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{{work}}
{{Infobox book
{{quote| ''Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni.''<br />▼
| title = Pharsalia
| original title = De Bello Civili
| image = Lucanus-Glareanus-Le-Paulmier-Oudendorp-May-Pharsalia MG 0220.tif
| caption = Title page from the 1728 edition
| author = Lucan
| central theme =
| elevator pitch = The civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great
| genre = Epic poetry, Historical fiction
| publication date = after 65 CE
| source page exists =
| wiki URL =
| wiki name =
}}
''The victor's cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato.'' }}
'''''Pharsalia''''', or ''Bellum Civile'' (''The Civil War''), is an [[Epic Poem]] by the first century AD [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] poet [[Lucan]]. It covers the Roman Civil War between [[Gaius Julius Caesar|Julius Caesar]] and [[Pompey the Great]], from the former's crossing of the Rubicon to his seduction by Cleopatra. It was still in progress when [[Author Existence Failure|Lucan was forced to commit suicide]] for conspiracy to kill Emperor Nero. This gave it the mother of all Classical cliffhangers, with Caesar in the midst of a sword fight with Ganymede, a partisan of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy.
What makes the ''Pharsalia'' special among epics is Lucan's decision to depict the gods as dead. Other Roman poets had attempted to portray relatively-recent history, such as the Second Punic War, as world-historical events on par with the Trojan War. All they succeeded in doing was producing knockoffs of ''[[The Iliad]]''. Lucan abandoned the Homeric trope of human conflict as a family feud among the Olympians. Every bad thing that happens can be ascribed entirely to [[Humans Are
Despite its unfinished status, the epic was a huge success and remained a popular school text as long as Latin was the language of instruction, though never enjoying universal use like ''[[The Aeneid]]'' and ''[[The Metamorphoses]]''.
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* [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]: One of Lucan's main sources was Julius Caesar's ''Commentaries on the Civil War''; but in ''Pharsalia'', Caesar is the villain.
* [[Author Existence Failure]]: Though conveniently, it ends about where Caesar's autobiographical ''Commentaries'' did.
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* [[Green Aesop]]: Men kill trees to build siege engines to kill other men, and it is '''evil'''!
* [[Historical Hero Upgrade]]: Cato the Younger.
* [[Humans Are
* [[Narrative Poem]]
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Ancient Rome]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Pharsalia]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Latin Literature]]
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