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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
If Lucretius is still worth reading, it is not only because of the brilliance of his descriptions or the power of his satire, but because he has something to say. A Greek or Latin book that has no message for the modern reader may yet deserve study as a document for the history of ancient culture or because of some other technical interest; but it cannot be called literature. What distinguishes the D.R.N. not merely from Nicander’s Alexipharmaca or Nemesianus’ Cynegetica but even from the Georgics is the intellectual and moral quality of the Epicurean philosophy – that part of it, that is to say, which is relevant to Lucretius’ purpose – as it emerges from the poem. Ex nihilo nihil fit: without Epicurus there could have been no Lucretius. Had his system really been as mean and silly as Cicero and Macaulay thought it, Lucretius would have rendered himself absurd by the lofty tone and impassioned sweep of his advocacy.
1. Cf. Nichols, 20.
2. On the Marxist reception of Lucretius see Dalzell, 79-80.
3. On the clinamen see Bailey (1949), 146-7; on the quarta natura Kenney (1971), 107. Theoretical physicists currently ascribe to certain elementary particles a property which they call ‘charm’ (Radio Times 22-8 Jan. 1977).
4. And to some extent Ovid, who has more in common with Lucretius than is sometimes realized: Boyancé, 213.
5. Cf. Bailey (1949), 149; Petersmann, 70.
6. Cf. the literature cited at Kenney (1971), 1 n. 3.
7. Cf. Macaulay ap. Trevelyan, ii. 664; Warde Fowler, 387-8; Sikes, 125-6, Crawley, 13-14.
8. Sikes, 127-8; Kenney (1971), 5.
9. Cf. Kenney (1974).
10. Cf. Wormell, 48.
11. As is suggested by the remark of Sinker that ‘the merits of the de R.N. are not dependent on the value of Epicureanism’. As well hold that the merits of Paradise Lost are not dependent on the value of Christianity (or for that matter those of the Aeneid on Augustan values). Sinker represents a communis opinio: cf. Bailey (1949), 144-5.
12. Dalzell, 405; on the end of the poem cf. above, p. 23.
13. Bailey, 1320.
14. Ibid., 1330.
15. Boyancé, 219.
16. culpa = ‘defect’, ἀτ∊хνіα: Paratore, 333. However, Lucretius’ readers must have found it difficult not to sense a moral nuance.
17. The commentators are silent on this brilliant stroke of invention.
18. The sentiment is commoner than the commentators suggest. Two ideas are conflated: the first, that familiar from the words of Job (1: 21) and the adaptation of them in the Anglican Burial service (cf. Lucil. 623 M.); the second, hardly needing illustration (but cf. esp. Eur. fr. 449 N.2 = Cic. Tusc. 1. 115), that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.
19. Elsewhere it is reserved for the sufferings that men bring on themselves by their own folly and perversity, as at 2. 14 ‘o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!
20. It may be noted in passing that in the Epicurean view it was indeed not a misfortune never to have existed: Bailey, 1131-4 on 3. 830 ff.
21. Cf. Paratore, 324, on the ‘zigzag’ development of the argument. These polemical passages are not really digressions (Bailey, 34) but integral parts of the complex argument of the book.
22. For the background to D.R.N. V see Cole.
23. Wormell, 61.
24. See Dalzell, 75-6. The question is connected with that of the poet’s psychology: ibid., 403-6. For a balanced and soberly argued appraisal see Giancotti. Anderson suggests that the contrast between ‘the achievements of Epicurus’ and ‘the predicament of mankind’ is an Epicurean dilemma, inherited by Lucretius and reflected by his ambiguous use of symbols. Cf. De Lacy, on other apparent contradictions in Lucretius as implicit in the Epicurean system.
25. Cf. Sinker, xxiv.
26. Santayana, 25.