this country, who had neither father nor human mother, but was born out of the  p.223 breast of the earth. Antaeus son of Terra was his name. Great was the strength of that man. No human or humans could contend with him. When his strength was exhausted he used to lie down on the ground. When his side touched the earth his own strength used to return, so that he was filled with great courage by his original mother, to wit, the earth. But seldom did he need that, for no one was left who could endure his might. The inhabitants of the country fell at his hands, and no ship that visited this harbour below turned from it uninjured. So that the whole country was wasted by him, and no one durst come to it by land or by sea.”

“When the country was wasted around him, this was his food, the flesh of deer and wild animals and bears and lions, which he himself used to kill when touring the wilderness every day. This was his house and his bed, the huge cavern that is there in this rock. Neither covering nor branches nor sheet nor quilt, nor plaid nor animal's skin was on that bed; but his side was against the bare earth. Thence great courage came to him, so that on every day he had fresh vigour through touching his original mother, the earth. From him this rock is called the Rock of Antaeus, and the cave which is therein is Antaeus' Cave.”

“Now the fame and repute of that evil one finally spread through the four airts of the world. The same fame reached the place wherein was the champion and the rock of doom and the man whose conflict was unendurable, the furiously bold, great-spirited soldier, the high, glorious, angry warrior, to wit, Hercules the great son of Amphitryon. Now when Hercules heard of that calamity harrying Africa, he could not refrain from seeking him, for it was his custom to go and seek every place in the world where he heard there was a monster or an unendurable evil, and to cast it therefrom.”

“So he came at the bruit of the monster. Soon or late he reached this country and searched the whole land till he lighted on the champion's track towards his lair. Antaeus was not staying there, but was going round the land as was his custom. Since Hercules did not find him, he sat down on the top of this hill whereon ye are here. He had not waited long there, when he saw the champion passing by him towards his cave, bearing a great burden of hams and skins of bears and lions. He gazed on Hercules and took heed of him, for the make of the warrior whom he beheld was manly.”

“Then he goes to his cave, and casts off on the floor his load of venison, and began to anoint his body with oil and other smeary things, and with smooth-stiff grease, so that a hand was not more slippery on fish or ice than on every limb of him. Then he came to the place on this hill where Hercules was and challenged him to a wrestling-match. Skilful and cunning was Hercules in this art, for he was used to practise it greatly in the game of the Olympian Assembly. He rose up and cast his weapons away, and he also threw on the floor beside him the lion's skin that he wore, namely, the lion that he himself had killed in the sacred grove of Nemea.”

“Then each of them moved to the other, and they link their forearms, and give a valiant crash, so that one forehead struck against the other like the sounding blow of the door-valve of a royal fort against the doorpost.”

“They stretched and bound their huge, thick-wristed arms over throats and necks and shoulders. That was a conflict of two equal athletes! Fierce was the trouble (and) perturbation. Manly was the grasping and dragging which each of them inflicted on the other. 'Twas a great wonder and a mighty marvel to each that anyone on earth would answer him in that wise. For it seemed to each of them that there was no one  p.227 in the world to cope with him. Hercules began sparing greatly his strength against Antaeus, and did nothing but hold his own. Antaeus, however, took to wielding his might against Hercules without neglect, so that his sweat came, and his breath hurried, and his strong struggles, that is, his twists, grew rare.”

“When Hercules saw that, he closed his forearms round the small of Antaeus' back, and gave him a stretching and a strong, stubborn dragging and squeezing, so that he pressed breast against breast, and put his chin over his neck, and forced a knee into his fork, and broke all his private parts, and afterwards gave him a powerful throw, so that he lay upon the ground.”

“When his side touched the earth he promptly sucked up his sweat at once and renewed his vigour, and made a gallant spring at him, so that he loosed the hero's hands around him, and rose up mightily over Hercules. That was sorrow to Hercules, and he supposed that he would never vanquish Antaeus. Again they locked together. Much difficulty Hercules felt on this as on the former occasion. He had never met with the like of that conflict. At no time was it properer for his foes to rejoice, because of the might of the champion who opposed him. Howbeit Hercules manfully stands up (?) to the second combat with Antaeus until he began to weaken his opponent greatly. When Antaeus perceived that his vigour and might were exhausted, he lets himself, of his own accord, to the ground, and rose up at once with his fresh vigour in him.”

“Then did Hercules recognise that his vigour and his valour came to Antaeus by contact of the earth. Then Hercules began to overpower him mightily, and Antaeus tried again to let himself down on the ground. Hercules promptly anticipates him, clasps his arms around him, that his raises him aloft so feet did not touch the earth, and said to him: “Stay standing  p.229 thus”, quoth Hercules, “for henceforward thou wilt not be allowed to touch the earth. Fall to me on this side.””

“So spoke Hercules, and suddenly lifts Antaeus aloft, and squeezes him between his forearms and his sides, so that he made a marrowbath of his bones amid his skin, and did not let him to the ground till he cast his heart in draughts of blood and foaming clots of gore out over his lips.”

“In that struggle on this hill Antaeus got his death from Hercules. Wherefore, thenceforward it is called “the Hill of the Struggle”.” “Noble is that appellation”, says Curio.

“A name that is nobler than that is found”, says the African warrior, “to wit, “the Hill of the Disused Encampment” is another name of it.”

“Why then is this?” asks Curio.

“Easy to say”, answers the African warrior. “Scipio Africanus, together with the warriors of Rome, pitched a camp round this hill and round the fields of this river below where your camp is now situate. Seest thou not still there the trace of the entrenchment, and the site of the wall, and the butts of the stakes, and the places of the cow-fields, and the outlines of the great camp? Out of this the whole of Africa was raided and ravaged by him, and its armies were utterly destroyed, and the whole country shook.”

“Alas, O warrior”, says Curio, “what name hath yon great half-ruined city before us? Is it Carthage?”

“It is indeed”, says the African warrior.

“Why did not Scipio leave it in fair flourishing condition?” says Curio.

“Even the youths of that stead, were brave and numerous,” says the African warrior, “so they were all put to death by Scipio, and the walls of the city were razed by him, so that it is in the flourishing condition that thou seest.”

Great joy and strength of spirit came thence to Curio, for he deemed it a good omen that he had chanced on the camp out of which Africa was subdued by Scipio. Then he came to his people cheerfully and spiritedly, and sat down among them in his camp.

There was then a choice lieutenant as Pompey's deputy in Africa. His name was Varus. He heard that Curio had arrived in Africa. He at once collected his soldiers and all the Roman youths near him in the south. There was an excellent warrior at that same time reigning with the Africans. Juba was the name of that king. Never in Africa had there been a king with greater territory, for it was under his yoke from sunset and Mount Atlas in the west to the bounds of Asia in the east, and from the northern borders of the Tyrrhene sea in the north to the southern bounds of the fiery zone in the south. A rooted foe to Curio was that man, for Curio, when he possessed power and influence in the Roman senate, had attempted to dethrone him.

So when Juba heard that Curio was in Africa his armies were gathered to him, to avenge his injury on Curio. And such was the weight and strength of the Roman rule in Africa that he was more anxious to co-operate in promoting dissension among the Romans than peace.

So then, in a very short space of time, many numerous armies came to Juba. There came the Autololes. The Numidians came: the Gaetulians, those men who never use saddles under them. Then came the swarthy peoples of the Moors. There came the Marmaridae. Came the folk of the Nasamones. Came there the people of the Garamantes. Came there the people of the Mazagians. Came there the people of the Massyli and the folk of all the rest of Africa.

Then Juba, the king of the Africans, came with that great army and pitched a camp at the edge of the plain where Curio was posted. Varus the lieutenant came with his troops and pitched camp at the other end of the same plain. When Curio heard of that great host coming towards him, fear and dread filled him at the multitude of the armies that came to him to the tryst of battle, and at Juba's strong desire to take vengeance for the injury done in dethroning him. Yet Curio did not deem it proper to march against his foes, to the mutual swording of battle, with the fragment of an army that chanced to be along with him. For they were not of Caesar's original soldiers, but a mixture of an army that had been gathered out of the town of Corfinium and out of the other citadels that Caesar seized in Italy.

Howbeit, no one perceived that trembling fear on Curio; but by a good voice and boldness of nature and power of eloquence in the presence of his forces he wrought so that they did not suppose (there was) any thought of fear in his mind. This then was the plan he formed, to act boldly and to take his forces without delay to their enemies, so that when they reached the place of conflict they should have only one resolve, namely, to deliver battle.

With that he decided on that plan, and donned his armour, and brought his troops under arms out of the camp to the midst of the plain. There the commandant of Africa, Varus, happened to be with his people face to face on the plain, seeking the camp in which was Curio. It seemed to him that he would find him there. Then they came together, and a rough merciless combat is fought between them, so that Varus and his people were routed to their tents, and Curio's force smote their backs, without resting, without turning, until the fortifications of the camp prevented them.

That was told to Juba the overlord of Africa. He rejoiced that Curio's overthrow had not been made in his absence, and that Curio had not been routed in battle until he, Juba, should have come towards him. On that night Curio returned to his own camp with great triumph and vast gladness. This is the plan that Juba, king of Africa, formed: to come that night at once with his troops out of the camp. He turns forward silently, quietly, noiselessly, till he reached the great steep valley that lay in the very midst of the plain, and there kept back the battle until the twilight of early morning came on the morrow.

Now when the first light of the day came to him, Juba arranged his troops and made ordered battalions of them, and got ready concealedly in the forks of the valley and in the passes of the hills around him. He sent forward his cavalry, with Sabura the tanist of the Numidians, to Curio's camp, to provoke the men of the camp to fight and to beguile them to the battle-ambushes which the king had arranged against them. Never was there the like of that stratagem which he ordered, save the way asps are hunted in the districts of Egypt in the south. Those are a kind of serpents, with precious stones in their faces, and their own dwelling is in clefts of rocks and in caverns of the earth. The hound that is hunting (them) puts his tail into the den in which is one of those serpents. When the serpent sees the shadow of the tail, it thrusts its head out of the den. Then from the lintel of the den the hound grasps the throat on the side behind its venom; so in that wise it is beguiled from its abode. In like manner, then, Juba, king of Africa, sent a few horse-soldiers to hunt Curio and to invite him out of his camp to the great army which he had prepared against him.

That wile was not “a wile without success”. For Curio enjoined his cavalry to sally that night out of their quarters and  p.237 traverse the level of the plain before the other army. Then when the first light of dawn shone, he ordered his troops to rise, and they issued from their tents, and raised up their weapons of battle, and pressed after the horsemen into the plain.

When Curio's cavalry reached the centre of the plain Sabura and the African horsemen met them at once. They maintain a quarrelsome combat with them until Curio with his whole force came up to them. Thereat the Africans took to feigned flight to the valley in which their battalions were drawn up ahead of them.

When Curio and his force saw that, they began striking them behind them, eagerly and zealously, till they reached the centre of the plain. They heard the clangor of the curving-sided smooth-bright trumpets, the noise of the horns and the bugles and the battle-pipes. They saw the unfurled flags, and the beautiful winged banners, and the fiery splendour of the fearful, naked arms above the arrayed battalions on every airt and every point, east and west, south and north, before and behind them. A sanguinary circle and a virulent shieldburgh, and a warlike fold were made of the Africans' battalions all round about the valley; so that the Romans had neither road nor path out of it unless they mined the earth beneath them, or went flying into the air above them, or unless they went against armed soldiers outnumbering them a hundred-fold, with the intention on the part of everyone of them of all being slain.

Curio was silent, seeing the overwhelming force. All his people are silent. Unfair was the feat which they then performed.  p.239 They did not attempt to do good or evil. They did not try to flee, or smite mutually, or do battle, so great was their shock and horror at the number and array which their enemies poured on the valley around them from every point, without their having seen or overheard them till then.

Reason had the soldiers that heartbeating filled them in that wise, for the same terror affected even the senseless herds of horses that they had, so that no courage of nature nor greatening of spirit came to them at the mingled cry which they heard of the blare of the trumpets, and the din of the steeds, and the shouting of the soldiers, the whistling of the red-pointed darts, the screaming of the edged javelins, the strong cry of the linen, full-right mailcoats, the striking together of the bucklers fit for shieldburghs, the clashing of the hard-sharp, wide-grooved swords, the clamour of the multitude commencing the conflict at one time and in one movement. The horses of Curio's troops, hearing that great and fierce uproar, retreated and turned; and it made timid, weary, panting, inactive chargers of them, so that they failed to answer their spurring or their goading.

Now when the Africans saw them behaving thus, they shouted together upon them, and moved unquestionably towards them, both footsoldiers and cavalry, so that ashes and dust were made of the field-roads which they traversed, and dim dark clouds of black mist grew over them, and the gathered mass of the dust rose above the breaths of the steeds and the warriors pressing forward on the road to attack their enemies.

Thereby the Romans were hemmed in, and a warlike circle of the youth of Africa was made around them, so that they  p.241 had no outlet of escape. Equally then from every point were they smitten with arrows from bows, with flagstones from hands, with round slingstones, with broad-edged spears, with thick-shafted javelins, with soldiers' broad-long lances, with warriors' clubsticks, with wide-grooved swords, with darts warlike, bitter-spitted, sharp-pointed.

Thereby were compact mailcoats loosened, and beautiful helmets broken, and shields shattered, and sides pierced, and bodies maimed, and youths severely wounded, and death-doomed men overthrown, and fierce warriors lacerated, and soldiers killed, and heroes' bodies on a litter of gore. Each of the Romans was then cast against another, so that a globular mass was made of them among the Africans in the midst of the valley. They were then thrust, pressed together, pushed, strongly beaten; so that none of them could use his shield, or wield his sword, or plant his spear, or move his hands.

The timid man whom fear was enjoining to leave the edge of the fight and go into the midst of his people, could not reach the path on which he should go until the spears and swords of his own people were athwart through him, so that nothing was left for them but to suffer his death. For they could not wield their weapons in the narrow room in which they were; and even though their foes did not ply their weapons upon them, they would fall from the mutual blows and striking of their swords, with their own breasts against others. The entrails and the mangled corpses, and the hateful dead men were standing up against the living, for they had no way of falling to the ground, because of the force with which their enemies had crushed each against another of them.

However, the joy of the Africans was greatly diminished by not seeing the fate which their own weapons brought upon the Romans. For in that fight the Romans had abundant streams of blood, and clots of gore, and heaps of bones, and (severed) hands of warriors, and half-heads hacked, and bowels and entrails crushed under feet. Until then the Africans had never taken vengeance on the Romans for the dethronement of Hannibal, or the raiding of Africa, or all their other injuries. God knows, wondrous was the deed that happened there! to wit, the slaughter which the foes of the Romans inflicted upon them, the benefit and service which it was to the Roman general, Pompey.

Thereafter the air shone and brightened above the hosts, since the wind swept from them the gloomy clouds of dust that lay over them, for the rills of crimson blood and the streampools of gore filled the earth beneath them and flowed in red rivers over it, so that neither dust nor ashes rose aloft therefrom.

Thereat Curio beheld those great slaughters and all his people, without a fugitive to tell tidings of them, simultaneously falling to death in his presence. His nature could not bear to see them and not to have means of helping them. He threw himself down on the ground, strongly, unweariedly: a gore-burst of his heart broke in his breast; and death entered the midst of the soldier. On every point around him his people fell, so that not one of them escaped to tell their tale.

Good was the man that fell there among them, namely Curio. Never in Rome grew one of the same age who would have been better than he, had he not marred himself, and deserted the senate, and sold Rome and the regal authority to Caesar for sake of gold and wealth. It befel him there to be deserted  p.245 by the fatherland which he had deserted, and his noble, high-born body, together with the bodies of his people, to be in foreign lands without honour of lament or burial, under the feet of the dogs and packs of wolves and foxes and kites and birds and strange winged things of Africa.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. Curio's tragic Death is the name of the story.

16. The Tragic Death of Appius

Fortune kept those two chieftains, Pompey and Caesar, equally poised between prosperity and adversity, during that season. Then came the day of the calends of January and the beginning of the new year. That is the time at which the Romans always changed consuls and wardens and lieutenants, and the orderings of warfare and hosting. Now at that time the Romans had two choice consuls whose names were Lentulus and Agellus. Till then the term of their consulate extended, nevertheless they still convened the assembly of the army, and the business of the senate, and the ordering of the regal authority on that day.

Where that great meeting was convened was in Epirus in the districts of Magna Graecia, for, dreading Caesar, they durst not visit Rome. Important ordinances were made by the Romans at that meeting. They determined that Pompey so long as he lived should have the chief command. They appointed wardens and lieutenants over the provinces of the world to levy their tribute and to muster towards the great battle the hosts that had been at first under their control, namely, the many nations of Africa and the numerous hosts of Asia and the whole of the East—for Caesar had seized the supremacy of the world from Rome westward.

Then they broke up that assembly of Epirus, and they all, save only one man, Appius a lieutenant of the Pompeians, went together, following Pompey towards the great battle. This is the plan of which Appius thought, to go and ask prophets and wizards which of the generals would have good or evil of that great warfare, so that he might help the one whose success was the greater.

The way he went to make that enquiry was to the very centre of the world, the temple of Apollo on Mount Parnassus. This is the answer he got from Apollo's priestess: that he should find his protection from the perils of that great battle and that he would have rest from warfare in the valley of the Euboean side.

What he hence inferred was that he would gain the realm of Euboea. Howbeit that was not the real significance; but when he was on the Euboean sea, approaching the land, a great storm fell upon him, so that his ships were shattered and he himself was drowned. The seawave bore his body to land, and he was buried in a valley of the country of Euboea. So in that wise Apollo's prophecy was fulfilled.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The tragical Death of Appius is the name of that story.

17. The Adventures of Caesar

While that great business was being transacted at every point, Caesar was conquering Spain and the west of the world till he had finished, and they all submitted to him and came into the mustering of the great battle. Then he fared forward out of the regions of Spain to lead his armies after Pompey and contend with him for the east of the world. Then his own soldiers mutinied dangerously against him, and tried to  p.249 turn upon him, and they all resolved at once to leave him, for they deemed their toil in battle overgreat, and (also) because of the smallness of their pay.

Haughty was Caesar's answer to those men. Nevertheless they were cleverly stayed by him, and when they had decided on remaining, those who had falsified counsel and the authors of the sedition and the revolt were separated from them and beheaded, in Caesar's presence, in the centre of the camp.

Thereat, when Caesar had made his armies firm, he sent forward Antony, a leader of his people, together with the pick of his force, and ordered them to reach on the tenth day the city of Brundisium on the brink of the Adriatic sea on the northern coast of the land of Latium. He enjoined them to collect all the vessels which they should find on the rivers Hydrus and Taras, and on the strands of the cities of Leuca and Sipus, and in the havens of the whole Adriatic sea near Mount Garganus, so that they might be ready, seaworthy and prepared to go up out of them to the Adriatic sea, and to wrest Greece and the East from Pompey.

Caesar himself, however, came to Rome together with a few of his soldiers, and he appointed himself to all the Roman ranks of honour from decán to dictator. Then he went to the other chief city of Italy, Alba Longa, and therein he perfected all the rites of his consulate, as was usual.

Thence he marched to the city of Brundisium to meet Antony with his people. They, however, did not come so readily to the city of Brundisium. To wait for them seemed tedious to Caesar. On this, then, he settled. He brought his fleet on the Adriatic sea and proceeded with his troops till he took haven and harbour in Epirus in the regions of Magna Graecia.

Epirus, that is a province in Greece. It has the name  p.251 Ceraunia. It is (also) called Molossia. At that time the Roman senate and Pompey were therein.

So then Caesar landed and pitched his camp, face to face with Pompey's camp, between the rivers Genusus and Apsus. That was the first district in which their camps met after the breach of peace between them; and so near were they in camp that each was hearing the other's voice, and every man saw another in each of the two camps. This is what delayed the battle then, the failure of Antony with his soldiers to come to Caesar. Great was Caesar's distress and impatience because those troops had not joined him. He sent despatches and writings to Antony to reprimand him and to entreat him to come quickly with his troops to the battle.

This is the purport of those writings: “Conferment of life, and inquiry as to health from Caesar the lord of the world, to his loyal leader and his faithful followers, namely, to Antony with his soldiers! O Antony”, quoth Caesar, “why dost thou retard the Fates and the success, for we are quite ready if only you would come to us. No hardship is it for thee to come quickly to my aid. Neither in Africa, nor in Spain nor in the far-off places of the world am I importuning thee or hastening thee; but (thou art) in the neighbouring districts of Italy, near to me, with no land of warfare or perilous sea between us. Take heed that we do not persuade thee to go to a pitched battle, we being absent. But we are calling on thee to come with us to the fight, I myself being before thee on the battle-field.”

“A strange thing it is, that I should enter my foemen's territories without fear, while thou, as seems to us, art afraid of coming into my camp, Ah do not forbid one of my own people to come to me, for if I know them, though the sea were stormy they would more willingly repair to my arms than  p.253 remain away from me. We cannot relate to thee without grief and lamentation of our heart. Unequally have we shared the world, the senate and I and Pompey with our armies in Epirus only, while the whole of Italy belongs to thee alone. Consider thou if that be just.”

So far Caesar's communications with Antony, and he did not cease from them, but sent messengers, one after another, to Antony. Yet nevertheless Antony came not. That was a great heartbreak to Caesar, and this is the plan of which he thought, namely, when the third hour of the night arrived, he rose from his bed and fared forward alone to the shore of the sea. There he found a small vessel with a lengthy cable out of it attached to the land, and the master of the vessel in a narrow hut built of reeds on the edge of the shore. Caesar struck a blow of the knocker on the door of that house. The frugal master of the house—Amyclas was his name—answered: “Who is it that wakens us at this hour?” says Amyclas: “who is it that expects any valuable from us? No one has business with us, unless some shipwrecked man has come hither from a wave or a rock.”

That is what he said; and he rose from his couch, and put a flaming rope under the saved-up fuel, and it blazed. He opened the door to Caesar, without fear or dread. Hence is manifest the goodness and ease of the frugal life; for though the camps of the world's armies were close to that house, this would not have caused its master trouble or anxiety, for he possessed neither herds nor treasures.

Then Caesar entered the house and said: “O warrior, if thou do what I shall tell thee, good is the godsend that has befallen thee. Thou wilt have great prosperity and a distinguished life with me, if I obtain from thee what I desire.”  p.255 “What dost thou demand of me?” says Amyclas. “To come with me into this little vessel below and to carry me into the districts of Italy.”, Caesar answers. “Not easy is what thou demandest of me”, says Amyclas; “for there are signs of storm on the sea, and moreover no fair wind has come along with us. However, if thou hast a great and genuine necessity, I am ready for thee (to do) as thy lips say. It is not I that will delay, unless the winds or the sea refuse thee.”

Thereat they launched their little vessel on the bitter-green brine, and began to pass slowly over the blue-fringed Adriatic sea between Epirus and Italy. A mighty storm was found and a vast injury therefrom. Never before was there found on the sea an escape from a danger like to that danger, to wit, being in the tiny vessel on the enormous sea in the ruinous tempest. Yet that great peril was undauntedly endured by Caesar. Little was his voice lowered, or his nature (depressed), when suffering that great danger.

They were thus on the point of death for the space of the night till morning, until on the morrow, in the early morning, the wave cast them again into the harbour of Epirus. It seemed to Caesar like a kingdom without opposition when his foot touched the land at that hour. Then he turned to his camp, taking with him Amyclas, who so long as he lived, never lost Caesar's favour.

Thereafter at daybreak a great calm came upon the sea. When Antony and his army saw that, they unmoored their slenderprowed, wide-breasted barques, and roomy, long-blue galleys forth from the harbour of the city of Brundisium, and began to voyage over the Adriatic sea straight to Epirus. The sail drove them past the island of Lissa, till they arrived in the harbour of the Nymphaeans in the country of Epirus.

Now when Pompey heard that all Caesar's forces had come to him in one place, he was sure and certain that they would not separate on that occasion save by some decision of battle. This is the plan he then formed, to send the high queen Cornelia, together with the ladies in his camp, away by sea to the isle of Lesbos, so that howsoever Fortune would distinguish between him and Caesar on the day of the great battle, the high queen and the noblewomen might be in a safe place, resting in that island.

Pompey and Cornelia were reluctant to sever in that wise. Sad, fearful, troubled, tearful, mournful was their converse and their colloquy on the night before they parted, without sleep, without rest till early morning; and on the morrow her household and her trusty retainers took her to the island of Lesbos: and she did not stir out of that island until the great battle was delivered.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Adventures of Caesar is the name of the story.

18. The Tragical Death of Scaeva

When the camps of the (two) generals came near and close to each other, each of them cast an eye over his army, and reviews were held of troops and horses and weapons. His soldiers urged Caesar to march on to wreck Greece and take its ramparts and citadels and cities, and said that if Pompey should come to contend with them they would attack him without neglect. That, however, seemed naught to Caesar, and he put every thing aside save reaching Pompey; for he knew that if he defeated Pompey he would possess Greece and the whole world. He rejected every counsel that was offered to him except to seek the great evil, and to get to the gambling of the Fates and Fortune and the one common danger of all the world, to wit, the site of the great battle.

Then for three successive days he brought his ordered battalions under their battle-arms, and planted their standards on the height above Pompey's camp in a tryst of war to Pompey and his army. Pompey declared that though Caesar desired it, he would not come the more quickly to the battle until he was ready for fighting as if he had (superior) force. Caesar, however, when he received out of Pompey's camp no reply as to battle, turned with his troops to wreck the land of Greece and to shake and raid its fortresses and cities and citadels.

At first then he turned to the fortress of Dyrrachium, the city in which Pyrrhus son of Achilles dwelt, on the shore of the Ionian Sea, in the border of Greece. It is one of all the world's chief fortresses. A stony, craggy island, with the Ionian Sea on every point around it, save only a single rocky footridge therein. Neither hands of wrights nor human labour had strengthened that fortress, but blue, perilous rock-cliffs, and basic crags everlasting ever-high from the beginning of the world and from the time of the Flood on every side around it, so that its destruction would be hard, even though there were no valiant host a-guarding it.

Caesar directed his soldiers through the rough, difficult, thorny fields of Greece towards this steading. When Pompey heard that, he marched with his troops, beside the sea on the levels of the shore, and arrayed his troops and his camps at the fortress of Dyrrachium before Caesar came at all near him. When Caesar saw that the place had been seized by Pompey, he was pondering in his mind what plan he should form. He began to reconnoitre and survey the land on every side.

This is the design that he made, to build a strong wall of stone over all the land from one sea to another (and thus)  p.261 to enclose and surround Pompey and his troops in the narrow place in which he was. No mounds of mere clay or sods were built there by Caesar, but the stones and the rocks of the neighbouring districts were dragged and gathered to him. The ramparts and great strongholds of the side near to Greece were loosened and sundered. Thereof he builds an unspeakable, vast structure, to wit, a high wall, broad, full-strong, that would be hard to destroy by battering-rams or by any engine for rending strongholds in the whole world. High towers and turrets of conflict and many block-houses were built over it above. A fulldeep trench was dug on one side of it from one end to the other. Vast was the bulk of that work! Pompey with his troops used to make shiftings and changes of camp in the midst of it. Such was the length of the structure that the rivers and streams that arose there used to be exhausted and go under ground again in the midst thereof. And when Caesar came to go round that work he used not to get, in one whole day, from one end to the other to a camp in the middle between its two extremities.

Never in the world had there been built ramparts like that wall. Never was there any desire (?) to equal with it the walls of Troy or of Babylon. Yet let no one wonder that that great work was achieved by Caesar in so short a time; for though great was the labour many were the workers. Such were the multitude of Caesar's troops and the spirit of his soldiers, that if he had imposed it as labour, they would have made traversable land of the surface of the Tyrrhene sea, from the isle of Sestos in the territory of Europe to the isle of Abydos in a port of Africa. Or they would have brought the main-sea in its burst of flood-tide and severed the shore of Epirus from the lands of Greece. Or they would have moved any spot  p.263 in the world that they liked to a place whither they preferred it to go. And in doing so they would have met with no opposition.

Caesar established a position and a camp very near that fortification. Videttes and spies on Pompey's army were stationed at every point of the wall. Pompey, however, knew not that this work was being done by Caesar until its strengthening was sufficiently complete. Now when Pompey perceived that the fragment of land which he occupied was beleaguered and enclosed, he brought his multitudinous army out of the security of the fortress of Dyrrhachium, and posted orderly bands and arrayed battalions against the wall, in order that Caesar's force might be scattered and thinned by manning the wall against them. And the extent of the ground which Pompey's battalions occupied after they were arrayed, elbow to elbow, beside the wall, was the extent of the land between the bounds of Rome and the city of Aricia in Italy, or the extent of the ground which the river Tiber traverses from the ramparts of Rome to the Tyrrhene sea, provided it take (its course) direct, without winding or straying therein.

This is that whole common measure, namely, twenty-two miles of a thousand paces, or nine leagues according to the French measure.

So then Caesar's people and Pompey's people were thus, face to face, for a long time, without any battling or contending between them. This is the cause: a great pestilential disease and an unendurable plague entered Pompey's camp, to wit, a sudden illness, which first attacked the horses so that some of them died with their bits of grass in their mouths, and others in the midst of their course, and so that it was hard for their riders to preserve themselves by leaping from them at the time of the pestilence. The entrails of the horses putrefied, and filled the air of the land with stench and evil smell.

The poison of that polluted air fell also on the waters and the rivers of the country, and a violent pestilence attacked the humans of the camp through drinking those waters and sucking in the smell of the air. Such was the violence of the pestilence that friends would not perform the burial of the corrupted corpses, so that they were mingled with the living in the huts of the camp. Wherefore there was still an increase of that pestilence. At last such was the soreness of the pestilence that it was a great honour for friends only to throw the corpses out over the camp.

But the vicinity of the sea helped them greatly. For the rough winds of the green sea swept away from them the pestiferousness and the stench of the air. The havens too, were filled with merchant-vessels laden with much wine and abundance of all other supplies from the provinces of Asia and the whole Orient: so that they had no scarcity of food or of (other) good things.

To Caesar's army, however, though it did not suffer from pestilence, there came a plague that was less easily endured, namely, famine after their provisions were exhausted. Moreover, the corncrops of the country did not come to them in their proper ripeness. The Caesarians were therefore unable to make far-off raids or destructions. All they could do was to guard the fortress and to beleaguer Pompey's troops. So great was the famine that they were devouring the grass and leaves along with their own horses, and were consuming strange herbs which had never before reached human tables. For all that, they did not quit their camps or their posts of beleaguerment, although it (the famine) was unendurable.

Pompey, however, when activity and strength came to his troops after the pestilence had left them, made this plan: to  p.267 leave the strip of land in which he was posted, and to attack the wall which had been built to besiege him. Verily, 'tis in kingly wise that attack was made by Pompey, for it was made neither in hidden stealth, nor in darkness of mist or night, but in the presence of his foes in the very midst of the day. He did not deign to assault the wall in any way except through the spears and swords of his enemies, after destroying their heroes and inflicting slaughter upon them.

However, he was choosing the place in the wall that for him was most practicable. On this he settled, to attack it at the castles of Minucius. So he directed manifestly towards that part of the wall his innumerable force in their serried, firm, arrayed, battalions. Their trumpets were sounded, and their noisy bugles, and their warning horns, and their battle-pipes, at one time and in one movement. A “chilly wakening of foes” was brought by them on the guards of that place, who went forthwith on their turrets of fighting and towers of contention.

They began to survey the plain, and saw coming towards them the beautiful winged standards, and the open banners, and the shapes of eagles, and the satin flags over the spears, and the fields full of the bosses of shields, and of the woods of spears, and of armed men. From this they turned and retreated.

Startling of death and dread of destruction filled them, so that it was needless for their foes to ply their weapons upon them. Pompey's troops drew near the wall, and torches and piny lights red-flaming were put under the supports of the turrets and the towers of contention, so that they were trembling and unsteady, falling to the ground; and there was no cessation of casting and battering upon them.

The Pompeians then came on the top of the wall, and they saw as much as the eye could reach of the great country on every side. But there is something still, the place that the  p.269 thousand bands had not gained, and in which there were some Caesarians before Pompey's force, a certain Caesarian warrior gained, and he by himself surpassed them all in valour. For so long as he was standing, with his weapons grasped in his hand, he let none of Pompey's army past him, and, denied Pompey himself his triumph.

Scaeva was the name of that warrior: a choice soldier of the Romans was that man; and a deedful champion. He was, like any (other) soldier along with Caesar in the army until one time Caesar came to conquer the dwellers by the river Rhone in the districts of Gaul. In conquering those nations Scaeva displayed great valour, and excelled all the soldiers along with him until the nations submitted to Caesar. He was then made a centurion by Caesar, and thenceforward he remained in Caesar's favour, without severing from him, until this day. A good warrior to his own lord was that man. A man devoted to do everything evil and everything good that his lord enjoined upon him. He knew not that anything he would do would be the worse for him, provided his lord entrusted it to him.

When that man saw his people preparing to flee before Pompey's troops, he began to blame them and spur them on greatly: “Whither, O youths, is fear driving you?” says he. “Till today the way ye proceed, namely flight, is unknown to Caesarians. O base slaves and O servile cattle”, quoth he, “it is hateful of you to flee without yet having shed your blood. Are ye not ashamed that your bodies will not be counted among the bodies of your comrades and fellow-soldiers when Caesar will be paying us the honour of burial? Even though ye do no good for love of your lord or your honour, at least  p.271 let anger urge you to act bravely, for Pompey inflicted a great insult upon us, when he attacked the place in which we were rather than any place on the whole wall.”

“By my word, this day shall not pass without plenteous shedding of his people's blood in requital of this (insult). I should welcome death were Caesar in presence of my deeds. It is not my luck for him to be before me. Pompey, however, will see what good I shall do, and will praise my deeds when I shall fall. Set your breasts against your enemies' weapons, and act boldly, for help will come to you readily, because Caesar will see the dust of the horse-hosts and will hear the shouts of the battle. Then the man will come to avenge us, while we ourselves are gaining a glorious death after showing valour in the battle.”

Then Scaeva arose manfully on the top of the turret and began to show great bravery. From the tops of the turrets and the towers of conflict he was hurling on the heads of his enemies both beams and stones and the bodies of slain warriors. He was taking great leaps (?) aloft, and often threatened his foes that he would fling himself with his weapons against them. Some of his foes he repels with the poles and sharp-pointed stakes of the block-houses, and others with bars and palings and long thick bolts, with their spikes of iron round their tops.

Thereafter great bodies of the Pompeians began to scale the upper parts of the turrets. Scaeva saw them and bared his hard-sharp, broad-grooved sword out of its warlike sheath, and began to cut off their hands and their arms, so that they fell in their lopped masses on the heads of his fellow-soldiers, and in falling crushed their heads and their bodies and their shields. Moreover, the spears were through them athwart.

Alike then were their hands cut off by the sword, and their heads and bones crushed by stones and front-attacking rocks, and their hair and their beards and whiskers and cheeks were burnt by flaming lights and firebrands of pine and half-burnt lance-points.

When the corpses and entrails of the slain men rose so that they were in heaps and vast mounds beside the wall, and Scaeva could not attain to strike at his foes past them or over them, he made a hero's leap from the place on which he was, and nimbly sprang with the vehemence of the African lion springing over the serried hunting-spears, so that he lighted standing-up in the centre of a battalion of his enemies. Then from the midst he began making play upon them, and he was striking them, forward and backward, with his right hand and with his left. He sought every path where he saw resistance. Every path on which he looked used to break before him.

Then his sword was gapped and blunted on the bones of heroes and the teeth of men and the necks of soldiers and the bosses of shields and the chains of hauberks and the crest-borders of helmets, so that he had no sword-play; and it was neither cutting nor cleaving nor mangling that he was doing, but pounding and crushing and breaking and killing.

When his foes saw him at that feat, destroying their troops, they formed a death-fold around him on every side. They strengthened and packed themselves, and they brought the cruel, combative battalion at once upon him. A novel, unusual battle was fought there, namely, the many thousands battling against one man. They all simultaneously cast their spears upon him. None of the spears went astray, but all remained, like equally tall bristles, in the hero's skin and in the loops of his hauberk. Thereafter he was not allowed to  p.275 raise his head, but they began to strike him from every point with castings of spears and darts, and thrusting of lances from hands of warriors, and deadly blows of foemen, so that the striking made a broken fragment of his shield before him, and small diminished bits of his helmet round his head, and rivets torn, and thin, pierced and scattered scrapings of his hauberk round his sides; so that there was nothing to hold in his bowels or his entrails but the palisade of riveted, long-thick spears that were athwart through his skin.

It were great folly thenceforward to cast spears or darts upon him, for they did not remain in him, but went running through him on the tracks of the other spears and darts. But it would be equal strength and it would be meet for them (to bring) towards him, to overturn him, a battering-ram or an engine for loosening ramparts, because he was a strong impregnable wall, stopping Pompey on Caesar's behalf.

Then Scaeva flung his shield from him and began to join in the fray on his right and his left, with his palisade of edged javelins through him athwart, so that he had not a human form, but was as if he were one of the monsters of the sea. Very sorrowfully, and very wearily was he putting some of his weapons away and choosing which of his foes he should attack, so that he and they might fall together to death. Nothing was then like him, save what the African elephant is said to be when in battle he is struck by many missiles, and he shakes off those missiles without any bloodshedding after them because of the bony nature in the elephant's body as regards the shedding of blood. Thus then was it with Scaeva, for though the missiles pierced his body and his flesh from the outside, yet his strength or his spirit or his internal forces neither ebbed nor abated; and though many were the spears and darts through him, they all had not yet caused his death.

'Tis then that a Cretan warrior launched an arrow at him. The arrow took a terrible course and sped to him straight and purposely; and no one expected it to be placed as it happened: for it fell on the top of Scaeva's left eye and pierced his brain in the middle of his head. Scaeva at once plucked the arrow out of his head, and brought the eyeball, after breaking its roots, forth on the barbs of the arrow. He dashes them down on the ground, and tramples them with his heel against them, so that he hid them altogether under the earth.

Nought was there like him there save what is told of the ferocious bear when hurt: it grinds its teeth against the spear by which it is wounded, and casts it away in broken fragments. The blood and the brain then began to drop together over Scaeva's face. A mighty shout of triumph was then given by Pompey's army, for at that time to have wounded Caesar himself in their presence would not have caused them greater pleasure.

Then said Scaeva to them: “O dear citizens, spare me henceforward: for enough is what ye have done to me. Ye need not add to my wounds, but ye need only draw out the spears that are supporting me. Carry out a kindly counsel: come to me and carry me alive into Pompey's camp that everyone may deem my desertion a desertion from Caesar and a submission to Pompey before death.”

A good warrior, named Aulus, one of Pompey's special followers, who was in front of Scaeva in the battle, believed that (falsehood), and came to him to carry him with his weapons. But Scaeva gave him a blow with his sword, down to the base of his tongue, and took his back-sinews (?) through it. At this Scaeva's spirit arose and he said: “Let everyone who thinks that I have deserted my lord come hither that I may treat him  p.279 the same way. If Pompey desires to get peace from this sword, let him lower his standards and kneel to Caesar. Hence it is certain that he will not get peace from me. Did ye think, O Pompeians, that I have your own nature? By our word, to work the will of Pompey and the senate is not dearer to you than to die for Caesar's sake is to me.”

Thereat the Pompeians saw coming towards them the heavy clouds and the dust of great mists over the heads of troops above the plain. It seemed to them that it was Caesar with his cohorts who came there. So they were driven from the place of conflict, and they left the site of the battle to Scaeva. Then Scaeva fell, since his wrath abated when his foes withdrew from him, and his soul parted from his body. That was no death from cowardice: it would be a death from deeds of valour and heroism, had it been from enemies at first that he gained a victory, and had he not died in waging a conflict of the Civil War. His body was then carried away by his people; they took his foemen's weapons out of his sides, and dedicated his own weapons to Mars, the god of battle.

Now although on that side Pompey's army was repulsed, not the more did it rest from the fighting, even as the great sea is not wearied, though some of its waves are driven back from the top of a rock, or the side of a cliff or a high mountain. For the sea rests not from continually beating with its billows, though it be far thereto. Thus then was it with Pompey in destroying that wall, for he came on towards the fortress at the end of the wall near the sea, (which was held) by the Caesarians.

He ordered a mighty host in ships (to be) destroying it, while his footsoldiers and cavalry were (attacking it) on land; and he never ceased till he had made great, ruinous battle-breaches therein, and brought his troops over them into the great plain. Immoderately were those troops scattered throughout the plain, after they had gone out over the wall: as swiftly and immoderately as the flood of the river Padus scatters over its shores and spreads over the neighbouring districts.

Caesar, however, knew nothing of that combat being fought until it had ended, and he recognised the signal-fire which was kindled by the lookout-men after Pompey with his troops had passed out over the wall. He came at once to the place where the fire was kindled, and saw the great battle-breaches open, and the track of the hosts, and the ramparts rased. And then he saw Pompey's camps joyously, peacefully posted on the levels of the plain before him.

That Pompey should have rest was to Caesar a great breaking of spirit and nature. His wrath allowed him not to await his troops without attacking Pompey's camp; for he even wished a slaughter to be inflicted on his men provided he disturbed the great rejoicings that were in the camps. So with the few troops that stayed along with him he rushed at once on the top of the neighbouring camp of Torquatus, a good leader of the Pompeians. Torquatus, perceiving Caesar coming to him, forthwith collected his people as speedily and nimbly as sailors would take in the sails of their ships on perceiving sea-danger near them, or at the wind turning upon them.

Caesar had just crossed the ramparts of Torquatus' camp when the men in Pompey's great leaguer perceived him.  p.283 Then Pompey arose and sent forth the battalions serried, arrayed one after another, to succour Torquatus. When Caesar perceived that, he turned suddenly away from Torquatus' camp, and in turning he chanced to come with the few that followed him against the battalion wherein was Pompey. At this, fear and dread and great trembling filled the Caesarians, seeing the overwhelming force and the unendurable onfall, to wit, Pompey's many battalions coming to them in front and the men of Torquatus' camp arrayed and watching behind them.

This then is the counsel they took, not to attack the superior force. But they came in their course and in their proper valorous fashion to the battalions outside. And they were full-thankful to reach, with their souls in their bodies, those of them that were not destroyed. Good reason they had, for if Pompey had allowed his soldiers to ply upon them “the protection of their swords”, the Civil War, and all the evils that grew from it in Rome, would, from that day forth, have ceased for ever. Alas, not insignificant was the loss of the Caesarians, although they were spared, for 4050 warriors fell and 22 centurions in that onslaught, from beginning to end.

This is what induced Pompey to spare them: he deemed it a disgrace for the neighbouring nations to see him killing Romans in their presence, and also he was unwilling to launch his battalions on that small force, since he did not think that Caesar was among them, and he was sure that Caesar would never come to attack him with but few soldiers. So Pompey came on to his camp, gladly and in high spirits at having won that victory over Caesar.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Conflict in Epirus and the Tragic Death of Scaeva is the name of that story.

19. The Description of Thessaly

Now when Caesar perceived the great ill-luck and the irk that had befallen him and his troops on those plains of Epirus and at the forts of Dyrrhachium, he made this plan, to quit that country wholly, and to march to another country and see whether his fortune in battle would be better therein. So he turned with his troops, and ordered his tents and his camps to be pitched towards the east on the level plains of the land of Thessaly.

When Pompey heard that, his generals and lieutenants and superior officers of his army were gathered to him to counsel how he should act. This is the advice they gave him, since Caesar had attacked, to go and invade Rome and Italy, for there was no army holding it against him. “Nay!” says Pompey. “I will not act on that advice. I will not go to Rome as Caesar went. Never shall it behold me returning save after leaving my army to their lands, and after putting the question of the Great Battle. If I desired to make war in the midst of Rome, I should never come out of it as I came. Provided it were a cause of rest and peace to Rome, I should make no question as to marching to northern Scythia or to the torrid zone in the south. Would it be meet for me, now that I am victorious, to go and make war in Rome, when I formerly fled from it in order that there should be no unrest of war therein?”

When he finished that speech, he ordered his standards before his troops over the mountains of Candavia directly east, until he established a position and camp in Thessaly in the same country as Caesar. That was a cause of conflict and matter of a great fight, for there the Fates had determined that the Great Battle should be delivered.

Some description of that country of Thessaly will now be given below.

Three names there are by which it called throughout the world: Emathia so named from Emathus, a good king who once ruled it: Pharsalia, another name, from Pharsalus, an old noble city therein: Thessaly, however, is its original name. A land strong, difficult, evil, unsmooth, bitter, gloomy, secure is that land, with rocky peaks of mountain-ranges lofty, rugged, around it on every side, namely, Mount Pelion between them and the summer rising: Mount Ossa on the east between them and the winter rising, so that the rays of the sun do not shine in it at the beginning of any day in the year: Mount Othrys in the south of it between them and the sun's warmth: Mount Pindus on the west of it between them and the sunset, so that at the end of any day the sun's rays never shine therein: Mount Olympus on the north side between them and the frigid zone. Those that dwell to the south of that mountain are not smitten by the north wind, and they never see the seven stars (near the north pole). For but a small part of the day does the sun shine therein past the other mountains we have mentioned.

A land thus deprived of the stars of the day and of the night were fit to have the Great Battle fought in it.

There are many cities in that same land, namely, the city Pharsalus, wherein was Achilles son of Peleus, and the city Phylace in which the Argo was built, that is, the ship in which Jason son of Aeson went for the Golden Fleece to the island of the Colchians. In it is the city Pteleus, and the city Dorion, and the city Trachyn and the city {⬌} two cities of Hercules son of Amphitryon, and the city Meliboea in which the arrows of Hercules were hidden after his death, and the city Larissa, and the city Argos: therein Agave beheaded her only son Pentheus. ⁵

A land wherein evil like that would be wrought, it were meet to deliver the Great Battle therein.

There are also many streams and fearful rivers in this land. Of them is the stream Aeas and the stream Oeneus, and the river Achelous on which are the Echinades islands, the Malian river, and the river Spercheus, the stream Amphrysus, and the river Anaurus, the river Apidanus and the river Enipeus, the stream Asopus and the stream Phoenix, the stream Melas, the stream Titaresos, and the river Peneus. The shanachies of Thessaly relate that the source of that stream wells out of the river Styx in hell. In a land wherein that river flows it were meet to deliver the Great Battle.

There are also many unknown peoples in that country, to wit, the people of the Boebyces and the people of the Leleges, the people of the Aeolians and the people of the Dolopes, the people of the Magnetes and the people of the Minyae, the monstrous folk of the Centaurs and the men-horses, that is, horse and man in a mixture of one person in them. Of them were the famous horse-mongrels Monychus the one-hoofed and Rhoetus the very valiant. 'Tis he that used to drag the tallest trees in the woods with their roots out of the earth, and used to hurl a cast of them at will. Of them too was Nessus the centaur. He it was that tried to rape Hercules' wife; there was a river between him and Hercules; and Hercules killed him with an arrow-shot across the river. Of them, again was Chiron the centaur, the tutor of Achilles son of Peleus. Thus then do the astronomers shape his image in the heavenly firmament, with a bow and an arrow adjusted in his hand, out opposite the constellation Scorpio, as if he were slaying it.

In a land wherein those monsters would be produced it were fitting to fight the great battle.

In that land of Thessaly, then, first appeared the germs and causes of battle and warfare. Therein, too, a horse was first broken in, and a bridle-bit was put into his mouth, and a rider mounted him. Therein was first built a ship and vessel of the sea to search the world and the foreign unknown countries. Itonus, also, king of Thessaly, was the first to smelt and liquefy the ore of gold and of silver into ingots, and to ordain coined money for selling and bargaining. Therein, too, gold and wealth were first hoarded and stored up.

In the same Thessaly, also was generated the famous, poisonous serpent Python, which devastated and destroyed the world before it, until Apollo son of Jove killed it. Therein were brought forth the children of Aloeus the monster, to wit, Otus and Ephialtes with their brothers. Three hands was their own increase every day. An ell and a hand was the growth of each of their sons every month; so that pride and haughtiness filled them, and this was the plan they plotted, to arrange the mountains of the world, one on top of the other, and to go and invade heaven and seize its realm. But when attempting that mighty labour they were destroyed by fiery thunderbolts. In the land where those great evils would be born it were fitting to fight the Great Battle.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Description of Thessaly is the name of the story.

20. The Prophecy of the Spectre out of Hell

When the two generals, Pompey and Caesar, had ordered each of their camps in the midst of the unique land of Thessaly, the  p.293 hosts of all the world which were along with them were determined and certain that they would not separate from the contest without a battle; and all took heed and notice that near at hand to them was the hour of intervention and severance, and the time of the multitude's parting from life, and the season of the great danger, to wit, the day of the Great Battle.

The natures of nobles, and the minds of their soldiers were heightened and urged and strongly uplifted thereby, at preparing the battle. But the minds of soft warriors, and cowards and lowborn degenerate rabble were prostrated and turned and abased and disturbed and disquieted at the terror of the battle, and the horrible hatred of the smiting, and the dread of death.

Great searching and scrutiny, and mournful, natural pondering, and murmurous counsel, the minds of those armies experienced in the nights before the battle. The general Pompey had a son in the camp. Sextus Pompeius was his name. This is the plan to which his fear impelled him, to go and ask of the prophets and wizards what the decision of the Great Battle would be, and which of the generals would be defeated.

Not to a temple of Jove or of Apollo or any other god or goddess did Sextus Pompeius go to ask for those tidings. Not from observers of stars or constellations, or of the course of lightnings, or the cries of birds did he ask them, for he thought he would obtain his certain knowledge from the druidesses of the land wherein he was, that is, from the witches of Thessaly. For their cities and hamlets were near to the great encampment. Wondrous and strange were the art and the science of the Thessalian druidesses. Every prodigy in the world their demons used to reveal to them, and their science was whatever was more wondrous and incredible than its fellow. For poisonous plants and magic-working herbs were more numerous in that land of Thessaly than in the rest of the lands of the world.

For when the famous druidess Medea, daughter of Aeëtes king of the Colchians, came with Jason son of Aeson into Greece, she found in the land of Thessaly, although she was the chief witch of the world, much more than her witchcraft and druidic spells and poisonous herbs. The places on the globe wherein the Science of magic was most common, namely, the city of Memphis, and the land of Egypt, Babylon and the countries of the Chaldees, were all exceeded by the Thessalian witches. For they used to work their magic spells on the mundane elements, so that their own shapes were not left upon them. They used to lengthen the night and shorten the day as they wanted. They used not to leave the air or the firmament in its own power, for when they desired they would stop the firmament from its mundane course. They would bring thunders and storms into the air, and rainy clouds and darkness over the sun at the time when his lightnings were manifest and his rays were clear.

They used to disperse the clouds and the heavy-pouring floods when they were greatest. They used to bring waves and storm on the ocean in the midst of calm and stillness. They used to forbid the waves and abate the storm when the wind on the sea was roughest. They used to bring the ships under full sail right against the wind on the sea. They used to cause steady suspense to the rough, copious, noisy torrents and to the mighty, down-rushing rivers. They used to make smooth plains of the lofty mountains. They used to lower Mount Olympus, so that the clouds would appear above it. This is a great marvel, for such is the height of Mount Olympus that its upper part and its summit are above the tumultuous air, while beneath it the clouds shine always. The man that once goes to its top hears nothing at all afterwards, his hearing being disturbed by the thunder of the course of the planets and by the noise of the revolving firmament.

The same witches used to cause the snow of Scythia to dissolve and thaw in the cold of winter, without the heat of sun or of fire striking against it. They used to make the flood-tide turn back against the might of the ocean and the moon. They used to make the immoveable mass of the earth oscillate, so that it is seen running round and round. They used to put darkness on the face of the moon, and compel her to approach the earth, so that her dew and her foam were wrung through her upon the poisonous grasses of the earth (for those witches) to practise thereby their many crafts of magic.

Howsoever, every animal in all the world which is hurtful to man, both lion and bear and toad and tiger and viper and serpent and other poisonous snake, was in fear of those witches and the phantoms; and it availed none of them to pour its poison against them, for more savage and more devilish were the poisons of the Thessalians than the poisons of any of these animals.

Now although in the land of Thessaly there was many an evil witch reverenced in that art, one witch was there who surpassed them all and to whom all used to yield recognition and authority. A lath of a blue-haired hideous hag was she: Erictho her name, a sage of witchcraft she. Wizards' inventions, and new spells were made by herself on every day. She used to visit hell and the fields of the river Styx and the abodes of Pluto king of hell whenever she desired. Her dwelling and her habitation and her couch were in clefts of rocks and in cavernous holes of the earth and in tombs of the dead.

She frequented no assembly nor city nor human dwellings out of them, unless the darkness of mist or rain or night should have come. She culled and gathered her poisonous herbs and her magical gear throughout the districts that were near her. And the ploughed corn-field or the meadow untilled,  p.299 on which she used then to tread, its grass or its corn would not grow for a long time afterwards. She never used to demand prophecy save from the demons of hell. These would answer her forthwith at the first spell; and they durst not wait for the second spell from her.

Many abominable deeds that spectre used to do in the land wherein she dwelt. When they were burning the dead in her neighbourhood she would go to them and gather the bones of their entrails, and the ashes of the corpses, and the fetid embers of the hearth; and she would also drag the torches out of the hands of the parents, who were burning the body of their dead (child). Where bodies were left in jeopardy on their biers before being burnt, she would pluck with her fingers their eyes out of their skulls: with her teeth she would cuttingly peel their nails from then; and she would carry off great lap-faggots of chips of the biers.

She used to take the bodies of crucified men from their crosses, and sever with her teeth the knots of the withes and halters which were holding them on their crosses. She used to be gnawing the crosses with her teeth and scraping them with her nails. At one time she was hanging to a crucified man's body, with her teeth sticking in its sinews and ligatures; and the corpse which was without the honour of burial in the district she would reach before the wild beasts and the birds of the country. Howbeit, she would not ply her hands upon it until the wolves and the wild beasts would tear it, and (then) she would gather their half-chewed morsels out of their gullets.

When she desired the blood of a living person for her magic, she used to enter battles and conflicts, so that she might be attending the blood out of the men's wounds before their gore would drop upon the ground. So she used to drag the little, living infants out through the womb-sides of the pregnant women. So when she found no entrails ready for her profit, she would even murder a human being. No kind of death was inflicted on man kind that she did not inflict upon them. She used to cut off with her left hand men's hair and their beards when they were dying. When a kinsman of hers was going to death she would come to his body and be kissing his limbs. She would afterwards open the dead man's gullet, and chew his tongue, and chant her magic spell in his throat, so that a message was sent between her and the demons of hell.

Many other hurtful and gloomy deeds, which cannot be reckoned here, that horrible witch and Thessalian spectre, Erictho, performed in the various lands in which she dwelt. When the general's son, Pompeius Sextus, heard that that gloomy hag was near him, he came at midnight out of the camp, together with a few of his trusty followers. They began searching. and enquiring in the caverns of the earth and in the graveyards of the idolaters of the country, till they heard her rough humming in the cleft of a rock in the breast of Mount Haemus above the city of Pharsalus. She was there forbidding the adored gods to transfer the great battle and conflict of the two generals, Pompey and Caesar, to another country away from her; for she thought that she would never obtain enough of corpses of kings and entrails of nobles unless she got them in that one battle at which the many nations of the earth were collected. However, the desire to get the body of Pompey and the body of Caesar filled her mind and her nature,  p.303 so that the fate and the destruction which she herself longed for might fall upon them.

Then the general's son with his following came to seek her, and they saw (her) in the bight of the crag as a fearful and horrible spectre. Hateful was the offcast that was seen there, the wicked witch, the Thessalian Erictho, to wit: A hag dark, misshapen, fleshless, and meagre, dwarfish (?), hard-loined. She had a face grey-white, sad, fit for a ghost: with angular cheeks, with hollow jowls, with bare brows. In her head were eyes deepset, grey-pitted, watery. She had a nose cavernous, greedy, curved and thick, grey-bridged, thinnish, crooked, loathsome. She had scaly lips, dark-green, gloomy, truly-fearful, undershaped (?). A rough, hateful row of spiky teeth, green-topped, dun-based, in each of her two gums. Very grey hair dishevelled, as a rough, scattered broom round her head. Hollow thick, hairy arms she had: with them rough, grey-sinewed hands: fingers curved, thick-ended, on her rough paws: the nails very sharp, dun-yellow, of a hawk were on them. Her waist was cramped and venous. Very narrow thighs she had, hard as yew, and two knees rough and staggering (?). Two leg-calves spreading, crooked, hairy, under her. Two broad, disjointed (?), long-toed feet supporting her. Most hideous of the world's shapes was her appearance. She herself was worse than the sight of her.

“May thine adored gods bless thee!” says the general's son. The hag looked on him fiercely and answered him not at all. “We have come to hold speech with thee, O lady, for we have heard that it is (matter of) praise and ornament to the women of all Thessaly that thou art born of them. We have heard also that from thee comes the prediction of every thing that will enter the world. And whatever thou wouldst fain forbid thou lettest it never come to pass. A blessing on thee! tell us the outcome of the great battle which is here preparing. Be it known to thee, that it is no low person who  p.305 seeks this of thee, but the son of the overking of the world, to wit, Sextus Pompeius son of Pompey the Great.”

“I shall be the lord of the men of the world if I and my father escape from the battle victoriously. Though he should fall, I shall be owner (?) of all his heritage after him, and thus my company is good (enough) for anyone. Yet, not to know the certain issue of the battle greatly depresses my spirit, and surely I am willing to endure whatever evil omen I hear regarding it. But this is one thing that we seek of thee, that the evil of the misery may not come to us before it is overtaken. Enjoin the heavenly gods to relate it to us; or spare them, and entreat the demons of hell to declare it. Enjoin Death himself to come out of hell to reveal to thee which of our armies he will on this occasion take with him in greater numbers to hell: for thou art able (to do) all that. Though great is the toil, it is meet for a lady like thee to spend this labour upon it.”

Howbeit, to hear herself thus famed and renowned greatly delighted Erictho, and she began fit converse with the lad, saying:

“O warrior”, quoth Erictho, “one of the two things that thou hast attributed to us is true, namely, that we have complete foreknowledge of the future. 'Tis probable that if the matters which thou puttest to us were small, slight, unimportant I could forbid them for a certain space of time. But the matter concerning which thou hast come, namely, the decision of this great battle of Pompey and Caesar, the Fates and the adored gods and Fortune have determined long ago; and with them the decision of this battle is firm and immoveable, for it was ordained fixedly, decisively, from the beginning of the world and from the formation of the elements. For the course of the whole human race is according to the rule of Fortune,  p.307 and we admit openly that the might of Fortune is greater than ours. However, if thou deemest it enough to get from me a predeclaration of the course of those mighty deeds, I will leave no kind of soothsaying on earth or on sea on field or in forest, on rock or in air or in hell, that I will not search until thou takest with thee a knowledge of the truth.”

“Truly I deem it enough from thee”, says the youth, “to have the issue and decision of this great matter declared to me.”

“Soon shalt thou have it”, says the hag, “for I will now revive for thee in thy presence the corpse of some dead man, and into it I will put a soul out of hell that it may tell thee all thou askest of it.”

“That seems good to me”, saith he.

Thereat she formed around her a dark black cloud of wizardry, and turned away to seek the corpse of some dead man, with the breath out of it. And this she was saying: “O glorious (?) gods, 'tis shortly there will be many bodies of nobles and corpses of high-kings dishonoured in this land, though I am tonight seeking a corpse therein.” Then she came to a certain place where a slaughter had taken place in the land, and many bodies lay there unburied.

When she entered the battlefield, at once all the wolves and wild beasts and birds that were there took to flight, from the greatness of the horror and hideousness of the witch who had come towards them. There were then many souls in hell expecting her, for they knew not which of them would be given up to declare to her the tidings of the Great Battle. For if she had gone to work to arouse by her magical incantations the souls of all those that had been killed in the battlefield, she would have succeeded, and there would have been no opposition to her concerning it.

Then she chose out of that battlefield a certain corpse, wry-mouthed, hateful, sore-wounded, pale-faced, large; and she set her mind upon it. Round its neck she passed a withe, with a very short rake (?) out of it, and at its end a sickle-crook hard and stiff. She took that sickle in her hand and dragged the corpse after her over hard, roughheaded rocks, and over uneven hill-sods, and over the broken, foul-mouthed gaps of the road, till it came with her to the place in which she used to practise her witchcraft and her wizardry, namely a cavernous cleft, hideous and fearful, adjoining a crag of Mount Haemus.

Abundant shrubs and truly dark groves and a branchy copious wood and densely-branched bushes of yew (grew) round the entrance of that cave, so that neither ray of sun nor any other light had ever shone therein, but the light that was made by the incantations of wizards or through the spells of witchcraft. A common border of the land of the living and of the land of the dead, to wit, a place for punishing the souls in hell was that cavern.

She arranged herself supine in the backpart of the cavern, Sextus Pompeius with his followers in her presence. She then donned her garb of feat and witchcraft, to wit, a mantle hateful (?), many-speckled, with the sheen of every colour through it. Her hands she put to her blue rough-grey mane and shed her broomy dishevelled rugged hair backwards out over her shoulderblades. To confine that hair she arranged round her head a branchy, shapen wreath of poisonous snakes, with two principal snakes leaping and hanging out of the wrappage of her crown.

Fear and dread filled Sextus Pompeius and his following as they looked at that proceeding. When she perceived that, she turned her face sullenly upon them and said: “What kind of fear is appearing on you, O youths?” she says. “Banish  p.311 your alarm and your terror. In your presence a soul will be put into this corpse, so that it will be conversing with you and declaring truth to you. Moreover, though ghosts of hell itself with its many torments should be displayed to you, it were wrong for you to loathe or dread them, seeing that I am along with you.”

Then she turned to the corpse and began to ply her witchcraft upon it. First she spilt a pool of reeking blood around its breast und bosom, and then rubbed lunar poisons abundantly throughout it: forceful juices which her own magic spells used to squeeze out of the moon. Thereto she added every other destruction and every baneful invention that seemed to her useful. For every monstrous birth, and every poisonous juice, and every gloomy element, and every other destructive device (?) from the beginning of the world, of none of them was there then want or scarcity.

Truly she lacked not the foaming froth of mad dogs. She lacked not the entrails of the lynx—that is a kind of viper, and when its offspring matures in its womb the younglings cut open the womb with their nails, and they themselves, together with their mother's entrails, come forth through her belly. She lacked not, also, the knotted ifne—those are a kind of snakes that grow in the marrow of the dead, and their dwelling is always in their tombs. Such is their virulence that they destroy men by inhaling their breath. She lacked not the baleful fish —that is a kind of salmon (only) a foot long; but it stops the ship under full sail in the midst of the sea. She lacked not, also, the eyes of the dragons, and the stones that lie in the nests of the eagles and of the bitterns, for so great is the warmth of those birds that they would set their eyries under them on fire unless cooling stones were put therein to moderate their heat. She lacked not,  p.313 also, winged serpents of the land of Arabia and of the shore of the Red Sea. She lacked not also the sloughs of the horned snakes in the districts of Africa. Nor did she lack the ashes of the phoenix from the east of the world. A strange bird is that: two years is the length of its life. At the end of that period, it makes a fire, leaps into it and is burnt therein, so that a new bird grows again out of its ashes.

So Erictho mingled all those poisonous instruments on the corpse, and added to them all the virulent herbs that were in Thessaly, and the plants on which she herself had set a spell as soon as they were born from the earth. She then raised a great rough humming, and a discordant, repugnant sound of a cry, to entreat and beseech the infernal demons to put a soul for her into the corpse that lay before her.

Many are the noises whose semblance appeared in that magical wail of Erictho. The barkings of the hounds, and the howlings of the wolves, and the screeches of the horned owls, and the shrieks of the night-owls, the roaring of the wild beasts, the hissing of the serpents, the noise of the waves, the jarring sound of the woods, the crashes of the winds, and the thunder of the (bursting) clouds.

In that magical entreaty she named significantly the names of the honourable and mighty folk of hell and of the chiefs of its torments. Of them was Death himself, and Pluto son of Saturn, the king of the darknesses, and pale-faced Hecate his queen, and Cerberus of the open maw, the doorward of the darknesses, and Charon the dun-skinned, ferryman of the river Styx in hell, and the three Furies of hell, to wit, Alecto and Tisiphone and Megaera, and the three infernal Parcae who are spinning (the threads of) the life of everyone in the world, namely, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos.

When that great entreaty ended, she looked upon the corpse; and she was panting and breathing hard and groaning greatly, and round her mouth and her nose and all her face were great foam and abundant slaver. She beheld the shadow of the soul fluttering above the body; for out of dread of the hag the soul durst not leave it, and it was loath to enter the restrained prison and the narrow bonds of the dead body, which lay before her, fit for a battle-field, to wit, alone, frozen, stretched out, with its eyes open, its cavernous, maw-open mouth, and great, long, transverse wounds torn through it.

That great slowness seemed strange to the hag, to presume at all against her power or her magic. Anger and rage then filled her, and she took in her hand a living serpent by the belly, and dealt three blows of it on the body, and began to threaten greatly the demons of hell, and to make complaint against them.

Then warmth entered the body, and the blood ran into the veins, and its sinews throbbed, and its limbs grew soft. And it leapt up, so that it rose at once from the earth, without closing of foot against it, without setting elbow or hand upon the ground, without contention of going, until it remained standing upright like a straight column in the presence of Sextus Pompeius and his following. However, there was still a kind of mortality upon it, for the stiffness and paleness of death remained in its limbs. It struck up its eyelids then, and looked at the men. However, it attempted no converse with them, it spoke no word to them: No voice was granted to it, save only to answer whatever was asked of it.

The Thessalian hag said to it: “I will give thee a goodly guerdon if now thou tellest truth to me: for if I am thankful  p.317 to thee I will grant thee such honour of burial that, till the end of the world neither witches nor spectres will dare to arouse thee again to relate or declare tidings to them. Often”, quoth she, “is the declaration of the other prophets obscure and doubtful. Do not act like them, but give intelligible names to the things thou utterest, and declare decisively the places and the times at which they will be done.”

Then she went very near to it and chanted a magical spell into its lips. So its wail burst forth on the wretched, miserable corpse and its tears ran over its cheeks. It began to speak to them, saying: “O good men, I have not come to the very depths of hell over the river Styx, where everyone's life and career are known, where the infernal Destinies are spinning (the threads) of lives. For I was summoned to you from the brink of the river when I was proceeding to cross it. So that I know nothing of the length or the shortness of the life of anyone in the world. However, what I saw and what I know I will duly relate to you.”

“I saw vast disunion and serious discord among all the Roman ghosts in hell. I saw them greatly disturbed in preparation for this battle of Pompey and Caesar, the good quitting the good places for the better men who are killed in this battle, and the bad quitting their bad places for the worse men who are killed in the same battle. I beheld an aspect of great sadness on the Roman nobles in hell because of their sorrow for the delivery of this battle. I beheld a countenance of great delight on their guilty ones, for they deem the delivery of this battle a benefit, since they expect a lightening of their punishments and a sharing of their laments from the coming to them of the very many sinners that are killed in the battle.”

“I beheld great grief on Sulla in hell, and he had a bitter complaint against Fortune because of his son (also named Sulla), who is killed at this time in the battle. I beheld great grief on Scipio Africanus in hell because of his descendant (also a Scipio), who will fall in Africa in consequence of this battle. I beheld great joylessness on the philosopher, on Cato, because of his descendant, Cato Uticensis, who will fall in consequence of this battle. I beheld great joy and exceeding happiness on Brutus in hell. This was the cause of the great joy, for 'tis he himself that expelled Tarquin the Proud from the kingship of Rome, and his descendant, another Brutus, will kill Caesar in Rome.”

“Howbeit, then, but in hell I beheld sad and joyless every one whose son or grandson is killed in the conflict of this great battle. I beheld happy and cheerful everyone whose torments will be lessened and lightened by the coming of the guilty ones. I beheld Pluto son of Saturn, the king of darkness and of the land of the dead, gathering unto him his executioners and his tormentors and his demoniac multitudes; and he said to them in my presence: “Let your chains and your fetters and your gyves be strengthened. Let your spikes and sickles and sword-edges be whetted. Let your spears and axes and sledgehammers for smiting souls be made sure. Let your angry, burning fires be kindled. Let your stones and rough-headed rocks be sharpened. Let your cave-doors of torturing and execution, and the places of torture that have never before been opened by you, be now opened; for never from anyone battle in the world have come to you, and never from anyone battle in the world will come again, so many as will come to meet you out of the conflict of this great battle of Pompey and Caesar.””

“I beheld Pluto's household happy and high-spirited thereat, and all of them readily waiting to beat and flog the sinners who will come to them out of this great battle. It is cause of exceeding sorrow to thee indeed, O son of the generalissimo; but take this little comfort, I saw Pluto himself ordaining a place of punishment for Caesar in hell. I also saw a place of rest (prepared) for Pompey and his two sons, on the Hill of Mercy in the sunny plains of hell. For though the generalissimos are not slaughtered in this great battle, woe is me! it is soon they will arrive together at their certain places in hell.”

“Indeed it is greatly to your honour that you have formed a strong desire to seek them. This is the distinction made by this great warfare between the generalissimos: one of them to be killed in Egypt, with his tomb in the river Nile, and the other to be killed in Italy, with his tomb in the river Tiber in Rome. But thou thyself, O son of the generalissimo, ask me not to prophesy to thee: for thou wilt find a prophet more trustworthy than I am to relate to thee thy destiny, namely, the general, thine own father, who will come to have speech with thee after his death. But lo, one thing I say to thee! put no trust in Europe, or in Africa, or in Asia, for in all the world I find no part that is safer for thee than Thessaly.”

The generalissimo's son was the more desirous to deliver the battle in that Thessaly. Yet the prophet's word was true, for though it was unsafe for them in Thessaly, other parts of the world were still more unsafe. For Pompey himself was killed in Asia, and one of his sons in Africa, and the other son in Europe.

Now when the corpse had finished telling them those tidings, it remained, silently, dumbly, wretchedly, sadly, standing  p.323 in their presence, a waiting death from the hag; for its soul durst not separate from the body until the hag gave it permission. Then the hag Erictho came before them, out through the cave, and in front thereof built a pile of vast fire, and put the corpse upon it to be burnt.

She left the corpse there, and came along with Sextus Pompeius towards the camp of his father, Pompey the Great. They reached the camp and the tents in the twilight of early morning, the hour of dividing day and night.

So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. <title type="tale" TEIform="title">The Adventure of Sextus Pompeius, and the Predictions of Thessalian Erictho, and the Prophecy of the infernal Spectre</title> is the name of that story. That, then, is the last foretale of the Battle of Thessaly. So far is the number of fifteen foretales. The tidings and descriptions and distinctions of the great battle itself, and the endings of the warriors in the meeting of the great conflict on the plain of Thessaly, these are what are set forth below.

21.

@book{T305001,
  title 	 = {In Cath Catharda: The Civil War of the Romans},
  editor 	 = {Whitley Stokes},
  edition 	 = {1},
  note 	 = {ix + 581 pp. i-xi Editor's Preface, 1–449 Text, 450–568 Glossarial Index, 569–581 Index of Persons.},
  publisher 	 = {S. Hirzel},
  address 	 = {Leipzig},
  date 	 = {1909},
  UNKNOWN 	 = {seriesStmt}
}
 T305001.bib