Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- Map
- Introduction
- SIGLA
- M. ANNAEI LVCANI DE BELLO CIVILI LIBER SECVNDVS
- Commentary
- Chronological table of events, 107–49 B.C.
- Parallel summaries of Lucan, De bello civili 1–2, Livy, Periochae and Caesar, Bellum civile
- Appendices
- 1 A Neronian critic of Lucan?
- 2 The capture of Corfinium
- 3 Cato's decision and Seneca's appraisal
- Select bibliography
- Indexes
3 - Cato's decision and Seneca's appraisal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- Map
- Introduction
- SIGLA
- M. ANNAEI LVCANI DE BELLO CIVILI LIBER SECVNDVS
- Commentary
- Chronological table of events, 107–49 B.C.
- Parallel summaries of Lucan, De bello civili 1–2, Livy, Periochae and Caesar, Bellum civile
- Appendices
- 1 A Neronian critic of Lucan?
- 2 The capture of Corfinium
- 3 Cato's decision and Seneca's appraisal
- Select bibliography
- Indexes
Summary
In a letter of January 49 B.C. Cicero argues out the decision whether or not to join Pompey in the form of a Greek ethical debate:
Should a man stay in his country once it is under the rule of a tyrant?
Should he eradicate a tyranny even at the risk of destroying the city-state?
Should he rely on diplomacy rather than warfare?
Is it a citizen's duty to withdraw into neutrality or to risk danger for liberty?
Should he wage war against or blockade his native land when it is under a tyrant's rule?
(Att. 9.4.2)Cato must have realized, as Cicero did, that to leave with Pompey entailed the probability of returning to attack Italy itself, as Sulla had returned in 83 B.C. It is not clear how far Seneca was concerned with this detail, but he has been interpreted as firmly opposed to Cato's participation in the civil war.
Of Seneca's many allusions to Cato those in his last work, the Epistulae morales of A.D. 64–5, were almost certainly later than the public reading of the first three books of Lucan's De hello civili. But it is possible to reconstruct from the earlier dialogues the image of Cato that Seneca passed on to his nephew, varying from the inspired hagiography of De constantia sapientis to the more realistic historical assessments of De providentia and the Consolatio ad Marciam. Seneca makes Cato a model of courage in Const. 2.2 using terms close to Brutus' language of cosmic cataclysm in Lucan's scene.
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- Lucan: De bello civili Book II , pp. 234 - 235Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992