Now is a time for Lucan. All around us, I see echoes of Lucan's discors machina (‘broken machine’; BC 1.79–80), a country, empire or even world on the brink of tearing itself apart. As I write this review in spring 2023, wars and civil wars have flared around the globe, and many nations have flirted with or embraced autocracy. Political and domestic discord is high; in the United States, as in many places around the world, politics are, in many ways, at a dysfunctional partisan standstill. Some fringe groups (in my opinion) have raised fears of a second civil war in the United States, and the congressional buildings of both the US and Brazil have been stormed by domestic insurrections. The COVID-19 pandemic has created internal divisions and anti-governmental sentiments in many nations, despite their disparate forms of government. ‘Fake news’ and misinformation campaigns conjure Lucanian battles over control of narratives, history and collective memory. Thus, I find it no accident that, in recent years, Latinists and scholars of Roman antiquity have been returning to Lucan's Bellum civile (Civil War) with pointed attention, evidenced by numerous dissertations, articles, anthologies and monographs.
And so, Roche's edited volume comes at a timely moment. The book frames itself as a resource both for professional scholars and for students, and the book speaks especially well to the latter audience. Drawing upon scholarly advances and increased attention to Lucan over recent decades, Roche's preface observes that ‘Lucan is now taught in translation much more commonly than ever before in courses treating Nero and the Neronian age, the culture of the Roman empire, and ancient literature’ (p. vii). Roche explicitly follows a model adapted from C. Perkell's edited collection, Reading Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide (1999; Roche pp. vii–viii). Thus, in addition to its usefulness in courses on Neronian culture, Reading Lucan's Civil War pairs well with Perkell's volume for courses on Latin epic that might put Virgil's Aeneid in conversation with Lucan's Bellum civile. Before turning to the contributors and the content of the volume, I note two mechanical strengths for the book's usefulness in the classroom. First, the book's paperback format with an affordable price point makes it a viable option to include on university syllabi. Second, while the various contributors naturally have their own styles, throughout there appears to have been a concerted effort to keep the prose as paratactic, lucid and free of jargon as possible. The successful result is that, even as the book speaks to postgraduate students and professional scholars, undergraduate students will find the volume accessible in its prose. Aiding this accessibility is a glossary, which helpfully defines important Latin terms (such as uirtus) as well as literary vocabulary (such as ‘intertextuality’ and ‘intratextuality’) with which many students may not be previously familiar. The volume provides English translations of passages discussed, adding to its usefulness for those without access to Latin. Endnotes, for the most part, are similarly kept student-friendly, both by targeting essential scholarship without giving exhaustive lists and by keeping discursive narrative to a minimum.
Roche has long been an important figure in Lucan studies. I note, selectively, his commentaries on Bellum civile 1 (2009) and 7 (2019) as well as a number of well-received articles and book chapters. Similarly, the roster of contributors features many prominent scholars in Lucan studies and imperial Latin epic. Space does not allow for a detailed discussion of each chapter, but each contributor merits mention: A. Ambühl, K. Arampapaslis, A. Augoustakis, F. D'Alessandro Behr, C.L. Caterine, R. Cowan, M. Dewar, M.T. Dinter, P. Esposito, L. Donovan Ginsberg, M. Kersten, L. Galli Milić, D. Nelis, C. Reitz, Roche and A. Zissos.
Roche's introduction will be of great value to anyone teaching Lucan to students unfamiliar with the Bellum civile (I plan to adopt it on my syllabi). The essay offers a concise and well-structured overview of Lucan's biography such as we know it, questions about the scope and (likely) unfinished state of Lucan's epic, the narrator's voice, the poem's aesthetics and tone, philosophical influences on the Bellum civile (Stoicism and Epicureanism) and several of the poem's (anti)heroes – Caesar, Cato and Pompey. After the introduction, the chapters divide, unofficially, into two sections (the volume's preface frames this as such). Ten successive chapters devote themselves individually and sequentially to the Bellum civile's ten books, each with a thematic focus and title. These are followed by five chapters dedicated to major themes: Lucan's relationship with Virgil, religion and ritual, philosophy and aesthetics, Lucan as Caesar's literary successor and gender in the Bellum civile. I comment on the following chapters not out of merit-based hierarchy but rather because they touch on essential passages in the Bellum civile.
The nature of a companion of this type dictates that, while the volume introduces readers to the Bellum civile's themes, major scholarly debates, and iconic passages and episodes, the book does not have the space to delve into all of them deeply. For example, Galli Milić and Nelis's co-written chapter, ‘Book 1: A New Epic Program’, suggests a clear tripartite structure to the book (p. 19) and gives an excellent preliminary overview of Lucan's intertextual relationships with previous epic models (Virgil later gets his own chapter with Cowan's ‘Charging the Canon: Lucan and Vergil’). The chapter rightly calls attention to longstanding debates over the tone of the prologue's encomium to Nero, noting that ‘the passage has mystified many readers, some treating it as an example of a typically Roman form of poetic eulogy, others seeing it as evident mockery of the Emperor’ (pp. 18–19). The authors point readers towards essential scholarship by Dewar and Roche on the debate. But readers will need to go beyond Reading Lucan's Civil War for detailed analyses of the passage and this scholarly debate.
Kersten and Reitz's chapter, ‘Book 3: Crime and Reward’, affords rightful attention to Caesar and the Massilian grove, with a focus on intertextuality that will inspire ecocritical discussion of the episode. The ahistorical convocation of the Senate on the Palatine (BC 3.103–9) does not receive focused attention, but the chapter devotes space to Caesar's forced entry into the treasury and his conflict with Metellus. Zissos, in ‘Book 6: Thessalian Preludes’, provides an excellent introduction to Lucan's iconic Erichtho scene and its engagement with both history and witchcraft. Roche's ‘Book 7: Things Fall Apart’ does due diligence to the climactic Battle of Pharsalus, paying attention to the structure and deviation from previous epic models, Lucan's complicated relationship with divinity and the personae of Pompey and Caesar. Dinter's essay, ‘Book 8: The Remains of the Day’, does well to include Pompey's reputation (fama), physical remains and paltry tombstone (bustum) among its themes, even if space does not allow for full overviews of how specific passages might variously be interpreted (e.g. 8.865–9 on Pompey's funerary marker; pp. 142–3).
Dewar's contribution, ‘Book 9: Author and Authority, Caesar and Liberty’, deftly integrates Book 9's essential but wide-ranging themes. Dewar opens by noting that ending the Bellum civile with Pharsalus or Pompey's death could have followed previous epic models. Dewar notes Cato as the poem's new ‘hero or fanatic’ in the wake of Pompey's death, and he gives snakes their due (I particularly enjoyed the subsection entitled ‘Snakes: A New Enemy’). Dewar also touches on the Medusa excursus and weaves in Lucan's complicated relationship with truth, history and poetry. On this latter theme, Dewar importantly highlights the essential 9.359–60: inuidus, annoso qui famam derogat aeuo | qui vates ad vera vocat; ‘Spiteful is anyone who takes away from aged time its glory, who summons poets to the truth’. This chapter also incorporates Caesar's tour of Troy (my favourite passage in Latin literature) and Lucan's own claim to literary immortality (9.980–6). Here again, the volume introduces readers to what is important and offers preliminary framing; deep analysis of any given passage lies beyond the scope of the project.
The structure makes sense and has the benefit, especially with the chapter-by-chapter walkthrough, of pairing with reading Lucan's Bellum civile in a university course. However, this means that decisions had to be made in the shorter, thematic section. I would have appreciated a focused chapter dedicated to Lucan's Nachleben and reception. Likewise, while Lucan's philosophical filiations are invoked throughout the volume, the attention given to Lucan's relationships with Stoicism, Epicureanism etc. is sporadic. (I noted D'Alessandro Behr's chapter, ‘Philosophy and the Aesthetics of Apostrophe in Lucan’, which observes scholarly debates over Lucan's commitment to Stoicism and his ‘detachment from Stoic faith’; pp. 227–8.) I count it as a plus that Roche decided not to aim for a large companion on other models, such as Brill's Companion to Lucan (2011, ed. P. Asso; reviewed by Roche in CR 63 [2013], 122–4). These volumes serve different audiences; the Brill volume is more useful for professional scholars, while Roche's Reading Lucan's Civil War will be more efficacious in university courses.
In sum, the volume is an excellent achievement and a welcome addition to Lucan studies. Leading authorities of the field introduce Lucan's epic and many of its important themes and passages to readers new to the Bellum civile. The volume is of great value as a resource for scholars of Lucan, but I believe its major importance will be in the classroom. Whether undergraduate or postgraduate, and whether reading Lucan in Latin or in translation, Roche's volume pairs well with reading the Bellum civile in its content, structure and accessibility; it will doubtless inspire many a new Lucanist.
