230 a shape that is handled in the dark: there was considerable debate in antiquity about the notion of what Aristotle called the ‘common sensibles’, things like shape perceived by more than one sense: cf. e.g. Aristotle, On the Soul 418a6 ff., 425a15 ff.
297 a mask | Of plaster: theatrical masks were made of linen and plaster.
332 People with jaundice see everything yellow: the effect of disease on perception was one of the arguments used by sceptics against the reliability of the senses (cf. Sextus Empiricus (second century AD), Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1. 101, the fourth ‘trope’ of the sceptic Aenesidemus (first century BC): see below on 469). Lucretius’ focus in this section on miscellaneous problems of vision is increasingly on the problems raised by sceptical attacks.
338 black air of darkness: the Epicurean conception of darkness as a sort of thick, black air that is cleaned out by light is relevant to Lucretius’ extensive imagery of light and dark.
353 square towers of a city: a famous Epicurean example, much discussed (cf. e.g. Diogenes or Oenoanda fr. 69, Petronius (first century AD) fr. 29, Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 7. 208, Plutarch (first–second century AD), Against Colotes 25 1121a).
386 Do not then blame the eyes for this fault of the mind: the Epicureans famously held that ‘all sensations were true’ (fr. 247): the precise sense of this is disputed, but they made a clear distinction between the presentation offered by the senses and our judgement of the presentation. Error was always in ‘the addition of opinion’ (Letter to Herodotus 50, cf. below 462 ff.): we should ‘wait’ until we can get a ‘clear’ perception before dogmatizing about the nature of an object (cf. Master Sayings 24).
387 A ship we sail in moves: a stock example of optical illusion, cf. Cicero, Academica 2. 81, On Ends 2. 58. There are parallels in sceptical writings to many of Lucretius’ examples here: see J. Annas and J. Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1985).
453 sleep: significantly, Lucretius’ last example of illusion deals with dreaming, a major concern of Book 4.
465 notions of the mind | Which we ourselves bring to them: translating Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 50; see above on 386.
469 if someone thinks | That nothing is known: although sceptical arguments appear in earlier philosophers such as Protagoras (fifth century BC) and Democritus (who was criticized on these grounds by Epicureans), the first thoroughgoing sceptic was Pyrrho (fourth–third century BC). Arcesilaus (fourth–third century BC), the fourth head of the Platonic Academy, turned it towards scepticism: in the first century BC it returned to holding positive doctrines, while Aenesidemus revived Pyrrhonism. Our major source of sceptic doctrine is the writings of the later sceptic Sextus Empiricus (second century AD). Not all sceptics accepted that nothing could be known: some suspended judgement even about that proposition. Epicurean arguments against scepticism are criticized especially in Plutarch’s treatise Against Colotes (Colotes (third–fourth century BC) was a disciple of Epicurus who wrote a work That it is not possible even to live according to the doctrines of the other philosophers).
472 ff. Who has put his head where his feet ought to be: Lucretius actualizes Greek terms for self-refuting argument such as peritrope or ‘turning upside-down’ (cf. Epicurus fr. 34. 28. 1 ff. Arrighetti).
508 Life itself also would at once collapse: the ‘inactivity’ argument that sceptics cannot live their scepticism, used for example by Colotes (see above on 469 ff.: cf. e.g. Cicero, Academica 2. 37 ff.).
513 if the ruler is crooked: Lucretius alludes to the Greek term kanon, literally a straight-edged rule but used for the criterion of truth by Epicurus (a lost work of whom was called Kanon) and other philosophers. Lucretius elaborates the metaphor into one of a building being constructed on secure foundations, which brings it into contact with a broader metaphorical field within On the Nature of the Universe: Epicurean security is contrasted with disorder and destruction.
524 every sound and voice is heard: cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 52–3, frr. 321–3.
529 Roughens the windpipe: Lucretius plays on the Greek technical term for the windpipe, tracheia arteria (trachea in modern anatomical Latin): tracheia means ‘rough’ in Greek.
537 a speech that lasts from the first gleam of dawn: the reference is especially to political speeches in the Senate, where sessions lasted from dawn to dusk and there was no time limit under the Republic.
564 a cryer: ‘cryers’ (praecones) were used on several different occasions at Rome, but the language here suggests especially the opening of a public meeting (comitia).
580 Nymphs and goat-footed satyrs: the description follows a familiar Lucretian pattern, with a poetic evocation of the sort of rural piety often associated with early humanity (cf. 5. 1379 ff.) capped by the cynical observation of 594 ‘mankind | Is greedy aye for things that please the ear’ (i.e. eager to have an audience).
615 taste: Epicurus does not deal with taste in the corresponding section of the Letter to Herodotus, since (like touch) it is not accomplished through images. Lucretius, however, includes it, since it provided sceptics with a series of important arguments against the veracity of the senses (cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1. 52–8, 101 etc.; Plutarch, Against Colotes1109b ff.). 246 Notes to pp. 119–24
638 the snake: cf. Aristotle, History of Animals 607a29 ff., Pliny, Natural Histories 7. 2. 15.
672 A thing which I have explained to you before: cf. 2. 398 ff., 3. 191 ff.
673 smell: cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 53.
683 that saved Rome’s citadel: the sacred geese on the Capitol were said to have revealed a night attack by Gauls in 387 BC (cf. Livy 5. 47).
706 Nor yet is this confined to smells and tastes: i.e. variability between different perceivers, as in 633 ff. (taste) and 677 ff. (smell).
712 Before him ravening lions cannot stand: cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1. 58. Democritus was one of those who were said (perhaps falsely) to have described the supposed phenomenon.
722 what things move the mind: thought for the Epicureans was explained in almost exactly the same way as perception (cf. Epicurus fr. 317): the mind is continuously bombarded by images flying around, though it ‘sees’ only those on which it chooses to focus. Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 49–51, Diogenes of Oenoanda frr. 9–10.
726 meet in the air: cf. 131 ff. above.
740 no such animal did ever exist: cf. 5. 878 ff.
746 As I showed before: in 726, unless the reference is back to 131 ff.
757 When sleep has laid out the limbs: cf. Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 9.
773 The former seems to have changed its attitude: as has often been noted, Lucretius anticipates the principle of cinematography.
795 one instant of time that we perceive: the Epicureans believed in minimal units of time and space (see above on 1. 601–2), far below the level of perception. In each perceptible time-unit, therefore, there are countless numbers of minimal time-units that can be apprehended only by reason. Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 47.
816 from small signs we draw great inferences: the process of ‘addition of opinion’ to sensory or mental perception: see above on 4. 386.
825–6 Do not suppose that the clear light of the eyes | Was made that we might see: ‘teleological’ explanation of parts of the body in terms of their purpose or end (in Greek telos) is found in Greek thought from early on: it is parodied in Aristophanes’ comedy Women at the Thesmophoria (411 BC: 14–18), and Xenophon puts a striking example into the mouth of Socrates in his Memorabilia (1. 4. 5). Plato also has a notable example in the Timaeus (44d ff.). This sort of explanation was associated with Aristotle and his notion of ‘final cause’ (see especially the treatise On Parts of Animals) but found also amongst Stoics, particularly in connection with the notion of divine providence, and enthusiastically taken up by Christian writers, for whom the body of man was a wonder of divine creation (cf. e.g. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2. 133 ff., Nemesius (c.400 AD), On the
Nature of Man). Even today, apparently teleological statements are often used as shorthand for the process of natural selection or random mutation in evolution.
848 to give the wearied body rest: Lucretius anticipates the account of human development to be given in Book 5, and insinuates a moral point: in the beginning man got by without soft beds (cf. 2. 29 ff.).
859 Every animal seeks food: the emphasis is on the desire for food as a mental process with a bodily explanation.
877–8 how it is that we walk |… when we wish: Lucretius explains here not how we come to wish to walk (cf. 2. 251 ff.), but how the wish is transformed into action.
883 Hence follows will: images are all the while striking the mind, but until we decide to concentrate on a particular set they are not present to consciousness. The interpretation of this passage is controversial, but the act of will seems to be identified with his act of concentration, which sets in train the process of movement.
907 sleep: sleep is a puzzling phenomenon, much discussed by ancient (and modern) scientists and philosophers: see especially the treatise On Sleep and Waking included in the so-called ‘Parva Naturalia’ of Aristotle (453b ff.). For the Epicurean view, compare the comment preserved in Letter to Herodotus66 (fr. 311), and fr. 325, with Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 9.
909 verses sweet though few: see above 180 ff.
962–3 those pursuits which most we love to follow: the connection between the manifest content of dreams and preceding waking action was a common place of ancient as of modern thought, even when they were thought also to foretell the future (cf. e.g. Aristotle, On Prophecy in Sleep 463a, Accius (second–first century BC), Brutus frr. 29–31, Fronto (second century AD), On the Holidays at Alsium 3. 13). Belief in divination through dreams was widespread (cf. e.g. the Dream Book of Artemidorus, second century AD) and provided with a theoretical underpinning by Stoic theories of the universal ‘sympathy’ of the universe (cf. especially Cicero’s dialogue On Divination). Epicureans were naturally opposed (cf. Epicurus frr. 326–8, Diogenes of Oenoanda frr. 9–10, Petronius fr. 30), though they did believe that dreamers could see visions of the gods (5. 1169 ff.).
1029 Babylonian coverlets: cf. 1123.
1030–1 when the seed first penetrates | The racing tides of youth: the production of semen in adult males and at puberty was another phenomenon of considerable interest to ancient doctors and philosophers. Epicurus believed that seed was produced by both men and women, and that its substance came from the whole body: cf. ‘Aetius’ 5. 3–5 (Epicurus frr. 329–30, following on from the discussion of dreams as in Epicurus fr. 311).
1053–4 Whether a boy… | Or a woman: the addressee of the poem remains male: as normal in antiquity, it is taken for granted that male sexual desire may be for either a younger male or a female.
1056 the fluid: at several points in this passage Lucretius plays on the resemblance between the Latin words umor ‘fluid’ and amor ‘love’.
1058 the name of love: probably a play on the Latin word for desire (‘yearning’ in 1057) cupido, personified as Cupid, the companion of Venus. As in the opening lines of the poem, Venus is equated with pleasure (‘bliss’ in 1057): sex is opposed to love (cf. 1073 ff.). The Epicureans classified the desire for sex as a desire for sensual pleasure that was natural but not necessary: sexual pleasure was real in that it consisted in ‘variation’ of the sense organ of touch, and hence the desire for it could be satisfied, but it was not necessary for human life in the way that food, drink, and heat were. Love, on the other hand, was seen as a desire that was neither natural nor necessary: it was classified as a fetishistic desire for a particular type of sex (with a particular person) and thus as unsatisfiable, because lovers cannot attain the union they desire and therefore there can be no physical reality corresponding to the mental passion. We need food in general, it is natural to like nice-tasting food, but it is irrational and debilitating to be able to eat only a particular brand of chocolate; similarly, to insist on sex with a particular person only was wrong for the Epicureans (cf. frr. 456, 483, and see Introduction). The second poem in Horace’s first book of Satires expands on the theme; later Propertius and the Roman love-elegists were masochistically to embrace the servility and degradation of love that Lucretius attacks. Throughout the passage Lucretius draws on and perverts the familiar imagery of Graeco-Roman love-poetry, especially epigram.
1061 images: the theory of simulacra (see above on 4. 26 ff.) is used throughout the account of love: cf. especially 1095 ff.
1075 a purer pleasure: the language is Epicurean: cf. Master Sayings 12. Epicureans can concentrate on the pleasure of the moment during sex because they are not distracted by insatiable desires for possession of the unattainable.
1122 Obeying another’s whim: the ‘slavery of love’ later celebrated by Propertius and the other love elegists (though Lucretius does not explicitly use the metaphor).
1123 Wealth vanishes: young men in Roman comedy are frequently seen squandering their family’s wealth on women, as was the Caelius defended by Cicero in his speech Pro Caelio (56 BC).
Babylonian coverlets: recalling 1029, the coverlets drenched with urine by the boys. ‘Babylonians’ were expensive textiles (cf. Pliny, Natural Histories 8. 196): elaborately coloured or embroidered cloth as the embodiment of luxury is an unfamiliar idea in the modern world, but it remained a potent symbol of wealth down to the development of aniline dyes. (The text may be corrupt here, and the reference in fact to Babylonian perfume.)
1125 slippers from Sicyon: an expensive type of women’s shoes, also mocked by the satirist Lucilius (second century BC, fr. 1161).
1130 A gown of silk from Elis or from Ceos: both geographical epithets are textually uncertain, but the reference is clearly to expensive clothing. Elis is a region of mainland Greece (north-west Peloponnese), Ceos an island in the Cyclades. The most famous silk came from the suspiciously similar sounding island of Cos in the Sporades.
1153–4 attributing to them | Virtues with which in truth they are not endowed: a famous list of ‘hypocorisms’ or euphemistic terms of endearment. Plato has a similar list in Republic 5. 474d (of boys), and the hellenistic ‘love manual’ ascribed to Philaenis seems to have begun with advising the lover to use them (Oxyrrynchus Papyri 2891, cf. Ovid, Art of Love 2. 657 ff. (imitating Lucretius), reversed in Remedies for Love 323 ff.). Theocritus (third century BC), Idyll 10. 24 ff. is another model: Lucretius is also imitated by Horace (Satires 1. 3. 38 ff., fathers of their children) and Juvenal 8. 30 ff. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1. 108, gives the deception of men about their mistresses’ beauty as an example of the fourth sceptical trope (cf. Plato, Phaedrus 233b). Most of Lucretius’ terms are Greek words current in Rome, and some are the sort of terms used as professional names by prostitutes: for the use of Greek by lovers, cf. Martial (first century AD) 10. 68. 5 ff., Juvenal (second century AD) 6. 187 ff.
1168 Ceres | Suckling Iacchus: gods of the Eleusinian mysteries (Ceres = Demeter: Iacchus was sometimes identified with Dionysus/Bacchus). Lucretius clearly alludes to an artistic representation, though there is no obvious type extant.
1175 She fumigates herself: the reference is disputed, and possibly ambiguous: it may be to literal medical ‘fumigations’ for gynaecological complaints (cf. e.g. Celsus (first century AD), On Medicine 4. 27. 1), or to foul-smelling cosmetics (Ovid, Art of Love 3. 213, Remedies for Love 355 ff., Lucian, Loves 39), but it is phrased to suggest more widely traditional male disgust at ‘female smells in rooms’ (T. S. Eliot, ‘The Lovesong of Alfred J. Prufrock’).
1177 The lover, shut out: the ‘excluded lover’ was a familiar figure in Roman comedy and especially love-elegy.
1183 placing her above all mortal women: again, love poets typically see their beloveds as ‘divine’: cf. e.g. Catullus 68. 70.
1192 Not always is a woman feigning love: female sexual pleasure seems to have been connected by the Epicureans with the notion of female ejaculation (see above on 1030–1 and cf. Aristotle
, Generation of Animals 727b33 ff.).
1211 From the mother’s seed then children like the mother | Are born: from antiquity down to the experiments of Mendel (published 1866, but little noticed until the beginning of the twentieth century) there was much speculation about the workings and mechanism of genetic inheritance, and in particular the respective contributions of male and female (cf. the summaries of views in ‘Aetius’ 5. 3 ff.). For Aristotle (Generation of Animals 726a28 ff.) the female contributed matter, the male form, but he also used the principle of ‘prevalence’ (epikrateia) of one influence over another (767b20 ff.). The Epicureans believed that both parties provided seed, and both had an influence on the nature of the child: the seed derived from the whole body of each parent (‘pangenesis’, a view still held by Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859)), and the characteristics fought it out at the time of conception.
1233 And it is not the power of gods that blocks | The generating seed in any man: an emphatic anti-theological motivation for a traditional topic, again much discussed by both doctors (e.g. the third book of the Hippocratic Gynaecia, fifth–fourth century BC) and philosophers (e.g. Aristotle, Generation of Animals 746b12 ff.). Offerings for infertility were a common form of votive dedication in temples.
1268 Wives have no need at all of wanton movements: a famously depressing view into Roman marital life; note, however, the context of a concern with fertility, and contrast 1192 ff. on female sexual pleasure.
1277 And not from power divine or Venus’ shafts | It sometimes happens that a wench is loved: so Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 10. 118, remarks that, according to Epicurus, ‘love is not sent from god’ (contrast e.g. Plato, Phaedrus 242d, Symposium 206c).
1281 gentle pleasing ways: an allusion to the promise made by a Roman bride to be complaisant to her husband.
1286 a drop of water | By constant dripping wears away a stone: cf. the end of Book 2, with a similar emphasis on gradual decay.
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