Description forms the principal feature in the poetry of Lucan; it occupies more than one half of the Pharsalia; so that it might almost as appropriately be termed a descriptive as an epic poem. Description, in fact, constitutes one of the characteristic features of Roman literature in its decline, because poetry had more than ever become an art, and the epoch one of erudition; and thus a treasure of imagery was stored up suitable for descriptive embellishment. The finest parts of Persius are descriptive: even Martial, brief though his pieces are, delights in it; and facility in this department is the strong point of Silius Italicus, and the sole merit of Valerius Flaccus. Owing to the enthusiasm with which Lucan throws himself into this kind of writing, he abounds in minute detail. He reminds one of the descriptive talent possessed in so eminent a degree by our own Thomson. Not a feature escapes his notice, whether it suggest ideas of the beautiful, the sublime, or the terrible. He is not content, as Virgil is, with a sketch—with broad lights and shadows; he delights in a finished picture; he possesses the power of placing his subject strongly before the eyes, leaving little or nothing for the imagination to supply. He omits no means of attaining descriptive truth;[[1106]] the inward state of feeling, the character of each passion, is presented, not so much in its moral and psychical as in its physical developments; that which is internal is exhibited in its external symptoms, with the hand of a painter and the skill of the physiognomist. Virgil sketches, Lucan paints; the latter describes physically—the former philosophically. The following passages, which describe the passage of the Rubicon and the death of Pompey, are noble specimens of Lucan’s style:—
Jam gelidas Cæsar cursu superaverat Alpes,
Ingentesque animo motus, bellumque futurum
Ceperat. Ut ventum est parvi Rubiconis ad undas,
Ingens visa duci patriæ trepidantis imago,
Clara per obscuram vultu mœstissima noctem
Turrigero canos effundens vertice crines,
Cæsarie lacera, nudisque adstare lacertis,
Et gemitu permixta loqui! Quo tenditis ultra?
Quo fertis mea signa, viri? Si jure venitis,