The peace that reigned There and on Magnus' side, as though men slept, Their victory won, aroused his angry soul.
Quick he prepares, so that he end their joy Careless of slaughter or defeat, to rush With threatening columns on Torquatus' post.
But swift as sailor, by his trembling mast Warned of Circeian tempest, furls his sails, So swift Torquatus saw, and prompt to wage The war more closely, he withdrew his men Within a narrower wall.
Now past the trench Were Caesar's companies, when from the hills Pompeius hurled his host upon their ranks Shut in, and hampered.

Not so much o'erwhelmed As Caesar's soldiers is the hind who dwells On Etna's slopes, when blows the southern wind, And all the mountain pours its cauldrons forth Upon the vale; and huge Enceladus (9) Writhing beneath his load spouts o'er the plains A blazing torrent.
Blinded by the dust, Encircled, vanquished, ere the fight, they fled In cloud of terror on their rearward foe, So rushing on their fates.

Thus had the war Shed its last drop of blood and peace ensued, But Magnus suffered not, and held his troops.
Back from the battle.
Thou, oh Rome, had'st been Free, happy, mistress of thy laws and rights Were Sulla here.

Now shalt thou ever grieve That in his crowning crime, to have met in fight A pious kinsman, Caesar's vantage lay.
Oh tragic destiny! Nor Munda's fight Hispania had wept, nor Libya mourned Encrimsoned Utica, nor Nilus' stream, With blood unspeakable polluted, borne A nobler corse than her Egyptian kings: Nor Juba (10) lain unburied on the sands, Nor Scipio with his blood outpoured appeased The ghosts of Carthage; nor the blameless life Of Cato ended: and Pharsalia's name Had then been blotted from the book of fate.
But Caesar left the region where his arms Had found the deities averse, and marched His shattered columns to Thessalian lands.
Then to Pompeius came (whose mind was bent To follow Caesar wheresoe'er he fled) His captains, striving to persuade their chief To seek Ausonia, his native land, Now freed from foes.

"Ne'er will I pass," he said, "My country's limit, nor revisit Rome Like Caesar, at the head of banded hosts.
Hesperia when the war began was mine; Mine, had I chosen in our country's shrines, (11) In midmost forum of her capital, To join the battle.