The duty of securing liberty, even at the cost of blood, was never more finely expressed than by the noble words:
"Ignoratque datos ne quisquam serviat enses."
Curio's treachery is pilloried in the epigram,
"Emere omnes, hic vendidit Urbem." [67]
The mingled cowardice and folly of servile obedience is nobly expressed by his reproach to the people:
"Usque adeone times, quem tu facis ipse timendum?" [68]
An author who could write like this had studied rhetoric to some purpose. Unhappily he is oftener diffuse than brief, and sometimes he becomes tedious to the last degree. His poetical art is totally deficient in variety. He knows of but one method of gaining effect, the use of strong language and plenty of it. If Persius was inflated with the vain desire to surpass Horace, Lucan seems to have been equally ambitious of excelling Virgil. He rarely imitates, but he frequently competes with him. Over and over again, he approaches the same or similar subjects. Virgil had described the victory of Hercules over Cacus, Lucan must celebrate his conflict with Antaeus; Virgil had mentioned the portents that followed Caesar's death, Lucan must repeat them with added improbabilities in a fresh context; his sibyl is but a tasteless counterpart of Virgil's; his catalogues of forces have Virgil's constantly in view; his deification of Nero is an exaggeration of that of Augustus, and even the celebrated simile in which Virgil admits his obligations to the Greek stage has its parallel in the Pharsalia. [69]
Nevertheless Lucan is of all Latin poets the most independent in relation to his predecessors. It needs a careful criticism to detect his knowledge and imitation of Virgil. As far as other poets go he might never have read their works. The impetuous course of the Pharsalia is interrupted by no literary reminiscences, no elaborate setting of antique gems. He was a stranger to that fond pleasure with which Virgil entwined his poetry round the spreading branches of the past, and wove himself a wreath out of flowers new and old. This lack of delicate feeling is no less evident in his rhythm. Instead of the inextricable harmonies of Virgil's cadence, we have a succession of rich, forcible, and polished monotonous lines, rushing on without a thought of change until the period closes. In formal skill Lucan was a proficient, but his ear was dull. The same caesuras recur again and again, [70] and the only merit of his rhythm is its undeniable originality. [71] The composition of the Pharsalia must, however, have been extremely hurried, judging both from the fact that three books only were finished the year before the poet's death, and from various indications of haste in the work itself. The tenth book is obviously unfinished, and in style is far more careless than the rest. Lucan's diction is tolerably classical, but he is lax in the employment of certain words, e.g. mors, fatum, pati (in the sense of vivere), and affects forced combinations from the desire to be terse, e.g., degener toga, [72] stimulis negare, [73] nutare regna, "to portend the advent of despotism;" [74] meditari Leucada, "to intend to bring about the catastrophe of Actium," [75] and so on. We observe also several innovations in syntax, especially the freer use of the infinitive (vivere durent) after verbs, or as a substantive, a defect he shares with Persius (scire tuum); and the employment of the future participle to state a possibility or a condition that might have been fulfilled, e.g., unumque caput tam magna iuventus Privatum factura timet velut ensibus ipse Imperet invito moturus milite bellum. [76] A strong depreciation of Lucan's genius has been for some time the rule of criticism. And in an age when little time is allowed for reading any but the best authors, it is perhaps undesirable that he should be rehabilitated. Yet throughout the Middle Ages and during more than one great epoch in French history, he was ranked among the highest epic poets. Even now there are many scholars who greatly admire him. The false metaphor and exaggerated tone may be condoned to a youth of twenty-six; the lofty pride and bold devotion to liberty could not have been acquired by an ignoble spirit. He is of value to science as a moderately accurate historian who supplements Caesar's narrative, and gives a faithful picture of the feeling general among the nobility of his day. He is also a prominent representative of that gifted Spanish family who, in various ways, exercised so immense an influence on subsequent Roman letters. His wife is said to have assisted in the composition of the poem, but in what part of it her talents fitted her to succeed we cannot even conjecture.
To Nero's reign are probably to be referred the seven eclogues of T. CALPURNIUS SICULUS, and the poem on Aetna, long attributed to Virgil. These may bear comparison in respect of their want of originality with the Satires of Persius, though both fall far short of them in talent and interest. The MSS. of Calpurnius contain, besides the seven genuine poems, four others by a later and much inferior writer, probably Nemesianus, the same who wrote a poem on the chase in the reign of Numerian. These are imitated from Calpurnius much as he imitates Virgil, except that the decline in metrical treatment is greater. The first eclogue of Calpurnius is devoted to the praises of a young emperor who is to regenerate the world, and exercise a wisdom, a clemency, and a patronage of the arts long unknown. He is celebrated again in Eclogue IV., the most pretentious of the series, and, in general, critics are agreed that Nero is intended. The second poem is the most successful of all, and a short account of it may be given here. Astacus and Idas, two beauteous youths, enter into a poetical contest at which Thyrsis acts as judge. Faunus, the satyrs, and nymphs, "Sicco Dryades pede Naides udo," are present. The rivers stay their course; the winds are hushed; the oxen forget their pasture; the bee steadies itself on poised wing to listen. An amoebean contest ensues, in which the rivals closely imitate those of Virgil's seventh eclogue, singing against one another in stanzas of four lines. Thyrsis declines to pronounce either conqueror:
"Este pares: et ab hoc concordes vivite: nam vos
Et decor et cantus et amor sociavit et aetas."