Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/14

led was to be found a renewal of life such as could resist the vigour of the barbarian nations. Lucan was a patriot, and the baseness of the age in which he lived inflamed his imagination the more by its contrast with the historic liberties of his country. These were represented (as he thought) in the Senate and Consuls; and Pompeius, their general, was to that extent his hero.

And yet he knew the superiority of Cæsar. Even in the characters given in the First Book this appears. What can the mind that finds a dreamy enjoyment in the triumphs of the past, or in popular applause, avail against the impetuous, insatiable energy of its rival? We know before the struggle begins that Cæsar must be the conqueror. But throughout the poem Lucan appeals to his reader on behalf of Pompeius: when he leaves Italy for the last time; on the morning of the fatal battle; at its close; in the flight to Egypt, and at the last moment he calls for our sympathy for him. But while we grant it, our reason speaks for Cæsar. In a similar way Lucan frequently pictures Cæsar as a despoiler of Italian cities, nay, as the would-be despoiler of Rome herself; and he is not ashamed to put this accusation in the mouth of Pompeius (Book II. line 600). But the sentence quoted from Cicero at Book I. line 164, which describes the great general as moderate in victory, is in accordance with history. Nor had the brutality ascribed by the poet to Cæsar in his description of the battle of Pharsalia any foundation in fact.

It is in the speeches, which form the main feature of the poem, that we find the difference between the champions most strikingly accentuated. On these Lucan has expended all his eloquence, all his pungency and epigrammatic power. Of one of them (the character of Pompeius spoken by Cato in Book IX.) Lord Macaulay said, 'It is a pure gem of rhetoric without one flaw,' and there are many others which nearly