Book IV

But far away, in the outermost region of earth, Caesar fiercely carried on war — war not guilty of much bloodshed, but destined to turn decisively the scales of fate for the rival leaders. Afranius and Petreius ruled the army in Spain with equal authority: united in heart, they shared their command equally and in turn, and the watchful guard that kept the rampart safe obeyed the watchword of each in turn. Besides Roman soldiers they had active Asturians and nimble Vettones, and Celts, emigrants from an ancient tribe of Gaul, who added their own name to that of the Hiberians.

The fertile land rises in a hill of moderate height and ascends with easy slope; and on this stands Ilerda, founded by hands of old. The Sicoris, not least among western rivers, flows by with quiet waters; and a stone bridge, fit to withstand the winter floods, spans the river with mighty arch. A steep hill close by was occupied by the army of Magnus; and Caesar pitched his camp aloft on another hill as high; the river flowed between and divided the camps. Beyond, the level land spreads out in plains whose limit the eye can scarce embrace; but the rushing Cinga bounds the plains — Cinga, whose own swift waters may never smite the shore and the sea; for the Hiberus, which gives its name to the country, mixes its flood with the Cinga and steals its name from it.

The first day of the campaign was innocent of bloodshed: it only displayed to view the forces of the leaders and the multitude of their troops. Men loathed their own wickedness; shame held back the weapons of their frenzy, and they granted one day's respite to their country and the laws they had broken. But when the sky was westering towards night, Caesar surrounded his army with a trench dug in haste, while his front rank kept their ground; thus he deceived the enemy, screening his camp with a line of troops drawn up near at hand. At dawn he ordered his men to move with speed and climb the hill, which lay between Ilerda and the camp and protected the town. Fear and shame alike drove the enemy to this point: with flying march they reached the hill first and occupied it. Their courage and their swords promised possession of the ground to Caesar's men; but the foe relied on actual possession. The heavy-laden soldier struggles up the heights; the line, looking upward, clings to the mountain before it and is supported from falling backwards by the shields of those behind. None was at leisure to hurl his weapon: each drives in his javelin to assure his slippery foothold; they clutch at rocks and trees; they pay no heed to the enemy but hack a path with their swords. Caesar saw that his ranks would come down with a crash; therefore he ordered the cavalry to take up the fighting and interpose their shield-side by a left wheel. Thus the infantry were easily rescued, and none pursued them; the conquerors, when their antagonists were withdrawn, remained on the hill, but had gained nothing.

So far only the strife of arms proceeded: the rest of the campaign was decided by the shifting phases of capricious weather. Winter, congealed with numbing frost and dry North winds, had bound the upper air and penned the rain in the clouds. The mountains were nipped by snow, and the low-lying plains by hoar frost that would vanish at first sight of the sun; and all the earth, near that part of the sky which dips the stars, was hard and dry owing to the cloudless winter weather. But in spring the Carrier who let Helle fall received the burning sun and looked back at the other Signs; and, when day and night had for the second time been made equal according to the balance of unerring Libra, day gained the victory. Then the moon, receding from the sun, with that crescent with which she shone, scarce visible, at first, barred the North wind and grew bright while the East wind blew. The East wind drove to the West on blasts from Arabia all the clouds he found in his own clime, all the mists that the Arabs feel or the land of the Ganges breathes forth, all the moisture that the Eastern sun suffers to collect, all that the blast which darkens the Eastern heavens had driven on, and all that had screened the Indians from the sun. Day in the East was made hotter by the removal of the clouds — clouds which could not deposit their heavy burden on the centre of earth, but swept the storms with them in their flight. North and South were rainless, and all the moist air streamed to Calpe. There, where the zephyrs start and the furthest point of heaven limits the sea, the clouds, forbidden to go further, rolled into dense round masses; and the space that divides earth from heaven could scarce contain the accumulation of dark mist. Next, squeezed against the sky, they condense into abundant rain and flow along thickened; thunderbolts flashed constantly but could not keep their flame, because the rain put out the lightning. Next, the rainbow spanned the sky with its broken arch, while hardly any light diversified its colours; it drank the ocean, carried up the waves speedily to the clouds, and restored the water that had poured down from the sky. Then the Pyrenean snows, which no sun had ever power to thaw, were melted, the ice was broken up, and the cliffs were wetted. Next, no stream that issues forth from its normal springs finds a fixed path: such a flood of waters poured into every channel from over its banks. By this time Caesar's army was shipwrecked and afloat on land, his camp fell to pieces under the shock of constant floods, and the rivers formed pools within his high rampart. To carry off cattle is impossible; the submerged furrows produce no food; the spoilers, straggling over the vanished fields, are deceived by missing the inundated roads. And now cruel famine came — famine that is ever first in the train of great disasters, and the soldier starves while no foe besets him: though no spendthrift, he parted with all his wealth for a handful of grain. Shame on the pale plague of avarice! When gold is produced, sellers are forthcoming, though hungry themselves. By now mounds and hills are hidden; all the rivers are buried and swallowed up in the huge maw of a single pool, which has devoured the rocks in its depths, and carried down the habitations of wild beasts, and engulfed the beasts themselves; with sudden eddies it churns up its roaring waters and drives back with superior strength the tides of ocean. Night, curtaining the sky, is not conscious of sunrise; all natural distinctions are upset by the hideous aspect of the heaven and by darkness following on night. Such is the region that lies lowest in the world under the snowy zone and perpetual winter: no stars are visible there; its barren cold can produce nothing, but its ice lessens the heat of the equatorial Signs. O supreme Father of the universe, and O Neptune, to whom the second lot gave power over the trident of ocean, be such your will! May the one god devote the sky to perpetual rain, and the other prevent every tide he has sent forth from ebbing again! May rivers find no downward passage to the shore but be driven back by the waters of the sea! May the earth shake and enlarge the path of the rivers! May the Rhine and the Rhone flood the fields of Spain! May the rivers turn aslant their immense springs! Pour hither the melted snows of the Riphaean mountains and the water from every mere and lake and stagnant marsh in all the world, and snatch away this hapless land from civil war.

But now Fortune, contented with having frightened her favourite a little, came back in full force; and the gods earned pardon by an exceptional exercise of their support. By this time the sky had cleared; the sun, a match for the waters, had broken up the thick clouds into fleeces; and the nights grew red as dawn came on. The elements took up their proper station: the moisture left the firmament, and all the waters that were overhead took the lowest room. Trees began to lift their foliage, hills to rise above the floods, and valleys to grow solid at the sight of sunlight. And as soon as the Sicoris left the plains and had banks again, osiers of hoary willow were steeped and plaited to form small boats, which, when covered with the skin of a slain ox, carried passengers and rode high over the swollen river. In such craft the Venetian navigates the flooded Po, and the Briton his wide Ocean; and so, when Nile covers the land, the boats of Memphis are framed of thirsty papyrus. In these boats Caesar's soldiers were ferried over; in haste they began to cut down trees and form them into an arch on both banks; but, fearing a spate of the headstrong river, instead of placing their wooden bridge close by the margin, they carried it far into the fields. Also, that the Sicoris might never again wax bold with a renewal of its flood, it was divided into channels and punished for its overflow by having its waters split up into canals. When Petreius saw that Caesar's destiny was carrying all before it, he left Ilerda on the hill: distrusting the resources of the known world, he sought untamed peoples, whom contempt of death makes ever eager for battle; and he moved on towards the world's end.

When Caesar saw the hills bare and the camp deserted, he bade his men arm and cross the river by hard swimming, without looking for either bridge or ford; and they obeyed. The soldier, when rushing into battle, was eager for the passage which he would have feared if retreating. Soon they put on their arms again and dry their limbs; they march in haste to warm their frames chilled from the river, until the shadows grow shorter as day rises to its height. And now the cavalry were harassing the rear of the enemy, who were held there, doubting whether to fight or flee.

Two cliffs raised their rocky ridges on the plain, leaving a hollow valley between. From that point the earth rises into a continuous range of lofty hills, among which a shadowed winding route was concealed and offered safety. Caesar saw that if the enemy reached that gorge, the war would slip from his hands and be transferred to outlandish regions and savage nations." On with you, without keeping ranks," he cried, "and turn back the war which their flight has stolen from you; bring against them battle array and menacing countenances; frightened as they are, let them die no coward's death but meet the sword in front, even while they flee." Thus he spoke and outstripped the enemy as they sought to gain the mountains. There the two camps with low ramparts were pitched not far apart. When their eyes met, undimmed by distance, and they saw each other's faces clearly, then the horror of civil war was unmasked. For a short time fear kept them silent, and they greeted their friends only by nodding their heads and waving their swords; but soon, when warm affection burst the bonds of discipline with stronger motives, the men ventured to climb over the palisade and stretch out eager hands for embraces. One hails a friend by name, another accosts a kinsman; the time spent in the same boyish pursuits recalls a face to memory; and he who had found no acquaintance among the foe was no true Koman. They besprinkle their weapons with tears; sobs interrupt their embraces; though stained by no bloodshed, they dread the deeds they might have done already. Fool! why beat your breast and groan and shed unavailing tears? Why not confess that you obey the command of crime by your own will? Do you dread so greatly the leader whom you alone make dreadful? If he sound the bugle for war, be deaf to its cruel note; if he advance his standards, stay still. Then in a moment the frenzy of civil war will collapse, and Caesar, in private station, will be friends with his daughter's husband.

Be present now, thou that embracest all things in an eternal bond. Harmony, the preserver of the world and the blended universe! Be present, thou hallowed Love that unitest the world! For at this moment our age can exercise a mighty influence upon the future. The disguise of all that wickedness has been torn off, and a guilty nation has been robbed of all excuse: the men have recognised their kinsmen. A curse on Fortune, whose malignant power uses a brief respite to make great calamities still greater I There was peace, and the men made friends and strolled about in either camp; they began friendly meals together and outpourings of blended wine, sitting on the hard ground; the fire burned on turf-built hearths; where they lay side by side, tales of the war went on through all the sleepless night — on what field they first fought, by what force of hand their javelin was launched. But while they boast of their brave actions and deny the truth of many tales, their friendship, alas! was renewed, which was all that Fortune desired, and all their future wickedness was made worse by their reconciliation.— For when Petreius heard of the peaceful compact and saw that he and his forces had been sold, he armed his slaves for infamous warfare. Surrounded by this band, he hurled the unarmed enemy out of the camp, separated the embrace of friends by the sword, and shattered the peace with much shedding of blood. His fierce anger prompted speech that was sure to provoke a fray: "Soldiers, regardless of your country and forgetful of your standards, if you cannot, in the cause of the Senate, conquer Caesar and return as liberators, you can at least be conquered for their sake. While your swords are left and the future is uncertain, and while you have blood enough to flow from many a wound, will you go over to a master and carry the standards which you once condemned? Must Caesar be implored to treat you no worse than his other slaves.'' Have you begged quarter for your generals also.? Never shall our lives be the price and wages of foul treason. Our life is not the object of civil war. Undej a pretence of peace we are dragged into captivity. Men would not dig out iron in the deep-burrowing mine, cities would not be fortified with walls, the spirited charger would not rush to battle, nor the fleet be launched to send turreted ships all over the sea, if it were ever right to barter freedom for peace. My foes, it seems, are true to the oath they swore — an oath which binds them to crime unspeakable; but you hold your allegiance cheaper, because you are fighting for a righteous cause and may therefore hope even for — pardon! Alas! that Honour should die so foul a death. At this moment Magnus, ignorant of his fate, is raising armies all over the world and rousing up kings who inhabit the ends of the earth, though perhaps our treaty has already bargained for his mere life." — His words worked strongly upon every heart and brought back the love of crime. So, when wild beasts have lost the habit of the woods and grown tame in a narrow prison they lose their grim aspect and learn to submit to man; but, if a drop of blood finds its way to their thirsty mouths, their rage and fury return, and their throats, reminded of their old life by the taste of blood, swell again; their anger boils up and scarcely spares their frightened keeper. The soldiers proceed to every crime; and horrors, which, to the discredit of the gods, Fortune might have brought about in the blind obscurity of battle, are wrought by loyal obedience. Among the tables and couches they pierce the very breasts which they lately embraced. And though they groaned at first when baring the steel, yet when the sword, that counsellor of evil, clings to their grasp, they hate the friends whom they strike, and their blows confirm their wavering purpose. The camp now seethes with uproar; and, as if a secret crime would be wasted, they set every horror before the eyes of their commanders; they glory in their guilt.

Caesar, though robbed of many soldiers, recognised the hand of heaven. Never indeed was he more fortunate, either on the Emathian plain or on the sea of Phocian Massilia; nor did the coast of Egypt witness so great a triumph, inasmuch as he, thanks to this one crime of civil war, will be henceforward the leader of the better cause. The leaders dared not entrust their troops, stained with hideous bloodshed, to a camp near Caesar's, but directed their flight back to the walls of lofty Ilerda. Caesar's cavalry met them and drove them off the plains and cooped them up among waterless hills. Next Caesar eagerly attempts to surround them, in their lack of water, with a steep trench; he will not suffer their camp to reach the river banks or their outworks to enclose abundant springs.

When the soldiers saw the path to death before them, their fear was changed to headlong ardour. Having slaughtered their horses, as powerless to help men besieged, they were forced at last to abandon hope and reject flight, and rushed upon the foe with intent to perish. When Caesar saw the devoted warriors coming on at full speed to meet inevitable death, he called to his men, '' Hold your weapons for a time and withdraw the sword from him who rushes to meet it; no lives of my own men must be lost in the battle; he who challenges the foe with his life costs his victor dear. See! they come, hating life and holding themselves cheap, and I must pay for their deaths: insensible to wounds, they will fling themselves on the sword and rejoice to shed their blood. This excitement must calm down; this wild enthusiasm must flag; they must lose their wish to die." So by refusing battle he suffered their threats to burn down to nothing and dwindle away, while the sun set and night replaced his light with her own. Then, when no chance was given them to kill and be killed, their ardour left them by degrees and their minds lost heat. So a wounded man has higher courage, while his wound and his pain are fresh, and while the warm blood lends active force to the muscles, and before the skin has shrunk over the bones; but, if the conqueror, aware that his sword has gone home, stands still and refrains from striking, then cold numbness binds both mind and body and steals strength away, after the congealing blood has closed the drying wounds. And now, in their shortage of water, they begin by digging in search of hidden springs and underground streams; as well as iron rakes and picks they use their swords to pierce the soil; and wells in the excavated hillside are sunk to the level of the watered plain. The pale searcher after Asturian gold would not bury himself so deep, or leave daylight so far behind. But there was no sound of rivers with hidden courses, no new springs gushed from the smitten rock, no dripping caves oozed forth a scanty moisture, no gravel was stirred and lifted even by a slender vein of water. Then the men are hauled up to the surface, worn out with heavy labour and wearied by mining in the flint; and their quest for water has made them less able to endure the drought and heat. Nor was their bodily weakness and weariness supported by food: they abhorred all meat and called in hunger to help them against thirst. Wherever soft soil betrayed moisture, they squeezed the oozy clods over their mouths with both hands. Where pools of stagnant filth were caked with black mire, each man fell down eager for the foul draught, and dying swallowed water which, with a prospect of life, he would have refused; like wild beasts they drained the swollen udders of cattle, and, if milk was denied, sucked the pallid blood from the empty teats. Next, they pounded grass and leaves, and stripped the dew off branches, and brushed off any moisture they could squeeze from the green shoots or soft pith of trees.

Happy are those whom a barbarian foe, as he fled, has laid low upon the fields by mingling poison in the springs. Into the Spanish rivers Caesar may pour without concealment gore and the carrion of wild beasts, and the deadly aconite which grows on the rocks of Crete; and Roman soldiers will drink with their eyes open. Their inward parts are burnt with fire; their mouths are dry and hard, and rough with scaly tongues; by now their pulses flag, and their lungs, wetted by no moisture, choke the passage of air to and fro; and their difficult breathing is painful to their cracked palates; yet still they open their mouths, eager for the air that will prove their bane. They hope for rain — rain, whose downpour lately flooded all the land; and they fix their gaze on the rainless clouds. And, that the water-famine may break them down still more in their misery, their camp is not pitched beyond burning Meroe and beneath the sign of Cancer, where the naked Garamantes dwell; but the army, entrapped between the brimming Sicoris and the rapid Hiberus, can see the rivers close at hand while dying of thirst.

At last the leaders were overcome and yielded: Afranius advised that terms should be sought; despairing of resistance, he took with him squadrons of half-dead men to the enemy's camp, and stood in supplication before the conqueror's feet. The suppliant maintained his dignity unbroken by disaster; between his former high position and his recent misfortune, he had all the bearing of a general, though a defeated general, and he asked pardon with a mind at ease: "Had Fortune laid me low beneath an unworthy foeman, my own strong arm would not have failed to snatch death by violence; as it is, my sole reason for begging life is that I consider you, Caesar, worthy to grant it. We are not moved by party spirit; nor did we take up arms in opposition to your designs. In fact, the civil war found us at the head of an army; and, while we could, we were loyal to our former cause. We make no attempt to hinder destiny; to you we surrender the nations of the West and open the way to the East; we enable you to feel no anxiety for the region you leave in your rear. Your victory has not been gained by blood poured forth upon the plains, nor by the sword plied till the arm was weary; pardon your foes their one crime — that you are victorious over us. We do not ask much: only give rest to the weary, and suffer those to whom you grant life to spend it unarmed. Deem that our ranks lie prostrate on the field; for captives must not share in your triumph, nor warriors condemned by fate be mingled with conquerors: my army has completed its own destiny. This we beg — that you will not compel us whom you have conquered to conquer along with you."

Thus he spoke; and Caesar readily gave way with unclouded brow; he excused them from service in his army and from all punishment. As soon as the treaty of peace was settled in due form, the men rushed down to the unguarded rivers, lay down upon the banks, and made muddy the streams thrown open to them. While they gulped down the water, the uninterrupted draught prevented the air from passing through the empty arteries: it contracted and blocked the windpipes of many; nor does the burning plague yet abate, but the craving malady demands yet more when the stomach is full of water already. Soon the muscles recovered power, and the soldiers grew strong again. O Luxury, extravagant of resources and never satisfied with what costs little; and ostentatious hunger for dainties sought over land and sea; and ye who take pride in delicate eating — hence ye may learn how little it costs to prolong life, and how little nature demands. No famous vintage, bottled in the year of a long forgotten consul, restores these to health; they drink not out of gold or agate, but gain new life from pure water; running water and bread are enough for mankind.

Alas for those who still fight on! These men abandon their arms to the conqueror; safe, though they are stripped of their breast-plates, harmless and free from care, they are scattered among their native cities. Now that they possess the gift of peace, how much they regret that they ever hurled the steel with vigorous arms, and endured thirst, and prayed mistakenly to the gods for victory! For the victors, it is sure, so many doubtful battles and hardships over all the world still lie ahead; even though Fortune never fail — Fortune fickle in her favours — still they must conquer again and again, and shed their blood on every land, and follow Caesar through all his chances and changes. When the whole world is nodding to its fall, happy the man who has been able to learn already the lowly place appointed for him. No battles call them from where they rest; no trumpet-call breaks their sound slumbers. They are welcomed now by their wives and innocent babes, by their simple dwellings and their native soil, nor are they settled there as colonists. Of another burden too Fortune relieves them: their minds are rid of the trouble of partisanship; for, if Caesar granted them their lives, Pompey was once their leader. Thus they alone are happy, looking on at civil war with no prayer for the success of either.

The fortune of war did not remain unchanged all the world over, but dared to strike one blow against Caesar's side. Where the Adriatic wave beats on the straggling town of Salonae, and where mild Iader runs out towards the soft West winds, there Antonius, trusting in the warlike race of the Curictae, who dwell in an island surrounded by the 'Adriatic waters, was pent up within his camp on the edge of the shore. He was safe against armed attack, if only he could keep famine at bay — famine which takes the impregnable fortress. The earth sends up no fodder to feed his horses; golden Ceres puts forth no corn there; the soldiers had robbed the field of its grass; and, when they had nibbled the blades close with starving teeth, they had torn the withered tufts from the sods that formed the camp. As soon as they saw a friendly force commanded by Basilus on the mainland opposite, they devised a novel plan to steal in flight across the deep. They built no long hulls, no high sterns, as the custom is, but joined stout planks together on unwonted lines to carry heavy structures. This raft rested entirely upon empty barrels, a succession K-.of which, lashed together in double rows by long chains, supported the planks laid transversely across them. Nor were the rowers she carried exposed to missiles along an open front; but they struck the water enclosed by the timbers; and the raft presented the puzzle of mysterious motion, because it carried no sail and did not thrash the waves visibly. Next they watched the sea till the time when the tide should move with downward-flowing waters and the sand be left bare by the ebb. So, when the sea began to flow back and the shore to grow, the raft was launched and sped gliding down the current, and her two consorts with her. High above each rose a tower and stages that threatened with nodding battlements. Octavius, who guarded the Illyrian waters, would not at once attack the raft, but held his swift ships back, until his prey should be increased by a prosperous passage. When they had begun their rash venture, he encouraged them, by leaving the sea open, to try a second voyage. So the hunter proceeds: until he pens in the stags, alarmed by the "scare" and dreading the scent of the tainted feathers, or until he sets up his nets on the line of props, he shuts the noisy mouth of the swift Molossian hound, and keeps in leash the hounds of Sparta and Crete; the only dog allowed to range the forest is he who puzzles out the scent with nose to the ground and never thinks of barking when his prey is discovered, content to indicate the creature's lair by tugging at the leash. Soon the hulks are manned; eagerly they embark on the rafts and abandon the island; it was the time when the last lingering light hinders the first darkness from bringing on the night. But the Cilicians in Pompey's pay, resorting to their ancient skill, prepared to lay a trap in the sea. Leaving the surface empty, they hung ropes at half the depth of the water and suffered them to drift about at large, and bound the cables to the cliffs of the Illyrian shore. Neither the first raft nor the second was hampered, but the third hulk stuck fast and was drawn to the rocks when the rope was tightened. Hollow cliffs overhang the sea, and their mass, ever in act to fall, stands marvellously firm, and shadows the water with trees. Hither the tide often bore ships wrecked by the North wind and the bodies of drowned men, and buried them in hidden caverns; but the sea beneath the rocks restored its prey, and whenever the caves vomited forth the tide, the waves of the whirling eddy surpassed the fury of Sicilian Charybdis. Here the hulk halted, weighed down with men of Opitergium; and all the ships, casting loose from their anchorage, surround it, while other foes cover the rocks and the shore. Vulteius, the captain of the raft, perceived the trap concealed beneath the water, and tried in vain to sever the ropes with his sword; then he called for battle with no hope of victory, not knowing - on which side he was offering his back or his front to attack. Yet even in this plight valour did all that valour could do, when taken at a disadvantage: a battle was fought between the many thousands who swarmed round the captured raft and the men on board, who were barely six hundred; but the battle soon ended; for the shades of night hid the twilight, and the darkness brought a truce.

Then thus Vulteius with noble speech kept his men steady, appalled as they were with dread of coming death: "Soldiers, free for no longer than the brief space of a night, use the short interval to decide upon your course in this extremity. No life is short that gives a man time to slay himself; nor does it lessen the glory of suicide to meet doom at close quarters. For all men the future of life is uncertain; and, though it is noble in the mind to forfeit years that you look forward to, it is no less noble to cut short even a moment of remaining life, provided that you summon death by your own act. No man is forced to die voluntarily. No escape is open to us; our countrymen surround us, eager for our lives; resolve upon death, and then all fear is dispelled: let a man desire whatever he cannot avoid. Yet we are not compelled to fall on the blind haze of battle, or when their own missiles cover the confused armies with darkness. When the dead lie thick upon the field, each death is merged in a common account, and valour, thus overlaid, is wasted. But us the gods have placed on a ship that is seen by friend and foe: sea and land and the topmost cliffs of the island will provide witnesses; the two parties from the two opposite shores will look on. By our death Fortune designs some mighty and memorable example for posterity. Our company would have surpassed all records that time has preserved of loyalty and military devotion, maintained by the sword. For we know that it is not enough for Caesar's men to fall upon their swords in his defence; but, hemmed in as we are, we have no greater pledge to give of our deep devotion. Grudging Fortune has subtracted much from our glory, inasmuch as we are not held prisoners together with our old men and our little ones. But let the foe learn that our men are unconquerable; let him dread the mad courage that welcomes death; and let him thank his stars that only one of the rafts stuck fast. They will try to tempt us with terms of peace, and will seek to bribe us by the offer of dishonourable life. I wish that they would promise pardon and encourage us to hope for life; for so our matchless death would gain greater renown, and they would not think, when they see us pierce our vitals with the warm steel, that we have abandoned hope. It requires a mighty deed of valour to make Caesar, when he loses a few men out of so many thousands, call it a disaster and a defeat. Should Fate now suffer me to withdraw and release me from her grasp, I should refuse to shun what lies before me. I have cast life behind me, comrades, and am wholly driven on by the excitement of coming death; it is a veritable possession. None but those whom the approach of death already overshadows are suffered to know that death is a blessing; from those who have life before them the gods conceal this, in order that they may go on living." By his words the hearts of all the warriors were changed, and swelled with martial ardour. Before their leader spoke they all watched the stars in heaven with weeping eyes, and trembled when the pole of the Wain went round; but now, when his exhortation had sunk into their stout hearts, they prayed for daylight. Nor at that season did the sky take long to sink the stars in the sea; for the sun was in the constellation of Gemini, when his disk reaches its zenith and Cancer is close at hand; short was the night that then brooded over the Thessalian Archer.

Dawn came and revealed the Histrians posted on the cliffs and the fierce Liburnians on the sea with the Greek fleet. They suspended the fight and tried first to conquer by agreement, hoping that the mere postponement of death might make life sweeter to the prisoners in the trap. But the devoted men stood firm: contempt of life made them bold, and they were indifferent to the issue of the fight, because they had engaged to kill themselves; no uproar of assault could dislodge the resolution that was prepared for the worst; and their small company withstood the countless hands that attacked them by land and sea at once; so great is the confidence inspired by death. Then, when they deemed that blood enough had been shed in battle, they turned their fury away from the foe. First Vulteius himself, the captain of the craft, bared his throat and called for death. "Is any soldier here," he cried, "whose right arm is worthy of my blood, who will prove his wish to die beyond all doubt by slaying me?" Before he could speak another word, his body was pierced instantly by more swords than one. He thanked them all, but dying slew with grateful stroke him to whom he owed his first wound. Others met in combat; and there the horrors of civil war were enacted in full by one faction alone. Thus from the seed sown by Cadmus the Theban warriors started up and were slain by the swords of their kinsmen — a dismal omen for the Theban brothers; and thus in the land of the Phasis the sons of Earth, who sprang from the teeth of the sleepless dragon, filled the vast furrows with kindred blood, when magic spells had filled them with fury; and Medea herself was appalled by the first crime which her herbs, untried before, had wrought. So the soldiers fell, sworn to slay each other; and in the death of those heroes death itself called for least courage; at the same instant they dealt a fatal wound and received it; and no man's right hand failed him, though he struck with dying arm. Nor were their wounds due to the pressure of the sword; but their breasts dashed against the steel, and their throats struck the hand of the striker. At a time when murderous destiny made brother rush on brother and son on his father, yet their right hands never hesitated but drove the sword home with all its weight. The only proof of affection the slayer could give was to strike no second blow. By now half dead, they dragged their protruding entrails over the wide gangways and poured streams of blood into the sea. They rejoice to see the light they have rejected, to watch their conquerors with disdainful eyes, and to feel the approach of death. And now when the raft was seen piled high with carnage, the victors yield up the dead to the funeral pyre, while their leaders marvel that any man should prize his leader so highly. Fame, that flies abroad over the whole earth, never spoke with louder voice of any vessel. Yet even after the example set by these heroes, cowardly nations will not understand how simple feat it is to escape slavery by suicide; and the tyrant is dreaded for his sword, and freedom is weighed down by cruel weapons, and men are ignorant that the purpose of the sword is to save every man from slavery. O that death were the reward of the brave only, and would refuse to release the coward from life!

No less fiercely the fire of war blazed up then in the land of Libya. For bold Curio weighed anchor on the shore of Sicily, and a gentle North wind filled the sails, till he gained the shore of famous anchorage between Clipea and the half-ruined citadels of great Carthage. His first camp he pitched at some distance from the hoary sea, where the Bagrada slowly pushes on and furrows the thirsty sand. From there he marched to the rocky eminence, hollowed out on all sides, which tradition with good reason calls the realm of Antaeus. When he sought to learn the origin of that ancient name, he was told by an unlettered countryman a tale handed down through many generations:

"Even after the birth of the Giants Earth was not past bearing, and she conceived a fearsome offspring in the caves of Libya. She had more cause to boast of him than of Typhon or Tityos and fierce Briareus; and she dealt mercifully with the gods when she did not raise up Antaeus on the field of Phlegra. Further she crowned the vast strength of her child with this gift, that his limbs, whenever they touched their mother, recovered from weariness and renewed their strength. Yonder cave was his dwelling; men say that he hid beneath the towering cliff and feasted on the lions he had carried off; when he slept, no skins of wild beasts made him a bed, nor did the trees supply him with bedding; but his custom was to lie on the bare earth and so recover strength. He slew the tillers of the Libyan fields; he slew the strangers whom the sea brought to the shore; and for long, in his might, he spurned his mother's aid and never availed himself of the help that falling gave; so strong was he that even when he stood upright none could overcome him. The hero Alcides was then ridding land and sea of monsters, when the widespread report of this bloodstained ogre summoned him to the borders of Libya. Down on the ground he threw the skin of the Nemean lion; the skin that Antaeus threw down came from a lion of Libya. The stranger, faithful to the fashion of wrestlers at Olynipia, drenched his limbs with oil; the other, not trusting to contact with his mother Earth by means of his feet alone, poured hot sand over his limbs to help him. They locked hands and arms in manifold embrace; for long they tried the strength of each other's necks with the pressure of arms, without result; each head remained unmoved with steadfast forehead; each marvelled to find that his match existed on earth. Unwilling to put forth all his strength at the beginning of the contest, Alcides wore down his opponent; and this was made clear to him by the quick panting and the cold sweat that poured from the weary frame. Soon his neck flagged and gave way, soon breast was borne down by breast, soon the legs tottered, struck by a sidelong blow of the fist. Then the victor pins his foe's yielding back, hugs his loins and squeezes his middle, thrusts his own feet to part the thighs, and lays his man at full length upon the ground, from top to toe. But, when the dry earth eagerly drank his sweat, his veins were replenished with warm blood, his muscles swelled out, his whole frame grew tough, and he loosened the grip of Hercules with fresh strength. Alcides stood astonished by such great might: even by the waters of Inachus, though he was inexperienced then, he felt less fear of the chopped Hydra when her snakes grew again. The combatants were well matched, one fighting with the strength of Earth, the other with his own. Never was the cruel stepmother of Hercules more sanguine of success: she sees his body and his neck worn out with toil — that neck that never sweated when it supported Olympus. He grappled a second time with his weary foe; but Antaeus, without waiting for the pressure of his antagonist, fell down voluntarily and rose up more mighty with an accession of strength. All the vital power that resides in the earth poured into his wearied limbs; and Earth suffers in the wrestling-match of her son. When at last Alcides perceived that his foe got help by contact with his mother, 'You must stand upright,' said he; 'no more will I trust you to the ground or suffer you to lie down upon the earth; here you shall remain, with your body clasped in my embrace; if you fall, Antaeus, you shall fall on me.' Thus Alcides spoke and lifted on high the giant who struggled to gain the ground, Earth was unable to convey strength into the frame of her dying son; for Alcides, standing between, gripped the breast that was already stiff with cold obstruction, and refused for long to trust his foe to the earth. Hence the land has got its name from long tradition which treasures the past and thinks highly of itself. But a greater name was given to these heights by Scipio, when he brought the Carthaginian invader back from the citadels of Latium. Here he encamped when he reached the soil of Libya; yonder you see the remains of his ancient rampart; these are the fields which the Roman conqueror first occupied."

Curio heard this with joy, believing that the lucky spot would fight for him, and repeat for him the success of former leaders. Pitching his ill-starred tents on that lucky ground, he trusted too much to his encampment and robbed the heights of their good fortune. He challenged a fierce enemy who was too strong for him.

All of Africa that had yielded to the Roman arms was then commanded by Varus; and he, though he relied on Roman soldiers, nevertheless summoned from every quarter the forces of King Juba — the nations of Libya and the troops from the world's end that followed their king to battle. No ruler possessed a broader realm than he: at its greatest length his kingdom is bounded on its western point by Atlas, neighbour of Gades, and on the East by Ammon, bordering on the Syrtes; and on the line of its breadth, the hot region of his huge domain separates the Ocean from the burnt-up torrid zone. The population matches the area: the king's camp is followed by so many tribes — Autololes, unsettled Numidians, and Gaetulians good at need with their bare-backed horses; then there are Moors black as Indians, needy Nasamonians, swift Marmaridae joined with sun-blackened Garamantes, Mazaces who can rival the archery of the Parthians when they hurl their quivering javelins, and the Massylian people, who ride barebacked and use a light switch to guide their horses whose mouths have never felt the bit; there follows too the African hunter, whose habit it is to stray through deserted villages and to smother angry lions in the folds of his garment, when he has lost confidence in his spear. Not party zeal alone stirred up Juba to arms: war was a concession to personal anger as well. For Curio, in that year during which he outraged heaven and earth, had also tried to dislodge Juba from his ancestral throne by means of a tribune's law — he sought, at the same tune, to take Africa from its rightful king and to set up a king at Rome! Juba, nursing his grievance, considered this war the chief advantage he had gained by retaining his crown. Hence this rumour of the king now alarmed Curio. He was alarmed also because his soldiers had never been overmuch devoted to Caesar's cause: never tested on the waters of the Rhine, they had been taken prisoners in the citadel of Corfinium; faithless to their leader before and distrusted by Curio now, they think it lawful to take either side. But when Curio saw the slackness of sluggish fear on every hand, and the nightly service on the ramparts left undone by desertion, he spoke thus in the trouble of his soul:

"Boldness is a mask for fear, however great; I will take the field before the foe. Let my soldiers, while they are still mine, march down to the level ground. Idleness is ever the root of indecision; snatch from them by battle the power to form a plan; once the dreadful passion rises, once the sword is grasped and the helmet hides the blush of shame, who thinks then of comparing leaders or balancing causes.' Each man backs the side on which he stands. So those who are brought forth at the shows of the deathly arena are not driven to fight by long-cherished anger: they hate whoever is pitted against them." Thus he spoke and drew up his line upon the open plain; and the fortune of war, meaning to betray him by future disasters, welcomed him now with smiles; for he drove Varus from the field and cut up his defenceless rear in shameful flight until the camp put a stop to the pursuit.

But when Juba heard of the lost battle of conquered Varus, he rejoiced that the glory of the campaign was reserved for his arms. He marched in haste and secrecy, masking the report of his movement by enforcing silence; his one fear was that his rash foe might feel fear of him. Sabbura, second to the king in command of the Numidians, was sent out with a small force to challenge the foe and tempt them to begin battle; he was to sham an attack and pretend that he was in charge of it, while the king kept back his main body in a hollow valley. So snakes in Egypt are fooled by the craftier foe with his tail: he stirs up their wrath with its flickering shadow, while the snake spends its force upon the air in vain, and then, holding his head aslant, he grips the throat and bites in safety, too close for the deadly fluid to touch him; at last the baffled bane is squeezed forth, and the poison streams idly from the throat. Fortune gave success to the trick; and daring Curio, without reconnoitring the strength of his hidden foe, made his cavalry sally forth from the camp by night and range far and wide over the unknown plains. He himself at the first stirring of dawn bids his infantry leave their camp; in vain was he warned repeatedly to beware of Libyan deceit and Punic warfare ever tainted by guile. The doom of speedy death had handed the youth over to destruction, and civil war was claiming the man who made it. Along a perilous path he led his men, over high rocks and cliffs, and then the enemy was sighted far away from the top of the hills. They, with their native,; craft, drew back a little, till he should leave the height and trust his army in loose array to the open fields. Curio, ignorant of their treacherous device, believed that they were fleeing, and, as if victorious, marched his army down to the fields below. As soon as the trick was revealed, and the himself and his doomed army were stupefied alike: the coward did not flee, nor the brave man fight. For there the war-horse was not roused by the trumpet's blare, nor did he scatter the stones with stamping hoof, or champ the hard bit that chafes his mouth, with flying mane and ears erect, or refuse to stand still, and shift his clattering feet. The weary neck sinks down, the limbs reek with sweat, the tongue protrudes and the mouth is rough and dry; the lungs, driven by quick pants, give a hoarse murmur; the labouring breath works the spent flanks hard; and the froth dries and cakes on the blood-stained bit. Now the horses refuse to go faster, though urged by blows and goads and called on by constant spurring: they are stabbed to make them move; yet no man profited by overcoming the resistance of his horse; for no charge and onset was possible there: the rider was merely carried close to the foe and, by offering a mark, saved the javelin a long flight. But as soon as the African skirmishers launched their steeds at the host, the plains shook with their trampling, the earth was loosened, and a pillar of dust, vast as is whirled by Thracian stormwinds, veiled the sky with its cloud and brought on darkness. And when the piteous doom of battle bore down upon the Roman infantry, the issue never hung uncertain through any chance of war's lottery, but all the time of fighting was filled by death: it was impossible to rush forward in attack and close with the enemy. So the soldiers, surrounded on all sides, were crushed by slanting thrusts from close quarters and spears hurled straight forward from a distance — doomed to destruction not merely by wounds and blood but by the hail of weapons and the sheer weight of steel. Thus a great army was crowded into a small compass; and, if any man in fear crawled into the midst of the press, he could scarce move about unhurt among the swords of his comrades; and the pack grew thicker, whenever the foremost rank stepped back and narrowed the circle. The crowded soldiers have no longer space to ply their weapons; their bodies are squeezed and ground together; and the armoured breast is broken by pressure against another breast. The victorious Moors did not enjoy to the full the spectacle that Fortune granted them: they could not see the rivers of blood, the collapsing limbs, and the bodies striking the ground; for each dead man was held bolt upright by the dense array.

Let Fortune call to life the hated ghost of dread Carthage to enjoy this new sacrifice; let bloodstained Hannibal and his Carthaginian dead accept this awful expiation! But it is an outrage, ye gods, that the fall of Romans on Libyan soil should forward the success of Pompey and the desires of the Senate. Rather let Africa defeat us for her own objects. When Curio saw his ranks prostrate on the field, and when the dust was laid by blood, so that he could survey that awful carnage, he would not stoop to survive defeat or hope for escape, but fell amid the corpses of his men, prompt to face death and brave with the courage of despair.

What does it avail him now that he stirred up turmoil on the Rostrum in the Forum — that stronghold of the tribunes, where he bore the standard of the populace and from which he armed all nations? What avails it that he betrayed the rights of the Senate and bade Pompey and his wife's father meet in the clash of arms? Low he lies, before the fatal field of Pharsalia confronts the leaders; and the spectacle of civil war is withheld from him. This is the penalty which the great ones of the earth suffer their unhappy country to exact; thus they pay for the wars they make with their own blood and their own deaths. Fortunate indeed would Rome be, and happy her citizens hereafter, if the gods were as careful to preserve her freedom as they are to avenge it. Behold! the unburied body of Curio, a noble carrion, feeds the birds of Libya. But to suppress those deeds which are insured by their own glory against all decay of time will not avail; and therefore we award a due meed of praise to the praiseworthy part of his life. Rome never bore a citizen of such high promise, nor one to whom the constitution owed more while he trod the right path. But then the corruption of the age proved fatal to the State, when ambition and luxury and the formidable power of wealth swept away with their cross-current the unstable principles of Curio; and, when he yielded to the booty of Gaul and Caesar's gold, his change turned the scale of history. Though powerful Sulla and bold Marius, like bloodstained Cinna and all the line of Caesar's house, secured the power to use the sword against our throats, yet to none of them was granted so high a privilege; for they all bought their country, but Curio sold it.