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Pharsalia

 Pharsalia
type
 TVTItem
 Pharsalia
label
 Pharsalia
 Pharsalia
page
 Pharsalia
 Pharsalia
comment
 Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Pharsalia, or Bellum Civile (The Civil War), is an epic poem by the first century AD Roman poet Lucan. It covers the Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when Lucan was forced to commit suicide for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.What makes the Pharsalia special among epics is Lucan's decision to depict the gods as dead. Other Roman poets had attempted to portray relatively-recent history, such as the Second Punic War, as world-historical events on par with the Trojan War. All they succeeded in doing was producing knockoffs of The Iliad. Lucan abandoned the Homeric trope of human conflict as a family feud among the Olympians. Every bad thing that happens can be ascribed entirely to human leaders, with the issue of why these particular men had power being ascribed to the Stoic concept of "fate."Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Despite its unfinished status, the epic was a huge success and remained a popular school text as long as Latin was the language of instruction, though never enjoying universal use like The Aeneid and The Metamorphoses.
 Pharsalia
fetched
 2021-08-28T02:25:19Z
 Pharsalia
parsed
 2021-08-28T02:25:19Z
 Pharsalia
isPartOf
 DBTropes
 Pharsalia / int_504a1991
type
 Body Horror
 Pharsalia / int_504a1991
comment
 Body Horror: In Book 9, Cato's army marches through Libya and is attacked by African snakes whose bites have some horrifying effects, such as completely dissolving one victim (including his skeleton), or causing one to swell up to an amorphous lump that shows no sign of stopping its growth when the others leave him behind.
 Pharsalia / int_504a1991
featureApplicability
 1.0
 Pharsalia / int_504a1991
featureConfidence
 1.0
 Pharsalia
hasFeature
 Pharsalia / int_504a1991
 Pharsalia / int_54f999c
type
 AlternateCharacterInterpretation
 Pharsalia / int_54f999c
comment
 Alternate Character Interpretation: One of Lucan's main sources was Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War; but in Pharsalia, Caesar is the villain.invoked
 Pharsalia / int_54f999c
featureApplicability
 1.0
 Pharsalia / int_54f999c
featureConfidence
 1.0
 Pharsalia
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 Pharsalia / int_54f999c
 Pharsalia / int_588d766f
type
 BlackAndGreyMorality
 Pharsalia / int_588d766f
comment
 Black-and-Grey Morality: Neither side is depicted as having the moral high ground, and they're both tearing apart the Roman Republic.
 Pharsalia / int_588d766f
featureApplicability
 1.0
 Pharsalia / int_588d766f
featureConfidence
 1.0
 Pharsalia
hasFeature
 Pharsalia / int_588d766f
 Pharsalia / int_name
type
 ItemName
 Pharsalia / int_name
comment
 Pharsalia / int_name
featureApplicability
 1.0
 Pharsalia / int_name
featureConfidence
 1.0
 Pharsalia
hasFeature
 Pharsalia / int_name
 Pharsalia / int_name
itemName
 Pharsalia

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Pharsalia
hasFeature
 Narrative Poem / int_3309a780
 Pharsalia
hasFeature
 Public Domain Character / int_3309a780