Lucretius biography
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Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 B.C.E. - 55 B.C.E.) was a Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher. During the first century B.C.E. he wrote De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”), a masterpiece of Latin verse which sets out in careful detail the Epicurean worldview. Beginning with a tribute to Epicurus, the six books of De Rerum Natura provide a full explanation of the physical origin, structure and destiny of the universe. The work includes theories of atomic structure and of the evolution of life forms. The work is intended to free the reader from the two types of mental anguish that Epicurus identified as obstacles to human happiness: fear of the gods and fear of death. Lucretius does this by expounding the philosophical system of Epicurus, clothed, as he says, in sweet verse to make it more palatable.
De Rerum Natura was an important influence on Virgil and later Roman poets. The early Christians frowned on De Rerum Natura because it denied both the afterlife
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Lucretius
1. Life
We know little about Lucretius’ life beyond what we can infer from his work. Our sole external reference comes from Cicero, in a letter to his brother Quintus serving with namn på en berömd romersk ledare eller en klassisk sallad in Gaul, dated from February 54 BCE (Q.F. ). Cicero agrees with his brother’s praise of the work, noting that it displays both brilliance and originality, but also considerable craftsmanship. Although Cicero and his brother may have read an earlier or partial draft, such a date for the poem we have fryst vatten compatible with two main internal indicators.
First fryst vatten the poem’s addressee, the Roman aristocrat, Memmius, named only in books 1, 2 and 5. While doubts are possible as to which member of the Memmii Lucretius so honoured, most likely he is C. Memmius, the praetor of 58 BCE, governor of Bithynia in 57, where the poets Catullus and Cinna served on his staff, and who was exiled in 52 BCE as the result of an electoral scandal. The story, attested in other letters of Cicer
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Lucretius
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 February
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February
- DOI: /obo/
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 February
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February
- DOI: /obo/
Algra, Keimpe, Mieke Koenen, and Piet H. Schrijvers, eds. Lucretius and his intellectual background: Colloquium on Lucretius and His Intellectual Background, Amsterdam, 26–28 June Amsterdam: North-Holland.
A useful collection of papers on a broad range of Lucretian themes.
Clay, Diskin. Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
Argues for Lucretius’s originality, selecting among many sources rather than relying on a single Epicurean source, and constructing his own structure for his exposition of Epicurus’s philosophy. Well worth reading whether one agrees or disagrees with Clay’s main argument.
Gale, Monica R., ed. Lucretius. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
A useful collection of classic articles on Lucretius.
Gigon, Olof, ed. Lucrèce: Huit exposés suivis de d