Lucretius’ De rerum natura {On the Nature of Things or On the Nature of the Universe), usually dated to approximately 55 bce, is a work of great ambition. Though it is normally classified by modern scholars as a didactic rather than an epic poem, its scale {six books of hexameters, a total of more than 7,000 lines) and its global aspirations {it purports to teach the reader about the nature of everything that exists) are anomalous in the context of earlier didactic. Like Hesiod’s Works and Days, Lucretius’ poem is addressed to a named recipient, Memmius {almost certainly to be identified with the politically prominent Gaius Memmius, praetor in 58 bce), and combines technical subject matter with a strong moralizing undercurrent. On the other hand, Hesiod and his successors had usually confined their work within a much smaller compass {Greek didactic poems known to us are generally limited to a single book, of a few hundred lines) and dealt with far less grandiose themes. Although the philosophical poems ofParmenides and Empedocles are a partial exception to the latter rule, the scope and scale of the De rerum natura { DRN) point rather to a strong affinity with the “totalizing impulse’’ {Hardie 1993: 1) of heroic epic. In what follows, I will suggest that Lucretius invites us in a number of more concrete and specific ways to read his work against the background of Homeric and Ennian epic rather than {or in addition to) the didactic tradition of Hesiod. Some of the implications of this generic affiliation will be discussed below. First, however, it may be useful to look briefly at the main tenets of the philosophical system expounded in the poem.
Lucretius tells us explicitly {DRN 3.1-8) that he follows in the footsteps of Epicurus {341-270 bce; the philosopher is identified by name in 3.1042), whose monumental prose treatise On Nature - or possibly a shorter summary of the main doctrines - seems to have served the poet as a direct source {Clay 1983: 26-35 and 111-68; Sedley 1998, esp. 134-65). Lucretius’ main focus is on the physical nature of the world and its human {and animal) inhabitants; but Epicurus had declared physics subordinate to ethics, and it can be argued that for the poet too physics is essentially a means to an end. The goal of life, for Epicurus and his followers, is pleasure, defined as the removal of physical pain and mental disturbance: while sensual pleasure is not thereby excluded, its ultimate end is the attainment of tranquillity {ataraxia). Epicurus held that the two greatest threats to our peace of mind are unfounded fears and insatiable desires, and it is here that physics and
Ethics are connected. The two central planks of Epicurus’ physical doctrine are rationalism and materialism: the universe consists exclusively of matter (reducible ultimately to indestructible atoms) and empty space (or void). There is no supernatural or non-physical realm, and everything that happens in the world is susceptible of a scientific explanation. The gods do exist, but do not intervene in human life in anyway; the soul - like everything else in the universe - is a material entity, which simply disintegrates and ceases to exist when we die. Hence, we should limit our desires to those which can be physically satisfied (desire for abstract qualities such as fame or love is futile because inherently insatiable, and therefore to be avoided). Fear, on the other hand, can be eliminated by the study of nature: once we realize that we are not in the hands of arbitrary gods, and that we need have no apprehensions about the fate of the soul after death, the two most powerful sources of human anxiety will, in Epicurus’ view, have been eradicated. Lucretius makes it clear throughout his poem - particularly in the “syllabuses’’ which introduce the topics for discussion at the beginning of each of the six books - that the elimination of such fears is his underlying purpose.
The DRN aims to encompass all the essential elements of Epicurus’ physical theory, while repeatedly reminding us of the ethical implications of the doctrine. The poem is structured as a persuasive argument, rather than an impersonal exposition; Memmius’ role is in this respect an important one, offering the reader a model of active engagement with the poet’s teaching (the didactic speaker repeatedly anticipates and deals with possible objections to his argument, often placing these counter-arguments in the mouth of his addressee (Classen 1968: 15-16, Clay 1983: 212-25, Mitsis 1994)). Lucretius frequently draws attention - both explicitly and implicitly - to broader repercussions which follow from the various stages of his argument: the opening proposition that ‘‘nothing can come into being out of nothing,’’ for instance, is given an anti-theological slant by the addition of the word divinitus, ‘‘by divine agency,’’ while the extended discussion of the nature of the soul in Book 3 culminates in an impassioned diatribe against the fear of death.
The poem is ordered in such a way as to emphasize the all-embracing scope of Lucretius’ teaching: we begin on the microscopic level (Books 1 and 2 deal with the atomic structure of matter, the formation of compounds, and atomic motion), and move ‘‘outwards’’ to human and animal life (Books 3 and 4 are devoted respectively to the nature of the mind and soul - or life force - and to sensation, thought, sex, and heredity), and finally to the cosmos (Book 5 covers cosmogony, cosmology, and human prehistory, Book 6 a looser assortment of meteorological and other phenomena, including thunder and lightning, earthquakes, plagues, and magnetism). This movement from the minimal to the maximal level appears designed to reflect the assurance (stated more explicitly at 6.527-34) that Epicurus’ teaching is absolutely comprehensive: there is nothing that it cannot account for (Kennedy 2000).
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