The poet Lucan (d. 65 CE), who was the nephew of Seneca the Younger, wrote a historical epic about the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The ninth book of that epic, the Pharsalia or Bellum civile, includes Caesar's visit to Troy (950-999)…
When Caesar had taken his fill of the slaughter and left Pharsalia, he cast off the burden of all other cares and turned his attention wholly to his son-in-law. In vain he followed Pompey’s scattered traces over the land, and then report guided him to the sea. He sailed along the Thracian straits and the waters made famous by the lovers, and past Hero’s turrets on the melancholy shore where Helle, daughter of Nephele, robbed a sea of its name. Nowhere does a smaller stretch of water sever Asia from Europe, although the channel is narrow by which the Euxine divides Byzantium from the oyster-beds of Chalcedon, and the opening is small by which the Propontis carries in its course the waters of the Euxine. Emulous of ancient glory, Caesar visited the sands of Sigeum and the stream of Simois, Rhoeteum famous for the Grecian’s grave, and the dead who owe so much to the poet’s verse.
He walked round the burnt city of Troy, now only a famous name, and searched for the mighty remains of the wall that Apollo raised. Now barren woods and rotting tree-trunks grow over the palace of Assaracus, and their worn-out roots clutch the temples of the gods, and Pergama is covered over with thorn-brakes: the very ruins have been destroyed. He sees Hesione’s rock and the secret marriage-chamber of Anchises in the wood; the cave in which Paris sat as umpire, and the spot from which the boy was carried off to the sky; he sees the peak on which the Naiad Oenone lamented. A legend clings to every stone. The stream trickling through the dry dust, which he crossed without knowing it, was the Xanthus. When he stepped carelessly over the rank grass, the native bade him not to walk over the body of Hector. When scattered stones, preserving no appearance of sanctity, lay before them, the guide asked: “Do you mean to pass over the altar of Zeus Herceos?’
How mighty, how sacred is the poet’s task! He snatches all things from destruction and gives to mortal men immortality. Be not jealous, Caesar, of those whom fame has consecrated; for, if it is permissible for the Latin Muses to promise aught, then, as long as the fame of Smyrna’s bard endures, posterity shall read my verse and your deeds; our Pharsalia shall live on, and no age will ever doom us to oblivion.
When Caesar had satisfied his eyes with venerable antiquity, he reared in haste an altar of piled-up sods, and uttered prayers and vows over the incense-burning flame; and both were fulfilled.
“All ye spirits of the dead, who inhabit the ruins of Troy; and ye household gods of my ancestor Aeneas, who now dwell safe in Lavinium and Alba, and upon their altar still shines fire from Troy; and thou, Pallas [Athena], famous pledge of security, whom no male eye may behold in thy secret shrine—lo! I, most renowned descendant of the race of Iulus, here place incense due upon your altars, and solemnly invoke you in your ancient abode. Grant me prosperity to the end, and I will restore your people: with grateful return the Italians shall rebuild the walls of the Phrygians, and a Roman Troy shall rise.”
(transl. J.D. Duff)
What impression do we form of Caesar from Lucan? What is the poet's tone and mood?
Caesar, ut Emathia satiatus clade recessit,
Cetera curarum proiecit pondera soli
Intentus genero; cuius vestigia frustra
Terris sparsa legens fama duce tendit in undas,
Threiciasque legit fauces et amore notatum
Aequor et Heroas lacrimoso litore turres,
Qua pelago nomen Nepheleias abstulit Helle.
Non Asiam brevioris aquae disterminat usquam
Fluctus ab Europa, quamvis Byzantion arto
Pontus et ostriferam dirimat Calchedona cursu,
Euxinumque ferens parvo ruat ore Propontis.
Sigeasque petit famae mirator harenas
Et Simoentis aquas et Graio nobile busto
Rhoetion et multum debentes vatibus umbras.
Circumit exustae nomen memorabile Troiae
Magnaque Phoebei quaerit vestigia muri.
Iam silvae steriles et putres robore trunci
Assaraci pressere domos et templa deorum
Iam lassa radice tenent, ac tota teguntur
Pergama dumetis: etiam periere ruinae.
Aspicit Hesiones scopulos silvaque latentes
Anchisae thalamos; quo iudex sederit antro,
Unde puer raptus caelo, quo vertice Nais
Luxerit Oenone: nullum est sine nomine saxum.
Inscius in sicco serpentem pulvere rivum
Transierat, qui Xanthus erat. Securus in alto
Gramine ponebat gressus: Phryx incola manes
Hectoreos calcare vetat. Discussa iacebant
Saxa nec ullius faciem servantia sacri:
“Herceas” monstrator ait “non respicis aras?”
O sacer et magnus vatum labor! omnia fato
Eripis et populis donas mortalibus aevum.
Invidia sacrae, Caesar, ne tangere famae;
Nam, si quid Latiis fas est promittere Musis,
Quantum Zmyrnaei durabunt vatis honores,
Venturi me teque legent; Pharsalia nostra
Vivet, et a nullo tenebris damnabimur aevo.
Ut ducis inplevit visus veneranda vetustas,
Erexit subitas congestu caespitis aras
Votaque turicremos non inrita fudit in ignes,
“Di cinerum, Phrygias colitis quicumque ruinas,
Aeneaeque mei, quos nunc Lavinia sedes
Servat et Alba, lares, et quorum lucet in aris
Ignis adhuc Phrygius, nullique aspecta virorum
Pallas, in abstruso pignus memorabile templo,
Gentis Iuleae vestris clarissimus aris
Dat pia tura nepos et vos in sede priore
Rite vocat. Date felices in cetera cursus,
Restituam populos; grata vice moenia reddent
Ausonidae Phrygibus, Romanaque Pergama surgent.”
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