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LUCRETIUS
was not Epicurus, but his persistent claims to be treading in his master's
footsteps and the closeness of many of his arguments to the surviving Greek
text suggests that his main debt was to the philosopher himself. 1 If this conclusion
is correct, then Lucretius must have undertaken a considerable reorganization
of his philosophical material. The problem which he faced was not
simply that of the expositor who must present his argument in the most logical
manner possible. As a poet he needed also to create a feeling of unity and to
direct and condition the reader's response. To achieve this larger purpose,
Lucretius concentrated on the anti-theological elements in Epicurean thought
and put them in the forefront of his poem. The process begins in the opening
prologue. This contains two programmatic passages separated by about seventy
lines which between them summarize the contents of the work. The first (54—
61) mentions the atoms and die working of the heavens and die second (127—35)
stresses the nature of the soul. Some commentators have thought that these
two passages represent different stages in the composition of the prologue and
this may be so; but in fact both are necessary to indicate the scope of the poem.
The De rerum natura, as Lucretius presents it, is a work about the soul and
about the heavens. It is significant that Aristotle traced the origin of belief in the
gods to these same two factors, -ret -irepi yuxr|v and TO peiicopa,' die experiences
of die soul' and 'celestial phenomena' (fr. 10 Rose). This is die clue to the
structure of Lucretius' poem; after die first two books have laid the necessary
dieoretical foundation, Books 3 and 4 deal widi the soul and die senses and
Books 5 and 6 widi die heavens and the gods. The whole concept of die poem
is determined by its dieological position. Once this is clear, not only the general
outline of die work but also some of its details fall into place. For example
Book 4, after die brilliant satiric passage about die nature of love, ends radier
quietly widi two paragraphs, the first on sterility and the second about die
unattractive woman. At first reading they may appear somediing of an anticlimax;
but diere is nothing arbitrary or makeshift about diem. In the first
Lucretius shows that sterility is not caused by die gods and diat prayers to
heaven will be of no avail. The second passage is designed to show that improbable
unions are not die work of heaven and diat the shafts of Venus have nothing
to do widi die matter. Both are part of the anti-theological argument
of die poem.
This preoccupation with religion may correspond to something deep in
Lucretius' nature. It is possible to argue, as many have done, that the attack
on superstition was die main motivation for the poem. But the critic should
also be aware of the importance of the religious polemic as an organizing device.
It is diis which holds die argument togedier and gives it its emotional force.
One may suspect that Lucretius sometimes exaggerated this aspect of Epicurean
1 On Lucretius' sources see Giussani (1896) 1—17.
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