.p
The \f8length and occasion\f6 of the poem tell much about its purpose.
On the road to Croton, just before he begins to recite the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
Eumolpus calls his offering an \f7impetus\f6,
which has not yet received its \f7ultimam manum\f6 (118.6).
On the surface, his poem is intended to serve as an example,
corroborating the poetic precepts which he set out in section 118.
It has been shown that on the whole he is faithful to these precepts;
but on another level the poem serves a separate purpose,
which is to provide the conventional distraction to lighten a long journey.\c
.f "Walsh (1970) 48."
It seems natural that the compulsive poet Eumolpus
could not help but fill such a gap in the narrative with some of his own verses,
so that his remarks in section 118 are really only a pretext,
an excuse to indulge his habit of versifying,
with a captive audience into the bargain.
.bp
At first glance, the sentence with which Eumolpus introduces his poetic offering
seems like a fairly simple apology for the poem's incompleteness:
.bl

\f7tanquam si placet hic impetus,
etiam si nondum recepit ultimam manum…\f6  (118.6)\p

.ck
But the exact nature of that incompleteness
will give a clue to the poem's place in the narrative.
If Eumolpus is only admitting that his poem lacks a final polish,
then \f7impetus\f6 = ``attempt'' and \f7ultima manus\f6 = ``finishing touches''.
He concedes incompleteness on point of quality:
the treatment is not perfect, but it will serve as an example.
Under this reading, it is the more stylistic precepts of section 118
which are the focus: details such as the diction and use of \f7sententiae\f6.
But the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 is lacking much more than ``finishing touches''
if it is to be considered a model poem on the Civil War:
there is no proem or invocation of a muse, and, most importantly,
the whole action of the war receives almost no treatment.
The verses which Eumolpus delivers deal mainly with the cause of the war;
the actual fighting is summed up only in the final verse:
.bl

\f7factum\ est\ in\ terris\ quicquid\ Discordia\ iussit.\f6 (v.\ 295)\p

.ck
Details such as a proem are of course of little significance to the story itself,
and would naturally be added once the composition of the poem was complete.
The \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 as Eumolpus presents it, though,
is so light on the actual Civil War that it can hardly be said to grapple with 
the \f7belli ciuilis ingens opus\f6 (118.6).
This is perhaps the point of the foreshortened effort which Eumolpus offers:
he concedes that the topic is so difficult (\f7ingens\f6)
that he has only managed a beginning;
nevertheless, it will serve as an example
of how one might approach a poem on the Civil War.
Under this reading, \f7hic impetus\f6 = ``this beginning'',
\f7ultima manus\f6 = ``the rest of the story'',
and the focus is on the more structural precepts of section 118,
namely the inclusion of a divine machinery
and the attitude towards factual accuracy.
Because these latter concerns are obviously of greater importance
to Eumolpus' poetic programme than mere stylistic details,
it seems that the second way of reading the comment
with which the poet introduces the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 is the correct one.
.p
In fact, it is quite possible that Eumolpus does have an entire poem at his disposal
but only recites enough to make his point about
how a divine machinery might be retained in the telling of an historical epic.
While the poem's almost off-hand ending could be a place marker
signalling where the rest of the unfinished story is to be taken up,
it certainly does have the air of an ``…and you get the point''-type comment.
But Eumolpus does not seem the type to break off from reciting poetry
just because he has proved his principles.
It usually takes violence to shut him up (90.5): he cannot keep a simple promise
to desist from versifying even for a short time (90.6; cf. 93).
Rather than making a voluntary end to the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
it is perhaps more likely that Eumolpus is cut off by the arrival at Croton.
It was, after all, with great relish that he planned the mimic deceit
of the \f7captatores\f6 to take place upon arrival in the city
(\f7utinam quidem sufficeret largior scaena\f6, 117.2):
it is completely plausible that Eumolpus should leave off abruptly
as soon as that future site of his grand ruse comes into view.
At first it seems that the pluperfect \f7effudisset\f6 can be read against this theory,
as an implication that Eumolpus had already finished reciting
by the time he and his companions arrived at Croton,
but what Encolpius means by \f7haec … ingenti uolubilitate uerborum effudisset\f6
(124.2) is something more like: ``he had already gotten this far,
when at last we arrived at Croton''.
It seems that it is a lack of time available for reciting
rather than a lack of verses to recite which brings the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 to a close.
.p
Indeed, the description of Eumolpus just previous to the journey to Croton
strengthens the case that he had in fact finished composing the poem.
After the shipwreck, Encolpius and Giton find Eumolpus still furiously at work:
.bl

\f7inuenimus Eumolpum sedentem membranaeque ingenti versus ingerentem.
mirati ergo, quod illi vacaret in vicinia mortis poema facere,
extrahimus clamantem iubemusque bonam habere mentem.
at ille interpellatus excanduit et ``sinite me'' inquit
``sententiam explere;\ laborat\ carmen\ in\ fine.''\f6 (115.2–4)\p

.ck
It seems likely that the poem he is working on is in fact the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.
The word \f7ingenti\f6 and the apparent difficulty Eumolpus is having
(\f7laborat carmen\f6) are picked up by the phrase
\f7belli ciuilis ingens opus\f6 (118.6) when it comes time
for a poem to be recited on the road to Croton.
But the reference to a \f7membrana ingens\f6 implies that
``Eumolpus had already composed the poem on tablets
and is here transposing the complete poem to parchment,
which is the last stage before its final form for publication.''\|\c
.f "Schmeling (2011) \f7ad loc.\f6"
This seems to argue against the incompleteness of the poem,
since there would be no point in copying an unfinished composition onto parchment.
It seems that if the poem Eumolpus is working on
aboard Lichas' ship is indeed the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
then the lack of an \f7ultima manus\f6 can only
refer to the interruption of the act of transcription.
It is possible that the phrase \f7sententiam explere\f6
refers to the composition of a thought,
but it could just as easily represent Eumolpus' stubborn desire
to be allowed to finish copying out his current sentence.
Likewise, the phrase \f7laborat carmen in fine\f6 could
mean that Eumolpus is struggling with the actual composition of the poem's ending,
or, just as easily, that he is in the final stages
of painstakingly copying out a completed poem.
If Eumolpus was copying out a poem he had already composed,
then the incompleteness of what he recites on the road to Croton
can only be explained by the fact that he was cut off.
Even if he had reached the end of what he had copied onto parchment,
he could presumably still have read to the end of his poem by referring to his tablets.
Indeed, the relative merit of what Eumolpus recites
(described in the first chapter of the present study)
supports the notion of an already-completed \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.
.p
The meaning of \f7hic impetus … nondum recepit ultimam manum\f6  (118.6),
is deceptive, then, for it seems to refer to the fact that the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6
breaks off before any of the actual Civil War is described,
when really it probably only refers to the fact
that Eumolpus had not yet finished copying the poem out onto parchment
when Encolpius and Giton rescued him from the shipwreck.
The real point of ending the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 where it ends
lies in the fact that while Eumolpus could not choose
when his poem would break off, Petronius could.
By modulating the length of the journey to Croton,
and so the length of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
Petronius achieves a great deal of humour at Eumolpus' expense.
It has been shown that Eumolpus makes a reasonable attempt
at fulfilling his poetic programme,
but this is deflated somewhat if his poem on the Civil War
is deprived of the Civil War itself.
Moreover, while Eumolpus sets up the expectation of a grand epic,
Petronius devastates that expectation
by cutting him off before the description of any battles, thus
throwing emphasis onto the stated cause of the war (moral decay at Rome),
so that the poem comes across in a tone more satirical than epic.
If Eumolpus' purpose in delivering the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6
is to validate his poetic precepts, then it is Petronius' purpose to invalidate them.