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.]
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.]