The scene is well and naturally conceived; there is no rant or false pathos; it is an oasis in a book which, though in many ways the finest in the _Pharsalia_, yet owes its impressiveness to a rhetoric which, for all its brilliance and power, will not always bear more than superficial examination. The last passage, with its description of the Druid's grove near Massilia,[287] is on a different plane. It gives less scope to the higher poetical imagination; it describes a scene such as the Silver Age delighted in,[288] a dark wood, whereto the sunlight scarce can penetrate; altars stand there stained with dark rites of human sacrifice; no bird or beast will approach it; no wind ever stirs its leaves; if they rustle, it is with a strange mysterious rustling all their own: there are dark pools and ancient trees, their trunks encircled by coiling snakes; strange sounds and sights are there, and when the sun rides high at noon, not even the priest will approach the sanctuary for fear lest unawares he come upon his lord and master. While similar descriptions may be found in other poets of the age, there is a strength and simplicity about this passage that rivets the attention, whereas others leave us cold and indifferent. But Lucan does not always exercise such restraint, and such passages are as rare as they are welcome. The reason for this is obvious: the narrative must necessarily consist in the main of military movements. In the words of Petronius,[289] that is better done by the historians. The adventures on the march are not likely as a rule to be peculiarly interesting; there are no heroic single combats to vary and glorify the fighting. Conscious of this inevitable difficulty, and with all the rhetorician's morbid fear of being commonplace, Lucan betakes himself to desperate remedies, hyperbole and padding. If he describes a battle, he must invent new and incredible horrors to enthral us; his sea-fight at Massilia is a notable instance;[290] death ceases to inspire horror and becomes grotesque. If a storm arises he must outdo all earlier epic storms. Vergil had attempted to outdo the storms of the Odyssey. Lucan must outdo Vergil. Consequently, in the storm that besets Caesar on his legendary voyage to Italy in the fisherman's boat[291] that 'carried Caesar and his fortunes', strange things happen. The boat rocks helplessly in mid-sea-- Its sails in clouds, its keel upon the ground, For all the sea was piled into the waves And drawn from depths between laid bare the sand.[292] In the same tempest-- The sea had risen to the clouds In mighty mass, had not Olympus' chief Pressed down its waves with clouds,[293]