Dalla parte dei Decii. Lucano e la storia esemplare di Roma

Abstract

The paper deals with the references to the exemplary history of the Decii in Lucan’s Pharsalia. Particular attention is focused on the model of virtue and self-sacrifice towards the State they embody. However, while they ennoble the pars Pompeiana, they nevertheless show the fragility of Pompey’s fate, increasing the sense of an imminent catastrophe: the virtuous model of the Decii is in fact not replicable. The subversion produced by civil war makes it now out of date: tragedy, not history