Discover the Best Books Written by Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem De rerum natura, a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is translated into English as On the Nature of Things—and somewhat less often as On the Nature of the Universe. Lucretius has been credited with originating the concept of the three-age system that was formalized in 1836 by C. J. Thomsen.

Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certainty is that he was either a friend or client of Gaius Memmius, to whom the poem was addressed and dedicated. De rerum natura greatly influenced the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his Aeneid and Georgics, and to a lesser extent in the Eclogues) and Horace. The work was almost lost during the Middle Ages but was rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by Poggio Bracciolini. 

It played an important role both in the development of atomism (Lucretius was an important influence on Pierre Gassendi) and the efforts of various figures of the Enlightenment era to construct a new Christian humanism. Lucretius's scientific poem On the Nature of Things (c. 60 BC) describes the Brownian motion of dust particles in verses 113–140 from Book II. He uses this as proof of the existence of atoms.

Virtually nothing is known about the life of Lucretius, and there is an insufficient basis for a confident assertion of the dates of Lucretius's birth or death in other sources. Another yet briefer note is found in the Chronicon of Donatus's pupil, Jerome. Writing four centuries after Lucretius's death, he enters under the 171st Olympiad: "Titus Lucretius the poet is born." If Jerome is accurate about Lucretius's age when he died, then it may be concluded that he was born in 99 or 98 BC. Less specific estimates place the birth of Lucretius in the 90s BC and his death in the 50s BC in agreement with the poem's many allusions to the tumultuous state of political affairs in Rome and its civil strife.

Lucretius probably was a member of the aristocratic gens Lucretia, and his work shows an intimate knowledge of the luxurious lifestyle in Rome. Lucretius's love of the countryside invites speculation that he inhabited family-owned rural estates, as did many wealthy Roman families. He was certainly expensively educated with a mastery of Latin, Greek, literature, and philosophy.

A brief biographical note is found in Aelius Donatus's Life of Virgil, which seems to be derived from an earlier work by Suetonius. The note reads: "The first years of his life Virgil spent in Cremona until the assumption of his toga virilis on his 17th birthday (when the same two men held the consulate as when he was born), and it so happened that on the very same day, Lucretius the poet passed away." However, although Lucretius lived and died around the time that Virgil and Cicero flourished, this testimony's information is internally inconsistent. If Virgil was born in 70 BC, his 17th birthday would be in 53. 

The two consuls of 70 BC, Pompey and Crassus stood together as consuls again in 55, not 53. Another yet briefer note is found in the Chronicon of Donatus's pupil, Jerome. Writing four centuries after Lucretius's death, Jerome contends in the aforementioned Chronicon that Lucretius "was driven mad by a love potion, and when, during the intervals of his insanity, he had written a number of books, which Cicero later amended, he killed himself by his own hand in the 44th year of his life." 

The claim that he was driven mad by a love potion, although defended by such scholars as Reale and Catan, is often dismissed as the result of historical confusion or anti-Epicurean bias. In some accounts, the administration of the toxic aphrodisiac is attributed to his wife, Lucilia. Regardless, Jerome's image of Lucretius as a lovesick, mad poet significantly influenced modern scholarship until quite recently. However, it is now accepted that such a report is inaccurate.