After reading David Armitage’s Civil Wars: A History in Ideas, I read Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Armitage gives it close attention in Part I of his book in order to help guide his case that the concept of civil war originated in first century BC Rome. Lucan, writing in the first century AD, composed his epic looking back on the civil wars of Italy, namely that between Caesar and Pompey. Armitage is no doubt right to bring Lucan into his discussion. From the poet we learn a great deal about the attitude and mood Romans had toward civil war. Much of what Armitage highlights when he brings Lucan into the discussion is the paradoxical nature of civil war, and its inevitably resulting evil. Most of the passages I’ve selected deal with this idea in one way or another. (All quotes are from P.F. Widdows 1988 translation, published by Indiana University Press.)
In the opening of Bellum Civile Lucan writes: “Times when injustice reigned and a crime was legally sanctioned…” (line 2). Just a short time later, lines 14-15: “How could you bring yourself to indulge instead in a conflict/Which in the nature of things could never lead to a Triumph?” Both of these show how civil war is skewed from the very beginning. When there is no hostis (enemy) as an opponent, but instead cives, the entire framework of war is transformed. There can be no triumph since that is reserved for conquer over a foreign enemy, which of course is impossible when the two sides are composed of citizens. This point is emphasized and made slightly differently a number of times throughout the epic, including in Book III, line 83: “What a Triumph he [Caesar] lost by adding one more to his conquests!” That is, by Caesar engaging in civil war, the conquests of Gaul—which were over a foreign enemy—are not given the magnificent triumph that would normally have been due. Caesar’s additional war against civilians has in effect overshadowed this.
In the opening passage of the epic Lucan also makes a powerful rhetorical point about all the other things Rome could have accomplished had that energy been spent on other (better) things. The poet exhorts his fellow Romans to conjure up the bloodshed of brothers and then to consider “what stretches of land and what expanses of ocean” could have been gained instead. At a later place in the poem (Book VIII, lines 460-463) a similar same point is made: instead of seeking vengeance for the dead Crassus, Caesar and Pompey are off battling each other.
A passage in Book IV highlights the evil and insanity of civil war perhaps as good as any in the entire epic. It begins around line 187. Two opposing forces have found themselves very near each other as they set up camp. Naturally enough, family and friends begin to recognize one another. This leads to commingling between the two sides and, for some of the men, even a shared meal. There is conversation, laughter, and general gaiety. But not for long. When Petreius (a leader of the Pompeian army) discovers what’s been going on, he (with the help of his private bodyguards) violently dismisses the gathering. He also scolds his men and delivers a rousing speech, which thoroughly achieves its purpose: “These words had their effect. They shocked the men, who were once more ready and eager for acts of inhumanity” (lines 257-259). Petreius’s men slaughter all of the Caesarians who are still around. It’s a bloody and gruesome scene that showcases the animalistic side of the men. It’s made all the more stark by the fact that prior to the slaughter there was the above-mentioned scene of pleasant reunion. Such is the evil of civil war that the most base and violent acts are able to be unleashed on those closest in blood and friendship.
Book V, line 552-53: “…Antonius [Mark Antony], who was already using this civil war to practice for Actium later.”
One of the facets of civil war that Armitage brings up in his book is that civil wars often do not have short histories—that is, those places which have suffered civil wars in the past are more likely to experience them in the future. Indeed, this is part of what makes civil war so terrible: scars tend to be very deep and wounds tend to heal very slowly, if ever. It is an evil that tends to perpetuate itself.
Book VI, line 163-64: “This was a man who would stop at nothing, blind to the fact that courage in civil war is a heinous crime, not a virtue.”
Again we see the inversion of the normal order of things when in the context of civil war. Since a foreign enemy is lacking, what would have been deemed courageous is no longer given such status; instead, it takes on the value of something quite different, even the opposite.
Book VII, line 604-608: “What followed, I shrink from recording/Rather consign it to darkness and let no age of the future/Learn from my verse the horrors that civil war can give rise to./Therefore my tears and protests shall stay suppressed, and whatever/Romans did in that fight, I shall pass it over in silence.”
Much could be said about this passage, but one thing that comes immediately to mind is the idea of a poet rendered silent. This is made all the more powerful and shocking in that Lucan’s entire epic is about civil war—such was the theme he chose and stated at the very outset. For him to become silent, then, and offer no words, no description, no discharge of emotion, is powerful. Lucan is willing, perhaps even eager, to narrate so many of the events in his poem. But here, not so. In this passage the unspeakable horrors of civil war are left alone.
Spectatio 