Lucan’s Civil War – The Wars Within, The Wars Without

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan) was born in Corduba, Spain in 39 CE. and, by the end of his short life, he died by suicide as a result of being implicated in a plot to overthrow and assassinate the emperor Nero (the Pisonian Conspiracy) in 65 CE. Nero commissioned him to write an epic. Lucan’s uncle, the stoic philosopher and advisor to Nero, most likely helped educate Lucan and taught him stoic principles and themes, which we can see scattered throughout his epic, Civil War (Bellum Civile). Lucan wrote the epic a century later, at a time when the Julio-Claudian line was coming to a violent, mad end in the figure of the emperor Nero.

Civil War documents the apocalyptic civil war between Pompey and Caesar in 48 BCE which marks the collapse of Rome’s democratic Republic and the birth of monarchy in the Roman Empire. Lucan wrote the epic a century later, at a time when the Julio-Claudian line was coming to a violent, mad end in the figure of the emperor Nero. The poem itself is heavily influenced by Vergil’s Aeneid, his uncle Seneca’s works, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses and marks the collapse of Rome’s democratic Republic and the birth of monarchy in the Roman Empire.

When we asked a veteran of OIF, our former student, “Why read Civil War?” he referred to the book as a bridge — from his experience as a combat soldier to his experience as a student, from ancient Rome to now, and from his inner world to the outside one. He spoke of the absurdity of Lucan’s text, that it reminded him of when he was with his buddies overseas during his three deployments, and how absurd and inappropriate they were with one another — and still are — when they get together. Civil War connected to this veteran’s experience because it celebrates individual soldiers while being critical of the state, reclaims soldiers’ autonomy from the enemy in death, glories and simultaneously despairs in graphic and gory content, and exults in soldiers’ strength through adversity. This text, in its excess, violence, sadness, and absurdity, builds a bridge from the past to the present, from the civil war of ancient Rome to the conflicts of today, and for soldiers and veterans to come home, negotiate and even resolve the wars within and the wars without.

Further Reading