Complete works of lucan, p.10
Complete Works of Lucan, page 10
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 Olympia, 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 time, 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 light Numidian cavalry covered the heights and surrounded the Romans on every side, the leader 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.
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! 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.
