By Susanna Braund
Edited by Ronnie Ancona

Description

Lucan’s epic poem, Civil War, portrays the stark, dark horror of the years 49 through 48 BCE, the grim reality of Romans fighting Romans, of Julius Caesar vs. Pompey the Great. The introduction to this volume situates Lucan as a poet closely connected with the Stoics at Rome, working during the reign of the emperor Nero, in the genre inherited from Virgil.

The selections are intended for third- and fourth-year college curricula, and include Lucan’s analysis of the causes of the civil war, depictions of his protagonists Caesar and Pompey at key moments—Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, the assassination of Pompey as he arrives in Egypt seeking refuge, Cato’s funeral oration for Pompey, Caesar’s visit to the site of Troy—as well as highly atmospheric passages: Pompey’s vision of his dead wife, Julia; and the necromancy performed by the witch Erichtho for Pompey’s son.

Notes to the passages illuminate Lucan’s attitude towards his material—his reluctance to tackle the topic of civil war, his complicated relationship with Virgil’s Aeneid, and his passionate involvement in the events through the rhetorical device of apostrophe, when he seems to enter the poem as a character himself.

Special Features

• Introduction that situates Lucan in his literary, historical, and ideological context
  
• 620 lines of Latin text from Lucan’s Civil War, including: 1.1–45, 67–157, 183–227, 486–504; 3.8–35; 399–445 6.624–53; 7.617–37; 7.647–82, 728–46, 760–811; 8.542–636, 663–88; 9.190–217; 9.961–99
  
• Notes at the back
  
• Map of the eastern Mediterranean in Caesar’s day
  
• Bibliography
  
• Full Vocabulary

Reviews

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Susanna Braund's excellent new reader [A Lucan Reader: Selections From Civil War] will facilitate the reading of Lucan's poem by many more students . . .

— Paul Roche
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.09.45
(Review of Matthews, Caesar and the Storm)

I should like to think that this book would have a market in our schools because it has many merits and very few weaknesses – to start with the latter, because budgets are precious, the Latin of Lucan is not easy and he is never a set author below undergraduate level. So, why buy the book?

B.'s introduction sets the extracts (620 lines chosen from the whole, unfinished epic) and the author in their literary, historical and ideological context. This helps enormously to explain both why he has been neglected in comparison with Virgil and why Civil War should be read as something other than a Silver Latin epic, representative of a period in decline. (B. is, like me, a fan of Philip Hardie's The Epic Successors of Virgil). There are sections on Lucan's life and times: a grandson and nephew of the Senecas and a friend of Nero, he committed suicide at the age of 25 (described by Tacitus, Annals, XV, 70); on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey which is the subject of the poem; on the role of Fate and Fortune in Civil War (the absence of the anthropomorphic Olympians is one of the things which sets this epic apart from its predecessors); on the cast of characters in the text, with Cato as the third protagonist (n.b. no 'hero'); on Lucan's Latin and some aspects of his style. I missed some help with his poetics; I wanted more than this one sentence, 'In contrast with Virgil's versatile and musical handling of the hexameter, Lucan's rhythm is rather repetitive, even monotonous'.

The notes are very good; the vocabulary is comprehensive. There is a lot of help for students translating the extracts independently: abbreviated forms are explained, Golden Lines analysed, ablative absolutes identified, long sentences broken down, difficult phrases translated either literally or idiomatically. In comparison with some modem editions like Peter Jones' recent Reading Ovid, this reader may seem old-fashioned; it certainly offers less guidance for students on aspects of literary appreciation, which is a shame because B. 's passionate advocacy of this neglected poet and poem (see also her introduction and translation in the Oxford World's Classics series) is extremely helpful in justifying their inclusion in our crowded curriculum. Dante (Inferno 4. 95-5) placed him alongside Homer, Horace, Ovid and Virgil in la bella scuola: who are we to disagree? If you cannot afford a set for a Sixth Form class, then buy one for yourself and one for the library: you will not be disappointed.

— Stephen Chambers
Oundle School
JACT 3.18.Autumn

Although I have written a little review for a little book, I hope the brevity of my remarks will not detract from the importance of the work discussed. A Lucan Reader is the inaugural publication of the BC Latin Readers, a new series from Bolchazy-Carducci. If the rest of the series live up to the high standards of this volume, the series will be a welcome addition to the college and even high school Latin classroom. I shall first say a few words on the series and then speak on the specific volume in question.

BC Latin Readers aim to provide teachers of intermediate and advanced Latin courses with small, affordable texts that expand the repertoire normally taught at this level. Forthcoming Readers will be devoted to authors, genres, and topics, e.g. Apuleius, Latin Epic, and Roman Women. Like A Lucan Reader, each volume will contain around 600 lines of Latin together with introductory notes, commentary, and vocabulary, making it an all-in-one textbook (and one that, in this reviewer's experience, fits easily into a jacket pocket or small purse). The size of these volumes (both physical and in terms of line numbers) has been kept to a minimum to allow for easy mix-and-matching with other texts. The present Lucan volume could be incorporated into any number of courses and would pair excellently with Virgil, Ovid, Tacitus, Caesar, Livy, or Seneca, just to name the authors who first came to my mind. More information on the series in general and its forthcoming volumes may be found at the BC Classical Readers website.

Susanna Braund (hereafter B.) has started this new series off in fine style with a text that makes Lucan accessible to Latin students at the intermediate level, no easy accomplishment given the difficulty of Lucan's poem. Her introduction situates both Lucan and the Civil War in their respective historical contexts; she includes both an overview of the war between Caesar and Pompey, with parenthetical references to Lucan's poem, and a summary of the poem in greater detail. B. also introduces the major thematic issues and briar patches of the Bellum Civile: the issue of the poem's completion, Lucan's politics, the role of the gods, Stoic influence, the 'hero' of the poem, Lucan's authorial interventions, and the style and language of the epic. Considering the lack of consensus on so many of these issues amongst Lucan scholars, I found her approach very balanced. The themes of "horror" and "delay" (à la Henderson) are pronounced above others, but, for the most part, her interpretations are traditional or judgment is reserved. On the subject of politics, B. asserts that "to [her] mind, there is no reason to posit any growing discontent with either Nero or the Principate" (xii). As a politicizing reader of Lucan, I found her evidence for this assertion a bit of a straw man, but, as she says, "Lucan's ideological stance remains the most contentious issue in the interpretation of his poem" (xii). Since no interpretation on this line pleases everyone, I am satisfied that the issue was at least brought up and presented to students in some form.

On the question of the poem's completion, however, B. does not present at all the theory that the poem is complete as we have it, a view held by many scholars these days after being so articulately argued in Masters' Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's Bellum Civile (1992). Instead B. states that the poem "breaks off" in Book 10 and asks, "Was it unfinished at the time of Lucan's death ... or was part of the text lost at a very early stage?" (xxii) After presenting some alternatives, she suggests that an ending in 12 books at Cato's suicide "has the advantage of literary coherence." She repeats this view throughout the commentary, e.g. on Cato's expanded role in Book 9: "we can assume that Lucan planned a major role for him in the remainder of the poem" (95). This hypothesis certainly has many supporters, but is far from universal. That many scholars believe the poem to be complete should have been brought up and presented to students; at the very least, it should not have been presented as undisputed fact that the poem is unfinished.

The text of the reader consists of 15 passages: 1.1-45, 67-157, 183-227, 486-504; 3.8-35, 399-445; 6.624-53; 7.617-37, 647-82, 728-46, 760-811; 8.542-636, 663-88; 9.190-217, 961-99. They total 620 lines. The average, then, is 41 lines, but this figure is rather misleading as the book consists mostly of shorter passage (around 25 lines) with one or two very long passages (90 lines). The passages chosen support B.'s foregrounding of "horror" and "delay," as they highlight the poem's supernatural incidents and authorial interventions. For example, in between the justifiably larger selections from Books 1 and 7 occur just three passages: Julia's ghost, Caesar in the Celtic grove, and a brief snippet of Erichtho, which are certainly the best for showing Lucan's interest in "horror" at the expense of historical accuracy, since all three passages are Lucanian inventions. I am not sure that students reading B.'s selections will have a really complete picture of the BC, but I'm also not sure this would be possible with any 620 line selection, and, after all, de gustibus non disputandum.

Based on the length of the passages and grammatical detail in the commentary, I feel this book is ideal for intermediate students, although more advanced students will also find it valuable. The notes are admirably thorough in information grammatical, historical, and cultural. I particularly appreciate B.'s tendency in difficult passages to offer in the notes a reordering of the Latin rather than a translation for the student. This is a wonderful solution to Lucan's particular difficulties.

I am very happy that Bolchazy-Carducci put Lucan in the vanguard of their new series of Readers. This text will make it much easier to teach Lucan to undergraduates; and, despite our 'ideological' disagreements, I think B. will succeed with this volume in "provok[ing] students to study this amazing poem in greater depth" (p. vii).

I found this text quite free from typographical errors. I did notice that "epulae" has been left out of the vocabulary—students searching for its meaning in the commentary (ad 7.792) will likely come away with the idea that it means "breakfast"!

— Jennifer E. Thomas
Grinnell College
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, June 2009

Bolchazy-Carducci's 134-page A Lucan Reader - Selections From Civil War, by Susanna Braund, is suitable for intermediate Latin classroom use, with a very reasonable price tag, only 25 pages of Latin to translate, and copious notes.

Guide Review - A Lucan Reader - Selections from "Civil War"
It's easy to get through a college major in Latin without reading Lucan. His Civil War doesn't make satisfying history, his epic hexameters can be tricky, and his treatment of his topic seems less than heroic. Susanna Braund explains that such differences from more familiar authors of history and epic make Lucan worth reading.

Lucan wasn't simply writing prose history as a Livy or Tacitus, but telling an epic with three protagonists. It's the story of "anti-hero" Caesar's fight against his son-in-law Pompey, and when Pompey dies, Cato. Earlier Roman historians had not only written prose, but also verse. Ennius used the epic meter (hexameters) to write his annals.

Lucan differs from earlier epic writers in commonplace diction and his treatment of the gods. As the nephew of the famous Stoic Seneca who served the Emperor Nero, Lucan's depiction of the gods is less as anthropomorphic busybodies and more as vague gods with only Fortune and Fate taking an active role.

In addition to showing the tradition from which Lucan comes and the stylistic elements readers should be aware of, Braund describes the structure of Civil War, highlighting bits that are included in the selections. Following the introduction come the 25 pages of Latin selections, copious commentary, and 29 pages of vocabulary. The Latin student still has to work at the text to put it all together, but that's the point of a Latin reader.

Link to review on about.com

N.S. Gill, about.com

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