SOURCE: "Introduction to the Poet and His Age" in Lucan: An Introduction, Cornell University Press, 1976, pp. 17-61.

[In the following excerpt, Ahl explains how some Roman writers used ambiguity of expression to criticize their leaders with relative safety.]

I. The Poet and the Principate

The majority of Roman writers of the first and early second centuries A.D. take a cynical view of the world in which they live. The attacks on the abuse of power, wealth, and human life in Petronius, Persius, Martial, Tacitus, Juvenal, and Suetonius are familiar enough to even the casual reader of the classics. Often neglected, however, is the degree to which this cynicism is found, in one form or another, in writers less frequently read by the modern reader. Valerius Flaccus informs us in the first book of his Argonautica that people of his day have little use for the delights of Elysium.¹ Silius Italicus wishes that Carthage were still standing—better this than that Rome should be what it is in his age.² Lucan's disgust at contemporary decadence as well as Seneca's—and indeed Statius'—vivid portraits of tyrannical savagery and callousness show the same urge to describe a world poised on the brink of spiritual bankruptcy.

There are, of course, exceptions to this widespread disenchantment, but they are few. We may adduce the rather hollow flattery rendered to Domitian by Statius in the Silvae and by Martial in the Epigrams, or the relief expressed by Pliny and Tacitus at the improved atmosphere in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.³ The only clearly enthusiastic view of the post-Augustan world is that of Velleius Paterculus, but then he knew only the first of Augustus' successors.

Even if the accounts of Tacitus, Suetonius, and others often do less than justice to the positive achievements of the Caesars, there is little reason to doubt that vexation and despondency at the political situation in the Roman world lay at the roots of Silver Age cynicism. Life under Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian could hardly merit expressions of enthusiasm from the literate upper and middle classes. The abuse of power by the Caesars might seem, in itself, sufficient grounds for hostility. But what made things worse was the feeling that the Caesars had no right to exercise power at all. For Tacitus, as R. Syme observes, "the essential falsity of the principate lay in the fiction that the supreme authority in the Roman state was voluntarily offered [sc., to the princeps] and legally conveyed, or at least ratified."⁴ But the principate was not, in either theory or practice, a magistracy. Unlike the dictator of republican times, the princeps had no constitutional right to exercise executive power. While it is true that none of the powers Augustus held was without precedent of some sort, and that these powers were generally both magisterial and constitutional, the mere agglomeration of magisterial powers by Augustus did not convert his position as princeps into a magistracy per se.

The Julio-Claudians usually sought confirmation of their powers by the army, senate, and people, but this approval, except in the case of the army, was a formality. Only the army held the raw power to make or dispose of emperors. But the army's power in politics was hardly constitutional. It was not legally entitled to bestow any kind of public office on anyone. When Tacitus refers, in Annales 1.7, to the senatus milesque et populus he is commenting ironically on the de facto not on the de jure situation. Even if we are not prepared to go as far as Syme, who, in the opening sentence of hisTacitus, observes: "the principate arose through usurpation," we must concede that it resulted from the breakdown of constitutional government.⁵

It is quite understandable, then, that elements within the senate should have balked at recognizing the principate as a duly constituted magistracy, since it was, indeed, nothing of the sort. Tacitus saw the title princeps as the veil with which Augustus masked his power.⁶ And here, perhaps, lay the most irritating facet of the principate. Augustus took some pains to maintain the fiction that the new government was essentially a continuation of the republic, that no fundamental change had taken place. Tiberius, on his accession, followed suit. As a result there was no attempt to define, in constitutional terms, what the princeps was. Theoretically the senate and people still controlled the state, but clearly they did not really do so. Popular elections were either done away with or rendered meaningless by the practice of destinatio; imperial nomination became the pathway to high public office.⁷ The reduction of the consuls' tenure to six months by using consules suffecti combined with the growth of an imperial—and often non-Latin—bureaucracy responsible only to the princeps threatened to reduce the senate to a position of inferior administrative and even more inferior legislative status.⁸ Senators resented not only the curtailing of their prerogatives but also the galling fabrication that they could still act independently of the palace.

There would probably have been less friction between senate and Caesars if the Caesars had defined their powers more clearly. No doubt the fate of Julius Caesar proved to be a deterrent to Augustus and Tiberius, who probably felt it safer to leave matters judiciously undefined. It was left to Domitian to adopt the title Dominus et Deus (Lord and God) and to put an end, once and for all, to the Augustan myth of the division of power.⁹ After Domitian there was no question of the emperor being merely primus inter pares. Hateful though Domitian's action seemed, it served as a constitutional landmark, finally delineating the emperor's relationship to the state as both its secular and religious leader.

Because the Julio-Claudians were less bold than Domitian, they encouraged, albeit unintentionally, the stasis between curia and palace. Their lip service to the division of power kept republican dreams alive in the opposition. By refusing to define their own position in terms of the constitution they made it easy for their foes to characterize them as usurpers of power. Their attempts to "load" the senate with their own nominees often strengthened rather than weakened the opposition. The new senators were absorbed by the old traditions; they, rather than the senate, changed. The careers of the elder Cato and of Cicero should have served as warnings that novi homines could demonstrate surprising vigor. The Caesars learned by painful experience that the new nobility, such as the Annaei, Thrasea Paetus, and Helvidius Priscus, could prove more troublesome than the often decadent last scions of the great families of the republic.

Yet if the position of the principes themselves was somewhat ambiguous, so were the attitudes of senatorial writers. Seneca, in the De Clementia, asks Nero to consider himself and his powers in the following way:

Have I of all mortals found favour with heaven and been chosen to serve on earth as vicar of the gods? I am the arbiter of life and death for the nations; it rests in my power what each man's lot and state shall be; by my lips Fortune proclaims what gifts she would bestow on each humanbeing; from my utterances people and cities gather reasons for rejoicing; without my favour and grace no part of the wide world can prosper; all those many thousands of swords which my peace restrains will be drawn at my nod; what nations shall be utterly destroyed, which banished, which shall receive the gift of liberty, which shall have it taken from them, what kings shall become slaves, and whose heads shall be crowned with royal honour, what cities shall fall and which shall rise—this it is mine to decree.¹⁰

There is nothing here to suggest a magistracy; rather we see a power almost godlike or, at the very least, divinely sanctioned. It is bewildering that a man like Seneca should have filled the head of his young charge with such notions. Perhaps his purpose was to mold Nero into a Just King; perhaps it was a ploy to lure Nero away from Agrippina's influence by fantasies of independent power. Even if Seneca is being ironic, he must bear the responsibility for encouraging megalomania in Nero. It is indeed curious that the author of the Thyestes and the Trojan Women, who knew so well the corruption that absolute power works in its holders, should offer such advice.

At the same time, Seneca's words to Nero underscore the paradoxical situation of the Roman at the hub of power during the first century A.D. Although Seneca may have resented the power of emperors as much as Tacitus did, there was not much he or anyone else among the aristocracy could do to check it. One could, of course, play Cato in the senate, as Thrasea Paetus did, reminding one's listeners of the illegality of imperial power. The alternatives were to cooperate silently or to accept the power for what it had come to be, regardless of legalities, and attempt to shape it into something noble and good. But very few senators ever had the sort of influence that Seneca exercised at Nero's court. By and large they cooperated silently and resentfully, saving their wrath for their histories, letters, and poetry. Their bitterness was doubtless accentuated by the fact that they too shared some burden of guilt by their political passivity.

II. The Roman Microcosm

In most countries and in most ages, an oppressive political climate might induce one to pack his bags and leave the country. But the Roman world, unlike some modern nations, needed no walls and guards to prevent that. By the time of Augustus, the whole of the Mediterranean was under Roman control either directly or indirectly. Outside this Roman enclave, only the Parthians among all nations west of the Indus could make any pretence to an advanced culture. No matter how much someone wanted to escape, there was nowhere to go. No province was strong enough to shelter a writer or political figure who had angered the emperor. The Arsacid monarchy in Parthia was not an attractive alternative. One would merely change a familiar tyranny for an unfamiliar one, while sacrificing one's whole cultural and linguistic identity.

Even in desperation, Romans were unwilling to turn to Parthia for help. Their reasons are sketched by Lucan in the Pharsalia. When Pompey suggests that the defeated republicans turn to Parthia for aid against Caesar, he is overruled by the angry Lentulus who declares that this is the one nation in the world he would rejoice to see conquered by Caesar himself. Every imaginable prejudice Lentulus can find is hurled against the Parthians. He conjures up allegations of everything from sexual profligacy to racial inferiority to defeat Pompey's arguments. The only possible door to the world outside is slammed shut; the Roman is trapped by his own Romanness.¹¹

Vast though the Roman empire was, it was also paradoxically small. Its largeness made it a prison in times of political oppression; nothing was beyond the emperor's reach. Outside, there was no acceptable refuge. The senatorial opposition may be forgiven for taking a somewhat jaded view of Roman greatness; they had conquered the world only to lose their freedom to the Caesars. As Lucan's Curio declares to Julius Caesar in Pharsalia 1.285: "tibi Roma subegerit orbem" (Rome will have conquered the world for you). When Silius Italicus exclaims "potius Carthago maneres" (Carthage, better you were still standing), we should not view his words as utterly hyperbolic.¹² Though the destruction of Carthage had eliminated the greatest obstacle to Roman expansion, it also removed the last major force in the Mediterranean that kept Roman swords from Roman throats.

The disintegration and collapse of the republic at Rome must have affected the intelligent Roman much as the aftermath of the Macedonian conquest of Greece had affected his Athenian predecessor. The focus of his political life had shifted dramatically; he had lost something of his political identity. Even the professional writers of Augustus' literary circles who were largely men of bourgeois status show, to varying degrees, ambivalence about the new political order. Doubts about the Caesars and about the blessings of the Pax Augusta were by no means confined to the aristocratic circles of later generations. In fact, our general assessment of Augustan literature might be considerably modified if we had more senatorial writing of that period, if we had Asinius Pollio as well as Livy, or Gallus in addition to Tibullus and Propertius. As we shall see in Chapter 3, there are striking similarities between the tone of Horace, Odes 2.1 (which may well reflect Asinius Pollio's view of the civil war) and the theme of Lucan's Pharsalia.¹³

Offsetting the advantages of imperial prosperity, at least to the educated, was the fact that a monarchical government, however benevolent, ran counter to the basic ideology of the Greco-Roman world. Athenian and Roman alike found it difficult to reconcile the ideals of eleutheria and libertas with an absolute ruler.¹⁴ Thus, no matter how happy the Augustan may have been to see the restoration of peace and order, the Caesars posed an ideological dilemma. And one element in the Roman experience made it even more sour than that of the Greeks under Philip and Alexander. The Roman could not claim that he had lost his freedom because of some powerful, external foe. Rome had collapsed of her own strength, as Horace suggests in Odes 2.1 and Epodes 7 and 16.¹⁵

We should not be unduly perplexed, then, by the fact that Roman writers are possessed of a remarkable urge to self-scrutiny. Obviously their strength of hand had not failed them, as it had failed the Athenians; something must have gone wrong inside the Roman spirit. There must have been a moral breakdown within the state and within the individual. Given this perspective, a man like Julius Caesar could easily come to represent the invincible yet amoral might of the Roman genius, capable of turning the sword of victory into the very vitals of the state. Such raw expertise in power became less attractive than a stubborn, if politically impotent, display of dedication to principle. Lost political freedom led to a quest for the freedom that the Stoic sage could enjoy within the realm of his own soul, a freedom that could not be affected by tyranny or physical suffering. Man struggled to retain a sense of his own dignity and autonomy by denying that events outside his immediate control could affect him detrimentally. This thinking was not restricted to the Stoics; it can be found in many Greek and Roman writers of both the Alexandrian and early imperial periods. A typical instance occurs in this passage from Plutarch:

… (And Zeno corrected Sophocles' remark: "Whoever engages in dealings with a tyrant becomes his slave, even if he acted of his own free will." Zeno wrote in reply: "He is not a slave, if he acted of his own free will.") [Plutarch Quomodo adulescens poetas audire debeat 33 D]

That Plutarch believes Sophocles was in error shows that he agrees with the Stoic Zeno at least on this point. The absolute distinction drawn by Sophocles is typical of an age and society accustomed to freedom, where tyranny is usually a threat, not a permanent reality. Zeno's reply reflects an age when there was no means to avoid some kind of transaction with a tyrant, short of total withdrawal from social life. What matters to Zeno, and to most Roman moralists, is the frame of mind in which one approaches such transactions.

Ultimately, however, withdrawal into a search for philosophical virtue was not enough, particularly for the more fiery soul. Even the Stoic could not entirely resign his concern for the external world so readily. He found that he, like the Aristotelian great-souled man, needed something of the external to actualize his potential. Further, the Stoic doctrine of the interrelationship of all matter in a totally material universe still left him indissolubly bound within the causal nexus.¹⁶ His philosophy proved, in the long run, a rather limited consolation. Seneca's life and works show this all too clearly. The composed facade of the philosopher is but one of his three masks.¹⁷ It is offset by the callous pragmatism of Seneca the statesman, and the anguished gloom and despair of Seneca the tragedian. It is pointless to argue which mask shows us the real Seneca. Probably they all do, for the Roman identity was split, each element at war with the others.

III. The Man of Letters in a Totalitarian Society

A writer, regardless of his social status, has good reason to feel oppressed in a totalitarian society, whether it be military dictatorship or Platonic Utopia. The more broadly educated the individual, the more difficult to ensure his absolute conformity to anything. Further, if he is also a prominent public figure, he is an even greater potential threat to ruling powers or ideologies. If he is not carefully checked by bribery, censorship, or threats to his personal safety, his ideas may corrupt and subvert others. A dictatorship or doctrinaire ideology cannot ignore the intellectual if its rule is to be secure.

At the beginning of the principate at Rome, many writers felt, no doubt, that the advantages of the new administration were no less evident than its drawbacks. But as years passed and the situation that gave rise to the change of government lost its immediacy, a more critical awareness of the new system's flaws emerged. Further, as the principate became thoroughly entrenched and began to flex its muscles, the need for placatory offerings to the literati declined. Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius were far less concerned than Augustus with establishing a good press for themselves, and thus far less tolerant of opposition. They committed the error to which autocracies are prone: giving little encouragement to writers who might praise them, discouraging the able but faint-hearted, and offering martyrdom to anyone who sought to oppose them. They drew attention to the ideas of their foes by persecuting them and thus exaggerated the dimensions of the causes they were trying to suppress.

During this period the writer's position became increasingly uncomfortable and dangerous. Lack of imperial patronage was in itself a damaging blow to literature; these must have been lean years forthe professional writer. In fact, the only notable names of Latin writers whose productive years lay in the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula are Cremutius Cordus, Velleius Paterculus, Manilius, Phaedrus, and Valerius Maximus. Cremutius' works were burned, as those of Labienus had been burned by Augustus.¹⁸ Other writers of the period are known by their fates rather than their works: Aelius Saturninus and Sextus Paconianus were put to death by Tiberius on the grounds that they had attacked him in their verse; Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus felt obliged to commit suicide after being accused of maligning Tiberius in a tragedy; an unknown writer of farce was burned alive by Caligula.¹⁹

Total silence is the writer's last resort; it is the ultimate paralysis occurring only in the most extreme situations of terror and repression. But there are varying degrees of silence. The writer ignores certain subjects or approaches them with great caution: forth-rightness is replaced by a studied obliqueness. Cicero, in Ad Atticum 2.20, observes:

De re publica breviter ad te scribam; iam enim charta ipsa ne nos prodat pertimesco. itaque posthac, si erunt mihi plura ad te scribenda, … obscurabo.

(I shall now write you a few words about the political situation: I'm beginning to fear that the very paper I use will betray us. If I have anything else to write you about in future, I'll veil it in allegory.)

Cicero wishes to continue communication, but feels he can do so with impunity only if he disguises his steps. An adverse political climate forces the writer to adopt allegory, double entendre, and innuendo as part of his rhetorical armory.

The writer at Rome in the Silver Age was quite prepared both to communicate and to detect such literary undercurrents. Seneca, for example, in De Ira 1.20.4, takes the oft-quoted line from Accius' tragedy, Atreus, "oderint dum metuant" (let them hate, provided that they fear), and comments thus on the play: "Sullano scias saeculo scriptam" (You would know that it was written in the time of Sulla). Caligula had given new life to Accius' words; so had Tiberius. In fact, Tiberius added a personal twist to the quotation: "oderint dum probent" (let them hate provided that they go along with what I want).²⁰ Men of letters and principes alike were well aware that Accius' drama was not merely a reworking of the tale of the house of Atreus; it bore the mark of the terror under Sulla and continued to be recognized as a comment on the tyrannical mind for years to come.

In making his observation about this remark in Accius' play, Seneca invites us to look at his own tragedies in a similar light. Can we not detect from this passage that Seneca himself is affected with a little of the atmosphere of his own age?

Eteocles: … Pro regno velim …
Iocasta: Patriam, penates, coniugem flammis
dare?
Eteocles: Imperia pretio quolibet constant
bene.
[Phoenissae 662-664]

(Eteocles: To be a king I would willingly …
Jocasta: Destroy your native land and gods
and wife with fire?
Eteocles: Power is a bargain no matter what
the price you pay.)

The later years of the reign of Claudius and the early years of Nero provided a somewhat improved atmosphere for writers.²¹ With this came the burgeoning of literature which continued into the second century A.D. Nero, in particular, was a generous patron of the arts. There is little evidence that prior to A.D. 65 his principate was notable for the repression of free thought and expression, even though most historical sources are extremely hostile to Nero. Yet we should not conclude that openness and frankness were common among writers of the Neronian age. Persius notes in his first satire how impossible it is to be a Lucilius any more:

Sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere vero
auriculas? vide sis ne maiorum tibi forte
limina frigescant: sonat hic de nare canina
littera.
[Satire 1.107-109]

(But what's the point of nagging sensitive ears with biting truth? Be careful that the doors of the mighty do not freeze you out! They don't snarl with written words, but straight through the nose.)

Persius warns himself and others of the dangers of yapping at the heels of powerful men, biting their sensitive ears with the truth. For when they bite back, it is not with words; their fangs are real. The prudent course, the poet concludes, is to confine oneself to literary topics. The mythological bombast of the age, however wretched, has the merit of being safe. As Juvenal was to observe in a later generation, one had better forget the real criminals unless one desired to conclude one's life as a torch in the arena (Satire 1.155-157).

These observations on the impossibility of writing true satire, however, constitute a form of direct criticism. Even to remind one's readers of the inadvisability of free speech in view of the potential reprisals is a slashing political comment. And, curiously enough, there were factors at work during the last half of the first century A.D. that made critical comment somewhat easier than it had been under the earlier principes.

Emperors like Nero and Domitian, who demanded divine honors from the Romans and encouraged poets to compare them to the gods, opened up new avenues for satire.²² Domitian, who assumed the title of Lord and God, could hardly take exception to a poem in which he was compared to Jupiter, even though such an analogy might be somewhat double-edged. In Silvae 3.4, for instance, Statius compares the relationship of Domitian and his eunuch favorite Earinus to that of Jupiter and Ganymede. What sours the ostensibly flattering analogy is, of course, the tradition that Jupiter's rape of Ganymede was prompted by homosexual passion. "The paths of flattery are ever fraught with hidden dangers," David Vessey comments cryptically on this passage.²³ Must we really presume that Statius had not realized the less savory implications of his analogy, even when he assures us in his preface to Silvae 3 that he had hesitated long in preparing and presenting this poem? Vessey himself seems to appreciate that his explanation is not really adequate, so he takes another tack a few lines later: "But Statius does not want any unfortunate conclusions to be drawn from too close aninterpretation of this analogy."²⁴ How, one wonders, does Vessey know this? Even if he were right, however, the fundamental question has eluded him. If, as Quintilian notes (Inst. 8.3. 47), readers of the first century A.D. were not likely to bypass the opportunity to adduce the worst meaning, "occasionem turpitudinis rapere," how could Statius be fairly sure that Domitian would not draw unfortunate conclusions? The protest, "Sire, you read it too closely; I did not want unfortunate conclusions drawn," would have been to no avail. Suetonius tells us of the fate of a writer whose tale of Paris and Oenone was thought by Domitian to be a satire on his divorce from Domitia.²⁵

We surely cannot rule out the possibility that a poet might be intending to offend the emperor in his poetry by means of some ambiguous reference. Let us take as an instance the conventional attribution of great weight and stature to the gods, a notion as old as Homer.²⁶ By rhetorical reductio ad absurdum, a limit can be reached where the analogy between weight and divinity becomes ludicrous, as it does in Lucan's apotheosis of Nero in Pharsalia 1 or in Statius' Silvae 1.1.²⁷ Lucan suggests that Nero should not sit to one side of the heavenly dome, for fear of disrupting the equipoise of heaven; Statius describes the gigantic equestrian statue of Domitian as causing the forum to groan beneath his genius.²⁸ These remarks can be construed literally as well as in a purely figurative manner. Traditional mass of divine genius or no, Nero was corpulent, and Domitian conducted a reign of terror which made the forum utter groans all too real. To argue that one meaning precludes the other is to beg the question; both are there, and by design rather than by accident. The poet is addressing himself to both the "literal" and the prudent "official" truth.

What protects the poet from adverse imperial reaction is much the same as what has so often protected the dissident writer in modern Eastern Europe and in Cuba. Provided that the criticism is not direct and outspoken, but follows, at least superficially, the official ideology and propaganda of the regime, the writer has a good chance of emerging unscathed. This enabled the director of the Cuban film Ustedes Tienen La Palabra to receive plaudits while the poet Padilla was sent to jail. Both criticized the regime. The former did so by attacking not the revolution itself but the chaos and naiveté involved in the implementation of its ideas. The latter's bitterness clearly marked him as counter-revolutionary. At the same time, however, Castro would rather win a Padilla to his side (or at least to neutrality) than simply dispose of him. The ruler who wants a good press has to compromise with the talented writer no less than the writer has to compromise with the regime.

Ultimately the ruler in search of a poet who will glorify his deeds has more need of the poet than the poet has of him. And lukewarm, even half-hearted, praise from a talented poet is more valuable than enthusiastic endorsement from a third-rate hack. Domitian could not afford to react violently against Statius or Martial. It is better to be praised ambiguously than not to be praised at all. Indeed, if it were not for Statius and Martial, there would hardly be a good word about Domitian in ancient literature.

If the emperor's desire for praise protected the poet, so too did the very absurdity of imperial pretensions. If Nero and Domitian insisted on masquerading as gods and eliciting, even demanding, divine honors, they could not very well take umbrage when they received them.²⁹ At least they could not do so openly. The emperors created and maintained the "Big Lie"; they, like the discreet poet, had to give at least lip service to it. Statius can argue quite logically, then, that if Domitian is Jupiter in Silvae 3.4, Earinus can be no one else but Ganymede. Mythology provides no other parallel. Similarly, Lucan and Statius, if pressed on their attribution of great weight to their emperors, can fall back on the argument that godlike beings are traditionally large and heavy, and they can quote Homer in their defense. The only weapons left to the emperors against such literary ambiguity were those they were, in general, unprepared to use. They could kill, exile, or otherwise silence the poet on some trumped-up charge. But then they would lose the only writers who were prepared to offer them flattery, or, in Domitian's case, say anything at all. Alternatively they could accuse the poets of violating the literal truth in order to attack them. But to do this, they would have to shed the trappings of their own divine pretentions and serve the literal truth themselves. In short, they were ensnared in their own nets.

There must have existed, then, between poet and emperor, an uneasy truce. The emperor realized the ambivalence of the poet, and the poet was careful not to go so far as to reveal his antipathy openly. Literary ambiguity was the poet's means of achieving a kind of freedom of speech, despite all obstacles. Quintilian was well aware of this technique. In rhetorical terminology it is emphasis, intentional double entendre. Quintilian describes emphasis as the process whereby the writer leaves something beneath the surface of his words for the reader to "discover": "aliud latens et auditori quasi inveniendum" (Inst. 9.2.65). Its principal use occurs when it is not very safe to speak openly: "si dicere palam parum tutum est" (ibid., 66). There is almost a note of contempt in Quintilian's guidelines as to how double entendre may be employed by the orator:

Quamlibet enim apertum, quod modo et aliter intellegi possit, in illos tyrannos bene dixeris, quia periculum tantum, non etiam offensa vitatur. Quod si ambiguitate sententiae possit eludi, nemo non illi furto favet. [ibid, 67]

(You can speak as openly as you like against those tyrants I was talking about, and to good effect, as long as your words can be taken in a different way. You're trying to avoid personal danger, that's all. You're not trying to avoid giving offense. If the danger can be dodged by some ambiguity of expression, everyone will admire the cunning with which it is done.)

From a rhetorical point of view, Quintilian observes, how one offends makes no difference. "nihil interest quomodo offendas"; but one must be circumspect and cautious, since this figura is no longer a figura if it becomes obvious (ibid., 69). Surely Statius and Lucan were no less aware than Quintilian of the advantages of double entendre:

Haeret enim nonnumquam telum illud occultum, et hoc ipso, quod non apparet, eximi non potest; at si idem dicas palam, et defenditur et probandum est. [ibid., 75]

(Sometimes the hidden shaft sticks, and because it cannot be seen on the surface it cannot be taken out. But if you were to say the same thing openly, it can be warded off and its existence demonstrated.)

For all this, the strain of writing under such conditions must have been immense. It is natural that writers under the principate looked back on the late republic with envy and nostalgia. The very factionalism of the republic provided some measure of protection. If all else failed, a man could align himself with some faction whose views resembled his own. The greater diversity of interests alloweda greater diversity of opinion. Even at the height of the chaos prior to the civil war, Cicero still felt that he had at least two sides to choose between and freely expressed reservations about both.³⁰

Once the principate was established, the degree of free expression tolerated depended largely on the disposition of an individual princeps at a given time. The dissenter had neither legal protection nor the shelter that diversity of opinion among aristocratic cliques could afford. Even Nero, who was remarkably tolerant of criticism for much of his reign, had a breaking point. In short, the fact that imperial censorship was possible made its use almost inevitable. Sooner or later someone would go too far and bring down the full force of imperial wrath upon himself and others.

In Nero's reign, the results of an early tolerance of dissent were almost more catastrophic than total repression of free speech would have been. Younger writers, especially those who enjoyed a position of privilege, were probably lured into the open by Nero's patronage of the arts. Unlike Seneca, whose experience with Caligula and Claudius had taught him something of the anger and power of princes, they knew the potential range of imperial wrath and censorship only by what they had been told of previous reigns. They could see the senate restored to some of its earlier prerogatives; senators spoke more freely.³¹ Although, as Persius notes, undue license was still to be avoided, there was a degree of freedom, particularly during the so-called quinquennium Neronis, which has no parallel until the time of Nerva and Trajan.

But this relative freedom was deceptive. It encouraged writers to be more frank and open in their opinions than they would have dared under Caligula or Claudius. There was a very real danger of underestimating Nero's ability to retaliate if pushed too far. If Lucan had heeded the advice which his Cotta gives Metellus in Pharsalia 3.145-146, he might have lived longer: "libertas" inquit "populi quem regna coercent / libertate perit" ("The freedom of a people that is controlled by kings," he said, "perishes if you attempt to assert it").

In the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy in A.D. 65, the frightened Nero initiated a massive purge. The earlier freedom made dissenters readily identifiable. There was little the victims could do but wait for the inevitable death sentence. The grimmest testimony to the paradoxical smallness of the Roman world is that the emperor needed but to pronounce sentence, or simply accuse, in full confidence that the condemned would commit suicide. In these circumstances suicide was not motivated solely by the desire to preserve one's dignity and retain property for one's heirs. There simply was no practical alternative. The Roman could do no more than turn in upon himself, following the example of Cato, transforming the act of self-destruction into a symbolic defiance of temporal authority. It is little wonder that the appeal of Stoicism was so great in this age and that its patron saint was Cato. Regardless of the individual's philosophical school, he could find some consolation in the example of Cato, just as Cato had found similar consolation, on the eve of his suicide, in the example of Socrates.³²

Surely the generally negative reaction to the principate found in so many writers of the Silver Age has some historical justification. Not that we should see the values of the senatorial opposition as absolutely correct; of course they were not. They were narrow, and they were hardly impartial or objective. We might admire the efficient administration of a princeps such as Claudius; Seneca could not. The crucial difference is that Seneca, because of his proximity to the hub of power, had to livewith all the aspects of imperial rule, and his experience taught him something modern scholarship too often forgets. He knew that the only real controls upon the emperor's powers were those that he imposed upon himself. The sanity of his rule could rarely transcend his personal sanity. Unlike other people, he had the power to transform his most hideous wish into an even more hideous reality. Once aroused, he could be stopped only by assassination.

IV. Lucan and Nero

The general observations about the principate offered here are crucial to an understanding of Lucan. For even the most casual reading of the Pharsalia reveals a poet implacably hostile to tyranny in general and to the Caesars in particular. Yet there is a persistent strain in the criticism of Lucan that denies him to be as hostile to the principate as he appears. Such misapprehensions arise from a misconstruction not only of the Pharsalia but also of the age in which it was written. Jacqueline Brisset, for example, argues that Lucan regarded the principate and liberty as reconcilable, despite the fact that Lucan assures us they were not.³³ The basis of this argument, such as it is, can be sketched as follows: Lucan flatters Nero in Pharsalia 1.33-66, and presents us with an extremely favorable portrait of the emperor's ancestor, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; further, Lucan was educated as a Stoic and much influenced by his uncle Seneca, who seems to be developing the notion of the philosophical Just King. Therefore Lucan must somehow envisage Nero as a Just King.

If we are to make any reasonable sense of the Pharsalia, these notions must be dispelled. Let us first look at what can be pieced together about Lucan's life from our principal ancient sources, Statius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, and Vacca, to see if anything in Lucan's biography might offer some evidence as to his relationship with Nero.³⁴ Since our sources are scant and often contradictory, the more controversial issues will be avoided here and discussed more fully in the Appendix.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus was born at Corduba in Spain on November 3, A.D. 39. His father, Marcus Annaeus Mela, was the brother of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (the philosopher, poet, and statesman) and the son of Seneca the Elder.³⁵ By right of birth, then, Lucan belonged to one of Spain's most distinguished families, whose talents had secured wide recognition—and considerable wealth—at Rome. Lucan was brought to Rome at an early age, where he enjoyed all the wealth and prestige that the Annaei could provide, particularly after A.D. 49, when Seneca was recalled from exile to become the tutor to Nero, the heir apparent to the throne. After formal training at the school of a grammarian, Lucan became the pupil of the Stoic philosopher Annaeus Cornutus, whose name suggests that he may have been a freedman of Lucan's own family.³⁶

Considering Seneca's position in public affairs at Rome, which grew ever stronger between A.D. 49 and A.D. 60, it is hardly surprising that Lucan was quickly drawn into the very heart of Roman social and political life. He probably spent a good deal of time with Nero himself. After all, Lucan and Nero were only two years apart in age, and both manifested an avid interest in literature. When Lucan left Rome for Athens to pursue his studies, Nero soon recalled him to become part of the imperial cohors amicorum.³⁷

While we have no positive evidence of the degree of personal friendship, as opposed to social convenience, involved in the relationship between Lucan and Nero, there is no particular reason tosuppose any lack of cordiality on either side until after A.D. 62. In fact, at the Neronia of A.D. 60, Lucan sang Nero's praises publicly, and Nero appears to have reciprocated by advancing him to senatorial rank. On December 5, A.D. 62 (or possibly a year later) Lucan was appointed quaestor and, about the same time, made a member of the college of augurs.³⁸ Preferment to the quaestorship before one's twenty-fifth year was remarkable even for the most privileged men during the principate. Only princes of the blood could normally anticipate such distinction.³⁹

To this point, everything was going well. But when Lucan entered upon his quaestorship—perhaps even a little earlier—the shadows of impending trouble began to appear. Nero seems to have been growing more and more restless, irked by his role as a puppet prince whose actions were controlled first by his mother, then, after her death, by Seneca and the praetorian, Burrus. When Burrus died in A.D. 62, only Seneca was left to restrain Nero. Shortly thereafter, Seneca himself gave up much of his estate and decided to retire from public life, possibly at Nero's insistence. By some time late in 63 or early in 64, the friendship between Lucan and Nero had begun to sour. The reasons are not at all clear, and the details in our ancient sources are scant and confused. I shall advance only a sketch here, and treat the problem more fully in the Appendix. For a mixture of literary and political reasons, Nero imposed a ban on Lucan in the later months of A.D. 64, forbidding him to engage in either poetic recitations or advocacy in the law courts.⁴⁰ This ban spelled an end to Lucan's career. Soon afterwards, in the early days of 65, Lucan joined Calpurnius Piso's plot to assassinate Nero. According to one account, he was virtually its symbol.⁴¹ Unfortunately for Lucan, the plot was discovered, and, after intensive enquiry and interrogations, Nero ordered the conspirators to take their own lives or be put to death. On April 15, A.D. 65, Lucan committed suicide. He was not yet twenty-six years old. Before the end of 66, Nero disposed of Lucan's father, Lucius Annaeus Mela, and his uncle Seneca. The distinguished house of the Annaei was, to all intents and purposes, obliterated.

Lucan would merit a footnote in any account of Nero's reign, even if we knew no more about him than what is outlined above. As it is, Lucan's role in the political turmoil of Neronian Rome is dwarfed by his literary achievements. But we should not forget that political role. For it is one of the many respects in which Lucan is an unusual figure in Roman literature.

A survey of Roman literary activity from the late republic to the middle of the second century A.D. shows that more than half of all the surviving prose writers are men of senatorial rank. Poetry, by way of contrast, is dominated by writers of lower social and economic standing who relied on their pens for a living. Such, at least, is the pattern of extant literature, and even if extant literature is not typical of general literary tendencies, our observations do hold true of those regarded by the ancients as the major Roman writers. Success in poetry rarely accompanied an active political career. The senatorial muse was more at home with history, epistolography, natural sciences, and philosophy than with lyric or epic. Lucan is one of the few exceptions. Along with his uncle Seneca and his older contemporary Silius Italicus, Lucan is one of a small elite that succeeded in producing major works of poetry while pursuing an active career in public life.

Lucan's poetry covered a considerable variety of genres. Though only his incomplete epic, the Pharsalia (also known as the De Bello Civili), has survived, we have the titles of numerous other works, which range from an unfinished tragedy, Medea, to satirical and occasional poetry.⁴² Thereis no way of assessing either the quality or length of these nonextant works—except his ten books of Silvae which, perhaps, were each about the same length as an average book of Statius' Silvae. Lucan's biographer Vacca tells us that not all of his works were worth reading with care, but we do not know which works Vacca had in mind.⁴³ When one considers, however, that the bulk of Lucan's poetry, including the ten books of the Pharsalia, was probably produced in about five years, between A.D. 60 and the early months of 65, his output must be described as prodigious. Most remarkable of all is that he composed so much of his verse at the same time as he was engaged in his political career. Silius Italicus, by way of contrast, wrote his Punica, or at least substantial parts of it, after his retirement. He reserved his poetry, as Sallust had reserved his history, or Cicero his philosophical works, for a period of withdrawal from affairs of state.

Lucan, then, enjoyed neither the otium of the retired senator nor the professional poet's singleness of occupation. Vergil was able to spend eleven years of his mature, creative life working almost exclusively on the Aeneid. The Thebaid occupied Statius for twelve years. Lucan worked on the Pharsalia for no more than five years, and possibly less than three, when he was still in his early twenties. And while he worked, he held an augurate and a quaestorship and joined a conspiracy to kill the emperor. A final tribute to his impetuous genius is that his Pharsalia exercised a however, the bulk considerable influence on the next generation of epic poets, which included, among others, Silius Italicus, who was fourteen years Lucan's senior.

The intensity, compactness, and brevity of Lucan's experience make nonsense of attempts to isolate Lucan the politician from Lucan the poet. Unlike Vergil, he did not watch contemporary political struggles from the sidelines; he was very much a part of what was going on in the senate and palace. Yet, if we may venture a guess, the poet in Lucan was there before the politician. The key to Lucan's somewhat peculiar career lies in the equally peculiar career of Nero. If Lucan's mixing of politics and poetry is atypical, Nero's chosen role as the great artist-emperor is practically unique in Western history. Certainly Rome cannot provide any comparable phenomenon. Given Nero's obsession with poetry and the arts, it is not surprising that he gathered around him those who showed some promise as men of letters. If the atmosphere of Nero's court kindled Lucan's passion for poetry, Lucan's success as a poet must have fascinated Nero, who doubtless saw in him a kindred spirit. Here was a good opportunity for Nero to let his own enthusiasm for the arts be communicated to the senate. Lucan's aristocratic birthright and obvious poetic talents must have made him seem an ideal ambassador for Nero's purposes. But there were some attendant dangers.

Although Lucan's advancement to senatorial rank probably owes much to Nero's recognition of his artistic abilities and to Nero's friendship, Lucan had every reason to expect an active career in public life even without the emperor's special favor. He was, after all, Seneca's nephew. He moved among the senatorial elite as a social equal. There was a strong possibility that senatorial rank might arouse the political yearnings of the young aristocrat. And this possibility was realized. Lucan did not convert the senate to art; the senate converted him to politics. In less than two years Nero had to muzzle Lucan's poetic and political activities. The experiment was a failure.

Almost inevitably Lucan was caught in the snare of divided loyalties. Like Calpumius Piso, whose conspiracy against Nero he ultimately joined, Lucan enjoyed the emperor's trust. Yet, as a senator, he felt the pull of the republican past. Many factors contributed, no doubt, to Lucan's final decisionto identify himself with the senatorial opposition. Seneca's fall from favor must have cooled the friendship between poet and emperor somewhat. Mutual jealousy and artistic rivalry probably played their part. The process was, I suspect, one of steadily increasing, mutual disenchantment. Lucan's biographer Vacca even goes so far as to assign Lucan's quaestorship to the happy days of his career.⁴⁴ This could suggest that Lucan was a senator for at least a year before things went sour. More likely, however, Vacca means that Lucan did not lose Nero's favor completely until the end of his quaestorial year. It may have taken the emperor some time to realize what was happening in the mind of his protégé.

Personal jealousy or literary and philosophical rivalry are not enough to account for the devastating ban that Nero imposed on Lucan in the latter part of A.D. 64. The catalyst was almost certainly something Lucan wrote and presented publicly, or Nero would not have banned him from reciting his poetry. And Lucan's political views must have entered the picture somewhere, or Nero would not have banned him from activity in the law courts. Most likely it was some political statement in Lucan's poetry that angered Nero.

In A.D. 63-64 Lucan produced two works which might have provoked such a response from the emperor. The poet, who heretofore had treated such standard set pieces as the ransoming of Hector's body, a descent into the underworld, and the tale of Orpheus, wrote a work on the great fire at Rome in A.D. 64, the De Incendio Urbis. Though it is no longer extant, we may divine something of its content (see the Appendix). He also published part of his historical epic on the Roman civil war, the Pharsalia.

The Pharsalia is Lucan's only surviving work, and it is unfinished. Its date is uncertain, though it seems likely that it belongs between the years A.D. 61 and 65.⁴⁵ Since, so far as we can tell, only three books of it were published during Lucan's lifetime, we may infer that the publication of the remaining seven was prevented by Nero's ban. This further suggests that a substantial part of the epic was being composed and revised during those years when Lucan's relationship with Nero was deteriorating. Some scholars would argue that the whole of the Pharsalia was written in 64 and 65; others maintain that the epic was begun as early as 58.⁴⁶ Although neither of these arguments convinces me, they cannot be dismissed entirely since there is simply no conclusive evidence. Discussion of the order of books is no less risky. It may seem logical that the Pharsalia was written in more or less chronological sequence, but this cannot be proved.⁴⁷

On the other hand, Lucan's biography provides some grounds for suspecting that the poet's attitude toward the principate and toward Nero was not necessarily static throughout the last five years of his life. And since the Pharsalia is a historical and political epic, covering the civil wars from Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon to the events in Alexandria in the fall of 48 B.C., it is quite possible that there are traces of a more outspoken antipathy toward the Caesars in those books which were composed last. The most obviously explosive book of the Pharsalia is 7, and here are two of the most torrid passages:

… fugiens civile nefas redituraque
 numquam
libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit
ac, totiens nobis iugulo quaesita, vagatur
Germanum Scythicumque bonum, nec
 respicit ultra
Ausoniam, vellem populis incognita nostris.
volturis ut primum laevo fundata volatu
Romulus infami conplevit moenia luco,
usque ad Thessalicas servisses, Roma, ruinas.
de Brutis, Fortuna, queror. quid tempora
 legum
egimus aut annos a consule nomen
 habentis?
felices Arabes Medique Eoaque tellus,
quam sub perpetuis tenuerunt fata tyrannis.
ex populis qui regna ferunt sors ultima
  nostra est,
quos servire pudet. sunt nobis nulla profecto
numina: cum caeco rapiantur saecula casu,
mentimur regnare lovem. spectabit ab alto
aethere Thessalicas, teneat cum fulmina,
  caedes?
[7.432-448]

(Liberty has fled beyond the Tigris and the Rhine to escape civil war, and she will never return. Although we have sought her so often with unprotected throat, she strays from us, blessing the Germans and the Scythians, but never glancing back on Italy. How I wish our people had never known her! From the day the ill-omened vulture's flight marked your foundation, Rome, and Romulus filled your walls with criminals, until the day of doom in Thessaly you should have stayed in bondage. Fortune, I regret you gave us the Bruti. What use is it that once we had the rule of law and years named for elected magistrates? How blessed are the Arabs, Medes and all the peoples of the East; the fates kept them under tyranny perpetually. Of all the peoples who endure the rule of kings, ours is the grimmest lot; for we are ashamed to be slaves. Surely there are no gods watching over us. The centuries are hurried on their way by blind chance, and so it is a lie to say that Jupiter rules the universe. Will he just watch the slaughter on the field at Pharsalia from heaven on high, although he holds the thunderbolt in his hand?)

maius ab hac acie quam quod sua saecula
  ferrent
volnus habent populi; plus est quam vita
  salusque
quod perit: in totum mundi prosternimur
  aevum.
vincitur his gladiis omnis quae serviet aetas.
proxima quid suboles aut quid meruere
  nepotes
in regnum nasci? pavide num gessimus arma

teximus aut iugulos? alieni poena timoris
in nostra cervice sedet. post proelia natis
si dominum, Fortuna, dabas, et bella dedisses.
[ibid, 638-646]

(The wound the people suffered from that battle [i.e., Pharsalia] was too great to heal in one generation. Much more was lost than life and a chance for safety. We are cast down until the end of time. Each new generation which will be slaves lost its freedom when the swords clashed at Pharsalia. What did the sons of the vanquished, or their grandsons, do to deserve that they be born into the rule of kings? Did we fight like cowards or protect our throats from the sword? Thepunishment for others' cowardice is chained upon our necks. O Fortune, if you had to give a tyrant to rule those born after the battle, you should have given us a chance to fight!)

Nothing in the remainder of the Pharsalia rivals these passages in intensity. In fact, there is no comparable outburst in Latin literature, from the time of Cicero onwards, that so clearly and savagely indicts the oppressiveness of the writer's own day. To suggest that these lines were not the product of a mind obsessed with hatred for the principate is ridiculous. They encapsulate almost all the antipathy toward the Caesars we have noted in the preceding sections and have that touch of desperate atheism which suggests, even if it does not actually demonstrate, that Lucan was, as O. S. Due notes, a "Stoic who has lost his faith."⁴⁸ The anger, frustration, and hopelessness of Lucan in these passages make it very tempting to conclude that they were written after the ban but before he joined the conspiracy of Piso.

The sentiments expressed in these passages are not unique or even atypical of the Pharsalia as a whole. They stand out because of their length and directness. If we compare what Lucan says in 7 with the words he puts in the mouth of Nigidius Figulus in 1, we will see that they share a common message: the civil war brings despotism to Rome.

This madness [i.e., the civil war] will go on for many years. And what use is it to ask the gods to bring it to an end? When peace comes, a tyrant comes with it (cum domino pax ista venit). Rome, maintain a continual series of disasters (duc, Roma, malorum continuam seriem)—drag on the catastrophe for many years. You are free now only so long as civil war lasts (civili tantum iam libera bello).[l.668-672]⁴⁹

In book 1, then, Lucan has taken some pains to make his criticism oblique by attributing these words to one of his characters. In a similar vein, he suggests (1.303-305) a comparison between Caesar and Hannibal but carefully attributes the words to Caesar; in 7, however, Lucan shows no hesitation in making such a comparison directly.⁵⁰

Passages like these are highly inconvenient to those who would maintain, as Brisset does, that Lucan thought that principate and libertas were reconcilable. It is pointless to argue that Nigidius' comments in I are the expression of a certain point of view with which Lucan himself does not necessarily "agree" and rank them with larbas' uncharitable comments about Aeneas in Aeneid 4.215-218. Lucan's remarks in 7 make it perfectly clear that he does agree. W. E. Heitland explored one possible approach to the matter by dividing the whole epic into narrative and "padding."⁵¹ The outbursts in 7 are included in the approximately 30 percent of the Pharsalia that Heitland dismisses as "padding." R. T. Bruere adopts a somewhat similar approach, when he characterizes the passages as a "striving for bravura effect" which defies "logic, precision and restraint."⁵² Having so judged them, Bruere feels free to continue his argument as if they did not exist. Both Heitland and Bruere imply that these expressions of anger and disgust on Lucan's part are either irrelevant or nonsensical. If they are right, then Lucan is hardly worth reading. If about a third of the Pharsalia is, as Heitland suggests, mere stuffing to fill out the rest, Lucan is clearly incompetent. It is surely more reasonable to suggest that Nero's ban and Lucan's subsequent association with the Pisonian conspiracy add credibility to his outbursts in 7. Besides, if Lucan really believed that Neroand the principate were good for Rome, why should he make these comments at all? There was good reason to veil one's criticism during the principate, but none, so far as I can see, to veil one's flattery.

The fury of Pharsalia 7 abates considerably in 8 through 10, yielding to what is best described as secretive confidence. Two references to the assassination of Julius Caesar highlight this change. The first, in 7, describes Brutus' efforts to kill Caesar at Pharsalia:

                         nil proficis istic
Caesaris intentus iugulo; nondum attigit
 arcem,
iuris et humani columen, quo cuncta
  premuntur,
egressus meruit fatis tam nobile letum.
vivat et, ut Bruti procumbat victima, regnet.
[7.592-596]

(You will achieve nothing on this occasion though you are aiming for the throat of Caesar. For he has not yet attained the pinnacle, the height of human power when everything is crushed beneath him. He has not yet gone beyond the bounds of fate and earned a death so noble. So let him live and—so that he may fall as sacrificial victim to the sword of Brutus—let him reign.)

A rather new and different note is struck in 10:

              procul hoc avertite, fata,
crimen, ut haec Bruto cervix absente secetur.
in scelus it Pharium Romani poena tyranni,
exemplumque perit.
[10.341-344]

(Fates, avert this crime—and it would be a crime if Caesar's throat were slit when Brutus is not present. For then the punishment of a Roman tyrant becomes an Egyptian atrocity, and the precedent is lost.)

Although Lucan clearly relishes the thought of tyrannicide in both 7 and 10, it is not until 10 that he sees Brutus' killing of Caesar as an example for others to follow. There is a recovery of poise in the later book, bolstered, perhaps, by Lucan's own participation in the Pisonian conspiracy which offered him a chance to be set down in history as Brutus' successor. The same may be true of Lucan's comment in 9 that he and Julius Caesar will not be condemned to the shadows by any age, "nullo tenebris damnabimur aevo" (9.986). Here, perhaps, we see a defiant reaction to Nero's ban. They are certainly bold words if written after Nero's edict.

What matters more than the chronology of the Pharsalia, however, is the relative uniformity of attitude toward the principate found throughout the epic. Unless we dismiss all the adverse allusions to Caesarism as mere nonsense, and thus dismiss Lucan as an irrational and incompetent poet, we must surely concede that the Pharsalia is hostile to Caesarism.…

Notes

¹Argon. 1.833-846.

²Pun. 10.658.

³ On the flattery of Domitian see 0. Weinreich, Studien zu Martial, Stuttgart, 1928, particularly 155-170; K. Scott, "Statius' Adulation of Domitian," AJP 54 (1933), 247-259; G. Lugli, "La Roma di Domiziano nei Versi di Marziale e di Stazio," SR 9 (1961), 1-17; P. Ercole, "Stazio e Giovenale," RIGI 25 (1931), 43-50; D. Nisard, Etudes sur les poètes latines de la décadence² Paris, 1849, 262 ff.; David Vessey, Statius and the Thebaid, Cambridge, 1973, 1-7, and the sources cited there. For the reaction of Tacitus to the principates of Nerva and Trajan, see Hist. 1.1. In general, I disagree with the conclusion of these scholars that Statius intended his flattery of Domitian. sincerely, for reasons discussed in Section II of this Chapter.

⁴Tacitus, Oxford, 1963, 1.412. If we remember, however, that some scholars have argued a rather different view of the principate, we can see the importance of establishing this point. B. Henderson, for example, in The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, London, 1903, offers the following definition: the princeps was "but a magistrate endowed, ad hoc, with powers extraordinary alike in content, combination and duration, but always conferred and approved by Army, by Senate and by People" (p. 10).

⁵Ibid., ix.

⁶Ann. 1.1: "nomine principis sub imperium accepit." Also ibid., 1.9: "non regno tamen neque dictatura sed principis nomine constitutam rem publicam." See also Syme, Tacitus, 1.408: "Between the formula and the realities a wide gap yawned. The main elements in the supremacy of Augustus derive from sources outside the Roman constitution."

⁷ H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero², London, 1963, 231-235, 283; 433, note 6, and the sources cited there.

⁸ For the freedmen, particularly in Claudius' reign, see Suetonius Claud. 28-29 and P. R. C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris, Cambridge, 1972, 199-296.

⁹ On the title Dominus et Deus see K. Scott, The Imperial Cult under the Flavians, Stuttgart, 1936, 61-188; also F. Sauter, Der Römische Kaiserkult bei Martial und Statius, Stuttgart, 1934, 36-40.

¹⁰Clem. 1.1.2; trans. by J. W. Basore in the Loeb Seneca, Moral Essays, 1, London, 1928.

¹¹Pharsalia 8.325-455; see also M. P. Charlesworth, "The Fear of the Orient in the Roman Empire," CHJ 2 (1926), 1-16.

¹²Pun. 10.658.

¹³ For Lucan's sources see R. Pichon, Les Sources de Lucain, Paris, 1912, 51 ff., and particularly 51-105; also P. Grimal, "Le Pòete et l'histoire," in FH 15.69; H.-P. Syndikus, "Lucans Gedicht vom Bülrgerkrieg," Diss. Munich, 1958, chap. 1; C. Hosius, "Lucan und seine Quellen," RhM, N.F. 48 (1893), 380-397.

¹⁴ For a full discussion of the notion of libertas at Rome see C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Empire, Cambridge, 1950.

¹⁵ Cf. R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford, 1939, 1-9, and Chapter 3 below.

¹⁶ For a good assessment of the atmosphere, see C. J. Hlerington, "Senecan Tragedy," Arion 5, 4 (1966), 422-471. For a discussion of Stoic notions of the physical nature of the universe, see S. Sambursky, The Physics of the Stoics, London, 1959; H.-A. Schotes, Stoische Physik, Psychologie und Theologie bei Lucan, Bonn 1969, 14-46; also Chapter 3 below.

¹⁷ Herington, 422 ff., thinks of Seneca as a man of two rather than three masks. But it would be wrong to consider any one of his "personalities" more real than the others. It is not so much that the "real" Seneca assumes two alien guises in addition to his true personality, but that all three of his guises are no less real or unreal than the others. In fact, we could make a case for distinguishing between the Seneca of the Epistles to Lucilius and the Seneca of the Moral Essays, for even in his philosophical works, Seneca's pose varies.

¹⁸ Tacitus Ann. 4.34-35; see also Dio 57.24.2-3; Suetonius Tib. 61. For Labienus, see Seneca Controv. 10, preface 4-8.

¹⁹ Suetonius Calig. 27.

²⁰ O. Ribbeck, Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, Leipzig, 1887, 1.187; Suetonius Calig. 30; Tib. 59.

²¹ See G. Charles-Picard, Augustus and Nero, trans. Len Ortzen, New York, 1968, 85 ff. For a somewhat different view, see M. A. Levi, Nerone e i suoi Tempi, Milan, 1949, 84-112.

²² For Nero, see Charles-Picard, 101-108; 133-137. For Domitian, see Scott, Imperial Cult, 61-188.

²³ P. 32. Curiously Vessey does a very good job of adducing all the elements of Silvae 3.4, that might be construed as critical of Domitian (pp. 28-36) but cannot bring himself to the logical conclusion. See my review of Vessey in PQ 53, 1 (1974), 141-144.

²⁴ Vessey, p. 32.

²⁵Dom. 10.

²⁶Iliad 5.837 ff., for example. It is surprising how willing scholars are to assume that poets were really serious when they referred to the emperor in such exaggerated terms. In addition to Vessey, see also Scott, Imperial Cult, and H. Cancik, Untersuchungen zur Lyrischen Kunst des P. Papinius Statius (Spudasmata 13), Hildesheim, 1965, 93-100.

²⁷ For a discussion of Lucan's apotheosis of Nero, see Section V, below.

²⁸Pharsalia 1.56-58; Silvae 1.1.1-21; 56-58.

²⁹ C. Milosz's study, The Captive Mind (New York, 1953), shows how similar techniques of using the "Big Lie" against its perpetrators have been employed by modern Polish poets.

³⁰ For Cicero's conflicting feelings on the outbreak of civil war in 49 b.c., see Att. 7.11; 8.3; 7.22; 10.8; and Fam. 16.12.

³¹ See above, note 21. In support of Levi's view we may adduce L. A. MacKay, "The Vocabulary of Fear in Latin Epic Poetry," TAPA 92 (1961), 308 ff. MacKay notes that words indicating fear occur more frequently in Lucan and Statius than they do in Ovid and Vergil. His figures are based on 59 words which he recognizes as evoking the idea of fear, and exclude words such as tremo and horreo which do not always imply fear.

³² Plutarch Cato 67-70.

³³Les Idées politiques de Lucain, Paris, 1964, p. 221. Also, for a similar view, see M. Pavan, L 'Ideale politico di Lucano, AIV 113 (1954-1955), 209-222. For the notion that Lucan began with high hopes for Nero but then became disillusioned, see R. Castresana Udaeta, Historia y Política en la Farsalia de Marco Anneo Lucano, Madrid, 1956, and W. Wünsch, "Das Bilid des Cato von Utica in der Literatur der Neronischen Zeit," Diss. Marburg, 1949, 78 ff. and 272. For views closer to my own, see O. Schönberger, "Zu Lucan, Ein Nachtrag," Hermes 86 (1958), 230-239; G. Pfligersdorffer, "Lucan als Dichter des geistigen Widerstandes," Hermes 87 (1959), 344-377; A. W. Lintott, "Lucan and the History of the Civil War," CQ 21 (1971), 488-505; D. Gagliardi, Lucano Poeta della Libertà, Naples, 1958. See also, however, W. Rutz, "Studien zur Kompositionskunst und zur epischen Technik Lucans," Diss. Kiel, 1950, 189 ff. and "Lucan 1943-1963," Lustrum 9 (1965), 243-340, especially 298. For a further bibliography and discussion, see O. Schönberger, Untersuchungen zur Wiederholungstechnik Lucans, Munich 1968, 2-5 and 123-124.

³⁴ The principal sources are: Statius Silvae 2.7; Suetonius Lucan; Vacca Life of Lucan; Tacitus Ann. 15.49; Dio 62.29.4; Suetonius Life of Persius 5. Of dubious value is the life in the codex Vossianus II. The Lives of Suetonius, Vacca, and the codex Vossianus may be found, most conveniently, in Hosius' edition of the Pharsalia³, Leipzig, 1913. (Citations from Vacca and Suetonius' Lucan are noted by page and line of Hosius' edition). For a fuller discussion of the sources and secondary literature, see the Appendix.

³⁵ The source for these details is the Vacca Life.

³⁶ The exact relationship of Cornutus to the Annaei is not at all clear. Perhaps it would be better to err on the conservative side and observe, with H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature, New York, 1960, 379, that "among his [sc., Lucan's] acquaintance were Cornutus and Persius." Given the lack of evidence on the matter, I find Berthe Marti's observation in "The Meaning of the Pharsalia," AJP 66 (1945), 354, too categorical: "L. Annaeus Cornutus, one of Lucan's Stoic teachers and afreedman of the Annaei.…"

³⁷ Suetonius Lucan 332.9-10: "revocatus Athenis a Nerone, cohortique amicorum additus."

³⁸ Vacca Life 335.13-17: "gessit autem quaesturam … sacerdotium etiam accepit auguratus."

³⁹ For a fuller discussion of this, see the Appendix, note 24.

⁴⁰ The sources for information on the ban are the Vacca Life, Tacitus Ann. 15.49, and Dio 62.29.4. See the Appendix for a more detailed discussion.

⁴¹ Suetonius Lucan: "paene signifer Pisonianae coniurationis extitit."

⁴² A list is given in the Appendix. A few fragments of Lucan's other works survive and are listed in the Hosius edition of the Pharsalia, 328-331. There are no serious doubts as to the incomplete state of the Pharsalia. See Chapter 9, Section II and note 3.

⁴³ Probably he is referring to most of the minor works mentioned in the last sentence of his Life when he notes: "non fastidiendi quidem omnes, tales tamen" (336.21-22).

⁴⁴ Vacca Life: "equidem hactenus tempora habuit secunda."

⁴⁵ The various arguments are discussed in K. F. C. Rose, "Problems in the Chronology of Lucan's Career," TAPA 97 (1966), 379-396, and in my own article, "Lucan's De Incendio Urbis, Epistulae ex Campania and Nero's Ban," TAPA 102 (1971), 1-27, of which the Appendix to this book is a modification.

⁴⁶ The extreme positions are those of G. Bagnani, Arbiter of Elegance, Toronto, 1954, 8, who argues for 58; and C. Vitelli, "Sulla Composizione e Pubblicazione della Farsaglia," SIFC 8 (1900), 33, and K. F. C. Rose, who argue for composition in 64 and 65. Bagnani's argument is colored by his desire to find a suitable date for the Satyricon.

⁴⁷ Pichon, 270-271, argues that the three published books of the Pharsalia Vacca mentions must be other than Pharsalia 1-3. But K. F. C. Rose's rebuttal, 384, is unconvincing, even though, I suspect, he comes nearer the truth. His argument that "no-one would publish individual books of a historical epic out of chronological sequence" is weak. Cf. Brisset, 181-182.

⁴⁸ "Lucain et la philosophie," FH 15.214. Due rejects the notion that Lucan occasionally veers toward Epicureanism. Such "atheistic" passages are not uncommon in Senecan tragedy. Perhaps the classic example is Trojan Women 371-408.

⁴⁹ On the similarity of this passage to Pharsalia 4.822-823, see G. Pfligersdorffer, 347; cf. R. T. Bruere, "The Scope of Lucan's Historical Epic," CP 45 (1950), 227.

⁵⁰ Most notably at 794-803.

⁵¹M. Annaei Lucani Pharsalia, ed. C. E. Haskins, with an introduction by W. E. Heitland, London, 1887, xxxii-xxxiv.

⁵² Bruere, "Scope of Lucan's Historical Epic," 230.…

Abbreviations

Abbreviated titles of ancient works are those used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

AIV:

Atti dell' Instituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di Scienze morali e Lettere

AJP:

American Journal of Philology

CHJ:

Cambridge Historical Journal

CP:

Classical Philology

CQ:

Classical Quarterly

H: 15 Fondation Hardt, Entretiens vol. 15, Lucain, ed. F. Durry. Vandoeuvres-Geneve, 1970

PQ:

Philological Quarterly

RhM:

Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie

RIGI:

Rivista Indo-Greca-Italica di Filologia, Lingua, Antichita

SIFC:

Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica

SR:

Studi Romani

TAPA:

Transactions of the American Philological Association