1-35.    This book opens with Pompey and his men en route to Greece.  Exhausted, Pompey finally falls asleep and has a dream in which his first wife Julia appears.  As "a phantom full of dreadful horror" (9-10), her main function is to reveal to Pompey the consequences of the war he has helped to start:  "'The ferryman of scorched Acheron prepares countless ships; Tartarus is widened for many a punishment; all three Sisters are hardly equal to the work though their hands make haste'" (16-19).  Yet, the diligent reader will probably notice two other aspects of this passage.  First, Julia's ghost makes a clear distinction between Elysium or the "Field of the Good" (13) and the Underworld or the land of the "guilty shades" (14).  This distinction is indicative of a Christian influence which would have been highly incongruous in 49 B.C.  Second, Julia's prophecies are mixed with threats:  "'Let her [Cornelia] cling to your standards through warfare and through waters, provided that I may disturb and break in upon your slumbers, provided that no time is free for love between you, but that Caesar occupies your days and Julia your nights. . . . Never, Magnus, by the ghosts and by my shade, will you stop being his [Caesar's] son-in-law; in vain you sever with the sword your pledges:  civil war will make you mine'" (24-34).  Here, it must be remembered that Julia was Caesar's daughter (indeed, his namesake).  Thus, these are not simply the words of a jealous wife.  Since Caesar cannot be on board Pompey's ship, Julia is meant to serve as her father's surrogate or doppelganger.

36-45.    From these lines, it becomes clear that Julia's eidolon has had an effect upon Pompey:  "'Why am I alarmed by the apparition of an empty vision?  Either no feeling is left to the mind by death or death itself is nothing'" (38-40).  Now, with a resolution born of despair, he lands in Epirus.

46-70.    Although he is now the sole ruler in Italy, Caesar is not content, for his victory over Pompey is not absolute.  For the time being, however, he will devote his attention toward civil and domestic matters.  With a hint of aristocratic arrogance, Lucan declares that "only famine sets cities free:  and when the mighty feed the lethargic mob, its abject fear is bought:  a starving people knows not terror" (56-58).  For this reason, Caesar dispatches Curio to Sicily (and possibly to Sardinia) to secure control over Rome's corn (i.e., grain) supply.  On a side note, Lucan suggests that Italy and Sicily were once connected by land (59-63; see also II.435-438).

71-112.    According to Lucan, the Romans would have welcomed Caesar with open arms--if only he had not chosen to make war against Pompey:  "Oh!  if he had returned to Rome only with the peoples of Gaul and the north subdued, what a chain of exploits, what scenes of war he could have paraded ahead of him in the long procession!--how he fettered the Rhine and Ocean, how the noble Gaul together with blond Britons followed his high chariot.  What a triumph he lost by conquering more" (73-79).  Since Caesar surely knew what kind of reception he would have received if he had entered Rome alone, Lucan is either making a very naive assumption (which is unlikely), or he is again attempting to malign Caesar's character by portraying him as an overly-ambitious, unprincipled man.  In any event, Caesar's entrance into the capital is not exactly an occasion for joy (97-99).  In response to such a greeting, he can only remark that, in view of Pompey's half-hearted resistance, the Romans should be thankful that it was Caesar and not some foreign barbarian who was marching on their city (91-97).

112-168.    Lucan states that "freedom rouses wrath" (112-113)--apparently suggesting that, since Pompey's expulsion and Caesar's "liberation" of Rome, the Roman people have been more inclined to voice their discontents.  A tribune named Metellus now attempts to bar Caesar's entrance into the temple of Saturn (Rome's public treasury):  "'Only over my body will you smash the temple open; no wealth will you carry off unless stained by my sacred blood, you robber'" (123-125; Metellus' blood is "sacred" because it was a violation of Roman law to assault the person of a tribune.).  Caesar responds with contempt, declaring that Metellus is not worth killing.  When this fails to move the tribune, Caesar begins to entertain thoughts of violence (141-143), but, before he can act, another tribune named Cotta intervenes and persuades Metellus to step aside:  "'The freedom of a people coerced by tyranny perishes by freedom; its semblance you will preserve if willingly you do whatever ordered. . . . the poverty of slaves is dangerous not to themselves but to their master'" (145-152).  Finally, the temple is plundered, and, for the first time, there is a ruler in Rome who has more wealth than the government (168).

169-297.    As in Book I (392-465), this passage is analogous to the catalogue of ships in Homer's Iliad, except this time Lucan is listing the forces which supported Pompey.  Again, the purpose of this inventory is to emphasize the size of Pompey's army and, consequently, the importance of his campaign:  "Not when Cyrus led down his host from Memnonian kingdoms or when Xerxes descended with his soldiery counted by thrown weapons or when the avenger of his brother's love [i.e., Agamemnon] struck the waters with such mighty fleets did so many kings have a single leader, there never came together races so varied in their dress, voices of a mass so different-sounding" (284-290).  Aside from this observation, however, two other points can be made:  1) it is significant that all of Pompey's troops come from the east (e.g., Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor), and 2) by associating these peoples with Pompey and his eventual defeat, Lucan is outlining the expansion of Rome during the late Republic:  "To ensure that lucky Caesar received everything at one stroke, Pharsalia offered him the world to be conquered all at once" (296-297).

298-355.    Caesar now moves north to consolidate his power.  Across the Alps, the people of Massilia, while subject to Rome, refuse to be implicated in the war:  "'To your civil war we give our tears and our withdrawal.  Let sacred wounds be handled by no alien hand'" (313-315).  This scene is the most impassioned plea for peace in the poem.

355-398.    Regrettably, Caesar chooses to interpret this plea as a manifestation of insolence:  "'In vain are these Greeks inspired by confidence in my speed.  Although we are hurrying to the western region of the world, there is time to destroy Massilia'" (358-360).  Indeed, he tells his men to rejoice, for "'by a gift of Fate, war is presented to you as you proceed.  As the wind loses strength and is dissipated in empty space unless the forests thick with timber block its path, and as a great fire dies without fuel, so lack of enemies hurts me and we think it a loss of warfare if those who could be defeated do not fight back'" (361-366).  With these inspiring words, he advances to a nearby hill where he establishes his camp.  Then, with superhuman energy, his men begin the siege.  They blockade the landward side of Massilia with trenches and earthen ramparts, and they deplete the local forests in an effort to build a bridge between their camp and an elevated portion of the city.  Here, Lucan cannot resist praising the people of Massilia for their noble but fatal course:  "Now the Greek city gained this eternal glory, well deserving mention, that, not compelled or prostrated by sheer terror, it checked the headlong rush of war raging through the world and when Caesar seized all else at once it alone took time to be defeated.  What an achievement, to detain the Fates, to make Fortune waste these days in her haste to set her warrior in command of the entire world" (388-394)!

399-452.    Since they are still in need of timber for their siege works, Caesar's men now turn to a shadowy and mysterious grove:  "In this grove there are no rustic Pans or Silvani, masters of the forests, or Nymphs, but ceremonies of the gods barbarous in ritual, altars furnished with hideous offerings, and every tree is sanctified with human blood. . . . the birds fear to sit upon those branches, the beasts fear to lie in those thickets; . . . though the trees present their leaves to no breeze, they have a trembling of their own" (402-411).  The location of the grove (in Gaul), the allusion to human sacrifice, and the later reference to Gallic fear at its desecration (445-446) all suggest that this was a site for druidic worship.  As Lucan states, "courageous hands faltered:  and affected by the place's awesome majesty, they [i.e., Caesar's troops] believed the axes would rebound on their own limbs if they struck the sacred trunks" (429-431).  Disgusted with their cowardly behavior, Caesar grabs an axe and strikes the first (oak) tree himself.  Reluctantly, the soldiers now obey his orders--"not free from fear with dread removed, but weighing in the scales the wrath of gods and Caesar" (438-439).  Of course, the violation of this grove is an act of sacrilege which, therefore, reinforces Caesar's guilt: "for who would think that gods are injured without revenge" (447-448)?

453-496.    Apparently, some time has elapsed, for Caesar, now weary of the protracted siege, determines to move on toward Spain.  His men, however, continue the attack with two siege towers which they have built and placed upon their bridge.  Yet, the people of Massilia are resourceful, too.  With their ballistae, they manage to repel their Roman adversaries, who then resort to the tortoise.  When this tactic fails, they finally retire to their camp.  Aside from the poet's assertion that ballista spears were propelled with enough force to pierce two bodies at once (possible, though uncommon), these are all accurate descriptions of ancient warfare.  More importantly, however, Lucan had unknowingly demonstrated something else.  Namely, that, while Caesar may have been a corrupt statesman, he was certainly a good general, for, without his leadership, the Romans are obviously incapable of mounting a successful assault.

497-508.    Emboldened by their own success, the Massilians now take the offensive:  "They prepare to initiate attack:  concealing glittering torches in their shields at night, their warriors boldly broke out" (498-500).  They set fire to the Roman fortifications and destroy the bridge.  Here, it is worth noting that Caesar also mentions this incident (Civil Wars, II.13-14), but, in his account, the Massilians are victorious only because they surprise the Romans in the middle of a truce.

509-762.    With the help of a naval contingent under the command of Decimus Brutus, the Romans now resolve to attack Massilia by sea, and, in a battle of epic proportions, they win.  Once again, Lucan's interest in the sensational is evident:  "In the naval battle the sword achieves the most.  Each [man] stands leaning from his own boat's stronghold to meet the enemy's blows and none when killed fell in his own ship.  Deep blood foams in the water, the waves are choked by clotted gore and the ships, when hauled by iron chains thrown on board, are kept apart by crowds of corpses.  Some sank, half-dead, into the vast deep and drank the sea mixed with their own blood; others, while still drawing breath in a struggle with death prolonged, perished in a sudden collapse of wrecked ships.  Weapons, ineffectual at first, perform a slaughter of their own in the flood and every steel that falls with disappointed weight finds a wound to inflict in the middle of the waves" (569-582).