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LUCRETIUS
oppressing the minds of almost everyone and seizing on the weakness of
men'(2.148).
It is important to realize that the criticisms of Epicurean exaggeration refer
to one topic only, the old stories about the torments of the damned. When
Cicero says that legends of this sort were not generally believed, we should
take his word for it. These stories are described as ' the marvels of poets and
painters', that is to say, they are part of the literary tradition and belong to
a different theology from that of the old Roman notion of the di Manes.
Professor Jocelyn Toynbee, after surveying the literary and epigraphic evidence,
concluded that in the late Republic and throughout the Empire, ' views on the
nature of the life that awaited the soul beyond the grave were, in the main,
optimistic'. 1 It follows that to rescue men from a belief in eternal torment
cannot have been a serious part of Lucretius' intention. In fact, the underworld
theme is not prominent in the poem, nor in the extant writings of Epicurus is
there a single reference to the legends of the damned, although the topic is
discussed by Democritus (DK 11 207, B 297) and by later Epicurean writers.
Lucretius mentions the fear of the underworld in the prologue of the poem,
but the long consolatio about death in Book 3 is mainly about man's general
fear of extinction and not about the terrors of the underworld. The legends of
the damned are introduced in one section only (987—102.3), but here the poet's
interest is in contrasting these ancient stories widi the ethical doctrines of
Epicurus.
It should now be clear that Lucretius' poem is not to be interpreted simply
as an attack on popular religion. If he refers sometimes to fading beliefs and
old superstitions, it is as symbols of a more persistent misconception. His
target is larger and more important: he is attacking a whole way of looking
at the world in theological terms, of explaining its movements and its mystery
as evidence of the working of a higher power. Religio, as Lucretius conceived
it, was not just a source of vulgar superstition: it could also deceive more
serious and reflective minds. It was religio, for example, •which inspired belief
in the divinity of heavenly bodies (5.110—21), a view which had impressive
philosophical support and was accepted by Aristotle. What Lucretius found
humiliating about the theological mode of thought was that it made men slaves.
The universe, which ought to inspire wonder, became arbitrary and inexplicable,
and men suffered as the victims of their own imaginings. For Lucretius
the scientific materialism of Epicurus was a liberating doctrine: it made it
possible to see the world as it really was, to understand not just its surface
appearance, but its inner workings as well. Sellar may have exaggerated in
claiming for Lucretius a ' genuine philosophic impulse and the powers of mind
demanded for abstruse and systematic thinking'; 2 but there is no mistaking the
1 Toynbee (1971) 38. * Sellar (1889) 335.
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