Lucretius
c. 99 – c. 55 BCE · Rome
A Roman poet who set out Epicurus' philosophy in a long poem, including the argument that death is no more to be feared than the time before we were born.
Key ideas
On the Nature of Things presents Epicurus' philosophy in Latin verse: the world is made of atoms moving in the void, nothing comes from nothing, the soul is mortal, and the gods take no part in human affairs. Its purpose is to free readers from fear, above all the fear of death and of divine punishment.
Lucretius offered the symmetry argument: the endless time before our birth was nothing to us, and the time after our death is its mirror image, so it should trouble us no more. The argument is a central part of the death entry. He also described the atomic 'swerve', a tiny unpredictable deviation that Epicureans used to make room for free will.
Life, briefly
Almost nothing is known of his life. A late and unreliable report says he went mad from a love potion and took his own life. The poem was nearly lost; a manuscript rediscovered in 1417 by the book hunter Poggio Bracciolini helped spread atomism in Renaissance Europe.
Major works
- On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura)
Schools of thought
Appears in
Further reading
- EncyclopediaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Lucretius
- WikipediaLucretius