The Plunge of Pompey
(In
Poetic Prose)
At the near approach of Pompey—it is hard to grasp how huge his
reputation, his fame: he was called Pompey the Great!
Perhaps the most famous man in the World,
in 50 B.C., not so unlike, Alexander the Great”
He changed the history of the Roman World,
and that of Spain— and far beyond the boards of Italy, Egypt, Syria, to mention
but a few!
And the tides of time grew higher for him,
as the years passed, to old age—
He would be stabbed in the back on a
skiff, at the age of 58-years old, in the waters of the Nile; but for now, life
was at its height!
His arms tore from the earth the top of
one great wave:
It was as if Julius Cesar was the moon
under that wave, and he tore Cesar out of the Mediterranean Basin, out above
some great wave, as if he was a cold white stone—
Cesar who made his name in Gaul:
Who thought himself higher than Pompey,
and was determined to make Pompey pay one way or another, if indeed he could make
him clean out his stall, he would…
But Cesar was not Rome, not yet, Cesar was
only Cesar in those early days—Pompey was Rome!
And Cesar would have to watch Pompey’s
triumph, but he also would watch him plunge!
Thus, what made Pompey famous, would make Cesar
Great!
And both would leave a great wound in the
world, and Rome!
Both, dragging Rome alongside them,
haggard with loneliness.
The Romans had their mythology, they had
their gods and heroes, and they worked alongside of their truth…
Perhaps never touching it, the equations
always a little lopsided, —
And when need be, the Senate invented new
ones
Cesar now back from Gaul, with a 40,000-man
Army threatened to invade Rome!
Pompey, feeling it was unlikely he could,
countered his attack, his threats on land and sea, with over 60,000-men of war;
Feeling Cesar had huge pits of darkness
and grandeur, and no high peaks of light, foresight, or military insight—
Only that he was flashy yet unstable,
thence like a slow dribble, made life unbearable for Cesar—
Starving Cesar slowly and his men, to the
point they ate dirt!
Hence, like a flashing rock in darkness,
he subdued Cesar into submission; As a result, had he destroyed Cesar, which
was the breath of Cesar’s passion for Rome and the world:
Cesar’s virus would not have touched Rome,
nor his successors!
Perhaps would have remained a Republic!
And so what was originally the Will of
Rome, in due time, became the Will of Cesar—
Cesar wanted Rome in a panic, and as the
old saying goes, “Don’t trust ghosts!”
And so by allowing Cesar to return to Rome
and the Senate, Pompey gave Rome, a court, a Senate, with calm gods, and no
warring eagles, and made all the young soldiers like old soldiers: soldiers of obedience.
But Rome wanted change at any cost.
This was the difference between Cesar and
Pompey;
And so Rome chose the devil!
Is it not true: one day a man is praised
as a king, the next by the worms?
There was those days, when Pompey fought
the Great King Mithridates, back in 71 B.C., but time passes—
Cesar made Pompey the enemy!
Now Pompey was on a ship in the harbor of
Pelusium, Egypt, down the Nile…
He had brought the Yong King Ptolemy into
power (now but 13-years old)
“Ship ahoy!” called a voice from the dock.
“Yes,” said the Captain of Pompey’s ship.
In the background one could see Mount Cassius.
Pompey now remembering an old saying from a sibyl: ‘The sand is
falling—
Beware of old enemies!”
Says Pompey: “The upright soul is safe!”
The Captain and the sailors aboard, were concerned about the
warships in the harbor, being manned.
And the king, as he sailed by on his grand ship, only smiled at
Pompey, could he not see the treachery in this?
Could he not see that Cesar ruled the dust and dirt of Egypt, as
he did all of Italy and Rome and all Rome’s seized provinces?
Could he not see when he got into the ransacked vessel that came
to deliver him to the king an insult?
Could he not see the daggers in the hands of the sailors?
Could he not feel their blazing breath?
He was a man who could feel good and evil,
pain and pleasure, but what he could not feel or taste or fathom, was the
nauseous drought, in a man’s heart he loved, in this case, a boy-king.
No:
4490/7-25-2014
