Pharsalia was also an ancient district in Greece in which Pharsalus was located.

Pharsalia (also known as De Bello Civili or On the Civil War) is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great. Pharsalia is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus, which occurred in 48 BC, near Pharsalus, Thessaly, in northern Greece. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which occupies all of the epic's seventh book. Though incomplete, the poem is generally considered the second best epic written in Latin, after Virgil's Aeneid. Pharsalia Technologies Logo Pharsalia Technologies, Inc. ... Coordinates 39°18′ N 22°23′ E Country Greece Periphery Thessaly Prefecture Larissa Population 10,812 source (2001) Elevation 160 m Postal code 403 00 Area code 24910 Licence plate code ΡΙ Website farsala. ... The literature of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire written in the Latin language. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (November 3, AD 39-April 30, 65), better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, and is one of the outstanding figures of the Silver Latin period. ... Combatants Julius Caesar and supporters, the Populares faction, Roman senate, the Optimates faction, Commanders Julius Caesar Pompey†, Titus Labienus†, Metellus Scipio†, Cato the younger†, Gnaeus Pompeius† Sextus Pompeius The Roman civil war of 49 BC, sometimes called Caesars Civil War, is one of the last conflicts within the Roman... For other uses, see Julius Caesar (disambiguation). ... The Roman Senate (Latin: Senatus) was the main governing council of both the Roman Republic, which started in 509 BC, and the Roman Empire. ... This article refers to the Roman General. ... Combatants Populares Optimates Commanders Gaius Julius Caesar Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus Strength Approximately 22,000 legionaries, 5,000-10,000 Auxiliaries and Allies, and Allied Cavalry of 1800 Approximately 60,000 legionaries, 4,200 Auxiliaries and Allies, and Allied Cavalry of 5,000-8,000 Casualties 1,200 6,000 The... Consuls: Gaius Julius Caesar, Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus. ... Farsala (Greek: Φάρσαλα), ancient times: Pharsalus is one of the largest cities in the prefecture and is also a municipality as well as a province. ... Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation). ... Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos) is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BC) that tells the legendary story...

Origins

The poem was begun around 61 AD and several books were in circulation before Nero and Lucan had a bitter falling out. Lucan continued to work on the epic--despite Nero's prohibition against any publication of Lucan's poetry--and it was left unfinished when Lucan was compelled to suicide as part of the Pisonian conspiracy in 65 AD. A total of ten books were written and all survive; the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt. This article is about the year 61. ... The conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso (65 CE) represented one of the major turning points in the reign of Nero (54-68 CE). ... Headline text Events By place Roman Empire Gaius Calpurnius Piso conspires against Roman emperor Nero. ...

Summary

Book I - After a brief introduction lamenting the idea of Romans fighting Romans and a flattering dedication to Nero, the poem introduces Pompey and Caesar. Despite an urgent plea from the Spirit of Rome to lay down his arms, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, rallies his troops and marches south to Rome, joined by Curio along the way. The book closes with panic in the city, terrible portents and visions of the disaster to come.

Book 2 - In a city overcome by dispair, old veterans present a lengthy interlude regarding the previous civil war that pitted Marius against Sulla. Cato is introduced as a heroic man of principle; as abhorrent as civil war is, he argues to Brutus that it is better to fight than do nothing. After siding with Pompey--the lesser of two evils--he remarries his ex-wife and heads to the field. Caesar continues south through Italy and is delayed by Domitius' brave resistance. He attempts a blockade of Pompey at Brundisium, but the general makes a narrow escape to Greece. Gaius Marius (Latin: C·MARIVS·C·F·C·N)¹ (157 BC - January 13, 86 BC) was a Roman general and politician elected Consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. ... Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (Latin: L·CORNELIVS·L·F·P·N·SVLLA·FELIX) ¹ (ca. ... // Cato may refer to: Romans, in the family Porcii: Cato the Elder or the Censor (Marcus Porcius Cato 234BC–149BC), Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus, son of Cato the Elder by his first wife Licinia, jurist Marcus Porcius Cato, son of Cato Licinianus, consul 118 BC, died in Africa... Brutus is a Roman cognomen used by several politicians of the Junii family, especially in the Roman Republic. ... Brundisium (Gr. ...

Book 3 - As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by Julia, his dead wife and Caesar's daughter. Caesar returns to Rome and plunders the city, while Pompey reviews potential foreign allies. Caesar then heads for Spain, but his troops are detained at the lengthy siege of Massilia (Marseilles), ultimately won in a bloody naval battle.

Book 4 - The first half of this book is occupied with Caesar's victorious campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius. Switching scenes to Pompey, his forces intercept a raft carrying Caesarians, who prefer to kill each other than be taken prisoner. The book concludes with Curio launching an African campaign on Caesar's behalf, where he is defeated and slain by the African king Juba.

Book 5 - The Senate in exile confirms Pompey the true leader of Rome. Appius consults the Delphic oracle to learn of his fate in the war, and leaves with a misleading prophesy. In Italy, after diffusing a mutiny, Caesar marches to Brundisium and sails across the Adriatic to meet Pompey's forces. Only a portion of his troops have crossed when a storm prevents further transit; he tries to personally send a message back, but is himself nearly drowned. Finally, the storm subsides, and the armies face each other. With battle at hand, Pompey sends his wife to the island of Lesbos. Lesbos may refer to: Lesbos Island, a large Greek island in the Aegean Sea Lesbos Prefecture, the Greek prefecture that contains the island Slang word for Lesbians. ...

Book 6 - Pompey's forces--featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva--force Caesar's troops to fall back to Thessaly. At this point Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the armies wait for battle the next day. The remainder of the book follows Pompey's son Sextus, who wishes to know the future. He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly, Erictho, and she reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier in a terrifying ceremony. The soldier predicts Pompey's defeat and Caesar's eventual assassination.

Book 7 - The soldiers are pressing for battle, but Pompey is reluctant until Cicero convinces him to attack. The Caesarians are victorious, and Lucan laments the loss of liberty. Caesar is especially cruel as he mocks the dying Domitius and forbids cremation to the dead Pompeians. The scene is punctuated by a description of wild animals knawing at the corpses, and a lament from Lucan for Thessalia, infelix - ill-fated Thessaly.

Book 8 - Pompey himself escapes to Lebos, reunites with his wife, and then goes to Cilicia to consider his options. He decides to enlist aid from Egypt, but the Pharaoh is fearful of retribution from Caesar and plots to murder Pompey when he lands. Pompey suspects treachery; he consoles his wife and rows alone to the shore, meeting his fate with Stoic poise. His headless body is flung into the ocean, but washes up on shore and receives a humblburial from Cordus. The Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, 1199-1375. ...

Book 9 - Pompey's wife mourns her husband and Cato takes up leadership of the Senate's cause. He plans to regroup and marches heroically across Africa to King Juba, a trek that occupies most of the middle section of the book. On the way, he passes an oracle but refuses to consult it, citing Stoic principles. Caesar visits Troy and pays respects to his ancestral gods. A short time later he arrives in Egypt; when Pharaoh's messenger present him with the head of Pompey, Caesar feigns grief to hide his joy at Pompey's death.

Book 10 - Caesar arrives in Egypt, where he is beguiled by the Pharaoh's sister Cleopatra. A banquet is held, but Pothinus, Ptolemy's cynical and bloodthirsty chief minister, plots an assassination of Caesar and is killed in a surprise attack on the palace. A second attack comes from Ganymede, an Egyptian noble, and the poem breaks off abruptly as Caesar is fighting for his life.

Themes

Though the Pharsalia is an historical epic, it would be wrong to think Lucan is interested in the details of history itself. As one commentator has pointed out, Lucan is more concerned "with the significance of events rather than the events themselves."^[1]

Lucan emphasizes the despair of his topic in the poem's first seven lines (the same length as the opening to Virgil's Aeneid): Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos) is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BC) that tells the legendary story...

Events throughout the poem are described in terms of insanity and sacrilege. Most of the main characters are terribly flawed and unattractive; Caesar is cruel and vindictive, while Pompey is ineffective and uninspiring. Far from glorious, the battle scenes are portraits of bloody horror, where nature is ravaged to build terrible siege engines and wild animals tear mercilessly at the flesh of the dead (perhaps reflecting the taste of an audience accustomed to the bloodlust of gladiatorial games).

The grand exception to this generally bleak portrait is Cato, who stands as a Stoic ideal in the face of a world gone mad (he alone, for example, refuses to consult oracles to know the future). Pompey also seems transformed after Pharsalus, becoming a kind of secular martyr through his calm in the face of certain death upon arrival in Egypt and his virtual canonization at the start of book IX. This elevation of Stoic and Republican principles is in sharp contrast to the ambitious and imperial Caesar, who becomes an even greater monster after the decisive battle. Even though Caesar wins in the end, Lucan makes his sentiments known in the famous line Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni - "The victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato."

Given Lucan's clear anti-imperialism, the flattering book I dedication to Nero--which includes lines like multum Roma tamen debet ciuilibus armis | quod tibi res acta est - "But Rome is greater by these civil wars, because it resulted in you"^[3]--is somewhat puzzling. Some scholars have tried to read these lines ironically, but most see it as a traditional dedication written at a time before the true depravity of Lucan's patron was revealed. Statements from the various "Lives" state that three books of the poem were in circulation before Lucan and Nero has a falling out, a fact that seems to support this position.

Style

Lucan is heavily influenced by Latin poetic tradition, most notably Ovid's Metamorphoses and of courseVirgil's Aeneid, the work to which the Pharsalia is most naturally compared. Lucan frequently appropriates ideas from Virgil's epic and "inverts" them to undermine their original, heroic purpose. Sextus' visit to the Thracian witch Erichtho provides an example; the scene and language clearly reference Aeneas' descent into the underworld (also in book VI), but while Virgil's description highlights optimism toward the future glories of Rome under Augustan rule, Lucan uses the scene to present a bitter and gory pessimism concerning the loss of liberty under the coming empire. For other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation) Publius Ovidius Naso (March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD) was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid who wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. ... Disambiguation: This article is about the poem Metamorphoses written by the poet Ovid. ... For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation). ... Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos) is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BC) that tells the legendary story...

Like all Silver Age poets, Lucan received the rhetorical training common to upper-class young men of the period. The suasoria--a school exercise where students wrote speeches advising an historical figure on a course of action--no doubt inspired Lucan to compose some of the speeches found in the text^[4]. Lucan also follows the Silver Age custom of punctuating his verse with short, pithy lines or slogans known as sententiae, a rhetorical tactic used to grab the attention of a crowd interested in oratory as a form of public entertainment. Quintilian singles out Lucan as a writer clarissimus sententiis - "most famous for his sententiae", and for this reason magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus - "(he is) to be imitated more by orators than poets"^[5]. A silver age is a name often given to a particular period within a history, typically as a lesser and later successor to a golden age, the metal silver generally being valuable, but less so than gold. ...

Finally, in another break with Golden Age storytelling, Lucan is fond of discontinuity. He presents his narrative as a series of discrete episodes often without any transitional or "scene-changing" lines, much like Ovid's Metamorphoses. The poem is more naturally organized on principles such as aesthetic balance or correspondence of scenes between books rather than a desire to follow the story from a single narrative point of view. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Influence

Lucan's work was popular in his own day and remained a school text in late antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Over 400 manuscripts survive; it's interest to the court of Charlemagne is attested by five complete manuscripts surviving from the 9th century. Lucan himself is included with the other classical poets mentioned by Dante in the first circle of the Inferno, and alludes to him in the amusing scene with Antaeus (a giant depicted in a story from Lucan's book IV). Christopher Marlowe published a translation of book I, while Thomas May followed with a complete translation into heroic couplets in 1626. The success of this translation led May to write a Latin continuation of Lucan's incomplete poem. The seven books of May's effort take the story through to Caesar's assasination. Charlemagne (left) and Pippin the Hunchback. ... DANTE is also a digital audio network. ... Look up inferno, Inferno, infernal in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the English dramatist. ... Thomas May (1595 - 1650), poet and historian, born in Sussex, son of Sir Thomas May, of Mayfield, went to Cambridge, and thence to Grays Inn, but discarded law for literature. ...

The line Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni has been a favorite for supporters of "lost" causes over the centuries. One American example comes from the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetary, which has these words inscribed on its base. Motto Deo Vindice (Latin: Under God, Our Vindicator) Anthem (none official) God Save the South (unofficial) The Bonnie Blue Flag (unofficial) Dixie (unofficial) Capital Montgomery, Alabama (until May 29, 1861) Richmond, Virginia (May 29, 1861–April 2, 1865) Danville, Virginia (from April 3, 1865) Language(s) English (de facto) Religion... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The English poet and classicist A.E. Housman published a landmark critical edition of the poem in 1926. Alfred Edward Housman (March 26, 1859 _ April 30, 1936) was an English poet and classical scholar, now best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. ...

External Links

• Carolus Hermannus Weise, Leipzig, G. Bassus. (1835). online text
• Link to Latin text at the Latin Library
• Link to May's continuation
• Sir Edward Ridley's 1896 English translation of the Pharsalia

The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. ...

Significant quotes

• Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni (The victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato.) [Book I.128]
• Deratne tibi fiducia nostri? (Was it this lack of self-confidence that troubled you?) [Oak-leafed Laelius, chief centurion, to Caesar. Book I.362 - see surrounding for context.]
• Audendo magnus tegitur timor (A show of daring oft conceals great fear.) [Book IV.702]

Translations

• Sir Edward Ridley (1896) online text (The Online Medieval & Classical Library)
• J. D. Duff, M.A. and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1928 printing, renewed through 1988).

Notes