LUCANUS, M. ANNÆUS, a celebrated Latin poet, who was born at Corduba, now Cordova, a city of Bætica, the southern province of Spain, A. D. 38, the year after the accession of the Emperor Caligula. He was the son of Annæus Mela, a Roman knight of considerable reputation, and the brother of the philosopher Seneca. The young Lucan, educated at Rome in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy by Annæus Cornutus, displayed at an early age great poetical talents. His uncle Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, made him acquainted with that prince, who, admiring his numerous acquirements, raised him to the quaestorship before his usual age, loaded him with favours, and even honoured him so far as to enter the lists of literary competition against him. Lucan sung the descent of Orpheus to the infernal regions, Nero the metamorphosis of Niobe; and it is said that Lucan, forgetful of his duties as a courtier, carried off the palm of victory, and thereby lost the favour of the emperor (Stat. Silv. ii. 7, 58). It is impossible to fix the period when he composed those adulatory verses which disgrace the beginning of the Pharsalia; but, from their disgusting servility, we might be inclined to suppose that they were addressed to a tyrant who was well known and feared. According to an ancient tradition, one of these verses had already prepared the emperor to take umbrage at any thing that had the appearance of an insult. Nero quitted, and was deeply offended at the verse,
Unde tuam vides obliquo sidere Romam.
All these various circumstances excited the wrath of the tyrant; and when Lucan, having composed a poem on the burning of Troy and on that of Rome, requested permission to read it at the public theatre, according to the custom of those times, this favour was denied him. Such persecution irritated the poet, and induced him to join a conspiracy against the emperor, which was composed of all the best citizens of Rome. It was, however, discovered before it could be carried into execution; and many of the conspirators were arrested and put to the torture. It is said that Lucan, on promise of his life, denounced his associates, and was base enough even to name his own mother.
Such conduct, however, does not appear to have procured for him forgiveness, as the only favour granted was the choice of his mode of death. In his last moments Lucan recovered his firmness of mind, and, opening his veins in a warm bath, allowed himself to bleed to death, whilst it is said to have repeated his own description (Pharsalia, iii. 637) of the death-scene of a young warrior who has been wounded by a serpent.
Scinditur avulsus: ruptis cadit undique venis,
Discursusque animæ diversa in membra meantis
Interceptus aquis. Nullius vita pereunti
Est tanta dimissa via. Pars ultima trunci
Tradidit in letum vacuos vitalibus artus.
He died at the age of twenty-seven, in the year 65 of our era, leaving a wife, Polla Argentaria, one of the most remarkable women of her time (Tacit. Ann. xv. 49, 56, 76; Sidon. Apollinar. ii. Ep. 10).
Lucan was the author of many works which have not come down to us, particularly the Burning of Troy, the Burning of Rome, the Descent of Æneas to the Infernal Regions, Ten books of Sylvæ, Medea an imperfect tragedy and Epistles, one of which, in praise of Calpurnius Pro, has been preserved; but the work for which he is most celebrated is his poem entitled Pharsalia, in ten books, which he did not live to finish. The subject of the poem is the war between Cæsar and Pompey, from its commencement.
ment to the siege of Alexandria. Lucan adheres closely to chronological order in his narrative, and scarcely deviates from historical truth in his account of the various transactions. From the little scope he allows to his imaginative powers, some critics have thought that Lucan should not be considered as an epic poet, but ranked amongst historians. His poetical merits have in all ages been fiercely contested; some considering him equal to Virgil and Ovid, whilst others have placed him in the lowest rank of poets. The judgment of posterity, however, is without appeal, and it has long stamped the character of the poem as cold and declamatory, notwithstanding that there are many passages full of genuine poetry. The style is by no means uniform, and even the political sentiments of the author vary in different parts of the work. In the first three books his love of freedom is scarcely to be discovered, and every opinion is suppressed which was likely to have offended Nero. In the remainder of the poem, as his hatred increased against Nero, we can trace his aspirations after freedom gradually growing stronger. There seems no good reason for believing that the poet had any great moral end in view, except perhaps that he wished to excite in the breasts of his countrymen a love of freedom, by exhibiting before their eyes the last contest which their ancestors had maintained in its defence. He wished also, perhaps, like the historian Livy, to forget the fearful images of the present, by occupying his mind with, and dwelling on, the past. His want of a glowing imagination and of inventive genius is somewhat counterbalanced by powerful and energetic language, by a disdain of every thing that is mean or groveling, and by noble thoughts, which are uttered with all the dignified seriousness of a Stoic. There are many editions of this work, but one of the best is that of Burmann (Leyden, 1740), and the last is that by C. F. Weber, in 3 vols., the last of which contains some valuable scholia (Leipzig, 1828).