Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius

Introduction 9
omnis natura creet res auctet alatque / quoque eadem rursum natura perempta
resolvat / “and I shall disclose the first-beginnings of things, from which
nature makes all things and increases and nourishes them, and into which
the same nature again reduces them when dissolved,” 1.55–57). 40 Moreover,
he himself stresses the impossibility of something being created out of
nothing and of something being reduced to nothing (1.146–328: e.g. nullam
rem e nilo gigni divinitus umquam. / “no thing is ever by divine power
produced from nothing,” 1.150; Nunc age, res quoniam docui non posse creari
/ de nilo neque item genitas ad nil revocari / “Now then, since I have taught
that things cannot be created from nothing and, when brought forth, cannot
be brought back to nothing,” 1.265–266). Although in these fundamental
propositions Lucretius unquestionably follows Epicurus (e.g. καὶ
μὴν καὶ τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ τοιοῦτον ἦν οἷον νῦν ἐστι, καὶ ἀεὶ τοιοῦτον ἔσται.
οὐθὲν γάρ ἐστιν εἰς ὃ μεταβαλεῖ. παρὰ γὰρ τὸ πᾶν οὐθέν ἐστιν, ὃ ἂν
εἰσελθὸν εἰς αὐτὸ τὴν μεταβολὴν ποιήσαιτο. / “Moreover, the sum total
of things was always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain. For
there is nothing into which it can change. For outside the sum of things
there is nothing which could enter into it and bring about the change,”
Ep. Hdt. 39), scholars rightly call attention to Empedoclean echoes embedded
in Lucretius’ language. As a striking example one could point to the
word gigni (1.150) which seems to echo Empedocles’ γίγνεσθαι (B11.2). 41
It seems highly conceivable that Lucretius here recognizes points of philosophical
agreement between Empedocles and Epicurus that can be justified
by their common anti-Parmenidean heritage. 42 That is why he feels entitled
to employ Empedocles’ phrasing in order to expound the corresponding
Epicurean precepts, underscoring their similarities as well as their differences.
He thus hastens to add the unusual adverb divinitus (1.150) which
brings in the Epicurean belief in the complete absence of divine intervention
in human affairs. 43
In a similar vein, it has also been pointed out that, when Lucretius
asserts that the mass of matter (summa rerum) and the motion of atoms are
constant and invariable and that the universe always was as it is now and will
always be, he vividly recalls two Empedoclean fragments. 44 Thus, scholars
often compare Lucretius’ verses 2.296–302 with Empedocles’ B16:
nam neque adaugescit quicquam neque deperit inde.
quapropter quo nunc in motu principiorum
corpora sunt, in eodem anteacta aetate fuere
et post haec semper simili ratione ferentur,
et quae consuerint gigni gignentur eadem 300