Lucan’s Bellum Civile in Ireland: structure and sources

Abstract

In Cath Catharda, the adaption of Lucan’s verse epic Bellum Civile, is a hitherto little explored example of a medieval Irish translation of a classical text. This paper explores some aspects of its structure and its employment of sources, in particular its bipartite narrative architecture and its teleology, its use of medieval explicative scholia on Lucan’s text, and the format and the sources of its historiographical introduction. It is suggested that this introduction’s section on Roman history and political organisation derives from a source that is also reflected in a similar passage in the Old Icelandic Romverja saga.