A Lucanian Contradiction of Virgilian Pietas: Pompey's Amor

Author(s): Lynette Thompson

Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 79, No. 3 (Feb. - Mar., 1984), pp. 207-215
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297126
Accessed: 05-06-2018 20:42 UTC

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 A LUCANIAN CONTRADICTION OF VIRGILIAN PIETAS:
POMPEY'S AMOR. *

In the Bellum Civile, where Lucan presents Caesar as furor incarnate and
Cato as the embodiment ofpietas and virtus, the character of Pompey is more
enigmatic, for this Roman leader is marked by a blend of pietas, virtus and
furor, a combination which proves disastrous for his cause. One of the
elements in this fatal combination, contributing to Pompey 's failure and
death, was his devotion to his wives, to amor of such a measure that it
interfered with his loyalty to Rome and his duties as a commander.' This
paper will show that in his depiction of this aspect of Pompey, Lucan, by the
repeated use of Virgilian reminiscences, keeps before his reader's mind the
heroic prototype, Aeneas, or his antagonist, Turnus, and makes his reader
cognizant of BC's specific contrasts with, and denials of, the Virgilian
optimism. In composing a scene which contrasts with an analogous one in the
Aeneid or the Georgics, Lucan uses striking verbal likenesses as a kind o
springboard, although he is quite free in his adaptation of details. Most of th
Lucanian and Virgilian analogues herein have not been noted; only th
resemblances and/or contrasts between the appearance of Julia's shade to the
dreaming Pompey in Bellum Civile and the ghost of Creusa's appearance to
Aeneas have drawn brief discussion.2
When, in the second book of BC, Pompey decides, in the face of Caesar's
furious progress, to withdraw to Brundisium, Lucan compares Pompey to a

* Presidential Address, CAMWS, April 1979, revised.

'For the opposition of amor and virtus in Catullus, see Sherron E. Knopp, "Catullus 64 and
The Conflict Between Amores and Virtutes, " CP 71 (1976) 207-13.
2For citations and/or discussions of Virgilian echoes in Lucan, see primarily M. Annaei Lucani
Pharsalia, ed. C. E. Haskins with an introduction by W. E. Heitland (London 1887) cx-cxxvi:
Rene Pichon, Les sources de Lucain (Paris 1912) 217-29: A.-M. Guillemin, "L'inspiration
virgilienne dans la Pharsale," REL 29 (1951) 204-17: Werner Rutz, "Die Traiume des Pompeius in
Lucans Pharsalia," Hermes 91 (1963) 334-45: Berthe M. Marti, "Cassius Scaeva and Lucan's
Inventio," in L. Wallach, ed., The Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of
Harry Caplan (Ithaca 1966) 239-57: M. P. O. Morford, The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical
Epic (New York 1967), especially the third chapter: Lynette Thompson and R. T. Bru're,
"Lucan's Use of Virgilian Reminiscence," CP 63 (1968) 1-21 and "The Virgilian Background of
Lucan's Fourth Book" CP 65 (1970) 150-72: Michael von Albrecht, "Der Dichter Lucan und die
epische Tradition, " in Fondation Hardt, Entretiens sur L'Antiquite Classique 15 (Geneva 1968)
281-92: Frederick M. Ahl, "Appius Claudius and Sextus Pompey in Lucan," Classica et
Mediaevalia 30 (1969) 331-46: H.-W. Linn, Studien czr Aemulatio des Lucan, Diss. Hamburg
(1971), who compares with Virgilian sources the flood at Ilerda and Caesar's sea storm: Moscadi
L. Baldini, "Osservazioni sull'episodio magico del vi. libro della Farsaglia di Lucano" SIFC 48
(1976) 140-99: Wolfgang Dieter Lebek, Lucans Pharsalia: Dichtungsstruktur und Zeitbezug
(G6ttingen 1976) passim. In this paper all quotations from Virgil's work follow Mynors' text:
quotations from BC are from Housman's edition.

207

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208 LYNETTrE THOMPSON

bull (BC. 2.601-9) which, subdued in battle, retr

himself until he can return as a victor. This simi
Virgil's well-known description in the third Ge
quered bull who withdraws, builds up his strengt
enemy again. The language is also reminiscent of
which likens Turnus to a bull as he moves to his final encounter with Aeneas in
Aeneid 12 (103-5). Lucan's simile is apt enough on the face of it, but its
evocation of the Virgilian combats reminds the reader of the destructive part
which the motive of love plays in the earlier poems. In his account in the
Georgic, Virgil speaks of the defeated bull's grief at the unavenged loss of his
loves, and the poet prefaces his account of the bullfight with the admonition
that nothing strengthens bulls or horses more than preventing them from
experiencing the blinding passions of love. In the Aeneid, Turnus is compared
to a bull, just after determining at length to fight Aeneas alone. Following
Amata's plea that he not engage in combat, we are told that "illum turbat
amor ..." (Aen. 12.70), and Turnus finishes his reply to the queen with the
words, "illo quaeratur coniunx Lavinia campo" (Aen. 12.80). The contest,
with love as a motive, will destroy Turnus. When, therefore, Lucan describes
Pompey in terms which recall Virgil's enamoured bulls as well as the amorous
Turnus and the destructive effect of love in each instance, he is setting the
stage for the part which that emotion is to play in the ruin of Pompey and
Rome.
For this reason also, in his depiction of the city and harbor at Brundisium to
which Pompey withdrew, Lucan employs verbal echoes of the Aeneid's
account of the harbor and city of Carthage. The Bellum Civile introduces
Brundisium as follows:

Urbs est Dictaeis olim possessa colonis,

quos Creta profugos vexere per aequora puppes
Cecropiae, victum mentitis Thesea velis.(BC. 2.610-13)

Although the mention of Theseus reminds us of Catullus' description of the

tragic consequences of Theseus' love and abandonment of Ariadne, the lines
also recall Virgil's:
Urbs antiqua fuit (Tyrii tenuere coloni)
Karthago, Italiam contra Tiberinaque longe
ostia, dives opum studiisque asperrima belli.(Aen. 1.12-14)

Both Brundisium and Carthage were settled by fugitives; from the two cities,
respectively, Pompey and Aeneas will flee. In Brundisium, Pompey felt no
confidence in the cause he had left behind him: "ergo, ubi nulla fides rebus
post terga relictis" (BC. 2.628). He, therefore, dispatched his son, Gnaeus, to
summon help from the East, where the glory of his name and Rome was now
famed throughout the cities:
Euphraten Nilumque move, quo nominis usque
nostri fama venit, quas est volgata per urbes
post me Roma ducem. . . (BC. 2.633-35)

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 POMPEY'S A MOR IN LUCAN 209

Aeneas, in contrast, when he viewed the murals in the

first dared to put more confidence in his misfortun
Aeneas sperare salutem/ausus et adflictis melius con
1.451-52), as he gazed upon the depicted Trojan events no
the world: "miratur, videt Iliacas ex ordine pugnas/bella
vulgata per orbem" (Aen. 1.456-57). But Aeneas found
temporary security in Carthage, from which, in a relat
hastily and silently departed at night to escape the dange
furor of the love he was renouncing and, more significan
Italy in pious obedience to the gods' commands. As he h
sed nunc Italian magnam Gryneus Apollo,
Italiam Lyciae iussere capessere sortes;
hic amor, haec patria est. . . .(Aen. 4.345-47)

and "Italiam non sponte sequor" (Aen. 4.361). Pompey, in

Brundisium unsafe because of the furor of his former f
who pursues the Republican leader and his troops. He an
forced to flee the harbor silently and at night as Aenea
Aeneas sails without his wife and in search of Italy, Pom
by his love and is leaving that country, although the fat
answered his prayer tofortuna that she suffer him to aba
which she forbids him to retain: ". . . liceat sibi perder
(BC. 2.700-1). Magnus' arrival on the open sea ". . . P
tenebas" (BC. 2.725), is reminiscent of Aeneas' simila
"At pelagus tenuere rates . . ." (Aen. 5.8).
As Pompey quits Italy, he is again described in words
this time departing from Troy. The Bellum Civile depict
with wife, sons, household and following nations, a still

. cum coniuge pulsus

et natis totosque trahens in bella penates
vadis adhuc ingens populis comitantibus exul.(BC.

Aeneas is likewise presented although his followers a

vulgus (Aen. 2.798): ". . . feror exsul in altum/cum socii
et magnis dis" (Aen. 3.11-12). Pompey, like Aeneas, is
homeland with his household gods and his sons. A sig
however, is that Pompey goes "cum coniuge. " He carrie
his love, Cornelia. In leaving Troy, Aeneas could not
Creusa, no matter what his intentions may have been, bu
Carthage, he deliberately put his personal emotional
deference to his duty. Pompey, on the other hand, has dif
two. His uxoriousness is emphasized during his first nig
dead wife, Julia, appears to him in a dream and for
awaiting him and the Republican army. Even though
lacking, this passage is Lucan's version of the apparition
of the second Aeneid, where Creusa consoles her husband, Aeneas, and

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210 LYNETTE THOMPSON

foretells his arrival in Hesperia, where prosperi

bride are destined to be his. Fas and Jupiter do n
him there. Unlike Creusa, Julia does not console
former husband in language which recalls Dido's
Julia declares that the rulers of the Underworld
Pompey, whom she will come to in the midst o
will disturb so that he and Cornelia, whom she te
for love. She will not allow him to forget he is
Dido threaten to haunt Aeneas always and prayed
did not soften his resolve nor burden him with doubts. And where Creusa's
words took away Aeneas' cares, ". .. curas his demere dictis" (Aen. 2.775),
Julia leaves Pompey in a state of trepidation with a mind made up for calamity,
"... certa cum mente malorum" (BC. 3.37). Unlike Creusa, who had
encouraged Aeneas to look forward to a new marriage and the first beginnings
of the Roman Commonwealth as he left Troy on his way to Italy, Julia shows a
jealous vindictiveness toward Cornelia and announces the ruin of the
commonwealth which was to follow Pompey's departure from Italy, and she
leaves him sure of trouble, an undesirable state of mind for a general.
Virgilian pietas had demanded that loyalty to the state take precedence over
private domestic bliss. And Aeneas had declared to Dido, when relating to her
the commands from Apollo and the Lycian lots that he go to Italy: "hic amor,
haec patria est . . ." (Aen. 4.347). His time of personal pleasure came to a
close with a renewed certainty of his mission. Pompey's relationship with his
wives, on the other hand, increases his uncertainty as he makes military
decisions, and his concern for Cornelia will be fatal to him later, thus
damaging the Republican cause. The pietas of this Republican leader, with its
admixture of furor, cannot match that of Aeneas.
After Pompey's departure from Italy, Caesar first secured the West before he
pursued Pompey to Epirus. In Epirus, when Caesar's forces were gathered
there, Pompey realized that a confrontation of the two armies must soon
occur. According to Lucan, his first concern was for his wife, Cornelia, whom
he decides to send to Lesbos for safety. The poet deplores the fact that Magnus
was made anxious and afraid of battle by his love; one thing alone he wished
to save from the blow of fortune that overhung the world and Roman destiny,
and that one thing was his wife:

?.. quoque
te dubium trepidumque
fecit amor; quodad proelia,
nolles stareMagne,
sub ictu
fortunae, quo mundus erat Romanaque fata,
coniunx sola fuit. . . . (BC. 5.728-31)
Furthermore, Lucan's language in ". . . heu quantum mentes dominatur in
aequas/iusta Venus! . . ." (BC. 5.727-28) recalls Virgil's, "improbe Amor,
quid non mortalia pectora cogis" (Aen. 4.412). Virgil is referring, it is true, to
Dido's emotions when she viewed Aeneas' preparations for departure.

3Rutz, op. cit., 341-43 rightfully points to the influence of Virgil's Dido on Lucan's Julia.

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 POMPEY'S AMOR IN LUCAN 211

Nonetheless, the earlier poet's condemnation of exces

Lucan's lament for the force of Pompey's (and Cornelia's)
Both Aeneas and Pompey are at a critical juncture in
whereas Aeneas is leaving his love in order to give his atten
his mission of founding the Roman nation and Virgil descr
passion therefore over Dido, Pompey's concentration
commander of the Republican forces is distracted by his an
safety. His greatest concern is and continues to be for he
country, and his pietas falls short of that of Aeneas. He is
". .. turbat amor ..." (Aen. 12.70) although Turnus "ar
. ." (Aen. 12.71) and wishes to win his coniunx in battle (A
Pompey is anxious to remove Cornelia, whom he sends to
of the effects of conflict.
After Pompey dispatched Cornelia to Lesbos, the Repub
armies maneuvered around Dyrrachium. Pompey deployed
the hills before the city, which was surrounded on all oth
Caesar, having encompassed the Pompeians with a wall, la
Virgilian reminiscences in the episode aim to make
analogous to Turnus shut up in the Trojan camp when Turn
attacked the Trojans during Aeneas' absence on his embas
side of the camp was protected by the river as Dyrrachium
the sea. The rest of the settlement was surrounded by batt
The Trojans had been instructed by Aeneas not to fight ou
after a period of shame at the taunts of the enemy, they
engage in battle. Word of this action reached Turnus, wh
part in the conflict at the gate. When the Trojans were har
and Bitias closed the gates without noticing that Turnus w
There, the Rutulian leader wrought such bloody havoc tha
terror. Virgil declares that if only Turnus had not been blind
had opened the gates to his men, that would have been t
fighting and the last day for the Trojan nation:
et si continuo victorem ea cura subisset
rumpere claustra manu sociosque immittere portis
ultimus ille dies bello gentique fuisset.
sed furor ardentem caedisque insana cupido
egit in adversos. (Aen. 9.757-61)
In the Bellum Civile, after some skirmishing in which Caesar was usually
successful at Dyrrachium, Pompey's forces, in a final section of the episode,
broke through the encompassing wall at one point. Just as Turnus had been
informed of the Trojan foray from the camp, so Caesar, who with some troops
was elsewhere at the time, heard news of this breach of the fortifications and

4For the symbolism of Scaeva and the theme of walls in Lucan's description of the battle of
Dyrrachium see Charles E Saylor, Belli Spes Inproba: The Theme of Walls in Lucan, Pharsalia
VI, " TAPA 108 (1978) 243-57: for the Virgilian influence on Lucan's treatment of Scaeva, see
Marti, op. cit., 248-50.

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212 LYNETTE THOMPSON

rushed to attack the Pompeians. This time the Re

Lucan, surrounded the Caesarians, now overcom
that if Pompey had not restrained his raging (fur
furor), that could have been the last day of the w
saved from tyranny: "ultimus esse dies potuit t
mediis potuit Pharsalia fatis" (BC. 6.312-13).
Pompey's failure to follow up his military
attributed by Lucan to his feeling of pietas towa

... Dolet, heu, semperque dolebit,

quod scelerum, Caesar, prodest tibi summa tuo
cum genero pugnasse pio. . . . (BC. 6.303-5)

Furor prevented Turnus, carried away by his sla

opening the gates and admitting the Rutulians, t
ultimate victory of pietas. In the analogous a
Pompey, in deference to his pietas, fails to ta
victory. The Roman nation was saved because of
lost, according to Lucan, because of Pompey's pi
concerned to point out the impiety of a conflict
of approach is through Pompey's former mar
loyalty to that relationship, as Julia's ghost had
obstructs his ability to command his forces e
ultimately to succeed.
Thereafter, Caesar abandons his siege of the Rep
to Thessaly. Pompey, contrary to his better
Republicans' demands to follow the enemy in ord
around Pharsalus. Virgilian reminiscences hark ba
of Aeneas and his little band of followers to fight
battle, ". . .moriamur et in media arma ruamus" (Aen. 2.353). The same
passions inflame the Pompeians, although they are sure of victory, as Lucan
asserts that "cladibus inruimus nocituraque poscimus arma" (BC. 7.60).
Trojans and Pompeians are defeated; the former escape to found with
increasing pietas the nation that the latter under Pompey's command allow to
be ruined because of furor.
After his defeat at Pharsalia, Pompey's travels constantly remind one of
Aeneas' journey as it is recounted in the third and fifth books of the Aeneid.
Pompey hastens first to Lesbos to Cornelia, where he declares to the people of
the island,

... tenuit nostros hac obside Lesbos

adfectus: hic sacra domus carique penates,
hic mihi Roma fuit. . . . (BC. 8.131-33)

Pompey's expression of devotion to his wife, whose presence determines for

him where Rome and home are, is in direct contrast to Aeneas' words when,
upon leaving Dido, he explained to her the gods' commands that he depart to
Italy where "hic amor, haec patria est. .." (Aen. 4.347). Aeneas' country is

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 POMPEY'S AMOR IN LUCAN 213

his amor; Pompey's Rome is Cornelia, his amor. 5

As Pompey, accompanied by Cornelia, prepares to leave
his journey in search of suitable refuge and aid, he praises
fides, declaring:
fata mihi totum mea sunt agitanda per orbem
heu nimium felix aeterno nomine Lesbos,
sive doces populos regesque admittere Magnum,
seu praestas mihi sola fidem. . . . (BC. 8.138-41)
In Pompey's opinion, Lesbos left behind isfelix because of
her association with him. But Pompey is now miser and
not destined to bask in the fame of his reflected glory n
continued his search for Italy, Aeneas, with similar wor
Helenus and Andromache and their little Troy, wishing t

vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta

iam sua: nos alia ex aliis in fata vocamur.
vobis parta quies: nullum maris aequor arandum
arva neque Ausoniae semper cedentia retro
quaerenda. . ... (Aen. 3.493-97)
Aeneas considers the Trojans in Epirus to be felices in having established a
home. He promises that if ever he founds a city, Hesperia and the towns of
Epirus will at some later time be united. They are to share a glorious destiny.
In the meantime, by Aeneas
". . . maris aequor arandum
arva. . . Ausoniae
... quaerenda. . ." (Aen. 3.495-97) just as by Pompey "fata m
totum mea sunt agitanda per orbem" (BC. 3.138).
It is to be noted that Aeneas' uncertainty about the location of Hesperia
practically removed by the rather explicit information given him by Hele
the seer, in Epirus, although he has yet to meet Dido. Pompey, on the o
hand, had made straight for Lesbos following the battle at Pharsa
Thereafter, he is for a time at a total loss about a destination. After tak
Cornelia on board with him, he simply sails in search of help which he
trust. His hesitancy about where to go after departing from Lesbos reca
Aeneas' similar uncertainty when the Trojan was leaving Troy. His determ
tion to leave Hesperia, however, differs completely from Aeneas' determi
tion to arrive there. In answer to his helmsman's query about the directio
their journey, his only instruction is to leave Hesperia behind:

'hoc solum toto' respondit 'in aequore serva

ut. ..

.. .Hesperiam pelago caeloque relinquas;

cetera da ventis. comitem pignusque recepi

'Morford suggests Pompey as "lover" of Rome, op. cit., 82. See also Frederick
An Introduction (Ithaca 1976) 173-89.

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 214 LYNETTE THOMPSON

depositum: tum certus eram quae litora vell

nunc portum fortuna dabit. . . .' (BC. 8.187

When Aeneas departs from Troy, he and

ferant. .." (Aen. 3.7), as Anchises orders them
"...dare fatis vela iubebat" (Aen. 3.9), not t
Aeneas, unaccompanied by his wife, has alrea
true, that he will come to the land Hesper
arandum/et terram Hesperiam venies. . ."
does not know where it is. Ilioneus tells Dido
(Aen. 1.529-33), and Aeneas repeats his comra
the queen (Aen. 3.163-68).
Shortly after Pompey began his journey, there
band of Roman senators and, in Lucan's word
East accompanied the exile: "terrarum domin
habet comites. . ." (BC. 8.208-9). Again, we
is borne an exile upon the deep, leaving, how
Asiae (Aen. 3.1-3) behind.
Later, as Magnus confers with the Roman sen
seek aid, he names three possibilities: Libya, P
choice since he does not trust Juba or Ptolem
however, argues for Egypt against Parthia, pri
adds that the treatment which Cornelia would
princes would be horrible.6 We are not told th
by the consideration of Cornelia, which Lent
with the general. Lucan very briefly states th
doubt that Lucan himself disapproved of Rom
help, but Lentulus' proposal to go to Egypt p
Bru'ere has pointed out, however, that if Pom
pick up Cornelia, the news of his defeat at Ph
him to Egypt and that his love for his wife, t
his death and to the demise of the Republic.'
From the beginning of his poem, Lucan
Pompey's uxoriousness played in his life
reminiscences his readers' consciousness of its
toward amor. In handling the tension bet
Pompey was unsuccessful. Only Cato, accordi
ideal pietas in the devotion of his marital unio
leaders, his unique example was not suffic
rampant furor. Pompey's capacity for loving
sympathy, understanding, and even at times, a
however, which fails to answer the greater ne

6This argument is found in Appian's Roman History, The

maintains that this consideration prevented Pompey's see
7R. T. Bruere, "Lucan's Cornelia, " CP 46 (1951) 232. B
Cornelia owes most to Ovidian sources.

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 POMPEY'S AMOR IN LUCAN 215

degree that it places personal considerations above the go

wealth is a kind of furor from which Aeneas was able to
descendant of the Aeneadae and the Ausonidae did not, as
(Aen. 12.838-39), surpass men and gods inpietas.

LYNETTE THOMPSON
Florida State University

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