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.p In any creative work purporting to describe historical events there is a tension between \f8fact and fiction\f6. Eumolpus clearly prefers faithfulness to the latter: the plot of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 displays several inconsistencies with the known facts of the Civil War. The merit in occasionally bending the truth lies in the effect which it produces. Eumolpus' success in applying his literary theory, then, depends on the poetic effects he has achieved in lieu of being faithful to the facts. .p The first inconsistency is more a fault of omission: Eumolpus has nothing to say about the political motives for the war. Instead he blames Rome herself. The first fifth of what Eumolpus recites describes the corruption, luxury, and greed of Rome, culminating in an image of the city drunk and complacent, asleep. From this sleep only war can wake her: .bl .nf \f7hoc mersam caeno Romam somnoque iacentem quae poterant artes sana ratione mouere .fi ni\ furor\ et\ bellum\ ferroque\ excita\ libido?\f6 (vv.\ 58–60)\p .ck It should be noted that this image depicts the city as a victim. There are two senses to the word \f7Roma\f6: on the one hand it represents the physical city, its people, and the extent of its dominion; on the other it represents the allegorical deity associated with that concept. The personification in the verses just quoted suggests that here \f7Romam\f6 is used in the latter sense. But Roma the goddess is not depicted as the perpetrator of her own undoing: it is the \f7uictor Romanus\f6 (v. 1) who has conquered the world, and the citizens, people, and senators of Rome who are corrupt (\f7emptique Quirites\f6, v. 39; \f7uenalis populus, uenalis curia patrum\f6, v. 41). In the description of those who have caused the corruption, words such as \f7Romanus\f6, \f7Quirites\f6, \f7populus\f6, and \f7curia patrum\f6 are associated with \f7Roma\f6 in its first sense. It is the people of Rome who are greedy, and the goddess Roma suffers their excess. .p The connection between the state of affairs at Rome and the outbreak of war is not clear. The causes usually given for the Civil War include the death of Crassus, the subsequent dissolution of the Triumvirate, and the politicking between Caesar and Pompey/the senate. But Eumolpus gives scant account of these factors: instead, Caesar is portrayed as having been considering war for some time; halfway through the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 he simply ``puts off any further delay'' (\f7exuit omnes quippe moras Caesar\f6, v. 141–2) and the course of war is begun. Before this moment, the only mention of the war's principal actors is brief, and concerned mainly (and anachronistically) with their deaths: .bl .nf \f7tres tulerat Fortuna duces quos obruit omnes armorum strue diuersa feralis Enyo. Crassum Parthus habet, Libyco iacet aequore Magnus, Iulius ingratam perfudit sanguine Romam, et quasi non posset tot tellus ferre sepulcra, .fi diuisit\ cineres—hos\ gloria\ reddit\ honores.\f6 (vv.\ 61–6)\p .ck The main events of the Civil War can be read into this epitaphic summary, but it can hardly be said to be a comprehensive account of the political factors. More to the point is the mention of Fortuna and Enyo, for this passage marks a transition: of the action, from the mortal to the divine realm; but also of the responsibility for the war, from men to gods. It was Fortuna who led forth the men who would fight the war, and Enyo who claimed their lives. Fortuna is accountable, for it was by her grace that each of the members of the First Triumvirate succeeded in securing great power; Enyo first took Crassus, which dissolved the alliance, and caused the war which would allow her to claim the lives of the other two. In its transfer from the sickness at Rome to the role of the gods, accountability for the Civil War lands only briefly, and lightly, on the shoulders of the men who were actually responsible. .p The conference of Dis and Fortuna focuses again on the folly of Rome's greatness. Dis approaches Fortuna in her capacity as both the means by which Rome rose to such greatness, and the means by which she may be robbed of it. This is the point of his opening appeal: .bl .nf \f7“rerum humanarum diuinarumque potestas, Fors, cui nulla placet nimium secura potestas, .fi quae\ noua\ semper\ amas\ et\ mox\ possessa\ relinquis…''\f6 (vv.\ 79–81)\p .ck Incidentally, the mention of Fortuna's power over both men and gods refers again to the double sense of \f7Roma\f6: she is responsible for the rise and success of both individual Romans and Roma herself; but also for the corrupted state of both. The blame for the state of affairs which Eumolpus implies was the cause of civil war is shifted onto Fortuna. \f7ecquid Romano sentis te pondere uictam?\f6 asks Dis, \f7nec posse ulterius perituram extollere molem?\f6 (vv. 82–3). The god of the undeworld is motivated by Tisiphone's lust for blood (v. 97) and offence at the Romans' encroachment into his realm (\f7en etiam mea regna petunt\f6, v. 90), but the approach he takes with Fortuna is to accuse her of not being true to her nature. He appeals to her desire never to see power too long seated in one place: she has let things get to the stage where civil war is inevitable. Fortuna for her part does not deny she is at fault, and vows: \f7omnia quae tribui Romanis arcibus odi / muneribusque meis irascor\f6 (vv. 107–8). She accepts the blame and in the following passage Caesar makes his decision. .p But, true to the poet's desire to incorporate divine machinery into his work, Fortuna's responsibility and the Romans' are really only two sides of the same coin: both have resulted in the rot at Rome, and it is this which is blamed for the Civil War. Eumolpus pointedly refuses to treat the political causes of the conflict. The purpose of this could be to elevate the work beyond the mere personal differences of two men. In this case the implication would be that, however great Caesar and Pompey were, the result of the Civil War brought about changes so drastic and pervasive that they can only have been the result of divine interference or other cosmic forces. True, Eumolpus undercuts his argument somewhat by making his cause of war a satirical portrait of Roman luxury; but the introduction of Dis and Fortuna does lend the theory an air of inevitability, that it was the fate of Rome that fortune could no longer support an unbroken prosperity. The purpose of ignoring the political causes for war is to ask the reader to understand the Civil War in cosmic terms. .p .ne 12 The second liberty which Eumolpus takes has to do with his account of the portents attending Caesar's decision to march on Rome (vv. 126–140). A catalogue of such omens was a standard feature of historical epic; Eumolpus adopts it here, and in keeping with his fidelity only to poetic truth, his account differs from those of historians. He records an eclipse of both sun and moon, avalanches, rivers running slow, the sounds of war on the air, the eruption of Mt Aetna, the walking dead, a comet, and rain of blood. Eumolpus ignores the three main portents which historians record, namely a fire at Rome, a foaling mule, and temples struck by lightning. Connors points out that, instead of noting these, Eumolpus, like Lucan, chooses to describe the omens usually attributed to the time of Caesar's death, including especially the solar eclipse, the eruption of Mt Aetna, and the comet, all of which are described by Livy, Vergil, Ovid, and Tibullus as having followed the murder of Caesar.\c .f "Connors (1989) 100." Here it appears that Eumolpus is following Lucan, and not innovating. Nevertheless, the effect of relating portents usually associated with the death of Caesar at the point of his marching on Rome is to recast their import in an anti-Caesarian light. If this is only mimicking Lucan, Eumolpus does at least add a darker tinge to several of the omens: where Vergil's sun is bright (\f7nitidum\f6, \f7G.\f6 1.467), Eumolpus' is \f7ore cruento / deformis\f6 (vv. 127–8); Eumolpus' description of the Jupiter-ward eruption of Mt Aetna may hint at the Gigantomachy, foreshadowing civil war; and the comet, a symbol appropriated by Augustus as a sign of Caesar's deification (the \f7Iulium sidus\f6), marks the end of the republic.\c .f "Connors (1989) 101–7." The point of these darker and misplaced omens is to emphasize that it is Caesar's arrival, and not his demise, which spells disaster for Rome. .p The other misplaced event which Eumolpus recounts is that of Caesar's irrevocable transgression. It was of course at the Rubicon that Caesar crossed from Gaul into Rome, from compliance into Civil War,\c .f "Suet. \f7Jul.\f6 32; Plut. \f7Caes.\f6 32; App. \f7BC\f6 2.35." and at Ravenna that he made the speech to his men.\c .f "Caes. \f7Civ.\f6 1.5 ff." But Eumolpus pushes the site of both of these actions back to the Alps. Like Caesar himself, in his commentary on the war, Eumolpus surely has a reason for omitting reference to the Rubicon, though the two reasons are probably different. It has already been seen that this poet has no interest in the political machinations which preceded the war, and the chief import of the Rubicon was as a political boundary. Its crossing is only meaningful if one is aware of the symbolism associated with it, and Eumolpus has refused to describe the situation which gave rise to that symbolism. The Alps, on the other hand, are an elevated position, raising Caesar to a god-like status and emphasizing the cosmic influence his decision will have. Moreover, the place is associated with two great figures of myth and legend: Hercules and Hannibal. The implications of such a setting are not those of politics but of poetry and story-telling. The pay-off for Eumolpus' factual infidelity is the association of Caesar with heaven, with the strength of a demigod, and with Rome's greatest threat. .p Caesar is compared to Hercules both before and after his speech. In the description of the setting Eumolpus refers to the Greek divinity (\f7Graio numine\f6, v.\ 144) who first crossed the alps. Furthermore, the exact point at which Caesar chose to cross is \f7Herculeis aris sacer\f6 (v. 146), probably because it marked Hercules' actual route. Eumolpus has Caesar tread literally in the footsteps of Hercules. There is also a hint that Caesar himself may have desired this association: \f7optauitque locum\f6 (v. 153) cannot mean ``made the selection of a camping-ground'', as Baldwin suggests,\c .f "Baldwin (1911) \f7ad loc.\f6" for after the speech the army continues to march; rather, Caesar has chosen this particular place to make his speech, perhaps in order to confer an extra sense of authority and divine inevitability by associating himself with a demigod. Moreover: Caesar is not only following in the footsteps of Hercules; he is \f7like\f6 Hercules, in that he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. Verse 151, \f7totum ferre potest umeris minitantibus orbem\f6, describes the mountain, but it is clearly an allusion to Hercules and the Atlas myth. The arrangement of the words in the line, with the word for shoulders in the middle, and those for the whole world at either end, draw attention to the centre, the summit. At the summit of the alps is Caesar (\f7summo de uertice montis … prospexit\f6, vv. 153–4), and so the supporter of the world becomes not the mountains but Caesar, in the image of Hercules. .p After his speech Caesar is again compared to Hercules, this time explicitly: he is \f7qualis Caucasea decurrens arduus arce / Amphitryoniades\f6 (vv. 205–6). For the Romans below, the approach of a Caesar-as-Hercules is a boon, for when Hercules entered Italy he ended up strangling Cacus and thus making way for the \f7Forum Boarium\f6 of future Rome; when Caesar enters Italy he will make way for the future Roman Empire. This comparison is strengthened by the following one to Jupiter: .bl .nf \f7aut toruo Iuppiter ore cum se uerticibus magni demisit Olympi .fi et\ periturorum\ deiecit\ tela\ Gigantum\f6 (vv.\ 206–8)\p .ck Here the reference is to the Gigantomachy, and so has overtones of civil strife. But Caesar is presented as Jupiter, the victor in that affair, who ultimately secured an enduring order. The result of Caesar's civil strife would be an enduring Empire. The fact that Caesar has already been compared to Hercules, who helped the Olympians to defeat the Giants, reinforces the comparison of Caesar to a god. Indeed, both Caesar and Hercules were eventually deified, and both were incorporated into the founding myth of Rome. .p Set against this positive view is an association with Hannibal. The description of Caesar's descent from the Alps (vv. 177–208) recalls Livy's description of Hannibal's (Liv. 21.35–6). Moreover, Caesar's choice of location for a speech to his men looks out across Italy (\f7Hesperiae campos late prospexit\f6, v. 154), just as Hannibal's does (Liv. 21.35.8). This association casts Caesar as an attacker against Rome. In contrast with the associations with Jupiter and Hercules, the advance of a Caesar-as-Hannibal is a terror to the Romans below. This aspect of Caesar's characterization is emphasized by the description of the panicked flight from Rome which is the direct result of his approach. By centring the drama of Caesar's decision to march on Rome at the Alps, then, Eumolpus has drawn two conflicting comparisons. .p In Connor's opinion, ``Eumolpus manipulates historical traditions in order to argue that Caesar's actions at the outbreak of the war are the result of a long-term plan for Civil War.''\|\c .f "Connors (1989) 116–7." But surely the poetic benefits are what is most important to Eumolpus. After all, he is the \f7poeta phreneticus\f6, who recites in public in spite of receiving both verbal and physical abuse for it, and who cannot be dragged away from his work, even after shipwreck. Eumolpus cannot resist the opportunity for combining Caesar's momentous decision, the high rhetoric of his speech, and the ominous associations of the setting of the Alps into a single compelling plot point. More than the exigencies of a confined space of less than three hundred verses, it is the poet's artistic temperament which demands the treatment he gives, and the historical details are passed over. Eumolpus certainly is true to his ideal as set out in section 118.6, and it may be argued that the result is worth it. What rises out of the displacement, from the Rubicon to the Alps, of the decision to march on Rome is a far richer and ambiguous characterization of Caesar thanks to the available comparisons to both Hercules and Hannibal. On the whole, then, Eumolpus does adhere to the guidelines which he sets out before reciting the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6. In respect of his allusion, diction, and use of \f7sententiae\f6 the value and effectiveness may be arguable, but in his decision to retain the gods and twist the facts for poetic effect Eumolpus is both true to himself and produces a striking account of the lead-up to the Civil War.