In any case, it
is clear from all of Vergil's references to Caesar that the great general
always retained a strong hold upon his imagination. Like most youths who
had beheld Caesar's work in the province close at hand, he was probably
ready to respond to a general appeal for troops, and Labienus' words to
Pompey on the battlefield of Pharsalia make it clear that Caesar's
army was largely composed of Cisalpines. The accounting they gave of
themselves at that battle is evidence enough of the spirit which pervaded
Vergil's fellow provincials. Nor is it unlikely that Vergil himself
took part, for one of the most poignant passages in all his work is the
picture of the dead who lay strewn over the battlefield of Pharsalia.

[Footnote 4: Cic. _Ad Att_. IX. 19, in March.]

It is also probable that Vergil had had some share in the cruises on the
Adriatic conducted by Antony the summer and winter before Pharsalia.
Not only does this poem speak of service on the seas, but his poems
throughout reveal a remarkable acquaintance with Adriatic geography. If
he took part in the work of that stormy winter's campaigns, when more
than one fleet was wrecked, we can comprehend the intimate touches in the
description of Aeneas' encounters with the storms.

The thirteenth _Catalepton_, which mentions the poet's military service,
is not pleasant reading. Written perhaps in 48 or 47 B.C., directed
against some hated martinet of an officer, it bears various disagreeable
traces of camp life, which was then not well-guarded by charitable
organizations of every kind as now. We need quote only the first few
lines:[5]

You call me caitiff, say I cannot sail
The seas again, and that I seem to quail
Before the storms and summer's heat, nor dare
The speeding victor's arms again to bear.

We know how frail Vergil's health was in later years. His constitution
may well have been wrecked during the winter of 49 which Caesar himself,
inured though he was to the storms of the North, found unusually severe.
Vergil, it would seem from these lines, was given sick-leave and
permitted to go back to his studies, though apparently taunted for not
later returning to the army.

[Footnote 5:
Jacere me, quod alta non possim, putas
Ut ante, vectari freta,
Nec ferre durum frigus aut aestum pati
Neque arma victoris sequi.
The verses were written before 46 B.C. when the _collegia compitalicia_
were disbanded; Birt, _Rhein. Mus_. 1910, 348.]