In his prodigious, prolific and very short career, Lucan was at turns championed, disavowed and finally forced into suicide at 25 by the emperor Nero. His only surviving work is Civil War, an account of the bloody and chaotic power struggle between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. In their first episode on Latin literature’s so-called ‘Silver Age’, Tom and Emily dive into this brutal and unforgiving epic poem. They explore Lucan’s slippery relationship to power, his rhetorical virtuosity and the influence of Stoicism on his worldview.
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Further reading in the LRB:
John Henderson: Dead Eyes and Blank Faces
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n07/john-henderson/dead-eyes-and-blank-faces
Nora Goldschmidt: Pompeian Group Therapy
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n18/nora-goldschmidt/pompeian-group-therapy
Thomas Jones: See you in hell, punk
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n23/thomas-jones/see-you-in-hell-punk
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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