2017/01/01 by Jessica Seidman · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Chemistry · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods #Historical and Linguistic Studies
paper · doi:10.5184/classicalj.113.1.0072
openalex publication_date 2017/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
This paper examines the poetic qualities of Caesar's speech in two episodes from Lucan's Pharsalia and argues that Caesar attempts to rival Lucan in the poetic representation of Rome's past. A close reading of Caesar's speech to Amyclas (5.532–7) reveals a density and complexity of figurative language that justifies the narrator's assessment of Caesar as indocilis privata loqui (5.539). In his simile comparing Pompey to a Hyrcanian tiger cub (1.324–35), Caesar employs a particularly Lucanian poetics: rhetorical, violent and tendentious. However, Lucan ultimately gets the better of his character by appealing to the reader's knowledge of Rome's literary (Vergilian) past.