Lucan wrote the epic Pharsalia about Caesar’s civil war. The poem is also known by its older Latin title, De Bello Civili, meaning “On the Civil War.”
Lucan was a first-century Roman poet who began the work around AD 61, during Nero’s reign. His subject was the conflict between Julius Caesar and the senatorial forces led by Pompey the Great. The title Pharsalia refers to the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, where Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in Thessaly.
The poem was left unfinished when Lucan was forced to die in AD 65 after becoming associated with the Pisonian conspiracy. Ten books survive, with the final book breaking off during Caesar’s campaign in Egypt. Unlike Virgil’s Aeneid, Pharsalia largely avoids divine intervention and presents civil war as a brutal, morally disturbing catastrophe.
Readers sometimes confuse Lucan’s epic with Virgil’s national foundation poem or with the historical accounts written by Caesar himself. Lucan was a poet interpreting earlier events, not a participant in Caesar’s campaigns. The name Pharsalia is familiar, but many scholars note that De Bello Civili was likely the poem’s original title.