Lucretius and Progress Author(s): Charles Rowan Beye Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Jan., 1963), pp. 160-169 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3294955 Accessed: 23/10/2008 14:22

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http://www.jstor.org LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS

LUCRETIUS' ACCOUNT of man's existence putable and has been disputed.7 It can (5.925-1457, or, if you will, 5.805- be argued that there is very explicit 1457) appears to be a formal exposi- evidence in the poem that for Lucretius tion of the Epicurean conception of poetry has the power to lighten the ob- progress,1 which is essentially optimis- scurity of the subject (4.8-9); that he tic. However, the poetic setting for this has a marked predilection for very con- doctrine seems rather to evoke the pes- crete and immediately perceptible simistic mood of Hesiod's description of evidence, leading him to concrete de- the Ages of Man (Erga 109-201). True scription, for which he conceives poetry enough, Epicurean notions of the physi- to be a superior medium. One can, how- cal world projected its eventual decay,2 ever, I think, distinguish another and so that a hint of the moribund in a very real motive for Lucretius. The statement of man's progress is not out proem to the fourth book (also at of place,3 although progress must al- 1.926ff.) is his statement of poetic pur- ways take its definition from temporal pose, so to speak. Here he dwells upon assumptions.4 Lucretius' description a quality of poetry that antiquity had has its ramifications in the special at- noticed since first the Muses remarked titudes and images that he has de- upon it to Hesiod in the Theogony, and veloped in earlier books,5 and when that is its capacity for falseness. The these conflict with the implications of lucida carmina partake of the musaeum the formal doctrine a critic may be led lepor (8-9), and it is these suaviloquen- to judgments such as Patin's famous tia carmina (20-21) that deceive any phrase "anti-Lucrece chez Lucrece" or resisting yet thinking person into ac- Logre's diagnosis6 of a pathological cepting the doctrine. I use the word state of anxiety. But the confusions and thinking purposely; no one else could conflicts which appear are the inevita- have been intended as able to work ble consequence of giving a poetic treat- through the philosophy which Lucretius ment to a subject that calls for prose. is expounding. Yet, curiously enough, it The objective outlines of the thesis is for such a one that Lucretius feels im- which the rational mind controls grow pelled to find some Siren charm. We obscured and distorted in the imagistic do gain the impression that the lucida freight of the poem, for this springs carmina may, after all, be glittering, but from a personal, direct and irrational not necessarily conducive to lucidity. conscious. To my mind, Lucretius subconscious- Why, then, did Lucretius choose poet- ly recognized the pseudos in poetry ry as his medium? The matter is dis- and chose poetry because he could let LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS 161

himself be confused by it. Rationally, In the earlier books Lucretius devel- he admired the Epicurean doctrine; ops a portrait of man and his environ- irrationally, he could not accept it. He ment for which the fifth book is final was, however, consciously determined summation. Among the features of this to introduce it to a Roman audience. portrait there stand out his images of Vergil's triumph in the Georgics was to life and death. They are conceived dilute the informational element of his spatially and in shades. Life is that subject to such a degree that it would which is ordered, known, tangible, and not impinge upon his poetry. Lucretius, bounded off. The poet speaks of the of course, does not do this, and the very coasts of light (passim), the boundary pronounced tone of protestation in the of life (3.592), the threshold of life De rerum natura is testimony to the (3.681), the chain of life (3.599) or the continual tension between the doctrine road of life (2.10). Death as well, we and his poetic sensibilities. may assume, is an area set off, although In the discussion which follows I conceived only in terms of its entrance, should be hard put to define at any point never its spatial totality (i.e., the gate how conscious Lucretius was of the of death 1.1112; 3.67; 5.373-375; the logically irreconcilable things he was threshold of death 2.960). One gains the saying. The very subject matter of the impression that life is a finite, known atomic world, of the natural world with entity; death remains mysterious, sim- its night and day, suggest images that ply that which is outside this entity. can be easily and naturally extended to The images of light continually at- their archetypal associations, associa- tached to life, as in the frequent ex- tions that are quite beyond the initial pression "shores of light" and others, intent of the poet. This may be called create a new dimension;10 death, con- slipshod poetry, but the mannered and versely, is dark, although because it is compulsive craftsmanship of today's usually implied rather than described, poetic image-makers is a new thing. the aura of mystery remains. Twice Furthermore, the poem is long. By the (3.39; 2.580) it is so stated as being dark. time Lucretius has reached this point Instinctively one attaches to light the in the fifth book he has amply played sensation of knowledge and the certain, with the potentials of these ideas so and Lucretius has introduced this asso- that innumerable associations are now ciation more than once, together with ready in the reader's mind.' its counterpart, that ignorance and un- Lucretius managed to bring off a certainty are dark (1.144-5; 1.1115-7; poem that supposedly comforts persons 2.15; 2.54; 2.55-61 et passim). Fear is shot through with incurable and un- also darkness (2.59 et passim) and yielding fear; yet this poem mirrors black (4.173). again and again the fears of the in- The relationship that the poet sets tended reader. Lucretius, it seems, was up between light and understanding is holding a dialogue with his unconscious, a theme recurring in small ways. For not writing for an external audience. instance, at 5.1102-1107 it partially pro- Perhaps part of the continual excite- vides the means of the transition. ... ment that a reading of the De rerum cibum coquere ac flammae mollire va- natura engenders stems from coming pore/ sol docuit juxtaposed to .. suddenly upon this nervous, private dia- victum . . ./ commutare . . . monstra- logue, and trying to assign the lines to bant . . . igni/ ingenio qui praestabant. its participants. There are many points of agreement; 162 CHARLES ROWAN BEYE

the words to which I refer are itali- tively good - and knowledge-- doctri- cized. The relationship, imagistic and nally good -prevail. It is bounded, and otherwise, which Lucretius is trying to from it mortals pass through a gate to develop between life-light-self-under- the dark, unsure, unsettled, moving un- standing, as well as that between their known that is death. This corresponds opposites, is evoked in the simile of the very nearly to the repeated scientific injured eye at 3.408ff. And even as the definition of death (1.670-1 et passim), poet has set up a relationship between although the latter is without these emo- life and light, introducing the intuitive tional overtones. The conception of life sensation of certainty and knowledge as an unstable breath invests the image into that, so he formally acknowledges of the bounded, lighted area that is life the importance of understanding for with an underlying insecurity, makes of life. The mind is the keeper of life death a constant threat, which only a (3.396); as the seat of the emotions it slightly greater shock will summon per- is also the personality of the individual manently for man. So that despite the (3.136-160; 3.396-407). Death is the total emphasis upon the necessity for a neu- loss of identity (3.830-69). Even if the tral approach to life and death, the soul should survive after death, there poet has made living a definite good would be no continuity of the self be- and death an opponent to this. cause the identity of an individual is But, paradoxically, life on earth is a assumed to be composed of the total dubious pleasure. The phrase praemia personality and understanding (3.843- vitae (3.899, 956) is given psychological 844). reference in phrases such as vitae From another point of view the vital amor (5.179). On the other hand, the principle in man is imagined to be a praemia have not the same value as thin breath mixed with hot air (3.232- death, which is the release from pain 233). It is this which prevents his ab- and sorrow (3.894-911). The love of life sorption into the flux of atomic action, is possibly only mala cupido (3.1076-77). the unseen world of atoms that is con- Lucretius is at pains to point out that tinually impinging upon man, since, as nature is malevolent. The earth is de- Lucretius says (2.1139ff.), the environ- clining, growing less habitable (2.1150 ment never ceases to attack him with if.). The phrase tanta stat praedita cul- blows. The thin breath alone distin- pa [terra] (2.181; 5.199) implies a ma- guishes life from death (3.126-7, 214-5), lign or at least errant (and thus disin- and is not, indeed, a firm guarantee of terested) creator of things. The proofs life, for it is not securely settled into following this statement in the fifth place. A host of conditions can dislodge book are meaningless unless applied to and partially disperse it, such as sick- an intelligence. They presuppose a sys- ness (3.487ff.), drunkenness (3.476ff.), tem of justice, in which it is clear that sleep (3.923-4); or severe shock (3.592- man has been cheated. Justice cannot, 8). Beyond this, the very fundamentals after all, be sensibly invoked before in- of the personality, the moral sensibili- animates such as natural law or atoms. ties, as it were, are equally powerful; Casual asides by the poet reinforce the fear, remorse, insanity, or any frenzy idea of the ugliness of human existence, can upset the breath (3.824-829). such as the observation that the gods With his images Lucretius has con- live apart from our pain and danger ceived of life as an ordered, solid, tan- (1.44-47 and elsewhere), and that they gible place, in which light-instinc- are free of the hostility of natural phe- LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS 163

nomena (3.18-21), or that the newborn tives and actions as they really are. child's cry is said to be justified in view But it is a fallacy, to which, indeed, our of the evils which shall come to him own age succumbs, to think that the (5.226-227). Lucretius sees again the good man cannot ever be mean; antiq- kind of estrangement between man and uity itself produced the finest example his living environment that he saw be- of a hero in despair in Homer's account tween man and his more abstract of Hektor awaiting the onslaught of atomic environment. Sensible nature, Achilles (Iliad 22.98ff.). like the unseen atoms, comes on man The brilliant description of the ter- with hostile force. rified man at the close of the third These two conceptions, that life is book (1060-1075) again seems to look to good and that the living of it is un- causes beyond the fear of death. Lines happy, are almost hopelessly irrecon- 1068-1070 describe a fundamental state cilable and lend themselves to the be- of fearing that cannot be circumscribed lief that Lucretius was possessed by in that way, although Lucretius formal- some neurotic state of despair. Des- ly introduces fear of death as the motive pair and a sense of futility go hand in here. In making this evaluation, how- hand with fear, and in Lucretius' ever, one ought not, I suppose, to over- scheme this emotion appears to domi- look our contemporary social critics nate man. In the formal account of free who have discovered an all-pervading will (2.251-293), pleasure is adduced as fear of death which has come about the prime motive, yet throughout the through the collapse of the traditional poem quite the contrary is admitted. eschatological beliefs, bringing on "l'en- While fear is generally described as nui de l'age,"11 a state of mind com- fear of death or divine punishment, mon everywhere today and well fitted to from a reading of the entire poem one Lucretius' description. If we ought then gains the overall impression of an to insist that it is precisely fear of ubiquitous fear forming a basic element death alone that can be understood in of the human psyche. This is at the Lucretius' statements, we must also in- heart of the statement at 3.55-58: sist that he represents it as an inerad- icable component of the human quo magis in dubiis hominem spectare pe- person- riclis ality. This, of course, conflicts with his convenit adversisque in rebus noscere qui statements on the means to sit frequent nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab overcome it; one may not alter the imo unalterable. eliciuntur et manet res. eripitur persona, Perhaps the most detailed statement The assumption here is that man pre- of the remedy comes after the descrip- sents an abnormal psychology when he tion of the terrified man in the third is in a secure, peaceful, friendly situa- book (1071-75): tion; that the emotions generated by bene si videat [his sickness] iam and - and of these fear quam hostility danger rebus relictis is - quisque usually predominant represent the naturam primum studeat cognoscere rerum true psychology of man. This concep- temporis aeterni quoniam non unius horae tion is taken up and dramatically ambigitur status in quo sit mortalibus omnis worked out at the close of the sixth aetas post mortem quae restat cumque manenda. book (1138-1286), where the horrifying and dangerous plague at Athens affords It is eternity which finally resists all us an opportunity to view man's mo- change, eternity which provides the 164 CHARLES ROWAN BEYE

greater stability. Lucretius calls on his to become for Lucretius a kind of death. reader to identify, through studying the The self he seems to equate with the nature of things, with the eternal and bounded off entity that is life; other immutable rhythm of the cosmos. He people are the formless uncertainty must go out to enter into contact with that is death. the greater element that surrounds and If man will live as the gods do, he engulfs him, as Lucretius says he and must first be subject to no emotions Epicurus have done (1.73; 3.16-17). Man (called mala 3.310); he must be neutral; must divorce himself from the compli- he must withdraw as far as possible cations of living, cross the threshold, from the experience of living, that and through comprehension find death. source of pain and danger. He will be The images of life and death which the moving out of contact with his fellow poet has created charge the idea with men when he is no longer obliged to a frightening and uncertain quality; un- respond emotionally to them. The pro- derstanding has a frightening potential. oemium to the second book is a telling This action, this seeking identity with statement of this. Sweet is it, he says, the nature of things, involves withdraw- to watch others struggling at sea or in al from the human element in life. war, yourself withdrawn from the Withdrawal is a significant feature of scene. The sweetness lies not in view- the happy man. ing the misfortunes of others - this It is said (3.320-22) that a study of would be an emotional reaction to one's nature will make it possible for man to fellow humans. Rather, the pleasure re- live the life of the gods. The passage sides in one's sense of withdrawal or at 1.44-49 and elsewhere describes their escape. The passage continues: existence.12 It is a and literary philo- sed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere sophic grandchild, grown sophisticated, edita doctrina sapientium templa serena of the Homeric description of Olympus despicere [the others] . . . (Odyssey 6.42-47).13 Remote from grief The withdrawal is conceived in terms live unmoved and danger, the gods by of an image of the fortified bounded-off or in their wrath by service, powerful area which agrees so well with the gen- comes at own resources. Amplification eral theme of the good as Lucretius 5.165-6 when the poet asks quid enim conceives it. However much lines 3-4 nostra immortalibus atque beatis/gratia may strive to soften it, the double- queat largirier emolumenti? entendre of despicere reminds us that we come to By these descriptions the pleasure felt over another's mis- know the gods in a world where they fortune, even though it may be due to nor would ex- neither suffer, nor act, the favorable comparison with one's perience passion. They are incapable of own lot, reveals a considerable con- reacting to wrath or to kindness; they tempt, if not hostility, for mankind. are not motivated by love. In their posi- Human relations are seldom men- tion they need no one's help, and since tioned in the poem. A systematic de- it is implied that they operate in a sys- scription of a philosophy would not omit tem of rewards for service, they will the mention of them, although their benefit no one. It is this psychology that value might be thought to be well Lucretius presents as ideal for mankind. known. If the foregoing description of In part it is the logical end of ataraxia, the ideal behavior is accurate, then hu- but his insistence makes it more vivid man relations would not be a part of the than that. Human involvement seems scheme. Friendship is mentioned in con- LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS 165

nection with Memmius (1.140-1), but which bound man's identity. The or- this is probably convention. The value gasm itself is physically the kind of of friendship in the fifth book (1019) is frightening dissolution that parallels an ambiguity to which we shall come the description of the displacement of in a moment. Most human relations the vital breath. It is a betrayal of the which are discussed are of a hostile self. The discussion of sexual love in nature (see especially 3.59-86) which is the poem is introduced by a notice of brought on through fear of death. The adolescent nocturnal emissions, which preponderance of military metaphor in in turn develops out of a discussion on the poem suggests a frame of reference sleep, which Lucretius equates in part with hostility as its focus. with death (916-928). The imagistic pro- Personal relationships apart from gression is clear. The remarks on the those between parents and children are malevolence and insincerity of females presented only in terms of sexual love. are symbolic on the emotional level It might be said that this is the only of the utter bankruptcy of human rela- human response that the withdrawing tions. Lucretius' prescription for sexual person cannot avoid. Sexual love forms release through commercial love is a the subject of one of the better known reduction of the one form of human re- passages (4.1037-1287). Here Lucretius lations he has treated to an action that again enjoins against involvement. is as far as possible uninvolved and Since complete and true contact can egocentric. never be achieved with the partner, Man in the human milieu appears to love brings misery (1110-1111). Ideal be very similar to man in the atomic contact is pictured as being on the phys- milieu. The self must be guarded zeal- ical level, either in removing tangible ously, separated and bounded off from portions of the love object or entering the hostile and uncertain world of hu- completely into the love object. In manity surrounding it. With image,14 some ways a hearkening back to the nuance and at times doctrine, Lucretius Aristophanic position in the Symposi- has evolved a portrait of man that un- um, it is much more an extension of derlies the entire description of man's the constant reduction in the poem to stay on earth in the fifth book, which the tactile qualities of an object, and is formally a statement of progress, al- illuminates the Lucretian insistence though pictorially a descrescendo. upon a conception of spatial concrete- Lucretius is often complimented15 on ness. That which is real, which one can his description of primitive man be- command as a knowledgeable object, is cause he seems to have freed himself that which can be grasped. Since the from the fabulous qualities of the tradi- love object is ever a separate entity, it tional idea of the Golden Age, and to is not a certain thing. have conceived something closer to Contact upon the emotional or intel- modern anthropological findings. 16 Con- lectual level is thought to be illusory temporary research stresses the handi- and unsatisfactory. Emotionally, love caps of primitive man, and Lucretius is regarded as a trap (1144-50), a com- also strives to show his limitations. But mon enough metaphor, but in this con- his account cannot be analyzed that sim- text grim and devoid of any romantic ply. Lucretius was naturally aware of nuance. The danger of becoming sub- the traditional idea of a Golden Age servient to another is paramount (1122); and its decline; not only that, he found it would cause a breach in those walls it congenial enough to his own thinking 166 CHARLES ROWAN BEYE

to weave it into his poem (2.1153ff.), virtue of the asocial, antiseptic and although sufficiently diluted to leave atomic implications in the phrase by only the traces of nostalgia and melan- which Lucretius describes them (962 choly that are its hallmarks. All Venus . . . iungit corpora amantum). through the description in the fifth book Primitive man then is almost totally runs a Hesiodic theme that at times self-contained. seems completely central. Lucretius has also built upon the True enough, early man has no control previous ideas of light and dark that he over his environment and must subsist set up. The primitive scene is filled on that which nature offers him. He with light (931 per caelum solis vol- must struggle against beasts and im- ventia lustra; 937 quod sol . . . dede- provise in his ignorance of healing tech- rant; 943-4 novitas tur florida . . . niques. Is it for this that Lucretius calls pabula . . . tulit, this last involving him miser (944, 983)? It is a judg- light by traditional association). The ment upon which the critics seize with image of light and darkness is given enthusiasm,17 but perhaps wrongly. real prominence in the longish !' digres- Sikes' suggestion,18 that miseris mor- sion (973ff. in the Bailey text) on primi- talibus (944) is inspired by the Homeric tive man's faith during the night in the deiloisi brotoisi, is good. The pleasing subsequent rising of the sun. Early man context of 944, i.e., ampla, the de- does not fear, because in the darkness scription of streams, does seem to sug- of his ignorance the light will always gest that, like deiloisi, miseris refers exist for him. What are we to make of to an immutable condition inherent in this? Is it that knowledge brings un- the human situation rather than to any- certainty? that increasing understand- thing particularly concerned with primi- ing of his environment brings on man tive man. At 983 miseris seems to be, if increasing darkness? Just as man in his not a recall of 944, a common instance rudimentary state has not involved of an adjective describing the result of himself with his fellow man, neither the action of the sentence (infestam . . . has he involved himself with his en- faciebant . . . quietem). As such it has vironment or nature. He does not till no general reference to primitive man. the land, nor attempt to control nature There are indications that primitive in any way. Is it this freedom that man's life was much preferred by Lu- keeps out fear? Perhaps both attitudes cretius. Some of them have to do with lie behind the description. Lucretius' the spatial ideas of the earlier books. idea of primitive man's death is a logi- The poet remarks that primitive man cal addendum to this. He was at the is of a hard (durus) race. Hardness mercy of wild animals and feral sav- with its suggestion of the monolith re- agery often made his death horrible, calls the virtues of the bounded-off area. but death for him was natural. It was This is reinforced by the poet's obser- part of the same natural rhythm as vation that early man's existence was the eternally rising sun, whereas in solitary, broken only infrequently by Lucretius' own time death is contrived random sexual relations, which indeed and perverse (999ff.). The final contrast involved no yielding (964ff.) on the becomes one of innocence and serenity man's part. Primitive man is living the in ignorance, set beside viciousness and ideal existence, free of entangling hu- misery in knowledge. man commitments; his sexual encoun- Greater intelligence and understand- ters can be considered auspicious by ing also produces casas, pellis ignemque LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS 167

(1011). Linked to these (although the own time, he lets go the violence of this lacuna is bothersome) are society and passage to turn to a description of the the family. From it all genus humanum agricultural life of this second stage of primum mollescere coepit. The molle- man. This, the commonplace summum scere after durus in the context of their bonum of Roman thought, has been associations in the poem leaves no praised by Lucretius throughout the doubt that Lucretius is speaking of a de- poem.22 The scene of the rustics at cline. The civilized skills are only loose- play has the stamp of goodness on it. ly associated in it; marriage and friend- They are innocent, their pleasures are ship are at once immediate cause and simple and uncontrived. The scene is effect. Sexual relations and by extension laid in the light of day, and the dancers general human relations (for Lucretius strike the ground duriter, evoking the is speaking of years of married life) sense of virtuous solidity. have been imaginatively defined in the At 1405 the poet remarks that songs chilling final two lines of the fourth provide a solace for sleeplessness, and book (1286-7): with this the scene changes from light to dark, reinforced by a reference to nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentis umoris longo in spatio pertundere saxa? watchmen at 1408. The mention of watchmen in turn transfers the scene in In the context of the of bounded images its darkness to Lucretius' own time, off subject to assault and con- spaces, and the mood changes. Songs of the tinual dissolution on both physical and brightness of day have come now to be psychic levels, the dangerous qualities sung only in the night. The futility of of these relations are clear. In the fifth the idea of progress is brought out at book the social contract becomes a 1409-11, which serves as an advance stage of dissolution and disintegration theme to the final thought. After this a rather than cohesion. picture of changing values of man, Beginning with line 1105, Lucretius drawing his inconsistency, his unknow- embroiders the idea which he had be- ability, and his untrustworthiness, is at that man's increase in in- gun 999ff., finished off at 1419 with the mournful telligence and understanding, his mov- conception of primitive man fighting ing out, so to speak, into a rapproche- over the first skin clothing. The vio- ment with his environment and the rest lence over the fur is illogical in its con- of humanity, called forth greater com- clusion; futility and a sense of man's plications, confusions, hostilities and inherent evil remain the aftertaste of terrors. Society grows elaborate and man perverts himself through ambition, Lucretius' description. fear, and envy.22 The strange passage All these ideas are summed up in the (1308-1340) in which Bailey21 is almost stark lines, 1430-35, in which (despite tempted to find signs of insanity, is in provexit with its sense of rise) altum actuality a brilliant baroque reworking stands as a sardonic double-entendre. of 999ff., an exciting poetic fantasy of Into this bleak and hopeless atmosphere an intelligence fevered, perverted and come lines 1436-39, like the brief bars of cancerous. The alliance of cause and normal waltz melodies in the distortions effect has been deranged and the free- of Ravel's La valse. In the total dark- wheeling intellect has made man fall ness of Lucretius' contemporary world victim to himself. the sun and the moon are watchmen Since Lucretius must set the stage with the light. The second reference to for a pejorative commentary on his watchmen recalls 1408, so that while 168 CHARLES ROWAN BEYE

this second reference suggests an asso- ment and from attempts at overreach- ciation of light with a knowledge of the ing himself, evokes the same mood. nature of things, the connection with More specifically, 5.937-8 quod terra the first returns us along a path to the crearat/sponte sua etc., tends to par- element of goodness descending via the allel the Greek I have quoted. One won- songs from early man. That in turn re- ders if Lucretius was at any time think- calls us to the earliest man, free and ing of his most primitive man in the unencumbered in his ignorance and sim- Hesiodic phrases h6oste theoi d' ezo.on plicity of action, living in darkness . . . nosphin dter te p6no.n kai oizuos. without fear. This is the Lucretian formula for the Lucretius has gained a triumphant divine existence (1.44-49 and else- synthesis in this passage. For under- where). The Hesiodic Silver Age is standing and knowledge, that by the characterized by doltishness and effem- doctrine lead to light, lead in the poetic inate childlike softness (mega ne-pios conscious to dark, and both ideas are 131) that corresponds to the idea in the implicit here. Nothing more need be Lucretian mollescere. This second said about the progress of man. The phase, as Bayet points out, is charac- busy little list from 1440-1457 is almost terized by the family, and the exten- an afterthought (if not, indeed, an antic- sions of it. Hesiod also first introduces ipation of the opening lines of the sixth the idea of family in his Silver Age book), a belated reaffirmation of an (pais . . . para m6eteri kedne.i 130) optimistic doctrine, or a category, hur- and it also is not a flattering one. Again ried and confused, that is the rhythm Silver Age men's propensity to war of civilized man's behavior. upon one another (133-4) is a parallel If one compares this long disquisition to the Lucretian description of violence. with the Hesiodic description of the Bronze Age violence, still worse, can Ages of Man, he will notice several perhaps be likened to the grotesquery points of comparison. Hesiod, of course, of warfare at 1309ff. There is little has five distinct stages of human evolu- point, however, in trying for an abso- tion; it is difficult to make such divi- lute parallel; it is not at all here. The sions here, although one critic, Bayet, portrait by Hesiod rises to a climax in has done so,23 calling them respective- the Age of Iron, his own, that is frag- ly "vie animale; societe contractuelle mented, nervous and hurried in much primitive; monarchies et revolutions; the same way as the closing lines of organisation judiciaire et religieuse; Lucretius' fifth book. The fundamental et progres techniques artistiques." difference in point of view is that He- is not intent upon developing a Bayet siod saw change in man, bringing him Hesiodic parallel; this is one of three always into a worse moral condition, schemes he employs to bring out more whereas Lucretius seems to have con- clearly Lucretius' debt to a variety of ceived of man unchangeable,'4 as a Greek philosophic systems. Certain kind of Pandora's box of evil that grad- definite parallels do exist, however. Ef- ually opened as man continually en- fortlessness is the particular quality larged, through knowledge and experi- with which Hesiod endows his Age of mentation, his awareness of the world Gold 117-118 d' 6phere (Erga karpon outside himself. ... droura automate-). Lucretius' prim- itive man, in his acceptance of his CHARLES ROWAN BEYE existence, in his freedom from involve- Stanford University LUCRETIUS AND PROGRESS 169

I should like to thank my colleague Jan H. 1884], Annales 118) it cannot have great imagistic Waszink, and my student James E. Siemon, for force in Lucretius, unless one wishes to assume the very excellent help they have given me. that the phrase was a dead metaphor like our 1 C. Bailey, Greek atomists and Epicurus (Ox- English "on the point of," in which case Lucretius ford 1928), 376ff. would have been a bore to make such use of it. 2 Ibid., 366ff. 11 H. Hesse, Magister ludi, presents in his first an awesome 3 chapter fictional account of it in our Jean Bayet, "Lucrece devant la pensee time. grecque," Museum Helveticum 11(1954)97: "De meme que le corps et l'fme de l'individu se fortif- 12 For the occurrences in Lucretius of like ideas, ient et vont vers la decrepitude: ainsi le monde, see De rerum natura ed. Bailey (Oxford 1947), ainsi la societe des hommes." note on 1.44. 4 J. B. Bury, The idea of progress (London 13Cf. B. M. W. Knox, "Ajax of Sophocles," 1920), 5f. HSCP 65(1961)19-20. 5 The problem of the order of the books, as 14 C. Bailey, "The mind of Lucretius," AJP 61 written, has nothing to do, of course, with the (1940)278ff., rightly stresses the imagistic nature order of reading them. If it is true that books of Lucretius' mind. one, two and five were first composed (cf. K. 15 Bailey, op. cit. (note 12) 3.1472-4. Buchner and J. B. Hofman, Lateinische Literatur i Detailed in Martha, Le poeme de Lucrece und Sprache in der Forschung seit 1937 [Bern (Paris 1896), 294ff. it to some sort of essen- 1951], 56), points possibly 1; cit. on tial distinction in the mind between his Bailey, op. (note 12), 5.944,983. Cf. also poet's De rerum natura ed. theories and his Ernout-Robin (Paris 1925-28) physical ethical-psychological on theories. 5.944, although on 5.925 they say "la vie primi- tive . . . est . . . plus heureuse que la vie 6 J. Logre, L'anxiete de Lucrece (Paris 1946). civilisee." 7 Cf. J. H. Waszink, "Lucretius and poetry," V1E. E. Sikes, Lucretius poet and philosopher Med. Ned. Akademie van Wetenschappen, Af- (Cambridge 1936), 151 n.2. deelung Letterkund n.s. 17(1954)243-257, who re- 19 Bailey, op. cit. (note 12), on 5.973: "an almost views the various positions. disproportionate treatment of this theme...." SWaszink's discussion of ibid. thorough this, 2" cit. on 252-3, leads to conclusions. Ernout-Robin, op. (note 17), 5.1408-35, opposite see as the basic of the 9 meaning fifth book a C. H. Whitman in his chapter "Fire and other vicious circle in desires and their fulfillment lead- elements," in Homer and the heroic tradition ing to more elaborate desires, etc. has shown the number (Cambridge 1957), great 21 cit. of associations Homer has made for the idea of Bailey, op. (note 12), 3.1529. fire throughout the long Iliad, and how they are at 22 Martha, op. cit. (note 16), 313. times combined. 23 Bayet, op. cit. (note 3), 97. 10 It would be a mistake to think that because 24 Cf. 3.307-310, 319-22, where Lucretius implies luminis eras is a traditional phrase (see Q. Enni that there is an element in the human psyche carminum reliquiae, L. Mueller [St. Petersburg that nothing, not even education, can alter.