Lucan’s Amphitheatrical Scene for the Death of Pompey:
Book 8 of De Bello Civili

James M. Lohmar (University of Florida)

In Book 8 of De Bello Civili, Lucan achieves an amphitheatrical scene in order to narrate the assassination of Pompey by isolating Pompey at the opening of the book and then constantly alluding to his head up until the moment of his death (Erasmo, 2005).  I argue that Lucan uses not only literary intertexts (such as Seneca’s tragedies and Ovid’s narrations of death scenes), but also intertexts from his everyday reality.  Lucan has the opportunity to be his own munerarius by choreographing the rather gruesome death scene of one of the greatest Romans in history.

I begin by considering Vergil’s treatment of the duel between Aeneas and Turnus.  Vergil uses a global approach to set up an amphitheatrical scene by narrating the parting of the Trojan and Italian armies.  In this way, the reader can imagine the two armies facing each other and watching the duel between these heroes.  Lucan, however, sets his characters up against an ideal ground by making scarce mention of any other characters other than Pompey and his assassins.

Following scholarship written about the ludi that one could see in Ancient Rome (Kyle, 1998; Leigh 1997; Bartsch 1994; Coleman 1990) and studies of literature that narrate similarly macabre scenes (Erasmo 2005; Most 1992), I connect Lucan not only to his literary predecessors but to the amphitheater itself.  Whereas various combats in an amphitheater could last only a matter of minutes, Lucan has the ability to dwell on whatever he wishes and to stretch grotesque scenes for lines on end.  The poet describes even individual sinews being cut and bones being broken for extended passages, dragging the reader with him.

Finally, due to the highly visual nature of Lucan’s narrative, the reader becomes a viewer to the scene of Pompey’s death.  Lucan carefully manipulates the sensory inputs that the reader gains from the narrative, and in this way the reader becomes a voyeur to the decapitation of Pompey (Erasmo, 2005).  We are voyeurs because we dwell with the poet on the hideous scene on the beach as he contemplates (rather unsympathetically) the corpse of Magnus.  He explains that water washes and rewashes the stab wounds inflicted upon Pompey, and he then continues to narrate the makeshift burial carried out by Cordus.