This book makes available in convenient form a selection of seminal articles on the Roman poet Lucan's grim epic, written in the time of Nero, on the world-changing civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the mid first century BC. The selection enables the reader of Lucan's work to trace the emergence of vital critical perspectives and controversies and the diverse approaches that have been applied to them. Five essays appear in English for the first time, and quotations from Latin and Greek have been translated. A specially written Introduction, by Susanna Braund, provides an up-to-date guide to scholarship on Lucan and to the history of the reception of the poem.

This book makes available in convenient form a selection of seminal articles on the Roman poet Lucan's grim epic, written in the time of Nero, on the world-changing civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the mid first century BC. The selection enables the reader of Lucan's work to trace the emergence of vital critical perspectives and controversies and the diverse approaches that have been applied to them. Five essays appear in English for the first time, and quotations from Latin and Greek have been translated. A specially written Introduction, by Susanna Braund, provides an up-to-date guide to scholarship on lucan and to the history of the reception of the poem.

An investigation of non-fatal injury and bloodspill in Homer's Iliad, this book demonstrates the crucial significance of these motifs in the epic. They are shown to be fundamental to defining heroic status and a powerful means for developing the narrative and thematic structures of the poem.