Summary |
Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – 55 BC) was a
Roman poet and philosopher. He is author of the Latin epic poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), comprised of six books in hexameter verse
that address topics in Epicurean philosophy, including the atomic theory, the nature
of the gods, freewill and determinism, the
nature of mind and soul, sensation and thought, cosmogony, how the physical
world is ordered and regulated, and the development of human civilization. The
poem is a key source for our knowledge of Epicureanism and
it had a major impact on Western thought in the
Enlightenment and early modern period. |