Elsewhere he is as one of the 'strengthless dead', here he lives. Elsewhere he may be invested with the pathos that must cling to the shadow of a mighty name, but he is too weak and ineffective to be interesting. His wavering policy in his last campaign is unduly emphasized.[277] When he is face to face with Caesar at Pharsalus and exhorts his men, he can but boast, he cannot inspire.[278] When the battle turns against him he bids his men cease from the fight, and himself flies, that he may not involve them in his own disaster.[279] No less convincing portrait could be drawn. The material was unpromising, but Lucan emphasizes all his weaknesses and wholly fails to bring out his nobler elements. He is unworthy of the line nec cinis exiguus tantam compescuit umbram. So, too, in a lesser degree with Caesar. For a moment in the first book he flashes upon us in his full splendour (143): sed non in Caesare tantum nomen erat nec fama ducis: sed nescia virtus stare loco, solusque pudor non vincere bello. acer et indomitus, quo spes quoque ira vocasset. ferre manum et numquam temerando parcere ferro, successus urgere suos, instare fauori numinis, inpellens quidquid sibi summa petenti obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruina. Not such the talisman of Caesar's name, But Caesar had, in place of empty fame. The unresting soul, the resolution high That shuts out every thought but victory. Whate'er his goal, nor mercy nor dismay He owned, but drew the sword and cleft his way: Pressed each advantage that his fortune gave; Constrained the stars to combat for the brave; Swept from his path whate'er his rise delayed, And marched triumphant through the wreck he made. PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH. Here at any rate is Caesar the general: in such a poem there is no room for Caesar the statesman. But from this point onward we see no true Caesar. Henceforward, save for a few brief moments, he is a figure for the melodramatic stage alone, a 'brigand chief', a master hypocrite, the favourite of fortune. And yet, for all his unreality, Lucan has endowed him with such impetuous vigour and such a plenitude of power that he dwarfs the other puppets that throng his pages even more, if possible, than in real life he overtopped his contemporaries. Cato, the third great figure of the _Pharsalia_, was easier to draw. Unconsciously stagey in life, he is little stagier in Lucan. And yet, in spite of his absurdity, he has a nobility and a sincerity of purpose which is without parallel in that corrupt age. He was the hero of the Stoic republicans[280] of the early principate, the man of principle, stern and unbending. He requires no fine touches of light and shade, for he is the perfect Stoic. But from the very rigidity of his principles he was no statesman and never played more than a secondary part in politics.