Mentimur regnare Jovem: Caesar and Jupiter in Lucan’s Pharsalia

Sara E. Watkins (Florida State University)

The absence of traditional divinities and the Götterapparat in Lucan’s Pharsalia is an issue that has received a great deal of scholarly attention (e.g., Ahl and Feeney). My purpose in this paper is to explore Lucan’s perversion of this epic norm as it pertains to the figure of Jupiter. I believe that Lucan’s characterization of Caesar in the Pharsalia casts Caesar in the role of Jupiter, and with this consideration in mind, I explore two key areas where Lucan invokes imagery that associates the two figures.

Particularly important in establishing Caesar’s role as Jupiter is the encounter between Amyclas and Caesar in book five before the storm. I argue that Lucan represents this encounter as a theoxeny wherein a god-like Caesar in disguise (5.538) visits Amyclas, whose poverty and humility Lucan emphasizes (5.515-20, 526-531). Referring to himself as a god (deo volenti), Caesar, with god-like beneficence, even offers Amyclas abundant rewards for safe passage (5.536-7). Reinforcing the connection of Caesar to Jupiter, a verbal parallel in Lucan’s text (5.524-6) to the well-known theoxeny in book eight Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8.641-5) suggests that Lucan has modeled this scene on Ovid’s description of Jupiter and Mercury’s visitation of Baucis and Philemon.

In addition to this episode, I discuss the imagery of thunder and the Thunderer as it relates to Caesar. From the programmatic lightning simile in book one onward (1.151-7), Caesar is associated with things heavenly, and in particular, with thunder, fire, and lightning (1.154, 3.100-101, 4.680-3, 7.240). I argue that this imagery ties in more broadly to Lucan’s treatment of the gigantomachy motif: in Lucan’s poem, the gigantomachy is recast as a model for the civil war itself, a war that Caesar, as Jupiter Tonans, wins (1.33-7, 3.315-20, 7.445). By employing an image that evokes the imperial mission (Fears 1981) and coupling it with verbal echoes of Caesar’s relation to thundering, Lucan underscores Caesar’s (and Nero’s) role as Jupiter in the text.

In his Pharsalia, Lucan perverts the conventions of epic in a complex fashion, and his perversion of the figure of Jupiter should be numbered among his deconstructive gestures. When Lucan as narrator proclaims at 7.447 mentimur regnare Jovem, this statement is patently true in terms of the worldview presented in the Pharsalia—for it is Caesar, not Jupiter, who truly reigns supreme, much to Rome’s detriment.