When pressing southerlies impelled the fleet with hastening

Sails and ships moved out upon the deep, then every

Seaman bent his gaze toward Ionia's waters.

Only Magnus could not tear his eyes away

And shores − they never to be seen by him again −

And he could still perceive the cloudy peaks and

Mountains vanishing. But then the leader's drowsy

Limbs succumbed to languid sleep. Now grim resemblance

head, and Julia seen to rise and stand − a fury

In a burning pyre. "Forced from Elysium

And blessed field," she said, "to stygian shades, to spirits

Harmful, I am drawn by civil warfare. The

Which inflamed your weapons. Scorching Acheron's boatman

Readies ships innumerable. Hell expands its

Many pains. The sisters hurrying their hands

Can barely do the work, fates tire breaking threads.

Triumphs. Fortune with your bed has changed, Cornelia

Ever by the fates condemned to drag her mighty

Husbands down to death. Look how, my grave still warm,

This consort wed you. Let her follow still your martial

Let no time be given to your love, but only

Caesar own your days and Julia your nights.

Lethean banks have not made me oblivious,

Forgetful of you, husband; princes of the dead

The army's midst as you wage war. My shade will never

Tolerate that you not be a son in law.

In vain you hack away at pledges with a sword.

This civil war but makes you mine." Thus speaking, fled,

Gods and spirits threaten death but he more swiftly

Flies to weapons, certain though he was of ill.

And why, he said, should sight of a mere image

Frighten? Either nothing of sensation lives

Titan now lay on the waves, reduced in fiery

Globe, like to the moon before or after full;

And friendly land appeared, convenient to ships.

They stowed the tackle and, mast lowered, sought the shore

But Caesar, when the winds had stolen those

Departing craft and sea had hidden all the ships,

That general stood upon Hesperia not bathed

In glory to have driven Magnus from the land,

But grumbling that the enemy had safely borne

Now suffice to this impetuous man, his conquest

Not enough to check more war. But here he banished

From his mind all care of arms, intent on peace −

How he might stoke the hollow friendship of the people,

Is in the doling out supplies. It’s only famine

Liberates a city; dread comes when the rulers

Feed a lazy multitude, for starving people

Know no fear. He ordered Curio to towns

Middle, making of that land a new seashore.

The oceans ever fashion huge swaths in the flood

Lest mountains should repel confinement, reuniting.

To Sardinia’s limits too the war extends;

No distant harvests fill Hesperia or Roman

Storehouse more with produce of the earth than these.

Their loamy clods in richness hardly bettered by

The crops of Libya when, its southern winds relenting,

When such provisions were acquired by the general,

Then this victor with a peace-filled face, not men

At arms, sought dwellings of his homeland. O, had he

Re-entered Rome with peoples numerous from Gaul,

The north subdued, what endless ranks might he

He might have featured Rhine and ocean chained, Gaul’s high born,

Britons flaxen haired to grace his chariot!

In conquering more, ah what a triumph did he lose.

But silently with fear. They did not gather in

The general’s path. And yet he relished to be feared

So greatly by the people − more than to be loved.

And now he had gone past the steep Anxurian summit,

Where lofty grove, where Scythian Diana reigns,

Where now the Latin Fasces’ route is to Mount Alban’s

Height. Aloft now from the rocks he looks out on

The city - during all those northern wars unseen.

“Have any left you, seat of gods, except for war?

And for what city would they fight? It’s well, gods,

That no eastern furor came to Latin borders,

Not swift Sarmatians joined with the Pannonian,

Rome, that this was civil war and that you had

A coward for your leader.” So he spoke, and broached

A city stupified with fear. Rome's walls would fall,

It was believed, in bitter flames, and all the gods

They thought he would perform whatever he conceived.

No festive signs. No specious voice feigns happy uproar.

Scarcely time for curses, then a crowd of fathers

Filled Apollo’s palatine, the senators

No consuls present in the sacred seats, the praetor,

Next in lawful power, absent. Empty chairs

Of state moved from their places. Everything was Caesar.

The Curia attends to hear a private voice

The throats or exile of the Senate. Lucky that

He blushed more to require than did Rome to give.

Yet still it came to anger whether laws of men

Could bear this trial of freedom vested in one man.

Was to be looted, fiercely rushed. Straight through Caesar’s troops

He stormed to stand before the temple doors, still shut.

Thus only love of gold shuns fear of sword and death.

Unchallenged perish laws annulled; but you,

From the victor, clear in voice the tribune swears:

“Unless through me, the temple’s sides will feel no blows,

No scattered riches, plunderer, will you lift up

Unless through sacred blood. This noxious show of force

Predictions promised savage battles; sure they followed

Crassus into war. Expose your sword then. Let

This crowd be no concern of yours, these spectators

Of evil; you and I stand in an empty city.

Peoples you may overthrow, and walls you may

Dispose. Need does not drive you to these spoils of peace

Discarded. You have your own war already, Caesar.”

These sayings kindled anger in the victor: “Vain

Pollute itself, Metullus, with your throat. No honor

Makes you worthy Caesar’s wrath. Is liberty

Left safe, then, you its champion? Ages would not so

Confound the high and low that when Metellus' voice

So he spoke, and when the tribune still had not

Released those gates his anger mounted, looking round

For savage swords, forgetting to feign peace. Then Cotta

Urged Metellus from his too much daring course.

“The liberty,” he said, “of people ruled by force

By liberty succumbs. If you would serve its remnant

Turn your will where you are ordered. Unjust things

So many we have, conquered, borne. The sole excuse

For shame and lowly fear is this, that nothing now

Him more quickly take away. Losses harm

A people that is ruled by law. But indigence will

Threaten him who rules, not those who serve.” Metellus

Heard and moved aside. The temple opened. Then

Gates thrown wide, and what lay hidden in the temple’s

Depths was raised, for years untouched, the property

Of Rome: which Punic wars, which Perses, which

The conquered Philip gave, which in swift flight the Gaul

Refused and would not sell you to a king. Whatever

Thrifty habits of our fathers saved, what heavy

Tribute Asia and Minoan Crete gave, conquered,

To Metellus. What from Cyprus Cato carried

Over far-flung waters. Eastern fortunes vast

In Pompey’s triumphs went before - were now brought forth.

With plunder thus the shrine was mournfully despoiled,

And for the first time Rome was poorer than its Caesar.

Meanwhile Magnus’ fortunes all around the world

Greece, adjacent, gives men to the nearby fight.

Amphissa sends Phocaic troops and rock filled Cirrha

And Parnassus, empty on both mountain slopes.

Boetian generals joined in, which Cephisus swift

Cadmean Thebes, from Pisa, from Alpheus that

Sends waters through the ocean to Sicilian clans.

Arcadians left Maenala then and Trachis’ soldiers

On the Herculean Oeta. Dryopes

On Chaon’s peaks the ancient Selloi abandoned.

Since their levy emptied all of Athens, few

Ships guard the port - three only, begging credence

In the truth of Salamis. Now with its hundred

Savvy Cnosos filled, Gortyna, too, as skillfull

As the east with arrows. They who hold Dardanian

Oricon, dispersed, among high woodlands roaming;

Athamas and the Encheliae, their ancient

Into Adriatic waters Colchian

Apsyrtis. Those who till Peneus’ fields, the Iolci

Of Haemonia, ploughed by Thessalian share.

From here the untried Argo first moved to the sea,

So first to winds and furious seas was mortal kind

Exposed, and through that ship the fates obtained another

Means of death. Then Thracian Aemus emptied and

Pholoe, falsely thought two-formed. Deserted Strymon,

Cone, where one head of the multi-channeled Ister

Loses Saramatian streams to wash the Peucen,

Scattered then to sea. Mysia and Idalium

Bathed by frigid Caycus, and Arisbe barren.

Your gifts, Athena, after Phoebus’ win, the censured

Claenae. Fast and straight, descending Marsya

Reaches there, Maeander straying, joins, and backward

Turns. Pactalus suffered by the earth to leave

Its fields. Troops too from Ilium, notorious

In luck, sought standards and their soon to perish camps.

No tale of Troy detained them, neither Caesar’s claim

To Trojan bloodline. Syria came; Orontes emptied;

Windy, Gaza, Idumaea rich in palm groves.

Tyre that quakes, and, known for precious purple, Sidon.

With unerring course upon the sea the north star

Led their ships, more certain than for any other.

Dared to have marked in figures rude a voice that was

To be passed on. Not yet had Egypt learned to weave

Their river reeds, and only birds and beasts engraved

On stone served as a magic animal discourse.

Corycus’ cave, rocks weatherworn, stand open.

Mallos and far Aegae bristle with things naval.

Fairly the Cilesian hull goes, now no pirate.

Rumor of these wars moved also eastern parts,

This only dares to empty into mouths opposed

To rising Phoebus, sending waves upon an adverse

Southeast wind. Here the Pellaean general stopped,

Beyond the seas of Tethys, and confessed himself

Bearing rapid flow in separate streams, knows nothing

Of Hydaspe’s added waters. Here they drink

Sweet juices of the tender cane, and, dying hair

With yellow unguent, press into their flowing silks

They living mount these fiery mounds. Lo, what the glory

Of a people that should lay a hand on fate

And, filled with life, give up its remnant to the gods.

Fierce Cappadoces came; the cultivators of

Falling rocks. The Aethera who touch the woods

Of Coatrae. Arabians, you find a world

Unknown, amazed to see that shadows in the groves

Fall not toward the left. This Roman furor reached

Southerly declines that only part of Arctus

Can be seen, submerged; there swift Bootes lights but

Little of the night. Reached also Ethiop,

Beyond the zodiac except where, knee inflected,

The place where great Euphrates and the rapid Tigris

Rise, which Persia sends in undivided currents;

If the land had mixed those streams then proper naming

Of these waters were uncertain. Spread upon

Tigris, though, into a chasm of the earth

Is swallowed suddenly and runs a hidden course

Until, reborn, a new stream does not shun the sea.

Between the ranks of Caesar and opposing hostile

To have reduced their choice to two. The wandering folk

Of Scythia who bait their arrows, who with frigid

Wihirlpools Bactros rings and the Hyrcanian forests;

Hither came the Spartan Heniochi, fierce

Moschi. Phasis which divides the richest country

Of the Colchi. Hither Halys, which doomed Croesus;

And, from Rhippa’s vertex falling, the Tanais,

Naming banks for continents, a boundary

The earth, enlarging, as it bends, this continent

Or that. Here too a raging strait drives waves from Azov

Stealing glory from the rocks of Hercules,

Denying only Cadiz should admit an ocean.

Wrapping hair bound up in gold; the Aryan,

Strong; Sarmatian, slaking the long hunger of his

Massagetan warfare with the horse he rides;

Fast flying, the Geloni. Not when Cyrus, leading

Fell on their foe; not when revenge for brother struck

The sea with ships unnumbered, did so many kingdoms

Have one leader. Never folk so various,

In cultures so co-mingled, such a dissonance

As comrades to be sent to awful ruin, and to

Magnus gave them − worthy as his eulogies.

Horn loving Ammon never ceased to send armed troops

From Libya parched that sees the Western Moors and reaches

Lest lucky Caesar fail to meet and best all these,

Pharsalia furnishes a world to win at once.

When he had left the walls of trembling Rome, he flew

Across the cloudy alpine peaks, his army pressed.

Fame, Massilians dared to doubt, supporting their

Own troops with faith and rightful pledge – for fickle Greeks

An oddity– to follow principle not fortune.

Yet they sought to bend the man’s obsessed and rigid

With proffered olive branch addressed them in this way:

“That in all foreign wars Massilia shared your people’s

Fate the Latin annals from all ages past

Bear witness. Now if any triumphs in an unknown

In battle. If, however, woeful armies you

Prepare, with shameful battles you would quarrel, then

We give to civil war both tears and our dissent:

May such wounds come never by our sacred hand.

Of heaven, or had earth-born giants tried the stars,

Still human piety with arms or prayers would never

Have helped Jove. The lot of gods is hidden from

The mortal tribe; but for the lightning we would not

See also how from everywhere tribes numberless

Arrive; it seems the world is not so shocked at this

Your pestilence of evil that a civil war

Needs swords compelled. If only all were of a mind

Join these wars. Who will not find his right arm falter

Facing down a parent? Brothers in two parties

Will not hurl their spears. If you do not engage

Alone those lawful to engage - the end is here.

Far from our city. Choose to trust in our walls,

And, Caesar once within, let war remain without.

Let this place be excepted from all crime and safe

For Magnus and for you. If fate should grant you truce

Their treaty in an undefeated city. Also,

Many cry the distance to a martial Spain.

Why turn your rapid journey? We are not the weight

And thrust of things, we never thrived in war or use

Phocaea’s towers burned, transplanted here, a safe

Though foreign shore. Our walls are meager. We are famous

For our faith, however. If you choose to close

These walls with siege and to surround our ports, we are

Deprived of water, we will look to draw from streams

Diverted or, still thirsty, lick the dug up earth.

And lacking a supply of grain to delve what’s thorny,

Grab what’s foul, take in our mouths what’s filthy.

What Saguntum bore besieged by Punic wars:

Child wrenched from mothers’ breast, and vainly drawing on

Teats starved and dry, he will be thrown into the flames.

The wife from her dear husband begs for death, and brothers,

This civil war.” The Grecian soldiers finished thus.

At last, his cloudy face thrust forward, in resounding

Voice the general replied with cheerless words:

“A vain reliance on our courses moves these Greeks.

But were we hastening to the world’s most western pole,

Friends, good cheer! Fate’s gift of war lies in our path.

As winds that lose their power if not met by forests

Dense with wood, and are diffused in empty space,

As fire perishes without an obstacle,

I reckon it a curse of arms when those who might

Be conquered don’t resist. Well now! If I will go

Alone, abject, disarmed, they pledge to open all

Their homes. They would confine me. Not so anxious to

No. You will dearly pay for this your plea of peace

And learn that in my age there is no safety but

In war, and I the general.” After this much said

He turned toward a city unafraid; barred walls

From there he spotted hills of rising earth, the tops

Of which rose to a little plain. This crest seemed to

The general suited to be walled with lengthy ramparts,

Best for safety of a camp. The city raised

The same; crops filled the intervening valleys. Now

It pleased him make, laboriously, a standing work

To join those hills with giant piles. But first, to close

The city off where earth surrounded it, he ran

Streams and pasturage in its embrace; dense clods

And fresh dug earth, heaped there, formed elevated ridges.

Now remembrance of these Greeks had cause enough

And lasting glory to their city: neither siege

Through blazing war; all others Caesar snatched at once,

These conquered only with delay. How fine that they

Grabbed fate! And that, from him who hurried to impose

Upon the whole of earth, the fates took back these days.

Of timber; since soft loam and bushes formed the center

Of each pile, with joining ties support beams held

The crumbling earth, lest Caesar’s rising towers fall.

Binding dark and dusky air with woven branches,

Frozen shadows hidden from a distant sun.

No rural Pans, no powers of a sylvan forest

Held this place, but barbarous rites and sacrifice

Arbors here festooned with human gore. If there be

Truth in our god-fearing ancestors, they said

Birds feared to settle on those branches, beasts to lie

Within those hollows. Nor did winds live in these woods.

Those leaves, although a shuddering arose within them.

Here fell plenteous waters, black cascades. And glowering

Idols crudely made from cut trunks stood, ill-shaped.

The very pallor of the rotten wood in this place

Were these sacred beings dreaded, terror rather came

Not knowing what gods dwelt here that commanded fear.

It’s said that hollow caverns groaned from heaving earth,

That trampled yew trees rose again, that fires flashed

Were wrapped around the trunks. The people did not come

To worship or draw close, but rather ceded this place

To its gods. With Phoebus at his apex or when

Gloomy night obtains the sky, the priest himself grows pale

This grove’s lord. Such was the wood he had them fell

And lay to waste beneath their unleashed swords. It stood

Untouched by former war and dense between denuded

Mountains. But, their strong hands trembling, they were

Revered, believing retribution on their limbs

Was sure for cutting sacred trees. When Caesar saw

His cohorts filled thus with reluctance he dared first

To grab a two-edged axe, to weigh it, and to fell

The violated trunk: “Let none among you hesitate

To overturn this woods now. Credit me with the

Impiety.” The crowd attended then to all

Commands, their dread not lifted, not secure, but weighing

The knotty holm oak struck, Dodonean wood, and aldor

Fit for ships, and, testament to grief, plebian

Cypress. Then these first took down their hair and, lacking

Leaves, let in the day. So thick bestrown the trunks

Gauls watching groaned, but, closed within their walls, the youth

Exult, for who indeed would think that gods could be

So injured with impunity. Though fortune often

Serves the guilty; only wretches stoke the ire

Was cut, then carts were requisitioned from the fields;

Their oxen gone and curved plow idle in the soil,

These farmers mourned their season. Now the general,

Impatient that his war would cling upon these walls,

And delegated conduct of this fight. Raised scaffolds,

Wood with metal reinforced, supported double

Towers at the wall’s same height. Now, unattached

By wood to earth but by a hidden means, they crept

Weight, the Grecians thought that seeking winds had burst

Their caves and shook the bosom of the earth, amazed

Their walls still stood. From there spears fell upon the city’s

Citadels. But power lay in Grecian iron

By sinew, but by tensioned maelstrom engines too.

Not content to pierce one flank and come to rest,

That weapon splits a path though arms, through bones, death left

Behind and wounds, but still it keeps a course. And stones

As from the top of mountains, broken off by sheer

Antiquity but aided too by force of wind,

Runs down, destroying all - not only taking

Life from pummeled bodies but dispersing members

The brave men, bearing arms linked to the arms behind,

Come near those hostile walls, their bosses raised, protecting

Helmets. What just now had maimed them, thrown across

A distance, fell instead behind their backs. Nor could

The Greeks adjust the range; nor any easy matter

Had to suffice: they hurled stones only with their hands.

But, arms so linked, these were as hail stones sounding harmless

On struck roofs, all spears likewise repelled. And after

Broke apart, the young defenders weary. One

By one their arms gave way to blows continual.

This roof of shields, concealed by lightly sprinkled earth,

Beneath which mantle hid the covered brows, pressed on

Now the ram, with its intense and air-swung pounding,

Slammed compacted walls to wreck their inner fabric

And expel but one supporting stone. And yet

From flames and pieces of large rock above and constant

Defenders. Vain that energy expended, soldiers

Turned exhausted to their tents. The utmost prayer

Among the Greeks had been their walls should stand. But now

They thought to infiltrate an army; so, by night,

Young men went out. Not poisoned shaft, not deadly bow,

Their means a spear aflame: the winds took raging fires

Through the Roman lines with rapid course. And though

Green timber would restrain it, still it burned with no

Of black smoke. Not only woods consumed but giant

Stones and jagged rock reduced to crumbled dust.

The earthworks fell, and lying there seemed bigger still.

All hope of victory by land was gone, and now

Not in painted wood the deities that guard

These ships. With timber rude, just as it fell from mountain

Grove, a platform was installed, firm footed for

A naval war. And now the fleet, in company of Brutus’

And came to Stoechas. Neither were the Grecian youths

Reluctant to give all their strength to fortune; old men

Welcomed arms together with mere lads. Not only

Ships at anchor took on strength, retired barks

Morning rays across the ocean, splintering

The water with their light; all heaven cloudless,

Northern winds becalmed, the southerlies at peace:

A sea that lay in readiness for war. Each moved

Here Caesar’s decks, here Grecian rowers stirred

Their ship. By oars impelled, hulls trembling, high sterned

Vessels pulled away, their blade-strikes now redoubled.

Formidable triremes, also ships that four tiered

Pine oars into the sea, a multiplicity

Of vessels ranged around the Roman flanks. Such strength

Of wood opposed an open sea. Craft sharply prowed,

Content with two ranks in Illyrian style, pull back.

Spurred by six tiers, carries power on the sea,

And with its highest oars strikes for the deepest waters.

So little of the ocean intervened that with their

Oars stretched either navy might first run the gap;

The sound of oars is sunk within the clamor, trumpet

Is not heard. They swept now over azure waters,

Falling to their oar banks, striking breast with oar,

Until against obstructing prows prows grated first.

And fell upon the empty sea. But now with prows

Divided, ships less tightly pressed, the flanks are opened,

Drawing in the navy opposite. So often

Ferments of the south and eastern winds repel

Churning vortex ships are led on different courses.

One plies oars ahead, the sea beats back another.

Grecian pine barks are expert to start a battle

Or retreat, not changing course in hesitant

But the Roman vessels offered keel more stable,

More as if a battlefield. Now, to the master

Of the aft deck sitting midst its emblems, Brutus:

“Do you let the armies wander on the sea?

Now put this fight to a conclusion: bring us broadside

To the Grecian prows.” Obeying then, he offered

Midships to his foe. But any craft attempting Brutus’

Oak, the blow itself defeated it, and, stuck fast

Times affixed them, twisted chains, or they were held

By their own oars. The war was at a standstill on the

Covered sea. No feat of brawn could twist a spear,

No distant wounds inflicted from hurled iron. Hand

Upon the wood of his own deck, inclined toward

Arriving blows. None buys the right to fall in his

Own ship. The waves are deep in frothing gore. The congealed

Blood has overspread that water. Those same decks

Could not draw close for all the corpses interposed.

Half dead, some tumble down into the depthless ocean

Swallowing the sea mixed with their blood. Still others

Draw a labored spirit out in lengthy death

Spears vain, yet piercing targets in the sea, and weighty

Iron useless, except falling finds a wound

Beneath the waves. A Roman ship, defending against

Grecian craft, with strength divided sees an equal

Bravely takes away the Grecian ornament.

But, thrown at the same time, two spears both equally

Invade his back and breast, the twin points meeting in the

Midst. It stands uncertain through which wound his blood

Both shafts at once and death, dispersed between the wounds,

Divides his spirit. Here Telonis, wretched, then

Directs his ship by hand, that hand which, more than any

Other, vessels heed when seas are high. Nor is

Either Phoebus or the lunar horns; he always

Sets the sails for coming winds. Here with his prow

He might have wrecked the timbers of the Latin ship

But that a trembling spear came to his breast, and so

When Gyareus tried to clamber on his friend’s

Aft deck he too received a spear, right through his flank

That fixed him to the ship, and spitted by that shaft

He hung. There were twin brothers, glory of their mother’s

Disparate. A savage death divides the men, and

Parents see in him remaining an eternal

Cause for tears, his missing brother brought before them.

One of these, among oars densely mingled as

Stern, when from above an awful blow fell, cutting

Off the hand, which clung still with the same force that

Had gripped before; its sinews taut and stiff destroyed.

Adversity now calls on courage, greater noble

Makes war and leans across the waves to grab the right.

But this is hewn off too, with all the upper arm.

Now lacking shield and spears he does not seek the

Vessel’s depths; exposed with naked breast, he shields his

He stands unmoved; the steel that would have given death

To many friends he takes now for his worthy end.

Sore wounded, still with fleeting spirit he imbues

His body and his blood exerts remaining members.

He goes to harm that ship. Another, heaped with slaughtered

Men and so much gore, took concentrated blows

Upon its slanting side. But then, its timbers ruptured,

Ocean waters pour in to the highest hatch,

Churning all the nearby sea. Submerged, the ship

Divided widely waves it had but cleft afloat;

Then sea returned, replacing boat with ocean. Many

Sea-borne marvels, diverse fates, that day provides.

A ship and skewered Lycidas upon its claw.

He would have been dragged off and drowned, but friends grasped onto

His suspended flanks. Now wrenched in two and yanked

Aloft. From such a wound as this not drops of blood,

In seeking out his several limbs the flow of heart’s blood

Drained into the sea. No purchased life was ever

Sent forth through so large a passage. Lower parts

Were given quickly, starved of life, to death. But where

There death prolongs. From that part of the man death after

Many struggles scarcely bore off all his body.

When too great a warring crowd press on a ship’s

Inclining side and leave the other empty, lacking foes,

Now covering both sea and sailors. These, unable

To stretch arms to open ocean, can but perish,

Imprisoned in a sea constricted. Singular

The face of dire death seen when a swimming youth

So huge that all his breast was ruptured. Crushed, his bones

Cannot withstand or even mute the sound of ships

Colliding. Belly burst, foul blood with organs mixed

Flew through his mouth. Then, when the vessels had backed off,

And sunk into the deep. Elsewhere, most of a troop

Were shipwrecked, struggling with death, their hands thrown out.

But when they rushed for aid upon a ship of comrades,

Grasping gunwales with unwelcome arms, the bark

Shamefully the crowd brought swords down on their limbs,

Greek forearms severed hang still from the ship. They killed

Their own with their own hands. Nor did the sea for long

Sustain such heavy trunks afloat upon its surface.

Rage finds arms. One wields an oar against his foe,

While others swing a torn off ornament with muscled

Arms to hurl that or the seats from displaced rowers.

Some break up their ships for weapons, or catch slaughtered

Of their iron. Many without spear reclaimed

A shaft dragged from their innards while they press upon

Their wounds with a left hand, that blood may fuel their strike,

And, having spurred the twisted hostile shaft, bleed out.

More than water’s opposite. For fire, fixed on

Greasy torches covered with vivacious sulfur,

Eagerly found nourishment on vessels, ravished

Now with pitch or else with liquid wax infernos.

Upon the sea now feral fire claimed the leavings

For itself. The flood prevailed at length and its

Expanse of water doused the fires, but men clung yet

To raging timbers, lest they be submerged. That death

Feared, by that they now began to die. But courage

Did not falter. Spears the sea throws up they gather

For their ships, still driving with a weary, punished

Hand midst waves uncertain. Scant supplies are found,

Foe; they joy to sink with pinioned arms, and plunging

Die. Most eminent in this, Phoceus, famous for

His holding breath beneath the water, so to search

For anything submerged on sands or tear out anchor

Respond to line. If this man brought an enemy

Restrained down deep, he surfaced without injury

Victorious. Once, thinking he would rise in empty

Sea there was a hull above; and then he stayed

The oars of foes to halt the flight of ships. It was

The greatest of concerns to never waste a death;

Enough of them pressed wounds to rudder, dying while

They beat away the onslaughts from above. A missile

Lygdamus aimed at Tyrrenhus, where high above

The prow he stood. Discharged it shattered hollow temples

With the lead. Now driven from their rightful place,

The carnage bursting tendons, eyes fell out. He stood

Of his death. But sensing vigor in his limbs

Cried, “Friends, as you would place an engine now place me

On target for my spears. Use then whatever still

Remains of Tyrrhenus in all events of war.

To be struck instead of those alive.” He spoke

And with a blind hand sent his spear, indeed not vainly.

It intercepted Argus, youth of noble blood,

Just where the middle of his belly meets his loin,

Argus’ luckless father, also was aboard,

Some distance off. In youth he never would have thought

To yield to any Greek in arms; but strength was conquered

By his years, and, tired, an exemplar was he

Often falling from his age he crossed the ship’s