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Commentary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
1–66 The response at Rome to the revelation of the gods' anger
The poet protests at the cruelty of divine portents that enable men to anticipate future disasters (1–14). The city goes into mourning; women crowd the temples in supplication (28–42) while the fighting men depart to opposing camps protesting at the approach of civil war (43–66).
The first half of book 2 continues without a break the account given in 1.469–695 of the consequences of Caesar's invasion of Italy. The terror that this caused at Rome was increased first by rumour (469–522), then by a series of dreadful portents (522–83). These are introduced in 1.522–4 as manifestations of the divine cruelty that denies Rome any hope of salvation: ne qua futuri | spes saltem trepidas mentes levet, addita fati | peioris manifesta fides. After the three increasingly specific and terrifying prophecies of approaching civil war bring the first book to a close, the opening words of book 2, iamque irae patuere deum, reaffirm the hostility of the gods towards Rome and validate the unnatural portents of the previous book.
But then (2.4) L. raises the dispute over the nature of fate between the Stoics, who believed in divinely ordained destiny, and the materialist Epicurean interpretation of events as produced by random physical causes.
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- Lucan: De bello civili Book II , pp. 76 - 222Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992