There is another brief epigram which--if we are right in thinking Pompey
the subject of the lines--seems to date from Vergil's soldier days, the
third _Catalepton_:

Aspice quem valido subnixum Gloria regno
Altius et caeli sedibus extulerat.
Terrarum hic bello magnum concusserat orbem,
Hic reges Asiae fregerat, hic populos,
Hic grave servitium tibi iam, tibi, Roma, ferebat
(Cetera namque viri cuspide conciderant),
Cum subito in medio rerum certamine praeceps
Corruit, e patria pulsus in exilium.
Tale deae numen, tali mortalia nutu
Fallax momento temporis hora dedit.[6]

[Footnote 6: Behold one whom, upborne by mighty authority, Glory had
exalted even above the abodes of heaven. Earth's great orb had he shaken
in war, the kings and peoples of Asia had he broken, grievous slavery was
he bringing even to thee, O Rome,--for all else had fallen before that
man's sword,--when suddenly, in the midst of his struggle for mastery,
headlong he fell, driven from fatherland into exile. Such is the will of
Nemesis; at a mere nod, in a moment of time, the faithless hour tricks
mortal endeavor.]

Whether or not Pompey aspired to become autocrat at Rome, many of his
supporters not only believed but desired that he should. Cicero, who did
not desire it, did, despite his devotion to his friend, fear that Pompey
would, if victorious, establish practically or virtually a monarchy.[7]
Vergil, therefore, if he wrote this when Pompey fled to Greece in 49, or
after the rout at Pharsalia, was only giving expression to a conviction
generally held among Caesar's officers. Quite Vergilian is the repression
of the shout of victory. The poem recalls the words of Anchises on
beholding the spirits of Julius and Pompey:

Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo
Proice tela manu, sanguis meus.

[Footnote 7: Cic. _Ad Att_. VIII, 11, 4; X, 4, 8.]

This is the poet's final conviction regarding the civil war in which he
served; his first had not differed widely from this.

Vergil's one experience as advocate in the court room should perhaps be
placed after his retirement from the army. Egit, says Donatus, et causam
apud judices, unam omnino nec amplius quam semel. The reason for his lack
of success Donatus gives in the words of Melissus, a critic who ought to
know: in sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem. The poet himself
seems to allude to his disappointing failure in the _Ciris_: expertum
fallaci