Book 2
' And leave his people free, is mine: a throne
1
' Alone were higher; whoso would surpass
' Pompeius, aims at that. Both Consuls stand
' Here; here for battle stand your lawful chiefs:
' And shall this Caesar drag the Senate down?
' Not with such blindness, not so lost to shame
' Does Fortune rule. Does he take heart from Gaul,
' For years on years rebellious, and a life
' Spent there in labour? or because he fled
' Rhine's icy torrent and the shifting pools
' He calls an ocean? or unchallenged sought
' Britannia's cliffs; then turned his back in flight?
' Or does he boast because his citizens
' Were driven in arms to leave their hearths and homes?
'Ah, vain delusion! not from thee they fled:
' My steps they follow-mine, whose conquering signs
' Swept all the ocean,In B.C. 67, Pompeius swept the pirates off the seas. The whole campaign did not last three months. and who, ere the moon
' Twice filled her orb and waned, compelled to flight
' The pirate, shrinking from the open sea,
' And humbly begging for a narrow home
' In some poor nook on shore. 'Twas I again
' Who, happier far than Sulla, drave to death From B.C. 66 to B.C. 63, Pompeius conquered Mithridates, Syria, and the East, except Parthia.
' That king who, exiled to the deep recess
' Of Scythian Pontus, held the fates of Rome
' Still in the balances. Where is the land
' That has not seen my trophies? Icy waves
' Of northern Phasis, hot Egyptian shores,
' And where Syene 'neath its noontide sun
' Knows shade on neither hand: Being (as was supposed) exactly under the Equator. Syene (the modern Assouan) is the town mentioned by the priest of Sais, who told Herodotus that 'between Syene and Elephantine are two hills with conical tops. The name of one of them is Crophi, and of the other, Mophi. Mid-way between them are the fountains of the Nile.' (Herod., II., chapter 28.) And see 'Paradise Regained,' IV., 70: Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, Meroe, Nilotick isle; ... all these have learned
' To fear Pompeius: and far Baetis' Baetis is the Guadalquivir. stream,
' Last of all floods to join the refluent sea.
' Arabia and the warlike hordes that dwell
' Beside the Euxine wave: the famous land
' That lost the golden fleece; Cilician wastes,
' And Cappadocian, and the Jews who pray
' Before an unknown God; Sophene soft-
' All felt my yoke. What conquests now remain,
' What wars not civil can my kinsman wage? '
No loud acclaim received his words, nor shout
Asked for the promised battle: and the chief
