Epic history. Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus, AD 39-65), son of wealthy M. Annaeus Mela and nephew of Seneca, was born at Corduba (Cordova) in Spain and was brought as a baby to Rome. In AD 60 at a festival in Emperor Nero's honor Lucan praised him in a panegyric and was promoted to one or two minor offices. But having defeated Nero in a poetry contest he was interdicted from further recitals or publication, so that three books of his epic The Civil War were probably not issued in 61 when they were finished. By 65 he was composing the tenth book but then became involved in the unsuccessful plot of Piso against Nero and, aged only twenty-six, by order took his own life. Quintilian called Lucan a poet "full of fire and energy and a master of brilliant phrases." His epic stood next after Virgil's in the estimation of antiquity. Julius Caesar looms as a sinister hero in his stormy chronicle in verse of the war between Caesar and the Republic's forces under Pompey, and later under Cato in Africa--a chronicle of dramatic events carrying us from Caesar's fateful crossing of the Rubicon, through the Battle of Pharsalus and death of Pompey, to Caesar victorious in Egypt. The poem is also called Pharsalia.

This is a full-scale edition (the first in nearly 70 years) of the first book of Lucan's De Bello Civili, an important and influential epic poem written in the 60s AD, which recounts the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey in the years 49-45 BC. The volume includes an introduction, text with apparatus criticus, and commentary. The introduction provides the reader with a number of the most important contexts for understanding Lucan's subject matter and his approach to this material. The commentary pays particular attention to interpretative, linguistic, literary, historical, social, and philosophical issues arising from the narrative of Book 1.

Lucan's great poem, Pharsalia, recounts events surrounding the decisive battle fought near Pharsalus in 48 B.C. during the civil war between the forces of Pompey and Julius Caesar. Though the subject of this unfinished masterpiece is historical, many of its features are characteristic of epic poetry: Rousing battle scenes; tales of witches, monsters, and miracle; detailed catalogues; intricate similes; and speeches with a high degree of rhetorical elegance. However, Lucan's deft mix of humor and horror, of political satire, literary parody, history, and epic is entirely his own. Jane Wilson Joyce's superb translation conveys the drama and poetry of the original. Her use of natural English rhythms in a loose six-beat line comes close to matching the original Latin hexameters, wile her language preserves Lucan's sequence of images. An enlightening introduction, notes, and a full glossary augment the translation.

Lucan was a Roman poetand republican patriot. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period, known in particular for his epic Pharsalia. The Bellum civile, better known as the Pharsalia because of its vivid account of that battle, is remarkable as the single major Latin epic poem. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets.