Mommsen (vol.iv., pp.

421-423) discusses the subject, and says that from Parthia only could Pompeius have attempted to seek support, and that such an attempt, putting the objections to it aside, would probably have failed.

Lucan's sympathies were probably with Lentulus.
(12) Probably Lucius Lentulus Crus, who had been Consul, for B.C.
49, along with Caius Marcellus.

(See Book V., 9.) He was murdered in Egypt by Ptolemy's ministers.
(13) That is, be as easily defended.
(14) Thus rendered by Sir Thomas May, of the Long Parliament: "Men used to sceptres are ashamed of nought: The mildest governement a kingdome finds Under new kings." (15) That is, he reached the most eastern mouth of the Nile instead of the western.
(16) At Memphis was the well in which the rise and fall of the water acted as a Nilometer (Mr.Haskins's note).
(17) Comp.

Herodotus, Book iii.27.