Vergil - A Biography | Page 7

time claimed the right to enforce the rules of
conscription. In any case, it is clear from all of Vergil's references to
Caesar that the great general always retained a strong hold upon his
imagination. Like most youths who had beheld Caesar's work in the
province close at hand, he was probably ready to respond to a general
appeal for troops, and Labienus' words to Pompey on the battlefield of
Pharsalia make it clear that Caesar's army was largely composed of
Cisalpines. The accounting they gave of themselves at that battle is
evidence enough of the spirit which pervaded Vergil's fellow
provincials. Nor is it unlikely that Vergil himself took part, for one of
the most poignant passages in all his work is the picture of the dead
who lay strewn over the battlefield of Pharsalia.
[Footnote 4: Cic. Ad Att. IX. 19, in March.]
It is also probable that Vergil had had some share in the cruises on the

Adriatic conducted by Antony the summer and winter before Pharsalia.
Not only does this poem speak of service on the seas, but his poems
throughout reveal a remarkable acquaintance with Adriatic geography.
If he took part in the work of that stormy winter's campaigns, when
more than one fleet was wrecked, we can comprehend the intimate
touches in the description of Aeneas' encounters with the storms.
The thirteenth Catalepton, which mentions the poet's military service,
is not pleasant reading. Written perhaps in 48 or 47 B.C., directed
against some hated martinet of an officer, it bears various disagreeable
traces of camp life, which was then not well-guarded by charitable
organizations of every kind as now. We need quote only the first few
lines:[5]
You call me caitiff, say I cannot sail The seas again, and that I seem to
quail Before the storms and summer's heat, nor dare The speeding
victor's arms again to bear.
We know how frail Vergil's health was in later years. His constitution
may well have been wrecked during the winter of 49 which Caesar
himself, inured though he was to the storms of the North, found
unusually severe. Vergil, it would seem from these lines, was given
sick-leave and permitted to go back to his studies, though apparently
taunted for not later returning to the army.
[Footnote 5: Jacere me, quod alta non possim, putas Ut ante, vectari
freta, Nec ferre durum frigus aut aestum pati Neque arma victoris sequi.
The verses were written before 46 B.C. when the collegia compitalicia
were disbanded; Birt, _Rhein. Mus_. 1910, 348.]
There is another brief epigram which--if we are right in thinking
Pompey the subject of the lines--seems to date from Vergil's soldier
days, the third _Catalepton_:
Aspice quem valido subnixum Gloria regno Altius et caeli sedibus
extulerat. Terrarum hic bello magnum concusserat orbem, Hic reges
Asiae fregerat, hic populos, Hic grave servitium tibi iam, tibi, Roma,
ferebat (Cetera namque viri cuspide conciderant), Cum subito in medio
rerum certamine praeceps Corruit, e patria pulsus in exilium. Tale deae
numen, tali mortalia nutu Fallax momento temporis hora dedit.[6]
[Footnote 6: Behold one whom, upborne by mighty authority, Glory
had exalted even above the abodes of heaven. Earth's great orb had he
shaken in war, the kings and peoples of Asia had he broken, grievous

slavery was he bringing even to thee, O Rome,--for all else had fallen
before that man's sword,--when suddenly, in the midst of his struggle
for mastery, headlong he fell, driven from fatherland into exile. Such is
the will of Nemesis; at a mere nod, in a moment of time, the faithless
hour tricks mortal endeavor.]
Whether or not Pompey aspired to become autocrat at Rome, many of
his supporters not only believed but desired that he should. Cicero, who
did not desire it, did, despite his devotion to his friend, fear that
Pompey would, if victorious, establish practically or virtually a
monarchy.[7] Vergil, therefore, if he wrote this when Pompey fled to
Greece in 49, or after the rout at Pharsalia, was only giving expression
to a conviction generally held among Caesar's officers. Quite Vergilian
is the repression of the shout of victory. The poem recalls the words of
Anchises on beholding the spirits of Julius and Pompey:
Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo Proice tela manu,
sanguis meus.
[Footnote 7: Cic. Ad Att. VIII, 11, 4; X, 4, 8.]
This is the poet's final conviction regarding the civil war in which he
served; his first had not differed widely from this.
Vergil's one experience as advocate in the court room should perhaps
be placed after his retirement from the army. Egit, says Donatus, et
causam apud judices, unam omnino nec amplius quam semel. The
reason for his lack of success Donatus gives in the words of Melissus, a
critic who ought to know: in