Book V

Thus the leaders in turn suffered the wounds of war, and Fortune, blending failure with success, kept them for the land of the Macedonians equal in strength. Winter had already sprinkled Mount Haemus with snow, and the daughter of Atlas was setting in a chilly sky. The day was coming that gives new names to the Calendar and begins the worship of Janus, leader of the months. But, before the last days of their expiring office ran out, the two consuls summoned to Epirus those senators who were scattered here and there on military duties. Mean and foreign was the chamber that held the magnates of Rome; and the Senate sat, as guests beneath an alien roof, to hear the business of the State. For who could apply the name of "camp" to all those rods and all those axes bared by right of law? The worshipful body taught the world that they were not the party of Magnus but that Magnus was only one of their partisans.

As soon as silence prevailed in the sorrowing assembly, Lentulus rose up from his high seat of dignity and thus addressed them." Senators, if you have the stout hearts that befit your Latian stock and ancient blood, consider not the land in which we meet, or the distance which divides us from the dwellings of captured Rome; recognise rather the aspect of this body, and, having power to pass any measure, decree this first of all — and the fact is clear to all kings and nations — that we are the Senate. For whether beneath the icy Wain of the Northern Bear, or in the torrid zone and the clime fenced in by heat, where neither night nor day may grow beyond equality, wherever Fortune carry us, the State will go with us and empire attend us. When the Tarpeian sanctuary was consumed by the firebrands of the Gauls, Camillus dwelt at Veii, and Veii was Rome. Never has this order forfeited its rights by changing its place. Caesar has in his power the sorrowing buildings, the empty houses, the silenced laws, and the law-courts closed by a dismal holiday; but that Senate House sees no senators save those whom it expelled ere Rome was deserted: every member of this great body who is not an exile is present here. When we knew naught of civil war and had rested long in peace, the first fury of warfare drove us apart; but now all the scattered limbs return to the body. See how the gods make good the loss of Italy by the armed strength of the whole world I Our enemies lie deep in Illyrian waters; and Curio, a mighty man in Caesar's Senate, has fallen on the barren fields of Libya. Lift up your standards, ye leaders of armies; hasten the course of destiny; convince the gods that you have hope; and draw from success the confidence which your good cause gave you when you fled before Caesar. For us the time of office expires when the year closes; but your authority, senators, can never be subject to any limits; and therefore take counsel for the common good, and vote for Magnus as your leader." That name was hailed with applause by the senators; and they laid on the shoulders of Magnus the burden of their country's fate and of their own. Next, rewards for good service were freely bestowed on kings and peoples: gifts of honour were conferred on the rugged soldiery of cold Taygetus, and on Rhodes, queen of the seas and island of Apollo; Athens of ancient fame was commended; and Phocis was declared free, in compliment to Massilia, her daughter city. Praise was given also to Sadalas and brave Cotys, to the faithful ally, Deiotarus, and to Rhascypolis, lord of a frozen land; and Libya was bidden to obey King Juba by the authority of the Senate. And next — O cruelty of Fate — to Ptolemy, right worthy to rule a treacherous people, to Ptolemy, that disgrace of Fortune and reproach of the gods, it was permitted to place on his head the weight of the Macedonian crown. The boy received the sword to use it ruthlessly against his people. Would that they alone had suffered! But, while the Senate gave the throne of Lagus, the life of Magnus was thrown in as well; and so Cleopatra lost her kingdom, and Caesar the power to murder his son-in-law. Then the meeting dispersed, and all took up arms. But, while the nations and their leaders prepared for war, uncertain of the future and blind to their destiny, Appius alone feared to commit himself to the lottery of battle; therefore he appealed to the gods to reveal the issue of events; and Delphi, the oracular shrine of Apollo, closed for many years, was by him unbarred.

At equal distance from the limits of East and West, the twin peaks of Parnassus soar to heaven. The mountain is sacred to Phoebus and to Bromios, in whose honour the Bacchants of Thebes, treating the two gods as one, hold their triennial festival at Delphi. When the Flood covered the earth, this height alone rose above the level and was all that separated sea from sky; and even Parnassus, parted in two by the flood, only just displayed a rocky summit, and one of its peaks was submerged. There Apollo, with yet unpractised shafts, laid low the Python and so avenged his mother who had been driven forth when great with child. Themis was then queen and mistress of the oracle; but, when Apollo saw that the huge chasm in the earth breathed forth divine truth, and that the ground gave out a wind that spoke, then he enshrined himself in the sacred caves, brooded over the holy place, and there became a prophet.

Which of the immortals is hidden here? What deity, descending from heaven, deigns to dwell pent up in these dark grottoes? What god of heaven endures the weight of earth, knowing every secret of the eternal process of events, sharing with the sky the knowledge of the future, ready to reveal himself to the nations, and patient of contact with mankind? A great and mighty god is he, whether he merely predicts the future or the future is itself determined by the fiat of his utterance. It may be that a large part of the whole divine element is embedded in the world to rule it, and supports the globe poised upon empty space; and this part issues forth through the caves of Cirrha, and is inhaled there, though closely linked to the Thunderer in heaven. When this inspiration has found a harbour in a maiden's bosom, it strikes the human soul of the priestess audibly, and unlocks her lips, even as the crown of Etna in Sicily boils over from the pressure of the flames; and as Typhoeus, where he lies beneath the everlasting mass of Inarime, makes hot the rocks of Campania by his unrest.

This sacred shrine, which welcomes all men and is denied to none, nevertheless alone is free from the taint of human wickedness. There no sinful prayers are framed in stealthy whisper; for the god forbids mankind to pray for anything, and only proclaims the doom that none may change. To the righteous he shows favour: when whole cities, as in the case of Tyre, were abandoned by their inhabitants, he has often given them a place to dwell in; he has enabled others to dispel the dangers of war, as the sea of Salamis has not forgotten; he has removed the anger of the barren earth by revealing a remedy; he has cleared the air from the taint of plague. But the Delphian oracle became dumb, when kings feared the future and stopped the mouth of the gods; and no divine gift is more sorely missed by our age. Yet the priestesses of Delphi feel no grief that utterance is denied them: nay, they rejoice in the cessation of the oracle. For, if the god enters the bosom of any, untimely death is her penalty, or her reward, for having received him; because the human frame is broken up by the sting and surge of that frenzy, and the stroke from heaven shatters the brittle life. — So when Appius, probing the last secrets of Roman destiny, urged his quest, the tripods had long been motionless and the mighty rock silent. When the priest was bidden to unbar the awful shrine and usher the terrified priestess into the divine presence, Phemonoe was wandering free from care about the spring of Castalia and the sequestered grove; he laid hands upon lier and compelled her to rush within the temple doors. Fearing to take her stand on that dread threshold, Apollo's priestess sought by vain deceit to discourage Appius from his eagerness to learn the future." Why," she asked,' does presumptuous hope of learning the truth draw you hither, O Roman.'' The chasm of Parnassus, fallen dumb and silent, has buried its god. Either the breath of inspiration has failed yonder outlet and has shifted its path to a distant region of the world; or, when Pytho was burned by the brands of barbarians, the ashes sank into the vast caverns and blocked the passage of Phoebus; or Delphi is dumb by the will of Heaven, and it is thought enough that the verses of the ancient Sibyl, entrusted to your nation, should tell forth the hidden future; or else Apollo, accustomed to exclude the guilty from his shrine, finds none in our age for whose sake to unseal his lips."

The maiden's craft was plain, and even her fears proved the reality of the deity she denied. Then the circling band confined the tresses above her brow; and the hair that streamed down her back was bound by the white fillet and the laurel of Phocis. When still she paused and hesitated, the priest thrust her by force into the temple. Dreading the oracular recess of the inner shrine, she halted by the entrance, counterfeiting inspiration and uttering feigned words from a bosom unstirred; and no inarticulate cry of indistinct utterance proved that her mind was inspired with the divine frenzy. To Appius, who heard her false prophecy, she could do less harm than to the oracle and Apollo's repute for truth. Her words, that rushed not forth with tremulous cry; her voice, which had not power to fill the space of the vast cavern; her laurel wreath, which was not raised off her head by the bristling hair; the unmoved floor of the temple and the motionless trees — all these betrayed her dread of trusting herself to Apollo. Appius perceived that the oracle was dumb, and cried out in fury: "Profane wretch, I myself and the gods whom you counterfeit will punish you even as you deserve, unless you go down into the cave and cease, when consulted concerning the mighty turmoil of a terrified world, to speak your own words." Scared at last the maiden took refuge by the tripods; she drew near to the vast chasm and there stayed; and her bosom for the first time drew in the divine power, which the inspiration of the rock, still active after so many centuries, forced upon her. At last Apollo mastered the breast of the Delphian priestess; as fully as ever in the past, he forced his way into her body, driving out her former thoughts, and bidding her human nature to come forth and leave her heart at his disposal. Frantic she careers about the cave, with her neck under possession; the fillets and garlands of Apollo, dislodged by her bristling hair, she whirls with tossing head through the void spaces of the temple; she scatters the tripods that impede her random course; she boils over with fierce fire, while enduring the wrath of Phoebus. Nor does he ply the whip and goad alone, and dart flame into her vitals: she has to bear the curb as well, and is not permitted to reveal as much as she is suffered to know. All time is gathered up together: all the centuries crowd her breast and torture it; the endless chain of events is revealed; all the future struggles to the light; destiny contends with destiny, seeking to be uttered. The creation of the world and its destruction, the compass of the Ocean and the sum of the sands — all these are before her. Even as the Sibyl of Cumae in her Euboean cave, resenting that her inspiration should be at the service of many nations, chose among them with haughty hand and picked out from the great heap of destiny the fate of Rome, so Phemonoe, possessed by Phoebus, was troubled and sought long ere she found the name of Appius concealed among the names of mightier men — Appius, who came to question the god hidden in the land of Castalia. When she found it, first the wild frenzy overflowed through her foaming lips; she groaned and uttered loud inarticulate cries with panting breath; next, a dismal wailing filled the vast cave; and at last, when she was mastered, came the sound of articulate speech: "Roman, thou shalt have no part in the mighty ordeal and shalt escape the awful threats of war; and thou alone shalt stay at peace in a broad hollow of the Euboean coast." Then Apollo closed up her throat and cut short her tale.

Ye oracles that watch over destiny, ye mysteries of the universe, and thou, O Paean, master of truth from whom no day of future time is hidden by the gods, why is it that thou dreadest to reveal the last phase in the collapse of empire, the fall of captains and deaths of kings, and the destruction of so many nations in the carnage of Italy? Have the gods not yet resolved on so great a crime, and, because the stars still hesitate to doom Pompey to death, is the fate of many held in suspense? Or is this the object of thy silence — that Fortune may carry through the heroic deed of the avenging sword, that mad ambition may be punished, and that tyranny may meet once more the vengeance of a Brutus? — Now the doors gave way when the priestess dashed her breast against them, and forth she rushed, driven from the temple. The frenzy abides; and the god, whom she has not shaken off, still controls her, since she has not told all her tale. She still rolls wild eyes, and eyeballs that roam over all the sky; her features are never quiet, now showing fear, and now grim with menacing aspect; a fiery flush dyes her face and the leaden hue of her cheeks; her paleness is unlike that of fear but inspires fear; her heart finds no rest after its labour; and, as the swollen sea moans hoarsely when the North wind has ceased to blow, so voiceless sighs still heave her breast. While she was returning to the common light of day from the divine radiance in which she had seen the future, a darkness intervened. For Apollo poured Stygian Lethe into her inward parts, to snatch the secrets of heaven from her. Then the truth vanished from her bosom, and knowledge of the future went back to the tripods of the god; and down she fell, recovering with difficulty. But Appius, deceived by a riddling oracle, was not alarmed by the nearness of death: urged by vain hope, he was eager to take possession of a domain at Chalcis in Euboea, while the lordship over the world was still unsettled. Madman! what deity save Death alone can assure to a man that he will feel no crash of warfare and escape such worldwide suffering? Laid in a memorable tomb, you shall occupy a sequestered spot on the shore of Euboea, where a gorge of the sea is narrowed by the quarries of Carystos and by Rhamnus that worships a goddess who hates the proud; there the sea boils in the narrows with rushing waters, and there the Euripus with irregular current carries the ships of Chalcis to Aulis unkind to fleets.

Meanwhile Caesar was returning triumphant over conquered Spain to carry into a new world his victorious eagles, when the flowing tide of his successes was almost turned aside by Heaven. For, unsubdued in the field, the general feared, within the tents of his camp, to lose the fruits of crime, when those troops that had been faithful through so many wars, sated at last with blood, came near to forsaking him. Was it perhaps the brief lull in the trumpet's dismal note, and the cooling of the sword in its sheath, that had cast out the evil spirit of war? Or was it greed for greater rewards that made the soldiers repudiate their cause and their leader, and again put up for sale the swords already stained with guilt.'' In no peril was Caesar more clearly taught how insecure and even tottering was the eminence from which he looked down on the world, and how the ground he stood on quaked beneath him. Maimed by the loss of so many hands, and almost left to the protection of his own weapon, he, who was dragging to war so many nations, learned that the sword, once drawn, belongs to the soldier and not to the general. There was an end of timid muttering, an end of anger hidden in the secret heart; for what often binds a wavering allegiance — that each fears those to whom he himself is a terror, and each thinks that he alone resents the injustice of oppression — that motive had lost its hold. For their mere numbers had dispelled their fears and made them bold: the sin of thousands always goes unpunished. Thus they poured forth their threats: "Give us leave, Caesar, to depart from the madness of civil war. You search over land and sea for swords to pierce our hearts, and you are ready to spill our worthless lives by the hand of any foe. Some of us were snatched from you by Gaul, others by the hard campaigns in Spain; others lie in Italy; over all the world you are victorious and your soldiers die. What boots it to have shed our blood in Northern lands, where we conquered the Rhone and the Rhine? As a reward for so many campaigns you have given me civil war. When we drove forth the Senate and captured our native city, what men or what gods did you suffer us to rob.'' As we go on to every crime, though our hands and swords are guilty, our poverty absolves us. What limit of warfare do you seek? What will satisfy you if Rome is not enough? Consider at last our grey hairs; behold our enfeebled hands and wasted arms. We have lost the enjoyment of life, we have spent all our days in fighting. Now that we are old, disband us to die. See how extravagant are our demands! Save us from laying our dying limbs on the hard rampart of the camp, from breathing out our last breath against the bars of the helmet, and from looking in vain for a hand to close our dying eyes; and suffer us to sink into the arms of a weeping wife, and to know that the pyre stands ready for one corpse alone. Suffer us to end our old age by sickness; let not death by the sword be the only end for Caesar's soldiers. Why do you lure us on with promises, as if we did not know the horrors of which we are to be the instruments? Are we the only combatants in civil war who are ignorant what crime earns the richest reward? All our fighting has been in vain if Caesar has yet to learn that our hands stick at nothing. Neither our oath nor the bonds of law forbid us to be thus bold. Though Caesar was my general on the banks of the Rhine, he is my comrade here; crime levels those whom it pollutes. Besides, our valour is wasted, since the judge of merit is ungrateful; all our achievements are called good luck. Let Caesar learn that we are his destiny; though he hope for entire compliance from the gods, yet the anger of his soldiers will bring peace." Thus they spoke and began to run to and fro about the camp, and to demand their general with fury in their faces. So be it, ye gods! Since duty and loyalty are no more and our only remaining hope is in wickedness, let mutiny make an end of civil war.

Such an uproar might have terrified any general; but Caesar was accustomed to stake his fortune upon desperate measures, and glad to put it to the proof in utmost risks; he came, without waiting till their rage should die down, and hastened to defy their fury at its height. Unforbidden by him, they might have sacked cities and temples, even the Tarpeian sanctuary of Jupiter; they might have inflicted unspeakable outrage on the mothers and daughters of senators; he wished undoubtedly that they should demand of him leave for all atrocities, he wished that the rewards of war should be coveted; he dreaded one prospect only — that his fierce soldiers might return to their senses. Do you not blush, Caesar, that you alone find pleasure in war which your instruments have already condemned? Shall they, sooner than you, sicken of bloodshed and resent the tyranny of the sword, while you rush on through right and wrong without limit? Grow weary; learn to find life endurable without fighting; suffer yourself to set a limit to wickedness. Why this ruthless pressure, this compulsion of men who have lost the will to fight? Civil war is slipping out of your grasp. — He took his stand on a mound of turf piled high; his countenance was undismayed, and his own fearlessness justly inspired fear in others. Anger prompted the words he spoke: "Soldiers, who lately raged against an absent man, with fury in your faces and gestures, here is my breast bare and ready for your stabs. Plant here your swords and fly, if you wish to end the war. That you have no stomach for fighting is revealed; for your mutiny ends in words; you are warriors whose only purpose is flight; your leader's victories have known no check, and yet you have had enough. Begone! leave me to my own fortune to carry on war. These swords will find hands to hold them; and when I have discarded you. Fortune will give me in exchange a brave man for every unused weapon. If Pompey, in flight, is followed by a mighty fleet and the peoples of Italy, shall not victory give me a host, merely to carry off the prizes of a war already decided, to snatch the reward of your hardships, and to walk unwounded by my laurelled car, while you, a despised mob, old men drained of blood, sunk to be the rabble of Rome, will watch us triumph? Think you that Caesar's career can feel the loss of your desertion? 'Tis as if all the rivers threatened to withdraw the waters they mingle with the sea: if those waters were removed, the sea-level would not fall any more than now their presence raises it. Think you that you have ever turned the scale in my favour? Providence will never stoop so low that fate can attend to the life and death of such as you. All these events depend upon the actions of the leaders; it is for the sake of a few that mankind in general lives. While you bore the name of Caesar, you were the terror of the Spanish world, and of the North; but, had Pompey led you, you would certainly have fled. Labienus was eminent in war while he bore my arms; now, a despised deserter, he hurries over land and sea with the leader whom he preferred to me. I shall think no better of your loyalty if you fight neither for me nor against me. If any man leaves my standards without offering his sword to Pompey's faction, he desires never to be mine. This camp is beyond doubt favoured by heaven; for the gods designed that I should change my soldiers before embarking on such great wars. Ah! how great a burden Fortune is lifting now from shoulders that are already overweighted! I have the chance to disband men whose greed is unbounded, and for whom the world is not enough. Henceforward at least I shall fight battles to please myself. Begone from the camp and surrender my standards to men, ye cowards and civilians! Those few, at whose instigation this madness broke out, are detained here not by their general but by their punishment. Down with you upon the ground, and stretch out for the axe your traitorous heads and necks I And you raw recruits, who alone will form the backbone of the army in future, watch their execution, and learn how to slay and to be slain." — The spiritless mob cowered before his fierce and menacing words; and the great army feared a single man whom they could have stripped of his command, as if he could control their very swords and make the steel obey him when the men refused obedience. Caesar himself dreaded that weapons and hands would be refused him for the performance of this crime; but they put up with more than their cruel commander thought possible, and provided not only executioners but the victims also. Between hearts inured to crime there is no stronger bond than inflicting and enduring death. Order was restored by the conclusion of this dreadful pact, and the men returned to their duty: the execution had settled their grievances.

They receive orders to reach Brundisium in nine days' march, and to summon thither all vessels that find harbour in remote Hydrus or ancient Tarentum or the sequestered shore of Leuca or in the Salapinian pool and Sipus beneath the hills, where Garganus curves the Italian coast with its oak-woods, and meets the North wind from Dalmatia and the South wind from Calabria, as it juts out from Apulia into the waters of the Adriatic. Caesar himself, safe without his army, hastened to terrified Rome; she had learned by now to obey him even when he wore the garb of peace. Yielding forsooth to the people's prayer, a dictator was added to the list of consuls, and Caesar, by his consulship, made glad the Calendar. For that age invented all the lying titles that we have used so long to our masters — that age in which Caesar, that he might grasp every right to use the sword, desired to combine the Roman axes with his blades and add the fasces to his eagles. Snatching at the empty name of legal office, he set a fitting mark upon that time of sorrow; for what consul has more right to give Ills name to the year of Pharsalia? The Campus sees a travesty of the annual ceremonies: the people are excluded, but their votes are sorted, the names of the tribes are rehearsed, and a pretence is made of shaking them in the urn. It is not permitted to watch the sky: it thunders, but the augur is deaf; and they swear that the omens are favourable, though an owl flies on the left hand. Then first the office once so venerable lost its power and began to decay: only, that the period might not lack a name, consuls appointed from month to month mark off the years upon the record-roll. Further, the god who presides over Trojan Alba, though, when Latium was conquered, he had ceased to deserve his customary rites, witnessed the bonfire at night that ends the Latin festival.

Hurrying away from Rome, Caesar, swifter than the lightning or the mother tigress, sped over the land which the Apulians, reduced to idleness, had ceased to till with rakes and surrendered to the weeds. When he reached the Cretan city of Brundisium on its bay, he found the sea closed by winter storms and the fleets scared by the weather of that season. He thought it shame that the time for hastening the war to a close had ended in sloth and idleness, and that he should be detained in harbour, till others, who were no favourites of Fortune, found the sea safe and open. Thus he filled with confidence men who knew naught of the sea: "When the gales of winter have mastered sky and sea, they keep their hold more strongly than those which the treacherous fickleness of rainy spring prevents from blowing steadily. We have no need to track the curves of sea and shore; we have merely to cut the waves in a straight line, with the help of the North wind only. May it blow in all its fury, till it bends the tops of our masts, and drive us all the way to the cities of Greece; else Pompey's sailors, issuing from all the coast of Phaeacia, may overtake our flagging sails by the stroke of their oars. Cut the cables which detain our victorious prows; we have long been wasting the chance given us by cloudy skies and angry waves."

The sun sank beneath the sea, the first stars had come out in the sky, and the moon had begun to throw shadows of her own, when they cast loose their ships all together. The ropes shook out the sails at full stretch; the sailors bent the yards and slanted the canvas, keeping the sheet to the left, and spread the high topsails to catch the breeze that would otherwise be lost. Hardly had the light air begun to drive the sails till they puffed out a little, when they fell back on the mast and drooped towards the centre of the ship; and, when land was left behind, the very breeze that had carried them could not keep pace with the vessels. The sea lay motionless; chained in dead calm, the waves had less movement than a stagnant pool. — Thus the Bosporus lies idle and binds the Northern Sea, when the Danube, arrested by frost, no longer urges on the deep, and the vast sea is covered with ice; the water holds in a vice every ship it has grasped; the rider strikes the solid floor that no sail may traverse; and the wheel-track of the Bessian nomad furrows the Maeotian mere, while the surge groans beneath. A grim stillness broods over the dismal deep; and the sluggish pools of the flat expanse stand idle; as though abandoned by the natural force that governs it, the sea forgets to keep its ancient alternations, and is not moved to and fro by the tides; no ripple ruffles it, nor does it twinkle with any reflection of the sun. — Caesar's becalmed ships were exposed to countless dangers. On one side were the hostile vessels that might stir the sluggish waters with their oars; on the other was the dread approach of famine, while they were yet beleaguered by the calm. New prayers were found to meet the new danger — prayers for Or stormy seas and violent winds, if only the sea would rouse from its dead stagnation and be sea indeed. But no clouds nor angry waves were visible anywhere: the stillness of sky and ocean robbed them of all hope of shipwreck. When, however, the darkness was dispelled, day lifted up the sunlight obscured by cloud, and stirred the ocean depths by degrees, and brought the Ceraunian mountains nearer to the fleet. Soon the ships gathered speed, and the breakers followed in their wake, till they sped along with favouring wind and tide and grappled with their anchor-flukes the sands of Palaeste.

The first place that saw the rivals halt and pitch their camps side by side was the land which the swift Genusus and gentler Hapsus encompass with their banks. The Hapsus is made navigable by a lake, which it drains imperceptibly with quiet flow; but the Genusus is driven fast by the snows thawed now by sun and now by rain; neither river is wearied by the length of its course: the sea is close, and they know little of the land. This was the place where Fortune matched two names of such high renown; but the suffering world was disappointed in the hope that the rivals, when parted by but a little space of ground, might repudiate wickedness thus forced upon their notice. For each could see the other's face and hear his voice; and the father-in-law whom Magnus had loved for many years never but once had a nearer view of him after the close tie was broken and when the grandchildren, offspring of an ill-starred union, were dead — and that once was on the sands of the Nile.

Though Caesar was frantic to join battle, he was forced to endure a postponement of wicked war by the partisans he had left in Italy. Bold Antony, who commanded all those forces, thus early, during the civil war, was plotting an Actium. Again and again Caesar urged him to haste with threats and entreaties: "On you lies the blame for the sore troubles that afflict mankind; why do you arrest the course of destiny and the will of Heaven? All else has been done with my accustomed speed, and Fortune now demands of you the finishing touch for a war that has rushed on from victory to victory. We are not parted by the shifting tides of Libya — Libya whose coast is broken by the shoals of the Syrtes. Am I risking your army on a sea I have not tried, or drawing you into dangers unknown? Coward! Caesar bids you come, not go. I myself went before through the midst of the enemy, and my prow struck a shore that others controlled; do you fear my camp? I complain that you waste the hours granted by destiny; I spend my prayers upon the winds and waves. Check not the hearts that are eager to cross the treacherous main; the soldiers, if I know them, will be willing to join my forces at the cost of shipwreck. I must even use the language of resentment: the division of the world between us is unfair: Caesar and all the Senate share Epirus between them, while you keep Italy all to yourself.' Again and again he summoned Antony forth by these appeals; and, when he saw him still delay, believing that Heaven was more true to him than he to Heaven, he ventured in the dangerous darkness to defy the sea, thus doing of his own accord what others had feared to do when bidden. He knew by experience that rashness succeeds when Heaven favours, and hoped to surmount in a little boat the waves that even fleets must fear.

Drowsy night had relaxed the weary toil of war — night, a brief respite to the wretches over whose breasts their humbler estate suffers sleep to prevail; there was silence in the camp, and the third hour of night had roused the second watch. Stepping anxiously through the desolate silence, Caesar prepares to do what even slaves hardly could dare: he left all behind him and chose Fortune for his sole companion. He passed outside the tents; he sprang over the bodies of the sleeping sentries, vexed within himself that he was able to elude them; he traced the winding shore and found by the edge of the sea a boat moored by a rope to the hollowed rocks. The skipper and owner of the boat had a dwelling not far away that gave him shelter and safety; no timber supported it, but it was wattled with barren rush and reed from the marshes, and the side exposed to the sea was protected by a skiff turned upside down. Here Caesar smote again and again upon the door till the roof shook. Amyclas rose up from the soft bed that seaweed gave him." What shipwrecked sailor seeks my roof?" he asked, 'or whom has chance compelled to hope for aid from my cabin?" Thus speaking, he withdrew a rope from a high pile of ashes which time had cooled, and fanned the slender spark till he fed it into flame. No thought of the war had he: he knew that poor men's huts are not plundered in time of civil war. How safe and easy the poor man's life and his humble dwelling! How blind men still are to Heaven's gifts! What temple, what fortified town, could say as much — that it thrills with no alarm when Caesar knocks? Then, when the door was unfastened, Caesar spoke: "Enlarge your hopes, young man, and look forward to bounty beyond your humble prayers. If you obey my orders and carry me to Italy, you shall not henceforward owe all to your boat and your own arms, nor shall you be said to have spent a needy old age in lamenting cruel poverty. Be swift to place your destiny in the hands of Heaven, which wishes to fill your pinched home with sudden wealth." Thus he spoke; for though the garb he wore was humble, he knew not how to speak the language of a private man. Then the poor man, Amyclas, answered: "Many signs, indeed, prevent me from trusting the sea to-night. Thus the sun carried down into the Ocean no ruddy clouds, and showed no symmetrical ring of rays; for with divided beams one half of his disk summoned the South wind, the other the North. Also, his centre was hollowed and dim at sunset, and the feeble light suffered the eye to gaze on it. The moon too, when she appeared, did not shine with slender horn; nor was she carved out in a clear-cut hollow of her central orb; nor did she prolong her tapering extremities with upright horn. She was red, with an indication of storms; then she was pale and showed a sallow face, and saddened as her countenance began to pass behind a cloud. For the rest, I like not the tossing of the trees or the beat of the waves on the shore; or when the dolphin with changing course challenges the sea to rise, and the cormorant prefers the land, and the heron dares to fly aloft and trusts his water-cleaving pinion, and the crow, sprinkling his head with brine, seems to forestall the rain and paces the shore with lurching gait — I like not these signs. Nevertheless, if a great crisis requires it, I cannot hesitate to lend my aid: either I will land you where you bid me, or the wind and waves, not I, shall say you nay." — With these words he unmoored his boat and spread his canvas to the winds. At the motion of the winds, not only the meteors which glide through the high heaven drawing after them trains of diffused light as they fall, but also the stars which remain fixed in the summit of the sky, seemed to be shaken. A shudder of darkness blackened the ridges of the sea; the angry deep boiled with a long swell, wave following wave; and the swollen billows, uncertain of the coming storm, gave token that they were in travail with hem pest. Then said the skipper of the restless boat: "See what mighty mischief the cruel sea is brewing. I know not whether it threatens us with winds from West or South; for the shifting current strikes the boat from every side. The South wind prevails in the clouds and in the sky; but if we mark the moaning of the sea, a gale from the North-west will master the main. In such a flood neither ship nor shipwrecked sailor will ever reach the shore of Italy. Our one chance is to resign all hope of a passage and retrace our forbidden course. Suffer me to make the shore with my battered craft, or else the nearest land may prove too distant."

But Caesar was confident that all dangers would make way for him. "Despise the angry sea,' he cried, 'and spread your sail to the raging wind. If you refuse to make for Italy when Heaven forbids, then make for it when I command. One cause alone justifies your fear — that you know not whom you carry. He is a man whom the gods never desert, whom Fortune treats scurvily when she comes merely in answer to his prayer. Burst through the heart of the storm, relying on my protection. Yonder trouble concerns the sky and sea, but not our bark; for Caesar treads the deck, and her freight shall insure her against the waves. No long duration shall be permitted to the fierce fury of the winds: this bark shall be the salvation of the sea. Turn not your helm; use your sail to flee from the neighbouring shore; then you must believe that you have gained an Italian harbour, when it is no longer possible for any other land to shelter our boat and secure our safety. You know not the meaning of this wild confusion: by this hurly-burly of sea and sky Fortune is seeking a boon to confer on me." Ere he spoke another word, the raging whirlwind smote the vessel and tore away the tattered cordage, and bore off the sails that fluttered over the frail mast, the hull groaned as the seams gave way.

And now dangers, summoned from all the world, came rushing on. First the North-west wind raised his head above the Atlantic Ocean and stirred the tides; and soon the sea, roused by him, was raging and would have lifted up all its waves to cover the cliffs; but the cold North wind struck athwart and beat back the flood, till the sea hung doubtful before which wind it would fall. But the fury of the Scythian North wind prevailed: it lashed the waves in circles and changed to shallows the sands hidden far below. But it could not carry the sea right to the shore, but broke its tide against the waves raised by the North-west wind; and, even if the winds were hushed, the angry waters might carry on their strife. I cannot but believe that the fierce East wind was active then, and that the South wind, black with storm, was not idle in the prison of Aeolus' cave, and that all the winds, rushing from their accustomed quarters, protected their own regions with furious hurricane; and that therefore the sea remained in its place. Separate seas were caught up by the storm and carried away by the winds: the Tyrrhene Sea migrated to the Aegean, and the Adriatic moved and roared in the Ionian basin. That day buried mountains which the waves had often before battered in vain; and the defeated earth sent lofty peaks to the bottom. No shore gave birth to these mighty waves: they came rolling from another region and from the outer sea, and the waters which encircle the world drove on these teeming billows. Thus, when his own thunderbolt was weary, the Ruler of Olympus called in his brother's trident to help in punishing mankind; and earth became an appanage of the second kingdom, when the Ocean swallowed up the human race and refused to endure any limits, content with no bound except the sky. Now once more the mighty mass of waters would have risen to the stars, had not the Ruler of the gods kept down the sea with clouds. The darkness was not the common darkness of night: the heavens were hidden and veiled with the dimness of the infernal regions, and weighed down by clouds; and in the midst of the clouds the rain poured into the sea. Light, even dreadful light, died; no bright lightnings darted, but the stormy sky gave dim flashes. Next, the dome of the gods quaked, the lofty sky thundered, and the heavens, with all their structure jarred, were troubled. Nature dreaded chaos: it seemed that the elements had burst their harmonious bonds, and that Night was returning, to blend the shades below with the gods above; the one hope of safety for the gods is this — that in the universal catastrophe they have not yet been destroyed. Far as the eye looks down from the Leucadian peak upon calm sea, so high a precipice of water was seen by trembling mariners on the top of the billows; and when once again the swollen waves open their jaws, the mast barely projects above the surface. The sails reach the clouds, the keel rests on the bottom. For the water, where it sinks down, does not cover the bottom: it all goes to form mounds and is used up in the waves. The danger was too great for the aid derived from skill: the steersman knows not when to face the current and when to evade it. The strife of the waters is helpful to the wretched sailors; for one wave is powerless against another to upset the vessel; when her side is struck, another sea beats her back and rights her, and she rises erect because all the winds blow at once. It is not the shoals of low-lying Sason that frighten the crews, nor yet the rocky shore of winding Thessaly, nor the scanty harbours of the Ambracian coast, but rather the tops of the Ceraunian mountains.— Caesar considers at last that the danger is on a scale to match his destiny." What trouble the gods take," he cried, "to work my ruin, assailing me on my little boat with such a mighty storm! If the glory of my death, denied to the battle-field, has been granted to the deep, I shall not shrink from meeting whatever end Heaven appoints for me. Although the date, hastened on by destiny, cuts short a great career, my achievements are sufficient: I have conquered the Northern peoples; by fear alone I have quelled the Roman forces opposed to me; Rome has seen me take precedence of Magnus; by appeal to the people I won the consulship denied to me by force of arms; no Roman office will be found missing from my record; and none other than Fortune, who shares with me the secret of my ambition, shall ever know that, though I go down to the Stygian shades loaded with honours, dictator as well as consul, nevertheless I am dying a private citizen. I ask no burial of the gods: let them leave my mutilated corpse amid the waves; I can dispense with grave and funeral pyre, provided I am feared for ever and my appearance is dreaded by every land." As he spoke thus, a tenth wave — marvellous to tell — upbore him and his battered craft; nor did the billow hurl him back again from the high watery crest but bore him onwards till it laid him on the land, where a narrow strip of shore was clear of jagged rocks. He touched the land and recovered in one moment realms and cities innumerable and his own lucky star.

But when Caesar returned next day to his army and his officers, they were not taken unawares by his return as they had been by his secret departure. Crowding round their leader, they shed tears and assailed him with lament and expostulations not unpleasing to his ear. ''Hardhearted Caesar, to what lengths your rash courage has carried you! And at the mercy of what fate did you leave our worthless lives, when you gave your limbs to be torn in pieces by the reluctant winds? When the existence and safety of so many nations depend upon your single life, and so large a part of the world has chosen you for its head, it is cruel of you to court death. Did none of your comrades deserve the honour of being prevented from surviving your end? While the sea drove you along, our limbs were held by slothful sleep; you put us to the blush. You made for Italy yourself, because you deemed it heartless to bid any other cross such a stormy sea. In general it is utter despair that hurls men into jeopardy and danger that runs straight to death; but that you, who are now master of the world, should grant such licence to the sea! Why do you overtask the goodwill of Heaven? Fortune has hurled you here upon the shore; for the issue of the war, are you content with that instance of her favour and assistance? Is this the use you prefer to make of Heaven, that you should be, not the ruler of the world or the master of mankind, but a shipwrecked wretch who escapes from drowning?" As thus they argued, darkness was dispelled and clear daylight came upon them together with the sun; and the weary sea, permitted by the winds, calmed its swollen billows.

The commanders in Italy also, when they saw that the sea was weary of waves, and that a clear North wind, rising in the sky, would soon break the force of the waters, cast loose their ships; and these were long kept close together by the wind and by skilled hands all steering the same course: like soldiers marching on land, the fleet sailed together over the broad sea, vessel keeping close to vessel. But night, proving unkind, robbed the sailors of steady wind, stopped the even progress of the sails, and threw the ships out of station. Thus, when cranes are driven by winter from the frozen Strymon to drink the water of the Nile, at the beginning of their flight they describe various chance-taught figures; but later, when a loftier wind beats on their outspread wings, they combine at random and form disordered packs, until the letter is broken and disappears as the birds are scattered. As soon as day returned, and the brisker air roused by the dawn bore down on the ships, after trying in vain to land at Lissus, they sailed past to reach Nymphaeum, where the sea, unprotected on the North, had been turned into a harbour by the shift of wind from North to South.

When Caesar's forces were collected from every quarter to full strength, Magnus saw that his army must soon face the supreme crisis of stern war, and therefore decided to place in safety his wife, a precious charge, and to hide Cornelia in the retirement of Lesbos, far from the tumult of cruel warfare. Ah! how mighty is the power of wedded love over gentle hearts! Even Magnus was made anxious and afraid of battle by his love; one thing alone he wished to save from the stroke that overhung the world and the destiny of Rome; and that one thing was his wife. Though his mind was made up already, words failed him: he preferred to postpone what must come, to yield to the allurements of delay, and to steal a reprieve from destiny. Night was ending and the drowsiness of sleep was banished, when Cornelia clasped in her arms the care-laden breast of her husband and sought the dear lips of him who turned from her; wondering at his wet cheeks and smitten by a trouble she could not understand, she was abashed to discover Magnus in tears. Sighing, he said: "O my wife, dearer to me than life when life was sweet, not now when I am weary of it, the sad day which we have put off at once too long and not long enough has come at last: Caesar with all his forces is upon us now; war cannot be resisted, but Lesbos will hide you safe from war. Cease to urge me with entreaty; I have already said 'no' to myself. You will not long suffer separation from me: the decisive event will come speedily; the mightiest fall with rapid overthrow. It is enough for you to know by report the dangers that Magnus incurs; and you love me less than I imagined, if you can bear to look on at civil war. As for me, now that battle is at hand, I am ashamed to enjoy peaceful sleep at my wife's side, and to rise from her embrace when the war-note rouses the suffering world. I fear to trust myself to civil war, unless I am saddened by a loss of my own. You meanwhile must lie hidden, safer than any nation or any king; and if you are far away, the destiny of your husband need not crush you with its full weight. If Heaven hurls my armies to destruction, let the best part of me survive, and let me have a welcome hiding-place from the pursuit of Fortune and the conqueror's cruelty." Scarce could she in her weakness sustain so great a sorrow; her senses fled from her stricken breast. At last she was able to utter her sad remonstrances: "No power is left me, Magnus, to complain of our destiny in marriage or of the gods. For it is not death that divorces us, nor the final brand of the awful funeral pyre; no, by a lot all too common and familiar, I lose my husband, because he sends me from him. Because the enemy draws near, let us dissolve our marriage-bond and so appease the father of your former wife! Is this the opinion you have formed of my troth, Magnus? Do you believe that my safety can be different from your safety? Have we not for long been dependent upon the same hazard. Are you so cruel as to bid me, apart from you, expose my head to the thunder and the downfall of the world? Do you think it is an easy lot for me to have already perished, while you are still praying for success? Suppose I refuse to be mastered by misfortune, and follow you to the nether world by a prompt death; yet, until the sad news falls on regions far away, I shall surely live on after you are dead. Besides, you are cruel in habituating me to my fate, and teaching me to bear so great a sorrow. Forgive the confession — but I fear that I may find life endurable. But if prayers avail and the gods hear mine, then your wife will be the last to learn the issue of events. After your victory, I shall haunt the cliffs of Lesbos in my anxiety; and I shall dread the ship that brings such news of battle won. The report of victory will not allay my fears, because in the deserted places whither I am cast out I may be taken prisoner by Caesar, even when he is a fugitive. Tlie exile of one who bears a famous name will throw a light upon the shore of Lesbos; and who can remain ignorant of the asylum of Mitylene, when it harbours the wife of Magnus? This is my last prayer: if defeat makes flight your safest course and you entrust yourself to the sea, steer your ill-starred bark to any land but Lesbos; where I am, the foe will seek you." Having thus spoken, she sprang forth from the bed in frenzy, refusing to put off her agony for a moment. She cannot bear to clasp in her dear arms the breast or head of her sorrowing husband, and the last chance of enjoying their long and faithful love was thrown away. They hurry their grief to an end, and neither had the heart to say a parting farewell. Of their whole lives this was the saddest day. For all the losses that were to follow were borne with hearts already strengthened and steeled by misfortune.

The hapless lady swooned and fell, but was caught in the arms of her attendants and carried towards the sea-sands. Tliere she fell down and clutched the very strand, till at last she was borne on shipboard. She had suffered less when she left her native land and the harbours of Italy, hard pressed by the armies of cruel Caesar. Once the faithful companion of Magnus, now she departs without him, leaving him behind in her flight. The next night she spent brought her no sleep: her bed was widowed for the first time; its coldness and silence were strange to her in her solitude; and her side was unprotected, with no husband near her. How often, weighed down by drowsiness, she clasped the empty couch with cheated arms! How often, forgetful of her flight, she sought her husband in the darkness! For, though her secret heart burned with love's fire, she would not toss her limbs over all the bed, but abstained from touching his side of it. She feared that she had lost Pompey for ever; but Heaven intended a worse fate than that. The hour was soon coming that was to restore Magnus to his unhappy wife.