Introduction to Lucan’s Pharsalia

Rowe’s translation of Lucan’s poem on the Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, known to his readers as the Pharsalia but more commonly referred to now in Latin as the Bellum Civile (or De Bello Civili), was long in the making. His first translation from Lucan, ‘The Speeches of Brutus and Cato’ ¹ (CB, II. 234–325: 507 lines in Rowe), appeared in The Fifth Part of Miscellany Poems published by Jacob Tonson in 1704 with a headnote setting the context but without any authorial comment. Caesar has crossed the Rubicon and the Senate has fled Rome. Brutus, seeking Cato’s advice, seems to be expecting him to remain aloof from the conflict in virtuous Stoic calm, but Cato, in fatalistic mood, declares an overriding patriotic devotion to action and to Rome: So fix’d so faithful to thy Cause, O Rome, With such a Constancy and Love I come, Resolv’d for thee and Liberty to mourn, And never! never from your Sides be torn; In the translator’s dismissive accents Cato is fully aware that the cause may be lost: If Slavery be all the Faction’s End, If Chains the Prize for which the Fools contend, To me convert the War, let me be slain; Me, only me, who fondly strive, in vain, Their useless Laws and Freedom to maintain: After the Rubicon had been crossed, the laws had been dealt a near fatal blow, but Cato reluctantly declares for Pompey in clear-sighted recognition that he too may have imperial designs fatal to the vestiges of Republican liberty. The extract as it stands alone affirms the integrity of patriotic action over political disengagement in a just cause even if it is likely to be lost. It also gives voice to the hero of the 104poem, just about the time when Joseph Addison ² is reported to have written the first four acts of his later play Cato (1713), which was to confirm the Roman as a cultural icon on both sides of the Atlantic. ³