This is a full-scale edition (the first in nearly 70 years) of the first book of Lucan's De Bello Civili, an important and influential epic poem written in the 60s AD, which recounts the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey in the ...

Lucan's great poem, Pharsalia, recounts events surrounding the decisive battle fought near Pharsalus in 48 B.C. during the civil war between the forces of Pompey and Julius Caesar.

Lucan was a Roman poetand republican patriot.

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008.

By 65 he was composing the tenth book but then became involved in the unsuccessful plot of Piso against Nero and, aged only twenty-six, by order took his own life.