​Vercingetorix, by Dave Day

Vercingetorix Throws Down His Arms at the Feet of Julius Caesar, by Lionel Royer (France) 1899

​Vercingetorix
 
Arverni chief of Celtic blood before
your smoking Gallic hilltop fort aflame.
A hopeless dream of druid rule restored
condemned your kin to Charon’s dark domain.
Besieged and trapped when you expelled your weak.
Your old. Your women. Wailing children starved.
Between a putrid pride and Gaul’s defeat,
they died to feed their chieftain’s honour guards.
A wicker man—a shameful heart concealed
by shining armor faced the legions’ standards.
A fine display when you threw down your shield.
Now count the Celtic corpses, caged commander.
Arverni chief, the fate you earned awaits--
a Roman triumph, chains, and Hades’ gates.

Dave Day

Read Dave Day's poem to a Fayum mummy:
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/leuropeenne-fayum-mummy-portrait-by-dave-day

Dave Day is an attorney from Honolulu, Hawaii, where he lives with his lovely wife and daughter and an incredibly noisy bordoodle. Dave is a numismatist focused on the currency of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and post-Soviet states, and views coinage as a unique way of understanding history. His poem about a Ukrainian opera singer turned soldier, "The Lives and Roles of Vasyl Slipak," is a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee.