"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."

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

"Bella...plus quam civilia."

"Iusque datum sceleri."

"Nulli penitus descendere ferro contigit; alta sedent civilis volnera dextrae."

"Invida fatorum series summisque negatum stare diu nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus nec se Roma ferens."

"In se magna ruunt: laetis hunc numina rebus crescendi posuere modum."

"Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas inpatiens consortis erit."

"Concordia discors."

"Quis iustius induit arma scire nefas: magno se iudice quisque tuetur; Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni."

"Stat magni nominis umbra."

"Sed non in Caesare tantum nomen erat nec fama ducis, sed nescia virtus stare loco, solusque pudor non vincere bello."

"Fecunda virorum paupertas fugitur totoque accersitur orbe quo gens quaeque perit."

"Mensuraque juris vis erat."

"Postquam leges bello siluere coactae pellimur e patriis laribus patimurque volentes exilium."

"Tolle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis."

"Arma tenenti omnia dat, qui justa negat."

"Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremptas Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevum, Plurima securi fudistis carmina, Bardi."

"Longae...vitae Mors media est."

"Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores."

"Sic quisque pavendo dat vires famae, nulloque auctore malorum quae finxere timent."

"O faciles dare summa deos eademque tueri difficiles!"

"Sit caeca futuri mens hominum fati; liceat sperare timenti."

"Sed quo fata trahunt virtus secura sequetur. Crimen erit superis et me fecisse nocentem."

"Hi mores, haec duri inmota Catonis secta fuit, servare modum finemque tenere naturamque sequi patriaeque inpendere vitam nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo."

"Non tam portas intrare patentis quam fregisse juvat."

"Sed Caesar in omnia praeceps, nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum."

"Aut nihil est sensus animis a morte relictum aut mors ipsa nihil."

"Usque adeo solus ferrum mortemque timere auri nescit amor."

"And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. They…spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house. They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike. They took infants from their mothers’ breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, “Boil there, you offspring of the devil!”…They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim’s feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive. …With still others, …they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim’s neck …"

"The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field."

"They made a grid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them."

"With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, "Go now, carry the message," meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains."

"They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive."