LVCRETIVS

De Rerum Natura

Vita• c.94-55• no biographical information

• reference in Cicero ad fam dated 54– “flashes of genius” “craftsmanship”

• accd to St. Jerome– he was driven mad by a love philtre

– wrote poetry in his lucid intervals

– died by his own hand, • leaving his poem to be edited posthumously by Cicero

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De Rerum Natura

• 6 books • Didactic poem

– dactylic hexamter – Epicureanism

• Dedicated to Memmius– Roman aristocrat – Governor of Bithynia– Patron or equal?

De Rerum Natura

1. The permanent constituents of the universe: atoms and void

2. How atoms explain phenomena

3. The nature and mortality of the soul

4. Phenomena of the soul5. The cosmos and its

mortality6. Cosmic phenomena

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De Rerum Natura

• Physics• Atomism

• Nihil ex nihilo• Void & atom per se• Swerve• Finite number of atoms• Infinite Universe

• Nature of the soul• Anima/animus

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De Rerum Natura

• Ethics• Tetrapharmakos fourfold cure

• God holds no fears, death no worries. • fear of the divine eliminated through physical

understanding• the fear of death must be countered

• Good is easily attainable, evil easily endurable. • the rational management of pleasures and pains• life of detached tranquility

• maintain modest and easily satisfied appetites• shun lofty ambitions and the disquiet these

inevitably bring in their wake

De Rerum Natura

• Religion• Existence of the gods

• simulacra• live a supremely tranquil life,

never disquieted by either favor or anger towards us

• we should not fear the gods because they do not, and never would, intervene in our world

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De Rerum Natura

• Proem– Invocation to Venus• Personification• Metaphor

– universal life force

– ancestress of the Romans

– bringer of peace» make love not war

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