And savage Caesar far away at earth’s extreme

Waged war. Though causing little injury in deaths,

Still sure to give momentum to both generals’ fate.

Afranius and Petreius were the equal masters

Accord, and under alternating ensigns

Watchful guards assure the safety of the trenches.

In addition to the Latins were the Astur

Never wearied and the lightly armed Vetones,

Their name now mingled with Iberians. A modest

Incline, at its height a deep, rich earth. Upon that

Stands Ilerda, built by ancient hands and lapped

By placid Sicoris, not last of the Hesperian

Embraces, durable in winter’s floods. A nearby

Ridge bears Magnus’ standard, Caesar raising camp

On crest no lower, and between them lies a stream

That separates their tents. The land from here

Can hardly grasp. Rapacious Cinga you surround

These plains. Your waves are not allowed to strike the ocean,

For they mingle with the Iberus, which gives

This land its name, but then denies a name to you.

Rather let the power of the generals be on show,

Displaying many standards. Crime offends them. Shame

Of vicious warfare filled them. One day to their country

And to broken law was given. Then, at sunset,

While the first rank stood in place, a ruse to trick

The enemy. Nearby, his companies drawn up,

He advanced the camp. At first light, suddenly,

He ordered them to climb the hill that shields Ilerda

And they first took the mound. Both courage and their swords

Should have assured the place to these; it fell to those.

The burdened soldiers strove up crags, and clinging to the

Slope ahead, about to fall upon their backs

To hurl a javelin. They slipped, their footing held

By spear point through the stumps and rocks. And with their swords

They hack a path, neglectful of the enemy.

Their leader sees impending ruin and commands his

To offer a defensive front. The infantry,

Unpressured now, was easily relieved.

And, victor disappointed, fighting stopped. Thus far

The arbitration of their arms. As for the rest,

Uncertain. Winter came: retarding ice that clings

To dry north winds, trapped rains within a cloudy sky,

A searing mountain snow, and lying on the plains

A frost that will not harden in the sun’s full gaze.

Beneath a closer sky with lowered constellations.

But when warming spring receives the sun from fallen

Helle's bearer looking back on other signs,

Then days again are equal thanks to Libra’s weights.

First shone but doubtfully, now when the sun is gone

Denies Boreas, taking Eurus’ flames. The north

Wind far above propels what clouds he gathers west

As Nabathean gusts. The Arabs sense them; Ganges

Sun allows to coalesce, whatever northwest

Wind, the darkener of eastern skies, admits;

These gusts defended India. With all its clouds

Sent from the east, day burned. Heavy, clouds could weigh

Flight. The north and south are free of rains, and all

Moist air flows to the Herculean pillar. Here

At Zephyr’s border, at the hinge of highest heaven

And the ocean, they are forced, forbidden passage,

The space dividing earth from ether hold this massed

And darkened air now pressed by heaven and condensed

Into huge rain storms densely flowing. Nor do bolts

Sustain their flames though flashing always; lightning dies

Stands, its varied colors barely seen, and drinks

The ocean, raising captive waters to the clouds.

Now in the Pyrenees, where Titan never could

Grew wet with fractured ice, and waters exiting

Through springs lacked courses; every hollow then took in

These surging streams. Now Caesar’s arms, deluged, swim

On the plain. The stricken camp is mired in whirling

Easily retrieved nor, drowned in ditches, any

Fodder grown. The gleaners wandering those flooded

Roads are foiled by fields awash. And now companions

Come to hunger, of great ills always the first.

Not prodigal is he who changes all his means

For scraps of corn. Pale scourge of wealth! Not rare is he

Who buys starvation in receiving gold . Now gathered

Rivers, covered by a gulf, are sunk in one

Off the home of beasts and they themselves, and twists

The sounding waters in deep whirlpools stronger even

Than the ferment of the ocean it repels.

Cast on the sky, night does not sense the coming sunrise.

The character of things. So lies the farthest part

Of our world, a snow-filled zone where winter always

Burdens and the heavens starless always; where

No thing in such a sterile cold is born. And yet

Signs. O, keep it so, high parent of the world!

Thus Neptune, second only, ruler of the ocean,

Let you employ the air with clouds perpetual;

Let you deny all heat to come. Let rivers have

And let the shaken earth be flattened as a spill

For water. Let Rhine inundate these camps, and those

The Rhone, And let the floods direct vast fonts aslant.

Rhipaean snows, melt here; here standing lakes. And lazy

This civil war from miserable lands!

Yet fortune

Was content to cause this man but small distress,

And that repaid in full. The gods showed favor and

Deserved his pardon. Came a fresher air, while Phoebus

Waters and nights reddened with the coming light.

Things fall into their places, moisture leaves the stars,

Whatever hung upon them seeks the ocean’s depths.

The wood displays its leaves, hills start to show above

Now Sicoris trades its plains for banks; white willow

First with moistened twigs is woven into boats;

These, covered with the skin of slaughtered bullocks, swim

Upon the swollen river bearing passengers.

Briton on an ample ocean; so Egyptians

When the Nile floods make papyrus skiffs from that

Aquatic plant. In such they rush with eager hands

To curve for bridge the fallen grove, but fearing increase

Instead they based their bridge in fields. And lest Sicoris

Raise its waves again, they siphon waters into

Channels. Shrinking flood to stream they penalize

The larger current. Seeing how all things went well

Distrusting the known world, he with his men sought peoples

Never conquered, always armed, ferocious in

The love of death; he headed for the earth’s extreme.

Perceiving naked hills and camps deserted, Caesar

Or fords, but overcome the tide with brawny shoulders.

Charging into battle, soldiers eagerly

Went by a route they fleeing feared. To warm their

Limbs, grown frigid in the flood, their weapons safe,

Mid-day rises. Soon the cavalry had reached

The rear ranks of a foe uncertain if to flee

Or fight. Twin stony crags stood in the plain; between,

A hollow. Steep ground here joined ragged peaks; safe passage

Positioned in those jaws might, Caesar sees, securely

Send for reinforcement to lands filled with vicious

tribes. “Go now,” he said, “but quickly, not in ranks;

Cut off the rear, present them with the threatening face

Death, but steel to breast let these receive in flight.”

He spoke. So they anticipate their foe in making

For that pass, and there at little interval

Were placed opposing camps, a narrow trench between.

The tired eyes, the features of their brothers

And their children and their fathers - only then

Was civil crime entirely grasped. Some time their faces

Still held fear; with nods or waving of their swords

Affection broke the laws of war; the soldiers dared

To cross the trenches holding out their eager hands now

For embrace. This cries the name of host, that friend;

A lifetime minds this one of boyish things they shared,

Their weapons wet with tears, sobs interrupted kisses;

And though the soldiers were not stained with blood they feared

For what they might have done before. Why strike your chest?

Why madly groan? What crazy breathings do you mouth,

How far do you fear him that you yourself made fearsome?

Trumps would signal war, ignore the savage song:

Flags would rise, but stop; these civil furies soon

Will end and Caesar - citizen - will love his son.

Concord of things, the health of our diverse world,

And sacred love of earth. Now is our age decisive

For those things to come. The hidden lairs of sins

So many, they are gone. Excuse is wrenched from those

Rest, through some unfriendly god, the fates will add

So many ills. But peace now. Soldiers wandered, shared

Both camps; they set communal tables made of turf,

Mixed wine libations flowed by grassy hearths, and, bedding

Which plains were occupied at first or lance first thrown.

While they set out their mighty deeds and while they were

Debating fate’s exclusive purpose, faith returned

Among these pitiful. And for that love must all

Of peace were known to him, Petreius, seeing camp

Betrayed, himself deceived, to murderous assault

He urges his loyal guard and falls upon his foe,

A crowd that was close packed, defenseless in the camp.

With much blood he tore peace violently apart.

Fierce anger added voice to appetite for battle:

“O mindless of your country, careless of your standards!

Soldiers, can you not uphold the senate’s cause,

Well then, at least be conquered fighting. Iron each man

Has, fate’s plan uncertain; while there lacks no blood

To flow from many wounds will you now seek this Royal

Highness? Raise his evil flags? Shall we beg Caesar

Leader’s lives? My health will never be the prize

Or purchase of such rotten treachery. We do not

Wage these civil wars to live. We are betrayed

By peace. No people would dig deep for metal,

No horses go to war, and navy never spread

The sea with towered ships, if ever liberty

Were well exchanged for peace. Surely guarantees

My enemies now make are foully sworn; but worse

Allows you hope for pardon. Shameful, that disgusting

Pact! Oblivious to this your fate, you, Magnus,

Ready armies through the world, move kings that hold

The earth’s extreme, when this our pact would give you promise

And all love turned to crime. So is it when wild beasts, grown

Unaccustomed to the wood, are tamed and shut

In pens; they put aside their dreadful features, learning

To be schooled by men. But if a little blood

And after blood is tasted tutored throats now swell.

Inflamed, they hardly overlook their frightened keeper.

Lost in all depravity, what horrors, shameful

to the gods, blind fate can raise in war’s dark night,

And the couches, where but now embraces fervent,

They cut open chests. And though at first with sighs

They pressed swords home, as if the steel clung to their hands

An adversary, yet they kill their own in hate,

The camps now burn with tumult and a host of crimes;

They snatch their parents’ heads. It was as if a hidden

Crime did not suffice, monstrosities performed

Before the general’s facet. They gloried in their guilt.

Recognized the gods’ approval. Better outcome

Never on Emathian fields or Marseille’s waves,

Or Pharoah’s waters came from such bad deeds. For this

One crime of civil war, yours seems the better cause.

Troops in camps so near Ilerda's high walls; back

They fled. But horseman blocked the plains; with dry hills they

Surround their foe. Now Caesar greatly wished to circle

With a deep dug trench their lack of any water,

Their ramparts from extending round the larger springs.

Now when they saw that path to death, fear changed to sudden

Rage. They killed the horses – useless to these penned-in

Soldiers – and, at last, deprived of hope, compelled

Are hot to fall upon their enemies. Caesar saw

Them running, pouring from the pass, and heading down

To certain death he said, “Now soldiers, hold your spears

Keep up your swords from those onrushing; I would not

Who with bare throat provokes his enemy. See how

This lad thinks cheap his life and, hating light, he

Can but perish on my sudden order. He will

Feel no blow, but fall upon our swords with joy in

Stroke, the wish to die be lost. So he allowed

That threatened rush to cool, and left them languishing,

Their war denied. Thus Phoebus set; night interposed

Its lights, the means of Mars now disallowed; and slowly

Give life to bravest spirits only while the pain

And blow are recent, while ongoing struggle offers

Warm blood to the sinews, and while bones have not yet

Worn through skin. But let the victor stop, aware

Binds the joints and, strength removed, the spirit. And then

Blood congealing enervates dry wounds. So now

They dug up earth, all water lacking, and they searched

For rivulets obscure in hidden rivers. Not with

But with their swords they excavate. A well is sunk

Into the mountain, deep to reach the watered plain.

No pale Asturian searcher seeking gold had ever

Plunged so deep or long. But rivers did not sound

From spongey pumice. Clinging to the shaft no sweated

Drops, or gravel bed disturbed by even minor

Seeping. Much in sweat the wearied men were raised

From chipping stubborn granite in that well. O waters

For parched and heavy breaths. No nourishment retrieved

Their drooping bodies. Nausea made starvation friend.

If ever some loose soil showed any damp with both

Hands they expressed the thick clods held above their mouths

Mud at once the soldier falls upon it struggling

For an obscene drink, and dying he takes water

He would shun surviving. In the manner of

Wild beasts they dry up swollen cattle and, denied

Then gnashing grass and leaves and stripping dew-wet twigs

For any juice at all, they squeezed the tender pulp

Within a plundered branch. O fortunate are those

A barbarous foe by poisoning the springs left dead

Corrupted blood and the disease of carrion

Into the rivers openly, or sallow wolf’s bane

Growing on Dictaean rocks, these Roman youths

Though undeceived would drink it. Flaming organs parched,

The vessels lack all stiffening of humors and turn

Flaccid. Lungs squeeze air through other passage

When harsh breathing hurts the lacerated palate,

Yet those mouths stretch out to snatch at evening air.

They swam, and with a thirsty face they cling upon

The clouds. This water famine also brings about

More griefs. For not upon the scorching sand of Meroe

Where Garamantes naked plow beneath the crab.

And rapid Iberis, a thirsty army gazes

Helpless out upon these waters just at hand.

And now the vanquished leaders yielded, seeking peace.

Afranius a supplicant, the author of

The hostile camps to stand before the feet of victors.

His nobility preserved though he petitions,

Undisturbed by hardship mindful both of fortune

Prior and this new reverse he acts all things

A pardon from the general: “If the fates had cast

Me under enemy degenerate, my potent

Hand had not been lacking to seize death. But now

My only reason praying thus for health is I

We are not partisans, nor took up arms against

Your councils. Civil war found us already generals;

Faithfully, so long as possible, we served.

We cause fate no delay. The western peoples we

Behind your back is safe now. Bloodshed on the plain

Did not decide this battle for you, nor no sword

In tired hand. For this alone forgive your conquered

Foe. No weighty things are asked. Let weary rest,

You think our force to lie bestrown upon the plain.

Nor is it proper to mix arms of victors with the

Conquered or to bring us captives in your triumph.

This band has run its course. We ask this single thing:

With you.” He spoke and Caesar with a face serene

Was moved and waived the use and penalty of war.

As soon as peace was fixed the soldiers all ran down

Upon the rivers, fell on banks, disturbed the water.

Many would not let air pass through empty channels,

Pressing and enclosing breath, and still this seething

Plague would not withdraw, but even organs water

Soaked, with hungry sickness pleaded still for water.

O spendthrift luxury, a little granted never

Satisfies; ambitious hunger, searching after

Food by land and sea; O table’s glory,

Learn how little furnishes a life, how much

Vintage does not lift their sorrows, here no gold

Or onyx cup, but pristine flow returning life.

Indeed, for people stream and Ceres are enough.

Ah, miserable those who would wage war!

Safe and harmless, free of care were scattered to their

Cities. O how much does he repent, supplied

With peace, that ever he shook iron with raised arm,

Or tolerated thirst, or vainly asked the gods

Battles always lie ahead, how many world-wide

Trials. For even in success a doubtful fortune

Still returns; some land is always to be conquered,

Always to be strewn with blood, and Caesar to be

Happy he who shrugs at this world’s fall, who knows

Where he will lie in death. Not tired called to fight.

Not roused from sleep by horn. But wife and growing children,

But a simple roof and land that's owned, not seized.

Mind of party and of favor. This one pardons,

That one leads, but only they who have no prayer

For the result look placidly on civil war.

That outcome was not all the same throughout the world,

Where the Adriatic seas beat long Salonae

With its waves and to a mild west wind the Jader

Runs. There, trusting to the Curictan - that warlike

People nourished by a land the Adriatic

The islands edge, impregnable if only hunger - coward

Fighting without risk - would leave them. Earth gives up

No grass for feeding horses; golden Ceres sows

No seed. The soldiers had already reaped the plain

The grass from turf around their camp, the fields quite shorn.

When first they saw their comrades on the facing bank

With Basilus their general, a new plan was formed

For flight across the deep. With no delay they spread

To form an unaccustomed structure. Empty barrels

All around sustain a line of rafts which linked

By chains are double braced with aldor. Unexposed

In front to spears, the rowers sit within a frame

Offering a marvelous and secret motion

In that neither sail propels nor water seen

Disturbed. They watch the straits until the swells grow small

And naked sand is left by the withdrawing waters.

The raft is launched and carried floating on a friendly

Deep, along with twin companions. In the heights

Above are jutting towers and with moving pinions

Platforms overhanging. Guardian of Illyria’s

Following its course, he ringed the rapid keel

Until his prize complete its task; and with an open

Sea invited rash, repeated entrance to

Those waters. Thus not yet the hunter closes in his

Air, but while the nets in varied spots are set

He holds the noisy mouth of smooth Mollosian hound,

Ties up the Spartan and the Cretan. Neither are

The woods permitted any but the dog whose nose

To bark, but with a straining leash to show the den.

So quickly now the hulks fill up and eagerly

They quit the island on these barges as the last

Of light just stays night’s shadow. Now do Pompei’s men,

The sea. Straits seem entirely open, but beneath

Are hung chains in mid ocean, links extending back

To rough Illyrian rocks where they are fixed. The first

Raft and the second pass on through, the third is grasped,

Above the sea are overhanging hollow cliffs

And near to ruin stands the barge – amazingly

Afloat - and yet in shadow of a woods. Here ocean

Currents often bring ships broken by the northern

Sea restores what it has taken when these caves

Revomit waters, twisted waves in ferment from a

Whirlpool dwarfing Tauromanian Charybdis. Here

This barge with Opitergium's inhabitants

And upon the rocks and shores swarmed other troops.

Vulteius grasped the hidden treachery submerged.

He was the captain of that raft, and with his sword

Tried vainly to disrupt the chains while urging battle –

Or breast for war. In this disaster courage did

Whatever, pressed so sore, it could. The fight opposed

So many thousands poured around the raft to barely

One sole cohort. Not for long; the dark night hid

Then with his lofty voice Vultaeius thus conveyed

The coming fate, his cohort stupified and pale:

“Lads! Young but free not longer than for one short night,

Consider this extremity of things, how tight

Too brief who has in it time yet to seek his death.

Not less death’s glory, lads, confronted as it nears.

Uncertain always is the length of life to come.

The praise of courage to take fate into your hand

Or cutting off one moment at the end of life.

None can be made to wish his death. But here there is

No flight; our fellow citizens stand round us fixed

Upon our throats. Decide for death and fear is gone.

To fall in war’s all-blinding cloud, as armies wield

Their weapons in chaotic darkness, or when heaps

Of corpses lie upon a field, each death then lost

In deaths so many. There must virtue die engulfed.

To friend and foe. The sea will offer witnesses,

The earth, the island from its peaks will. Factions so like

Twins will stare, although from shores diverse. O Fortune,

You prepare with our fate I know not what

That loyalty has made and sword-forged martial virtue,

These our lads will go beyond. We well know, Caesar:

It is not enough to fall by our own swords

For you, but we beleaguered men have nothing greater

Takes much from our praise, that with our elderly

And children we cannot spurn capture. Nonetheless,

Let them know our strength unconquerable, let them

Fear the spirit that would die with ease, be glad

They will want to purchase of us vile surrender.

But let death the rather buy us fame that is

Much greater for that promised pardon. Do not let them think

We have despaired when with hot steel we pierce our vitals.

Our Caesar should, among so many thousands, call

The loss of these few ruinous and fearsome harm.

Should fate show a retreat and give us leave, I would not

Shun what now impends. My comrades, I have thrown

Rages in me; passed is any need to see the sun.

From them who stay to live the gods hide what we know

Who now touch fate’s proximity victorious:

It is a joy to die.” So ardor raised the hearts

With moistened eyes they looked upon the heavens’ stars

And paled before the Bear. Those same, with spirits

Raised, anticipate the day. Nor were the heavens

Slow to sink their stars into the sea, Ledaea

The short night prompted Thessalian arrows. Dawn brought

Day and Istrians upon the rocks and fierce

Libernians with the Grecian navy on the sea.

The fight suspended, first they tried to win with bargains,

Those captive. But the young men stood resolved, now fierce

In their rejection of the light, indifferent to

The war with promise of an end by their own hands.

The turmoil and the stench shook not one mind prepared

Against innumerable hands, such is the trust

Of death. And when enough of blood seemed to have flowed

In war, rage turned aside from foes. The vessel’s chief

Himself, Vulteius, first with throat uncovered, now

“Is worthy of my blood and so with certain faith

Through my own wounds attests his wish to die?”

No further words, at once so many swords stabbed home.

He extols them all, but him who gave that first wound,

All of war’s disgrace performed by one side only.

So from Cadmus’ seed sprung up the band near Dirce

And killed with wounds they gave themselves, a dire omen

Of the Theban brothers. Phasis plain gave also

Sent by incantations dark, that filled so many

Furrows with their brothers’ blood. Medea,

She who first with foreign herbs had done this, paled

Before the evil. So with fate agreed among them

Too much from courage. Fallen, scattered, all bore equal

Lethal hurt; with dying hand they struck wounds not

All due to plunging swords; breasts ran on iron, throats

Pressed to the killing hand. With bloody fate one brother

Trembling, they thrust the swords with all the heft

Of their right hands. One only pious obligation:

Not to need a second blow. Now half alive

they bear their sliding innards, crawling to the

It gave them joy to grasp the flouted light, to view

With proud regard their victors, and to savor death.

So with a cruel massacre the raft was seen

Encumbered; victors brought back bodies to the pyre,

So prized by any. Through the world no ship is spoken of

More often by the mouth of spreading fame than this.

Yet still ignoble peoples fail to see in their

Example how it is not hard for virtue to

Are kingdoms ruled, is liberty oppressed by cruel

Force – and all from ignorance that swords are ours

So none need serve. Death, would that you had no desire

For the faint, that just the brave belonged to you.

Fields. For from the shores of Lilybaeum daring

Curio loosed his ships. The sails avoiding northern

Gales, he reached shores famous for their harbor

Lying in between the arches of great Carthage,

Waves he first makes camp, where mild Bagrada ploughs

A furrow in the barren sand. From there he seeks

The hills, eroded on all sides, which rightly by

Antiquity are called Antea’s realm. A local

Name known from his ancestors: “The earth, not yet

Depleted of the race of giants, had conceived

In Libyan caves a dreadful birth. No glory to

The earth was Typhon or Breiareus or Tityos

Not raised on Phlegraean field. She gifted him

In his nativity great power in that, touching

But his parent, weakened members gained new strength.

This cave was home to him; they say he hid beneath

Gave him no bed to sleep on, wood no couch. He lay

On the bare earth and there regained his powers.

Libyan opponents, tillers of the field, all died.

Those the sea brought died. He needs no help from lying prone

Unconquered in his strength although he stood. At last

The common rumor of his cruel malice brought

The great souled Alcides to Libyan harbor, he who

Banished monsters from both land and sea. This man

Anteus his of Libya. In Olympic fashion

From gymnasia, the stranger poured oil on

His limbs. The other, confident that feet would touch

His mother, spread warm sand to help his limbs. They joined

Long and vainly necks were tried with burdened muscles,

Head unmoving held with rigid features. Both

Amazed to find an equal. Alcides had early

Shepherded his strength in order that he could

And cold sweat from fatigue. The neck grew flaccid,

Lolling, then a chest crushed on a chest, then thighs

Struck sideways loosen. Now his back gives way. The victor

Binds his man and, hips compressing, grasps the waist.

Is splayed with all his limbs upon an arid ground

Which takes his sweat. But now veins fill with heated blood.

His muscles swell, and all his joints grow firm; with frame

Renewed he forced apart those Herculean knots.

Though then but green he had not so much feared the wave-born

Inachean Hydra, slain but snakes regrown.

Now equals struck each other, this with earth born powers,

That with just his own. His fierce stepmother could

She sees the sweat drenched limbs, the neck which dry

Had borne Olympus. When Anteus would again

With weary limbs engage embrace, not waiting for

His enemy’s returning strength, he falls of his

Whatsoever lies within the land is lifted

To his weary joints, and earth works for the brawling

Man. The help that contact with his parent yielded

Alcides at last observed. ‘You must be standing,'

All contact with the earth. With arms confined you will

Be pinned, Anteus. This far only will you fall.’

He spoke, and raised that youth now struggling for the land.

Earth could not give her dying child the power for his

Cold encased his breast. Too long that enemy was not

Allowed the earth. And thus it is antiquity,

Custodian of ages self admiring, gave

These lands this name. But he who summoned back the Punic

Title to these hills. Here are the Libyan camps

When first the land was taken. Look, you see the remnants

Of their trenches. Roman victory secured

These plains.” It gladdened Curio that the fortune of this

As prior generals by campng on this lucky

Site − ill omened. So, complaisant was he in

his camps and snatching happy prophecy from hilltops,

He provoked a savage foe with insufficient

Varus now commanded. Although trusting in

His Latin force, still he aroused from everywhere

The peoples of the Libyan king, and even from the

Lands extreme, those standards loyal to their Iuba.

Atlas bounds it on the west near Cadiz, thence

In length to Hammon close by Syrtis; and below

Is cast a torrid strip of this vast kingdom

Which divides the ocean. Burnt expanses only

These camps: Autololes, Numideans that wander,

Gaetuli forever ready with unsaddled

Horse, Moors colored as the Indian, poor

Nasamons, and, mixed together, Garamentes;

Spear to equal arrows of the Mede; the Mazax,

Massylians, bareback tribe who with mere twigs

Can turn a mouth unused to bit. The African

Who wanders with his empty tent and hunts, but trusting

Angry lions. Nor did Iuba arm for civic

Purposes alone. Enraged, he leant this war

To private grudge. For in the year that Curio

Was tribune and polluted gods and humans both,

His fathers held, hand over Libya to a tyrant −

All while, Rome, he planned to give you to a king.

Bearing still his wrath, he deemed this war the fruit

Of power kept. So, with report of that king’s coming,

Were devoted much to Caesar’s camps, not tried

Upon the Rhine, but captured in Corfinium.

Unfaithful to new leaders, doubtful of their old,

They reckoned that the right belonged to both. But after

And seen his night watch fled, then ill at ease he mused:

“In daring are great fears concealed; I first

Will take up arms; have soldiers go, while they are mine,

Down to the level plain, for leisure always makes

A deadly will is joined to the grasped sword, and helmet

Covers shame, who then will parse their generals, weigh their

Cause? One favors where one fights. Our gladiators

On the fatal sand don’t think of ancient grudge;

The plain arrayed his army, which now fortune graced,

Beguiling him from all the coming ills of war.

For he drove Varus from the field with naked, shameful

Back and killed until their camps could intervene.

And glad to see war’s glory pass to his own men,

Roused his army secretly. He ordered all

Reports suppressed, and only feared that carelessness

Might notify the enemy. As a deception

The second to their king − and ordered to engage

With a small force, as if entrusted with the war,

While in a hollow cave the kingdom’s power waited.

As slyly with his tail the rat deceives the asp

So that the serpent’s head darts out to strike at empty

Air while mouth, with bite secure, takes in surprise

That fatal dirty blood; vain poison now expressed,

Throat flows with draining venom. So did fortune give