Lucan Civil War 1

ed. Edward Ridley

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Civil War. Lucan. ed. Edward Ridley. London. 1905.

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Current edition Perseus

Civil War (English) (Lucan. The Pharsalia of Lucan. Ridley, Edward, Sir, translator. New York: Longman, Green, and Company, 1905.)

Editions (1)
Pharsalia Perseus (Lucan. M.Annaei Lucani Pharsaliae Libri X. Weisse, Karl Hermann, editor. Leipzig: G. Bassus, 1835.) — 1 focus

Notes on the current edition

Civil War

1. The great Emathian conqueror' ( Milton 's sonnet). Emathia was apart of Macedonia , but the word is used loosely for Thessaly or Macedonia .
2. Crassus had been defeated and slain by the Parthians in B.C. 53, fouryears before this period.
3. Mr. Froude in his essay entitled 'Divus Caesar' hints that these famous lines may have been written in mockery. Probably the five years known as the Golden Era of Nero had passed when they were written: yet the text itself does not aid such a suggestion; and the view generally taken, namely that Lucan was in earnest, appears preferable. There were many who dreamed at the time that the disasters of the Civil War were being compensated by the wealth and prosperity of the empire under Nero; and the assurance of universal peace, then almost realised, which is expressed in lines 69-71, seems inconsistent with the idea that this passage was written in irony. Lecky ('European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,' vol. i. p. 240) describes these latter verses as written 'with all the fervour of a Christian poet.' See also Merivale's ' Roman Empire,'chapter liv.
4. See a similar passage in the final scene of Ben Jonson's ' Catiline.' The cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth was proposed in Nero's reign, and actually commenced in his presence; but abandoned because it was asserted that the level of the water in the Corinthian Gulf was higher than that in the Saronic Gulf, so that, if the canal were cut, the island of AEgina would be submerged. Merivale's 'Roman Empire,' chapter lv.
5. Compare:
'Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere
Nor can one England brook a double reign
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.'
6. This had taken place in B.C. 54, about five years before the action of the poem opens.
7. This famous line was quoted by Lamartine when addressing the French Assembly in 1848. He was advocating, against the interests of his own party (which in the Assembly was all-powerful), that the President of the Republic should be chosen by the nation, and not by the Assembly; and he ended by saying that if the course he advocated was disastrous to himself,
'Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.'
8.
'Plausuque sui gaudere theatri.'
Quoted by Mr. Pitt, in his speech on the address in 1783, on the occasion of peace being made with France, Spain , and America ; in allusion to Mr. Sheridan. The latter replied, 'If ever I again engage in the compositions he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption-to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters-the character of the Angry Boy in the "Alchymist."'
9. Mr. Canning, in his speech on the vote for the Windsor Establishment, said of King George III., 'Scathed by Heaven's lightning, but consecrated as much as blasted by the blow, he yet exhibited to the awe and veneration of mankind a mighty monument of strength and majesty in decay. He stood like the oak of the poet stripped of that luxuriant foliage and spreading those denuded arms which had afforded shelter to successive generations:
et trunco non frondibus efficit umbram
.'
10. Cicero wrote thus of Caesar: 'Have you ever read or heard of a man more vigorous in action or more moderate in the use of victory than our Caesar' - Epp. ad Diversos, viii. 15.
11. Marlowe has it:
' ... And swords
With ugly teeth of black rust foully scarred.'
12. In the Senate, Curio had proposed and carried a resolution that Pompeius and Caesar should lay their arms down simultaneously: but this was resisted by the Oligarchal party, who endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to expel Curio from the Senate, and who placed Pompeius in command of the legions at Capua . This was in effect a declaration of war; and Curio, after a last attempt at resistance, left the city, and betook himself to Caesar. (See the close of Book IV.)
13. 'Strike.' Dante places Curio in the ninth gulf of hell, 'from whose throat was cut the tongue which spake that hardy word.'-' Inferno,' xxviii.98 ( Cary ).
14. Marcus Marcellus, consul in B.C. 51.
15. Plutarch, 'Pomp.,' 49. The harbours and places of trade were placed under his control in order that he might find a remedy for the scarcity of grain. But his enemies said that he had caused the scarcity in order to get the power.
16. Milo was brought to trial for the murder of Clodius in B.C. 52, about three years before this. Pompeius, then sole Consul, had surrounded the tribunal with soldiers, who at one time charged the crowd. Milo was sent into exile at Massilia .
17. See Book II., 631.
18. The north-west wind. Circius was a violent wind from about the same quarter, but peculiar to the district.
19. This idea that the sun found fuel in the clouds appears again in Book VII., line 7; Book IX., line 375; and Book X., line 311.
20. This Diana was worshipped by the Tauri, a people who dwelt in the Crimea ; and, according to legend, was propitiated by human sacrifices. Orestes on his return from his expiatory wanderings brought her image to Greece , and the Greeks identified her with their Artemis. (Compare Book VI., 93.)
21. The horror of the Druidical groves is again alluded to in Book III., lines 460-490. Dean Merivale remarks (chapter li.) on this passage, that in the despair of another life which pervaded Paganism at the time, the Roman was exasperated at the Druids' assertion of the transmigration ofsouls. But the passage seems also to betray a lingering suspicion that the doctrine may in some shape be true, however horrible were the rites and sacrifices. The reality of a future life was a part of Lucan's belief, as a state of reward for heroes. (See the passage at the beginning of Book IX.) But all was vague and uncertain, and he appears to have viewed the Druidical transmigration rather with doubt and unbelief, as a possible form of future or recurring life, than with scorn as an absurdity.
22. Plutarch says the Consuls fled without making the sacrifices usual before wars. (' Pomp.,' 61.)
23. Compare Ben Jonson's ' Catiline,' I. 1:
Lecca.
The day goes back,
Or else my senses.
Cirius.
As at Atreus' feast.
24. When the Theban brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, were being burned on the same pyre, the flame shot up in two separate tongues, indicating that even in death they could not be reconciled. (Mr. Haskins' note, citing Statius, 'Theb.')
25. 'Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps.' ( Marlowe .) The Latin word is jugis.
26. Book VI., 420.
27. Sulla was buried in the Campus Martius . (Plutarch, ' Sulla,'38.) The corpse of Marius was dragged from his tomb by Sulla's order, and thrown into the Anio.
28. It would seem that Luna is the better reading. (Dante, ' Inferno,'xx. 46.
29. Such a ceremonial took place in A.D. 56 under Nero, after the temples of Jupiter and Minerva had been struck by lightning, and was probably witnessed by Lucan himself. (See Merivale's 'History of the Roman Empire,' chapter lii.)
30. See Book IX., 1177.
31. Tages. A dwarf, with the figure of a child, but with grey hairs, ploughed up by a peasant near Tarquinii . He betrayed the secrets of Etruscan lore and straightway died. (Mommsen, vol. i. p. 190; Dennis, 'Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria,' vol. i. p. 373.)
32. The confusion between the site of the battle of Philippi and that of the battle of Pharsalia is common among the Roman writers. (See the note to Merivale, chapter xxvi.)