Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/11

PREFACE

The poet Lucan was born in a.d. 39 at Corduba (Cordova), which was then the capital of the Roman province of Bætica or Southern Spain. He was of a distinguished family, and one of his uncles was Seneca the philosopher. In the year after his birth his father migrated to Rome with his family, and there the young Lucan, as he grew up, received his education. Cornutus, a Stoic, was one of his teachers; and the doctrines of that school are strongly marked in the work of the poet. Very early in life Lucan began to write poems, which he declaimed to the applause of his listeners; and when Nero ascended the throne in 54 a.d. he and the poet were on friendly terms. The Emperor, however, was also a composer of verse, and the two having been rivals at a public contest, the prize was adjudged to Lucan, the result of which was that he was forbidden to publish or recite any more of his compositions. This seems to have happened about 64 a.d.; and shortly afterwards the conspiracy of Piso was formed, in which Lucan took part. The plot was discovered, and the poet begged for his life, but received the order to die. After the fashion of the times, he opened his veins and expired in a hot bath, a.d. 65, at the early age of twenty-six, 'inheritor of unfulfilled renown.' For in these years he had written the 'Pharsalia;' and it seems probable that he composed the whole of it between his twenty-first and twenty-sixth year.

The poem comprises the events of about two years, from