Julius Caesar looms as a sinister hero in this stormy chronicle in verse of the war between Caesar and the Republic's forces under Pompey, and later under Cato in Africa--a chronicle of dramatic events carrying us from Caesar's fateful crossing of the Rubicon, through the Battle of Pharsalus and death of Pompey, to Caesar victorious in Egypt. Quintilian called Lucan a poet "full of fire and energy and a master of brilliant phrases." His epic stood next after Virgil's in the estimation of antiquity.