Lucan, Pharsalia
translation and notes by the esteemed S. H. Braund
Notes follow translation and are organized by line numbers. Lines that have explanatory notes have the line number in brackets at the end of the line.
SELECTIONS FROM BOOK ONE: 1-45, 127-182, 584 to end
1-45
Of wars across Emathian plains, worse than civil wars,[1; 1-7]
and of legality conferred on crime we sing, and of a mighty people
attacking its own guts with victorious sword-hand,
of kin facing kin, and, once the pact of tyranny was broken,[4]
of conflict waged with all the forces of the shaken world
for universal guilt, and of standards ranged in enmity against
standards, of eagles matched and javelins threatening javelins.[6-7]
What madness was this, O citizens? What this excessive freedom [8-32]
with the sword - to offer Latian blood to hated nations?
And when proud Babylon was there to be stripped of Ausonian 10
trophies and when Crassus wandered with his ghost unavenged,
did you choose to wage wars which would bring no triumphs?[12]
A bitter thought - how much of earth and sea might have been won
with this blood shed by the hands of fellow-citizens:
where Titan rises, where Night conceals the star,
where midday blazes with its scorching regions,
where winter, stiff and never eased by spring,
binds with Scythian chill the icy Pontus![15-18]
Beneath our yoke already the Seres and barbarian Araxes could
have come and the race, if it exists, which knows Nile's birth.[20] 20
If your love of an abominable war is so great, Rome,
only when you have brought the entire world beneath the laws of Latium,
turn your hand against yourself; not yet are you without an enemy.
But now the walls are tumbling in the towns of Italy,
the houses half-destroyed, and, the defences collapsed,
the huge stones lie; no guardian occupies the homes
and in the ancient cities wanders only an occasional inhabitant;
Hesperia bristles now with thorns, unploughed
through many a year, lacking the hands for fields which demand them-
the author of such a great calamity will prove to be not you, 30
fierce Pyrrhus, nor the Carthaginian; no foreign sword has ever penetrated [31]
so: it is wounds inflicted by the hand of fellow-citizen that have sunk deep.
But if the Fates could find no other way [33-45]
for Nero's coming, if eternal kingdoms are purchased
by the gods at great cost, if heaven could serve its Thunderer
only after wars with the ferocious Giants,
then we have no complaint, O gods; for this reward we accept
even these crimes and guilt; though Pharsalia fill its dreadful
plains, though the Carthaginian's shade with blood be sated; [39]
though the final battle be joined at fatal Munda; 40
though added to these horrors, Caesar, be the famine of Perusia [41]
and the struggles of Mutina, the fleets overwhelmed [42]
near rugged Leucas, and the slave wars under burning Etna, [43]
yet Rome owes much to citizens' weapons, because it was
for you that all was done. [45-66]
...
127-182
They met not equally matched. One with years declining [129-130]
towards old age and grown milder through long experience of civil life 130
had now in peace unlearnt the general's part, and, seeking fame,
was generous to the crowd, wholly driven by the popular [133]
winds, rejoicing in applause in the theatre he had built,
and without restoring his strength afresh, he relied chiefly [135]
on his former fortune. He stands, the shadow of a great name;
like in a fruitful field a lofty oak,
bearing the people's spoils of old and generals'
hallowed dedications; clinging with roots no longer strong,
by its own weight it stands firm, and spreading naked branches
through the air, it makes shade with trunk, not foliage; 140
and though it totters, ready to fall beneath the first Eurus,
though all around so many trees upraise themselves with sturdy trunks,
yet it alone is venerated. Contrast Caesar: he had not only
a general's name and reputation, but never-resting
energy; his only shame was conquering without war;
fierce, indomitable, wherever hope and indignation called
he moved to action, never shrank from defiling his sword,
he followed up his own successes, pressed hard upon the deity's
favour, driving back all obstacles to his high
ambitions and rejoicing to create his path by destruction. 150
Just so flashes out the thunderbolt shot forth by the winds through clouds,
accompanied by the crashing of the heavens and sound of shattered ether;
it splits the sky and terrifies the panicked
people, scaring eyes with slanting flame;
against its own precincts it rages, and, with nothing solid stopping [155]
its course, both as it falls and then returns great is the devastation
dealt far and wide before it gathers again its scattered fires.
These were the leaders' motives; but in the state there also lay [158-182]
the seeds of war, which always have engulfed powerful peoples.
For when Rome had subdued the world and Fortune introduced 160
excessive wealth, when morals gave way before prosperity,
when booty and the plunder from the enemy urged luxurious life,
then there was no limit to gold and houses, and hunger spurned
the tables of former times; clothes hardly decent
for young wives to wear were seized upon by men; warrior-bearing
poverty they shun. and from all the world import
the bane of every nation; next their fields' boundaries [167]
they prolonged and joined, and under unknown tenant-farmers
they stretched out far the lands once ploughed by the hard share
of Camillus and worked by ancient spades of the Curii. 170
This people could not take pleasure in tranquil peace
or be satisfied by liberty with weapons untouched.
That was the cause of passions quickly roused, of crime despicable
urged by want; it was an honour great and to be sought by sword,
to have more power than the state; the yardstick of legality was
violence-hence the forcing through of laws and rulings of the plebs; [176]
tribunes, consuls all alike disrupting justice;
hence the Rods of office seized by bribery, the people
selling its own votes, corruption bringing death to Rome,
repeating annual contests on the mercenary Campus; 180
hence ravenous money-lending, interest greedy for its appointed time,
and credit shaken and war advantageous to many.
...
584 to end of book one
Hence their decision in accord with ancient custom, [584-638] 584
to send for prophets from Etruria. Of these , the eldest, [585]
Arruns, lived in empty Luca's city-walls, [586]
expert in the movement of the thunderbolt, in the warm pulse
of entrails, and in warning of the wing which flits in air. [587-88]
First he orders the destruction of the freaks produced
by riotous nature from no seed, incineration in accursed [590-91] 590
flames of the abominable progeny of barren womb. [591]
Next he orders a procession of the frightened citizens
all round Rome: the chief priests, who are permitted to perform [593]
the rite, purify the city-walls with solemn ceremony, [594]
and move around the furthest limit of Rome's long Pomerium. [595]
Behind them comes the lesser throng, clothes hitched up in Gabine manner, [596]
and the priestess wearing chaplets leads the Vestal band
--she alone may rightly look on Troy's Minerva. [598]
Next come the keepers of the gods' decrees and mystic verses, [599]
the priests who reinstate Cybele when she has bathed in little Almo, [600] 600
the augur skilled at spotting lucky birds,
the Seven festive at the banquets. the Titian brethren, [602]
and the Salians rejoicing to bear the sacred shields on their shoulders [603]
and the Flamens who raise aloft the pointed cap on noble head. [604]
And while with long and wheeling path they circle Rome's
great spread, Arruns collects the scattered fires
of the thunderbolt. with gloomy mutter buries them in the earth,
and declares them holy places. Then he guides towards the sacred altars [608]
the bull with chosen neck, had now begun to pour
Bacchus and sprinkle with the slanting knife the salted grains. [610] 610
The victim long resisted the ritual displeasing to the gods, [611]
and only when the belted attendants pushed down its fierce horns
did it sink upon its knee and offer its defeated neck.
And no blood as usual spurted out, but black slime
instead of red gore spread from the gaping wound.
Arruns blanched, appalled by the ill-omened rites,
and seized the entrails to seek the cause of divine wrath.
Their very colour terrifies the prophet; the pale guts
were tinged with foul blotches, darkened with congealed gore,
and chequered with grey stains and bloodspots. 620
He sees the liver dripping with decay and, in its hostile half, [621]
defiant veins. The lobe of gasping lung
lies still and a crooked line divides the organs.
The heart is invisible, through yawning cracks the guts exude
corrupted blood and the caul betrays its hidden things. [625]
And look, he sees a portent which never occurs in entrails
unthreateningly. an the liver's head there grows the lump
of a second head: one part droops, weak and flabby, [628]
the other throbs, and boisterously it moves the pulse with rapid beat.
When from these signs he understood the prophecy of great disaster, 630
he exclaims: 'It is hardly right for me, gods, to reveal to the peoples
all the turmoil which you plan; and, greatest Jupiter, I have not appeased
you with this offering, but infernal gods have come into
the slain bull's breast. Unutterable are the things we fear, but soon
our fears will be exceeded. May the gods make these sights prosperous,
or may the entrails prove unreliable, a mere invention of Tages, [636]
founder of the art.' So the Etruscan prophesied, and wrapped
and veiled the omens in obscure ambiguity.
Then spoke Figulus, keen student of the gods [639; 639-72]
and secrets of the sky, unequalled by Egyptian Memphis [640] 640
in stellar observation and in calculations following the stars:
'It may be that this universe for ever drifts
ungoverned and the stars range at random.
But if the Fates are in control, imminent destruction is planned
for Rome and humankind. Will the earth yawn wide
and cities downwards sink? Or will the scorching air destroy
the mild climate? Will faithless soil withhold the crops?
Or will all water be infected by streams of poison?
What kind of disaster do you plan, a gods? With what instrument
of doom for your cruelty? At a single time the final days 650
of many have converged. If at the height of heaven Saturn's
cold and harmful star were lighting his black fires,
then Aquarius would have poured down rains rivalling Deucalion's [653]
and all the earth would lie hidden beneath the flood's wide spread.
If with your rays you, Phoebus, now were overwhelming
the fierce Nemean Lion, then through all the world [656]
would conflagration flow and ether blaze, ignited by your chariot.
Such fires are nowhere to be found. But what are your dread plans,
Gradivus. as You set fire to Scorpio, so menacing with blazing tail, [659]
and scorch his claws? For kindly Jupiter is sunk 660
deep in the west and Venus' beneficial
star is dim and swift Cyllenius is retarded on his course
and Mars is sole lord of the sky. Why have the constellations left
their paths to move obscurely through the universe?
And why does sword-girt Orion's side so intensely shine?
Because war's frenzy is upon us: the power of the sword
shall overthrow legality by might, and impious crime
shall bear the name of heroism, and this madness shall extend
for many a year. And what use is it to ask the gods to end it?
The peace we long for brings a master. Rome, prolong your chain 670
of disaster without a break and protract calamity
for lengthy ages: only now in civil war are you free.'
These portents greatly terrified the people into panic, [673-95]
but they are overwhelmed by worse. As the Bacchante races down
from Pindus' summit, filled with Lyaeus of Ogygia, [675]
so a matron sweeps through stunned Rome, revealing
with these words that Phoebus is harrying her breast:
'O Paean, where are you taking me? You whisk me over the ether; [678]
where do you set me down? I see Pangaea white
with snow-clad ridges and broad Philippi under Haemus' crag. 680
What madness this, O Phoebus, tell: why do Roman battle-lines
contend with hands and weapons? Why war without an enemy? [682]
Where else now are you taking me? You lead me eastwards,
where sea is dyed by Egyptian Nile's flood:
him I recognize, lying on the river sands, [685]
an unsightly headless corpse. I am taken over seas to shifting [686-88]
Syrtes and to parched Libya: this is where grim Enyo [687]
has shifted Emathia's battle-lines. Now I am hurried
over mountains of the cloud-capped Alps and soaring [689-90]
Pyrenees. Back I come to the abodes of my native Rome, 690
to impious war waged in the Senate's midst. [691]
The factions rise again, again I travel through [692]
all the world. Let me gaze on different sea-shores,
different land: already have I seen Philippi, Phoebus.' [694]
So she spoke and then collapsed, abandoned by exhausted frenzy.
NOTES
BOOK I
1-7 The subject of the poem is announced.
1 worse than civil wars: because Pompey and Caesar were not only fellow citizens but related to one another by marriage.
4 the pact of tyranny was broken: the so-called First Triumvirate, in which Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus agreed to co-operate politically with each other. The pact, made in 60 BC, broke down in the late 50s.
6-7 of standards. ..javelins: the standards (signa), eagles (aquilae), and javelins (pila) are all distinctively Roman equipment.
8-32 Lucan regrets the civil war when Rome might have been conquering the rest of the world.
12 wars which would bring no triumphs: a triumph could be earned only by a victory over a foreign enemy.
15-18 Lucan refers to east, west, south, and north in turn by means of periphrases; 'Titan' and 'the star' both denote the sun.
20 Nile's birth: a topic of fascination to the Romans; Lucan includes a discussion of the subject in book 10.
31 Pyrrhus: king of Epirus, who inflicted several major defeats on Rome in the third century BC.
the Carthaginian: i.e. Hannibal, who waged the Second Punic War against Rome, 218-201 BC.
33-45 Lucan declares that the civil war and other terrible events which followed are made worthwhile by Nero.
39 the Carthaginian's shade: i.e. Hannibal's ghost, imagined as awaiting revenge for his defeats at the hands of the Romans. Lucan refers to the battle of Thapsus in 46 BC fought in Africa not far from Carthage.
41 Caesar: i.e. Nero
the famine of Perusia: a town in Italy (modern Perusia) where Augustus (then Octavian) besieged Mark Antony's brother Lucius for several months in 41 BC.
42 the struggles of Mutina: in 44 BC Mark Antony besieged Decimus Brutus in the city of Mutina; in 43 BC the consuls came to Brutus' aid and ended the siege but were killed by Antony in battle nearby.
43 the slave wars: Pompey's son Sextus with his fleet partly manned by slaves was defeated in the Sicilian seas in 36 BC
45-66 In a prayer to Nero, Lucan looks forward to his deification and asks him to inspire poetry.
129-30 years declining towards old age: in fact, Pompey was only six years older than Caesar.
130 through long experience of civil life: Pompey's previous experience of active warfare had been fourteen years earlier, in his victory over Mithridates of Pontus in 63 BC.
132 generous to the crowd: Pompey staged shows and games to entertain the people, for example at the opening of his theatre, Plutarch, Pomp. 52
133 the theatre he had built: Pompey built Rome's first stone theatre in 55 BC.
135 the shadow of a great name: Lucan alludes to Pompey's nickname Magnus ('The Great') when he uses the word 'great' (magnus).
155 its own precincts: the part of the sky from where it came.
158-82 The causes of the war 3: the luxury brought by Rome's military superiority and empire caused a breakdown in law and morality, according to Lucan. Cf Sallust, Bell. Cat. 10-11.
167 the bane of every nation: lit. 'the thing because of which every nation perishes', i.e. luxury objects.
176 laws and rulings of the plebs: technically laws (leges) were passed by the entire people including the patricians, whereas 'decrees of the people' (plebiscita), the normal form of legislation and binding on the whole people, were passed by popular assemblies in which no patrician cast his vote. The legislation mentioned in 177 introduced by consuls, not tribunes, was a shocking deviation.
582-3 Marius burst his tomb... waters of the Anio: possibly an allusion to Sulla's treatment of Marius' remains: he broke open the grave then threw Marius' body into the River Anio: Cicero, Leg. 2. 56, Valerius Maximus 9. 2. I. The names of both Marius and Sulla bear overtones of civil war.
584-638 Therefore the decision is taken to consult the Etruscan prophet, Arruns, who purifies the city. But the sacrifices go badly and Arruns prophesies doom to come.
585 prophets from Etruria: divination was an Etruscan art; cf. Ovid, Met. 15. 558-9.
586 Luca: a town in Liguria (mod. Lucca).
587-8 For a description of the different types of divination see the entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. 2nd edn. (1970).356-7.
590-1 accursed flames: kindled by ill-omened types of wood.
591 progeny of barren womb: possibly the offspring of a mule or more generally births by parthenogenesis (virgin birth).
593 chief priests: the pontifices and other priests.
594 ceremony: a ceremony of ritual purification (lustrum).
595 Pomerium: the empty space outside Rome's walls, part of the city's religious boundary.
596 in Gabine manner: an ancient way of wearing the toga derived from Gabii, an ancient Latin town of religious importance, cf. Virgil, Aen. 7.612
598 Troy's Minerva: i.e. the Palladium (an image of Pallas Athene = Minerva) brought by Aeneas from Troy and ultimately deposited in the temple of Vesta. Cf. 9. 993.
599 keepers of. ..mystic verses: the College of Fifteen Priests (Quindecimviri) were the custodians of the Sibylline books which contained oracles In verse.
600 Cybele ...bathed in little Almo: once a year a statue of Cybele was bathed in the Almo, a small river near Rome. The College of Fifteen Priests presided over the cult of Cybele.
602 the Seven festive at the banquets: the Septemviri Epulones, the priests in charge of the Feast of Jupiter.
the Titian brethren: a college of priests at Rome, traditionally associated with Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines in Romulus' time. .
603 the Salians: priests of Mars who kept the sacred shields and whose name came from the ritual dances (Latin salio, 'I leap') they performed during their procession through Rome.
604 the Flamens: fifteen priests dedicated to particular gods and chosen from the noblest families of Rome. They wore a conical cap.
608 holy places: a place where lightning had struck was considered sacred and called a bidental, so named from the sacrifice of animals (bidentes) there
610 salted grains: the ground barley mixed with salt thrown on the victims at sacrifices.
611 The victim long resisted: it was considered a sign of the gods' anger (hence 'displeasing') for the victim to struggle.
621 in its hostile half for purposes of divination, the two parts of the liver were labelled for friends and for enemies. The "hostile half" here is thus associated with Caesar.
625 the caul betrays its hidden things: the membrane which normally hides the intestines was open.
628 a second head: a serious omen portending the increase of Caesar's prosperity at Pompey's expense.
636 Tages: an Etruscan said to have sprung from the earth and taught the Etruscans how to foretell the future.
639-72 The Roman philosopher and astrologer Figulus foresees from Mars' prominence and the entire configuration of the sky terrible civil war. Housman points out in his Astronomical Appendix (pp.325-7) that on virtually every count Lucan's astronomy here is wrong.
639 Figulus: Publius Nigidius Figulus, a contemporary of Cicero who was a Pythagorean philosopher and famed astrologer.
640 Egyptian Memphis: in Roman times, the Egyptians were especially renowned for their skill in astrology and divination.
653 rains rivalling Deucalion 's: Deucalion and his wife were the only humans to survive the Flood sent by the gods to punish mankind's wickedness. At Germanicus, Aratea 562 Deucalion is used to denote Aquarius, the water-carrier: so it seems that Lucan is making a recherche allusion here.
656 the fierce Nemean Lion: the constellation of Leo, identified with the lion in the Nemean forest (in Greece) killed by Hercules.
659 Gradivus: one of Mars' titles.
673-95 A Roman matron in a prophetic frenzy foretells the main events of the civil war. This episode is designed to recall, and contrast with, Virgil's description of Amata's feigned Bacchic frenzy at Aen. 7.373- 405.
675 Lyaeus of Ogygia: Bacchus was called Lyaeus (Greek = 'the loosener', a reference to the effect of wine); Ogygian = Theban, referring to Bacchus' birth from Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes.
678 O Paean: one of the names of Phoebus Apollo, literally 'healer'
682 war without an enemy: i.e. a foreign enemy.
685 him: i.e. Pompey, whose death and decapitation is described in book eight.
686-8 over seas. ..Emathia's battle-lines: the battle passed from Thessaly (= Emathia) to North Africa: the mention of the Syrtes and Libya foreshadows Cato's march through the deserts of Libya in book 9. Cato's forces were defeated at the battle of Thapsus in 46 BC.
687 Enyo: a goddess of war.
689-90 over... Alps and. ..Pyrenees: reference to the warfare in Spain between Caesar and Pompey's sons, who were defeated by Caesar at the battle of Munda in 45 BC.
691 impious war waged in the Senate's midst: a reference to the assassination of Caesar by Brutus, Cassius, and others outside the Senate-House in 44 BC.
692 The factions rise again: in place of Pompey and Caesar, Brutus and Cassius against Antony and Augustus, and subsequently Augustus against Antony.
694 already have I seen Philippi: Lucan (here and at 7. 854ff: and 9. 270) along with other authors (Manilius I. 908-13, Ovid, Met. 15. 824. and later Florus 2. 13. 43. Juvenal 8. 242-3) follows Virgil (Georg. I. 489-90) in linking the battles of Pharsalia and Philippi. which were both (at the time when Virgil was writing) in the Roman province of Macedonia. This is no geographical error. but a tribute to Virgil.