LUCA'NUS, MARCUS ANNA US, was born at Corduba (Cordova), in the province of Bwtica, in Spain, A.D. 33. He was the son of M.
Animus Mels, who was the brother of the philosopher Seneca, and was carefully educated at Rome under the most eminent philosophers and rhetoricians of the time. His poetry recommended him to the notice of Nero, who treated him with distinguished honour, and bestowed upon him the dignity of queestor and augur. Lucan did not however remain long in the imperial favour. Nero was ambitious of being considered the best poet of his age; and Lucan was foolish enough to enter into competition with his imperial master, and to receive the prize for the best poem in a literary contest with the emperor. Lucau was accordingly forbidden to publish any more poems; and simply, as it appears, on account of this prohibltiou, he entered into a conspiracy with Piso and many others to assassinate Nero. (Tao., Ann.,' xv. 49.) This conspiracy was detected, and Lucan by a promise of pardon was induced to betray his associates. When he had done so however lie was condemned to death, and he then opened his veins, and died repeating some of his own verses, which described the death of a wounded soldier in consequence of loss of blood. (Tam, ' Ann.,' xv. 70.) He died A.D. 65, in the twenty. seventh year of his age.
Lucan wrote many poems, which have not come down to us, which were entitled respectively= Catacausmos Metes,' 'Catalogue lleroidum," Ilectoris Lyra," Orpheus," Saturnalia," Silver= libri x. ," Medca' (an unfinished tragedy), Satiricto Fabuleo xiv.,' dec. The only work extant is a poem on the civil war between (ew and Pompey, entitled ' Pharsalia,' which gives an account of the war from its commencement to Caesar's visit to Cleopatra in Egypt. The poem
is comprised iu ten books at present, hut since the tenth book leaves off abruptly in the midst of a narrative, it is probable that some part has been lost, or that the poet had not finished the work at the time of his death. The first book opens with the most extravagant adulation of Nero, In which the poet even exceeds the base subserviency of the poets of the age of Augustus. The 'Pharsalia' contains many vigorous and animated descriptions, and the speeches are characterised by cou siderable rhetorical merits, but the language is often inflated, and the expressions extremely laboured and artificial; the poem is also deficient in that truth to nature, and in those appeals to the feelings and the imagination, which excite the sympathy of every class of readers. Still great allowance most be made for the youth of the author, who, if he had lived longer, would probably have cured himself of those faults and defects which are now so conspicuous in his poem.
The best editions of Lucan are by Burmann (1740), Bentley (1760), Weber (1831), and Weise (1835). Among the numerous translations of the ' Pharealia,' those most deserving of notice are—in French, by Marmontel (1766) and Brebeuf (1795) ; in English, by Rowe (1718), by May (1627), who also published in 1630 a continuation of the poem to the death of Julius Caesar, which he afterwards translated into Latin verse (1640), and by H. T. Riley in 'Bohn's Classical Library ;' and in Italian, by Cristoforo Bocella (1804).