Ocior et missa Parthi post terga sagitta
Vicinumque minax invadit Ariminum, et ignes
Solis lucifero fugiebant astra relicto.
Iamque dies primos belli visura tumultus
Exoritur; seu sponte deum, seu turbidus Auster
Impulerat, maestam tenuerunt nubila lucem.
Lucan, Pharsalia, i. 213-235.
Context. On Lentulus Crus and Claudius Marcellus, the Consuls for 49 B.C., must rest the immediate blame of the Civil War. On Jan. 1st Caesar’s tribune Curio once more presented proposals from Caesar, which startle us by their marvellous moderation (cf. Suet. Caesar, 29, 30), but Lentulus would not allow them to be considered. On Jan. 7th the Senatus consultum ultimum was decreed, and a state of war declared. Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the narrow brook which separated his province from Italy, to pass which at the head of an army was high treason to the State.—W. F.
214 puniceus = dark red: Rubicon, as if from ruber.
216 limes, i.e. until the time of Augustus, by whom Italy was extended to the R. Varus, the boundary between Gallia Narbonensis and Italy.