Summary
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39–65 CE) was a Roman poet from the Neronian Age, a nephew of the philosopher and playwright Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger and grandson of the rhetorician Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder. Not surprisingly in view of this distinguished family tradition, he, too, enjoyed a prolific literary career which however was cut short by his premature death at the age of twenty-six. According to the historian Tacitus (Annales 15,70), Lucan had joined the failed Pisonian conspiracy against the emperor Nero and like his uncle was forced to commit suicide. His only surviving work, the Bellum civile (often quoted under the alternative title Pharsalia) on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, proved to be one of the most influential Latin epics along with Virgil’s
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Citation: Ambühl, Annemarie. "Lucan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 August 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2807, accessed 24 November 2024.]
