Lucan was a nephew of M. Annaeus Novatus (the Gallio of Acts xviii. 12-17), and of Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero. ‘Rhetoric and Stoic dogma were the staple of his mental training. For a much-petted, quick-witted youth, plunged into such a society as that of Rome in the first century A.D., hardly any training could be more mischievous. Puffed up with presumed merits and the applause of the lecture-room and the salon, he became a shallow rhetorician, devoted to phrase-making and tinsel ornament, and ready to write and declaim on any subject in verse or prose at the shortest notice.’—Heitland. Silenced by Nero, in an enforced retirement—probably in the stately gardens spoken of by Juvenal vii. 79-80 contentus fama iaceat Lucanus in hortis Marmoreis—Lucan may repose in his park adorned with statues and find fame enough—he brooded over his wrongs, and despairing of any other way of restoration to public life, joined the ill-fated conspiracy of Piso.
2. Works.
The Pharsalia (or De Bello Civili), an epic poem in ten Books, from the beginning of the Civil War down to the point where Caesar is besieged in Alexandria, 49-48 B.C. His narrative thus runs parallel to Caesar’s De Bello Civili, but it contains some valuable additional matter and gives a faithful picture of the feeling general among the nobility of the day.
3. Style.
‘To Lucan’s rhetorical instincts and training, and the influence of the recitations which Juvenal Sat. iii. tells us were so customary and such a nuisance in his day, are due the great defects of the Pharsalia. We see the sacrifice of the whole to the parts, neglect of the matter in an over-studious regard for the manner, a self-conscious tone appealing rather to an audience than to a reader, venting itself in apostrophes, digressions, hyperbole (over-drawn description), episodes and epigrams, an unhappy laboriousness that strains itself to be first-rate for a moment, but leaves the poem second-rate for ever.’—Heitland.
The general effect of Lucan’s verse is one of steady monotony, due to a want of variety in the pauses and in the ending of lines, and a too sparing use of elision, by which Vergil was able to regulate the movement of lines and make sound and sense agree.
‘In spite of its immaturity and bad taste the poem compels admiration by its elevation of thought and sustained brilliance of execution; it contains passages of lofty thought and real beauty, such as the dream of Pompeius, or the character which Cato gives of Pompeius, and is full of quotations which have become household words; such as, In se magna ruunt—Stat magni nominis umbra—Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum (a line which rivals Caesar’s energy).’—Mackail.
The brief and balanced judgment of Quintilian (Inst. Orat. X. i. 90) sums up Lucan in words which suggest at once his chief merits and defects as a poet: Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus et magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus—Lucan has fire and point, is very famous for his maxims, and indeed is rather a model for orators than poets.