Lucan

Abstract

For Lucan, the study of nature constitutes a dangerous distraction from the urgent necessity of civil war. Like other institutions, the scientific sublime short-circuits in Nero’s Rome, where the emperor plays the role of its hero, Phaethon. Paradoxically, however, a pathological urge to speculate about nature’s causes, especially those of astronomical and meteorological phenomena, saturates the text, oppressing the reader with theoretical detail and open-ended questions; this, too, is an experience of the sublime, symbolized through the ominous narratives of Phemonoe and Erictho. At the same time, those characters who understand how nature functions, such as Amyclas, cease to inspire wonder and simply crumble into political irrelevance; other sources of sublimity take precedence. Indeed, Seneca’s concerns, voiced in the Natural Questions, about the seductive allure of political power are fully realized in Lucan’s Caesar, while Acoreus’s discourse on the Nile appears to exploit the imperial fascination with astronomy and meteorology to deadly ends.