Lucan's "Civil War"

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History > Greek and Roman
Literature > Greek and Roman

Lucan's "Civil War"

Argues that Roman poet Lucan's work, "Civil War", was an attack on monarchy in general and a call for freedom from all tyranny.

2,873 words () | 7 sources | APA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper presents an analysis of the poem, "Civil War", and of Caesar's own account of the war between himself and Pompey, to provide evidence of the Roman poet Lucan's political agenda. The paper takes evidence from many sources, such as Suetonius and modern classical scholar R.F. Leighton, to show that Lucan was not only condemning Caesar as a tyrant, but the imperial system as a whole.

From the Paper:

"In writing his Civil War, Lucan quite obviously wished to reveal to the people of Rome the extreme horror and madness of civil war as he saw it. Through graphic descriptions of violence and bloodshed coupled with the strong emotional strings Lucan poetically attaches to all events, he accomplishes this goal. However, when one looks more carefully at poem, especially the lines concerned with Caesar's ship journey to Hesperia and his military speech preceding the main battle, it is evident that the poet had another, more important goal in mind."