Lucan has been thoroughly rehabilitated. Moreover, in times of heightened political tension an author often seen as a resistance writer might resound even louder with today’s audiences. Lucan is now receiving scholarly attention akin to Virgil and Ovid — for sure the final phase of greatness foretold in the speech of Calliope at Stat., Silv. 2.7.36–107 with which Joseph opens his volume. J. has given us a thoughtful and beautifully argued metapoetic study of Lucan’s Bellum civile. He positions Lucan’s historical epic as a response, a thundering, to his epic predecessors, and simultaneously as a lament for that very tradition. Many of the passages or images J. discusses are old (and sometimes prominent) friends (or nightmares) of scholars of Latin epic, and some of us will find long-held notions confirmed here, developed and pressed further with great skill. Of six chapters, five centre on responses to Homer, Livius Andronicus, Naevius and Ennius, while the sixth concentrates on the poetics of lament both as a narrative feature and (Iliadic) grand lament for the fall of a city and the demise of a genre.

The first chapter delves into the discussion of three prominent passages, to tease out Lucan’s polemical engagement with his epic predecessors: Caesar’s visit to Troy (BCiv. 9) is the first where geo-poetics, evocative allusions and an outspoken poetic voice help to cement Lucan’s place in the epic tradition. When discussing his preferred title for Lucan’s epic Pharsalia (BCiv. 9.985), J. demonstrates how Iliadic use of toponym becomes dislocated to Pharsalus; at the same time in annalistic fashion ‘Pharsalus’ also becomes a signifier that time is up for the Roman Republic, thus combining Greek and Roman epic traditions. Not completely unexpectedly, a discussion of the opening verses (BCiv. 1.1–32) follows, which have long been recognised as a hiding place (or should we say burial ground, to stay in character?) of metapoetic signposts and master tropes. Finally, J. takes us across the Rubicon (BCiv. 1.183–205), where Lucan lets us meet the personification of Roma and for a moment seems to toy with introducing a conventional corpus deorum before rejecting the poetics of epic continuation.

The second chapter on epic violence is particularly close to this reviewer’s heart: it discusses Marius Gratidianus’ spectacular mutilation (BCiv. 2.173–93, ‘a trajectory counter to Ennius’s narrative of Roman launch and advance’, 72), Caesar’s deforestation of the Massilian grove (BCiv. 3.394–452, an eco-mutilation where ‘the material (silva) of epic that was leafy and generative in Ennius (siluai frondosai) collapses on itself and is made dead by Lucan’, 83) and Scaeva’s piercing demise (or is it?) (BCiv. 6.140–262). Much has been made in earlier scholarship of the idea that not only Rome but also the epic text turns the knife on itself and chops itself into (syntactical) pieces. J., however, shows how figures such as Scaeva embody the ambiguous violence of civil war by practising ‘violence not just on fellow Romans but, in the same process, on himself’ (89).

In ch. 3, J. revisits his idea of the battle of Pharsalus as doomsday (AJPh 138 (2017): 107–41), a space and time of collapse and self-destruction for Rome, and contrasts the Ennian master trope of Roman spatial and temporal expansion, against which Lucan reacts by staging ‘the Pharsalia at the end and indeed as the end of the Roman epic story’ (141). Ch. 4 links Lucan with Livius Andronicus and Naevius by focusing on the sea, taking on board the Roman naval expansion during the Punic Wars. Much has been said about the face that launched a thousand ships; here, however, we are more interested in those thousand ships and — in a Roman context — the Roman primacy they represent. Lucan as ever redirects and deconstructs this positive notion by scattering shipwrecks, sea battles and suicidal rafts across his epic. Ch. 5 reminds us that you can’t go home again in Roman epic. The Homeric notion of nostos which works well (enough) for Odysseus contrasts starkly with the lack of direction of the Odyssean wanderings of Caesar, Cato and Pompey, all of whom end up far from home/Rome. In addition, the very idea of Rome as home perishes in the struggles of civil war. Lamenting Rome leads us to ch. 6, which showcases and ties together the many instances of lament throughout Lucan’s epic. The Iliad ends with lament, Lucan’s epic is lament — for Rome, as the authorial voice with its 144 apostrophes tells us, and — so J. argues — for Latin epic. Lucan has long been established as the maverick amongst Latin epic poets. J.’s rich and well-researched study makes us understand the poetics behind this claim and thus makes a welcome and valuable contribution to Lucan studies.