SOURCE: "The Scope of Lucan's Historical Epic," Classical Philology, Vol. XLV, No. 4, October, 1950, pp. 217-35.

In the following essay, Bruère discusses Lucan's possible intentions concerning the design of his unfinished Bellum civile.

In this paper it is proposed to assemble and discuss evidence bearing upon the scope contemplated by Lucan for his historical poem. Although formal appreciation of an incomplete epic is hardly possible ir the absence of a hypothesis concerning its scope—to determine the extent to which a poet would have achieved his purpose one must take into consideration what this purpose was—no agreement on this question has been reached, and for many years there has been little awareness of its importance.

That Lucan's poem is incomplete, breaking off as it does in the midst of a sentence with Caesar in mortal peril on the Alexandria mole, is too evident to require proof; that...