LUCRETIUS, TITUS CARUS. - Roman poet and philosopher, b. between 99 and 95, d. between 55 and 51 B.C. About his life the information is scanty and uncertain: some say he lived in Campania (Della Valle), others in Rome (Traglia). Living in an age of harsh political and social struggles and of profound cultural and spiritual revolution, he devoted himself to poetry (Homer, Empedocles, Ennius, the Greek tragedians, Aratus), to history (Thucydides) and to philosophy (the Presocratics, Epicurus, Siro, Philodemus). The only writing that survives is the De rerum natura, a philosophical poem in six books, left unpublished and unfinished, published and perhaps revised by Cicero; it is the most organic and complete source on ancient Epicureanism, a faithful exposition of the theories of Epicurus.
Life is wrapped in darkness: « Omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita laboret » (II, 54; cf. V, 1-54). Above all the fear of the gods and of death disturbs and saddens man (I, 102-48; III, 978-1023; VI, 1181-95). The science of the deep essence of nature is necessary and sufficient to free man from the two oppressive fears (I, 146-48; III, 91-93; V, 82-90). In the footsteps of Epicurus, L. affirms that atoms and void constitute the deep substrate of reality (I, 54-61, 127-35): the ceaseless aggregation and disintegration of atoms, in an infinite time and space, give origin to all things (I-II), the atoms remaining eternal: « Haud igitur redit ad nihilum res nulla, sed omnes/discidio redeunt in corpora materia » (I, 248-49). The present world is a chance case of the eternal and universal becoming (V). All phenomena have a natural explanation, without any need of preternatural interventions (VI). The soul is composed of very smooth and very swift atoms and is mortal: « Multe sunt animae elementa minor/aquam quibus et corpus nobis et viscera constant » (III, 374-75); « animam verbi causa cum dicere pergam/mortalem esse docens, animum quoque dicere credas » (III, 422-23; cf. 417-829). Illusion and fable are the fears of death and of the beyond (III). The gods, composed of ethereal matter, dwell in the intermundia, indifferent to natural and human vicissitudes (V). Religion is a historical product and draws its origin from the idols scattered through the intermundia and from ignorance of the natural causes of singular and impressive phenomena: « ignorantia causarum conferre deorum/cogit ad imperium res et concedere regnum » (VI, 154-55). A most fervent imagination, a passionate participation in the subject, a profound inspiration animate the De rerum natura with vibrant poetry.
The darkness that obscures life was not dispelled: the denial of the soul and of the divinity left man alone, lost in the cold indifference of a mute and glacial universe (III, 825-30, 957-1007), always insatiate: « Nec tamen explemur vitai fructibus unquam » (III, 1007; cf. V, 1274-79; 1407-29), bowed down by the nightmare of inevitable death (VI, 1238-46). The sad and disconsolate bitterness that pervades the whole poem is a further confirmation of the radical insufficiency of materialism for the liberation and the happiness of man.
The Lucretian influence runs from Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Manilius, through ancient and medieval Christian literature, down to our own day, provoking even a poem of confutation: Anti-Lucrétius, II. 9 by Card. De Polignac (Paris 1749).
Bibliography18 works
Giacomo Soleri