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London: CAMBRIDGE WAREHOUSE, 17, PATERNOSTER Row.
Cambridge; DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.

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Cambridge:

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

LIBRARY

7087

FORD:

ADVERTISEMENT

THIS little volume, prepared as an experiment, needs no preface. The Editors have had before them the editions of Oudendorp Weber and Weise, with several others for occasional reference. But the notes are in the main their own, and have been written by them in concert, Mr Haskins supplying the bulk of the matter, and prefixing thereto a chronological table and an abstract of the contents of the book. Mr Heitland has supplied the life of Lucan and remarks on the Pharsalia which form the Introduction, and has also made an Index to the notes. It may be added that brevity has been studied throughout.

CAMBRIDGE, May 1875.

LIFE OF LUCAN.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus was born at Corduba1, the capital of the province of Baetica in Spain, in the year 39 A.D. His father was M. Annaeus Mela2, a Roman Knight and well-known as the brother of L. Annaeus Seneca the Stoic philosopher : his mother was C. Acilia3, daughter of Acilius Lucanus an orator of some note. While yet an infant he was taken by his father to Rome, where he received the best education that the capital of the world could afford. It is said that he studied under the famous grammarian Remmius Palaemon and the Stoic Cornutus. A mong his chief friends were Saleius Bassus the epic poet and A. Persius Flaccus the satirist, who were at this time his fellow-pupils under the celebrated masters named above. Our author is said to have displayed his powers at a very early age, and to have been fully aware of his own precocity. Declamations and panegyrical poems seem to have employed his first efforts: he soon gave recitations, and drew great applause from his hearers. His rising talent attracted the notice of Nero, who was in the early years of his reign a generous patron of literature: the young poet sang the praises of the young emperor, and was advanced by him to the quaestorship though not of age for that office, and afterwards

1 Mart. 1. 61, Sueton. fragm. 10, Statius, Silv. II. vii. 24 foll. Cf. also Mart. VII. 22.

2 Tac. Ann. XVI. 17.

4 Sueton. fragm. 10.

5 Ib. 10.

uncle Seneca.

3 Ib. xv. 56.

It is to be remembered that Nero was a pupil of Lucan's

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