Lucretius (99-ca. 55 B.C.), full name Titus Lucretius Carus, was a Latin poet and philosopher. His one work, De rerum natura, a didactic poem in hexameters, renders in verse the atomistic philosophy of Epicurus, forerunner of the modern-day atomic...

"When a single day brings the world to destruction, only then will the poetry of the sublime Lucretius pass away." This judgment by the Roman poet Ovid, written in the generation after Lucretius's death, has been echoed by such writers as Voltaire and...

"When a single day brings the world to destruction, only then will the poetry of the sublime Lucretius pass away." This judgment by the Roman poet Ovid , written in the generation after Lucretius's death, has been echoed by such writers as Voltaire and...

99-44 B.C. Roman writer and philosopher who is remembered for his poem De rerum natura (On the nature of things). De rerum natura provides an exposition of the theories of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, a philosopher revered by Lucretius. The poem...

Lucretius(?–C. 55 Bce) Little is known of Lucretius (d. ca. 55 BCE [Donatus, Life of Virgil ] or perhaps a few years later; cf. Hutchinson 2001) apart from his poem in six books, On the Nature of Things ( De rerum natura ), an exposition in...

Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BC- ca. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of...

Monarch Notes 01-01-1963 Greek Philosophy. Lucretius Greek Philosophy: Introduction Before the Greeks came into the Mediterranean world, man was primarily oriented toward death and built his monuments in honor of death: 1. The ziggurats of Babylon and the pyramids of Egypt testify to the...

After Lucretius I It happens from time to time, on days like this --in winter, when the air is cold and still, the boats at the harbour perched on their wooden stocks, the gaps between the houses filled with light-- it happens that I...

Every once in a while someone will ask me, “Why don’t you write about Rosanne Cash anymore? And hey, whatever happened with your marriage proposal to her?” It’s true that I was one of the first (or, anyway, one of the most effusive) to praise...

Every once in a while someone will ask me, “Why don’t you write about Rosanne Cash anymore? And hey, whatever happened with your marriage proposal to her?” It’s true that I was one of the first (or, anyway, one of the most effusive) to...

In the following excerpt, Minyard analyzes the De rerum natura and discusses the tactics Lucretius employed in the work to demonstrate to readers the failure of old world views and the superiority of Epicureanism.

In the following excerpt, Nichols examines elements of Lucretius's thought present in the works of Thomas Hobbes, Charles-Louis Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In the following essay, Montserrat and Navarro examine Lucretius's explanation of the water cycle and praise his use of plain language.