It is exciting to see a book published focusing on the female characters of Lucan's Bellum Civile. S. divides the women of the Pharsalia into major groups (historical characters, prophetesses, invented and mythological figures). If the subdivision at times feels constraining (the image of patria in BC 1 cannot fit into any one group), overall it provides a useful way to survey a vast and variegated matter. ‘Survey’ captures well the nature of this monograph. Through skilful use of essential texts from the poem and relevant scholarship, S. sheds needed light on a substantial number of female characters.
S. steers away from gender studies approaches and refrains from highlighting common denominators and thematic echoes between individual characters or groups of characters. Even if her reflections on strategies which privilege gender are extremely narrow – S. seems to believe that they exclude a serious consideration of textual or intertextual evidence or genre analysis being that they are constantly undertaken in search of a ‘ransom’ (‘riscatto’ p. 4) for women, rescuing them from a position of inferiority to which the ancient world and patriarchal societies relegated them – her profiles and examination of so many of the female figures is praiseworthy as a necessary step towards emphasising the proportions and potentials of this important aspect of the Pharsalia. S. succeeds in helping readers realise how little work has been done about Lucan's women – a surprising fact given the flourishing of Lucan studies in recent decades and the growing interest in women – and provides incentives and direction for further research.
S. demonstrates with a good amount of examples that Lucan's acute and typical re-elaboration of literary motifs – particularly from elegy, historiography and tragedy – is quite visible in his handling of female characters. The character of Julia (discussed in Chapter 1) is an effective illustration of a complexity which, in part, is built on the variety of models employed by Lucan. In attempting to reconcile socer (Julius Caesar) and gener (Pompey), Julia resembles Livy's Sabine women who in Rome's early beginnings united the Sabine and Roman people into one nation. In the testimony of other historians such as Florus and Velleius the marriage between Caesar's daughter and Pompey, as typical of Roman matrimonial practices, is viewed as producing concordia. However, the character of Julia also resembles elegiac models, particularly Propertius 4.7. In Pompey's dream-vision of BC 3, the allusion to his fifth wife, Cornelia, evokes a love triangle and is further proof of Lucan's strong reliance on elegiac situations and motifs. Additionally, when Julia alludes to Pompey's imminent disaster and future union with Cornelia, she is tragically constructed as a sort of avenging character, a fury (3.11 furialis) who reminds Pompey of his mistakes and duties towards her. Strangely, in this context, S. does not link Julia to the cursing Dido of Aen. 4.584–629.
Another woman pitted between two men (Hortensius and Cato) is Martia (Chapter 3). Appearing in BC 2, right after the death of her husband Hortensius, she is eager once again to join Cato in marriage and to follow him when he embraces civil war (p. 94). She is the incarnation of the perfect wife and perfect civil servant. She has spent her womb to procreate children for the state and, Julia-like, by marrying Hortensius has fostered union between families. Now, old and sterile, Martia can stand for the ghost of liberty worthy to be pursued even when it is not any longer productive. The characterisation of Martia echoes that of Cato ready to sacrifice his life for the lost cause of liberty. Both are old and selfless – specular images of each other. S.'s observations gradually make the reader aware of the fact that although it is important to consider female characters independently from men, given the way the Romans (and Lucan) conceptualise women and their role, this is also difficult and reductionist since women tend to resemble the men they are paired with (and vice versa). We cannot fully understand Cato if we do not come to terms with Martia, in turn we cannot understand Martia if we study her without Cato. Although S. does not explicitly highlight this fascinating phenomenon (at the outset she says to want to focus on women as independent entities), it is one of the various connections that she reveals linking female characters in the poem.
Lucan's dependence on the elegiac matrix is traced out in several other women belonging to the first group (historical figures). Besides being used to characterise Martia, Arethusa's willingness to follow her husband in war (Prop. 4.3.45–6) is employed to describe Cornelia who also resembles some of Ovid's Heroides (Chapter 2). However, while at times we witness the power of love as a binding element (e.g. with Martia), the destabilising power of erotic love is also shown by Lucan in his portrayal of men's attachment to women as a source of discord. As elegy reveals: military ethics and love inclinations cannot easily be harmonised. Not only does Pompey's deep affection for Cornelia distract him from war, making him an ineffectual general; Caesar's attraction for Cleopatra appears to be the general's greatest challenge as well (Chapter 4).
The prophetic figures of Lucan's poem are described in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. They all predict the terrible events of Pharsalus. Particularly interesting are S.'s insights about the Pythia of BC 5. Threatened by the selfish Appius Claudius Pulcher, she prophesises against her will. Once again in this episode we see how the juxtaposition of a female and male character allows the reader to see their similarities. Phemonoe and Appius are both preoccupied with their safety and seek to insulate themselves from history, in vain.
Chapter 8, on Erichto, competently summarises the conclusions laid out by older and more recent studies on the theme. S. does not offer any particularly new insight. She explains that Sextus’ summoning of the horrible witch is antiphrastically modelled on Aeneas’ catabasis of Aen. 6. The witch is the ugly apotheosis of all that is wicked and the perfect prophetess (via the resurrected soldier) of a world dominated by Caesar. She may also stand for the poet himself as they both narrate the dramatic events of the civil war.
Women from mythology are invested with symbolic function. Medusa, Agave and Medea, the three most important exemplars from this group, function paradigmatically in the Bellum Civile (Chapters 9–10). While Agave and Medea are remembered above all as killers of kinsmen and connected with Caesar, the instigator of this fratricidal war, Medusa symbolises fragmentation, becoming Cato's foil and an anti-Marcia. Cato's victory over Medusa's heirs, the snakes infesting the desert, becomes his glorification.
S. also devotes a segment of her book to the Fortleben of some of Lucan's women (Chapter 13). Dante's Martia and Thomas May's Cleopatra occupy centre stage in her analysis. She points out Dante's innovative interpretation of Martia as the noble soul in Convivio 4.28 and the poet's employment of her encounter with Cato in BC 2 as allegory of the reunion of the soul with God in maturity. Cleopatra on the other hand is the focus of May's poetic enterprises, his Continuation of Lucan and Supplementum Lucani written, respectively, in 1630 and 1640. In these works the beauty of the Egyptian queen has affected Caesar who seems to be genuinely in love with her, while Cleopatra appears as the great manipulator depicted by Lucan.
S. offers an excellent introduction to the women of Lucan. Her book hints at several avenues for future study, and I hope that scholars will pick up where she has left off.
