41. Though it is not, most assuredly, the intention of
Lucan, to exalt the character of Caesar, yet the idea he
gives of that hero, in the tenth book of the Pharsalia,
where he describes him at the same time, making love to
Cleopatra, sustaining a siege against the power of Egypt,
and conversing with the sages of the country, is, in
reality, the noblest panegyric.