Abstract
In this dissertation, I argue that Caesar’s encounters with obstacles in Lucan’s Bellum Civile are modeled as sites of intellectual confrontation, where Caesar embodies the cognitive half of Lucretius’ portrait of Epicurus conquering superstition in his De Rerum Natura. I explore this topic more thoroughly from the perspective of the concepts of belief, perception and cognition. In the dissertation I re-examine episodes most frequently identified as Lucretian in the scholarship. These are the crossing of the Rubicon in book one, the destruction of the Massilian grove in book three, the Adriatic storm in book five and the battle of Pharsalus in book seven. My discussion of each of these episodes comprises a chapter of the dissertation, in which I analyze the Lucretian presentation of Caesar in the scene, and how Caesar’s self-characterization in his speeches shows the process of his rationalization of these obstacles and his inculcation of his system of belief in others. Finally, in each chapter I analyze how Caesar is perceived by other characters in his Lucretian-Epicurean pose, and argue that his solipsism causes him to become, from an outside perspective, a divine figure inspiring fear. However, I conclude that Lucretian thought and the imagery of Epicurus’ flight of mind are also applied to other characters as a means of their resistance to Caesar’s renovated system of belief. Because of this fracturing of the application of Lucretian imagery, I argue that Lucan emphasizes specifically the thought process symbolized by Epicurus’ battle, which is responsible for belief formation and behavior correction in Epicurean theory. This thought process can be applied by anyone with a human mind. This also leads to the departure of my interpretation from similar studies, in that it implies some usefulness for philosophy in the crumbling world of the civil war. The image of Epicurus in Lucretius and Lucan is instructional and can be imitated by the viewer or reader, who is, of course, in possession of a human mind.
