LibertasLibertas for a Roman citizen meant a web of rights and obligations. Particularly important to the Roman sense of self was the freedom, theoretically, to have a voice in shaping Roman law and policy. They acknowledged only the law and the lawfully constituted magistrates whose power derived from their will. It is easy to dismiss libertas, particularly in the late republic, as merely aristocratic privilege. From the Pharsalia, it is clear that Lucan is aware of the shortcomings of libertas (1.158-82).

Lucan's libertas may appear limited or naive to some, but it has touched a chord with every period to which the liberty of the individual to live a considered and self-controlled life in an orderly and humane society has been recognized as a supreme good. It is unfair to speak of his concept of libertas as being restricted to one class. Lucan displays the imaginative sympathy to recognize the nobility and virtus (courage) of anyone who yearned for the right and the honorable. He carefully draws attention to the Massilians who have left the Romans behind in the practice of their own virtues. They emerge, as no Roman does, clothed in the qualities of the early republic. They are resolute, true to their friends, desiring only to behave with piety towards gods and men.

Suicide and Fratricide Lucan begins the Pharsalia by reminding his audience that the Roman civil war is worse than civil, it is fratricidal. Pompey and Caesar were, as he repeats at every turn, son-in-law and father-in-law, kin against kin. Rome turns its sword upon itself. The speech of the Centurion Laelius is chilling not only for the fanaticism it places in the service of an amoral leader, but also for the complete breakdown of the social contract and common humanity. Laelius will turn his sword against the gods, his father, his brother, even his pregnant wife out of loyalty to Caesar. He has lost the sense of the wounds each such blow would inflict upon him. This sort of war involves all participants in guilt; no man's hands, however righteous his cause, are free from the blood of his brother, his fellow citizen.

Lucan never allows his readers to forget the suicidal nature of the conflict. Even the grammatical structure of Lucan's sentences serves to carry the theme. Again and again the logical object of a sentence is made the grammatical subject as in 4.561-2 "their breasts dashed against the steel, and their throats struck the hand." Lucan uses this because it is a profound expression of the paradox of civil war, where every blow struck wounds the one who strikes even more than the one who receives it.

Nevertheless, suicide has its positive side for Lucan. It is the final weapon against the tyranny of men and events. No one can be forced to endure any evil, if they do not fear death. Death removes a man from all compulsion. It is also, in the sense of the Roman concept of devotio, the means whereby a man offers his life to the gods for the good of the people. The word devotio paradoxically and appropriately means both consecrating and cursing. These meanings are reflected in Cato's wish to offer his life to the powers of heaven and hell, to atone for his country's sins.

Fortune, Fate, and Chance Lucan makes little distinction between fortune and fate. They both correspond roughly to the modern use of "fate," but they are not exactly interchangeable. Servius wrote, "Birth and death are the provinces of fate; all that lies between is the province of...