Of
the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but
these are so numerous, that, though they do not capa-
citate us for catching the full spirit of the poet, we
perceive something of his manner.
the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but
these are so numerous, that, though they do not capa-
citate us for catching the full spirit of the poet, we
perceive something of his manner.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
The fruit is collected by
spreading a cloth upon the ground and beating the
branches with a stick" (p. 99).
Luc*, a city of Etruria, northeast of Pisas, on the
river Auser or Serckio. It still preserves its situation
and name. It is mentioned for the first time by Livy,
is the place to which Tiberius Gracchus retired after
the unfortunate campaign on the Trebia (21,69). The
same writer states it to have been colonized A. U. C.
675 (41, 13. --Veil. Paterc, 1, 15). Cesar frequent-
ly made Luca his headquarters during his command
in the two Gauls. (Ct'c, Ep. ad Fam. , 1,9. --Suet. ,
Cos. , 24. ) It is also mentioned by Strabo (217. --
Compare Plin. , 3, 5. --Ptol. , p. 61).
Luoani, the inhabitants of Lucania. (Vid. Lucania. )
? ? LucanIa, a country of Magna Graecia, below Apulia.
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? LUCANUS
LUC
be conceived against Nero, the part that he suose-
quently took in the conspiracy of Piso: but it were
to be wished that he could in any way be defended
from a reproach which Tacitus makes against him,
? nd which has affixed an indelible stigma to his name.
It is said that, deceived by a promise of pardon in
cue he should discover his accomplices, and wishing
to propitiate the favour of Nero, who had destroyed
his own mother, by incurring in like manner, in bis
turn, the guilt of parricide, he declared that his mother
Anicia was a party in the conspiracy. The admirers
of Ltican have suggested, that this tale was invented
by Nero or his flatterers, to heap odium on the char-
acter of a poet from a contest with whom he had
brought away nothing but disgrace. Unfortunately,
however, for the correctness of this assertion, it may
be alleged in reply, that Tacitus, a close scrutinizer
into the artifices of tyranny, relates the charge with-
out expressing the least doubt as to its truth. (Ann. ,
15, 56. ) But, however this may be, the cowardly
complaisance of the poet, if he were really guilty of
the conduct ascribed to him, could not prove of any
avail; he was merely permitted to choose the manner
of his dealh. He caused his veins to be opened, and
died with a degree of courage that formed a strange
contrast to the pusillanimity in which, but a moment
before, he had indulged. It is even said, that, feel-
ing himself enfeebled by the loss of blood, he recited
four verses which, in his Pharsalia (3, 639-42), he
had put into the mouth of a dying soldier. He per-
ished A. D. 65, at the age of 27 years. Although ac-
cused of being an accomplice, his mother was not in-
volved in his disgrace. Lucan left a young widow,
whose character and merits are praised by both Mar-
tial and Statius. She was named Polla Argenlaria,
and is reckoned by Sidonius A|iollinaris (2, 10) among
the number of those celebrated females whose coun-
sels and taste have been of great use to their hus-
bands in the composition of their works. The various
penras of Lucan, his "Combat of Hector and Achil-
ma,n which he composed at the age of twelve years;
aia " Description of the burning of Rome;" his " Sat-
urnalia;" his tragedy of "Medea," left unfinished by
him, have all perished. We have remaining only one
poem, the " Pharsalia" or the war between Caesar
and Pompey. It is comprised in ten books; but,
since the tenth breaks off abruptly in the middle of a
narrative, it is probabre that some part has been lost,
or that the poet had not finished the work at the time
of his death. The first book opens with the most ex-
travagant adulation of Nero, in which the poet even
exceeds the base subserviency of the poets of the age
of Augustus. The Pharsalia contains many vigorous
and animated descriptions, and the speeches are char-
acterized by considerable rhetorical merit, but the lan-
guage is often inflated, and the expressions are ex-
tremely laboured and artificial. The poem is also de-
ficient in that truth to nature, and in those appeals to
the feelings and the imagination, which excite the
sympathy of every class of readers. Still, great al-
lowance must be made for the youth of the author,
who. if he had lived longer, would probably have cured
himself of those faults and defects which are now so
conspicuous in his poem. --The Pharsalia cannot be
regarded as an epic poem, since both poetic invention
? nd machinery, which form the very soul of the epo-
pee, are altogether wanting in it. The event on
? ? which the action is based was not sufficiently far re-
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? LUC
ItVLCttJS.
wnose offerings to Minerva were still to be seen in
the temple of that goddess in the time of Stralio (294).
Luceria was the first Apulian city which the Romans
appear to have been solicitous to possess; and though
it was long an object of contention with the Samnites,
they finally secured their conquest and sent a colony
there, A. U. C. 440. (Lit>. , 9, 2 --Diod'. Sic, 18. --
Veil. Patt'c, 1, 14. ) We find Luceria afterward
enumerated among those cities which remained most
firm in their allegiance to Home during the invasion
of Hannibal. (L>>t>. , 27, 10. --Polyb. ,3, 88. ) In the
civil wars of Pompey and Cesar, Luceria is mention-
ed by Cicero as a place which the former was anxious
to retain, and where he invited Cicero to join him.
(Ep. ail Alt. , 8, l. -- Ca*. , Bell. Civ. , 1, 24. ) It
seems to have been noted for the excellence of its
wool, a property, indeed, which, according to Strabo
(284), was common to the whole of Apulia. This
place still retains its ancient site under the modern
name of Lucera. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p.
285, seqq. )
Locbiiks, the third of the three original tribes at
Rome. These three original tribes were the Ram-
lenses or Ramnes, the Tatienses or THienses, and
-he Luceres. (Vid. Roma. )
Lucunus, a celebrated Greek writer, born at 8a-
inosata in Syria. The period when he flourished is
uncertain. Suidas, who is the only ancient writer that
makes mention of him, informs ua that he lived in the
time of Trajan, and also before that prince (Xiyeratii
ytvtaOai liri tov Kniaapoc Tpaiavov, nai tireitciva).
This, however, Vossius denies to be correct. (Hilt.
Gr. , 2, 15. ) The same Suidas also states, that, after
having followed the profession of an advocate at An-
tiocli with little success, he turned his attention to lit-
erary composition; and that he was finally torn to
nieces by dogs, which this writer considers a wcll-
ncri>>\! punishment for his impiety in attacking the
Dhristian religion. Lucian himself, however (item. ,
J 2! )), assigns aa the reason for his quitting the pro-
fession of an advocate, his disgust at the fraud and
chicanery of the lawyers of the day; and as for the
*tory of his death, we may safely pronounce it a pious
falsehood. In a dissertation on Isidorus of Charax,
Dodwell endeavours to prove that Lucian was born
A. D. 135; which will coincide, in some degree, with
the opinion of Hemsterhuys, who (Praf. ad Jul. Poll. )
places him under the Antonines and Commodus. Vos-
<ius also (/. c. ) makes him a contemporary of Athene-
us, wno lived under Marcus Aurelius, and Isonius
(Script. Hut. Phil, 3, 10, p. 60) inclines to tho same
opinion, considering him as contemporary with Demo-
nax, who flourished under Antoninus Pius and his
successor. Reitz (De JElate, Sec, Luciani, p. 63. --
Op. , ed. Hemst. . voi. I), agreeing in opinion with Hem-
sterhuys, places him under the Antonines and Com-
modus, and makes him to have lived from 120 B. C.
until 200. --Destined at first, by his father, who was
in humblo circumstances, to the profession of a sculp-
tor, he was placed with that view under the instruc-
tion of his uncle. But, becoming soon disgusted with
the employment, he turned his attention to literature,
and travelled into Asia Minor and Greece, in the latter
of which countries he was present, according to the
computation of Dodwell, at the celebration of the 233d,
234th, and 235th Olympiads (A. D. 157,161,165), an-
swering to the 22d, 26th, and 30lh years of hij age.
? ? In his 29th year he appears to have heard historical
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? LUClAlNUS.
great object he had in view. This object was, lo ex-
pose all kinds of delusion, fanaticism, and imposture;
the quackery and imposition of the priests, the folly
? nd absurdity of the superstitious, and especially the
solemn nonsense, the prating insolence, and the mi-
lium lives of the philosophical charlatans uf his age.
His study was human nature in all its varieties, and
the age in which he lived furnished ample materials
for his 3'iscrvation. Many of his pictures, though
drawn from the circumstances of hia own times, are
true for every age and country. If he sometimes dis-
closes the follies and vices of mankind too freely, and
occasionally uses expressions which are revolting to
our ideas of morality, it should be recollected that ev-
ery author ought to be judged by the age in which he
lived, and not by a standard of religion and morality
which was unknown to the writer. The character of
Lucian'a mind was decidedly practical: he was not
disposed to believe anything without sufficient evidence
of its truth; and nothing that was ridiculous or absurd
escaped his raillery and sarcasm. The tales of the
poets respecting the attributes and exploits of the gods,
which were still firmly believed by the common peo-
ple of his age, were especially the objects of his satire
and ridicule in his dialogues between the gods, and in
many other of his works; and that he should have at-
tacked the Christians in common with the false sys-
tems of the pagan religion, will not appear surprising
to any one who considers that Lucian probably never
look the trouble to inquire into the doctrines of a re-
ligion which was almost universally despised in his
time by the higher orders of society. --The greater
part, if not all, of the dialogues of Lucian appear to
Dave been written after his return from Gaul and
while he was residing at Athens; but most of his oth-
er pieces were probably written during the time that he
taught rhetoric in the former country. --Our limits, of
course, will not allow an examination of the numerous
writings of Lucian. We will content ourselves with
noticing merely one piece, partly on account of its pe-
cuiar character, which has made it a subject of fre-
quent reference, and partly because the general opin-
ion of scholars at the present day is adverse to its
being regarded as one of the productions of Lucian.
It is the <tiUirarpic, 5 fatiaoKi/icvoc (" The lover of
his country, or the student"). The author of this
piece, whoever he was, ridicules, after the manner of
Lucian, the absurdities of the Greek mythology; but
his satire has, in fact, no other end than to serve as an
introduction to an unsparing attack on the Christians:
they are represented as wicked men, continually offer-
ing up prayers for the evil of the state. The authen-
ticity of this piece has been much disputed. Mention
is made in it of events, which some place under Nero
or even under Claudius, others under Trajan or Mar-
cus Aurelius, and some under Julian. The first of
these, as, for example, Theodore Marcilius, think, in
consequence, that the author of the piece lived during
the first century- What appears to favour this opinion
is a passage in which the writer alludes, without na-
ming him, to St. Paul, or even, according to the So-
cman Crell, to our Saviour himself. Some orthodox
theologians have shown themselves favourably inclined
to this system, because in a passage of the dialogue
the question of the Trinity is openly stated, and they
have taken this as a proof that this doctrine was taught
prior to the council of Nice. Marcilius, however, is
mistaken. Artemidorus, author of the Oneirocritica,
? ? is cited in the Philopatris: it is true, critics are not
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? LUCILIUS.
LUCILITJS.
plied by Horace to Lucilius (Serm. , 2,1, 34), namely,
tenet or "old," seems to imply, as Clinton has remark-
ed (Fast. Hell. , vol, 2, p. 135), that he lived to a later
date. --The period at which Lucilius wrote was favour-
able to satiric composition. There was a struggle exist-
ing between the old and new manners, and the free-
dom of speaking and writing, though restrained, had not
yet been totally checked by law. Lucilius lived with a
people among whom luxury and corruption were advan-
cing with fearful rapidity, but among whom some virtu-
ous citizens were anxious to stem the tide which threat-
ened to overwhelm their countrymen. His satires,
therefore, were adapted to please those stanch "lauda-
tor/s tempons arti" who stood up for ancient manners
and discipline. The freedom with which he attacked
the vices of his contemporaries, without sparing individ-
uals, the strength of colouring with which his pictures
were charged, the weight and asperity of the reproaches
with which he loaded those who had exposed them-
selves to his ridicule or indignation, had nothing re-
volting in an age when no consideration compelled to
those forbearances necessary under different forms of
society or government. By the time, too, in which he
began to write, the Romans, though yet far from the
polish of the Augustan age, had become familiar with
the delicate and cutting irony of the Greek comedies,
of which the more ancient Roman satirists had no con-
ception. Lucilius chiefly applied himself to the imi-
tation of these dramatic productions, and caught, it is
said, much of their fire and spirit. The Roman lan-
guage likewise had grown more refined in his age, and
was thus more capable of receiving the Grecian beau-
ties of style. Nor did Lucilius, like his predecessors,
mix iambic with trochaic verses. Twenty books of
his satires, from the commencement, were in hexam-
eter verse, and the rest, with the exception of the thir-
tieth, in iambics or trochaics. His object, too, seems
to have been bolder and more extensive than that of
Wa predecessors, and was not so much to excite laugh-
ter or ridicule as to correct and chastise vice. Lu-
tilius thus bestowed on satiric composition such ad-
ditional grace and regularity that he is declared by
Horace to have been the first among the Romans who
wrote satire in verse. But, although he may have
greatly improved this sort of writing, it does not fol-
low that his satires are to be considered as a different
species from those of Ennius, a light in which they
have been regarded by Casaubon and Ruperti; " for,"
as Dryden has remarked, " it would thence follow that
the satires of Horace are wholly different from those
of Lucilius, because Horace has not less surpassed
Lucilius in the elegance of his writing, than Lucilius
surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his. "
The satires of Lucilius extended to not fewer than
thirty books, but whether they were so divided by the
poet himself, or by some grammarian who lived short-
ly after him, is uncertain. He was reputed, however,
to be a voluminous author, and has been satirized by
Horace for his hurried copiousness and facility.
Of
the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but
these are so numerous, that, though they do not capa-
citate us for catching the full spirit of the poet, we
perceive something of his manner. His merits, too,
have been so much canvassed by ancient writers, who
judged of them while his works were yet entire, that
their discussion enables us in some measure to appre-
ciate his poetical claims. It would appear that he had
? ? great vivacity and humour, uncommon command of
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? LUC
LUC
names of not less than sixteen individuals who are at-
tacked by name in the course even of these fragments,
among whom are Quintus Opimius, the conqueror of
Liguna, Cascilius Metellus, whose victories acquired
for him the surname of Macednnicus, and Cornelius
Lupus, at that time Princept Senatus. Lucilius was
squall]! severe on contemporary and preceding authors:
Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius having been alternately
Htiriicd by him. (Aid. Gell. , 17, 21. ) In all this he
indulged with impunity (Horat. , Sat. , 2, 1); but he
did not escape so well from a player whom he had ven-
tured to censure, and who took his revenge by expo-
ring Lucilius on the stage. The poet prosecuted the ac-
or, and the cause was carried on with much warmth on
froth sides before the prater, who finally acquitted the
play>r ("Rhet. , ad Hcrrcn. , 2, 13). --Lucilius, however,
did not confine himself to attacking vicious mortals. In
the first book of his satires he appears to have decla-
red war on the false gods of Olympus, whose plurality
be denied, and ridiculed the simplicity of the people,
who bestowed on an infinity of gods the venerable
name of father, which should be reserved for one. --
Of many books of the Satires such small fragments re-
main, that it is impossible to conjecture their subjects.
Even in those books of which there are a greater num-
ber of fragments extant, they are so disjointed that it
is as difficult to put them legibly together as the scat-
tered leaves of the Sibyl; and the labour of Douza,
who has been the most successful in arranging the bro-
ken lines, is by many considered as but a conjectural
and philological sport. Those few passages, however,
which are in any degree entire, show great force of sa-
tire. --Besides satirizing the wicked, under which cate-
gory he probably classed all his enemies, Lucilius also
employed his pen in praise of the brave and virtuous.
He wrote, as we learn from Horace, a panegyric on
Scipio Africanus; but whether the elder or younger, is
not certain. Lucilius was also author of a comedy
untitled Xummvlaha, of which only one line remains;
but we are informed by Porphyrion, the scholiast on
Horace, that the plot turned on Pythias, a female slave,
tricking' her master Simo out of a sum of money, with
which to portion bis daughter. (Dunlop'i Roman Lit-
erature, vol. 1, p. 393, seqq. ) Douza's edition of the
fragments of Lucilius was published in 1593, Lugd.
Bat. , 4to: a later but inferior edition, enra fratrum
Vutptorum, appeared in 1713, Patav. Lcmairc has
mbjoined a reprint of Douza's Lucilius to the third
volume of his edition of Juvenal and Persius, Paris,
1830--II. An epigrammatic poet in the age of Nero.
We have more than one hundred of his epigrams re-
maining. Wernsdorff assigns to him the poem entitled
/Etna, commonly supposed to have been written by
Cornelius Severus. (Poet. Lot. Mitt. , vol. 4, pt. 2,
p. 3, teqq )
Lucilli, daughter of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
and of Faustina, was bom AD. 146* At the age of
seventeen she was given in marriage to Lucius Verus,
? t that time commauding the Roman armies in Syria.
Verus came as far as Ephesus to meet her, and the
onion was celebrated in this city; but, habituated to
debauchery, Verns soon relapsed into his former mode
of life; and Luc ilia, finding herself neglected, took a
woman's revenge, and entered on a career of similar
profligacy. Returning subsequently with her hus-
band to Rome, she caused him to be poisoned there;
and afterward, i accordance with her father's direc-
? ? tions, contracted a second union with Claudius Pom-
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? LUC
LUCRETIUS
to tin Forum, and proceeded to relate the bloody deed
which the villany of Sextus Tarquinius had caused.
Nor did he content himself with that, but set before
them, in the most animated manner, the cruelty, tyran-
ny, and oppression of Tarquinius himself; the guilty
manner in which he obtained the kingdom, the violent
means he had used to retain it, and the unjust repeal
o< all the laws of Servius Tullius, by which he had
tabbed them of their liberties. By this means he
wrought so effectually upon the feelings of the people,
tht> they passed a decree abolishing the kingly power
itself, and banishing for ever Lucius Tarquinius Superb-
us, and his wife and children. (Liv. , 1, 57, seqq. --
Dion. Hal. , 4, 15. ) Tho story of Lucretia is very in-
geniously discussed by Verri, and the conclusion at
which he apparently arrives is rather unfavourable than
otherwise to her character. (Nolti Romanc, vol. 1, p.
171, seqq. --Compare Augustin. , Civ. D. , 1, 19, p. 68,
as cited by Bayle, Diet. Hist. , s. v. ) In all likelihood,
however, the whole story is false, and was merely in-
vented in a later age, to account for the overthrow of
kingly power at Rome.
Luckctims, a mountain range in the country of tho
Sabines, amid the windings of which lay the farm of
Horace. It is now Monte Libretti. (Horat. , Oil, 1,
17, 1. --Compare tho description given by Eustace,
Classical Tour, vol. 2, p. 847, seq. )
Lucrktios, I. Titus Lucretius Carus, a celebrated
Roman writer. Of his life very little is known, and
even the year of his birth :<< incertain. According to
the chronicle of EuKfcjs, ne was born A. U. C. 658,
B. C. 90, being thus nine years younger than Cicero,
and two or three years younger than Caesar. To
judge from his style, he would be supposed older than
either; but this, as appears from the example of Sal-
lust, is no certain test, as his archaisms may have
? risen from the imitation of ancient writers, and we
kr. ow that he was a fond admirer of Ennius. A taste
tor Greek philosophy had been excited at Rome to a
considerable extent some time previous to this era.
and Lucretius was sent, with other young Romans of
tank, to study at Athens. The different schools of
philosophy in that city seem, about this period, to havo
been frequented according as they received a tempo-
rary fashion from the comparative Abilities of the pro-
fessors who presided over them. Cicero, for example,
who had attended the Epicurean school at Athens,
and who became himself an academic, intrusted his
? on to the care of Cralippus, a peripatetic philosopher.
After the death of its great founder, the school of Ep-
icurus had for some time declined in Gr. eece; but, at
the period when Lucretius was sent to Athens, it had
again revived under the patronage of L. Memmius,
whose son was a fellow-student of Lucretius, as were
also Cicero, his brother Quintus, Cassius, and Pom-
ponius Atticui. At the time when frequented by
these illustrious youths, the gardens of Epicurus were
superintended by Zeno and Phsedrus, both of whom,
but particularly the latter, have been honoured with
the panegyric of Cicero. One of the dearest, perhaps
the dearest friend of Lucretius, was this Memmius,
who had been his schoolfellow, and whom, it is sup-
posed, he accompanied to Bithynia, when appointed
to the government of that province. (Good'* Lucre-
tius. J'raf. , p. xxxvi. ) The poem De Rerum Nature if
not indertakcn at the request of Memmius, was doubt-
less much encouraged by him; and Lucretius, in a
? ? dedication expressed in terms of manly and eloquent
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? LUCRETIUS.
LUCRBTIUS
Bignij mor>>J on account of ita detail*, even when its
systematic scope is erroneous or apparently dangerous.
Notwithstanding passages which seem to echo Spino-
zism, and almost justify crime, tho Etaay on Man is
rightly considered as the most moral production of
the most monl among the English poets. In like
manner, where shall we find exhortations more elo-
quent than ttosc of Lucretius against ambition and
cruelty, and luxury and lust; against all the dishonest
pleasures of the body, and all the turbulent pleasures
of the mind '--In versifying the philosophical system
of Epicurus, Lucretius appears to have taken Emped-
ocles as a model. All the old Grecian bards of whom
we have any account prior to Homer, as Orpheus,
Linus, and Musseus, are said to have written poems
on the dryest and most difficult philosophical questions,
as cosmogony or the generation of the world. The
ancients evidently considered philosophic poetry as
of the highest kind, and its themes are invariably
placed in the mouths of their divinest songsters.
Whether Lucretius may have been indebted to any
such ancient poems, still extant in his ege, or to the
subsequent productions of Palajphatus the Athenian,
Antiochus, or Eratosthenes, who, as Suidas informs
us, wrote poems on the structure of the world, it
is impossible now to determine; but he seems lo
have availed himself considerably of the work of Em-
pedoclcs. The poem of that philosopher, entitled
ttpl eeuruf, and inscribed to his pupil Pausanias,
wis chiefly illustrative of the Pythagorean philosophy,
in whicb he had been initiated. Aristotle speaks on
the subject of the merits of Empedocles in a manner
whicb docs not seem to be perfectly consistent (up.
Eichttiih, lixertt. , p. Ixxivii. , ci. , cii. , ed. Lip*. ,
1801), [? ? -. we know that bis poem was sufficiently
celebrated to bo publicly recited at the Olympic games
along with the works of Homer. His philosophical
system was different from that of Lucretius; but he
had discussed almost all the subjects on which the
Roman bard afterward expatiated. In particular, Lu-
cretius appears to have derived from his predecessor
his notion of the original generation of man from the
teeming earth; the production, at the beginning of the
world, of a variety of defective monsters, which were
not allowed to multiply their kinds; the distribution
of animals according to the prevalence of one or other
of the four elements oyer the rest in their composition;
the vicissitudes of matter between life and inanimate
substance; and the leading doctrine, "morltm nihil
ad not ptrtinere," because absolute insensibility is the
consequence of dissolution. If Lucretius has in any
way benefited by the works of Empedocles, he has, in
return, been most lavish and eloquent in his commend-
ations. One of the most delightful features in the
character of the Latin poet, is the glow of admiration
wiih which he writes of his illustrious predecessors.
His eulogium of the Sicilian philosopher, which he
has so happily combined with that of the country
which gave him birth, affords a beautiful example of
his manner of infuaing into everything poetic sweet-
ness. Ennius had translated into Latin verse the
Greek poem of Epicharmus, which, from the fragments
preserved, appears to have contained many specula-
tions with regard to the productive elements of which
the world is composed, as also concerning the preserv-
ative powers of nature. To the works of Ennius
our poet seems to have been indebted, partly as a
? ? model for enriching the still scanty Latin language
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? LUCRETIUS.
LUC
virtue, extols her because her charms are real--One
thing very remarkable in this groat poet is the admi-
rable clearness and closeness of his reasoning. He
repeatedly values himself not a little on the circum-
stance that, with an intractable subject, and a language
not yet accommodated tc philosophical subjects, and
? canty in terms of physical as well as metaphysical
science, he was able to give so much clearness 10 his
arguments; and this object it is generally admitted
that he has accomplished, with little or no sacrifice
of pure Lalinity. --The two leading tenets of Epicu-
rus, concerning the formation of the world and the
mortality of the soul, are established by Lucretius in
the first three books. A great portion of the fourth
book may be considered as episodical. Having ex-
plained the nature of primordial atoms, and of the
soul, which is formed from the finest of them, he an-
nounces that there are certain images (rcrum simula-
cra) or effluvia which are constantly thrown off from
the surface of whatever exists. On this hypothesis
he accounts for all our external senses; and he ap-
plies it also to the theory of dreams, in which what-
ever images have occupied the senses during day
most readily recur. The principal subject of the fifth
book, a composition unrivalled in energy and richness
of language, in full and genuine sublimity, is the ori-
gin and laws of the visible world, with those of its
inhabitants. The poet presents us with a grand rep-
resentation of Chaos, and the most magnificent account
of the creation that ever flowed from mortal pen. In
consequence of their ignorance and superstitions, the
Roman people were rendered perpetual slaves of the
most idle and unfounded terrors. In order to coun-
teract these popular prejudices, and to heal the con-
stant disquietudes that accompanied them, Lucretius
proceeds, in the sixth book, to account for a variety
of extraordinary phenomena, both in the heavens and
On the earth, vhicli at first view seemed to deviate
from '. he usual laws of nature. Having discussed the
various theories formed to account for electricity,
water spouts, hurricanes, the rainbow, and volcanoes,
be lastly considers the origin of pestilential and en-
demic disorders. This introduces the celebrated ac-
count of the plague, which ravaged Athens during the
Peloponnesian war, with which Lucretius concludes
this book and his magnificent poem. "In this narra-
tive," says a late translator of Lucretius. "the true
genius of poetry is perhaps more powerfully and tri-
umphantly exhibited than in any other poem that was
ever written. Lucretius has ventured on one of the
most uncouth and repressing subjects to the muses
that can possibly be brought forward, the history and
symptoms of a disease, and this disease accompanied
with circumstances naturally the most nauseous and
indelicate. It was a subject altogether new to nu-
merical composition; and he had to strive with all
the pedantry of technical terms, and all the ahstruse-
ness of a science in which he does not appear to have
been professionally initiated. He strove, however,
and be conquered. In language the most captivating
and nervous, and with ideas the most precise and ap-
ropriate, he has given us the entire history of this
tremendous pestilence. The description of the symp-
toms, and also the various circumstances of horror
and distress attending this dreadful scourge, have
been derived from Thucydides, who furnished the
facts with great accuracy, having been himself a spec-
? ? tator and a sufferer under thia calamity. His narra-
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? LUC
J, IJO
? t seamen previous to the contest with Sextus Pom-
poius. (Sueton. , VU. Aug. , 16. --Veil. Patere. , 2,
'**? --Compare Virgil, Georg. , 2, 161. --Hora? . , Ep.
id Pit. , 63. ) The woods, also, which surrounded
At emus in particular, were cut down, and, the stag,
naut vapour being thus dissipated, the vicinity was
rendered healthy.
spreading a cloth upon the ground and beating the
branches with a stick" (p. 99).
Luc*, a city of Etruria, northeast of Pisas, on the
river Auser or Serckio. It still preserves its situation
and name. It is mentioned for the first time by Livy,
is the place to which Tiberius Gracchus retired after
the unfortunate campaign on the Trebia (21,69). The
same writer states it to have been colonized A. U. C.
675 (41, 13. --Veil. Paterc, 1, 15). Cesar frequent-
ly made Luca his headquarters during his command
in the two Gauls. (Ct'c, Ep. ad Fam. , 1,9. --Suet. ,
Cos. , 24. ) It is also mentioned by Strabo (217. --
Compare Plin. , 3, 5. --Ptol. , p. 61).
Luoani, the inhabitants of Lucania. (Vid. Lucania. )
? ? LucanIa, a country of Magna Graecia, below Apulia.
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? LUCANUS
LUC
be conceived against Nero, the part that he suose-
quently took in the conspiracy of Piso: but it were
to be wished that he could in any way be defended
from a reproach which Tacitus makes against him,
? nd which has affixed an indelible stigma to his name.
It is said that, deceived by a promise of pardon in
cue he should discover his accomplices, and wishing
to propitiate the favour of Nero, who had destroyed
his own mother, by incurring in like manner, in bis
turn, the guilt of parricide, he declared that his mother
Anicia was a party in the conspiracy. The admirers
of Ltican have suggested, that this tale was invented
by Nero or his flatterers, to heap odium on the char-
acter of a poet from a contest with whom he had
brought away nothing but disgrace. Unfortunately,
however, for the correctness of this assertion, it may
be alleged in reply, that Tacitus, a close scrutinizer
into the artifices of tyranny, relates the charge with-
out expressing the least doubt as to its truth. (Ann. ,
15, 56. ) But, however this may be, the cowardly
complaisance of the poet, if he were really guilty of
the conduct ascribed to him, could not prove of any
avail; he was merely permitted to choose the manner
of his dealh. He caused his veins to be opened, and
died with a degree of courage that formed a strange
contrast to the pusillanimity in which, but a moment
before, he had indulged. It is even said, that, feel-
ing himself enfeebled by the loss of blood, he recited
four verses which, in his Pharsalia (3, 639-42), he
had put into the mouth of a dying soldier. He per-
ished A. D. 65, at the age of 27 years. Although ac-
cused of being an accomplice, his mother was not in-
volved in his disgrace. Lucan left a young widow,
whose character and merits are praised by both Mar-
tial and Statius. She was named Polla Argenlaria,
and is reckoned by Sidonius A|iollinaris (2, 10) among
the number of those celebrated females whose coun-
sels and taste have been of great use to their hus-
bands in the composition of their works. The various
penras of Lucan, his "Combat of Hector and Achil-
ma,n which he composed at the age of twelve years;
aia " Description of the burning of Rome;" his " Sat-
urnalia;" his tragedy of "Medea," left unfinished by
him, have all perished. We have remaining only one
poem, the " Pharsalia" or the war between Caesar
and Pompey. It is comprised in ten books; but,
since the tenth breaks off abruptly in the middle of a
narrative, it is probabre that some part has been lost,
or that the poet had not finished the work at the time
of his death. The first book opens with the most ex-
travagant adulation of Nero, in which the poet even
exceeds the base subserviency of the poets of the age
of Augustus. The Pharsalia contains many vigorous
and animated descriptions, and the speeches are char-
acterized by considerable rhetorical merit, but the lan-
guage is often inflated, and the expressions are ex-
tremely laboured and artificial. The poem is also de-
ficient in that truth to nature, and in those appeals to
the feelings and the imagination, which excite the
sympathy of every class of readers. Still, great al-
lowance must be made for the youth of the author,
who. if he had lived longer, would probably have cured
himself of those faults and defects which are now so
conspicuous in his poem. --The Pharsalia cannot be
regarded as an epic poem, since both poetic invention
? nd machinery, which form the very soul of the epo-
pee, are altogether wanting in it. The event on
? ? which the action is based was not sufficiently far re-
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? LUC
ItVLCttJS.
wnose offerings to Minerva were still to be seen in
the temple of that goddess in the time of Stralio (294).
Luceria was the first Apulian city which the Romans
appear to have been solicitous to possess; and though
it was long an object of contention with the Samnites,
they finally secured their conquest and sent a colony
there, A. U. C. 440. (Lit>. , 9, 2 --Diod'. Sic, 18. --
Veil. Patt'c, 1, 14. ) We find Luceria afterward
enumerated among those cities which remained most
firm in their allegiance to Home during the invasion
of Hannibal. (L>>t>. , 27, 10. --Polyb. ,3, 88. ) In the
civil wars of Pompey and Cesar, Luceria is mention-
ed by Cicero as a place which the former was anxious
to retain, and where he invited Cicero to join him.
(Ep. ail Alt. , 8, l. -- Ca*. , Bell. Civ. , 1, 24. ) It
seems to have been noted for the excellence of its
wool, a property, indeed, which, according to Strabo
(284), was common to the whole of Apulia. This
place still retains its ancient site under the modern
name of Lucera. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p.
285, seqq. )
Locbiiks, the third of the three original tribes at
Rome. These three original tribes were the Ram-
lenses or Ramnes, the Tatienses or THienses, and
-he Luceres. (Vid. Roma. )
Lucunus, a celebrated Greek writer, born at 8a-
inosata in Syria. The period when he flourished is
uncertain. Suidas, who is the only ancient writer that
makes mention of him, informs ua that he lived in the
time of Trajan, and also before that prince (Xiyeratii
ytvtaOai liri tov Kniaapoc Tpaiavov, nai tireitciva).
This, however, Vossius denies to be correct. (Hilt.
Gr. , 2, 15. ) The same Suidas also states, that, after
having followed the profession of an advocate at An-
tiocli with little success, he turned his attention to lit-
erary composition; and that he was finally torn to
nieces by dogs, which this writer considers a wcll-
ncri>>\! punishment for his impiety in attacking the
Dhristian religion. Lucian himself, however (item. ,
J 2! )), assigns aa the reason for his quitting the pro-
fession of an advocate, his disgust at the fraud and
chicanery of the lawyers of the day; and as for the
*tory of his death, we may safely pronounce it a pious
falsehood. In a dissertation on Isidorus of Charax,
Dodwell endeavours to prove that Lucian was born
A. D. 135; which will coincide, in some degree, with
the opinion of Hemsterhuys, who (Praf. ad Jul. Poll. )
places him under the Antonines and Commodus. Vos-
<ius also (/. c. ) makes him a contemporary of Athene-
us, wno lived under Marcus Aurelius, and Isonius
(Script. Hut. Phil, 3, 10, p. 60) inclines to tho same
opinion, considering him as contemporary with Demo-
nax, who flourished under Antoninus Pius and his
successor. Reitz (De JElate, Sec, Luciani, p. 63. --
Op. , ed. Hemst. . voi. I), agreeing in opinion with Hem-
sterhuys, places him under the Antonines and Com-
modus, and makes him to have lived from 120 B. C.
until 200. --Destined at first, by his father, who was
in humblo circumstances, to the profession of a sculp-
tor, he was placed with that view under the instruc-
tion of his uncle. But, becoming soon disgusted with
the employment, he turned his attention to literature,
and travelled into Asia Minor and Greece, in the latter
of which countries he was present, according to the
computation of Dodwell, at the celebration of the 233d,
234th, and 235th Olympiads (A. D. 157,161,165), an-
swering to the 22d, 26th, and 30lh years of hij age.
? ? In his 29th year he appears to have heard historical
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? LUClAlNUS.
great object he had in view. This object was, lo ex-
pose all kinds of delusion, fanaticism, and imposture;
the quackery and imposition of the priests, the folly
? nd absurdity of the superstitious, and especially the
solemn nonsense, the prating insolence, and the mi-
lium lives of the philosophical charlatans uf his age.
His study was human nature in all its varieties, and
the age in which he lived furnished ample materials
for his 3'iscrvation. Many of his pictures, though
drawn from the circumstances of hia own times, are
true for every age and country. If he sometimes dis-
closes the follies and vices of mankind too freely, and
occasionally uses expressions which are revolting to
our ideas of morality, it should be recollected that ev-
ery author ought to be judged by the age in which he
lived, and not by a standard of religion and morality
which was unknown to the writer. The character of
Lucian'a mind was decidedly practical: he was not
disposed to believe anything without sufficient evidence
of its truth; and nothing that was ridiculous or absurd
escaped his raillery and sarcasm. The tales of the
poets respecting the attributes and exploits of the gods,
which were still firmly believed by the common peo-
ple of his age, were especially the objects of his satire
and ridicule in his dialogues between the gods, and in
many other of his works; and that he should have at-
tacked the Christians in common with the false sys-
tems of the pagan religion, will not appear surprising
to any one who considers that Lucian probably never
look the trouble to inquire into the doctrines of a re-
ligion which was almost universally despised in his
time by the higher orders of society. --The greater
part, if not all, of the dialogues of Lucian appear to
Dave been written after his return from Gaul and
while he was residing at Athens; but most of his oth-
er pieces were probably written during the time that he
taught rhetoric in the former country. --Our limits, of
course, will not allow an examination of the numerous
writings of Lucian. We will content ourselves with
noticing merely one piece, partly on account of its pe-
cuiar character, which has made it a subject of fre-
quent reference, and partly because the general opin-
ion of scholars at the present day is adverse to its
being regarded as one of the productions of Lucian.
It is the <tiUirarpic, 5 fatiaoKi/icvoc (" The lover of
his country, or the student"). The author of this
piece, whoever he was, ridicules, after the manner of
Lucian, the absurdities of the Greek mythology; but
his satire has, in fact, no other end than to serve as an
introduction to an unsparing attack on the Christians:
they are represented as wicked men, continually offer-
ing up prayers for the evil of the state. The authen-
ticity of this piece has been much disputed. Mention
is made in it of events, which some place under Nero
or even under Claudius, others under Trajan or Mar-
cus Aurelius, and some under Julian. The first of
these, as, for example, Theodore Marcilius, think, in
consequence, that the author of the piece lived during
the first century- What appears to favour this opinion
is a passage in which the writer alludes, without na-
ming him, to St. Paul, or even, according to the So-
cman Crell, to our Saviour himself. Some orthodox
theologians have shown themselves favourably inclined
to this system, because in a passage of the dialogue
the question of the Trinity is openly stated, and they
have taken this as a proof that this doctrine was taught
prior to the council of Nice. Marcilius, however, is
mistaken. Artemidorus, author of the Oneirocritica,
? ? is cited in the Philopatris: it is true, critics are not
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? LUCILIUS.
LUCILITJS.
plied by Horace to Lucilius (Serm. , 2,1, 34), namely,
tenet or "old," seems to imply, as Clinton has remark-
ed (Fast. Hell. , vol, 2, p. 135), that he lived to a later
date. --The period at which Lucilius wrote was favour-
able to satiric composition. There was a struggle exist-
ing between the old and new manners, and the free-
dom of speaking and writing, though restrained, had not
yet been totally checked by law. Lucilius lived with a
people among whom luxury and corruption were advan-
cing with fearful rapidity, but among whom some virtu-
ous citizens were anxious to stem the tide which threat-
ened to overwhelm their countrymen. His satires,
therefore, were adapted to please those stanch "lauda-
tor/s tempons arti" who stood up for ancient manners
and discipline. The freedom with which he attacked
the vices of his contemporaries, without sparing individ-
uals, the strength of colouring with which his pictures
were charged, the weight and asperity of the reproaches
with which he loaded those who had exposed them-
selves to his ridicule or indignation, had nothing re-
volting in an age when no consideration compelled to
those forbearances necessary under different forms of
society or government. By the time, too, in which he
began to write, the Romans, though yet far from the
polish of the Augustan age, had become familiar with
the delicate and cutting irony of the Greek comedies,
of which the more ancient Roman satirists had no con-
ception. Lucilius chiefly applied himself to the imi-
tation of these dramatic productions, and caught, it is
said, much of their fire and spirit. The Roman lan-
guage likewise had grown more refined in his age, and
was thus more capable of receiving the Grecian beau-
ties of style. Nor did Lucilius, like his predecessors,
mix iambic with trochaic verses. Twenty books of
his satires, from the commencement, were in hexam-
eter verse, and the rest, with the exception of the thir-
tieth, in iambics or trochaics. His object, too, seems
to have been bolder and more extensive than that of
Wa predecessors, and was not so much to excite laugh-
ter or ridicule as to correct and chastise vice. Lu-
tilius thus bestowed on satiric composition such ad-
ditional grace and regularity that he is declared by
Horace to have been the first among the Romans who
wrote satire in verse. But, although he may have
greatly improved this sort of writing, it does not fol-
low that his satires are to be considered as a different
species from those of Ennius, a light in which they
have been regarded by Casaubon and Ruperti; " for,"
as Dryden has remarked, " it would thence follow that
the satires of Horace are wholly different from those
of Lucilius, because Horace has not less surpassed
Lucilius in the elegance of his writing, than Lucilius
surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his. "
The satires of Lucilius extended to not fewer than
thirty books, but whether they were so divided by the
poet himself, or by some grammarian who lived short-
ly after him, is uncertain. He was reputed, however,
to be a voluminous author, and has been satirized by
Horace for his hurried copiousness and facility.
Of
the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but
these are so numerous, that, though they do not capa-
citate us for catching the full spirit of the poet, we
perceive something of his manner. His merits, too,
have been so much canvassed by ancient writers, who
judged of them while his works were yet entire, that
their discussion enables us in some measure to appre-
ciate his poetical claims. It would appear that he had
? ? great vivacity and humour, uncommon command of
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? LUC
LUC
names of not less than sixteen individuals who are at-
tacked by name in the course even of these fragments,
among whom are Quintus Opimius, the conqueror of
Liguna, Cascilius Metellus, whose victories acquired
for him the surname of Macednnicus, and Cornelius
Lupus, at that time Princept Senatus. Lucilius was
squall]! severe on contemporary and preceding authors:
Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius having been alternately
Htiriicd by him. (Aid. Gell. , 17, 21. ) In all this he
indulged with impunity (Horat. , Sat. , 2, 1); but he
did not escape so well from a player whom he had ven-
tured to censure, and who took his revenge by expo-
ring Lucilius on the stage. The poet prosecuted the ac-
or, and the cause was carried on with much warmth on
froth sides before the prater, who finally acquitted the
play>r ("Rhet. , ad Hcrrcn. , 2, 13). --Lucilius, however,
did not confine himself to attacking vicious mortals. In
the first book of his satires he appears to have decla-
red war on the false gods of Olympus, whose plurality
be denied, and ridiculed the simplicity of the people,
who bestowed on an infinity of gods the venerable
name of father, which should be reserved for one. --
Of many books of the Satires such small fragments re-
main, that it is impossible to conjecture their subjects.
Even in those books of which there are a greater num-
ber of fragments extant, they are so disjointed that it
is as difficult to put them legibly together as the scat-
tered leaves of the Sibyl; and the labour of Douza,
who has been the most successful in arranging the bro-
ken lines, is by many considered as but a conjectural
and philological sport. Those few passages, however,
which are in any degree entire, show great force of sa-
tire. --Besides satirizing the wicked, under which cate-
gory he probably classed all his enemies, Lucilius also
employed his pen in praise of the brave and virtuous.
He wrote, as we learn from Horace, a panegyric on
Scipio Africanus; but whether the elder or younger, is
not certain. Lucilius was also author of a comedy
untitled Xummvlaha, of which only one line remains;
but we are informed by Porphyrion, the scholiast on
Horace, that the plot turned on Pythias, a female slave,
tricking' her master Simo out of a sum of money, with
which to portion bis daughter. (Dunlop'i Roman Lit-
erature, vol. 1, p. 393, seqq. ) Douza's edition of the
fragments of Lucilius was published in 1593, Lugd.
Bat. , 4to: a later but inferior edition, enra fratrum
Vutptorum, appeared in 1713, Patav. Lcmairc has
mbjoined a reprint of Douza's Lucilius to the third
volume of his edition of Juvenal and Persius, Paris,
1830--II. An epigrammatic poet in the age of Nero.
We have more than one hundred of his epigrams re-
maining. Wernsdorff assigns to him the poem entitled
/Etna, commonly supposed to have been written by
Cornelius Severus. (Poet. Lot. Mitt. , vol. 4, pt. 2,
p. 3, teqq )
Lucilli, daughter of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
and of Faustina, was bom AD. 146* At the age of
seventeen she was given in marriage to Lucius Verus,
? t that time commauding the Roman armies in Syria.
Verus came as far as Ephesus to meet her, and the
onion was celebrated in this city; but, habituated to
debauchery, Verns soon relapsed into his former mode
of life; and Luc ilia, finding herself neglected, took a
woman's revenge, and entered on a career of similar
profligacy. Returning subsequently with her hus-
band to Rome, she caused him to be poisoned there;
and afterward, i accordance with her father's direc-
? ? tions, contracted a second union with Claudius Pom-
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? LUC
LUCRETIUS
to tin Forum, and proceeded to relate the bloody deed
which the villany of Sextus Tarquinius had caused.
Nor did he content himself with that, but set before
them, in the most animated manner, the cruelty, tyran-
ny, and oppression of Tarquinius himself; the guilty
manner in which he obtained the kingdom, the violent
means he had used to retain it, and the unjust repeal
o< all the laws of Servius Tullius, by which he had
tabbed them of their liberties. By this means he
wrought so effectually upon the feelings of the people,
tht> they passed a decree abolishing the kingly power
itself, and banishing for ever Lucius Tarquinius Superb-
us, and his wife and children. (Liv. , 1, 57, seqq. --
Dion. Hal. , 4, 15. ) Tho story of Lucretia is very in-
geniously discussed by Verri, and the conclusion at
which he apparently arrives is rather unfavourable than
otherwise to her character. (Nolti Romanc, vol. 1, p.
171, seqq. --Compare Augustin. , Civ. D. , 1, 19, p. 68,
as cited by Bayle, Diet. Hist. , s. v. ) In all likelihood,
however, the whole story is false, and was merely in-
vented in a later age, to account for the overthrow of
kingly power at Rome.
Luckctims, a mountain range in the country of tho
Sabines, amid the windings of which lay the farm of
Horace. It is now Monte Libretti. (Horat. , Oil, 1,
17, 1. --Compare tho description given by Eustace,
Classical Tour, vol. 2, p. 847, seq. )
Lucrktios, I. Titus Lucretius Carus, a celebrated
Roman writer. Of his life very little is known, and
even the year of his birth :<< incertain. According to
the chronicle of EuKfcjs, ne was born A. U. C. 658,
B. C. 90, being thus nine years younger than Cicero,
and two or three years younger than Caesar. To
judge from his style, he would be supposed older than
either; but this, as appears from the example of Sal-
lust, is no certain test, as his archaisms may have
? risen from the imitation of ancient writers, and we
kr. ow that he was a fond admirer of Ennius. A taste
tor Greek philosophy had been excited at Rome to a
considerable extent some time previous to this era.
and Lucretius was sent, with other young Romans of
tank, to study at Athens. The different schools of
philosophy in that city seem, about this period, to havo
been frequented according as they received a tempo-
rary fashion from the comparative Abilities of the pro-
fessors who presided over them. Cicero, for example,
who had attended the Epicurean school at Athens,
and who became himself an academic, intrusted his
? on to the care of Cralippus, a peripatetic philosopher.
After the death of its great founder, the school of Ep-
icurus had for some time declined in Gr. eece; but, at
the period when Lucretius was sent to Athens, it had
again revived under the patronage of L. Memmius,
whose son was a fellow-student of Lucretius, as were
also Cicero, his brother Quintus, Cassius, and Pom-
ponius Atticui. At the time when frequented by
these illustrious youths, the gardens of Epicurus were
superintended by Zeno and Phsedrus, both of whom,
but particularly the latter, have been honoured with
the panegyric of Cicero. One of the dearest, perhaps
the dearest friend of Lucretius, was this Memmius,
who had been his schoolfellow, and whom, it is sup-
posed, he accompanied to Bithynia, when appointed
to the government of that province. (Good'* Lucre-
tius. J'raf. , p. xxxvi. ) The poem De Rerum Nature if
not indertakcn at the request of Memmius, was doubt-
less much encouraged by him; and Lucretius, in a
? ? dedication expressed in terms of manly and eloquent
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? LUCRETIUS.
LUCRBTIUS
Bignij mor>>J on account of ita detail*, even when its
systematic scope is erroneous or apparently dangerous.
Notwithstanding passages which seem to echo Spino-
zism, and almost justify crime, tho Etaay on Man is
rightly considered as the most moral production of
the most monl among the English poets. In like
manner, where shall we find exhortations more elo-
quent than ttosc of Lucretius against ambition and
cruelty, and luxury and lust; against all the dishonest
pleasures of the body, and all the turbulent pleasures
of the mind '--In versifying the philosophical system
of Epicurus, Lucretius appears to have taken Emped-
ocles as a model. All the old Grecian bards of whom
we have any account prior to Homer, as Orpheus,
Linus, and Musseus, are said to have written poems
on the dryest and most difficult philosophical questions,
as cosmogony or the generation of the world. The
ancients evidently considered philosophic poetry as
of the highest kind, and its themes are invariably
placed in the mouths of their divinest songsters.
Whether Lucretius may have been indebted to any
such ancient poems, still extant in his ege, or to the
subsequent productions of Palajphatus the Athenian,
Antiochus, or Eratosthenes, who, as Suidas informs
us, wrote poems on the structure of the world, it
is impossible now to determine; but he seems lo
have availed himself considerably of the work of Em-
pedoclcs. The poem of that philosopher, entitled
ttpl eeuruf, and inscribed to his pupil Pausanias,
wis chiefly illustrative of the Pythagorean philosophy,
in whicb he had been initiated. Aristotle speaks on
the subject of the merits of Empedocles in a manner
whicb docs not seem to be perfectly consistent (up.
Eichttiih, lixertt. , p. Ixxivii. , ci. , cii. , ed. Lip*. ,
1801), [? ? -. we know that bis poem was sufficiently
celebrated to bo publicly recited at the Olympic games
along with the works of Homer. His philosophical
system was different from that of Lucretius; but he
had discussed almost all the subjects on which the
Roman bard afterward expatiated. In particular, Lu-
cretius appears to have derived from his predecessor
his notion of the original generation of man from the
teeming earth; the production, at the beginning of the
world, of a variety of defective monsters, which were
not allowed to multiply their kinds; the distribution
of animals according to the prevalence of one or other
of the four elements oyer the rest in their composition;
the vicissitudes of matter between life and inanimate
substance; and the leading doctrine, "morltm nihil
ad not ptrtinere," because absolute insensibility is the
consequence of dissolution. If Lucretius has in any
way benefited by the works of Empedocles, he has, in
return, been most lavish and eloquent in his commend-
ations. One of the most delightful features in the
character of the Latin poet, is the glow of admiration
wiih which he writes of his illustrious predecessors.
His eulogium of the Sicilian philosopher, which he
has so happily combined with that of the country
which gave him birth, affords a beautiful example of
his manner of infuaing into everything poetic sweet-
ness. Ennius had translated into Latin verse the
Greek poem of Epicharmus, which, from the fragments
preserved, appears to have contained many specula-
tions with regard to the productive elements of which
the world is composed, as also concerning the preserv-
ative powers of nature. To the works of Ennius
our poet seems to have been indebted, partly as a
? ? model for enriching the still scanty Latin language
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? LUCRETIUS.
LUC
virtue, extols her because her charms are real--One
thing very remarkable in this groat poet is the admi-
rable clearness and closeness of his reasoning. He
repeatedly values himself not a little on the circum-
stance that, with an intractable subject, and a language
not yet accommodated tc philosophical subjects, and
? canty in terms of physical as well as metaphysical
science, he was able to give so much clearness 10 his
arguments; and this object it is generally admitted
that he has accomplished, with little or no sacrifice
of pure Lalinity. --The two leading tenets of Epicu-
rus, concerning the formation of the world and the
mortality of the soul, are established by Lucretius in
the first three books. A great portion of the fourth
book may be considered as episodical. Having ex-
plained the nature of primordial atoms, and of the
soul, which is formed from the finest of them, he an-
nounces that there are certain images (rcrum simula-
cra) or effluvia which are constantly thrown off from
the surface of whatever exists. On this hypothesis
he accounts for all our external senses; and he ap-
plies it also to the theory of dreams, in which what-
ever images have occupied the senses during day
most readily recur. The principal subject of the fifth
book, a composition unrivalled in energy and richness
of language, in full and genuine sublimity, is the ori-
gin and laws of the visible world, with those of its
inhabitants. The poet presents us with a grand rep-
resentation of Chaos, and the most magnificent account
of the creation that ever flowed from mortal pen. In
consequence of their ignorance and superstitions, the
Roman people were rendered perpetual slaves of the
most idle and unfounded terrors. In order to coun-
teract these popular prejudices, and to heal the con-
stant disquietudes that accompanied them, Lucretius
proceeds, in the sixth book, to account for a variety
of extraordinary phenomena, both in the heavens and
On the earth, vhicli at first view seemed to deviate
from '. he usual laws of nature. Having discussed the
various theories formed to account for electricity,
water spouts, hurricanes, the rainbow, and volcanoes,
be lastly considers the origin of pestilential and en-
demic disorders. This introduces the celebrated ac-
count of the plague, which ravaged Athens during the
Peloponnesian war, with which Lucretius concludes
this book and his magnificent poem. "In this narra-
tive," says a late translator of Lucretius. "the true
genius of poetry is perhaps more powerfully and tri-
umphantly exhibited than in any other poem that was
ever written. Lucretius has ventured on one of the
most uncouth and repressing subjects to the muses
that can possibly be brought forward, the history and
symptoms of a disease, and this disease accompanied
with circumstances naturally the most nauseous and
indelicate. It was a subject altogether new to nu-
merical composition; and he had to strive with all
the pedantry of technical terms, and all the ahstruse-
ness of a science in which he does not appear to have
been professionally initiated. He strove, however,
and be conquered. In language the most captivating
and nervous, and with ideas the most precise and ap-
ropriate, he has given us the entire history of this
tremendous pestilence. The description of the symp-
toms, and also the various circumstances of horror
and distress attending this dreadful scourge, have
been derived from Thucydides, who furnished the
facts with great accuracy, having been himself a spec-
? ? tator and a sufferer under thia calamity. His narra-
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? LUC
J, IJO
? t seamen previous to the contest with Sextus Pom-
poius. (Sueton. , VU. Aug. , 16. --Veil. Patere. , 2,
'**? --Compare Virgil, Georg. , 2, 161. --Hora? . , Ep.
id Pit. , 63. ) The woods, also, which surrounded
At emus in particular, were cut down, and, the stag,
naut vapour being thus dissipated, the vicinity was
rendered healthy.
