Contents Pharsalia

1 contents

1.1 completeness
1.2 title
1.3 style

contents

book i: after brief introduction lamenting idea of romans fighting romans , ostensibly flattering dedication nero, narrative summarizes background material leading present war , introduces caesar in northern italy. despite urgent plea spirit of rome lay down arms, caesar crosses rubicon, rallies troops , marches south rome, joined curio along way. book closes panic in city, terrible portents , visions of disaster come.

book 2: in city overcome despair, old veteran presents lengthy interlude regarding previous civil war pitted marius against sulla. cato younger introduced heroic man of principle; abhorrent civil war is, argues brutus better fight nothing. after siding pompey—the lesser of 2 evils—he remarries ex-wife, marcia, , heads field. caesar continues south through italy , delayed domitius brave resistance. attempts blockade of pompey @ brundisium, general makes narrow escape greece.

book 3: ships sail, pompey visited in dream julia, dead wife , caesar s daughter. caesar returns rome , plunders city, while pompey reviews potential foreign allies. caesar heads spain, troops detained @ lengthy siege of massilia (marseille). city falls in bloody naval battle.

book 4: first half of book occupied caesar s victorious campaign in spain against afranius , petreius. switching scenes pompey, forces intercept raft carrying caesarians, prefer kill each other rather taken prisoner. book concludes curio launching african campaign on caesar s behalf, defeated , slain african king juba.

book 5: senate in exile confirms pompey true leader of rome. appius consults delphic oracle learn of fate in war, , leaves misleading prophecy. in italy, after defusing mutiny, caesar marches brundisium , sails across adriatic meet pompey s army. portion of caesar s troops complete crossing when storm prevents further transit; tries send message himself drowned. finally, storm subsides, , armies face each other @ full strength. battle @ hand, pompey sends wife island of lesbos.

book 6: pompey s troops force caesar s armies – featuring heroic centurion scaeva – fall thessaly. lucan describes wild thessalian terrain armies wait battle next day. remainder of book follows pompey s son sextus, wishes know future. finds powerful witch in thessaly, erichtho, , reanimates corpse of dead soldier in terrifying ceremony. soldier predicts pompey s defeat , caesar s eventual assassination.

book 7: soldiers pressing battle, pompey reluctant until cicero convinces him attack. caesarians victorious, , lucan laments loss of liberty. caesar cruel mocks dying domitius , forbids cremation of dead pompeians. scene punctuated description of wild animals gnawing @ corpses, , lament lucan thessalia, infelix – ill-fated thessaly.

book 8: pompey himself escapes lesbos, reunites wife, goes cilicia consider options. decides enlist aid egypt, pharaoh fearful of retribution caesar , plots murder pompey when lands. pompey suspects treachery; consoles wife , rows alone shore, meeting fate stoic poise. headless body flung ocean, washes on shore , receives humble burial cordus.

book 9: pompey s wife mourns husband cato takes leadership of senate s cause. plans regroup , heroically marches army across africa join forces king juba, trek occupies of middle section of book. on way, passes oracle refuses consult it, citing stoic principles. caesar visits troy , pays respects ancestral gods. short time later arrives in egypt; when pharaoh s messenger presents him head of pompey, caesar feigns grief hide joy @ pompey s death.

book 10: caesar arrives in egypt, beguiled pharaoh s sister cleopatra. banquet held; pothinus, ptolemy s cynical , bloodthirsty chief minister, plots assassination of caesar killed in surprise attack on palace. second attack comes ganymede, egyptian noble, , poem breaks off abruptly caesar fighting life.

completeness

susanna braund argues that, poem have been finished, have ended cato s death.

almost scholars agree pharsalia have unfinished. (there is, however, debate whether poem unfinished @ time of lucan s death, or if final few books of work lost @ point. braund notes there little evidence 1 way or other, , question must remain matter of speculation. ) argue lucan intended end poem battle of philippi (42 bc) or battle of actium (31 bc). however, both of these hypotheses seem unlikely, have required lucan pen work many times larger extant (for instance, ten-book poem have today covers total of 20 months time, seems unlikely that, poet have continued pace, work covered 6 17 year time-span). another, more attractive argument (according susanna braund), lucan intended poem sixteen books long , end assassination of caesar. however, has problems, namely lucan have been required introduce , rapidly develop characters replace pompey , cato. might have given work happy ending , seems tonally inconsistent poem whole. ultimately, braund argues best hypothesis lucan s original intent 12 book poem, mirroring length of aeneid. biggest internal argument in sixth book lucan features necromantic ritual parallels , inverts many of motifs found in virgil s sixth book (which details aeneas consultation sibyl , subsequent descent underworld). , if book 12 books long, braund contends have ended death of cato, , subsequent apotheosis stoic hero.

conversely, latinist jamie masters argues opposite: finale of book ten indeed ending work lucan intended. masters devotes entire chapter hypothesis in book poetry , civil war in lucan s bellum civile (1992), arguing being open-ended , ambiguous, poem s conclusion avoids kind of resolution, [still] preserves unconventional premises of subject-matter: evil without alternative, contradiction without compromise, civil war without end.

title

the poem popularly known pharsalia, largely due lines 985–6 in book 9, read, pharsalia nostra/vivet ( our pharsalia shall live on ). however, many scholars, such james duff duff , braund, note recent name given work, , earliest manuscripts of poem refer de bello civili (concerning civil war). braund further argues calling poem pharsalia excessively ... privilege[s] ... episode occupies 1 book , occurs in centre of poem, rather @ climax.

style

lucan heavily influenced latin poetic tradition, notably ovid s metamorphoses , of course virgil s aeneid, work pharsalia naturally compared. lucan appropriates ideas virgil s epic , inverts them undermine original, heroic purpose. sextus visit thracian witch erichtho provides example; scene , language reference aeneas descent underworld (also in book vi), while virgil s description highlights optimism toward future glories of rome under augustan rule, lucan uses scene present bitter , gory pessimism concerning loss of liberty under coming empire.

like silver age poets, lucan received rhetorical training common upper-class young men of period. suasoria – school exercise students wrote speeches advising historical figure on course of action – no doubt inspired lucan compose of speeches found in text. lucan follows silver age custom of punctuating verse short, pithy lines or slogans known sententiae, rhetorical tactic used grab attention of crowd interested in oratory form of public entertainment. quintilian singles out lucan writer clarissimus sententiis – famous sententiae , , reason magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus – (he is) imitated more orators poets . style makes him unusually difficult read.

finally, in break golden age literary techniques, lucan fond of discontinuity. presents narrative series of discrete episodes without transitional or scene-changing lines, sketches of myth strung in ovid s metamorphoses. poem more naturally organized on principles such aesthetic balance or correspondence of scenes between books rather need follow story single narrative point of view. lucan considered among ranks of homer , virgil.