LUCAN (MARCUS ANNAEUS LUCANUS) (A.D. 39 65), Latin poet, born at Corduba (Cordova), son of M. A. Mela and grandson of the elder, nephew of the younger, Seneca (Mart. i., 61, 7, "Of the two Senecas and the one Lucan eloquent Cor duba tells"), was brought as an infant to Rome, where he was carefully educated, among his teachers being the Stoic Cornutus and among his fellow-pupils under that preceptor the Satirist Persius (Sueton. Vit. Pers.). While still young he visited Athens, whence he was recalled by Nero, who bestowed upon him a quaestorship (Sueton. Vit. Lucan). His friendship with Nero did not last, and in A.D. 65 he was "almost the standard-bearer" (paene signifer, Sueton. l.c.) in Piso's conspiracy to murder Nero, moved thereto, it is said, by literary jealousy, Nero having forbidden him to give public recitations of his poetry (Tac. Ann., xv., 49). When the conspiracy was discovered, he attempted on a promise of immunity to save himself by denouncing his mother Acilia (Tac. Ann., xv., 86), but was compelled to commit suicide by opening a vein, April 3o, A.D. 65. Tacitus, Ann., xv., 7o, says, "Thereafter he (Nero) ordered the death of Annaeus Lucanus. As his blood flowed, when he perceived that his feet and hands were growing cold and life ebbing gradually from his extremities, while his breast was still warm and retained intelligence, re membering a poem composed by himself" (Pharsal., iii., 635-646, and ix., 8o8-815, have been suggested), "in which he had told of a wounded soldier dying by the same form of death, he re peated the lines, and that was his last utterance." Lucan wrote a variety of works (Stat. Si/v. ii., 7 [Lucan's Birthday], 54 seq.), in prose as well as verse (Stat. ibid., 22, "Et vinctae pede vocis et solutae"). With the exception of a few fragments his works are lost save the single poem on which his fame now rests. This is called in the mss. Bellum Civile or De Bello Civili, and such a title is supported by a poem of his con temporary Petronius as well as by Joannes Lydus (6th cent. A.D.), De Magistratibus, iii., 46, who writes: "the Roman Lucan in the 2nd Bk. of his Civil War (rc7)v 44vXlcov) says" and then re fers to Lucan 610 f. (cf. ibid. ii.4vMov avyypacfris). The name Pharsalia, by which it is generally known, seems to be an infer ence from Lucan's words in ix., 985, Pharsalia nostra Vivet et a nullo tenebris damnabimur aevo. The poem, an epic (heroic hexameters) in ten books, which was left unfinished at his death, carries the story of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey down to the arrival of Caesar in Egypt after Pompey's death. Corresponding with the change in the relations of Lucan and Nero there is a marked change of tone as the poem proceeds.
At first friendly to the empire—Bk. i., 33-66, is a fulsome eulogy of Nero—it becomes increasingly anti-imperial. The poet is clearly on the side of Pompey and the Senate, whose cause is held to be one (v., 12, "For who would call so many axes drawn in justice, so many fasces, a camp? The venerable order taught the peoples that it was not the party of Magnus, but that Magnus was their partisan"). and is identified with the liberty of the Roman people (vii., 578, "He [Caesar] forbids their hands to assail the common people and points out the Senate ; he knows what is the blood of empire, what the vitals of the state, whence he is to attack Rome, where stands to be stricken the ultimate liberty of the world").
"Lucan," says Quintilian (x., 1., 90), "is ardent and passionate, brilliant in epigram, and, to speak frankly, a model rather for the orator than for the poet." His rhetorical quality pleased the taste of his time (Martial, xiv., 194, puts in Lucan's mouth the epigram : "There are those who say I am not a poet ; but the bookseller who sells me thinks I am"). as that taste was pleased also by the learned allusion, the recondite expression for the sim ple thing, of which Lucan is so full, e.g., v. 3, "Now had mid winter sprinkled the snows on Haemus and the daughter of Atlas setting on chill Olympus, and the day was at hand which gives new names to the Calendar and first worships Janus who leads the seasons" merely indicates the end of the year. "Farthest north or at the equator" becomes: "whether under the icy wain of the Hyperborean Bear or where the torrid region and the axis shut up in heat permit nor nights nor days to grow unequal" (v. 23). Nothing is harder than to determine the legitimate and the illegitimate use of the learned allusion, but at any rate in this kind Lucan was neither better nor worse than his neighbours and his employment of it was as monotonous as his metre. It is quite otherwise with his gift of epigram and memorable phrase : Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum (ii., 657); Vic trix causa deis piaci& sed vista Catoni (i., 128); Stat magni norninis umbra (i., '35).