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Lucan, Poet of Freedom O. A. W. Dilke

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Lucan, Poet of Freedom O. A. W. Dilke LUCAN, POET OF FREEDOM BY O. A. W. DILKE GRAHAMSTOWN RHODES UNIVERSITY 1961 LUCAN, POET OF FREEDOM INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED AT RHODES UNIVERSITY BY O. A. W. DILKE PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS M .A. (Cantab.) GRAHAMSTOWN RHODES UNIVERSITY 1961 LUCAN, POET OF FREEDOM The Greek and Latin classics have been defended so often and so ably against the boisterous waves that have encroached upon them that to add one more apologia to the long list might result only in hackneyed platitudes. Within the last few years even the vestiges of compulsory Greek and Latin have dis­ appeared from the older seats of learning. However rigid a classical syllabus the Eton entrance scholarships may still demand, it can no longer be argued that an Arts Degree focused on non- classical subjects, let alone a degree in other Faculties, neces­ sitates a knowledge of prose composition in these languages. What our courses have lost in relative numbers since a genera­ tion ago we hope they have gained in interest, since they are no longer troubled with the student who is dragooned into Latin. And I do not consider it dragooning to insist that those who are study­ ing Roman-Dutch law shall be able to read a little Cicero in the original. But to exclude the classics except in Penguin translations from the University of York, for example, is an affront to Eboracum and to the shades of Alcuin, who in the eighth century was one of the greatest Latinists in the world. In the mid-twentieth century, the classicist can try to help the scientist to form his new compound words correctly, but let us hope he will not be relegated to this position. In recent years there has been some decline in the study of Latin in South African state schools. A bilingual country has to make both its official languages compulsory. But this should not lead to the odd result of European civilisation being propped up by a Latin course which in the initial stages is compulsory but which is taught for only two periods a week. Such treatment is likely to lead to much apathy, and to the feeling among some sections of the population that Latin deserved to be swept away 3 altogether with the Crown, the Commonwealth and the half- crown. Rather it should be optional, but taught for more periods a week, so that the interest of the pupils is sustained throughout. As a subject at this University the classics are on the increase. The numbers enrolled in the introductory Greek course have increased enormously, and include three Bachelors of Science. There is also an increase in the ‘ Principles of Classical Culture ’ course, which tries to embody the latest ideas in educa­ tion—to contribute to our understanding of the way in which Western civilisation has developed, to impart, without the medium of the ancient languages but with visual aids, something of the spirit of Greek literature, art, religion and philosophy in their historical setting. We are even planning a modest expansion, since in 1962 a new second-year Greek course will be introduced, to enable those proceeding to theology to include in their curriculum some of the early Greek Fathers and (with the help of the Divinity Department) the New Testament. It is hoped that this course will be of practical value to their theological work; and indeed the modern classicist must aim at being more practical in various ways, at helping other subjects by the application of his own knowledge, though we hope that this will not thereby become any less pure. The study of Greek and Latin is also being pro­ moted by a newly-formed branch of the Classical Association of South Africa. In this way links are formed with classicists throughout the country and with scholars and associations over­ seas. By way of apologia let this suffice. Rather than defend my subject, or even range through the whole of its literature, I should like to say a few words about one poet, part of whose work I have edited and published in the past year, the poet Lucan. Virgil so towers above other Latin epic poets that many an educated man would have to rack his brains for the name of a second. Yet no one can charge me with lurking in the cloister of an obscure topic when Lucan’s text has been edited by one English poet, A. E. Housman, and translated by another, Robert Graves—the one in my undergraduate days Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge, the other recently elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Moreover a Roman poet who makes so 4 strong a plea for liberty and for republican ideals and who describes the long-lasting results of civil war provides much food for thought in our times. In addition to discussing his poetry, I intend to say a little about his philosophy, which, like many things Roman, though it is derived from Greece, has a greater practical application. His work, if it became better known, might well be appreciated not only by senior students but by others at universities and in the upper forms of schools. May I sketch in briefly the world in which our poet lived, one in which philosopher-poets were politicians and emperors were poets? Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, whom we know as Lucan, was born in Spain in A.D. 39 of a distinctly literary family. His grandfather the elder Seneca, born under the Republic and long- lived, came from Corduba, which had been a Roman colony for about 100 years when he was born; of his writings, some reminis­ cences on rhetorical exercises, from which I shall be quoting, have survived. A second and more important literary relative was his uncle the younger Seneca, an unscrupulous and hypo­ critical but incredibly versatile man, a combination of self-made millionaire, Stoic philosopher who seldom practised what he preached, dabbler in scientific writings, composer of ‘ literary society ’ tragedies which have had a great Nachleben, virtual prime minister and tutor to the young Nero, two years Lucan’s senior. His maternal grandfather was also an orator, so it is no wonder if he was hailed as an infant prodigy. Education at that time included a highly artificial rhetorical training and a course of lectures or seminars in philosophy. The former seems to have persisted in Italy, if we can believe that film scripts represent only a slight exaggeration of reality. In an Italian film, counsel in a modern child custody case embarked on a stirring declama­ tory parallel from the Hannibalic wars. Equally remote from reality are the controversiae and suasoriae that we encounter in the works of the elder Seneca: mock trials, mock debates, speeches in which rhetoricians advise Alexander the Great or the Spartans at Thermopylae or Agamemnon about to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia or Cicero begging Antony for his life or bar­ gaining it for the burning of his books. This is how Arellius 5 Fuscus exhorted Cicero in his rhetorical exercise on such a bar­ gain: ‘As long as the human race endures, as long as literature has its due honour or its memory survives, your genius will live in the admiration of posterity, and though yourself proscribed in one age you will proscribe Antony to all ages. Believe me, it is only the most worthless part in you that he can spare or take away: the true Cicero, as Antony well knows, only Cicero can proscribe. It is not you he is exempting from the proscription: he seeks to save himself from your condemnation. If Antony breaks faith you will die; if he keeps his word you will be a slave. For my part I prefer him to break his word. I beseech you earnestly, M. Tullius, by your own soul, by your noble life of 64 years, by your consulate that saved your country, by the memorials of your genius whose immortality none but you can destroy, by the free state which (that you may not think you are leaving to his mercy anything you love) is already dying before you, I implore you not to confess before your death such great unwillingness to die.’1. Lucan’s initiation into Stoic philosophy seems to have been at the hands of Cornutus, one of those uninspiring writers who interpret Greek mythology allegorically. Athens, politically dead but a magnet to men of intellect, rounded off the upbringing of the ‘ poet in the forcing-house ’, as one writer2 has described him. When Lucan was nearly fifteen years old, Nero at the riper age of nearly seventeen had succeeded to the principate. His education was not very different, one imagines, from Lucan’s, except that he did not have the advantage of attending the Athenian schools of philosophy and rhetoric which constituted the ancient equivalent of a university. While Burrus tried to instil a little soldierly discipline into the young Nero, Seneca taught him the elements of philosophy and the art of public speaking. At this early stage of Nero’s principate Romans felt a breath of freedom when they heard him promise to reverse all the worst defects of Claudius’ administration. ‘ I will not judge every kind of case myself ’, he promised, ‘ or let a few individuals run riot (1) Sen. Suas. tr. W. A. Edward (1928), p. 80, adapted in the last sentence. (2) E. P. Barker, Occasional Publications of the Classical Association No. 2 (1915). 6 by having prosecutors and defendants behind my locked doors ’ (a hit at the hearing of cases in camera by Claudius).
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