author
Titus Lucretius Carus
-95–-55
A Roman poet and philosopher from the 1st century BCE, he is remembered for turning Epicurean ideas into powerful, vivid verse. His great work, On the Nature of Things, explores everything from atoms and the soul to fear, death, and the workings of the natural world.
3 Audiobooks
On the Nature of Things
by Titus Lucretius Carus
Virgil & Lucretius Passages translated by William Stebbing
by Virgil, Titus Lucretius Carus
Translations from Lucretius
by Titus Lucretius Carus
About the author
Little is known for certain about Lucretius's life, and even his exact dates are debated. What has endured is his reputation as the author of De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), a long Latin poem that presents the philosophy of Epicurus in a form meant to move as well as instruct.
In six books, the poem explains a universe made of atoms and void, argues that natural causes shape the world, and urges readers to free themselves from superstition and the fear of death. Ancient sources are sparse, but the work itself became one of the most important surviving texts for understanding Epicurean thought.
Lucretius has had a long afterlife far beyond ancient Rome. Readers have admired the poem for both its bold ideas and its poetic force, and it continues to matter to anyone interested in classical literature, the history of science, or philosophy written with real imaginative power.