Kitap 2
Thus in majestic tones their ranks addressed:
1
True host of Rome! avengers of her laws
Ranked 'neath the standards of the better right,
To whom the Senate gives no private arms,
Ask by your voices for the battle sign.
Fierce falls the pillage on Hesperian fields,
And Gallia's fury o'er the snowy Alps
Is poured upon us. Caesar's swords at last
' Are red with Roman blood. But with the wound
We gain the better cause; the crime is theirs.
Through me her captain Rome for vengeance calls;
' Tis no true fight to wreak your country's ire.
' Was that a war when Catilina's hand
' Lifted against her roofs the flaming torch,
' And, partner in his fury, Lentulus,
' And mad Cethegus This family is also alluded to by Horace ('Ars Poetica,' 50) as having worn a garment of ancient fashion leaving their arms bare. (See also Book VI., 944.) with his naked arm?
' Is such thy madness, Caesar? when the Fates
' With great Camillus' and Metellus' names
' Might place thine own, dost thou prefer to rank
' With Marius and Cinna? Swift shall be
' Thy fall: as Lepidus before the sword
' Of Catulus; or who my axes felt,
' Carbo,In B.C. 77, after the death of Sulla. Carbo had been defeated by Pompeius in 81 B.C., on which occasion Pompeius had, at the early age of twenty-five, demanded and obtained his first triumph. The war with Sertorius lasted till 71 B.C., when Pompeius and Metellus triumphed in respect of his overthrow. now buried in Sicanian tomb;
' Or who, in exile, roused Iberia's hordes,
' Sertorius-yet, witness Heaven, with these
' I hate to rank thee; hate the task that Rome
' Has laid upon me, to oppose thy rage.
' Would that in safety from the Parthian war
' And Scythian steppes had conquering Crassus come!
' Then haply hadst thou fallen by the hand
' That smote vile Spartacus the robber foe.
' But if among my triumphs fate has said
' Thy conquest shall be written, know this heart
' Still sends the life blood coursing: and this arm
' Still vigorously flings the dart afield.
' He deems me slothful. Caesar, thou shalt learn
'We brook not peace because we lag in war.
' Old, does he call me? Fear not ye mine age.See Book I., line 371.
' Let me be elder, if his soldiers are.
' The highest point a citizen can reach
