La narración de la batalla de Farsalia como derrota en Lucano

Abstract

This paper, firstly, studies the definition of the battle of Pharsalus as a defeat, and the consequences of that election: a new interpretation of the Roman civil wars opposed to that of the Augustean poets. Secondly, it examines the intertexts which the poet uses to demonstrate that it is a very unjust defeat. In order to achieve his aim, Lucan, on the one hand, makes an antiphrastic use of epic models, and, on the other, he adapts the account of the climactic battle to the narrative design of the most notorious Roman defeats, according to traditional patterns in historical writing, especially those of Livy's canonical descriptions, modifying, however, in a significant way, some elements of its pattern.