Pharsalia
Encyclopedia
- Pharsalia was also an ancient district in Greece in which Pharsalus was located.
The Pharsalia (also known as De Bello Civili "On the Civil War" or also simply Bellum Civile "The Civil War") is a Roman epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war
Caesar's civil war
The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...
between Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
and the forces of the Roman Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
led by Pompey the Great. The poem's title is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus
Battle of Pharsalus
The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War. On 9 August 48 BC at Pharsalus in central Greece, Gaius Julius Caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the republic under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus...
, which occurred in 48 BC
48 BC
Year 48 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Vatia...
, near Pharsalus, Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, in northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which occupies all of the epic's seventh book. Though probably incomplete, the poem is widely considered the best epic poem of the Silver Age
Silver age
A silver age is a name often given to a particular period within a history, typically as a lesser and later successor to a golden age, the metal silver generally being valuable, but less so than gold.-Greek myth:...
of Latin literature
Latin literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...
.
Origins
The poem was begun around 61 AD61
Year 61 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Turpilianus and Caesennius...
and several books were in circulation before the Emperor Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
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
Pisonian conspiracy
The conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso in AD 65 represented one of the major turning points in the reign of the Roman emperor Nero...
in 65 AD
65
Year 65 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Nerva and Vestinus...
. A total of ten books were written and all survive; the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt.
Summary
Book I: After a brief introduction lamenting the idea of Romans fighting Romans and a 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 Curio 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, old veterans present a lengthy interlude regarding the previous civil war that pitted Marius
Marius
Marius may refer to:* Marius , a male given name, a Roman family name, and a modern surname** Gaius Marius, Roman general and statesman.* Marius , on the Moon* Marius Hills, on the Moon* Marius , written by Marcel Pagnol...
against Sulla. Cato
Cato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...
is introduced as a heroic man of principle; as abhorrent as civil war is, he argues to Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus , often referred to as Brutus, was a politician of the late Roman Republic. After being adopted by his uncle he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but eventually returned to using his original name...
that it is better to fight than do nothing. After siding with Pompey – the lesser of two evils – he remarries his ex-wife 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, but the general makes a narrow escape to Greece.
Book 3: As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by Julia, 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 prophesy. 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.
Book 6: Pompey's troops force Caesar's armies – featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva – to fall back to Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
. 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, who wishes to know the future. He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly, Erictho, 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
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
to consider his options. He decides to enlist aid from Egypt, but the Pharaoh
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator was one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.- Co-ruler of Egypt, inner turmoil :...
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 Pharaoh'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 Pharaoh's sister Cleopatra. 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.
Themes
Though the Pharsalia is an historical epic, it would be wrong to think Lucan is 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."Lucan emphasizes the despair of his topic in the poem's first seven lines (the same length as the opening to Virgil's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
):
Events throughout the poem are described in terms of insanity and sacrilege. Most of the main characters are terribly flawed and unattractive; Caesar is cruel and vindictive, while Pompey is ineffective and uninspiring. 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).
The grand exception to this generally bleak portrait 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 secular martyr; 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 victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato."
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 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.
Style
Lucan is heavily influenced by Latin poetic tradition, most notably OvidOvid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Metamorphoses and of course Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
, 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 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
Silver age
A silver age is a name often given to a particular period within a history, typically as a lesser and later successor to a golden age, the metal silver generally being valuable, but less so than gold.-Greek myth:...
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
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...
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".
Finally, in another break with Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
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.
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 CharlemagneCharlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
is evidenced by the existence of five complete manuscripts from the 9th century. Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
includes Lucan among other classical poets in the first circle of the Inferno
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, and draws on the Pharsalia in the scene with Antaeus (a giant depicted in a story from Lucan's book IV).
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
published a translation of Book I, while Thomas May
Thomas May
Thomas May was an English poet, dramatist and historian of the Renaissance era.- Early life and career until 1630 :...
followed with a complete translation into heroic couplets in 1626. The success of this translation led May to write a Latin 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 losing cause pleased Cato". One American example comes from the Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
, which has these words in Latin inscribed on its base.
The English poet and classicist A.E. Housman published a landmark critical edition of the poem in 1926.
Translations
- Christopher Marlowe (1600) Lucan's First Book Translated Line For Line online text (Perseus Digital Library)
- Sir Edward Ridley (1896) online text (The Online Medieval & Classical Library)
- J. D. Duff, M.A. and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1928 printing, renewed through 1988).
- Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, Baltimore, MD.: Penguin Bks., 1957 - P. F. Widdows, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Pr., 1988
- Susana Braund, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992
- Jane Wilson Joyce, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Pr., 1993
- Nicholas Rowe, London, England, 1718, reproduced in Samuel Johnson's Works of the English Poets. Johnson called it one of the greatest productions in English poetry, and it was widely read, running through eight editions between 1718 and 1807.
External links
- Carolus Hermannus Weise, Leipzig, G. Bassus. (1835). online text
- Latin text at the Latin LibraryThe Latin LibraryThe Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet . Most of the recent texts have been...
- Latin text and concordance tools at IntraTextIntraTextIntraText is a digital library that offers an interface while meeting formal requirements. Texts are displayed in a hypertextual way, based on a Tablet PC interface. By linking words in the text, it provides Concordances, word lists, statistics and links to cited works...
- May's continuation
- English translation by Sir Edward Ridley (1896)