Lucan

• 1. Introduction

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  Lucan was born on the 3rd of November in AD 39, in the Roman colony of Corduba, in the province of Hispania Baetica, now Córdoba, Spain. His full name was Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, though English speakers know him simply as Lucan. Ancient critics ranked him among the outstanding figures of Imperial Latin poetry, largely on the strength of a single epic, Pharsalia.

  His youth and the speed of his composition, ancient sources agree, set him apart from every other poet of his age. That combination carried him close to an emperor's inner circle, and then, just as fast, cost him his life. What pulled him into Nero's favor, and what tore the two men apart? The story starts with the family that shaped him.

• 2. Raised By The Senecas

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  Three brief ancient accounts survive to reconstruct Lucan's biography: the earliest attributed to Suetonius, a second to an otherwise unknown writer named Vacca, and a third that is anonymous and undated. Later references in Martial, Cassius Dio, Tacitus's Annals, and one of Statius's Silvae fill in additional detail.

  Lucan came from a wealthy family of central Italic origin settled in Corduba. He was the son and grandson of Seneca the Elder, and he grew up under the direct tutelage of his uncle, Seneca the Younger. That uncle probably gave him a philosophical and Stoic education, and Lucan went on to study rhetoric in Athens.

  The fifth-century writer Sidonius Apollinaris claimed that Lucan's wife, Polla Argentaria, helped him compose the Pharsalia. The philologist Peter White dismissed the claim as a likely later invention, calling it 'sentimental fancy'. Whatever role Polla played, her name would resurface later, tied to grief rather than authorship.

• 3. Favor At Nero's Court

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  Nero rewarded Lucan with a quaestorship before he had reached the legal age for the office, a sign of real favor at court. The two became close friends, and Lucan's early career rose alongside the emperor's patronage.

  In AD 60, Lucan won a prize at the quinquennial Neronia for extemporizing two pieces, Orpheus and Laudes Neronis. Nero rewarded him again, this time by appointing him to the augurate, a priestly office. Around the same period, Lucan began circulating the first three books of his epic, labelled De Bello Civili in the manuscripts. Today it is known as Pharsalia. The poem told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. That was a subject far removed from flattering the emperor who had just honored him.

• 4. A Feud Turns Serious

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  According to Tacitus, Nero grew jealous of Lucan's talent and forbade him from publishing his poetry. Suetonius tells a different story: Nero walked out of a public reading Lucan was giving and abruptly called a meeting of the Senate. Lucan answered, in Suetonius's account, by writing insulting poems about the emperor. Both versions treat the falling-out as a minor personal spat.

  The grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius both suggest a deeper, more serious rift lay behind the feud. Vacca records that one of Lucan's writings was called De Incendio Urbis, On the Burning of the City. In his ode to Lucan, Statius wrote that Lucan described how the 'unspeakable flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus'. The later books of Pharsalia turn openly anti-Imperial and pro-Republic, a shift that may have driven Nero's ban more than any personal jealousy. That political current in his poetry would soon carry Lucan into open conspiracy.

• 5. Conspiracy And Death

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  Lucan joined the conspiracy led by Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero, and the plot was soon discovered. At twenty-five, Lucan was ordered to commit suicide by opening a vein, the standard method offered to condemned nobles. He died on the 30th of April in AD 65. Before he died, he named his own mother, Acilia, along with others, apparently hoping the disclosure would earn him a pardon.

  Tacitus describes his final moments in detail. As Lucan bled to death, he recalled lines of his own poetry describing a wounded soldier dying a similar death, and he recited them aloud. Those lines were his last words, according to Tacitus. A separate interpretation holds that this was not suicide at all, but an execution carried out on Nero's direct order.

  Lucan's father was implicated in the wider proscription that followed the conspiracy, but his mother escaped punishment. Years later, during the reign of Domitian, Statius addressed a poem to Lucan's widow, Polla Argentaria, marking the anniversary of Lucan's birthday. That poem, the Genethliacon Lucani, appears as the seventh piece in the second book of Statius's Silvae.

• 6. What Survived Him

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  A separate poem called Laus Pisonis, a panegyric honoring a member of the Piso family, is often attributed to Lucan. Other scholars, though, credit it to different authors. Only one of his works, by contrast, has survived complete in its own right.

  Vacca and Statius together list a long trail of lost titles: Catachthonion; Iliacon, drawn from the Trojan cycle; Adlocutio ad Pollam; Epigrammata; and Silvae. Further titles include Saturnalia, Medea, Salticae Fabulae, Prosa oratio in Octavium Sagittam, and Epistulae ex Campania.

  One lost title stands apart: De Incendio Urbis, on the Roman fire of AD 64, which may have accused Nero of arson. The poem itself has not survived, and only the title and its implication remain on record.