conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for a Transl Matthew Fox story with the title 'Civil War'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Civil War
  It is little surprise, then, that a plot to assassinate Nero was hatched during this crisis, and all accounts of Lucan's life and the Pisonian conspiracy name him as a ringleader. Tacitus says that Seneca was now under virtual house arrest and ate nothing but wild fruit for fear of poison. So in addition to personal grievances and political opposition, Lucan's motives may have included family solidarity. Others of republican and Stoic sympathies would also have been outraged at this flagrant instance of political repression. Suetonius calls Lucan "almost the standard-bearer" of a plot with dozens of men and women, from senatorial, equestrian, and military families, either involved, aware, or later (rightly or wrongly) implicated. Nero was to be replaced as head of state by Gaius Calpurnius Piso; whether such a change of leadership would have "restored the republic" is a point made moot by the plot's failure and suppression. Events of AD 68–69, when civil war erupted and Nero fell, suggest that monarchy was now the most feasible political regime given the structural realities of the Roman Empire. But for Nero, the failed coup was the beginning of the end. In 66 the Jews of Judea rebelled against Rome, and in the city there were more plots, arrests, and eliminations. In early 68, Nero's own governors and armies began to defect, first in Gaul, then Spain; as rebellion and mutinies flared, Nero, sensing his doom, took his own life. The Julio-Claudian dynasty ended as it began, in civil war.
  But in the Hellenistic period any such neat line between sober prose history and fanciful epic poetry was blurred, as prose writing itself diversified and epics on recent events came into vogue. Both developments tend to point toward the meteoric career of Alexander the Great, whose exploits of conquest became fodder for prose "romances" (popular histories) and panegyric poetry even during his life. The divine machinery of epic invaded prose history. On the other hand, in the learned environment of Alexandria, poets like Callimachus forged a leaner, smarter, enlightened aesthetic for epic and other verse genres, which included ample scope for philosophical and historical discourses.
  This dimension becomes clearest after Pharsalus and the death of Pompey, when all the strands begin to come together. The opposition between Caesar and Pompey, which had always been merely a choice between two savage masters (cf. 2.340–43,  
  Caesar(ism) is bound to win out because, given human nature, any man put in Caesar's place would act exactly the same way.
  Lucan rejects the Olympian gods as epic actors on the stage of human history. He replaces them with Fata ("the Fates") and Fortuna ("Fortune"). His use of these "gods" or cosmic forces or folk-explanatory principles (or whatever) is one of the most highly charged aspects of the poem and lends it its greatest sense of cosmic, and interpretive, indeterminacy. The words for fate and fortune occur more than any other nouns in the poem. Whether or not his use of these notions can be shown to possess philosophical consistency, it no doubt serves effective poetic ends. For the dark, fatal oscillation of Fortune and Fate casts a tragic mood of cosmic uncertainty and doom over his narrative of dire civil conflicts.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Alexander's, bloomed, sanctioning.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Civil War
  It is little surprise, then, that a plot to assassinate Nero was hatched during this crisis, and all accounts of Lucan's life and the Pisonian conspiracy name him as a ringleader. Tacitus says that Seneca was now under virtual house arrest and ate nothing but wild fruit for fear of poison. So in addition to personal grievances and political opposition, Lucan's motives may have included family solidarity. Others of republican and Stoic sympathies would also have been outraged at this flagrant instance of political repression. Suetonius calls Lucan "almost the standard-bearer" of a plot with dozens of men and women, from senatorial, equestrian, and military families, either involved, aware, or later (rightly or wrongly) implicated. Nero was to be replaced as head of state by Gaius Calpurnius Piso; whether such a change of leadership would have "restored the republic" is a point made moot by the plot's failure and suppression. Events of AD 68–69, when civil war erupted and Nero fell, suggest that monarchy was now the most feasible political regime given the structural realities of the Roman Empire. But for Nero, the failed coup was the beginning of the end. In 66 the Jews of Judea rebelled against Rome, and in the city there were more plots, arrests, and eliminations. In early 68, Nero's own governors and armies began to defect, first in Gaul, then Spain; as rebellion and mutinies flared, Nero, sensing his doom, took his own life. The Julio-Claudian dynasty ended as it began, in civil war. 
  But in the Hellenistic period any such neat line between sober prose history and fanciful epic poetry was blurred, as prose writing itself diversified and epics on recent events came into vogue. Both developments tend to point toward the meteoric career of Alexander the Great, whose exploits of conquest became fodder for prose "romances" (popular histories) and panegyric poetry even during his life. After Alexander's death, his biography bloomed with all sorts of fabulous adventures, folk morality tales, and sanctioning encounters with the divine. The divine machinery of epic invaded prose history. On the other hand, in the learned environment of Alexandria, poets like Callimachus forged a leaner, smarter, enlightened aesthetic for epic and other verse genres, which included ample scope for philosophical and historical discourses. 
  This dimension becomes clearest after Pharsalus and the death of Pompey, when all the strands begin to come together. The opposition between Caesar and Pompey, which had always been merely a choice between two savage masters (cf. 2. 340–43,  
  Caesar(ism) is bound to win out because, given human nature, any man put in Caesar's place would act exactly the same way. 
  Lucan rejects the Olympian gods as epic actors on the stage of human history. He replaces them with Fata ("the Fates") and Fortuna ("Fortune"). His use of these "gods" or cosmic forces or folk-explanatory principles (or whatever) is one of the most highly charged aspects of the poem and lends it its greatest sense of cosmic, and interpretive, indeterminacy. The words for fate and fortune occur more than any other nouns in the poem. Whether or not his use of these notions can be shown to possess philosophical consistency, it no doubt serves effective poetic ends. For the dark, fatal oscillation of Fortune and Fate casts a tragic mood of cosmic uncertainty and doom over his narrative of dire civil conflicts.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lucan likes to manipulate the placement of words for unique effects, which once in a while one is able to approximate. So, for example, describing the pivotal geographical location of Delphi, he writes (5.75–76):
  This sort of thing is very common in Lucan, and one can hardly replicate it all without seriously straining the sense and syntax of the English (and probably exhausting the reader). And where some line seems to torture grammar or normal word order, it is safe to assume that some poetic effect in the original is the motivating cause.
  In general, explanatory material is not added into the translation, but is reserved for the notes, so that the reader can be reasonably confident the translation reflects what is found in the Latin. There are just a couple of notable exceptions to this rule. First, Lucan likes to call the sun god "Titan," which is rendered as "the Titan Sun" and even just "the Sun." So, too, Lucan uses the Latin—and Greek—names of the winds, which were meaningful in Latin, indicating the wind direction, but which mean nothing to modern readers. While sometimes the names appear in the translation as they stand, at other times they are translated as "north wind" (for Boreas), and so on, or even added alongside the proper name is a reference to the wind direction. A list of wind names and their directions will be found just before the notes.
  We have mainly followed the text of A. E. Housman's 1927 (corrected) edition. But comparison with Giovanni Viansino's text (Milan: Mondadori, 1995), which tends to follow the manuscript tradition over emendations, conjectures, and line transpositions in Housman and Shackleton Bailey (Teubner 1988), has led to the adoption of other readings at times (listed below). His copious literary notes have also been indispensable. Similarly, Duff's prose gloss in his Loeb edition (1928) has been a constant aid, especially where Lucan's Latin is opaque or difficult (as it often is). Innumerable times we mulled the Latin, and what Duff made of it, then consulted commentaries as well as what other translators had done: we are proud to say that on several occasions we feel that we have been able to correct or improve Duff's by now standard interpretations of hard passages. (By the same token, wherever doubts remained, we hope we have made intelligent choices and not introduced too many new mistakes.)
  AD 14| Death of Augustus (Aug. 19); his stepson Tiberius inherits imperial power, establishing the Julio-Claudian dynasty
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Titus **Labiénus** (ca. 100–45 BC) Caesar's chief officer in his Gallic campaigns, he joined Pompey's side at the outbreak of war, fought at Pharsalus and in Africa, and died at Munda (5.363, 9.690, 710).
  Gaius **Márius** / **Márii** (pl.) (ca. 157–86 BC) Leading Roman political and military figure, Julius Caesar's uncle, consul in 107, conquering Jugurtha in 105, and then consul continuously between 104 and 100 while he exterminated several troublesome Germanic tribes; he enlarged the army by dropping property qualifications; the last several years of his life were dominated by civil strife between his supporters and those of Sulla; he died in the year of his seventh consulship, after which his son Gaius Marius continued his struggles until 82, when as consul he was defeated by Sulla's armies at Sacriportus and Praeneste (1.623, 2.76, 86, 97, 105, 138, 185, 202, 241, 575, 4.863, 6.885, 8.322, 9.247).
  Marcus **Petréius** Seasoned military commander in charge of Spanish legions for Pompey; committed suicide with Juba after Thapsus (4.4, 155, 221, 227).
  Quintus **Sertórius** (ca. 126–73 BC) A Marian leader in the bloody civil discord of the 80s BC who became disaffected and ended up staging a hearty resistance to Rome in Spain, setting up an alternate state on the Roman model among natives and exiles, but who after eight years was assassinated by an associate (2.578, 7.17, 8.998).
  Publius Attius **Várus** Pompeian commander who, after Caesar's march into Italy, fled to and held Africa as governor; he fought at Thapsus and died at Munda in 45 BC (1.493, 4.700, 750, 752, 8.343).