izing the town, rushed onward by the pier
That circled in the harbour; then they knew
With shame and sorrow that the fleet was gone
And held the open: and Pompeius' flight
Gave a poor triumph.

Yet was narrower far
The channel which gave access to the sea
Than that Euboean strait (34) whose waters lave
The shore by Chalcis. Here two ships stuck fast
Alone, of all the fleet; the fatal hook
Grappled their decks and drew them to the land,
And the first bloodshed of the civil war
Here left a blush upon the ocean wave.
As when the famous ship (36) sought Phasis' stream
The rocky gates closed in and hardly gripped
Her flying stern; then from the empty sea
The cliffs rebounding to their ancient seat
Were fixed to move no more. But now the steps
Of morn approaching tinged the eastern sky
With roseate hues: the Pleiades were dim,
The wagon of the Charioteer grew pale,
The planets faded, and the silvery star
Which ushers in the day, was lost in light.

Then Magnus, hold'st the deep; yet not the same
Now are thy fates, as when from every sea
Thy fleet triumphant swept the pirate pest.
Tired of thy conquests, Fortune now no more
Shall smile upon thee. With thy spouse and sons,
Thy household gods, and peoples in thy train,
Still great in exile, in a distant land
Thou seek'st thy fated fall; not that the gods,
Wishing to rob thee of a Roman grave,
Decreed the strands of Egypt for thy tomb:
'Twas Italy they spared, that far away
Fortune on shores remote might hide her crime,
And Roman soil be pure of Magnus' blood.

ENDNOTES:

(1) When dragged from his hiding place in the marsh, Marius was
sent by the magistrates of Minturnae to the house of a woman
named Fannia, and there locked up in a dark apartment. It
does not appear that he was there long. A Gallic soldier
was sent to kill him; "and the eyes of Marius appeared to
him to dart a strong flame, and a loud voice issued from the
gloom, 'Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?'" He rushed
out exclaiming, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." (Plutarch,
"Marius", 38.)
(2) The Governor of Libya sent an officer to Marius, who had
landed in the neighbourhood of Carthage. The officer
delivered his message, and Marius replied, "Tell the
Governor you have seen Caius Marius, a fugitive sitting on
the ruins of Carthage," a reply in which he not inaptly
compared the fate of that city and