ENDNOTES:
(1) Both of these generals were able and distinguished officers. Afranius was slain by Caesar's soldiers after the battle of Thapsus. Petreius, after the same battle, escaped along with Juba; and failing to find a refuge, they challenged each other to fight. Petreius was killed, and Juba, the survivor, put an end to himself. (2) These are the names of Spanish tribes. The Celtiberi dwelt on the Ebro. (3) Lerida, on the river Segre, above its junction with the Ebro. Cinga is the modern Cinca, which falls into the Segre (Sicoris). (4) Phrixus and Helle, the children of Nephele, were to be sacrificed to Zeus: but Nephele rescued them, and they rode away through the air on the Ram with the golden fleece. But Helle fell into the sea, which from her was named the Hellespont. (See Book IX., 1126.) The sun enters Aries about March 20. The Ram is pictured among the constellations with his head averse. (5) See Book I., 463. (6) See Mr. Heitland's introduction, upon the meaning of the word "cardo". The word "belt" seems fairly to answer to the two great circles or four meridians which he describes. The word occurs again at line 760; Book V., 80; Book VII., 452. (7) The idea is that the cold of the poles tempers the heat of the equator. (8) Fuso: either spacious, outspread; or, poured into the land (referring to the estuaries) as Mr. Haskins prefers; or, poured round the island. Portable leathern skiffs seem to have been in common use in Caesar's time in the English Channel. These were the rowing boats of the Gauls. (Mommsen, vol. iv., 219.) (9) Compare Book I., 519. (10) Compare the passage in Tacitus, "Histories", ii., 45, in which the historian describes how the troops of Otho and Vitellius wept over each other after the battle and deplored the miseries of a civil war. "Victi victoresque in lacrumas effusi, sortem civilium armorum misera laetitia detestantes." (11) "Saecula nostra" may refer either to Lucan's own time or to the moment arrived at in the poem; or it may, as Francken suggests, have a more general meaning. (12) "Petenda est"? — "is it fit that you should beg for the lives of your leaders?" Mr. Haskins says, "shall you have to beg for them?" But it means that to do so is the height of disgrace. (13) The scene is the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic. Here was Diocletian's palace. (Described in the 13th chapter of Gibbon.) (14) That is, night was at its shortest. (15) On the following passage see Dean Merivale's remarks, "History of the Roman Empire", chapter xvi. (16) That is, Sicilian. (17) For Phlegra, the scene of the battle between the giants and the gods, see Book VII., 170, and Book IX., 774. Ben Jonson ("Sejanus", Act v., scene 10) says of Sejanus: — "Phlegra, the field where all the sons of earth Mustered against the gods, did ne'er acknowledge So proud and huge a monster." (18) Juno. (19) That is, extols ancient deeds. (20) Referring to the battle of Zama. (21) See line 82. (22) Curio was tribune in B.C. 50. His earlier years are stated to have been stained with vice. (23) See Book II., 537. (24) Preferring the reading "praeripe", with Francken. (25) Bewick ("Quadrupeds," p. 238) tells the following anecdote of a tame ichneumon which had never seen a serpent, and to which he brought a small one. "Its first emotion seemed to be astonishment mixed with anger; its hair became erect; in an instant it slipped behind the reptile, and with remarkable swiftness and agility leaped upon its head, seized it and crushed it with its teeth." (26) Reading "arce", not "arte". The word "signifer" seems to favour the reading I have preferred; and Dean Merivale and Hosius adopted it. (27) For the character and career of Curio, see Merivale's "History of the Roman Empire", chapter xvi. He was of profligate character, but a friend and pupil of Cicero; at first a rabid partisan of the oligarchy, he had, about the period of his tribuneship (B.C. 50-49), become a supporter of Caesar. How far Gaulish gold was the cause of this conversion we cannot tell. It is in allusion to this change that he was termed the prime mover of the civil war. His arrival in Caesar's camp is described in Book I., line 303. He became Caesar's chief lieutenant in place of the deserter Labienus; and, as described in Book III., was sent to Sardinia and Sicily, whence he expelled the senatorial forces. His final expedition to Africa, defeat and death, form the subject of the latter part of this book. Mommsen describes him as a man of talent, and finds a resemblance between him and Caesar. (Vol. iv., p. 393.)