Lost in the Fray of War: Consumption and Destruction in Lucan\u27s Pharsalia

In Lucan\u27s Pharsalia, standard boundaries of space, agency, and time have been destroyed in the fray of civil war by means of an all-encompassing consumption, noted by the Latin verb consumere. With the use of consumere throughout the epic, Lucan is able to expand the sense of destruction of battle to new limits which had not been seen before. Through his poetic language and exaggerated horror, Lucan is able to present a Rome so affected by the civil war that all aspects of Roman Empire and society have been consumed, and I aim to show that this extent of consumption has passed through time and continued on through Roman history and future, especially in regard to the formation of the Julio-Claudian reign