LUCAN (M. ANN.E1 I A.D. 39 (15 , The chief Roman poet of the Silver \ge. Ile was born at Corduba (the nio.brn Cordova), in Spain. 39. and brought to It -innin his in fancy by his father. silo was a younger 1»., flier of the philosopher Seneca. 11( rev( ite,1 an I• Inca tinn of the hest kind. was a school fellow I Per sins, and a friend of the Erni). ror Nero, and ca tered on life with the most brilliant 1 respects. lie became qmestor and augur, and declaimed and recited in public with the highest applause. But lie soon lost the r of Ncro. who was jealous of his poetry and his fame. and who desired to keep down both. tl ler the sting of this annoy ance. he joined the conspiracy against Nero's life in A.D. (15. According to Tacitus, when arrested after the betrayal of the plot, he tried to save his life by accusing his mother of complicity. But the Emperor did not spare him for the sake of this additional crime; lie was compelled to de stroy himself by having his veins opened, and he died in this way, and with a certain ambitious composure. at twenty-six years of age. Lucan holds a conspicuous place among the poets of Rome. The only work of Ids that has come down to us is the Pharsalia, an epic, in ten books, on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. As an epic it is in parts disappoint iiig; for it proceeds in the manner of annals, and lacks the comprehensiveness, unity, and learning of the greatest works of its class. Nor
is its style, generally speaking. good, for it is often turgid and obscure. But when every deduction has been made, the Pharsalia affords ample proof that Lucan was a man of real and powerful genius. There is an eye for the sublime, both in the moral and physical world, constantly present in it there is all the vigor of poetic oratory in its declamations; and there are felicities of epigram which have secured to many a line a constant freshness of life as part of the familiarly reanembered litera ture of the world. Lucan was very popular in the Middle Ages, and in modern times his poem has been a particular favorite among the lovers of political freedom.
The first hook of the Pharsalia was translated into English verse by Christopher Marlowe in 1593; and the whole poem was set in English verse by Rowe (London, 1718, with several later editions)—a translation which Dr. Johnson thought one of the best in the language. There is a literal English prose translation by Riley (London, 1853). The best editions of the Pha• salia are those of Haskins, with introduction and notes (London, 1887), and Eosins (Leipzig, 1892).