The Scientific Sublime in Imperial Rome: Manilius, Seneca, Lucan, and the Aetna
Patrick Glauthier
Published online:
25 November 2024
Published in print:
03 February 2025
Online ISBN:
9780197787588
Print ISBN:
9780197787557
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The Scientific Sublime in Imperial Rome: Manilius, Seneca, Lucan, and the Aetna
Patrick Glauthier
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Patrick Glauthier
Patrick Glauthier
Assistant Professor of Classics
Dartmouth College
, Hanover, NH,
USA
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Pages
145–198
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Published:
November 2024
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Glauthier, Patrick, 'Lucan: Natural Inquiry in a Time of Civil War', The Scientific Sublime in Imperial Rome: Manilius, Seneca, Lucan, and the Aetna (
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Abstract
For Lucan, the study of nature constitutes a dangerous distraction from the urgent necessity of civil war. Like other institutions, the scientific sublime short-circuits in Nero’s Rome, where the emperor plays the role of its hero, Phaethon. Paradoxically, however, a pathological urge to speculate about nature’s causes, especially those of astronomical and meteorological phenomena, saturates the text, oppressing the reader with theoretical detail and open-ended questions; this, too, is an experience of the sublime, symbolized through the ominous narratives of Phemonoe and Erictho. At the same time, those characters who understand how nature functions, such as Amyclas, cease to inspire wonder and simply crumble into political irrelevance; other sources of sublimity take precedence. Indeed, Seneca’s concerns, voiced in the Natural Questions, about the seductive allure of political power are fully realized in Lucan’s Caesar, while Acoreus’s discourse on the Nile appears to exploit the imperial fascination with astronomy and meteorology to deadly ends.
Keywords: Lucan, civil war, Nero, Phaethon, the sublime, Phemonoe, Erictho, Seneca, astronomy, meteorology
Subject
Classical Literature Classical Philosophy Classical History
Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
© Oxford University Press 2025
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