MARCUS ANNEUS, was born at Corduba (Cordova), in Spain, in A.D. 38. His father was L. Anneus Mella, a brother of the philosopher Seneca, and a man of equestrian rank, who held the lucrative office of procurator for the public revenues. The information which we possess regarding the youth of Lucan is by no means trustworthy. The ordinary account of this period of his life is drawn from an old Vita Lucani, and sets forth that, conveyed to Rome at the age of eight years, he was carefully educated by the most distinguished philosophers and rhetoricians of the time, under whose instructions he made surprising progress, and gave early proof of being possessed of extraordinary talents; that, having attracted the attention of the Emperor Nero, he was raised to the senate and honoured by a quaestorship while yet a youth; but having afterwards defeated Nero in a poetical contest, was peremptorily commanded by that monarch to refrain from writing poetry in future. As a whole, this narrative is not reliable; yet it is not destitute of authentic elements. The facts seem to be, that roused to jealousy by the extraordinary precocity of the young Spaniard, and by the admiring laudations which his genius called forth, Nero prohibited him from reciting in public. Burning for revenge, the passionate poet joined the celebrated conspiracy of Piso, in which many of the best citizens of Rome were embarked; but having been betrayed, Lucan was induced, through a promise of pardon, to become informer and denounce his associates. He began by naming his innocent mother Attila as one of his accomplices, and afterwards revealed the rest. (Tacit. Ann. xv. 49, &c.) But this traitorous conduct on the part of Lucan did not stand him in good stead. As soon as the leading conspirators were despatched, Nero gave orders that his successful rival should be put to death, and the only favour granted the informer was the liberty of choosing the mode of his death. Summoning all his firmness, and displaying a wild courage equal to the occasion, the unfortunate youth opened his veins in a warm bath, and as his ebbing strength forsook him, began to repeat aloud his own description (Pharsalia, iii. 637) of the death-scene of a young warrior who had perished of his wounds. With those lines on his lips, and at the premature age of twenty-seven (A.D. 65), the poet Lucan expired. He left a wife, Polla Argentarita, to mourn his death, who must have been one of the most remarkable women of her time. It is to her that Statius addresses the birthday ode in honour of Lucan, in which he informs us that the earliest production of the deceased poet was a poem on the death of Hector, and the recovery of his body by Priam; the second, on the descent of Orpheus to the infernal regions; the third, on the burning of Rome; the fourth, an address to his wife Polla; and the last, his only extant work, the Pharsalia. The latter production is a heroic poem in ten books, containing a detailed chronological account of the progress of the contest between Caesar and Pompey from the passage of the Rubicon to the middle of the Alexandrian war. At this point the tenth book stops abruptly; the remaining portion either having been lost or never completed. There is abundant reason for believing that what we now possess of the poem was composed at comparatively distant intervals. The earlier books of the work are characterized by moderation and liberality, with an offensive admixture of flattery to Nero; while as he advances, the spirit of freedom takes fire in him, and he daringly hurl's the fiercest invectives at the head of tyranny, which found itself at that time incarnated in the person of the Emperor Nero. Whether this striking alteration of spirit and manner was awakened by the wanton and progressive cruelty of his imperial patron, or whether it arose from the memory of personal wrong and disgrace, it is impossible to determine.

The poetical merits of Lucan have in all ages been fiercely contested; some considering him equal to Virgil, whilst others have placed him in the lowest rank of poets. Both estimates are alike absurd; the one undiscriminatingly exaggerated of his merits, the other foolishly depreciatory of his powers. As we might be led to expect from these opposing extremes of criticism, Lucan, when impartially studied, reveals singular excellences and as singular defects. He has all the positive elements of a great poet in him,—deep intellectual insight, exalted imagination, burning enthusiasm, noble feeling, fiery energy, and impressive diction; but he wastes his strength by misdirecting it; his power is so exuberant that it overmasters him; he cannot confine it to the path of effective and harmonious activity; it runs wild and irregular, and often ends in extravagance and folly. Time and study would doubtless have done much to emancipate his powers from the crude and depraved taste under which they laboured; but this was denied him.

The best editions of Lucan are those of Oudendorp (1728), Burmann (1740), Bentley (1760), Weber (1821-31), and Weise (1835). The most useful for all practical purposes is the edition of Weber.

The most notable of the numerous translations of the Pharsalia are—in English, by Thomas May (1627), who published (1630) a continuation of the poem to the death of Julius Cæsar; by Rowe (1718); and by Riley (1853). Those in French are by Brebeuf (1655), and Marmontel (1766); in German, by Seckendorff (1695), by von Borck (1749), and by Hans (1792); in Italian, by Boccella (1804).