Blessed with an annual offering of secondary literature and commentaries, Lucan's Bellum Civile has been pushed into the limelight. The last few years alone have yielded Monica Matthews' 2008 commentary on the über-storm scene in Lucan BC 5.476–721, and Paul Roche's 2009 full commentary on BC 1. In addition, Paolo Asso's 2010 full commentary on BC 4 has been published almost simultaneously with Paolo Esposito's 2009 Italian counterpart, under review here. What is more, Roche is already polishing off his next volume on BC 7 for the Cambridge green and yellow series: Lucan's future is looking bright.

The fourth book of Lucan's epic on the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompey contains many of the epic's most famous scenes: the Battle of Ilerda (BC 4.1–401) which sees the besieged Pompeians under Afranius endure thirst and gain Caesar's pardon; the mutual suicide of Vulteius and his men on their raft (BC 4.402–581); and the so-called Curio episode set in Africa (BC 4.581–824), with the embedded myth of the fight between Hercules and Antaeus (BC 4.661–714).

E. treats us to twenty-six pages of introduction, followed by the Latin text (41–63) and a substantial commentary (67–352). The introduction points out the structure as well as distinctive (and often unexpected) traits of Lucan's narrative before outlining the central rôles the concepts of furor and virtus play in Lucan's world of civil war. A further section (unfortunately mislabelled as section 3 rather than 4) highlights the importance of seeing and being seen throughout BC 4, before a final section reminds the reader of the problematic of gaining any glory in the unnatural constellation of civil war.

E. partitions his commentary into three parts, one each for the three main episodes of the narrative. A section that outlines the historical sources for, geographical location of, and the major scholarly contributions on the respective episode prefaces each part. E. then subdivides each section into smaller parcels, which he starts off with a brief plot summary before getting down to the nitty-gritty of the commentary. He makes frequent use of Arnulfus of Orlean's twelfth-century commentary on Lucan glosule super Lucanum (Marti, 1958), the medieval Commenta Bernensia (Usener, 1869) as well as the body of adnotationes super Lucanum (Endt, 1909, not 1919 as given in the bibliography) and the supplementum adnotationum super Lucanum (Cavajoni, 1979; 1984 and 1990). In addition a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editions with commentaries in Latin such as Burmann (1740, not 1711 as given in the bibliography), Oudendorp (1728), or Cortius (1828–29) are often quoted as well as Grotius (1614) and Sulpitius (1498) and the English commentary of Haskins (1887). Of particular interest are also the previously unpublished notes on Lucan IV of W. B. Anderson (1877–1959) which E. retrieved from the library of St John's College, Cambridge, and which he applies frequently throughout. This wealth of scholarship pre-dating the twentieth century does not mean that E. neglects the most recent scholarly voices. His approach rather balances these traditional views with modern approaches. E.'s commentary often provides a potted history of scholarship on particular passages: sailing through the medieval, Renaissance and (early) modern commentary tradition before finishing an entry off with references to recent publications and his own evaluations. E. also distinguishes himself through the frequent citation of (mostly) English translations through which he seeks to clarify the meaning of many a passage or pointed expression. Even a graduate class with very little Italian will have much fun mining E.'s exhaustive entries for treasures such as the one and a half pages on BC 4's final sententia (4.824), which forms part of the epiphonema on Curio (‘emere omnes, hic vendidit urbem’).

E. himself is a seasoned Lucan connoisseur who has published on this author for the last three decades and the wealth of material sampled here bears witness that this commentary is a labour of love and the fruit of many years of research. The author must be congratulated for this fine and welcome addition to scholarship on Lucan.