M. ANNAEUS LUCANUS

At that time: the meager asylum 1 set the masters against each other.
The discordant harmony remained for a short time,
And peace existed not by the will of the leaders; for Crassus
Was the only middle restraint on the future war. Just as the Isthmus
100Which cuts the waves and separates the twin seas with a slender line,
And does not suffer them to bring the sea together, if the land were to recede,
It would dash the Ionian sea against the Aegean: thus, when Crassus,
Dividing the savage arms of the leaders by his pitiable funeral,
Stained Assyrian Carrhae with Latin blood,
105The Parthian losses loosened Roman furies.
More was done in that battle than you believe,
Arsacidae the Parthian kings: you gave civil war to the vanquished.
The kingdom is divided by the sword, and the power of the people,
Which possesses the sea, which possesses the lands, which possesses the whole world,
Could not hold two. For the pledges of joined
111Blood and the deadly torches with a grim omen
Were taken away to the underworld by the savage hand of the Fates,
Intercepting Julia 3. But if the fates had granted you
Greater delays in the light, you alone
Could have restrained the raging husband Pompey on one side, and on the other
Your father Caesar, and joined their armed
Hands, having cast aside the sword,
Just as the Sabine women joined their fathers-in-law and husbands in the middle.
With your death, loyalty was destroyed, and war was permitted
To the leaders. Rival valor gave stimuli:
121You, Caesar, so that recent deeds might not obscure ancient triumphs,
And that the pirate laurel might yield to the conquered Gauls,