later literary accounts often attributed pompey's murder solely to septimius, or place the principal guilt on him. this is the case in the poem "pharsalia" by the roman poet lucan, in which the fact that septimius, a roman, was doing the bidding of a foreign king is depicted as especially shameful. lucan portrays septimius as the archetype of a traitor: "with what reputation will posterity send septimius into the centuries? what name will this wickedness have from those who call what brutus did a crime?".