Arms and the Many: Multiplicity in Lucan's Bellum Civile

This monograph contributes to the field of Classical Studies a new reading of Lucan’s ultra-violent Latin epic, Bellum Civile, which develops an interpretative practice using the philosophy of ‘multiplicity’, the idea that nothing is reducible to the singular but consists of multiple intersecting entities which merge and complicate body, identity and socio-political environment. Arms and the Many explores how multiplicity theory can inform a mode of reading literature, by arguing that the Bellum Civile exemplarily portrays its characters and contents, above all the soldierly body, as being simultaneously one-and-many.