On the Nature of the Universe

by Lucretius

THE LITERARY WORK

A poem set in the Roman world and written in Latin c. 60-55 bce; published c. 55 bce.

SYNOPSIS

Using the elevated language of epic poetry, Lucretius expounds the views of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 bce).

Events in History at the Time of the Poem

The Poem in Focus

For More Information

Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 100-c. 55 bce) was a Roman citizen, an aristocrat, and an enthusiastic follower of the Greek philosophic school known as Epicureanism. He was also an acquaintance of the Roman politician Gaius Memmius, to whom Lucretius dedicated On the Nature of the Universe (known in Latin as De rerum natura). Beyond these bare details, all of which have been inferred from the poem it-self, nothing is known of Lucretius’ life. A much later writer, the Christian apologist St. Jerome (c. 340-c. 420 ce), claimed that Lucretius committed suicide after being driven insane by a love potion. Jerome’s assertions have been dismissed by most modern scholars, who note that the philosophical content of On the Nature of the Universe made Lucretius a natural target of the Christians during this time. Furthermore, Lucretius repeatedly urges his readers to embrace a life of rational self-discipline, advice that is wholly out of keeping with Jerome’s picture of him as a lovecrazed madman. Instead, modern commentators mostly agree that Lucretius was in fact what he presents himself as in the poem: an intelligent and educated Roman aristocrat who had found what he believed to be the solution to humankind’s ills. The ills that Lucretius addresses in the poem are mostly universal in scope—ignorance, superstition, and fear of death. How-ever, Lucretius also laments the violent unrest that plagued Roman society as it descended into the chaos of civil war.

Events in History at the Time of the Poem

The collapse of the Roman republic

By Lucretius’ lifetime, Rome had endured decades of social and political upheaval. At the root of the problem lay the expansion of Roman power throughout the Mediterranean world, which had taken place over the previous century and a half. While territorial expansion brought great wealth to Rome, it also generated intense political rivalries over control of that wealth. Soon after Lucretius’ death, these struggles would result in the fall of Rome’s ancient republican system, which was based on a balance of power between the aristocratic Senate and the various popular assemblies. The republic would be replaced by an empire as one Roman aristocrat, Augustus (formerly known as Octavian), vanquished all rivals to bring Rome and its vast dominions under his sole control as emperor.

Although this long process had yet to reach its climax when Lucretius was alive, the struggles that would result in the fall of the republic had already caused shocking civil warfare. In his poem, Lucretius repeatedly condemns the “greed and blind lust of status that drive pathetic men to overstep the bounds of right and may even turn them into accomplices or instruments of crime, struggling night and day with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth.... So in their greed of gain they amass a fortune out of civil bloodshed; piling wealth upon wealth, they heap carnage on carnage” (Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, book 3, lines 59-71).

To find examples of such men, Lucretius had only to look around at members of the Roman aristocracy in his day. Roman governors routinely enriched themselves at the expense of the provinces they were sent out to govern, and military commanders lined their pockets through booty and the sale of prisoners into slavery. Along with wealth, Roman cultural values dictated that the most powerful men also craved the public honors that traditionally came with military conquest and great wealth. This is what Lucretius means by “blind lust of status.”

Three such men dominated Roman politics in the 60s and 50s bce, when Lucretius probably conceived and wrote the poem. They were Pompey (106-48 bce), Crassus (c. 112-53 bce), and Julius Caesar (100-44 bce), the granduncle and adoptive father of the future emperor Augustus. Like Lucretius, all three had grown up in the 80s bce during Rome’s first civil wars. At that time, rivalry between two powerful generals had led to the first instance of one Roman army fighting against another. The two rival generals were Marius (157-86 bce), who represented the people, and Sulla (138-78 bce), who represented the aristocracy. Their behavior, that is, the fighting between them, provided the precedent that Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar would follow.

By the 80s bce, Marius and Sulla had both led Roman armies in successful wars of conquest against other states. In 88 bce, Sulla was sent to command an army against a rebel king, Mithri-dates, in the eastern Mediterranean. The 70-year-old Marius came out of retirement, taking advantage of Sulla’s absence to dominate Roman politics. Sulla returned from the east and marched on Rome. Marius and his supporters fled, but when Sulla turned back to the east, the popular Marius again took over. He declared Sulla an outlaw and murdered many of his aristocratic supporters in the Senate.

Marius died in 86 bce, and his political heir, Cinna, continued to undermine the Senate in Rome. In 83 bce, Sulla—having won the war against Mithridates in the east—returned to Rome. His army fought a year-long civil war against Marius’ army, now commanded by Cinna. Sulla won this first civil war, then began a reign of terror in which he murdered not only his opponents, but also many of the wealthy whose property he wished to steal. Thousands perished throughout Italy. With the new wealth gained from “proscriptions” (citizens listed as outlaws, whose property was confiscated by the Roman state), Sulla rewarded his followers. He gave Rome a new constitution to restore stability and control by the Senate before he resigned.

But the damage had been done, and Sulla’s constitution had less than the hoped-for impact. His rivalry with Marius had established the destructive pattern that Rome would follow over the next 50 years, until the establishment of the empire in 27 bce. Military leaders—who acted more like warlords than generals—would use command of the army as a stepping stone to wealth and political power, vying to outdo each other in honors, riches, and influence.

Sulla died in 78 bce, and soon afterward the Senate gave the young Pompey special powers in order to put down another revolt by Marius’ followers. However, Pompey would soon show he had no special allegiance to the Senate. Forming an alliance with the wealthy senator Crassus, Pompey forced the Senate to abandon Sulla’s constitution. During the 60s bce, his foreign conquests in Rome’s name—including a final victory over the still troublesome Mithridates—made him Rome’s wealthiest, most powerful, and most popular figure.

As Pompey’s power grew during these foreign campaigns, Crassus, remaining in Rome, began to fear that Pompey would no longer find the alliance necessary. Seeking a new ally, Crassus settled on Julius Caesar, an ambitious aristocrat who had nonetheless made a name for himself as a man of the people and a powerful public speaker.

When Pompey returned to Rome in 62 bce, the Senate angered him by refusing him the public honors he felt he deserved. The following year, the Senate also angered Crassus by voting down a proposal that he had backed. The year after that, in 60 bce, the Senate denied public honors to Julius Caesar, who was returning from a victorious campaign in Spain. Caesar then persuaded Pompey and Crassus to join together with him in a tense three-way alliance called the First Triumvirate (derived from the Latin for “three” and “men”). Though they looked on each other with suspicion, these potential rivals had one thing in common: their ambitions—and their “lust of status”—had been blocked by the Senate.

Many historians have seen the First Triumvirate as signaling the death of the republic, since it marked the effective end of the Senate as Rome’s main governing body. It was clear at the time that the alliance could not last indefinitely and that Roman would again take up arms against Roman. Over the next several years, however, the alliance held together despite strong mutual antagonisms among its members. By the time it dissolved in the early 40s bce, Lucretius would be dead, his poem having been written in the uneasy lull between one round of civil war and another.

Rome and the Hellenistic world

The growth of Roman power took place in three stages: in the Italian peninsula (c. 400 to c. 265 bce); in the western Mediterranean (c. 265 to c. 200 bce); and in the eastern Mediterranean (c. 200 to c. 50 bce). In this third stage of Roman expansion, Romans came into close contact with the civilization dominant in the eastern Mediterranean, that of Greece.

The western Mediterranean was sparsely populated by non-literate tribal peoples whom the Romans would imitate the Greeks in calling “barbarians.” In contrast, the more heavily settled eastern Mediterranean possessed great cities like Athens and Alexandria, and longstanding traditions of literature and learning based on Greek sources. Although many local peoples made up this patchwork of cultures, Greek civilization had been spread among their educated elites throughout the eastern Mediterranean and beyond by the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century bce, while Rome was busy consolidating its control of Italy. The Greeks referred to them-selves as “Hellenes.” Since Alexander’s conquests spread their culture to many non-Greek peoples, the resulting Greek-based civilization is called “Hellenistic.”

GAIUS MEMMIUS

The Memmius to whom Lucretius addresses On the Nature of the Universe was a member of the Roman aristocracy with an interest in Latin poetry and Greek literature. His personal life may have fallen short of the Epicurean ideal of restraint and selfdiscipline, which may be why Lucretius wished to convert him. Nothing is known of the relationship: they may have been friends, acquaintances, or near strangers. In 54 bce Memmius was exiled after running a corrupt campaign in support of Julius Caesar. He was in Athens two years later when he engaged in a quarrel with the Epicureans there. It is thought that Lucretius was dead by the time the quarrel took place, but it suggests that Memmius did not take the poem’s message to heart.

Into this Hellenistic world, which included Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia Minor, Rome expanded in the second century bce. Just as it had transformed the other cultures exposed to it, Greek civilization now began to exert a profound influence on Roman culture, which was backward and unsophisticated by comparison. Eventually, Rome would become a conduit through which the Greek legacy was passed on to Western Europe. Lucretius himself was a pioneer in this process, which was still in its early stages during his lifetime.

The Mithridatic Wars, that is, the wars against Mithridates undertaken by Sulla and Pompey, proved to be a turning point. Mithridates (c. 128-63 bce) was the last Hellenistic ruler to mount a serious challenge to Roman rule in the East. His large and powerful kingdom of Pontus in Asia

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Although Greek philosophy was a complex tapestry comprising many different strands of thought, by the first century BCE four main philosophical traditions had emerged. Each was associated with a Greek founder who had taught in Athens.

• Academic philosophy Founded by the Athenian philosopher Plato (c. 429-347 bce,), this tradition took its name from the “Academy,” originally a grove of trees in Athens where Plato gathered with his students, Academic philosophy taught that the material world, the world detectable to human senses, is unreal. Each visible object corresponds to a nonmaterial “form” or “Idea”, of it, which represents true reality.
• Peripatetic philosophy Founded by Plato’s student Aristotle (364-322 bce), this tradition took its name from the covered walkway or peripatos where Aristotle taught at the school he founded in Athens (the school Itself was called the Lyceum). In contrast to Academic philosophy, Peripatetic philosophy taught that the material world does indeed represent true reality.
• Epicurean philosophy This tradition was founded by Epicurus of Samos (341-270 bce), who established a school in Athens c. 300 bce. Epicurus taught that the only good in life is pleasure, by which he meant “peace of mind,” Not all pleasure is good, only pleasure that is moderate and calm and that produces peace of mind. Excessive or immoderate pleasure is bad because it eventually leads to pain.
• Stoic philosophy Founded by Zeno Citium (c. 335-c. 263 bce), Stoicism took its name from the stoa or porch in Athens where Zeno taught his students. The Stoics saw a divine force everywhere, ordering everything. They taught that the good man maintains his philosophical self-possession in all circumstances, however dire or painful. The only duties of man are to avoid vice and practice virtue, which is based on knowledge.

Minor included important Greek cities, and in his campaigns against Rome he sought the support of Greeks in other cities, including Athens.

As a result of the Mithridatic Wars, starting in the 80s bce large numbers of educated Greeks came to Rome. Some came as prisoners of war sold into slavery; others, as refugees. Some, too, were artists or intellectuals in search of a wealthy patron. Educated Greeks in Rome generally worked as teachers, scribes (slaves who copied literary works out by hand), or readers (slaves who read out loud to Roman aristocrats).

Thus, in the period in which Lucretius and his contemporaries were coming of age, Rome was exposed for the first time to Greek culture on a broad scale. One of the glories of Hellenistic civilization was Greek philosophy, literally “love of wisdom,” which included what we consider science. Its undisputed capital was the city of Athens.

When Lucretius was a young man, each of the major Greek philosophies was represented in Rome by a well-known teacher who had come from Greece. For example, a popular and respected Epicurean teacher named Phaedrus (c. 140-70 bce) founded a school of Epicurean philosophy in Rome, probably sometime in the early 80s bce. Lucretius’ older contemporary, the Roman statesman, orator, and author Cicero (106-43 bce), heard some of Phaedrus’ lectures. Cicero reports that a large number of Romans were attracted to Epicureanism, and Phaedrus’ teaching may have been partly responsible for the vogue that this philosophical tradition seems to have enjoyed in the late Roman republic. Although no evidence survives of any connection between Phaedrus and Lucretius, Phaedrus may have been the one who introduced Lucretius to the Epicurean ideas that Lucretius expounds so passionately in On the Nature of the Universe .

The Poem in Focus

Contents summary

On the Nature of the Universe survived into the Middle Ages in only one imperfect manuscript, on which all modern copies of the poem are based. The poem as we have it is clearly not complete, although scholars differ on how much might be missing, as well as on how much more work Lucretius may have had planned. They commonly suppose that the poet died just before completing a final draft and that the poem as we have it is substantially, if not totally, complete. The main reason for believing that the poem is nearly complete is that it is divided into six books of roughly equal length (ranging from about 1,100 lines to about 1,500 lines) and the reader is told that book 6 is the final one.

Thematically, the six books fall into three pairs:

• Books 1 and 2 explain physics and matter.
• Books 3 and 4 explain human psychology and sensory perception.
• Books 5 and 6 explain the history of life on earth and the origins of meteorological and geological phenomena.

Throughout the poem, it is important to bear in mind that the speaker is explaining not his own ideas, but those of Epicurus, whom he frequently praises. Lucretius’ originality lies in how he translates the complex technicalities of Epicurean philosophy into poetic form.

Each book opens with a prologue or introduction. The longest of these is the prologue to book 1, which serves also as an introduction to the poem as a whole. The speaker begins by invoking the aid of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and the mother of Aeneas, Rome’s mythical founder. He offers his dedication to the Roman politician Memmius, then concludes the prologue by praising Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who, the poet declares, first used reason to free humanity from the shackles of religious superstition:

When human life lay grovelling in all men’s sight, crushed to the earth under the dead weight of superstition whose grim features loured menacingly upon mortals from the four corners of the sky… a man of Greece was first to raise mortal eyes in defiance, first to stand erect and brave the challenge.... He ventured far out… voyaged in mind throughout infinity.

(On the Nature of the Universe, 1.62-74)

From this mind’s journey, the speaker continues, Epicurus returned with an understanding of how the universe works, of how nature is organized. “Therefore superstition in its turn lies crushed beneath his feet, and we by his triumph are lifted level with the skies” (On the Nature of the Universe, 1.78-79).

The rest of book 1 lays the cornerstones of Epicurean physics. Asserting that “nothing can be created out of nothing,” the speaker begins to address himself to the problem of “how things are created and occasioned without the aid of gods” (On the Nature of the Universe, 1.155-158). The universe, he declares, contains only matter and empty space, and all matter is made up of tiny indivisible particles called atoms. Before continuing, the speaker refutes the rival theories of other Greek philosophers about the universe’s composition (for example, that all things in the universe are made up of one or two substances or that each type of thing has its own substance).

Book 2 focuses on the atoms themselves. Atoms are always in motion; the solidity of material objects is an illusion. There is a large but finite number of types of atoms, although the number of atoms is infinite. The qualities of all objects comes from the size and shape of the atoms comprising them. The atoms themselves, however, have no color, temperature, sound, taste, or smell. It is only their ever-changing combination with other atoms that makes it seem as if objects have these qualities.

Book 3 explains how atoms combine to form life. The prologue to this book introduces another fundamental Epicurean idea—that all evil in the world comes from the fear of death. The speaker explains that mind and spirit are material in nature, and are therefore comprised of atoms, like everything else. Their atoms are very small and loosely connected, with much empty space between them. The empty space, or void, allows the atoms to move. On death they drift apart like smoke. Since there is no afterlife, there is therefore no reason to fear death. Only by conquering fear of death can mortal beings be happy.

Book 4 describes sensory perception and how it influences the mind. By far the most space is given to explaining vision, which is described as a form of touch. Objects are visible because they give off a thin film of atoms, which strikes our eyes. Mental images are made up of even thinner films, which strike only the atoms of our minds. The last few hundred lines of book 4 deal with the effects of sex and love. While sex is pleasurable and leads to procreation, love disturbs the balance of reason and so ought to be avoided. Even if love is returned, it never brings satisfaction. The lover always craves more of his beloved’s company, ignoring the business of his life and wasting his wealth on his beloved. If love is not returned, he is more miserable yet.

With book 5, the speaker moves to the larger scale of the universe, the earth, and human society as a whole. The world was formed not by the gods, says this book, but by the random coming

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EPICURUS

Epicurus taught in his garden in Athens from c, 306 bce until his death in 270 bce. His students included slaves and women, and he stressed the values of friendship and a quiet life of contemplative withdrawal. Epicurus drew upon the ideas of earlier philosophers to form his own original philosophical line of thought. His philosophy covered three main areas, all of which Lucretius incorporates in On the Nature of the Universe:

• Physics Based on the theories of Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 bce and Leucippus (c. 400s bce), Epicurean physics held that the universe is material; it is composed only of matter or substance. There is no spiritual or insubstantial element. There are only tiny, indivisible particles of matter called atoms and the void or vacuum, which can be thought of as the empty space that permits the atoms to move. All change, including death, comes from dis-integration of the atomic compound. The material soul, like the material body, dissolves into single atoms.
• Ethics Pleasure is the main guide to how people should live, and consists of the absence of pain and disturbance. Much disturbance comes tern fear of death, which pre-Christian Greeks and Romans commonly thought of as followed by a dark, semi-existence as an insubstantial shade in the underworld of Hades.
• Knowledge Every object gives off films of atoms that carry its shape to the eyes, ears, touch, and noses of people, These atoms impact the atoms of the mind, and the object is then perceived. All knowledge comes from such perceptions. People can be liberated from the fear of death by the knowledge that there is no afterlife, only the dispersal of the atoms that make up the body and mind

together of atoms; it will end when the bonds between those atoms are dissolved. Plant and animal life arose from the heat and moisture of the earth. Since life was harder, early humans were stronger and more robust than modern ones. People emerged from savagery to civilization gradually, as social bonds provided protection from danger and experience gave rise to technology.

The final book, 6, covers natural wonders and is divided between atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena. The speaker focuses on events such as thunder, earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods that people have traditionally ascribed to the gods. Upholding his secular approach, he ex-plains each one as arising ultimately from the movement of atoms. The book and the poem conclude abruptly with a graphic description of the plague at Athens in the fifth century bce, based on a famous passage in the Peloponnesian War, by the Greek historian Thucydides (also in Classical Literature and Its Times).

Freedom from strife

Because it equates pleasure with good, Epicureanism has often been misunderstood as simple hedonism, or the unrestrained pursuit of sensual pleasures such as food, drink, and sex. Today, for example, the term “Epicurean” is used mainly to describe gourmet cooking—a usage that has nothing at all to do with the teachings of Epicurus. This same misunderstanding was also common in Lucretius’ day, and Lucretius clearly hopes to set the record straight.

In the prologue to book 2, the speaker defines the highest pleasure according to Epicurean doctrine:

But this is the greatest joy of all: to possess a quiet sanctuary, stoutly fortified by the teaching of the wise, and to gaze down from that elevation on others wandering aimlessly in search of a way of life, pitting their wits one against another, disputing for precedence, struggling night and day with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth and power. O joyless hearts of men! O minds without vision! How dark and dangerous the life in which this tiny span is lived away! Do you not see that nature is barking for two things only, a body free from pain, a mind released from worry and fear for the enjoyment of pleasurable sensations?

(On the Nature of the Universe, 2.7-19)

In other words, Epicurean doctrine defines pleasure negatively rather than positively, as the absence of something rather than its presence: pleasure is the absence of pain, care, and fear. Even wisdom is valuable primarily because it lets the wise remove themselves from “the strife of wits” that dominates the rest of humankind. Epicurean philosophy summed up this negative definition of pleasure with the Greek word ataraxia, “tranquility,” or “freedom from strife.”

The attractions of ataraxia to a poet living through an age of civil strife are obvious. In invoking the aid of Venus, the goddess of love, Lucretius transforms her into a symbol of peace as well. “Grant that this brutal business of war by sea and land may everywhere be lulled to rest,” the speaker pleads with her in the prologue to book 1 (On the Nature of the Universe, 1.29-30). She can do so, he asserts, because of her seductive power over her lover Mars, the god of war: “as he lies outstretched… enfold him at rest in your hallowed bosom and whisper with those lips sweet words of prayer, beseeching for the people of Rome untroubled peace” (On the Nature of the Universe, 1.38-40).

Epicureanism was not the only Greek philosophy to emphasize tranquility as an important element of the good life. The writings of the Stoics also stress the ethical and moral desirability of ataraxia. Yet the Stoics drew the opposite conclusion from the Epicureans about how to achieve it. Whereas the Epicureans sought to avoid strife altogether, the Stoics sought to endure and ultimately to quell it. In Stoic philosophy, the pursuit of ataraxia calls for active engagement in public life, rather than withdrawal from it. Stoicism thus agreed with traditional aristocratic Roman values such as military duty and public service, and ultimately it would prove the most attractive of the Greek philosophies to the Roman upper classes. Even in Lucretius’ own time, when Epicureanism enjoyed its brief surge of popularity at Rome, Lucretius’ contemporary Cicero was writing in praise of the Stoics.

Sources and literary context

Lucretius drew on a wide range of philosophical and poetic sources in writing On the Nature of the Universe. Most important were the writings of Epicurus himself. Indeed, the title of the poem is a rough translation of the title of Epicurus’ best known work, Peri Physeos, “On Nature,” which has survived only in brief fragments. Another work of Epicurus, however, has survived: the “Letter to Herodotus,” which shows close parallels with On the Nature of the Universe. Modern scholars believe that this work may have been Lucretius’ main source. Several of the more “scientific” passages of Lucretius’ poem amount to loose translations of it. In other passages, Lucretius expands Epicurus’ straightforward prose with vivid poetic images. This poetic quality comes through even in a prose translation of the Latin verses in Lucretius’ poem:

From Epicurus’ “Letter to Herodotus”

For all these, whether small or great, have been separated off from special conglomerations of atoms; and all things are again dissolved, some faster, some slower, some through the action of one set of causes, some through the action of another.

(Epicurus, p. 603)

From Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe

It is natural, therefore, that everything should perish when it is thinned out by the ebbing out of matter and succumbs to blows from without. The food supply is no longer adequate for its aged frame, and the deadly bombardment of particles from without never pauses in the work of dissolution and subdual.

(On the Nature of the Universe, 2.1139-1145)

Epicurus wrote in prose and seems to have disparaged the arts, which puts Lucretius in the potentially uncomfortable position of writing a poem in which he passionately exalts the beliefs of a man who does not appear to have valued poetry. Still, although tension between poets and philosophers was already a common theme among ancient writers, a strong tradition of didactic or “teaching” poetry did exist in both Greek and Latin literature. A number of early Greek philosophers had even written their works in poetry. Lucretius singles out the Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 490-c. 430 bce) as second only to Epicurus in deserving praise; interestingly, Empedocles had written a philosophical poem called Peri Physeos, “On Nature.” He viewed the world as balanced between the forces of Love and Strife. Although he was not an Epicurean, this idea clearly fits in with Epicureanism, and helped inspire Lucretius’ own poetic vision.

POET OF PARADOX?

Critics have often noted that Lucretius’ poem embraces a number of seeming contradictions. He is a poet writing about an unpoetic subject, a passionate advocate of a cause that denounces passion, and an apparently anti-religious thinker who invokes the aid of a goddess (Venus) in composing his poem. Some of these paradoxes can be partly resolved by closer consideration of the poet’s goals, For example, Lucretius understands how dry his subject matter may seem, in a famous passage near the end of book 1, he writes that he wishes to sweeten his philosophy with poetry, just as doctors smear honey on the rims of cups that hold bitter medicine so children will drink it Finally, epic poets traditionally ask for the aid of a goddess or muse, and in fact Lucretius never claims that the gods don’t exist—merely that they don’t have anything to do with the human world Instead, they exist in an ideal state, free from all care about human activity.

The traditional verse form for didactic poetry was the dactylic hexameter, in which each line contains six long syllables. Hexameter was also the traditional form of epic poetry, and Lucretius’ main poetic model was the early Latin poet Ennius (239-169 bce), who aspired to be a Latin version of the Greek epic poet Homer (eighth century bce). Sometimes called the father of Roman poetry, Ennius used hexameter for his narrative epic of Roman history, the Annales. Lucretius mentions Ennius by name as the first poet “destined to win renown among the nations of Italy” (On the Nature of the Universe, 1.117-119).

The influence of Ennius and epic poetry can be seen in Lucretius’ fondness for compound words like montivagus, “mountain-wandering,” or fluctifragus, “wave-smashing,” as well as in such formulaic expressions as caeli lucida templa, “the shining temples of the sky” (a variant of Ennius’ phrase caeli caerula templa, “the deep-blue temples of the sky”). Lucretius also uses obsolete Latin words and word forms from Ennius’ era, much as a writer today might use words or expressions from Shakespeare or the King James Bible to evoke a sense of grandeur or majesty.

Lucretius’ use of such techniques testifies to his desire to sound “old-fashioned,” a literary approach that modern scholars refer to as archaism. His archaism sets him apart from other poets of his day, such as the younger Catullus (c. 84-54 bce), who in his Carmina strove to sound fresh and new (also in Classical Literature and Its Times) .

At the same time that he looks back, however, Lucretius also implicitly looks forward to a new age for Latin poetry. Still in its infancy as a literary language when Lucretius was writing, Latin lacked the breadth and flexibility necessary to explain complex philosophical ideas. Lucretius complains several times about “the poverty of our native tongue,” saying that it has made his job more difficult (On the Nature of the Universe, 3.260). Like his archaism, such complaints fit Lucretius’ poetic persona, which is that of an impassioned prophet struggling against the odds to bring the wisdom of the ages to an ignorant and troubled people.

Reception and impact

Little is known about Lucretius himself, and we don’t know of any ancient Romans who were converted to Epicureanism by reading On the Nature of the Universe, his only work. Yet on the strength of this one poem, Lucretius remains one of the most respected and influential of all Latin poets. Cicero, the leading intellectual in the late Roman republic, was one of the first to recognize the poem’s literary worth. In a letter to his brother, Quintus, who had himself apparently just referred to it in glowing terms, Cicero writes: “The poetry of Lucretius is, as you say in your letter, rich in brilliant genius, yet highly artistic” (Cicero in Smith, p. xi).

Cicero’s letter, which reflects the traditional Roman distinction between inborn talent (genius) and technical skill (art), was written in February of 54 bce. Lucretius is thought to have died perhaps a few months before the letter’s date, near the end of the previous year.

Some two decades later, the poet universally recognized as Rome’s greatest would pay a famous tribute to Lucretius. A boy of about 15 when Lucretius died, Virgil (70-19 bce) was deeply influenced by the earlier poet’s imagery and language. In his own didactic poem Georgics (30s bce), Virgil applauds Lucretius for his achievement: “Lucky is he who can learn the roots of the universe, / Has mastered all his fears and fate’s intransigence / And the hungry clamor of hell” (Virgil, Georgics, 2.490-492).

While Lucretius’ poetry has always been ad-mired by readers and emulated by poets, the poem’s content has also served as our best surviving source for the thought of Epicurus. During the period in European history known as the Enlightenment (c. 1650-c. 1800 ce), scientists and intellectuals who exalted the power of reason regarded Lucretius as a hero. At the dawn of the Enlightenment, the French scientist Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) revived Epicurean physics, especially the theory of atomism, making important contributions to the development of modern science. Gassendi listed Lucretius among his favorite authors. Since then, scientists have confirmed many of the same speculative ideas that Lucretius championed so forcefully more than two millennia ago.

—Colin Wells

For More Information

Boardman, John, et al. The Oxford History of the Classical World: The Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Brown, P. Michael. Lucretius: De Rerum Natura I. Bristol, U.K.: Bristol Classical Press, 1984.

Epicurus. “Letter to Herodotus.” In Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius. Vol. 2. Trans. R. D. Hicks. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950.

Kenney, E. J. Lucretius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.

Lucretius Carus, Titus. De Rerum Natura III. Ed. E. J. Kenney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.

_____. On the Nature of the Universe. Trans. R. E. Latham. New York: Penguin, 1994.

Sharrock, Alison, and Rhiannon Ash. Fifty Key Classical Authors. London: Routledge, 2002.

Smith, Martin Ferguson. “Introduction.” In On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius. Loeb series. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Virgil. The Eclogues; The Georgics. Trans. C. Day Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.