Lucretius

Lucretius (?96-55 BCE) - his full name in Latin was Titus Lucretius Carus - was a Roman didactic poet. The English pronunciation of Lucretius is: loo-KREE-shers IPA: /luː'kriːʃəs/; and the adjective from Lucretius is Lucretian (pronounced loo-KREE-shun, IPA: /luː'kriːʃən/).

Lucretius' name suggests that he came from the aristocratic Roman family of the Lucretii, and he must have been a friend, or perhaps a dependant, of Gaius Memmius, the aristocratic patron of the poet Catullus, since Memmius is the dedicatee of Lucretius' only poetic work. But beyond this we know nothing about Lucretius' life.

Lucretius is the author of a single long poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), written in dactylic hexameters and comprising six books, each of about a thousand lines. De rerum natura is a didactic poem - i.e., a poem intended to instruct its readers - which explains, and recommends acceptance of, the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy. Books 1 and 2 outline and defend Epicurus' materialist view of the universe as no more than a collection of 'atoms' whose behaviour is governed by impersonal physical laws. Books 3 and 4 consider the nature of the soul and its various 'activities' (e.g., perceiving, feeling, and thinking), with particular emphasis on the point that since the soul does not survive death, we have nothing to look forward to and, more importantly, nothing to fear, from an afterlife. Books 5 and 6 deal with the origin of our world and of the different forms of life - vegetable, animal, and human - to be found in it, and provide naturalistic explanations of certain phenomena, such as thunderstorms and earthquakes, which many of Lucretius' contemporaries ascribed to the anger of the gods.

Lucretius' purpose in writing De rerum natura is to help his readers to achieve the kind of life which Epicurus regarded as ideal, i.e., a life as pleasant and as free from pain as possible. More specifically, he is concerned to liberate men's minds from the fears with which he believes religion and superstition have filled them and which are, in his view, a major obstacle to the attainment of a good life.

Lucretius' recognition of the novelty and difficulty of this subject as material for poetry, together with a statement of the didactic purpose of De rerum natura, are clear in the following lines (927-934) from Book 1:

iuvat integros accedere fontis

atque haurire iuvatque novos decerpere flores

insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam,

unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musae;

primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis

religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo,

deinde quod obscura de re tam lucida pango

carmina musaeo contingens cuncta lepore.

(Translation: It gives me pleasure to approach fresh streams and drink deeply; it gives me pleasure to pluck new flowers and seek a glorious crown for my head in places where till now the Muses have garlanded no man's temples - first, because I teach about matters of great moment and from there go on to free the mind from the tight bonds of religious superstition; and, secondly, because on so dark and difficult a subject I compose such shiningly clear poetry, infusing it all with the charm of the Muses.)