mnemosyne 70 (2017) 159-166
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Who Were You, Pompey? On the ‘Random Acrostic’ in Lucan 8.245ff. and the Issue of Randomness
In his list of ‘random acrostics’ in Latin literature, Isidor Hilberg mentions Lucan 8.245-248: ERAS, which does indeed have a rather random air.1 Yet there is more. Lines 242-244 contribute QVI and thus allow the reading QVIERAS. This, given the recent interest in Latin—and especially Lucanean—acrostics,2 makes the case more interesting. I would like to argue that QVIERAS has an interpretive significance not only for the immediate context it belongs to, but also for a key issue of the Bellum Ciuile as a whole, the characterisation of Pompey. If we accept that there is authorial intent, the acrostic must be regarded as part of the author’s narrative strategy concerning the career of this ‘hero’.
1. Before discussing the passage under consideration, it may be useful to recall another one. In his second book, Lucan includes an extensive speech by Pompey designed to test and to raise the spirit of his troops (2.531-595).3 This, however, proves entirely unsuccessful (596-600). The narrator then describes Pompey’s consequent pursuit of refuge in Brundisium and compares him to a defeated bull driven from the herd and preparing to return and contend for mastery once again (601-609). Two factors make the simile remarkable: the motif itself and the Vergilian model to which it alludes, the fighting bulls in Georgics 3.220ff. The passage has thus been the subject of much scholarly work; I need only give a brief summary here.4 Pompey’s speech closes with a list of his great military successes in the past,5 especially that against the pirates: Armenios Cilicasque feros Taurumque subegi: /
1 Hilberg 1899, 287. 2 Cf. e.g. Schubert 1999; Damschen 2004; Feeney and Nelis 2005; La Barbera 2006; Grishin 2008; Castelletti 2012; Katz 2013. On Lucan: Lossau 1987 on 3.1-9 (although there are also reasons to doubt PIOS MANI . . . S); Kersten 2013; Giusti 2015 on 1.218-222: tepet. 3 For Pompey’s aim, see Lucan 2.528-530. 4 On the simile see e.g. Hundt 1886, 31; van Campen 1991 ad loc.; Fantham 1992 ad loc.; Ormand 1994, 44ff.; Leigh 1997, 148f.; Thomas 2009; Easton 2012; Kersten 2013; Blaschka 2015, 148ff. 5 On Pompey’s fading glory and the idea that he unlearnt to be a general any longer, see Lucan 1.129-142, especially the first simile, 1.135ff.: stat magni nominis umbra. . . . Cf. e.g. Feeney 1986/2010.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/1568525X-12342104 160 Kersten quod socero bellum praeter ciuile reliqui? (594-595). The reference to Taurus is conspicuous because, as noted, the subsequent simile compares Pompey to a defeated bull forced to leave his herd. However, as the narrator adds, he trains his horns so that he may soon return and retrieve everything he has lost. Given the apparent play on Taurus and taurus, Lucan’s readers may find that the simile undercuts Pompey’s self-praise.6 Moreover, whereas this simile indi- cates that the bull returns victorious, everybody must know that Pompey is destined never to return to Rome or to power, and the phrase ceruice recepta cannot but ironically evoke Pompey’s decapitation.7 Georgics 3.224ff. gives a much less optimistic impression of the fighting bulls, in particular because of the illustrating wave simile at 3.237-241, which highlights future danger rather than victory.8 In the Bellum Ciuile, these considerations seem to be reinstated by the acrostic IPSENEQuIT, which is to be found in the text of the simile, and which may be argued to present a commentary on Pompey’s situation:9
uerba ducis nullo partes clamore secuntur nec matura petunt promissae classica pugnae. sensit et ipse metum Magnus, placuitque referri signa nec in tantae discrimina mittere pugnae I am uictum fama non uisi Caesaris agmen. 600 P ulsus ut armentis primo certamine taurus S iluarum secreta petit uacuosque per agros E xul in aduersis explorat cornua truncis N ec redit in pastus, nisi cum ceruice recepta E xcussi placuere tori, mox reddita uictor 605 Qu oslibet in saltus comitantibus agmina tauris
6 This literary play is no invention of Lucan, cf. Konstan 1977, 93f. and Clausen 1988, 15ff. on Catullus 64.105-111. Seneca makes use of the same pun while speaking about the Taurians (Greek: Ταῦροι), cf. Sen. Phaed. 166-170 [concerning Phaedra, Pasiphaë’s daughter]: nefasque quod non ulla tellus barbara / commisit umquam, non uagi campis Getae / nec inhospitalis Taurus aut sparsus Scythes; / expelle facinus mente castifica horridum / memorque matris metue concubitus nouos. See also Phaed. 906. Lucan utilises this association again at 3.220ff., cf. Bexley 2014, 396. 7 Elena Giusti, whom I wish to thank for discussing Lucanean acrostics with me, has seen this more clearly than I, thereby independently confirming what was already noticed by Don Fowler, cf. Leigh 1997, 149 n. 78. 8 On scepticism about the bulls’ fight cf. Thomas 1988 ad loc. and Mynors 1990 ad loc. especially on the frightening image of the wave simile conflating Hom. Il. 4.422-426 and S. Ant. 583-592; Schindler 2000, 175f. 9 Kersten 2013.
mnemosyne 70 (2017) 159-166