ABSTRACT
Virgil takes over the Homeric style, retaining its general character and even its special features; yet he transforms it into a style that is quite his own. The style of Virgil is indirect, the syntax involved, words are constantly used to suggest one meaning behind another. Virgil had many imitators among the Latin poets who succeeded him; they may be said to have failed in proportion as they imitated. Lucan was popular from the first, and he continued to be popular all through later antiquity and the middle ages. Lucan’s subject is the civil war between Caesar and the Roman senate, whose armies were commanded by Pompey. The set speeches in Homer, and he has a great many, are masterpieces of oratory, and Virgil was only following Homer when he made the set speeches in the Aeneid also masterpieces of oratory.
