Vergil - A Biography | Page 7

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 sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem. The poet himself seems to allude to his disappointing failure in the _Ciris_: expertum fallacis praemia volgi. How could he but fail? He never learned to cram his convictions into mere phrases, and his judgments into all-inclusive syllogisms. When he has done his best with human behavior, and the sentence is pronounced, he spoils the whole with a rebellious dis aliter visum. A successful advocate must know what not to see and feel, and he must have ready convictions at his tongue's end.