1. The only extant work of Lucan is De Bello Civili. This is the title in the MSS., and in Petron. 118. The usual title comes from ix. 985, ‘Pharsalia nostra vivet,’ words which come after a list of places in Greece and Asia immortalized by the poets, and which mean ‘My story of Pharsalus shall live.’ There is no evidence that Lucan gave the poem this title.
2. Lost works. Vacca mentions the following:
(a) In verse: Orpheus; Iliacon; Saturnalia; Catachthonion; Silvarum x.; tragoedia Medea (imperfecta): Salticae Fabulae, xiv.; epigrammata.
(b) In prose: Oratio in Octavium Sagittam et pro eo; de incendio urbis; epistulae ex Campania.
Suetonius also mentions ‘Neronis laudes; famosum carmen in Neronem.’ Stat. Silv. ii. 7, 62, mentions another work—‘allocutio ad Pollam’ (his wife).
Lucan’s works became immediately popular.
Sueton. ibid., ‘Poemata eius etiam praelegi memini, confici vero ac proponi, non tantum operose et diligenter, sed et inepte quoque.’
Mart. xiv. 194,
‘Sunt quidam qui me dicunt non esse poetam:
sed qui me vendit bibliopola putat.’
The epic poem De Bello Civili in ten Books (the last incomplete) carries the story of the Civil War down to the point where Caesar is besieged in Alexandria. Vacca informs us that Lucan did not live to correct the last seven Books.