<!doctype html public «-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en»> http-equiv=content-type> In his civil war epic, the Roman poet Lucan draws extensively on his literary forbears. This study fills a gap in the research by going beyond the boundaries of language and genre to examine his reception of Greek literature, especially Attic tragedy and Hellenistic poetry. It reveals the importance of mythical and literary models, such as the Trojan War and the fratricidal war around Thebes, for Lucan’s epic formulation of the civil war theme.
