Some scholars have supposed that he planned to include it in a seventh or even later book, and that accordingly the poem as we have it is radically incomplete; in particular, Lucretius did not intend to conclude with the depressing spectacle of the Athenian plague (summary of views in Boyancé 1963: 79–83). But there are good justifications for this ending, and Lucretius could have changed his mind about the theological section, or treated it briefly within the compass of the poem as we have it. In the proem to Book 6 (91–94) he indicates plainly that he is approaching the end of the poem.
The Pre-Socratic philosophers Parmenides and Empedocles had written treatises in verse, and Empedocles' poem, which Lucretius regarded highly enough to deem its author "godlike" (1.716–741), may have borne the same title (Peri phuseôs, or perhaps the even closer Peri phuseôs tôn ontôn: Sedley 1998: 21–22; the title may not have been Empedocles' own: Schmalzriedt 1970), and may have extended to several thousand lines (Diogenes Laertius 8.77). Empedocles' proem was likely a model for Lucretius' own (Gale 1994: 59–74; Sedley 1998: 1–34).
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