In this extensive and substantial volume W. offers a comprehensive and detailed interpretation of Lucan’s Bellum civile. Numerous themes and issues are addressed, and W. does not shy away from taking a stance, at times even a polemical one, in the critical debate. The book consists of sixteen chapters, followed by acknowledgements, a bibliography and two indexes (one for the Lucan episodes discussed and another for passages from other authors cited). The heart of the volume is Chapter 13, which offers a detailed analysis of Book 5 of the Bellum civile. The pages preceding Chapter 13 provide a broad overview of Latin literature on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, followed by an examination of various episodes, themes and figures in Lucan’s poem (e.g. the proem, Caesar’s visit to Troy, hydrology, the lamentations of the inhabitants of Ariminum, Marcia, Julia etc.). In this section Chapter 12 is noteworthy for the importance of its subject matter: Cato. The last three chapters (14–16) focus on Caesar, the interpretation of the poem as ‘überlebte Katastrophe’ and the problem of the incompleteness of the Bellum civile. W. believes that the poem is complete, but, surprisingly, she does not examine two important contributions on the subject: the discussion by E. Berti (M. Annaei Lucani Bellum civile liber X [2000], pp. 25–41) and the article by L. Pontiggia (‘Struttura e ideologia nella Farsalia di Lucano (con alcune speculazioni sul finale)’, in: P. Esposito [ed.], Seminari Lucanei I [2020], pp. 61–90).

W. reads Lucan’s epic poem as literature of the trauma of civil war, and she believes that the salient feature of the work is its ambiguity, which may even give rise to aporia or the destruction of meaning. She therefore questions widely held views in Lucan scholarship, such as the Stoic nature of Cato (despite his harsh criticism of ‘provvidenza crudele’) or the narrator’s firm and constant aversion to Caesar as a bloodthirsty, tyrannical monster who destroys the Roman Republic and libertas. In this vein W. repeatedly criticises E. Narducci as well as scholars such as B.M. Marti and E. Fantham. However, it is not always clear what the correct interpretation of a particular passage or character might be. In short, the pars destruens, albeit articulate, is much more evident than the pars construens. By means of some significant examples I will seek to show how W.’s objections to some findings of research on Lucan (which are, in my opinion, certain) are hard to accept, at least for me.

W. disputes that Lucan’s Cato is modelled on the Stoic sage: he would not argue rationally, he would himself nurture passions and arouse them in others (p. 295): the reference is to the conversation with Brutus in Book 2. However, it is my view that, in a world ravaged by civil war, where the gods are on the side of evil, Cato is indeed driven by an evil fate, but he remains faithful to virtus and proves to be the only guarantor of good and justice. Precisely because he faithfully pursues virtus, he cannot remain insensitive to crimen civile; indeed, Seneca already denied that the Stoic sage was as insensitive as stone, which would not be a virtue at all (Constant. 10.4; Ep. 9.3). With regard to the episode in which Cato and his men have to fight snakes in the Libyan desert, W. disputes the interpretation that it represents the struggle of the virtuous man with adversity and a model of his attitude towards death. On the contrary, the episode would be an example of the futile and senseless actions of Cato, who is described as a ‘ruthless torturer’ (‘erbarmungsloser Schleifer’) of his soldiers. For W. it makes no sense that Cato’s greatest help offered to his men tormented by snakes is the courage to die and that the soldiers are ashamed to die in his presence (Bell. civ. 9.881–9). But courage in the face of death, in and of itself, regardless of any other consideration, and the power of the exemplar, capable of influencing and shaping the moral habitus and behaviour of followers, are Stoic concepts repeatedly emphasised by Seneca (as E. Narducci has shown in Lucano. Un’epica contro l’impero [2002], pp. 415–22). W. admits that Lucan used Seneca’s philosophical material to construct his characters, but denies that Lucan’s Cato is modelled on the ideal outlined by Seneca; however, in my view, this distinction is perhaps too pronounced and does not fully account for the coherent nature of the figure in Lucan.

In several passages W.’s critical attitude raises a number of methodological concerns. She considers and evaluates the facts and characters in themselves or compares them with each other on the basis of an abstract criterion of consistency, not from Lucan’s point of view. This is emblematically illustrated on p. 419, n. 44: ‘Wieso wird eigentlich Catos militärisch gänzlich sinnfreier Wüstenmarsch, der vielen seiner Soldaten das Leben kostet, in der Forschung häufig als positiv eingeschätzt …, während Caesar für seine folgenlose Seesturmaktion eine weitgehend negative Presse bekommt?’ The answer is obvious to me: because this is how the narrator presents and interprets the events (and it is well known that Lucan is more interested in interpreting actions than in recounting them). Lucan’s interpreter’s task is not to evaluate people and situations ‘objectively’, but to understand and illustrate Lucan’s point of view, and this emerges clearly from the text of the poem, which has a precise meaning. It is the narrator who presents and, above all, judges similar actions in different ways. This line of argument can also be found in the chapter on Book 5 of the poem. In relation to the episode of the storm some critics (as well as Lucan) have highlighted Caesar’s megalomania, which leads him to believe that the storm was stirred up against him (see Narducci [2002], pp. 254–5, who, on the basis of Bell. civ. 5.591–3 and 653–6, speaks of the commander’s ‘mostruoso egocentrismo’). W. disputes this interpretation (pp. 429–30), referring to the storms unleashed by certain deities against Odysseus and Aeneas in the Odyssey and the Aeneid. But there is an important difference: Poseidon and Juno wanted these two men to be overwhelmed by the storm. The case of Caesar in Lucan’s Book 5 is different: here there is no deity stirring up the storm against Caesar, partly because the gods are on his side (the storm is due to natural causes). Therefore, this episode confirms the abnormal, monstrous nature of Lucan’s Caesar.

W. believes that Lucan is fascinated by this character and even goes so far as to hypothesise that the Bellum civile is a ‘Caesar-Epos’ and that Caesar’s task is to build a new Rome (pp. 494–6; see also p. 508). This is certainly a stimulating interpretation, which invites us to rethink the figure of Caesar in the poem; however, in my opinion, it is not firmly supported by the text. In Lucan, it seems to me, there is no positive openness towards the ‘new’ (i.e. the Principate); for him, the civil war and Caesar’s victory determined the irremediable end of Rome and the world, and the poem is a bitter, painful denunciation of this reality.

W.’s volume is a wide-ranging, well-informed and ambitious work, which offers numerous precise observations and sets in motion a vigorous critical engagement with the exegetical tradition on Lucan. Precisely because the book strongly invites debate, a fair number of its interpretative proposals appear to me less than fully convincing, and in particular W.’s attempt to call into question what I would regard as certain achievements of Lucan scholarship does not seem entirely persuasive. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, by virtue of the richness of the material assembled and the acuity of many of its analyses, this study represents an important contribution and is certainly destined to make its voice heard for a long time to come in the scholarly discussion of Lucan.