Book 3
Carves out a continent; nor where the strait
1
In boiling surge pours to the Pontic deep
Maeotis' waters, rivalling the pride
Of those Herculean pillar-gates that guard
The entrance to an ocean. Thence with hair
In golden fillets, Arimaspians came,
And fierce Massagetae, who quaff the blood
Of the brave steed on which they fight and flee.
Not when great Cyrus on Memnonian realms
His warriors poured; nor when, their weapons piled, Effusis telis. I have so taken this difficult expression. Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made to agree with that of Herodotus. Francken, on the other hand, quotes a Scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an arrow. See Mr. J. A. R. Munro's paper in vol. xxii. of the Hellenic Society's publications, at p. 296.
The Persian told the number of his host;
Nor when th' avenger Agamemnon. of a brother's shame
Loaded the billows with his mighty fleet,
Beneath one chief so many kings made war;
Nor e'er met nations varied thus in garb
And thus in language. To Pompeius' death
Thus Fortune called them: and a world in arms
Witnessed his ruin. From where Afric's god,
Two-horned Ammon, rears his temple, came
All Libya ceaseless, from the wastes that touch
The bounds of Egypt to the shore that meets
The Western Ocean. Thus, to award the prize
Of Empire at one blow, Pharsalia brought
'Neath Caesar's conquering hand the banded world.
Now Caesar left the walls of trembling Rome
And swift across the cloudy Alpine tops
He winged his march; but while all others fled
Far from his path, in terror of his name,
Phocaea's Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocaea in Asia Minor about B.C. Lucan (line 392) appears to think that the founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed by the Persians sixty years later. See Thucydides I., 13; Grote, ' History of Greece,' chapter xxii. manhood with un-Grecian faith
Held to their pledged obedience, and dared
To follow right, not fate; but first of all
With olive boughs of truce before them borne
The chieftain they approach, with peaceful words
In hope to alter his unbending will
And tame his fury. 'Search the ancient books
Which chronicle the deeds of Latian fame;
Thou'lt ever find, when foreign foes pressed hard,
Massilia's prowess on the side of Rome.After the burning of Rome by the Celts a collection was made in Massilia in aid of those who suffered by the fire. Mommsen, vol. i., p. 430.
And now, if triumphs in an unknown world
Thou seekest, Caesar, here our arms and swords
