History Literature / Pharsalia

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet Creator/{{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar and UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by UsefulNotes/{{Cleopatra}}. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Though conveniently, it ends about where Caesar's autobiographical ''Commentaries'' did.

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar and UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by UsefulNotes/{{Cleopatra}}. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between Creator/JuliusCaesar and UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by UsefulNotes/{{Cleopatra}}. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Neither side is depicted as having the moral high ground, and they're both tearing apart the Roman Empire.

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between Creator/JuliusCaesar and UsefulNotes/PompeyTheGreat, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

--> ''Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni.''
--> ''The victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato.''

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between Creator/JuliusCaesar and {{Pompey the Great}}, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

* Gorn: The poem is considerably gorier than previous epic poems, relishing in descriptions of death and injuries.

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an {{epic poem}} by the first century AD [[AncientRome Roman]] poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between {{Julius Caesar}} and {{Pompey the Great}}, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

--> ''Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni''
--> ''The victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato''

''Pharsalia'', or ''Bellum Civile'' (the Civil War), is an epic poem by the first century AD Roman poet {{Lucan}}. It covers the Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when [[AuthorExistenceFailure Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.

What makes the ''Pharsalia'' special among epics is Lucan's decision to depict the gods as dead. Other Roman poets had attempted to portray relatively-recent history, such as the Second Punic War, as world-historical events on par with the Trojan War. All they succeeded in doing was producing knockoffs of Literature/TheIliad. Lucan abandoned the Homeric trope of human conflict as a family feud among the Olympians. Every bad thing that happens can be ascribed entirely to [[HumansAreBastards human leaders]], with the issue of ''why'' these particular men had power being ascribed to the Stoic concept of "fate."

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: One of Lucan's main sources was Julius Caesar's ''Commentaries on the Civil War''; but in ''Pharsalia'', Caesar is the villain.