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Lucretius full name

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Lucretius
by
Gordon Lindsay Campbell
  • LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2020
  • LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0034

  • Algra, Keimpe, Mieke Koenen, and Piet H. Schrijvers, eds. 1997. Lucretius and his intellectual background: Colloquium on Lucretius and His Intellectual Background, Amsterdam, 26–28 June 1996. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

    A useful collection of papers on a broad range of Lucretian themes.

  • Clay, Diskin. 1983. Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.

    Argues for Lucretius’s originality, selecting among many sources rather than relying on a single Epicurean source, and constructing his own structure for his exposition of Epicurus’s philosophy. Well worth reading whether one agrees or disagrees with Clay’s main argument.

  • Gale, Monica R., ed. 2007. Lucretius. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    A useful collection of classic articles on Lucretius.

  • Gigon, Olof, ed. 1978. Lucrèce: Huit exposés suivis de discussions. Entretiens sur L’Antiqui

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    Lucretius

    1. Life

    We know little about Lucretius’ life beyond what we can infer from his work. Our sole external reference comes from Cicero, in a letter to his brother Quintus serving with Caesar in Gaul, dated from February 54 BCE (Q.F. 2.10.3). Cicero agrees with his brother’s praise of the work, noting that it displays both brilliance and originality, but also considerable craftsmanship. Although Cicero and his brother may have read an earlier or partial draft, such a date for the poem we have is compatible with two main internal indicators.

    First is the poem’s addressee, the Roman aristocrat, Memmius, named only in books 1, 2 and 5. While doubts are possible as to which member of the Memmii Lucretius so honoured, most likely he is C. Memmius, the praetor of 58 BCE, governor of Bithynia in 57, where the poets Catullus and Cinna served on his staff, and who was exiled in 52 BCE as the result of an electoral scandal. The story, attested in other letters of Cicero, that Memmius had plans to build on the site of Epicurus’ house (in Melite, not the Ga

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    Lucretius

    1st-century BC Roman poet and philosopher

    This article is about the Roman poet and philosopher. For other people named Lucretius, see Lucretia gens. For the impact crater on the far side of the Moon, see Lucretius (crater).

    Titus Lucretius Carus (TY-təs loo-KREE-shəs; Latin:[ˈtitusluˈkreːti.usˈkaːrus]; c. 99 – October 15, 55 BC[2]) was a Romanpoet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem De rerum natura, a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is translated into English as On the Nature of Things—and somewhat less often as On the Nature of the Universe. Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certainty is that he was either a friend or client of Gaius Memmius, to whom the poem was addressed and dedicated.De rerum natura was a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his Aeneid and Georgics, and to a lesser extent on the Eclogues) and Horace.[4] The work was almost lost during the Middle Ages, but was redisco

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