Pharsalia
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''De Bello Civili'' (; ''On the Civil War''), more commonly referred to as the ''Pharsalia'', is a
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...
written by the poet Lucan, detailing the
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
between
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
and the forces of the
Roman Senate The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
led by
Pompey the Great Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...
. The poem's title is a reference to the
Battle of Pharsalus The Battle of Pharsalus was the decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War fought on 9 August 48 BC near Pharsalus in central Greece. Julius Caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the Roman Republic under the command of Pompey. P ...
, which occurred in 48 BC, near
Pharsalus ''Pharsalus''Melichar L (1906) ''Monographie der Issiden. (Homoptera). Abhandlungen der K. K. Zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien.'' Wien 3: 1-327 21 is the type genus of planthoppers in the subfamily Pharsalinae (family Ricaniidae); it ...
,
Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...
, in northern
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which occupies all of the epic's seventh book. In the early twentieth century, translator J. D. Duff, while arguing that "no reasonable judgment can rank Lucan among the world's great epic poets", notes that the work is notable for Lucan's decision to eschew divine intervention and downplay supernatural occurrences in the events of the story. Scholarly estimation of Lucan's poem and poetry has since changed, as explained by commentator Philip Hardie in 2013: "In recent decades, it has undergone a thorough critical re-evaluation, to re-emerge as a major expression of Neronian politics and aesthetics, a poem whose studied artifice enacts a complex relationship between poetic fantasy and historical reality."Hardie (2013), p. 225


Origins

The poem was begun around 61 AD and several books were in circulation before the Emperor
Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
and Lucan had a bitter falling out. Lucan continued to work on the epic – despite Nero's prohibition against any publication of Lucan's poetry – and it was left unfinished when Lucan was compelled to suicide as part of the
Pisonian conspiracy The conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso in AD 65 was a in the reign of the Roman emperor Nero (reign 54–68). The plot reflected the growing discontent among the ruling class of the Roman state with Nero's increasingly despotic leadership, a ...
in 65 AD. In total, 10 books were written and all survive; the 10th book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt.


Contents

Book 1: After a brief introduction lamenting the idea of Romans fighting Romans and an ostensibly flattering dedication to Nero, the narrative summarizes background material leading up to the present war and introduces Caesar in northern Italy. Despite an urgent plea from the Spirit of Rome to lay down his arms, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, rallies his troops and marches south to Rome, joined by
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along the way. The book closes with panic in the city, terrible portents and visions of the disaster to come. Book 2: In a city overcome by despair, an old veteran presents a lengthy interlude regarding the previous civil war that pitted Marius against
Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force. Sulla had ...
.
Cato the Younger Marcus Porcius Cato "Uticensis" ("of Utica"; ; 95 BC – April 46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger ( la, Cato Minor), was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the ...
is introduced as a heroic man of principle; as abhorrent as civil war is, he argues to
Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...
that it is better to fight than do nothing. After siding with Pompey—the lesser of two evils—he remarries his ex-wife, Marcia, and heads to the field. Caesar continues south through Italy and is delayed by Domitius' brave resistance. He attempts a blockade of Pompey at
Brundisium Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Histo ...
, but the general makes a narrow escape to Greece. Book 3: As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by
Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g ...
, his dead wife and Caesar's daughter. Caesar returns to Rome and plunders the city, while Pompey reviews potential foreign allies. Caesar then heads for Spain, but his troops are detained at the lengthy siege of Massilia (Marseille). The city ultimately falls in a bloody naval battle. Book 4: The first half of this book is occupied with Caesar's victorious campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius. Switching scenes to Pompey, his forces intercept a raft carrying Caesarians, who prefer to kill each other rather than be taken prisoner. The book concludes with Curio launching an African campaign on Caesar's behalf, where he is defeated and slain by the African King Juba. Book 5: The Senate in exile confirms Pompey the true leader of Rome. Appius consults the Delphic oracle to learn of his fate in the war, and leaves with a misleading prophecy. In Italy, after defusing a mutiny, Caesar marches to Brundisium and sails across the Adriatic to meet Pompey's army. Only a portion of Caesar's troops complete the crossing when a storm prevents further transit; he tries to personally send a message back but is himself nearly drowned. Finally, the storm subsides, and the armies face each other at full strength. With battle at hand, Pompey sends his wife to the island of
Lesbos Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
. Book 6: Pompey's troops force Caesar's armies – featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva – to fall back to
Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...
. Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the armies wait for battle the next day. The remainder of the book follows Pompey's son
Sextus Sextus is an ancient Roman '' praenomen'' or "first name". Its standard abbreviation is Sex., and the feminine form would be Sexta. It is one of the numeral ''praenomina'', like Quintus ("fifth") and Decimus ("tenth"), and means "sixth". Althoug ...
, who wishes to know the future. He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly,
Erichtho In Roman literature, Erichtho (from ) is a legendary Thessalian witch who appears in several literary works. She is noted for her horrifying appearance and her impious ways. Her first major role was in the Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'', ...
, and she reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier in a terrifying ceremony. The soldier predicts Pompey's defeat and Caesar's eventual assassination. Book 7: The soldiers are pressing for battle, but Pompey is reluctant until Cicero convinces him to attack. The Caesarians are victorious, and Lucan laments the loss of liberty. Caesar is especially cruel as he mocks the dying Domitius and forbids cremation of the dead Pompeians. The scene is punctuated by a description of wild animals gnawing at the corpses, and a lament from Lucan for ''Thessalia, infelix'' – ill-fated Thessaly. Book 8: Pompey himself escapes to Lesbos, reunites with his wife, then goes to
Cilicia Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
to consider his options. He decides to enlist aid from Egypt, but King Ptolemy is fearful of retribution from Caesar and plots to murder Pompey when he lands. Pompey suspects treachery; he consoles his wife and rows alone to the shore, meeting his fate with Stoic poise. His headless body is flung into the ocean, but washes up on shore and receives a humble burial from Cordus. Book 9: Pompey's wife mourns her husband as Cato takes up leadership of the Senate's cause. He plans to regroup and heroically marches the army across Africa to join forces with King Juba, a trek that occupies most of the middle section of the book. On the way, he passes an oracle but refuses to consult it, citing Stoic principles. Caesar visits Troy and pays respects to his ancestral gods. A short time later he arrives in Egypt; when Ptolemy's messenger presents him with the head of Pompey, Caesar feigns grief to hide his joy at Pompey's death. Book 10: Caesar arrives in Egypt, where he is beguiled by the Ptolemy's sister
Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...
. A banquet is held; Pothinus, Ptolemy's cynical and bloodthirsty chief minister, plots an assassination of Caesar but is killed in his surprise attack on the palace. A second attack comes from Ganymede, an Egyptian noble, and the poem breaks off abruptly as Caesar is fighting for his life.


Completeness

Almost all scholars agree that the ''Pharsalia'' as we now have it is unfinished. (Some debate exists, however, as to whether the poem was unfinished at the time of Lucan's death, or if the final few books of the work were lost at some point. Braund notes that little evidence has been found one way or the other, and that this question must "remain a matter of speculation.")Braund (1992), p. xxxvii. Some argue that Lucan intended to end his poem with the
Battle of Philippi The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (of the Second Triumvirate) and the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassination, Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, at ...
(42 BC) or the
Battle of Actium The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between a maritime fleet of Octavian led by Marcus Agrippa and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII Philopator. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, ...
(31 BC), but both of these hypotheses seem unlikely, as they would have required Lucan to pen a work many times larger than what is extant (for instance, the 10-book poem we have today covers a total of 20 months' time, so it seems unlikely that, were the poet to have continued his pace, that his work would cover a 6 to 17 year time-span). Another, "more attractive" argument (according to Susanna Braund), is that Lucan intended for his poem to be 16 books long and to end with the assassination of Caesar. This. too, has its problems, namely that Lucan would have been required to introduce and rapidly develop characters to replace Pompey and Cato. It also might have given the work a "happy ending", which seems totally inconsistent with the poem as a whole. Ultimately, Braund argues that the best hypothesis is that Lucan's original intent was a 12-book poem, mirroring the length of the ''Aeneid''. The biggest internal argument for this is that in his sixth book Lucan features a necromantic ritual that parallels and inverts many of the motifs found in Virgil's sixth book (which details Aeneas' consultation with the
Sibyl The sibyls (, singular ) were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he described local traditi ...
and his subsequent descent into the underworld), and if the book were to be 12 books long, Braund contends that it would have ended with the death of Cato, and his subsequent apotheosis as a Stoic hero.Braund (1992), p. xxxviii. Conversely, the Latinist Jamie Masters argues the opposite, that the finale of book 10 is indeed the ending to the work as Lucan intended. Masters devotes an entire chapter to this hypothesis in his book ''Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's'' Bellum Civile (1992), arguing that by being open-ended and ambiguous, the poem's conclusion avoids "any kind of resolution, but
till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...
preserves the unconventional premises of its subject-matter: evil without alternative, contradiction without compromise, civil war without end".


Title

The poem is popularly known as the ''Pharsalia'', largely due to lines 9856 in book 9, which read, ''Pharsalia nostra'' / ''Vivet'' ("Our Pharsalia shall live on").Duff (1928), p. xii. However, many scholars, such as James Duff Duff and Braund, note that this is a recent name given to the work, and that the earliest manuscripts of the poem refer to it as ''De Bello Civili'' (''Concerning the Civil War''). Braund further argues that calling the poem ''Pharsalia'' "excessively ... privilege ... an episode which occupies only one book and occurs in the centre of the poem, rather than at its climax."


Style

Lucan is heavily influenced by Latin poetic tradition, most notably
Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
's ''
Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...
'' and of course
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
's ''
Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
'', the work to which the ''Pharsalia'' is most naturally compared. Lucan frequently appropriates ideas from Virgil's epic and "inverts" them to undermine their original, heroic purpose. Sextus' visit to the Thracian witch
Erichtho In Roman literature, Erichtho (from ) is a legendary Thessalian witch who appears in several literary works. She is noted for her horrifying appearance and her impious ways. Her first major role was in the Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'', ...
provides an example; the scene and language clearly reference Aeneas' descent into the underworld (also in Book VI), but while Virgil's description highlights optimism toward the future glories of Rome under Augustan rule, Lucan uses the scene to present a bitter and gory pessimism concerning the loss of liberty under the coming empire. Like all Silver Age poets, Lucan received the rhetorical training common to upper-class young men of the period. The ''suasoria'' – a school exercise where students wrote speeches advising an historical figure on a course of action – no doubt inspired Lucan to compose some of the speeches found in the text. Lucan also follows the Silver Age custom of punctuating his verse with short, pithy lines or slogans known as ''sententiae'', a rhetorical tactic used to grab the attention of a crowd interested in oratory as a form of public entertainment.
Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...
singles out Lucan as a writer ''clarissimus sententiis'' – "most famous for his ''sententiae''", and for this reason ''magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus'' – "(he is) to be imitated more by orators than poets". His style makes him unusually difficult to read. Finally, in another break with
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...
literary techniques, Lucan is fond of discontinuity. He presents his narrative as a series of discrete episodes often without any transitional or scene-changing lines, much like the sketches of myth strung together in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. The poem is more naturally organized on principles such as aesthetic balance or correspondence of scenes between books rather than the need to follow a story from a single narrative point of view. Lucan was considered among the ranks of Homer and Virgil.


Themes


Horrors of civil war

Lucan emphasizes the despair of his topic in the poem's first seven lines (the same length as the opening to Virgil's ''
Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
''): Events throughout the poem are described in terms of insanity and sacrilege. Far from glorious, the battle scenes are portraits of bloody horror, where nature is ravaged to build terrible siege engines and wild animals tear mercilessly at the flesh of the dead (perhaps reflecting the taste of an audience accustomed to the bloodlust of gladiatorial games).


Flawed characters

Most of the main characters featured in the ''Pharsalia'' are terribly flawed and unattractive. Caesar, for instance, is presented as a successful military leader, but he strikes fear into the hearts of people and is extremely destructive. Lucan conveys this by using a simile (book 1, lines 1517) that compares Caesar to a
thunderbolt A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the 'Sky Father'; this association is also found in later Hel ...
: Throughout the ''Pharsalia'', this simile holds, and Caesar is continuously depicted as an active force, who strikes with great power. Pompey, on the other hand, is old and past his prime, and years of peacetime have turned him soft. Susanna Braund argues that Lucan "has taken the weaker, essentially ''human'', elements of Aeneas' characterAeneas doubting his mission, Aeneas as husband and loverand bestowed them upon Pompey." And while this portrays the leader as indecisive, slow to action, and ultimately ineffective, it does make him the only main character shown to have any sort of "emotional life."Braund (1992), p. xxii. What is more, Lucan at times explicitly roots for Pompey. But nevertheless, the leader is doomed in the end. Lucan compares Pompey to a large oak-tree (book 1, lines 13643), which is still quite magnificent due to its size but on the verge of tipping over: By comparing Caesar to a bolt of lightning, and Pompey to a large tree on the verge of death, Lucan poetically implies early on in the ''Pharsalia'' that Caesar will strike and fell Pompey. The grand exception to this generally bleak depiction of characters is Cato, who stands as a Stoic ideal in the face of a world gone mad (he alone, for example, refuses to consult oracles to know the future). Pompey also seems transformed after Pharsalus, becoming a kind of stoic
martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
; calm in the face of certain death upon arrival in Egypt, he receives virtual canonization from Lucan at the start of book IX. This elevation of Stoic and Republican principles is in sharp contrast to the ambitious and imperial Caesar, who becomes an even greater monster after the decisive battle. Even though Caesar wins in the end, Lucan makes his sentiments known in the famous line ''Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni'' – "The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished ausepleased Cato."


Anti-imperialism

Given Lucan's clear anti-imperialism, the flattering Book I dedication to Nero – which includes lines like ''multum Roma tamen debet ciuilibus armis , quod tibi res acta est'' – "But Rome is greater by these civil wars, because it resulted in you" – is somewhat puzzling. Some scholars have tried to read these lines ironically, but most see it as a traditional dedication written at a time before the (supposed) true depravity of Lucan's patron was revealed. The extant "Lives" of the poet support this interpretation, stating that a portion of the ''Pharsalia'' was in circulation before Lucan and Nero had their falling out. Furthermore, according to Braund, Lucan's negative portrayal of Caesar in the early portion of the poem was not likely meant as criticism of Nero, and it may have been Lucan's way of warning the new emperor about the issues of the past.


Treatment of the supernatural

Lucan breaks from epic tradition by minimizing, and in certain cases, completely ignoring (and some argue, denying) the existence of the traditional Roman deities. This is in marked contrast to his predecessors, Virgil and Ovid, who used anthropomorphized gods and goddesses as major players in their works. According to Susanna Braund, by choosing to not focus on the gods, Lucan emphasizes and underscores the human role in the atrocities of the Roman civil war.Braund (2009), pp. xxiiixxiv. James Duff Duff, on the other hand, argues that " ucanwas dealing with Roman history and with fairly recent events; and the introduction of the gods as actors must have been grotesque". This, however, is not to say that the ''Pharsalia'' is devoid of any supernatural phenomenon; in fact, quite the opposite is true, and Braund argues that "the supernatural in all its manifestations played a highly significant part in the structuring of the epic". Braund sees the supernatural as falling into two categories: "dreams and visions" and "portents, prophecies, and consultations of supernatural powers".Braund (1992), p. xxv. In regards to the first category, the poem features four explicit and important dream and vision sequences: Caesar's vision of Roma as he is about to cross the Rubicon, the ghost of Julia appearing to Pompey, Pompey's dream of his happy past, and Caesar and his troops' dream of battle and destruction. All four of these dream-visions are placed strategically throughout the poem, "to provide balance and contrast". In regards to the second category, Lucan describes a number portents, two oracular episodes, and perhaps most famously Erichtho's necromantic rite.Braund (1992), p. xxviii. This manifestation of the supernatural is more public, and serves many purposes, including to reflect "Rome's turmoil on the supernatural plane", as well as simply to "contribute to the atmosphere of sinster foreboding" by describing disturbing rituals.


The poem as civil war

According to Jamie Masters, Lucan's ''Pharsalia'' is not just a poem about a civil war, but rather in a metaphorical way ''is'' a civil war. In other words, he argues that Lucan embraces the metaphor of internal discord and allows it to determine the way the story is told by weaving it into the fabric of the poem itself. Masters proposes that Lucan's work is both "Pompeian" (in the sense that it celebrates the memory of Pompey, revels in delay, and decries the horrors of civil war) and "Caesarian" (in the sense that it still recounts Pompey's death, eventually overcomes delay, and describes the horrors of war in careful detail).Masters (1992), pp. 810. Because Lucan is on both of the characters' sides whilst also supporting neither, the poem is inherently at war with itself.Masters (1992), p. 10. Furthermore, because Lucan seems to place numerous obstacles before Caesar, he can be seen as opposing Caesar's actions. However, since Lucan still chooses to record them in song, hebeing the poet and thus the one who has the final say on what goes into his workis in some ways waging the war himself. Ultimately, Masters refers to the binary opposition that he sees throughout the entire poem as Lucan's "schizophrenic poetic persona".


Poetic representation of history

Though the ''Pharsalia'' is an historical epic, it would be wrong to think Lucan is only interested in the details of history itself. As one commentator has pointed out, Lucan is more concerned "with the significance of events rather than the events themselves."


Influence

Lucan's work was popular in his own day and remained a school text in late antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Over 400 manuscripts survive; its interest to the court of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
is evidenced by the existence of five complete manuscripts from the 9th century.
Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
includes Lucan among other classical poets in the first circle of the ''
Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...
'', and draws on the ''Pharsalia'' in the scene with
Antaeus Antaeus (; Ancient Greek: Ἀνταῖος ''Antaîos'', "opponent", derived from , ''antao'' – 'I face, I oppose'), known to the Berbers as Anti, was a figure in Berber and Greek mythology. He was famed for his defeat by Heracles as part ...
(a giant depicted in a story from Lucan's book IV). Christopher Marlowe published a translation of Book I, while
Thomas May Thomas May (1594/95 – 13 November 1650) was an English poet, dramatist and historian of the Renaissance era. Early life and career until 1630 May was born in Mayfield, Sussex, the son of Sir Thomas May, a minor courtier. He matriculated a ...
followed with a complete translation into
heroic couplet A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ''Legend of ...
s in 1626.Watt (1824), p. 620. May later translated the remaining books and wrote a continuation of Lucan's incomplete poem. The seven books of May's effort take the story through to Caesar's assassination. The line ''Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni'' has been a favorite for supporters of "lost" causes over the centuries; it can be translated as "the winning cause pleased the gods, but the lost cause pleased Cato". One American example comes from the Confederate Memorial at
Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...
, which has these words in Latin inscribed on its base. An English example is found in the speech of Viscount Radcliffe in the House of Lords adjudicating on a tax appeal. The English poet and classicist
A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...
published a landmark critical edition of the poem in 1926.Hirst (1927), pp. 546.


Notes


References


Bibliography

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Further reading


Translations

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External links

;Latin copies *
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of the ''Pharsalia'' in English vi
The Medieval and Classical Literature LibraryHousman's edition of the ''Pharsalia''
via HathiTrust * {{Authority control 1st-century Latin books Epic poems in Latin Historical poems Unfinished books Unfinished literature completed by others Ancient Thessaly Macedonia (Roman province) Caesar's civil war Fictional depictions of Julius Caesar in literature Fictional depictions of Cleopatra in literature Cultural depictions of Pompey Cultural depictions of Cato the Younger