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The Pharsalia Summary & Study Guide Description
The Pharsalia Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains Further Reading on The Pharsalia by Lucan.
The Pharsalia Plot Summary
Preview of The Pharsalia Summary:
Overview
The unfinished Pharsalia narrates the Roman Civil War's first phase, which ended almost thirty years later in the victory of Caesar's grandnephew Octavius (Augustus), over the forces of Mark Anthony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the naval battle of Actium. It breaks off with Caesar trapped in Alexandria by the Egyptians.
Book One
Lucan begins his epic with themes and images that will run through his work, 'of legality conferred on crime,' images of self-slaughter and self-induced ruin brought on by Rome's own power and her citizens' corruption by wealth and greed. Peace was maintained as long as Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, and Julia, daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey, lived to hold Caesar and Pompey apart. Their deaths left them unencumbered rivals. Caesar, despite a vision of Rome begging him to turn back, defies the senate and crosses the Rubicon, the river of Italy. He takes...
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This section contains 2,231 words (approx. 8 pages at 300 words per page) |
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