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 Latin hexameters of the doctrines of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who lived two centuries earlier. Saint Jerome, in his Chronicle (Olympiad 171.3), claims that he committed suicide as a result of taking a love potion, and that he wrote his poem "in intervals of insanity," presumably meaning between, rather than during, such episodes. Jerome also asserts that Cicero "emended" Lucretius' text, that is, corrected it for publication, after his death (as Jerome gives it) in 51/50. It is possible that this is an inference from a letter of Cicero's to his brother (2.9, February 54 BCE), in which he praises Lucretius' poem, though Cicero himself had translated the Greek poet Aratus into Latin hexameters, and might well have taken an interest in a fellow poet's work.
Internal evidence reveals some repetitions and inconsistencies (e.g., the doublet at 4.45–53 and 4.26–44), which Lucretius would doubtless have eliminated in a final version; Lucretius also states that he will treat in greater detail the nature and habitation of the gods (5.155), but no such passage survives.
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