ABSTRACT

Lucan often imbues his poetic landscapes with an atmosphere of gloom or dread. Peace and calm (quies, tranquillitas, and otium) transform from elements of the idyllic into precedents to war’s violence and modes of expressing tension or horror (cf. saeva quies, BC 5.422). Lucan’s Caesar, moreover, is hostile towards both Pompey and peace (numquam patiens pacis longaeque quietis, BC 2.650); the natural world of the Bellum Civile reflects the moral degradation of civil conflict. This paper analyzes how Lucan engages with the pastoral tradition, the concept of the hero in a landscape, and the reader’s aesthetic experience of horror.