second book of his Civil War. In the beginning of his account of it
he remarks: "Showing at the outset a total contempt for the military
strength of his opponent, Publius Attius Varus, Curio crossed over from
Sicily, accompanied by only two of the four legions originally given him
by Caesar, and by only five hundred cavalry."[142] The estimate which
Caelius had made of him was true, after all, at least in military affairs.
He was bold and impetuous, and lacked a settled policy. Where daring and
rapidity of movement could accomplish his purpose, he succeeded, but he
lacked patience in finding out the size and disposition of the enemy's
forces and calmness of judgment in comparing his own strength with that of
his foe. It was this weakness in his character as a military leader which
led him to join battle with Varus and Juba's lieutenant, Saburra, without
learning beforehand, as he might have done, that Juba, with a large army,
was encamped not six miles in the rear of Saburra. Curio's men were
surrounded by the enemy and cut down as they stood. His staff begged him
to seek safety in flight, but, as Caesar writes,[143] "He answered without
hesitation that, having lost the army which Caesar had entrusted to his
charge, he would never return to look him in the face, and with that
answer he died fighting."

Three years later the fortunes of war brought Caesar to northern Africa,
and he traversed a part of the region where Curio's luckless campaign had
been carried on. With the stern eye of the trained soldier, he marked the
fatal blunders which Curio had made, but he recalled also the charm of his
personal qualities, and the defeat before Utica was forgotten in his
remembrance of the great victory which Curio had won for him,
single-handed, in Rome. Even Lucan, a partisan of the senate which Curio
had flouted, cannot withhold his admiration for Curio's brilliant career,
and his pity for Curio's tragic end. As he stands in imagination before
the fallen Roman leader, he exclaims:[144] "Happy wouldst thou be, O Rome,
and destined to bless thy people, had it pleased the gods above to guard
thy liberty as it pleased them to avenge its loss. Lo! the noble body of
Curio, covered by no tomb, feeds the birds of Libya. But to thee, since it
profiteth not to pass in silence those deeds of thine which their own
glory defends forever 'gainst the decay of time, such tribute now we pay,
O youth, as thy life has well deserved. No other citiz