Lucan's Ludibrium: Focalisation and the Death of Pompey

Peter Nani

University of Iowa

In 1990, Don Fowler's seminal article on point of view in Vergil's Aeneid appeared, thus being among the first to introduce to studies of Roman epic the term "focalisation"---a narrative device earlier examined in Greek epic in Irene De Jong's book on point of view in the Iliad.  Such considerations of point of view can have substantial impact on the interpretation of the text, a point effectively demonstrated by both De Jong and Fowler in the examples they provide from Homer and Vergil respectively.  In this presentation, I will consider Pompey's death in Book 8 and his subsequent apotheosis at the beginning of Book 9 of Lucan's Bellum Civile to demonstrate how a poet like Lucan, continually striving to show the horrific aspects of civil war, distinctively employs this narrative device to accord with the overall dark tone of his epic.

In the Bellum Civile, Lucan portrays Pompey as a man preoccupied with his fama, and perhaps nowhere else is this most explicitly manifest than at the moment of his murder in Book 8.  There is a momentary suspension of action in the narrative where the reader is allowed a glimpse of Pompey's thoughts as he is killed.  Here, Pompey is primarily concerned with how his actions and behavior as he is stabbed will bear on his historical legacy.  The head with which he had hoped to preserve his dignity for posterity is presented to the young Ptolemy while his headless torso is consigned to the waves---no more than just a plaything of the sea, a ludibrium.  Pompey's torso receives a makeshift burial on the shore; his pitiful grave inscribed with the ironically pathetic epitaph (hic situs Magnus) heightens the pathos of the wretched burial scene.  Following his burial, Pompey's achievements are listed, seemingly to be a more fitting epitaph than the brief one hurriedly inscribed on a mere rock.  Book 8 concludes with a denunciation of Egypt for being the site of Pompey's murder. 

At the opening of Book 9, the spirit of Pompey ascends to the sky and from its celestial vantage point, it looks down upon the mockery done to the torso (sui ludibria trunci).  The laughter Pompey's spirit derives from the torso becomes sinister in tone as it heads to Pharsalus as an avenger of crimes (scelerum vindex).  To this point in the poem, the word ludibrium has only been used three times: earlier Pompey uses it to refer to himself, fearing that he will become Caesar's laughing stock if his troops do not succeed at Pharsalus (7.380).  Later (10. 26), it will be used only once again in reference to another leader who similarly identified himself with greatness, Alexander.  When we read the apotheosis of Pompey at the opening of Book 9 and note that his spirit views the ludibria of the torso, we are reminded of its earlier associations with Pompey, specifically its association with his torso in the previous book, and are invited to revise our reading of Pompey's death and burial.  Given Pompey's concern about his fama at the moment of his murder and the appeal to pathos during the burial scene, we realize in Book 9 that we had been reading his death and burial through his eyes all along.  Our awareness of this therefore prompts us to perhaps reconsider our empathy for Pompey at the instant of his death.

Fowler, D, "Deviant Focalisation in Virgil's Aeneid," PCPS, 216 (1990), 42-63.

De Jong, I, Narrators and Focalizers: the Presentation of the Story in the Iliad. 

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