[1] "And so it happens that the whole life of the old man stands
clearly before us, as if it were represented on a votive picture."
LUCILIUS JUNIOR, a friend and correspondent of the younger Seneca,
probably the author of _Aetna_, a poem on the origin of volcanic
activity, variously attributed to Virgil, Cornelius Severus (epic poet
of the Augustan age) and Manilius. Its composition has been placed as
far back as 44 B.C., on the ground that certain works of art, known to
have been removed to Rome about that date, are referred to as being at a
distance from the city. But as the author appears to have known and made
use of the _Quaestiones Naturales_ of Seneca (written A.D. 65), and no
mention is made of the great eruption of Vesuvius (A.D. 79), the time of
its composition seems to lie between these two dates. In favour of the
authorship of Lucilius are the facts that he was a friend of Seneca and
acquainted with his writings; that he had for some time held the office
of imperial procurator of Sicily, and was thus familiar with the
locality; that he was the author of a poem on Sicilian subjects. It is
objected that in the 79th letter of Seneca, which is the chief authority
on the question, he apparently asks that Lucilius should introduce the
hackneyed theme of Aetna merely as an episode in his contemplated poem,
not make it the subject of separate treatment. The sources of the Aetna
are Posidonius of Apamea, and perhaps the pseudo-Aristotelian _De
Mundo_, while there are many reminiscences of Lucretius. It has come
down in a very corrupt state, and its difficulties are increased by the
unpoetical nature of the subject, the straining after conciseness, and
the obtrusive use of metaphor.
Editions by J. Scaliger (1595), F. Jacob (1826), H. A. J. Munro
(1867), M. Haupt (in his edition of Virgil, 1873), E. Bährens (in
_Poetae latini minores_, ii), S. Sudhaus (1898), R. Ellis (1901,
containing a bibliography of the subject); see also M. Haupt's
_Opuscula_, i. 40, ii. 27, 162, iii. 437 (notes, chiefly critical); R.
Ellis in _Journal of Philology_, xvi. 292; P. R. Wagler, _De Aetna
poemate quaestiones criticae_ (1884); B. Kruczkiewicz, _Poema de Aetna
Monte_ (1883, in which the ancient view of the authorship of Virgil is
upheld); L. Alzinger, _Studia in Aetnam collata_ (1896); R.
Hildebrandt, _Beiträge zur Erklärung des Gedichtes Aetna_ (1900); J.
Vessereau (text, translation and commentary, 1905); Teuffel-Schwabe,
_Hist. of Roman Literature_ (Eng. trans. §§ 307, 308).
LUCINA, goddess of light, a title given to Juno and Diana as presiding
over childbirth and bringing children into the light of the world. The
full name is _lucina dea_, "the light-bringing goddess" (_lux_, light,
hence adj. _lucinus_). It is also given to Hecate (Tibullus 3. 4. 13),
as the bringer of terrible dreams, and is used metaphorically as a
synonym for child-birth (Virg. _Georg_, iii. 60; Ovid, _Ars. Amai._ iii.
785).
LUCIUS, the name of three popes.
LUCIUS I., pope for eight months (253-254), spent a short period of his
pontificate in exile. He is referred to in several letters of Cyprian
(see _Epist._ lxviii. 5) as having been in agreement with his
predecessor Cornelius in preferring the milder view on the question as
to how the lapsed penitent should be treated. He is commemorated on the
4th of March. (L. D.*)
LUCIUS II. (Gherardo Caccianemici dal Orso), pope from the 12th of March
1144 to the 15th of February 1145, a Bolognese, successively canon at
his native city, cardinal priest of Sta Croce in Gerusalemme, treasurer
of the Roman Church, papal legate in Germany for Honorius II.,
chancellor and librarian under Innocent II., was the successor of
Celestine II. His stormy pontificate was marked by the erection of a
revolutionary republic at Rome which sought to deprive the pope of his
temporal power, and by the recognition of papal suzerainty over
Portugal. He was succeeded by Eugenius III.
His letters are in J. P. Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ vol. 179. A single
unreliable writer, Godfrey of Viterbo (in J. M. Watterich, _Pontif.
Roman. Vitae_), is authority for the statement that Lucius II.
perished in an attempt to storm the Capitol. See Jaffé-Wittenbach,
_Regesta pontif. Roman_. (1885-1888); J. Langen, _Geschichte der
römischen Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocenz III._ (Bonn, 1893); F.
Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. 4, trans. by Mrs G. W.
Hamilton (London, 1896).
LUCIUS III. (Ubaldo Allucingoli), pope from the 1st of September 1181 to
the 25th of November 1185, a native of Lucca and a Cistercian monk,
named cardinal-priest of Sta Prassede by Innocent II. and
cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri by Adrian IV., succeeded Alexander
III. He lived at Rome from November 1181 to March 1182, but dissensions
in the city compelled him to pass the remainder of his pontificate in
exile, mainly at Velletri, Anagni and Verona. He disputed with the
emperor Frederick I. the disposal of the territories of the Countess
Matilda. In November 1184 he held a synod at Verona which condemned the
Cathari, Paterines, Waldensians and Arnoldists, and anathematized all
heretics and their abettors. Lucius died in the midst of preparations
for a crusade in answer to appeals of Baldwin IV. of Jerusalem. His
successor was Urban III.
His letters are in J. P. Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ vol. 201. Consult J. M.
Watterich, _Pontif. Roman. Vitae_, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1862); and
Jaffé-Wattenbach, _Regesta Pontif. Roman_. (1885-1888). See J. Langen,
_Geschichte der römischen Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocenz III._
(Bonn, 1893); F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. 4,
trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1896); P. Scheffer-Boichorst,
"Zu den mathildinischen Schenkungen," in _Mittheilungen des
österreichen Instituts_ (1888). (C. H. Ha.)
LUCK, a term for good or bad fortune, the unforeseen or unrecognized
causes which bring success or failure in any enterprise, particularly
used of the result of chances in games of skill or chance (see
PROBABILITY). The word does not occur in English before the 16th
century. It was taken from the Low Ger. _luk_, a shortened form of
_geluk_, cf. Modern Ger. _Glück_, happiness, good fortune. The _New
English Dictionary_ considers the word to have been introduced from the
Low Countries as a gambling term. The ultimate origin is doubtful; it
has been connected with the German _gelingen_, to succeed (cf. _Druck_,
pressure, from _dringen_), or with _locken_, to entice.
At Eden Hall in Cumberland, the seat of the Musgrave family, has been
long preserved a vessel known as "the luck," supposed to be of Venetian
or Byzantine make, and dating from the 10th century. It is a chalice of
enamelled glass, and on its safe preservation the fortunes of the
Musgrave family are supposed to depend, in accordance with the rhyme:--
"Should this cup either break or fall,
Farewell the luck of Edenhall."
LÜCKE, GOTTFRIED CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1791-1855), German theologian, was
born on the 24th of August 1791, at Egeln near Magdeburg, where his
father was a merchant. He studied theology at Halle and Göttingen. In
1813 he became _repetent_ at Göttingen, and in 1814 he received the
degree of doctor in philosophy from Halle; in 1816 he removed to Berlin,
where he became licentiate in theology, and qualified as
_privat-docent_. He soon became intimate with Schleiermacher and de
Wette, and was associated with them in 1819 in the redaction of the
_Theologische Zeitschrift_. Meanwhile his lectures and publications
(among the latter a _Grundriss der Neutestamentlichen Hermeneutik_,
1816) had brought him into considerable repute, and he was appointed
professor extraordinarius in the new university of Bonn in the spring of
1818; in the following autumn he became professor ordinarius. From Bonn,
where he had J. C. W. Augusti (1772-1841), J. K. L. Gieseler, and Karl
Immanuel Nitzsch for colleagues, he was called in 1827 to Göttingen to
succeed K. F. Stäudlin (1761-1826). In that year he helped to found the
_Theologische Studien und Kritiken_, the chief organ of the "mediation"
theology (_Vermittelungstheologie_). At Göttingen he remained, declining
all further calls elsewhere, as to Erlangen, Kiel, Halle, Tübingen, Jena
and Leipzig, until his death, which occurred on the 4th of February
1855.
Lücke, who was one of the most learned, many-sided and influential of
the so-called "mediation" school of evangelical theologians
(_Vermittelungstheologie_), is now chiefly known by his _Kommentar
über die Schriften d. Evangelisten Johannes_ (4 vols., 1820-1832); it
has since passed through two new and improved editions (the last
volume of the 3rd edition by E. Bertheau, 1856). He is an intelligent
maintainer of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel; in
connexion with this thesis he was one of the first to argue for the
early date and non-apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse. His
_Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis_ was published in 1832 (2nd
ed., 1848-1852). He also published a _Synopsis Evangeliorum_,
conjointly with W. M. L. de Wette (1818, 2nd ed., 1840). See
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_.
LUCKENWALDE, a town in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on the
Nuthe, 30 m. S. of Berlin, on the main line to Dresden and Leipzig. Pop.
(1905) 22,263. Its cloth and wool manufactories are among the most
extensive in Prussia. Among its other industries are cotton printing and
dye works, brewing, and the making of metal and bronze goods.
The site of Luckenwalde was occupied in the 12th century by a Cistercian
monastery, but the village did not spring up till the reign of Frederick
the Great. It was made a town in 1808.
LUCKNOW, a city, district and division of British India. The city was
the capital of Oudh from 1775 until it was merged in the United
Provinces in 1901. Pop. (1901) 264,049. It lies mainly on the right bank
of the winding river Gumti, which is crossed by two railway and three
road bridges. It contains the Canning college (1864), with an Oriental
department, and La Martinière college, where about 100 boys are
educated, the institution being in part supported by an endowment left
by General Claude Martin in 1800. There are native manufactures of gold
and silver brocade, muslins, embroidery, brass and copper wares, pottery
and moulding in clay. There are also important European industrial
establishments, such as iron-works and paper-mills. Lucknow is the
centre of the Oudh and Rohilkhand railway system, with large workshops.
Lines radiate to Cawnpore, Bareilly, Gonda, Fyzabad and Rae Bareli.
Lucknow is the headquarters of the 8th division of the northern army.
The cantonments are situated 3 m. E. of the city.
Lucknow is chiefly notable in the history of British India as the
capital of the nawabs who had dealings with Warren Hastings, and their
successors the kings of Oudh, whose deposition by Lord Dalhousie was one
of the chief causes of the Mutiny. Amongst the events of the Mutiny the
defence of the residency of Lucknow comes only second in historic
interest to the massacre at Cawnpore itself. For the two sieges, see
Indian Mutiny. The name of the residency is now applied not only to the
residency itself, but to the whole of the outbuildings and entrenchments
in which Sir Henry Lawrence concentrated his small force. These
entrenchments covered almost 60 acres of ground, and consisted of a
number of detached houses, public edifices, outhouses and casual
buildings, netted together, and welded by ditches, parapets, stockades
and batteries into one connected whole. On the summit of the plateau
stands the residency proper, the official residence of the chief
commissioner, a lofty building three storeys high, with a fine portico.
Near the residency comes the banqueting hall, and beyond the Baillie
Guardgate lie the ruins of the surgeon's house, where Sir Henry Lawrence
died of a shell-wound, and where the ladies of the garrison were
sheltered in underground rooms. Round the line of the entrenchments are
pillars marked with the name of the various "posts" into which the
garrison was distributed. The most dangerous of these was the Cawnpore
battery post, where the stockade was directly exposed to the enemy's
fire. The mutineers had rifles fixed in rests in the house opposite, and
swept the road that led through the residency enclosure at this point.
Close to the residency is the Lawrence Memorial, an artificial mound 30
ft. high crowned by a marble cross.
Among the other buildings of interest in Lucknow is the Imambara, which
is one of the largest rooms in the world (162 ft. by 54), having an
arched roof without supports. This room was built by the Nawab
Asaf-ud-dowlah in 1784, to afford relief to the famine-stricken people.
The many monuments of his reign include his country palace of Bibiapur,
outside the city. Among later bulldings are the two palaces of Chhattar
Manzil, erected for the wives of Ghazi-ud-din Haidar (1814), the remains
of the Farhat Baksh, dating from the previous reign, and adjoining the
greater Chhattar Manzil, the observatory (now a bank) of Nasir-ud-din
Haidar (1827), the imambara or mausoleum and the unfinished great mosque
(Jama Masjid) of Mahommed Ali Shah (1837), and the huge debased Kaisar
Bagh, the palace of Wajid Ali Shah (1847-1856).
The DISTRICT OF LUCKNOW lies on both sides of the river Gumti, and has
an area of 967 sq. m. Its general aspect is that of an open champaign,
well studded with villages, finely wooded and in parts most fertile
and highly cultivated. In the vicinity of rivers, however, stretch
extensive barren sandy tracts (_bhúr_), and there are many wastes of
saline efflorescence (_usár_). The country is an almost dead level,
the average slope, which is from N.W. to S.E., being less than a foot
per mile. The principal rivers are the Gumti and the Sai with their
tributaries. The population in 1901 was 793,241, showing an increase
of 2.5% in the preceding decade.
The DIVISION OF LUCKNOW contains the western half of the old province
of Oudh. It comprises the six districts of Lucknow, Unao, Sitapur, Rae
Bareli, Hardoi and Kheri. Its area is 12,051 sq. m. and its population
in 1901 was 5,977,086, showing an increase of 2.06% in the decade.
See _Lucknow District Gazetteer_ (Allahabad, 1904). For a fuller
description of the city see G. W. Forrest, _Cities of India_ (1903).
LUÇON, a town of western France, in the department of Vendée, 23 m. S.E.
of La Roche-sur-Yon, on the railway from Nantes to Bordeaux, and on the
canal of Luçon (9 m. long), which affords communication with the sea in
the Bay of Aiguillon. Pop. (1906) 6163. Between Luçon and the sea
stretch marshy plains, the bed of the former gulf, partly drained by
numerous canals, and in the reclaimed parts yielding excellent
pasturage, while in other parts are productive salt-marshes, and ponds
for the rearing of mussels and other shell-fish. Luçon is the seat of a
bishopric, established in 1317, and held by Richelieu from 1607 to 1624.
The cathedral, partly of the 12th-century and partly of later periods,
was originally an abbey church. The façade and the clock tower date from
about 1700, and the tower is surmounted by a crocketed spire rising 275
ft. above the ground, attributed to the architect François Leduc of
Tuscany. The cloisters are of the late 15th century. Adjacent is the
bishop's palace, possessing a large theological library and Titian's
"Disciples of Emmaus," and there is a fine public garden. A communal
college and an ecclesiastical seminary are among the public
institutions. During the Vendean wars, Luçon was the scene of several
conflicts, notably in 1793.
LUCRE (Lat. _lucrum_, gain; the Indo-European root is seen in Gr.
[Greek: apolauein], to enjoy, and in Ger. _Lohn_, wages), a term now
only used in the disparaging sense of unworthy profit, or money that is
the object of greed, especially in the expression "filthy lucre" (1 Tim.
iii. 3). In the adjective "lucrative," profitable, there is, however, no
sense of disparagement. In Scots law the term "lucrative succession"
(_lucrativa acquisitio_) is used of the taking by an heir, during the
lifetime of his ancestor, of a free grant of any part of the heritable
property.
LUCRETIA, a Roman lady, wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus,
distinguished for her beauty and domestic virtues. Having been outraged
by Sextus Tarquinius, one of the sons of Tarquinius Superbus, she
informed her father and her husband, and, having exacted an oath of
vengeance from them, stabbed herself to death. Lucius Junius Brutus, her
husband's cousin, put himself at the head of the people, drove out the
Tarquins, and established a republic. The accounts of this tradition in
later writers present many points of divergence.
Livy i. 57-59; Dion. Halic. iv. 64-67, 70, 82; Ovid, _Fasti_, ii.
721-852; Dio Cassius, frag. 11 (Bekker); G. Cornewall Lewis,
_Credibility of Early Roman History_, i.
LUCRETILIS MONS, a mountain of the Sabine territory, mentioned by Horace
(_Od._ i. 17, 1) as visible from his Sabine farm, and probably identical
with the "Mons Lucretius" mentioned in the _Liber Pontificalis_ (ed.
Duchesne, i. 183), which speaks of "possessio in territorio Sabinensi
quae cognominatur ad duas casas sub monte Lucretio" in the time of
Constantine. The name "ad duas casas" is supposed to survive in the
chapel of the Madonna della Casa near Rocca Giovane, and the Mons
Lucretilis is generally (and rightly) identified with Monte Gennaro, a
limestone peak 4160 ft. high, which forms a prominent feature in the
view N.E. of Rome. Excavations on the supposed site of Horace's farm
were begun by Professor Pasqui in September 1909. (T. As.)
LUCRETIUS (TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS) (c. 98-55 B.C.), the great Latin
didactic poet. Our sole information concerning his life is found in the
brief summary of Jerome, written more than four centuries after the
poet's death. Jerome followed, often carelessly, the accounts contained
in the lost work of Suetonius _De Viris Illustribus_, written about two
centuries after the death of Lucretius; and, although it is likely that
Suetonius used the information transmitted by earlier grammarians, there
is nothing to guide us to the original sources. According to this
account the poet was born in 95 B.C.; he became mad in consequence of
the administration of a love-philtre; and after composing several books
in his lucid intervals, which were subsequently corrected by Cicero, he
died by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. Donatus states
in his life of Virgil, a work also based on the lost work of Suetonius,
that Lucretius died on the same day on which Virgil assumed the _toga
virilis_, that is, in the seventeenth year of Virgil's life, and on the
very day on which he was born, and adds that the consuls were the same,
that is Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus, consuls in 70 and
again in 55. The statements cannot be perfectly reconciled; but we may
say with certainty that Lucretius was born between 98 and 95 B.C., and
died in 55 or 54. A single mention of his poem, the _De rerum natura_
(which from the condition in which it has reached us may be assumed to
have been published posthumously) in a letter of Cicero's to his brother
Quintus, written early in 54 B.C., confirms the date given by Donatus as
that of the poet's death. The statements of Jerome have been questioned
or disbelieved on the ground of their intrinsic improbability. They have
been regarded as a fiction invented later by the enemies of
Epicureanism, with the view of discrediting the most powerful work ever
produced by any disciple of that sect. It is more in conformity with
ancient credulity than with modern science to attribute a permanent
tendency to derangement to the accidental administration of any drug,
however potent. A work characterized by such strength, consistency and
continuity of thought is not likely to have been composed "in the
intervals of madness" as Jerome says. Donatus, in mentioning the poet's
death, gives no hint of the act of suicide. The poets of the Augustan
age, who were deeply interested both in his philosophy and in his
poetry, are entirely silent about the tragical story of his life.
Cicero, by his professed antagonism to the doctrines of Epicurus, by his
inadequate appreciation of Lucretius himself and by the indifference
which he shows to other contemporary poets, seems to have been neither
fitted for the task of correcting the unfinished work of a writer whose
genius was so distinct from his own, nor likely to have cordially
undertaken such a task.
Yet these considerations do not lead to the absolute rejection of the
story. The evidence afforded by the poem rather leads to the conclusion
that the tradition contains some germ of fact. It is remarkable that in
more than one passage of his poem Lucretius writes with extraordinary
vividness of the impression produced both by dreams and by waking
visions. It is true that the philosophy of Epicurus put great stress on
these, as affording the explanation of the origin of supernatural
beliefs. But the insistence with which Lucretius returns to the subject,
and the horror with which he recalls the effects of such abnormal
phenomena, suggest that he himself may have been liable to such
hallucinations, which are said to be consistent with perfect sanity,
though they may be the precursors either of madness or of a state of
despair and melancholy. Other passages, where he describes himself as
ever engaged, even in his dreams, on his task of inquiry and
composition, produce the impression of an unrelieved strain of mind and
feeling, which may have ended in some extreme reaction of spirit, or in
some failure of intellectual power, that may have led him to commit
suicide. But the strongest confirmation of the tradition is the
unfinished condition in which the poem has reached us. The subject
appears indeed to have been fully treated in accordance with the plan
sketched out in the introduction to the first book. But that book is the
only one which is finished in style and in the arrangement of its
matter. In all the others, and especially in the last three, the
continuity of the argument is frequently broken by passages which must
have been inserted after the first draft of the arguments was written
out. Thus, for instance, in his account of the transition from savage to
civilized life, he assumes at v. 1011 the discovery of the use of skins,
fire, &c., and the first beginning of civil society, and proceeds at
1028 to explain the origin of language, and then again returns, from
1090 to 1160, to speculate upon the first use of fire and the earliest
stages of political life. These breaks in continuity show what might
also be inferred from frequent repetitions of lines which have appeared
earlier in the poem, and from the rough workmanship of passages in the
later books, that the poem could not have received the final revision of
the author. Nor is there any great difficulty in believing that Cicero
edited it; the word "emendavit," need not mean more than what we call
"preparing for press."
From the absence of any claim on the part of any other district of Italy
to the honour of having given birth to Lucretius it is inferred that he
was of purely Roman origin. No writer certainly is more purely Roman in
personal character and in strength of understanding. His silence on the
subject of Roman greatness and glory as contrasted with the prominence
of these subjects in the poetry of men of provincial birth such as
Ennius, Virgil and Horace, may be explained by the principle that
familiarity had made the subject one of less wonder and novelty to him.
The Lucretian gens to which he belonged was one of the oldest of the
great Roman houses, nor do we hear of the name, as we do of other great
family names, as being diffused over other parts of Italy, or as
designating men of obscure or servile origin. It may well be assumed
that Lucretius was a member of the Roman aristocracy, belonging either
to a senatorian or to one of the great equestrian families. If the Roman
aristocracy of his time had lost much of the virtue and of the governing
qualities of their ancestors, they showed in the last years before the
establishment of monarchy a taste for intellectual culture which might
have made Rome as great in literature as in arms and law. A new taste
for philosophy had developed among members of the governing class during
the youth of Lucretius, and eminent Greek teachers of the Epicurean sect
settled at Rome at the same time, and lived on terms of intimacy with
them. The inference that Lucretius belonged to this class is confirmed
by the tone in which he addresses Gaius Memmius, a man of an eminent
senatorian family, to whom the poem is dedicated. His tone is quite
unlike that in which Virgil or even Horace addresses Maecenas. He
addresses him as an equal; he expresses sympathy with the prominent part
he played in public life, and admiration for his varied accomplishments,
but on his own subject claims to speak to him with authority.
Although our conception of the poet's life is necessarily vague and
meagre, yet his personal force is so remarkable and so vividly impressed
on his poem, that we seem able to form a consistent idea of his
qualities and characteristics. We know, for example, that the choice of
a contemplative life was not the result of indifference to the fate of
the world, or of any natural coldness or even calmness of temperament.
In the opening lines of the second and third books we can mark the
recoil of a humane and sensitive spirit from the horrors of the reign of
terror which he witnessed in his youth, and from the anarchy and
confusion which prevailed at Rome during his later years. We may also
infer that he had not been through his whole career so much estranged
from the social life of his day as he seems to have been in his later
years. Passages in his poem attest his familiarity with the pomp and
luxury of city life, with the attractions of the public games and with
the pageantry of great military spectacles. But much the greater mass of
the illustrations of his philosophy indicate that, while engaged on his
poem he must have passed much of his time in the open air, exercising at
once the keen observation of a naturalist and the contemplative vision
of a poet. He seems to have found a pleasure, more congenial to the
modern than to the ancient temperament, in ascending mountains or
wandering among their solitudes (vi. 469, iv. 575). References to
companionship in these wanderings, and the well-known description of the
charm of a rustic meal (ii. 29) speak of kindly sociality rather than of
any austere separation from his fellows.
Other expressions in his poem (e.g. iii. 10, &c.) imply that he was also
a student of books. Foremost among these were the writings of Epicurus;
but he had also an intimate knowledge of the philosophical poem of
Empedocles, and at least an acquaintance with the works of Democritus,
Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Plato and the Stoical writers. Of other Greek
prose writers he knew Thucydides and Hippocrates; while of the poets he
expresses in more than one passage the highest admiration of Homer, whom
he imitated in several places. Next to Homer Euripides is most
frequently reproduced by him. But his poetical sympathy was not limited
to the poets of Greece. For his own countryman Ennius he expresses an
affectionate admiration; and he imitates his language, his rhythm and
his manner in many places. The fragments of the old tragedian Pacuvius
and of the satirist Lucilius show that Lucretius had made use of their
expressions and materials. In his studies he was attracted by the older
writers, both Greek and Roman, in whose masculine temperament and
understanding he recognized an affinity with his own.
His devotion to Epicurus seems at first sight more difficult to explain
than his enthusiasm for Empedocles or Ennius. Probably he found in his
calmness of temperament, even in his want of imagination, a sense of
rest and of exemption from the disturbing influences of life; while in
his physical philosophy he found both an answer to the questions which
perplexed him and an inexhaustible stimulus to his intellectual
curiosity. The combative energy, the sense of superiority, the spirit of
satire, characteristic of him as a Roman, unite with his loyalty to
Epicurus to render him not only polemical but intolerant and
contemptuous in his tone toward the great antagonists of his system, the
Stoics, whom, while constantly referring to them, he does not condescend
even to name. With his admiration of the genius of others he combines a
strong sense of his own power. He is quite conscious of the great
importance and of the difficulty of his task; but he feels his own
ability to cope with it.
It is more difficult to infer the moral than the intellectual
characteristics of a great writer from the personal impress left by him
on his work. Yet it is not too much to say that there is no work in any
literature that produces a profounder impression of sincerity. No writer
shows a juster scorn of all mere rhetoric and exaggeration. No one shows
truer courage, not marred by irreverence, in confronting the great
problems of human destiny, or greater strength in triumphing over human
weakness. No one shows a truer humanity and a more tender sympathy with
natural sorrow.
The peculiarity of the poem of Lucretius, that which makes it unique in
literature, is that it is a reasoned system of philosophy, written in
verse. The prosaic title _De Rerum Natura_, a translation of the Gr.
[Greek: peri physeôs], implies the subordination of the artistic to a
speculative motive. As in the case of nearly all the great works of
Roman literary genius, the form of the poem was borrowed from the
Greeks. The rise of speculative philosophy in Greece was coincident with
the beginning of prose composition, and many of the earliest
philosophers wrote in the prose of the Ionic dialect; others, however,
and especially the writers of the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily,
expounded their systems in continuous poems composed in the epic
hexameter. Most famous in connexion with this kind of poetry are
Xenophanes and Parmenides, the Eleatics and Empedocles of Agrigentum.
The last was less important as a philosopher, but greater than the
others both as a poet and a physicist. On both of these grounds he had a
greater attraction to Lucretius. The fragments of the poem of Empedocles
show that the Roman poet regarded that work as his model. In accordance
with this model he has given to his own poem the form of a personal
address, he has developed his argument systematically, and has applied
the sustained impetus of epic poetry to the treatment of some of the
driest and abstrusest topics. Many ideas and expressions of the Sicilian
have been reproduced by the Roman poet; and the same tone of impassioned
solemnity and melancholy seems to have pervaded both works. But
Lucretius, if less original as a thinker, was probably a much greater
poet than Empedocles. What chiefly distinguishes him from his Greek
prototypes is that his purpose is rather ethical than purely
speculative; the zeal of a teacher and reformer is more strong in him
than even the intellectual passion of a thinker. His speculative ideas,
his moral teaching and his poetical power are indeed interdependent on
one another, and this interdependence is what mainly constitutes their
power and interest. But of the three claims which he makes to
immortality, the importance of his subject, his desire to liberate the
mind from the bonds of superstition and the charm and lucidity of his
poetry--that which he himself regarded as supreme was the second. The
main idea of the poem is the irreconcilable opposition between the truth
of the laws of nature and the falsehood of the old superstitions. But,
further, the happiness and the dignity of life are regarded by him as
absolutely dependent on the acceptance of the true and the rejection of
the false doctrine. In the Epicurean system of philosophy he believed
that he had found the weapons by which this war of liberation could be
most effectually waged. Following Epicurus he sets before himself the
aim of finally crushing that fear of the gods and that fear of death
resulting from it which he regards as the source of all the human ills.
Incidentally he desires also to purify the heart from other violent
passions which corrupt it and mar its peace. But the source even of
these--the passions of ambition and avarice--he finds in the fear of
death; and that fear he resolves into the fear of eternal punishment
after death.
The selection of his subject and the order in which it is treated are
determined by this motive. Although the title of the poem implies that
it is a treatise on the "whole nature of things," the aim of Lucretius
is to treat only those branches of science which are necessary to clear
the mind from the fear of the gods and the terrors of a future state. In
the two earliest books, accordingly, he lays down and largely
illustrates the first principles of being with the view of showing that
the world is not governed by capricious agency, but has come into
existence, continues in existence, and will ultimately pass away in
accordance with the primary conditions of the elemental atoms which,
along with empty space, are the only eternal and immutable substances.
These atoms are themselves infinite in number but limited in their
varieties, and by their ceaseless movement and combinations during
infinite time and through infinite space the whole process of creation
is maintained. In the third book he applies the principles of the atomic
philosophy to explain the nature of the mind and vital principle, with
the view of showing that the soul perishes with the body. In the fourth
book he discusses the Epicurean doctrine of the images, which are cast
from all bodies, and which act either on the senses or immediately on
the mind, in dreams or waking visions, as affording the explanation of
the belief in the continued existence of the spirits of the departed.
The fifth book, which has the most general interest, professes to
explain the process by which the earth, the sea, the sky, the sun, moon
and stars, were formed, the origin of life, and the gradual advance of
man from the most savage to the most civilized condition. All these
topics are treated with the view of showing that the world is not itself
divine nor directed by divine agency. The sixth book is devoted to the
explanation, in accordance with natural causes, of some of the more
abnormal phenomena, such as thunderstorms, volcanoes, earthquakes, &c.,
which are special causes of supernatural terrors.
The consecutive study of the argument produces on most readers a mixed
feeling of dissatisfaction and admiration. They are repelled by the
dryness of much of the matter, the unsuitableness of many of the topics
discussed for poetic treatment, the arbitrary assumption of premises,
the entire failure to establish the connexion between the concrete
phenomena which the author professes to explain and these assumptions,
and the erroneousness of many of the doctrines which are stated with
dogmatic confidence. On the other hand, they are constantly impressed by
his power of reasoning both deductively and inductively, by the subtlety
and fertility of invention with which he applies analogies, by the
clearness and keenness of his observation, by the fulness of matter with
which his mind is stored, and by the consecutive force, the precision
and distinctness of his style, when employed in the processes of
scientific exposition. The first two books enable us better than
anything else in ancient literature to appreciate the boldness and, on
the whole, the reasonableness of the ancient mind in forming hypotheses
on great matters that still occupy the investigations of physical
science. The third and fourth books give evidence of acuteness in
psychological analysis; the fourth and sixth of the most active and
varied observation of natural phenomena; the fifth of original insight
and strong common sense in conceiving the origin of society and the
progressive advance of man to civilization. But the chief value of
Lucretius as a thinker lies in his firm grasp of speculative ideas, and
in his application of them to the interpretation of human life and
nature. All phenomena, moral as well as material, are contemplated by
him in their relation to one great organic whole, which he acknowledges
under the name of "Natura daedala rerum," and the most beneficent
manifestations of which he seems to symbolize and almost to deify in the
"Alma Venus," whom, in apparent contradiction to his denial of a divine
interference with human affairs, he invokes with prayer in the opening
lines of the poem. In this conception of nature are united the
conceptions of law and order, of ever-changing life and interdependence,
of immensity, individuality, and all-pervading subtlety, under which the
universe is apprehended both by his intelligence and his imagination.
Nothing can be more unlike the religious and moral attitude of Lucretius
than the old popular conception of him as an atheist and a preacher of
the doctrine of pleasure. It is true that he denies the doctrines of a
supernatural government of the world and of a future life. But his
arguments against the first are really only valid against the limited
and unworthy conceptions of divine agency involved in the ancient
religions; his denial of the second is prompted by his vital realization
of all that is meant by the arbitrary infliction of eternal torment
after death. His war with the popular beliefs of his time is waged, not
in the interests of licence, but in vindication of the sanctity of human
feeling. The cardinal line of the poem,
"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,"
is elicited from him as his protest against the sacrifice of Iphigenia
by her father. But in his very denial of a cruel, limited and capricious
agency of the gods, and in his imaginative recognition of an orderly,
all-pervading, all-regulating power, we find at least a nearer approach
to the higher conceptions of modern theism than in any of the other
imaginative conceptions of ancient poetry and art. But his conception
even of the ancient gods and of their indirect influence on human life
is more worthy than the popular one. He conceives of them as living a
life of eternal peace and exemption from passion, in a world of their
own; and the highest ideal of man is, through the exercise of his
reason, to realize an image of this life. Although they are conceived of
as unconcerned with the interest of our world, yet influences are
supposed to emanate from them which the human heart is capable of
receiving and assimilating. The effect of unworthy conceptions of the
divine nature is that they render a man incapable of visiting the
temples of the gods in a calm spirit, or of receiving the emanations
that "announce the divine peace" in peaceful tranquillity. The supposed
"atheism" of Lucretius proceeds from a more deeply reverential spirit
than that of the majority of professed believers in all times.
His moral attitude is also far removed from that of ordinary ancient
Epicureanism or of modern materialism. Though he acknowledges pleasure
to be the law of life, yet he is far from regarding its attainment as
the end of life. What man needs is not enjoyment, but "peace and a pure
heart." The victory to be won by man is the triumph over fear, ambition,
passion, luxury. With the conquest over these nature herself supplies
all that is needed for happiness. Self-control and renunciation are the
lessons which he preaches.
It has been doubted whether Cicero,[1] in his short criticism in the
letter already referred to, concedes to Lucretius both the gifts of
genius and the accomplishment of art or only one of them. Readers of a
later time, who could compare his work with the finished works of the
Augustan age, would certainly disparage his art rather than his power.
But with Cicero it was different. He greatly admired, or professed to
admire, the genius of the early Roman poets, while he shows indifference
to the poetical genius of his younger contemporaries. Yet he could not
have been insensible to the immense superiority in rhythmical smoothness
which the hexameter of Lucretius has over that of Ennius and Lucilius.
And no reader of Lucretius can doubt that he attached the greatest
importance to artistic execution, and that he took a great pleasure, not
only in "the long roll of his hexameter," but also in producing the
effects of alliteration, assonance, &c., which are so marked a
peculiarity in the style of Plautus and the earlier Roman poets. He
allows his taste for these tricks of style to degenerate into mannerism.
And this is the only drawback to the impression of absolute spontaneity
which his style produces. He was unfortunate in living before the
natural rudeness of Latin art had been successfully grappled with. His
only important precursors in serious poetry were Ennius and Lucilius,
and, though he derived from the first of these an impulse to shape the
Latin tongue into a fitting vehicle for the expression of elevated
emotion and imaginative conception, he could find in neither a guide to
follow in the task he set before himself. The difficulty and novelty of
his task enhances our sense of his power. His finest passages are thus
characterized by a freshness of feeling and enthusiasm of discovery. But
the result of these conditions and of his own inadequate conception of
the proper limits of his art is that his best poetry is clogged with a
great mass of alien matter, which no treatment in the world could have
made poetically endurable. (W. Y. S.)
AUTHORITIES.--The two most ancient manuscripts of Lucretius, O and Q,
are both at Leiden, one being a folio (_oblongus_) and the other a
quarto (_quadratus_). Upon these alone the modern texts are founded.
The scientific editing of the text began with C. C. Lachmann (1852)
whose work still holds the field. The most important commentary is
that of H. A. J. Munro (4th ed., 1886) with a prose translation. For
the earlier editions it is sufficient to refer to the account in
Munro's _Introduction_, vol. i. pp. 3 sqq. Giussani's complete edition
(with Italian notes, 1896) and R. Heinze's edition of book iii. (1897)
are also of value. So too are A. Brieger's numerous contributions in
German periodicals and his text in the Teubner series (2nd ed., 1899).
The philosophy of Lucretius has been much studied in recent times.
Amongst special treatises may be mentioned K. H. Usener's _Epicurea_
(1887); J. Woltjer's _Lucretii philosophia cum fontibus comparata_
(1877); John Masson's _Atomic Theory of Lucretius_ (1884) and
_Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet_ (1909); and several papers and
treatises by Brieger and Giussani.
On the characteristics of the poet as a whole, C. Martha's _Le Poème
de Lucrèce_ (4th ed., Paris, 1885) and W. Y. Sellar in chaps. xi. sqq.
of the _Roman Poets of the Republic_, may be consulted. There are
useful bibliographies in W. S. Teuffel's _History of Roman Literature_
(English trans. by G. C. W. Warr) and Martin v. Schanz's _Geschichte
der römischen Litteratur_.
The following translations into English verse are known: T. Creech
(1683), J. M. Good (1805), T. Busby (1813), C. F. Johnson (New York,
1872), T. C. Baring (1884). There is also a translation by Cyril
Bailey (Oxford, 1910).