‘Ediderat ... tres libros quales videmus ... Reliqui vii. belli civilis libri locum calumniantibus tamquam mendosi non darent, qui tametsi sub vero crimine non egent patrocinio: in isdem dici, quod in Ovidii libris praescribitur, potest: “emendaturus, si licuisset, erat.”’
Lucan’s political views.—The first three Books were published when Lucan was still on good terms with Nero (cf. the gross flattery in i. 33-66), but practically the same view of the empire is taken throughout the poem; only Lucan expresses his views with greater vigour in the last seven Books; and, while in Books i.-iii. the question is one between Caesar and Pompey, afterwards it is one between Caesar and liberty. Even in Books i.-iii. Caesar is the villain of the piece; Pompey embodies all that is good; Cato and Brutus are highly spoken of; the former stands as the ideal Stoic. The Senate, except in Book v. ad init., appears in a rather unfavourable light, and so does the plebs. Lucan did not want the re-establishment of the republican oligarchy, but acquiesced in the empire as being ordained by fate. This is borne out by what we know of the Pisonian conspiracy, the object of which was not to re-establish the republic, but to put some leading man like Seneca on the throne. A few quotations will exemplify these points:
(1) The empire; iv. 691,
‘Libyamque auferre tyranno
dum regnum te, Roma, facit’;
vii. 432,
‘Quod fugiens civile nefas redituraque nunquam
libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit’;
vii. 442,
‘Felices Arabes Medique eoaque tellus,
quam sub perpetuis tenuerunt fata tyrannis.
Ex populis qui regna ferunt, sors ultima nostra est,
quos servire pudet.’
(2) Pompeius; ii. 732-6,
‘Non quia te superi patrio privare sepulchro
maluerint, Phariae busto damnantur harenae:
parcitur Hesperiae; procul hoc et in orbe remoto
abscondat fortuna nefas, Romanaque tellus
inmaculata sui servetur sanguine Magni.’