Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, has posted thoughts about Lucan's epic, and about how Caesar was unwilling to call his battles with Pompey as a Civil War.

PS compares this reluctance with modern reluctance to call a military spade a spade. Think the Falklands War Conflict. He links to this:
Today at a press conference, President Bush dismissed these concerns out of hand. Bush said, “You know, I hear people say, Well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box.”