Der Graben ist weiter und defer. Er ist vor allem deshalb so schwer zu iiberspringen, veil wir hart an seinem Rande stehen (Heidegger, « Der Spruch des Anaximanders », in Holzwege, Frankfurt am Main 1950, p. 303)1.

1The distance that separates us from Lucretius is greater than we take it to be, and the gap, or abyss, between Lucretius and his reader is not to be measured by a span of two millenia. Across from us we can make out the remote and solitary figure of a poet making his way across the pathless slopes of Pieria to reach and drink from the sources of his inspiration (I, 921-950 ; IV, 1-25). Yet this remote figure of a poet, who works late into the quiet of the night seeking the nature of things and the language and poetry that will reveal it to his reader (I, 140-145 ; cf. IV, 969-970), seems familiar, for Lucretius seems to present himself as a poet among poets. It is Lucretius himself who has brought us to the edge of the gap.

2At the beginning of his poem he invokes Venus (I, 28) ; at its end, he will invoke Calliope (VI, 93). He represents himself as a poet : he is spurred on by the sharp blows of the thyrsus and the prospect of fame (I, 922-923) ; he drinks from pure springs (I, 927-928 ; IV, 2-3) ; and he seeks on the slopes of Pieria the crown that Ennius was the first Roman poet to bring down from a mountain that was better known than Pieria (Helicon, I, 118 ; I, 928-930 ; IV, 3-5 ; VI, 95). Lucretius presents himself as a bee in a meadow of flowers (III, 10-13) ; his verse as polished and an adornment of his argument (VI, 82-83), or as honey coating and disguising his argument (I, 947 and IV, 22). He compares his poetry to the song of swans (IV, 181 ; 910) ; and he speaks of himself as a swallow (III, 6-7).

3And finally, Lucretius speaks of himself as a prophet (V, 110-113). At the end of the De Rerum Natura, as he nears the finish line his muse will mark out for him and bring him to (VI, 92-95), he mounts a venerable chariot that had carried at least two philosophical poets before him (VI, 47 ; 93). These familiar poetic attributes are all to be found in Lucretius’ poem. And their very familiarity tempts us to mistake Lucretius and his poem. Lucretius does not mark off for his reader how far he moves away from his presentation of the familiar features of himself as a poet. But he does not need to, for his method is to let his reader arrive at his own conclusions about Lucretius’ invocation to Venus and his evocation of spring, genesis and the quickening breath of the West wind (I, 11). As he approaches its end and his goal, he calls upon Calliope, his clever Muse (callida musa, VI, 93), and he asks her to point out to him the finish line in his race to the conclusion of his poem. We come to this goal in the grim description of the deathbearing wave of disease that brought destruction to the highest pinnacle of human development, Athens (cf. V, 1148-VI, 6). Between the genitabilis aura fauoni of the proem (I, 11) and the mortifer aestus of VI, 1138, Lucretius has moved over a great distance.

4This essay presents an attempt to recover some of this distance, along with the art of reading a philosophical poem which begins with the familiar, the appealing, and the traditional, in order to bring its reader over the gap that separates the lovely appearance of a spring day (the uerna species of I, 10) and the prospect of dissolution and destruction with which the De Rerum Natura ends.

Ways Taken

5In marked contrast to the shadowy group of philosophers which critics have seen, or have thought to see, in the background of the De Rerum Natura, stands the solitary figure whose name seems to sum up Lucretius’ philosophical sources. He is named only once in the poem (III, 1042-1044), but as the argument of the poem develops, he does not need to be named to be recognized :

6The De Rerum Natura proclaims itself the reiteration of a path already taken. Its very syntax suggests its relation to Epicurus : inque tuis nunc / ficta pedum pono pressis vestigia signis. The lines set the compass of Source Criticism.

7Lucretius speaks of signa : marks, impressions. Epicurus had spoken of a way and the movement along it that led to the end of philosophy. Especially towards the end of his life he became more interested in establishing a clearly marked path for his disciples to follow, and the words ὁδός and βαδίζω occur with significant frequency in the three major letters preserved in Diogenes Laertius.2 From the Vatican collection of Epicurus’ Pronouncements comes the exhortation (SF 48) : πειρᾶσθαι τὴν ὑστέραν τῆς προτέρας ϰρείττω ποιεῖν, ἕως ἂν ἐν ὸδῴ ὦμεν· ἐπειδὰν δ’ ἐπὶ πέρας ἔλϑωμεν, ὁμαλῶς εὐϕραίνεσθαι (We must attempt to make the next day better than the day before, until we are on the way ; and once we have come to our goal, feel joy, steadily, calmly). Later Epicureans recognized that Epicurus had discovered and marked a road, or better – a way, they were to follow. It seems that none saw this more clearly marked out before him than did Lucretius. In the apotheosis of Epicurus which begins Book VI, he speaks again of a road :

8It is natural enough to see the language of this passage and the aurea dicta of the proem to Book III as centering on Epicurus’ moral thought and his carefully formulated ethical maxims, or patria praecepta, some of which can be seen in the Latin of the De Rerum Natural.3

9But this focus is too narrow. In Epicurus, the word ὁδός and questions of method are more prominent in his physiology than in his ethical writings.4 When, in the proem to Book V, Lucretius speaks again of following in Epicurus’ footsteps, he is following a path marked by the fundamental principles of Epicurus’ physiology :

10Elsewhere it is clear that the route to a rational account of the world is not always the shortest and most direct. The best example of the circuitous approach to a problem is Lucretius’ treatment of the magnet which poses the difficulty of explaining action over a distance. It is a problem which can be approached only by a review of the fundamental theoretical considerations which explain the working of the world. When Lucretius states that the problem is best approached by long detours (nimium longis ambagibus est adeundum, VI, 919), he is following the principle and the path marked by Epicurus who insisted that his followers make the round (περίοδος) of the main principles of his physiology as they approach the particular problems posed by nature.5 Passages like Lucretius’ treatment of the magnet make all the clearer the method that stands behind a statement such as that which closes Book I :

Sources of inspiration

11For the ancients, sources were springs as well as the books we now speak of as ηuellen and « voriginals », forgetting entirely one of the meanings of origof .6 By habit and inclination we speak of models, originals, debts, the « sources », and more often the « source », that lay open before Lucretius’ eyes. But for the ancients some springs were sacred and the source of inspiration for those who drank from them. Lucretius speaks of such sources in a manner which is deceptively traditional and strikingly original. He first speaks of them in the exordium which introduces the difficult argument on the infinity of the universe :

12What stands out is the word auia – it is the first word of the proem to Book IV. Here and elsewhere in the poem Lucretius insists that his enterprise is novel. It is this sense of the novelty of his poetic theme that Lucretius presents as the well of his enthusiasm and love for the Muses. The great hope he has of glory stems from his perception of his place in the history of this world :

13Given the theme the exordium of Book I announces, and the language Lucretius chooses to express it, the mindful reader is brought to think back on another breakthrough in the history of the world – that of the Graius homo of the proem (I, 66) :

14Both Lucretius and Epicurus made their way through an infinite universe which is defined only by strict laws and a method (cf. I, 80-82). The deliberate parallelism drawn by Lucretius between himself and Epicurus leads to an explanation of how it is that Lucretius can portray himself as following in Epicurus’ footsteps and at the same time striking out through a trackless region to the sources of his inspiration. The explanation lies in the words auia Pieridum. The ἅπειροι of Epicurus and the auia Pieridum are one and the same. But the universe of Epicurus is delineated in the arid and technical prose, the νήφων λογισμός, of a man who had little use for poetry and considered the Muses Sirens.7 The universe of the De Rerum Natura is one presented in and seen through poetry. Its ratio is one that leads its reader to see through poetry.

15One thing that is not traditional in what has been called Lucretius’« apology » is his conspicuous failure to invoke his Muses as he had invoked Venus (I, 28) and will invoke Calliope (VI, 92-95). In the exordium at the end of Book I, Lucretius asks nothing of the Muses. Rather he evokes traditional themes to stress his originality. The wreath he seeks from the Muses brings to mind Ennius,

16And inevitably, the auia Pieridum bring Hesiod to mind ; the integros fontis the springs of Helicon. Tacitly, it would seem, Lucretius has evoked a tradition stretching from Hesiod to Ennius to make his claim that he and not Hesiod or Ennius is the first truly philosophical poet.

17Helicon is mentioned again in the De Rerum Natura : indirectly, when poets are called the comites Heliconiadum (III, 1037). Lucretius is not a Movodcov depdircov (Hesiod, Theogony, 100). He is a follower of Epicurus. He is original in his bold attempt to properly express Epicurus’ philosophy in Latin verse. And he was the first and last poet to expound his great theme in poetry. And thus Lucretius is permitted to speak of himself – ego. This emphatic « I » breaks into the poem only when Lucretius is speaking of his poetry, and its limitations.8

18Helicon rises in Boeotia. Mt. Pieria, on the Macedonian side of Olympus. In Lucretius’ references to poetry there seems to be a distinction between Helicon and Pieria and possibly an opposition. The Muses of Pieria and their song are mentioned twice in the De Rerum Natura (I, 926 ; 946=IV, 1 ; 21). Their song is Lucretius’ song. But Helicon is a mountain frequented by other poets. It is the mountain from which Ennius brought down his crown (I, 118) ; from which philosophers forced harmonia and improperly applied this musical term to the soul (III, 130-135). It is the source of plaintive song (IV, 547). Poets accompany the Muses that dwell there (III, 1037) ; and on its slopes grows a tree which is said to be deadly to men when in flower (VI, 786-787). By contrast Lucretius traverses the trackless reaches of Pieria alone. The springs of this mountain have no name. The steps and song of dancing Muses cannot be heard there ; on its slopes, no shepherds pasture their sheep. If there is a distance in the De Rerum Natura between Pieria and Helicon, and therefore a tacit distinction between Lucretius and other poets, its explanation might lie in the fact that the associations of Helicon are local and inextricably bound up with the Ascraeum carmen of Hesiod, while Pieria is associated with the more universal Olympus.9 Pieria is more on a level with the ὰπειρία of Epicurus’ view of the universe than the less lofty Helicon.

The Muses

19Between Lucretius’ description of his enthusiasm (I, 921- 930) and his « apology » proper (I, 931-950), there is a gap filled by a tacit question : Why will the Muses crown the poet ?10

20Here we have Lucretius’ answer to his tacit question. The Muses will crown the poet because of the great things which are his argument ; because its surface, touched with their sweet honey, will attract the reader to the point where it becomes possible for Lucretius to release him mind and soul from the bonds of traditional religion of which the Muses themselves are a mirror and innocuous part. In part, because the bright surface of his poem will bring to light a dark theme.11 Lucretius’ poem is attractive and brilliant ; its argument is bitter and dark. And this is the justification for Lucretius’ decision to write poetry (non ab nulla ratione uidetur, I, 935). If taken on its own terms, Lucretius’ poetry makes palatable, , or approachable (labrorum tenus, I, 940), an argument that seems grim and bitter to those who have not been exposed to it. In some sense, his poetry, and even his presentation of it, is a deception (I, 941). The significant repetition of the rare contingere makes clear that Lucretius considers, or represents, his poetry as a coating. 12

21It remains to determine if this, the most explicit statement Lucretius makes about his philosophical poem, is not itself deceptive, or only a partial statement of the relation between his argument (ratio) and its form (carmen).

22Lucretius’ manner of treating poetry and its themes is seldom as explicit as this. And even then it is not so explicit an evocation and rejection of a tradition as was Eliot’s calling up Thunder rolled by the rolling stars / Simulates triumphal cars in his Four ηuartets :

That was a way of putting it – not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn out poetical fashion.

23Lucretius’ evocation of the rites of Cybele was no worn out poetical fashion. Because his method is to attract his reader to the surface of his poem and then bring him to look through its surface to the argument that lies beneath, some readers have become so attached to his musaeum mel that they have failed to see a method in his shifts from « poetry » to its underlying ratio. One expression of Lucretius’ method of evoking a traditional theme and reaffirming his reader’s attachment to it, and then bringing him to a vantage from which he can both see through the surface of the poem and interpret it, is the first element of the verbs which describe the activity of the reader : perpotet (I, 940) ; perspicis (IV, 25) ; pernosces perductus (I, 1114) ; peruideas (I, 1117).13 The failure to appreciate how the poem moves from the invocation of Venus at its beginning to the theology which asks nothing of gods who can be moved by neither anger nor a sense of gratitude to the Venus of Book IV – our uoluptas and muta cupido (IV, 1057) – has wrought havoc in the text of the De Rerum Natura and filled the poem with contradictions.14 As men commonly conceive of them, the gods do not exist. Venus cannot be moved by Lucretius’ prayer : aeternum da dictis, diua, leporem (I, 28). But the goddess, as most men think of her, can move Lucretius’ reader : to the point where it becomes possible for him to realize that what is truly divine can be moved neither by a sense of gratitude, nor anger, nor precedent (I, 49 ; II, 651 ; cf. I, 26-27). And that the goddess men call Venus has her origin in human passion and desire : Haec Venus est nobis (IV, 1058). Tityos too is no more than the worries and anxieties of the lover : Tityos nobis hiC est (III, 992).15

24If this is our Venus, and if Bacchus, Neptune, and Ceres are abusive descriptions of wine, the sea, and grain, Lucretius’ reader is brought to ask : What then are our Muses ? The Muses (or Muse) make other appearances in Lucretius’ poem : the spring song of the shepherds, inspired by gusts of the West wind sounding through hollow reeds, is called a country Muse : agrestis enim turn musa uigebat (V, 1398), and editors do not capitalize the word. But the Lucretian commentary on the Muses of his « apology » is his treatment of the echo and the beliefs it gives rise to :

25ηuerelae, plaintive songs such as these are also heard on Helicon (IV, 547 ; cf. V, 1384).16 What the inhabitants of remote places hear is not the distant song of the Muses, or Pan, but the echoes of men calling out in the mountains (IV, 575-578). The larger context of Book IV makes it clear that the Muses, if they are to be explained by the ratio they help disguise, are cases of προσδοξαζόμενα ; they are constructs the mind has added to real experience ; res / animus quas ab se protinus addit IV, 468).17

26In the company of Centaurs, Chimaeras, and Scyllas, the Muses have their origin in human experience. But they arise from sounds, not from things seen. In the long run of the poem, these goddesses of poetic tradition take their place with the gods as they are created by men, with Venus and Veneres nostras (IV, 1185), Cybele, Pan, and the gods of the country. They are the wonderful additions of the mind to its experience. These are our Muses. It is the art and the method of Lucretius’ philosophical poem to move from what is appealing and traditional to a vantage which both comprehends and transcends tradition.

Prophecy

27Epicurus, who was not a poet, called his philosophy prophecy (SE 29). It is clear that he had his reasons for making a claim often made by poets for their inspiration. When it has gotten a proper distance from the world it describes, physiology becomes a kind of prophecy :18 Μέμνησο ὅτι ϑνητὸς ὢν τῇ φύσει ϰαί λαβών χρόνον ώρισμένον άνέβης τοϊς περί φύσεως SLaλo’yujp.od ; eirt rpp dwetpiav Kai τόν αίῶνα Kai ϰατεῖδες « τά τ- ἐοντα τά τ’ ἐσσόμενα πρό τ’ ἐόντα » (ἐσσόμενα Koerte, Iliad 1. 70 ; ἐσόμενα V) ; Remember that although you are mortal and have received a limited span of time, you have ascended to infinity by means of the arguments concerning nature – and to all of time, and have looked upon « those things that are, that will be, and were before ».

28Here is another element in Lucretius’ presentation of his poetry and its inspiration. It is both Epicurean and poetic. It seems traditional, and can and has been compared to the conceptions of earlier poets who spoke of themselves as inspired « prophets »19 But in Lucretius, the emphasis falls more on prophecy than on inspiration. In the De Rerum Natura, poetry, philosophy, and prophecy are first found together in Empedocles and his followers :

29This conception of physiology as prophecy is itself Empedoclean and carries over into Lucretius’ judgement of those who held the theory of four elements :

30It is language like this which Lucretius will use to prophesy the end of this world (II, 1048-1174). In its free flight (liber iactus, II, 1047), the mind mounts to a point from which it can look down upon the infinity of the universe and the origin and impending destruction of this world and worlds like it. And this is the point of view of the end of Book Il and the beginning of Book V, where Lucretius takes up again the great theme of the perishability of the world :

31The language Lucretius had used to praise Empedocles and his followers now describes his own argument. One reader of the poem has properly asked : N’est-ce pas comme une faqon de se proclamer un nouvel Empedocle ? 20On reflection, no. Lucretius’ proclamation is even more ambitious. In Book V, Empedocles enters the poem as Lucretius attempts to convey the difficulty of reaching a conception of the perishability of this world. It is characteristic of Lucretius’ view of the philosophical poets who came before him that he should adopt and adapt Empedocles’ language on the impossibility of framing from the senses a conception of the divine, in order to bring before the mind the difficulty of imagining the death of a world which has lost all of its divinity (V, 114-234 ; cf. II, 1090-1104). Empedocles’ Greek finds its silent commentary in Lucretius’ application of it. Three lines of his poem were known to Clement who gives a subject : [31 B 133 DK] τὸ… ϑεῖον, ὸ Ἀϰραγατῖνός φησι ποιήτης,

οὐϰ ἔστιν πελάσασϑαι ἐν ὀϕθαλμοῖς ἐϕιϰτόμ,
ἡμετέροις ἢ χερσὶ λαβεῖν, ᾗπερ τε μεγίστη
πειϑοῦς ἀνϑρώποισιν ἁμαξιτὸς εἰς φρένα πίπτει.

32The divine, says the poet from Acragas :

33As often happens when one poet refers to another, the more things seem to remain the same, the more they change – an axiom especially true of the Roman poetry of allusion.21 Lucretius is alluding to Empedocles, for the allusion behind lines V, 97-103 is not isolated and local, but it informs its context. At least one detail of Empedocles’ language comes to be seen as valid for Epicurean theology : οὐϰ ἔστι χερσὶ λαβεῖν finds its echo in tnanuum tactum suffugit et ictum (V, 150). But the allusion seems to say still more, for it subordinates the impossibility of following sense experience to a conception of divinity to the difficulties of the poet who will convince his Roman reader of the perishability of a godless world. Here again, in the case of Empedocles, Lucretius evokes earlier philosophical poetry in order to assert the superiority of his own argument. Since the universe is now as it always was and always will be, the philosopher who understands its eternal laws becomes, like Chalcas and the Muses, a prophet. And here again the ancient themes of poetry and inspiration are comprehended within a new philosophy and a new philosophical poetry.

Invention

34In antiquity, poets were makers, not finders. But invention figures importantly in Lucretius’ conception of his own poetry and in his statements about the sources of his inspiration. One source of inspiration is the world revealed by Epicurus’ discoveries – the naturam rerum, diuina mente coortam (III, 15).22 Another is Lucretius’ sense of being at once Epicurus’ follower and the first to reveal adequately to the Roman reader Epicurus’ discovery of the nature of things. His sense of originality derives from his sense of history. Cieero reproached the Epicureans who were his contemporaries for their lack of interest in history : in uestris disputationibus uero historia muta est (De fin. 11.21.67). Unfairly, and narrowly. In the vast conception of history that envisaged the simultaneous formation and destruction of worlds in infinite time and space and reduced the Roman conception of res gestae to euenta… corporis atque loci (I, 478-482), Lucretius could look upon Epicurus as a πρῶτος εὐρετἠς – as the rerum inuentor (HI, 9). His attachment to Epicurus was not ahistorical. It depended on a conception of history in which events two centuries old can be regarded as recent :

35By this conception of history, discoverers are themselves discovered. The same language which had described Lucretius’ place in world history (ipse repertus) comes to describe the greatest product of a city which is itself the pinnacle of civilization (cf. the summum cacumen, V, 1457 and VI, 1-4). This product is Epicurus – uirum tali corde repertum (VI, 5). Lucretius’ description of himself as discovered in Book III might have dissuaded Bailey from his vacuous explanation of repertum in VI, 5 as little more here than the participle of sum.23 As a part of the gradual discovery of the arts of improving life, the discoverer of the true account of the world is himself discovered. So Lucretius is himself discovered two centuries later, and this discovery makes possible the first adequate proclamation in Latin of the reason and nature of things. The inspiration of the discovery of the maiestas cognita rerum (V, 7) is one of the most abundant and purest sources of the De Rerum Natura. It is Lucretius’ sense of history and discovery that explains too why the language which describes the gradual discovery and illumination of Lucretius’ reader also describes the progress of civilization :24

Calliope

36There is one other invocation to a Muse in the De Rerum Natura : as he approaches the end of his poem, Lucretius mounts a chariot that he calls insignis (VI, 49), and appeals to Calliope to direct him to the finish line that will mark the end of his poem and course :

37This is a familiar representation of the poet and his chariot. It brings to mind Pindar, Parmenides, and Empedocles. It is Lucretius’ last representation of himself as a poet. Unfortunately, it is not complete. He began to speak of mounting a chariot as he introduced the argument of the last book of the De Rerum Natura :

38Bernays saw that this picture of the poet and his chariot is incomplete and that something has been lost after line 47. Lucretius returns to this chariot at the end of the proem to Book VI when he asks Calliope to point him to the white finish line set out before him and the long course of his argument. Here again he uses the adjective insignis – now to describe the fame which he sees as his prize. What Lucretius’ invocation to Calliope helps explain is the sense he would give insignis : Lucretius has once again turned to Empedocles in order to present and set off by contrast the distinctive character of his own argument De Rerum Natural.25

39There are two passages in Empedocles where he turns to a muse. Both seem to enter the larger context of the proem to the final book of Lucretius’ poem. The first must come from the beginning of the Περὶ φύσεως ; the second Diels assigned to the Katharmoi, against the weight of the evidence that puts it in the last book of the Περί ϕύσεως.26 In the first of these invocations, Empedocles does not name his muse. He calls her white-armed, a virgin, and rroXuppparp – an ambigous epithet which, as Jean Bollack has suggested in his commentary to this passage, is best rendered by she who remembers many things.27 In an invocation of five lines perserved by Hippolytus, Empedocles calls upon his muse once again (yvv acre •napiarauo, B 131, 4 DK) and this time he calls her by name, Calliope. What both passages have in common is the expression of the need for divine help in a poem that speaks of the gods and the theme of piety. This is the language with which Empedocles appeals to the gods and his muse for the first time in his poem :

40B 3 DK (= 14 Bollack)

41And this is the language of his second appeal :

42B 131 DK

εὶ γὰρ ἑϕημερίων ἕνεϰέν τινος, ἅμβροτε Μοῦσα,
ἡμετέρας μελέτας <ἄδε τοι>διὰ ϕροντίδος ἐλθεῖν,
εὐχομένῳ νῦν αὖτε παρίστασο, Καλλιόπεια,
ἀμϕὶ ϑεῶν μαϰάρων ἀγαϑὸν λόγον ἐμϕαίνοντι.
< ἅδε τοι > Wilamowitz, Mass : μέλε τοι Diels : ἡμετέρας ἕμελεν V

43Lucretius too appeals to Calliope, but he calls her a callida musa, giving her name in Latin a sense it did not have in Greek.28 He speaks too of the flowers of fame, and his language (ut insigni capiam cum laude coronam, VI, 95) seems to respond to the language of Empedocles’ εὑδόξοιο βιήσεταί άνάεα τιμής (Β 3, 6 DK). Both poets speak of their chariots, although it is not clear that Lucretius asked his muse for a chariot in what has been lost from his poem after VI, 47. Whatever he said in this lacuna, it is clear that both Lucretius’ Calliope and Empedocles’ Muse will accompany their poets in their course (cf. πέμπε in B 3, 5 DK and te duce in Lucretius VI, 95).

44Lucretius’ allusions to his closest and greatest predecessor in philosophical poetry seem to go beyond the parallels between the two poets’ Muses, chariots, and the flowers of fame. Both poets reveal a doctrine that involves an account of the gods. And both poets speak piously, and partially, as befits mortal and limited men. Lucretius’ account of the gods is incomplete, or apparently so, because he does not seem to fulfill his promise of a further discussion concerning the gods and their place in the universe : quae tibi posterius largo sermone probabo (V, 155). What the argument of the final two books of Lucretius’ poem demonstrates is that the gods had nothing to do with the origin of the world, that they have nothing to do either with its workings or with human affairs, yet they are not completely absent from human experience. Rather, the divine is far removed : semota ab nostris rebus seiuncta longe (I, 46 = II, 649). They are not completely absent since it is the tenuous and barely perceptible image of their tranquillity that affords men with their remote notion of true tranquillity and arapa8ia. At the end of Book V Lucretius defines true piety as the ability to contemplate everything and anything with a mind that has found its calm : placata posse omnia menti tueri (V, 1203). This theme of human piety is an important part of the proem to Book VI – inevitably, for Lucretius’ argument now comes to center on one of the greatest sources of fear and one of the grounds for human belief in the terrible gods of an angry heaven. But the beliefs men hold concerning the gods cannot affect the gods as they are : they can only affect the believer’s peace of mind :

45It was the purpose of Epicurean physiology to dispel or purge these fears (cf. VI, 24 : ueridicis igitur purgauit pectora dictis, of Epicurus). It is only once Lucretius’ reader has quieted his fears concerning the gods that he will be able to receive in peace their likenesses :

46This peace was once the object of Lucretius’ prayer to Venus (tranquilla pace, 1,37). As the De Rerum Natura nears its end, Lucretius’ reader can, by himself – tute tibi, achieve a state no goddess or Muse can grant. But it is a state a goddess or a Muse can introduce him to. The poem has moved a long way from its beginning when Lucretius invoked Venus. As it began, gods and men seem united in a common pleasure : hominum diuumque uoluptas, alma Venus (I, 1-2). As it nears its close, gods and men are separated : Calliope can give the gods uoluptas, but men she can only afford requies. This distinction, which few of Lucretius’ readers have been moved to comment on, seems a part of Epicurean piety.29 True uoluptas is beyond the reach of men. Lucretius’ clever Muse, who can give men only rest, points him and his reader to the grim spectacle with which the De Rerum Natura ends. Whether she can give him the peace that can make it possible for him to regard the devastation of human achievement which he encounters at the end of the poem is the final problem of the poem itself. Gods live without disturbance ; they are remote from human affairs and are indifferent to men. They can be truly be called quietos. It is a part of true piety to describe them as they are. Men cannot live their lives summa cum pace. The most they can hope for is to free their minds and souls from trouble and achieve peace. Their highest state of piety, and happiness, requires an earlier state of turmoil. The human soul must first be disturbed to find its peace : placata mente.

47Requies is a word which takes on a clear and distinctive range of associations in Lucretius. As it is associated with Calliope in the proem to Book VI, it brings Hesiod to mind for a moment and the gift of his Muses : λησμοσύνην τε ϰαϰῶι άμπαυμά re μερμηράων (Theogony, 55). But in Lucretius, requies (or quies) and the verb requiescere apply to three things : On the most fundamental level, quies is denied to matter (II, 95).30 ηuies also describes the gods and their tranquillity.31 But for men, sleep and death are the states which represent ultimate rest.32

48At the end of the poem, Calliope, Lucretius’ clever Muse and the goddess who gives men rest (hominum requies), brings Lucretius’ reader to a scene which offers men no relief. Of the plague that devastated Athens, Lucretius says : nec requies erat ulla mali (VI, 1178). This last stage of the De Rerum Natura has been carefully prepared for. Lucretius has brought his reader to the point from which he can contemplate the highest pinnacle of human civilization and its destruction. It is Athens that is praised in the beginning of Book VI. Athens seems to represent the high point, the summum cacumen, reached at the end of Book V (V, 1457). The first line of Book VI points to its end ; mortalibus aegris is echoed in aegris of VI, 1152.33 The theme of a world in flux permeates the sixth book,34 and surfaces in Lucretius’ treatment of the magnet which is one example of the aestus of matter in motion (VI, 921-935) ; it is treated for a last time in Lucretius’ description of the mortifer aestus which comes at the end of the poem (cf. VI, 1138). Underlying both Lucretius’ account of the magnet and description of the plague is a vision of a world in constant and perpetual motion : nec mora nec requies interdatur ulla fluendi, VI, 931. The end of the De Rerum Natura comes as the final test of Lucretius’ reader. As the argument of the poem develops, so does Lucretius’ reader. In the early stages of the poem this reader can be represented as a child who must be deceived in order to be cured of the anxieties that disturb his life (I, 935-950 ; IV, 1-25). But he is also given the independence that Epicurus’ physiology was designed to make possible for its student. Both Epicurus and Lucretius seem to have written to give their readers an independence and security in the most critical moments of their lives : ἵνα παρ’ έκάστους τά>ν καψών ev τοϊς κυρι.ωτάτοι.ς βοηϋβΐν αυτούς δύνωνται. – in the language of ad Her., 35, 5. And Lucretius, even before he has turned to the representation of his reader as a child, envisages an independence for him that can take him well beyond the doctrine of the poem itself. Once he is on the right track, Lucretius ’ reader will be able to penetrate the invisible workings of nature :

49It is such a reader that Lucretius contemplates at the end of the first book of the De Rerum Natura :

50When he has come to the last stretch of his argument, Lucretius addresses a reader who has become responsible for his own peace of mind : faced with a choice between a belief in the angry and violent gods of Roman religion and the tranquil gods of Epicurean theology, Lucretius’ reader must choose between turmoil and peace. Per te tibi (VI, 70) and tute tibi (VI, 73) reflect Lucretius’ expectation that the effect of his teaching is to give his reader the ability to help himself. One test of the effectiveness of Lucretius’ teaching comes when his reader is able to look back on the Venus that first attracted him to the De Rerum Natura and to realize that neither she nor any god can grant him favors ; and that she is only one of the faces of a larger natura who, or which, is responsible for both generation and destruction (cf. I, 54-61). He comes to realize too that she has her origins in human passion, just as the gods of Roman religion have their origin in human fear. This is the fate of the goddess who attracts every reader to the poem : it tier et Venus (V, 737).

51What Lucretius’ reader is left to contemplate at the end of the poem is the grim features of a power which is destructive as well as creative. And when he arrives at the finish line Lucretius’ clever Muse has marked out for him, he can see nothing peaceful or quiet. Only the spectacle of the living fighting among themselves rather than give up their dead in the collapse of custom and religion :

multo cum sanguine saepe
rixantes potius quam corpora deserentur.

52The De Rerum Natura does not end with requies. It does not end in a contradiction. Its end is the last and greatest test of the reader who would master its teaching. For the piety the poem makes possible is the ability to contemplate everything and anything with a mind that has found its -peace :

placata posse omnia mente tueri.

53There is a certain pleasure in this.35

54D.C.