From the sea, more tardy than eternal law

Allows, reluctant Titan never urged his horses

More against the sky, his carriage − whirled across

The ether − never more restrained. Eclipse and loss

Feed his flames but lest he shine upon Thessalia.

Meanwhile night, last hours of a happy life

For Magnus, lulled his sleep with vain imaginings.

It seemed he sat in Pompey’s theater where he saw

Heard their voices raise his name in joy up to

The stars, those noisy galleries contending in

Applause. Indeed, such were the people’s faces and their

Clamor once when he was young, in his first triumph,

Surrounds and all of fleet Sertorius’ incursions.

West subdued, he sat as but a Roman squire;

Dressed in peaceful toga or in that which graced

His chariot, he moved the senate’s praise. Now either

He flees to former joys, or else his dreams, deceptive,

Point the contrary to what is seen, a woeful

Omen dooming peace. Perhaps, deprived the sight of

Home again, in this way fortune gave you Rome.

No trump beat on his ear. Tomorrow’s fearful rest

Will bear stark image of its day: the dying armies

Everywhere, war everywhere. And where for Romans

Will there be a sleep like this and blessed night?

The gods had given you and Rome one day in which

To gather, Magnus, the last fruit of love, both knowing

What will be. For you go now as if you think

To die in the Italian city; She – convinced

A crime of fate as lose the tomb thus of the cherished

Magnus. With joined lamentation, old and young

Would mourn you. The unbidden child would; ordinary

Women beat their breasts as if at Brutus’ pyre,

Spears of a ruthless victor, Caesar might in person

Tell your death yet would they also weep while bearing

Incense to the Thunderer and laurels. Wretches,

That their groans must swallow grief, who cannot mourn you

Light just snuffed the

Stars when with joined murmur crowds from the encampment

Roared, demanding war − and fate propelled the world.

Most in this wretched throng would not live out the day,

But they besieged the leader’s tent, afire, in tumult,

Sheer madness reigned, each person yearned for his and for

The common fortune; Pompey is called lazy, fearful,

Too much patient with his father in law, with his

Worldly reign too pleased - that he alone should rule

Not only these, but kings and eastern tribes complain

That war drags on so far from native lands. And does

It please you, gods, that planning common overthrow

You add perversity to our errors? Rushing

But one prayer is alive in Pompey’s camp − Pharsalia.

Cicero, the greatest voice for eloquence

Among the Romans, and whose rule and consulship,

Whose peaceful dominance made Cataline afraid,

The forum and the rostrum, bore a soldier’s silence,

He now aided that ill cause with fluent words:

“This only, Magnus, for the honors she has granted,

Fortune asks of you: that you should wish to use her.

That stream around you, beg to let your father in law

Be defeated. Shall forever Caesar be

The cause of war among us humans? Nations you

Have overrun with reason now resent this Pompey

Ungrateful, do you fear the ones above? Or doubt

To place the senate’s cause with heaven? Troops themselves

Will shred your standards and spring forward. Shame, that you

Would conquer only pressed. If you be our general,

By right what field they please. How can you keep the swords

Of all the world from Caesar’s blood? Spears bristle, how

Should any wait for standards lagging? Hurry or be

Late to your own trumpet. Now the senate craves

Groaning he perceived the treachery of heaven,

Fate frustrating purpose. “If it please,” he said,

“That Magnus be no general but a soldier, if the

Times require it, I will not further hinder

Let this be the last day for so large a portion

Of all here. Yet, Rome be witness: Magnus yielded

To the day when all things perished. War might well

Have left you whole, without a slaughter, traded broken

This fury. Do they fear to wage a civil war

That yields a bloodless conquest? We took lands from him,

Denied the seas entirely, made his famished troops

Go plundering their unripe fields; the prayers of our

By our swords, and mix their dead with mine. A great part

Of the war is done already by these means,

But done so our recruits have yet no fear of battle.

Hot with rage, with courage spurred, they urge the standards.

Danger. Strongest he who, ready to endure

The fearful close at hand, can yet delay it. Do you

Think that such successes should be handed over

To blind chance, the world's great crisis put to swords?

To my rule, fortune, you once gave the Roman state.

Accept it back from me, now greater, and upon

This blinded struggle look with favor. War will not

Be Pompey’s glory nor his crime. You best me, Caesar,

How much of crime and harm will this day bring, how many

Realms destroyed. How turbid will the Enipeus

Flow in Roman blood. Would that my head were struck

By this foul war's first lance if only it could fall

Nor would a victory be sweet to Magnus. Slaughter

Past, the name of Pompey will be hated or else

Pitied by the world. When chance has done its utmost,

Woe comes to the conquered; to the victor crime.”

That had held back their savage wrath as does a sailor

Overcome by Coro’s violence give control up

To the winds; his mindless ship, all guidance gone,

Drives its own weight. The camps roar in confusion with an

And pallor of approaching death is clearly seen

In many faces, features that prefigure fate.

The day comes when fate shapes all human things forever;

Asked what Rome shall be, this war is the reply.

Who sees the shore engulfed in flood, waves in the peaks,

The sky and sun hurled down to earth, so many things

Undone, yet still fears for himself? No time for private

Dread, all fear for Magnus and the city. There was

Against a stone, bow strung with better sinew, arrows

Chosen carefully for quiver. Horsemen strengthened

Whips and fitted halter to the bit. If works

Of gods and men can be compared, this was as when

After Phlegra birthed its rabid giants. Neptune’s

Blades again glowed red in flame, and Paean, as

The Python lay stretched out, reheated his sharp points,

And Pallas poured the Gorgon’s hair upon her shield

Now fortune did not fail to show by various signs

The deaths to come. As they approached the neighborhood

Of Thessaly the air itself prevented their

Advancing; fractured clouds before the eyes of men;

That, intermixed with fireballs, arose like serpents

Ravenous for water, and the lightning filled

Their eyes and closed them, swept the crest from helmet, melted

Sword hilt, liquified their dislodged spearheads. Lethal

The standards, numberless, and hardly could their shafts be

Lifted from the earth, so weighty now become

That those who bore the flags of Rome and the republic

Went to Thessaly with head bent, heaving breath.

And careening throws himself into the pasture;

No victim for the altar. Say, what gods demonic,

Caesar, and what furies with some rite have you

Invoked? What spirits of the stygian realm, infernal

In such gross sin you found a blessing for the conduct

Of your war. Now – doubtful whether showings from the

Gods or else their own excessive fears made them

Believe it – many thought that Pindus ran upon

Voices in the night came from Pharsalia and

Through Osean Boebeis there ran bloody streams.

In turns they marveled that their faces were in shadow

As day paled; night lay upon their helmets, and dead

Yet there was this one consolation to their minds:

These troops, aware of foul intent in seeking father’s

Throats and brothers’ hearts, took comfort in the very

Tumult of their minds and thought an omen of their

That Rome’s far-flung race, enduring its last day,

Should tremble with unbridled dread and thoughts

Of presaged evil fill men’s minds. The Roman who

Who inhabits Tyrian Cadiz, or one drinking from

Beneath whatever star − he mourns, not knowing why,

And chides his grieving spirit, ignorant of what

Is lost on the Emathian fields. An augur sitting

On the Eugan hills − if those who tell tell true −

The land and Atenor’s Timavus scatters streams:

“A crucial day arrives, a great event is launched,

The unjust arms of Caesar and of Pompey clash.”

Perhaps he sensed the thunder or foreboding spears

Heaven. From the sky a sunlight sad and pale

Looked down upon the fight. It's certain nature made

This day of Thessaly distinct from those she sends.

If all men’s minds had marked as did the skillful augur

By all the world, O chieftains, you whose flags fate sent

Around the globe, whose fortunes all of heaven watched.

Among those yet to come and nations of their offspring,

When these wars are read – and whether names survive

At once will hope and fear be conjured, likewise fruitless

Prayer. Astonished, they will read as if these things

Were still to come and had not passed away. They still

Will favor, Magnus, you.

Whose soldiers, lit by Phoebus’

Not sent at random from the camps, this fated army

Stood in careful order. Lentulus, you on the

Left flank had command of the first legion − at that

Time the best in war − and of the fourth. To you,

On the right the army’s front. But packed into

The center is the strongest force, troops led from

The Silesian lands and overseen by Scipio −

A soldier here, in Libya commander. Near the

Cohorts of the Cappadoces stand, also

The Pontic cavalry that loosely holds their reins.

But kings and tetrarchs mostly kept the drier lands,

Great lords and all the purple that obeyed a Latin

Cydonians. From there the route for Ituraean

Arrows, and from there you, savage Gauls, march on

A foe familiar. Warlike Spanish shields stir there.

Deny these nations to the victor, Magnus; see

On that day it happened Caesar left his fixed

Position, moved his standards foraging for corn,

When suddenly he saw the enemy descend

Upon the plain, saw offered what a thousand prayers

Sick and tired of delay, ablaze with lust

For rule, he had begun to curse the civil war

In its short course as shamefully lethargic. Strangely

Now, perceiving that the generals had neared

And the blow of fate hangs undecided; rage

So eager for the sword flagged somewhat and his mind

Stood doubtful of reward for nerve: fate brooked no fear

Of his success, and yet no hope of Magnus’ failure.

To incite a crowd: “O tamer of the world

And maker of my fortune, soldiers. All the means for

Our dreamed fight is here; here is no work for prayer.

Now summon fate with steel. How much may Caesar be

At Rubicon was promised me, the hope of which

Moved us to arms, the day we swore would see return

Of our neglected triumph. This is that same day.

Today redeems our homes and pledges, gives you land

Proves which arms in justice will prevail; which conquered

Army is judged guilty. If you smote your country

With both sword and torch for me, fight now so fiercely

That you cleanse your swords of blame. No hand is guiltless

The issue here. I pray that you become a people

Free yourselves and ruling every nation. I

Myself desire a return to private life,

The daily toga not a magistrate’s; and yet

Then rule, let me take any blame. Nor need your fight

For all the world be bloody. You face fragile Grecian

Youth from the gymnasia, mere wrestlers here

But newly bearing arms; and rag tag bands of ruffians.

Shouts. Few hands can here be said to fight a civil

War. Much of this contest goes to cleanse the globe

And crush Rome’s foes. Run through these people, ill-famed kingdoms;

With your sword’s first pass lay low the world. And make it

Into the city round his chariot were not

Worth any triumph. Do Armenians care, indeed,

Who heads the Roman force? And would barbarians

Pay any drop of blood to make Rome’s ruler Magnus?

But fortune put me in such hands as I proved worthy

In so many Gallic wars. Which soldier’s sword

Do I not know? When trembling lance divides the sky

I could not fail to say by whose arm launched. And if

Faces stern and threatening eyes, you conquer. Rivers

Full of blood I seem to see and kings trod under,

Cast aside the senate’s corpse, and nations swimming

In a giant slaughter. Yet restraining you

Delay my fate. Forgive my putting off the war;

With hope I tremble: surely have I never witnessed

Such great things about to pass, the gods so close

To me. We distant from our prayers but one small plain.

Disposition of what kings and nations own.

By what great motion of the pole or constellation’s

Turning do you, gods, permit so great a scope

To Thessaly? War’s penalty or payment is

Men, the chains, and this head placed upon the rostrum,

My strewn limbs, crime at the voting place, fights in

The Plain of Mars. We wage this civil war against

A general in Sulla’s mold. My care for you

Who has not conquered yet will, looking back, perceive

Me piercing my own vitals. Gods, whose care the earth

And Roman toil brought from the sky, let him prevail

Who does not think to draw the savage sword on those

Who bore opposing flags. When Pompey had your army

Barricaded, bravery constricted, how much

Blood before his blade was sated. This indeed

I say to you, lads, lest you think to kill a foe

Spears glint, do not be moved by any thought of mercy,

Not features of a parent in your foe; your sword must

Mutilate the faces you revere. And whether

With his hostile iron any nears a kinsman’s

And strike that foreign throat as if he meant a crime.

Now scatter ramparts, fill the trench with their debris

To let our ranks move forward all the squads together.

Spare not our camps; for you will tent on ground that

Spoke each bends to task; men quickly arm themselves,

They reckless seize upon fair omens of the war

And trample campsites under foot; they stand in no

Arrangement, rule of leadership neglecting trust

Son in law, and each sought conquest of their city

With a dire war, they could not rush to battle

In such haste.

When Pompey saw that hostile troops

Approached straight on, that war was not to be delayed,

A leader was portentous. Pushing dread aside,

Conveyed upon a lofty steed through all his army:

“Now,” he said, “the day your courage urged to make

An end to civil war, the day you sought, is with us.

One hour draws all nations forward. He who seeks

His country, his dear home, his children and his bed,

All pledges left behind – now let him seek these with

A sword. Some god has placed all things upon this plain.

That they themselves will guide the spear through Caesar’s innards,

They themselves through our blood will wish to bless the

Roman laws. Had they desired to give my kinsman

Kingly power, they might easily have rushed

Anger at our city or its people that

Still Pompey serves as leader. Now we have amassed

All that we need to conquer. Famous heroes have sought

Danger, sacred soldiers as of old are here.

Return to our times, or death-pledged Decii,

They had stood here. Here nations from the distant east

Are gathered and uncounted cities, troops aroused

In numbers more than ever were before. We have

Are under heaven’s signs, both south and north, we are;

And stirred to arms. With our spread wings shall we not take

The foe within us? Victory needs fewer hands,

And many will wage war with clamor only, Caesar

From the city’s highest walls with hair let loose

Lean out and urge you into battle. Know

The senate, aged and in their years unable to bear

Arms, have laid before your feet their hoary locks;

To meet you. And believe that those who are our people

Now, and those who will be, lift their mingled prayers.

That multitudes would be born free, and so would die.

If after such great vows there is a place for Pompey,

Keeping the observance of Imperium −

Would I not throw myself before your feet. Except

You conquer, Magnus − exiled, scorned by father in law,

And a stain on you − must grieve his shameful final

So grave in utterance, the general’s words inflamed,

Rome’s courage rose, men chose to die lest they prove true.

And so, both armies, moved identically to wrath,

Converged: these feared a crown, those hoped for it. Their hands

Nor race of men restore through all the years, not if

The sword were banished. This war bankrupts future nations,

Takes fecundity from peoples yet to be.

Now will the Latins be but stuff of legend − Gabios,

Beneath the dust, or Alba’s hearths, Laurentinum’s

Abode − all empty land on which no senator

Would stop, unless unwilling and annoyed that Numa

So ordained. These towns are left to moulder, not yet

Empty cities, and the mass of humans shrunk

To − what? Wherever born throughout the world, we cannot

Find men for our towns or fields. One city claims us.

Chained slaves cultivate Italian harvests while

Rome is emptied of her citizens and packed

With dung from all the world; we gave so much to death that

Civil war could not be waged for years and years.

Such are Pharsalia’s ills. Let Cannae cede its death-filled

Rome marked those times of lesser evil, but this day

It would ignore. Oh fated woes! Our air, its currents

Foul and bearing sickness, hunger’s madness,

Cities given to the flames. See peopled walls,

Repair except that everywhere fate drags them off

To wretched death. Now fate displays these people and

Their leaders on this plain, the gift of age ripped from them.

As to show you, blighted Rome, through these, how great

Through prosperities of fortune? Every war through

All the years has gained you nations; Titan sees your

Progress to poles north and south. The east has hardly

Any space left. Night was yours and all the day

Star regarded only what was Roman. But your

Fate runs backward, equal now are all those years

And this forlorn Emathian day. This bloody morn

The Latin fasces are no threat to India, and no

Or, with toga cinched, in Saramatia plows

A new town’s contour. Parthia owes you brutal debts

Forever now. Now, fleeing civil crime and never

To return, past Rhine and Tigris, liberty

A boon to Germans and to Scythians, but never

Looking back on Italy. I wish, Rome, that

Our people never knew Her. But when Romulus

First raised those walls upon a left hand flight of vultures

Ruin would that you had been a slave. To that first

Brutus, fortune, I object. Why laws? Why name

The years for consuls? Happy Arabs, Medes, or any

Eastern land where fate kept endless tyranny.

Because we blush to serve. Men have no god; blind chance

Propels the ages; we mistake to think Jove rules.

Will he regard this Thessalian slaughter from

On high yet hold his lightning? Even though he strikes

Grove of guiltless Rhodopes, or pines of Mimas?

Surely it is not for Cassius to destroy

That head. Did he delay Thyestes’ stars, condemn

The Argos suddenly to night? And will he give

Bearing swords in Thessaly? God has no care

Of mortal things. And yet, we have such comfort as is

Proper gods may grant the earth: this civil war

Will fashion human deities to equal gods,

And stars, and swear by ghosts in temples of the gods.

With rapid step they now consumed the interval

That kept them from their final fate; apart by little

Ground, they view the hands and faces, keenly look

Soon to be inflicted. Seeing fathers, brothers,

Armed and close, they still would not change posts. Now surely

Breasts were numb and organs bound with frozen blood

From such a shock to kinship’s bond. With sinews tensed

Let not the gods give death, which is prepared for all,

To you, but ever give awareness, Crastinus −

Whose hand with twisted lance began the fight and first

Stained Thessaly with Roman blood. O impulse savage

Was found more rash than any. Then the strident air

Was struck with bugles, trumpet sounded battle, horns

Dared sound a charge, and raucous din enveloped all

The arching sky, intruded on Olympus far from

Valleys resonant took up the clamor, giving

It in turn to Pelian caves redoubled; Pindus

Drove the roar, and stones rebounded it upon

Pangaeum. Crags in Oeta groaned. The voice of their

Made them pale. Innumerable shafts were sent to

Different targets, some to wound and some to strike

The ground that hands might not be made unclean. But chance

Is all. Uncertainty and fortune will make guilty

By the javelin and flying steel. The hateful

Sword alone was most preferred, conducting hands

Into our Roman organs. Ranked in dense arrays

And linking bosses, Pompey’s army joined their weapons

Or spears to move; they stood, firm, closely pressed, swords sheathed.

In crazed abandon Caesar’s raging troops drove at

These dense formations, with their arms to find some path

Into the foe. Where chains of twisted mail oppose

Are the viscera to be impaled; so many

Arms and this the target each man strikes. One army

Suffered civil war, the other fought it. Here the

Sword was cold; from Caesar every iron warm

Even matters of such portent or, the blazing

Fates in making such a ruin. First, when Pompey’s

Horse detached a wing from the entire force

And flooded all the battlefield, light infantry

Hands engaged the foe. There every clan pursued

The fight with its own shaft, but all sought Roman blood.

Here arrows, brands, and stones flew; missiles in the air

Were melted, liquified from their hot weight. Then threatening

Sent. They never aimed but shot their arrows in the

Air above the fields, and many died. These, guiltless,

Stained an alien foe; all blame falls on our Roman

Javelins. The air was laced with steel, a night

Then Caesar, fearing that his van might fail him in

That first assault, held cohorts back behind the standards

And oblique to the front line. His enemy

Disordered, tending there, at once he sent that force

No shame, unmindful of the fight, his foe fled headlong;

Thus they proved that civil war entrusted to

Barbarian troops is never well advised. No sooner

Does one steed, its breast pierced, trample head and limbs

Concedes the field. With reins reversed the youths rush fevered

Back upon their own positions. Now did slaughter

Lose its limit. Now what followed was not battle.

Here with throats and there with steel was war pursued.

As were there to perish. Would it had sufficed,

Pharsalia, that only from barbarian chests

This gore had flowed, and not those streams exchanged for other

Blood; would that your fields were dressed in bones of only

I pray you this, to let these live: Galatians, Syrians,

Cappadocians, Gauls, the Spaniards from the earth’s

Extreme, Silesians; these indeed beyond this civil

War will be the Roman people. Once engendered,

Handed by the fates. It came down now to Magnus’

Central force, his major strength. The war paused here

That had spread out to wander over all those fields,

And Caesar’s fortune hesitated. Here the war

Troops of kings; no foreigners here wielded swords.

This place had brothers, this place fathers. Here the fury,

Here the madness, here are your offenses, Caesar.

Flee, my soul, this part of civil war and leave it

Reveal to time what civil war allowed itself.

Let rather tears and grievances all pass away.

Whatever, Rome, you acted in those ranks, I will keep

Silent. Caesar, rage to men and goad of fury,

The army; he adds fire to their burning spirits,

Scrutinizes swords − which drip in blood, whose shine

Beyond the point, which hand yet trembles plunging blade,

Which spears are lazy, which are tightly held, who merely

Falls killing countrymen. He combs that plain corpse-strewn;

The wounds of many with the pressure of his hand

He stops from gushing dry. Wherever turning − bloody

As Bellona’s whirling whip, like Mars inciting

Horses, troubled by Minerva’s shield, there comes

A night of crime, there slaughters start and groaning like

A voice immense, as arms resound the weight of falling

Breast and shattered sword on sword. His own hand thrusts

Of those opposite be mangled with the steel.

He drives that army, beats the backs of his own men.

With blows of spear reversed he urges slackers on.

He would not have them aim at plebs but points out nobles,

Where to strike at Rome, and in what place stands freedom

To be battered. Mixed with those of second rank,

Nobility, respected men, he bent to blade.

They slaughtered Lepidi, and slaughtered the Metelli,

Generals over kings − the highest ranks of men

Except for, Magnus, you. There, covered with plebian

Helmet, Brutus, unknown to the foe – and where

Was your sword aimed? O ornament of power, great

In name among your line. Do not rush in the middle

Of these enemies too rashly or approach

Your fate before Phillippi; die in your Thessalia.

It is not for you to set upon the throat

Of power, peak of humankind, the place where all

Is shaped, to earn, departing, such a noble death.

Then let him live and reign and later fall to Brutus.

Here died all the nation’s glory; lying heaped,

Amongst that slaughter of great men the death of brave

Domitius notable. Through many deaths fate led

Him, nor did Magnus’ fortunes ever fail without

His presence. Overcome so many times by Caesar,

Wounds and joyful that he had no second pardon.

Caesar saw him writhe in thickened blood and vaunted:

“You desert the arms of Magnus now, Domitius,

Would-be heir; and now the war goes on without you.”

Breast, gave scope to dying visage: “ Caesar, seeing

You not in possession of your crimes’ sad prize,

Yet doubting fate, still lesser than your son in law,

I freely join the shades as Magnus’ soldier. Dying,

Reduced in savage war by Pompey you will pay a

Heavy debt.” No further speech, life fled, dense shade

Pressed on his eyes. In vain to pour tears on so many

Deaths, this funeral for all the world, or to

The wound; who trampled entrails spread upon the earth;

Who faced the foe and pulling sword from throat dismissed

His soul; who stricken dropped; who stood while hands fell to

The ground; who lodged a spear full in his chest or those

His spewing veins into the air and fell on weapons

Of his foe; who butchered brother’s chest and threw

Far off the severed head he knew in order to

Despoil the body; who disfigured parent’s face

That this was not his father’s throat he cut. No death

Was worthy its complaint, we have no time for grieving

Any of these men. This battle of Pharsalia

Had not what our other losses had: Rome died

There a soldier’s, here it was a nation’s death.

Achean blood flowed, Pontic, Syrian but the torrent

Of our Roman gore has washed it from the plains.

Our people had more wounds from this array of troops

And health; we are cast down for all the ages of the

World, these swords securing lifetimes of enslavement.

How should our children and their offspring merit

Birth in tyranny? Can we have fought as cowards?

Of others’ cowardice sits heavy on our necks.

If after battles, fortune, you would give our children

Tyranny, you might have given them as well

The power to make war.

Now Magnus, woeful, sensed

Despite the total rout he was unwilling to

Condemn his fortune. From a rise that stood above

The plain he viewed disaster, how it spread all over

Thessalia's countryside, which fighting had

Bodies flung about; he saw in all this blood

That he had come to nothing. But, as often do

The wretched, he would not drag all along with him

And mix his ruin with the people’s. Still he thought it

Most Latins might survive him, and considered this

As solace: “Gods, spare these so many people from

Destruction. Magnus may be wretched, let the world

Stand, Rome survive. And if more wounds will help, I have

If you destroy both me and mine, is that a balance

For this civil war? Are we but trifling losses

If the earth be not included? Why rend all,

Why squander all? Now, fortune, nothing now is mine."

Afflicted troops, and calls back their advancing fates,

Denies that he is worth so much. This general lacks

No strength to meet the sword in death by throat or chest,

But fears his men would not flee Magnus’ corpse and rather

His death to Caesar’s eyes. In vain. That head will be

Presented somewhere to the kinsman wanting it.

But you, too, wife, your face is cause for flight, and fate

Approves that you be present at his death. In haste

Spears pursuing, great of heart in fate extreme.

No sigh, no tear, a grandeur in that sorrow such as

Should become you, Magnus, in the midst of Roman

Grief. You look firm featured on Emathia;

Dejected. Faithless fortune never measured up

To you, not in the joy of your three triumphs or

In misery. Fate’s burden put aside, you leave

Untroubled and with time to recollect. The hope

Just what you were. Flee dire battle, Magnus, call

Upon the gods that none still fighting die for you.

As mournful loss in Africa or awful Munda

As the ruin by Nile’s stream, so Thessalian

Of Pompey now not universal, nor renowned

For zeal of war. But Liberty and Caesar will be

Always adversaries. Your removal shows

That dying senators fought only for themselves.

And not see this evil, troops awash in gore,

Nor turbid, blood filled streams. Nor pity your relation,

For with what breast will he enter Rome? Was he

Made glad upon these fields? Whatever as an exile,

Tyranny you suffer, trust the gods, trust fate’s

Still lasting favor: it was worse to conquer. Let no

Lamentation sound, forbid the people’s weeping.

Stop their tears and grief. For even as the world

Losses. Calmly face the kings without petition,

See the cities taken, kingdoms given – Egypt,

Libya. And then choose the land to court your death.

Renowned Larissa was first witness to your downfall

She poured out all her citizens and strength onto

The walls. Before you, weeping, they placed gifts as if

In joy, they opened temples, houses, and would share

In ruin. Clearly much remained of your great name.

Have led these people into arms again, to fate.

“But what the use,” he said, “of cities, peoples, to me

Conquered? Loyalty to the victor.” Caesar, you still

Rush through hills of slaughter and your country’s entrails,

Horse now bears him off with groans and tears pursuing

And reproaches of the people on their savage

Gods. Now, Magnus, is true faith and the delight

Of favor yours. None prosperous is sure of love.