Written in the reign of Nero-the emperor against whom Lucan was
implicated in a conspiracy and by whom he was compelled to commit
suicide at the age of 25-the poet's dark, ambiguous, unfinished
masterpiece focuses on the disintegration of the Roman body politic
and the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey that ultimately lead
to the end of the Roman republic. While aiming for a poem both as
rugged as Lucan's-with its mix of history and fantasy, of high and
low registers, of common and uncommon turns of phrase, of narrative
and declamation-and as reader-friendly as possible, Brian Walters
owns that he has "nowhere tried to simplify the rhetorical excesses
that are the essence of Lucan's poem, the real meat and bone of the
Civil War ." A brilliant Introduction by W. R. Johnson discusses
the poem's relationship to Nero and monarchy; its invocations of
both the gods and chaos; the real hero of the Civil War ; and the
poem's end and narrative styles. Synopses of individual books;
suggestions for further reading; a glossary of names, places, and
Roman institutions; and a map are also included.
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