Philosophy › Hellenistic, Roman & Han thought › Epicurus and Epicureanism
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things
c. 55 BC· Book or text· Reality, mind & God
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
A Latin poem in six books that explains Epicurus' atomism to free readers from fear of the gods and of death.
See it on the Philosophy map →The idea
Idea: everything is atoms moving in empty space, so there is nothing to fear. Titus Lucretius Carus wrote De rerum natura around 55 BC, about 7,400 lines of verse. Atoms combine and separate by chance, with a small random 'swerve' (clinamen) that leaves room for free will. The soul is atoms too and scatters at death: 'death is nothing to us.' Gods exist but ignore us. Main objection, then and later: it leaves no room for providence or an afterlife.
Why it matters
Rediscovered in a German monastery in 1417 by Poggio Bracciolini, it fed the revival of atomism and secular thinking in Renaissance and early modern science.
Where it comes from
Survives mainly in two 9th-century manuscripts now in Leiden; Cicero praises the poem in a letter of 54 BC. Almost nothing reliable is known of Lucretius' life.
Still debated
St Jerome's story that a love potion drove Lucretius mad and to suicide is probably hostile legend; whether he finished the poem is uncertain.
Connections (2)
▸Lucretius, On the Nature of Things put into verse the ideas of Epicurus and EpicureanismWell documented
The connection
Lucretius set Epicurus' physics in Latin verse, hoping the 'honey' of poetry would help readers swallow the medicine. The poem hails Epicurus as a godlike liberator and follows his arguments on atoms, the soul and death closely. It is now our fullest account of Epicurean physics.
When and how
Rome, c. 55 BC, about 215 years after Epicurus died in Athens.
How we know
The poem praises Epicurus by name, and its arguments match his surviving Letter to Herodotus and Epicurean papyri found at Herculaneum.
Debates and open questions
Whether Lucretius worked directly from Epicurus' largely lost 37-book On Nature or from later summaries is debated.
▸Lucretius, On the Nature of Things was rediscovered by Renaissance humanismWell documented
The connection
In 1417 the humanist book-hunter Poggio Bracciolini found a copy of Lucretius's lost poem in a German monastery and had it copied. Its picture of a world of atoms moving by chance, with no divine purpose and no afterlife to fear, troubled and fascinated humanists, and later fed early modern atomism.
When and how
Probably the abbey of Fulda, Germany, early 1417, during the Council of Constance; Poggio sent the copy to his friend Niccolò Niccoli in Florence.
How we know
Poggio's letters mention the find, surviving Italian manuscripts descend from his copy, and the first printed edition appeared in Brescia around 1473.
Debates and open questions
Stephen Greenblatt's bestseller The Swerve (2011) said this find helped create the modern world; most historians think it overstates one manuscript's impact.