Massilia 4, Lucan as model 2: The soldiers could form the above-mentioned turtle

with the shields for their protection: The soldiers formed a square, the soldiers standing on the outside placed the shields next to each other without gaps to the outside. The soldiers standing inside formed a shield roof against projectiles.

When advancing against the fortifications of a fortress or fortified city, the soldiers formed a shield roof to ward off projectiles.

Lucan, with his epic Pharsalia, also serves as a model for the author Mark in other respects, so that we can assume that he has a good knowledge of Lucan’s epic.

Both were contemporaries and – Lucan as a republican, Mark as a Christian – opponents of the emperor Nero, and so a comparable world view was not far away.

Massilia 3: 2. The Roman poet Lucan as a model for the author Mark:

Mark likes to use familiar military imagery to depict the confrontation between Jesus and his opponents.

The victory against the unclean spirit in Mark 1 can be interpreted as a duel of gladiators in which words strike the opponent like sword strokes.

The use of the large body-covering shields of the Roman infantry during military marches, exercises or in war produced impressive images that were not lacking in Augustan and later imperial pictorial propaganda and were thus ubiquitous.

Massilia 2: (2) Lucan reports the following in the epic Pharsalia:

Caesar besieged the city of Massilia with his troops. A sacred grove, which had not been touched since time immemorial, hindered the siege. Therefore Caesar ordered his troops to cut down the trees.

The soldiers, out of religious timidity, refused to lay a hand on the trees consecrated to the gods and were paralyzed. Then Caesar himself took a double axe, split a towering oak and ordered his soldiers to do the same,

saying, “That none of you hesitate any longer to cut down the forest, suppose that I have committed the sin! (3:436-437) The soldiers reluctantly obeyed, but, Lucan writes, Caesar’s anger outweighed the wrath of the gods. (3:439).

Mark 2:1-12 and the siege of Massilia in Lucan, Pharsalia, Book 3:

1. the account of Lucan: Lucan, in the Pharsalia Book 3, describes the siege of the Gallic city of Massilia (now Marseilles) by Caesar’s troops during the civil war with Pompey.

In 49 BC, Caesar, coming from Rome, was on his way to Spain and besieged the fortified city of Massilia. In 3:399-486, Lucan describes two details that later become central to Mark’s narrative.

(1) Caesar’s soldiers are prevented from advancing by projectiles thrown from the besieged city. They then form a closed roof over their helmets with their shields, a so-called turtle formation, which reliably protects them from the enemy projectiles.

Only when their forces weaken and the previously closed roof shows gaps, the enemy projectiles can penetrate the ranks of the soldiers and cause damage.