Marcus Lucanus (AD 39 - 65) was a rich Roman who penned this long poem about the Pompey/Caesar civil war as the ornament of his brief life. Once an intimate of the emperor Nero, he was involved in the Piso led conspiracy to rid Rome of that unfortunate emperor. He was forced to commit suicide by Nero, after implicating other conspirators. Now, to the poem. Sadly, this is a prose redaction of the Latin text into English prose by the English poet and novelist, Robert Graves, and is, I am sure accurate about language and emphasis. Though incomplete due to the death of the author, it is worth the read, though the ISBN given here is of a later publication by Penguin books. As a reader, I found it to be a pleasant experience. ( )

Reader CHARLTON GRIFFIN Translator J D DUFF
Audio Connoisseur, 2017
Audiobook Digital File 10 hours 39 min
Epics Date Completed 2021-01-09 Rating ****
I have always been a fan of Julius Caesar and enjoyed reading how he put those effete and parasitic senators in their place. I didn’t much attention to the views of the other side. I have now heard them, and through an unexpected source. I learned through some algorithm that a poet named Lucan turned the history of the Civil War into an epic poem on the scale of Homer and Virgil. I thought at first (hoped? Expected?) that he had been forced to commit suicide at the age of 25 because the chief critic of the day, Nero, took exception to his take on his ancestor. According to Wikipedia, though, it seems that the youth was part of the conspiracy of 65 AD.
Lucan never lets his reader forget that everything Julius Caesar did, from the Rubicon onwards, was illegal and, therefore, tyrannical. He doesn’t make Pompey come alive as a worthy opponent, despite referring to him as Magnus, spending a book on his death, underlining the nobility of his widow, etc. Caesar’s true antagonist is Cato the Younger, the embodiment of every virtue the old Romans admired. He becomes more than a marble model in book nine, where he is shown holding an army together after Pompey’s defeat and murder and setting so impressive an example of duty and self-control that a dying soldier would feel ashamed to groan in his presence. I was especially impressed that Cato felt that his patrician values made him feel bound to demand nothing of his men that he wouldn’t do.
Lucan has many great set pieces: an official protected the treasury while letting the state go to heck; a Roman trying to learn his fate from the oracle at Delphi; Pompey’s unworthy son consulting a Thessalian witch before the climatic battle; Caesar crossing the sea at night during a storm; Cato marching his men through the snakes of the Libyan desert. Lucan was in the middle of describing another one, Caesar’s embattlement at Alexandria, when he was forced to end his work and his life.
Lucan, like Homer especially, provided bloody battle descriptions, most effectively in the siege of Massilia, where he provides all the action a movie could desire. I wish I thought that the court poet had seen a battle himself. Lucan also provides many lessons in geography. I wished that I had made attention to them better. I had to wonder what living under Nero and treating this subject did to his soul. One character, after Pompey’s defeat, snarled that Chance, not Justice, ruled the world. I wondered if he believed that.
A great listen, thanks again to that perfect reader of classical texts, the organ-voiced Charlton Griffin. ( )

A dark, surreal, fictionalized epic revealing the psychological breaks in the Roman national consciousness. ( )

I'm actually reading the Robert Graves translation, which I was too lazy to import manually. I love his informal introductions. So far, it's very enjoyable. ( )

Two weeks ago I happened upon this; I had no idea of its existence before-- an 18th Cent. translation into heroic couplets of Lucan's epic "Pharsalia." English poet Nicholas Rowe here rivals Dryden's magisterial version of the "Aeneid"-- for fans of Alexander Pope, Dryden, and the Romans this is a must-have. Dear Everyman Library, PLEASE get this back in print so I can get more copies! I don't want that silly prose version from Oxford World Classics! ( )