Lucan

"Exeat aula qui volt esse pius. Virtus et summa potestas non coeunt; semper metuet quem saeva pudebunt."

"Clarum et venerabile nomen gentibus."

"Scire mori sors prima viris, sed proxima cogi."

"Serpens, sitis, ardor harenae dulcia virtuti; gaudet patientia duris; laetius est, quotiens magno sibi constat, honestum."

"Estque dei sedes nisi terra et pontus et aer et caelum et virtus? superos quid quaerimus ultra? Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocumque moveris."

"Si veris magna paratur fama bonis et si successu nuda remoto inspicitur virtus, quidquid laudamus in ullo maiorum, fortuna fuit."

"Ecce parens verus patriae."

"Etiam periere ruinae."

"Unica belli praemia civilis, victis donare salutem, perdidimus."

"Lucan is the most philosophical and the most public-spirited poet of all antiquity."

"The Pharsalia is not sufficiently appreciated—though harsh and irregular I consider it an epic poem of great merit which read on classic ground is by no means uninteresting."

"No reasonable judgment can rank Lucan among the world's great epic poets. He does not tell his story well: the successive episodes are neither skilfully connected nor well proportioned. His frequent digressions are often irrelevant and much too long. His geographical descriptions are obscure and wearisome. His account of military operations is hard to follow: he is concise where detail is needed and dwells at length on trivial or irrelevant matters. To him the narrative is of secondary importance: his interest lies elsewhere; the words said matter more in his view than the things done. His power and force are undeniable; but he lacks the chief gifts that a great epic poet must possess. He ventured on one innovation which seemed bold to his contemporaries. He discarded all that supernatural machinery which Virgil had taken over from Homer. The gods play no part in the action; Venus never comes down from Olympus to protect Caesar, her descendant. The later epic poets did not follow Lucan's example in this matter; but there is no doubt that he was right. He was dealing with Roman history and with fairly recent events; and the introduction of the gods as actors must have been grotesque. [...] The truth is, that Lucan is not a poet in the sense in which Lucretius and Virgil are poets; he is read, not for any poetical quality but for his rhetorical invective and his pungent epigrams. His diction and rhythm are monotonous: he makes no attempt to imitate the elaborate harmonies of Virgil. It appears that his purpose is less to charm his readers than to startle them and make their flesh creep; and with this object he has constant recourse to extravagant exaggeration or repulsive detail. Whether he would have written better if he had lived longer we cannot tell; but, for all his faults, he won a high reputation among his own countrymen; and Statius and Martial, writing long after his death, do not scruple to name him as the writer of Latin epic poetry who comes nearest to Virgil."

"When Lucan's age is considered, it is impossible not to allow that the poem is a very extraordinary one: more extraordinary, perhaps, than if it had been of a higher kind; for it is more common for the imagination to be in full vigor at an early time of life than for a young man to obtain a complete mastery of political and philosophical rhetoric. I know no declamation in the world, not even Cicero's best, which equals some passages in the Pharsalia. As to what were meant for bold poetical flights,—the sea-fight at Marseilles, the Centurion who is covered with wounds, the snakes in the Libyan desert,—it is all as detestable as Cibber's Birthday Odes. The furious partiality of Lucan takes away much of the pleasure which his talents would otherwise afford. A poet who is, as has often been said, less a poet than a historian, should to a certain degree conform to the laws of history. The manner in which he represents the two parties is not to be reconciled with the laws even of fiction. The senators are demigods; Pompey, a pure lover of his country; Cato, the abstract idea of virtue; while Caesar, the finest gentleman, the most humane conqueror, and the most popular politician that Rome ever produced, is a bloodthirsty ogre. If Lucan had lived, he would probably have improved greatly."

"When I consider that Lucan died at twenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary men that ever lived."

"Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus."

"I have also read the four first books of Lucan's Pharsalia, a poem as it appears to me of wonderful genius and transcending Virgil."

"Exim Annaei Lucani caedem imperat is profluente sanguine ubi frigescere pedes manusque et paulatim ab extremis cedere spiritum fervido adhuc et compote mentis pectore intellegit, recordatus carmen a se compositum, quo vulneratum militem per eius modi mortis imaginem obisse tradiderat, versus ipsos rettulit, eaque illi suprema vox fuit."