LUCRE'TIUS, Trrus CAD.us. Of the life of Lucretius we know almost nothing with certainty, as he is mentioned merely in a cursory manner in contemporary literature. Hieronymus (340-420 A.D.), in his translation of the chronicle of Eusebius (264-340 A.D.), gives the date of his birth as 95 B.C. (according to others, 99); but he does not specify the source from which his statement is derived. It is alleged, further, that he died by his own hand, in the 44th year of his age, having been driven frantic by a love-potion which had been administered to him; that he composed his works in the intervals of bis madness; and that these works were revised by Cicero. Donatus (Life of Virgil), on the contrary, affirms that his death occurred in 55 I3.C., on the very day on which Virgil assumed the toga virilis. The stories of the philter, the madness, the suicide, and the revision of the works by Cicero, rest on very insufficient authority, and must be received with extreme caution. The peculiar opinions advanced by Lucretius would render him specially obnoxious to the early Christians, and it is possible that the latter may have been too easily led to attribute to hirn a faith which, in its mysterious nature and melan choly termination, was deemed but a due reward for the bold and impious character of his teachings. The great work on which the fame of Lucretius rests is that entitled De Berum, Aratura, a philosophical didactic poem in six books. It is dedicated to C. :Hem ming Gemellus, and was published about 56 B.C. Lucretius was a reverent follower of the doctrines of Epicurns (q.v.), and his poem is in large measure an exposition of the physical, moral, and religious tenets of that philosopher. The great aiin of the poet was to free his fellow-countrymen from the trammels of superstition, and to raise them above the passions and the weaknesces of our natural condition. With his master, Epi curus, Lucretius adopted the atomic theory of Leucippus, which taught that certain ele mentary particles, existing from all eternity, and governed by fixed laws, combined to form the universe of matter; that the existence and active interference of a supreme overruling deity was not necessary to be supposed in order to account for the marvelous and abnormal in nature ; and that whatever appe,ared to be miraculous was in reality, not so, but v,-as merely the result of certain fixed laws, which operated will' unerring precision, and in a natural process. Regarded merely as a literary composition, the
work of Lucretius stands unrivaled among didactic poems. The clearness and full ness with which the most minute facts of physical science, and the most subtle philo e.ophical speculations, are unfolded and explained; the life and interest which are thrown into di,zcussions in themselves repulsive to the bulk of inankii,d; the beauty, richness. and variety of the episodes which are interwoven with the )ubject.matter of the poem, combined w ith the majestic verse in which the whole is clothed, render the De Rerum Natura, as a work of art, one of the most perfect which antiquity has bequeathed to us. For a fuller estimate of Lucretius and his poetry, see prof. Sellars's essay in The Roman Poets of the Republic (Edin., 1863). The editi,o prineeps of Lucretius was published at Brescia about 1473; only three copies are known to exist. The best viitions of Lucretius are by Wakefield (Lond., 1796, 3 vols. 4to, and Glas., 1813, 4 vols. 8vo); by Forbiger (Leip., 1828, 12mo); by Lachmann (Berlin, 1850, 2 vols.); and by prof. Munro (3d edition, 1870). The De Rerum Natura has been translated into English verse by Thomas Creech (Lond., 1714, 2 vols. 8vo); and by John Mason Good (Lona., 1803-7, 2 vols. 4to); into English prose by the rev. J. S. Watson, ISLA. (Lond., Bohn's classical library, 1851, post 8vo); and by prof. Munro, at the end of his edition.