Complex sentence: The poem opens with the words "Vicisti, Galilæe", Latin for "You have conquered, O Galilean," the apocryphal dying words of the Emperor Julian, who had tried to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.
Split into simpler sentences: The poem opens with the words "Vicisti, Galilæe", Latin for "You have conquered, O Galilean," the apocryphal dying words of the Emperor Julian. He had tried to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.