Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius

Introduction 25
As Clay astutely observes, here Lucretius develops into an elaborate simile
the metaphor which was latent in Epicurus’ expression ἴχνευσις τοῦ ἀδήλου
(cf. Ep. Pyth. 96). 108 In addition, Lucretius does not describe just a vague
process of conquering knowledge. He rather grants his comparison a specific
programmatic function since he brings up essential points of his scientific
method, such as its rational character and the value of empirical evidence
(1.402–403), with the aid of which we gradually derive information about
the invisible world through the process of σημείωσις. 109 This pattern of
“hunting,” or the “venatic” paradigm for investigation, to use Fowler’s term,
centred on the image of vestigia, is applied throughout the poem. 110
It has long been observed that this simile is hinted at in Empedocles’
B101 which refers to dogs “tracking with nostrils fragments of animal bodies
(which they) left from their paws on the soft grass” (κέρματα θηρείων μελέων
μυκτῆρσιν ἐρευνῶν, / . . . ἀπέλειπε ποδῶν ἁπαλῇ περὶ ποίῃ . . . ). 111 Even
more notably, Lucretius is the first extant Latin author to employ the compound
adjective montivagus. It is thus highly probable that he invents it in
order to translate the corresponding Greek compound adjective ὀρίπλαγκτος
which was also an Empedoclean coinage (θηρῶν ὀριπλάγκτων, fr. a (ii) 26
M&P) and may have been used in the broader context of B101. 112
It seems very plausible to suggest that, by means of such a clear allusion
to Empedocles within the framework of this key simile regarding his scientific
methodology, Lucretius makes tangible the focal intertextual source, to
which he is about to resort systematically. In other words, Lucretius proclaims
here that, in expounding the Epicurean philosophical system and analyzing
fundamental concepts of the imperceptible world, he will use Empedocles
not only as a poetic model, but also as a scientific one. And in fact, thanks
to the partial overlapping of their philosophical precepts, Lucretius can draw
from his predecessor a whole series of techniques which he then creatively
appropriates as an organic component of his poem. Elsewhere, he inevitably
deviates from Empedocles’ literary means of thought and subordinates them
to his didactic purposes and to Epicurean tenets.
1.3 EMPEDOCLES, ENNIUS AND LUCRETIUS
In his article “Philosophy and Literature in Lucretian Intertextuality,” Don
Fowler stresses the fact that “in considering literary intertextuality, we should
certainly return to the original texts for our comparison and contrast, because
this will often suggest traces present in our target-text under erasure, but we
should also consider the way in which these literary texts may have already
been used within the context of philosophical discourse, and how they may