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De Rerum Natura
8.5Lucretius
GBM Assessment (Score: 8.5/10)
Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) is a remarkable achievement that renders Epicurean physics and philosophy in magnificent Latin verse. Poggio Bracciolini's rediscovery of the poem in a German monastery in 1417 helped launch the Renaissance by reintroducing classical materialism and atomistic thought to a Europe long dominated by medieval scholasticism.
The poem was lost to the Western world until Poggio Bracciolini recovered it in 1417, an event chronicled in Stephen Greenblatt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Swerve (2011). De Rerum Natura influenced Machiavelli, Galileo, and Thomas Jefferson, and its vision of a universe governed by natural laws rather than divine intervention contributed to the development of modern scientific thought.
Late Roman Republic to Early Empire, c. 55 BC - 19 BC
The Roman Republic collapses: Caesar crosses the Rubicon, is assassinated; Octavian becomes Augustus, first emperor (27 BC). Amid upheaval, Latin literature reaches its zenith. Lucretius writes Epicurean philosophy in verse. Cicero defines Roman political thought. Virgil composes Rome's national epic. Horace perfects the ode. The Pax Romana is about to begin.
Awards & Adaptations
Greenblatt's Swerve. Influenced Machiavelli, Galileo, Jefferson.
Recommended Edition
W.H.D. Rouse (Loeb 1924); C. Bailey (1910)