The simile of Lucan, which describes one disastrous flash rather than a storm (Phars. i. 150) refers to Caesar:
"Qualiter expressum ventis per nubila fulmen
Aetheris impulsi sonitu mundi que fragore.
Emicuit, rupitque diem, populosque paventes
Terruit, obliqua praestringens lumina flamma:
In sua templa furit, nullaque exire vetante
Materia, magnamque cadens, magnamque revertens
Dat stragem late, sparsosque recolligitignes."
No comparison is more common in Latin poetry than that of a warrior to a bull. All the three poets have introduced this, some of them several times. The instances we select will be Virg. Aen. xii. 714:
"Ac velut ingenti Sila summove Taburno
Cum duo conversis inimica in proelia tauri
Frontibus incurrunt, pavidi cessere magistri,
Stat pecus omne metu mutum mussantque iuvencae,
Quis nemori imperitet, quem tota armenta sequantur."
Lucan's simile is borrowed largely from the Georgics. It is, however, a fine one (Phars. ii. 601):
"Pulsus ut armentis primo cerramine taurus Silvarum secreta petit, vacuosque per agros Exul in adversis explorat cornua truncis; Nec redit in pastus nisi quum cervice recepta Excussi placuere tori; mox reddita victor Quoslibet in saltus comitantibus agmina tauris Invito pastore trahit."
That of Statius is in a similar strain (Theb. xi. 251):
"Sic ubi regnator post exulis otia tauri
Mugitum hostilem summa tulit aure iuvencus,
Agnovitque minas, magna stat fervidus ira
Ante gregem, spumisque animos ardentibus effert,
Nunc pede torvus humum nunc cornibus aera lindens,
Horret ager, trepidaeque expectant proelia valles."
How immeasurably does Virgil's description in its unambitious truth exceed these two fine but bombastic imitations!
These examples will suffice to show that each poet kept his predecessors in his eye, and tried to vie with them in drawing a similar picture. But the similes are not always taken from the common-place book. Virgil, who reserves nearly all his similes for the last six books, occasionally strikes an original key. Such are (or appear) the similes of the sedition quelled by an orator (i. 148), the top (vii. 378), the labyrinth (v, 588), the housewife (viii. 407), and the fall of the pier at Baiae (ix. 707); perhaps also of the swallow (xii. 473); mythological similes are common in him, but not so much, so as in Lucan and Statius. We have those of the Amazons (xi. 659), of Mars' shield in Thrace (xii. 331), condensed by Statius (Theb. vi. 665), of Orestes (iv. 471), copied by Lucan (Ph. vii. 777).