De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) is a 1st century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through richly poetic language and metaphors.^[1] Lucretius presents the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna, "chance," and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities.^[2]

Synopsis[link]

Opening of De rerum natura, 1483 copy by Girolamo di Matteo de Tauris for Pope Sixtus IV

Book One of De rerum natura, from the 1675 edition by Tanaquil Faber

Lucretius wrote this epic poem to "Memmius", who may be the Gaius Memmius who in 58 BC was a praetor, a judicial official deciding controversies between citizens and the government. There are over a dozen references to "Memmius" scattered throughout the long poem in a variety of contexts in translation, such as "Memmius mine", "my Memmius", and "illustrious Memmius". Apparently, Lucretius wrote On the Nature of Things in an attempt to convert Gaius Memmius to atomism, but was unsuccessful.

Epicurus maintained that the unhappiness and degradation of humankind arose largely from the dread which they entertained of the power of the gods, from terror of their wrath, which was supposed to be displayed by the misfortunes inflicted in this life, and by the everlasting tortures which were the lot of the guilty in a future state, or where these feelings were not strongly developed, from a vague dread of gloom and misery after death. To remove these fears, and thus to establish tranquillity in the heart, was the purpose of his teaching. Thus the Gods, whose existence he did not deny, lived forevermore in the enjoyment of absolute peace, strangers to all the passions, desires, and fears, which agitate the human heart, totally indifferent to the world and its inhabitants, unmoved alike by their virtues and their crimes. To prove this position he called upon the atomism of Democritus, by which he sought to demonstrate that the material universe was formed not by a Supreme Being, but by the mixing of elemental particles which had existed from all eternity governed by certain simple laws. The task undertaken by Lucretius was to clearly state and fully develop these views in an attractive form; his work being an attempt to show that everything in nature can be explained by natural laws without the need for the intervention of divine beings.^[3]

Contents[link]

The poem opens with a magnificent invocation to Venus, whom he addresses as an allegorical representation of the reproductive power, after which the business of the piece commences by an enunciation of the great proposition on the nature and being of the gods, which leads to a grand invective against the gigantic monster superstition, and a thrilling picture of the horrors which attends its tyrannous sway. Then follows a lengthened elucidation of the axiom that nothing can be produced from nothing, and that nothing can be reduced to nothing (Nil fieri ex nihilo, in nihilum nil posse reverti); which is succeeded by a definition of the Ultimate Atoms, infinite in number, which, together with Void Space (Inane), infinite in extent, constitute the universe. The shape of these corpuscles, their properties, their movements, the laws under which they enter into combination and assume forms and qualities appreciable by the senses, with other preliminary matters on their nature and affections, together with a refutation of objections and opposing hypotheses, occupy the first two books.^[3]

In the third book, the general concepts proposed thus far are applied to demonstrate that the vital and intellectual principles, the Anima and Animus, are as much a part of us as are our limbs and members, but like those limbs and members have no distinct and independent existence, and that hence soul and body live and perish together; the argument being wound up by a magnificent exposure of the folly manifested in a dread of death, which will for ever extinguish all feeling.^[3]

The fourth book – perhaps the most ingenious of the whole – is devoted to the theory of the senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, of sleep and of dreams, ending with a disquisition upon love and sex.^[3]

The fifth book, generally regarded as the most finished and impressive, treats of the origin of the world and of all things that are therein, of the movements of the heavenly bodies, of the changes of the seasons, of day and night, of the rise and progress of humankind, of society, and of political institutions, and of the invention of the various arts and sciences which embellish and ennoble life.^[3]

The sixth book contains an explanation of some of the most striking natural appearances, especially thunder, lightning, hail, rain, snow, ice, cold, heat, wind, earthquakes, volcanoes, springs and localities noxious to animal life, which leads to a discourse upon diseases. This in its turn introduces an appalling description of the great pestilence which devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and thus the book closes. The abrupt ending suggests that Lucretius had not finished fully editing the poem before his death.^[3]

Manuscript history[link]

Copies of the poem made it by chance into a few libraries in the 9th century before it was rediscovered in January 1417 by Poggio Bracciolini. This copy did not survive, but one by Poggio's friend, Niccolò de' Niccoli, did; it is kept today at the Laurentian Library in Florence ("Codex Laurentianus 35.30"). Machiavelli made a copy early in his life. Molière produced a verse translation which does not survive; John Evelyn translated the first book.^[1]

Notable figures who owned copies include Ben Jonson whose copy is held at the Houghton Library, Harvard; Thomas Jefferson owned at least five Latin editions and English, Italian and French translations. Montaigne's Essays contain almost a hundred quotes from De rerum natura.^[1]

Lucretius' physics[link]

Lucretius maintained that he could free humankind from fear of the gods by demonstrating that all things occur by natural causes without any intervention by the gods. Historians of science, however, have been critical of the limitations of his Epicurean approach to science, especially as it pertained to astronomical topics, which he relegated to the class of "unclear" objects.^[4]

Thus, he began his discussion by claiming that he would

explain by what forces nature steers the courses of the Sun and the journeyings of the Moon, so that we shall not suppose that they run their yearly races between heaven and earth of their own free will [i.e., are gods themselves] or that they are rolled round in furtherance of some divine plan....^[5]

However, when he set out to put this plan into practice, he limited himself to showing how one, or several different, naturalistic accounts could explain certain natural phenomena. He was unable to tell his readers how to determine which of these alternatives might be the true one.^[6]

Let us now take as our theme the cause of stellar movements.

• First let us suppose that the great globe of the sky itself rotates....
• There remains the alternative possibility that the sky as a whole is stationary while the shining constellations are in motion. This may happen

• because swift currents of ether ... whirl round and round and roll their fires at large across the nocturnal regions of the sky. Or
• an external current of air from some other quarter may whirl them along in their course. Or
• they may swim of their own accord, each responsive to the call of its own food, and feed their fiery bodies in the broad pastures of the sky.

One of these causes must certainly operate in our world.... But to lay down which of them it is lies beyond the range of our stumbling progress.^[7]

Drawing on these, and other passages, William Stahl considered that "The anomalous and derivative character of the scientific portions of Lucretius' poem makes it reasonable to conclude that his significance should be judged as a poet, not as a scientist."^[8]

The swerve[link]

Determinism appears to conflict with the concept of free will. Lucretius attempts to allow for free will in his physicalistic universe by postulating an indeterministic tendency for atoms to swerve randomly (Latin: clinamen). This indeterminacy, according to Lucretius, provides the "free will which livings things throughout the world have."^[9]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Anthony M. Alioto, (1987), A History of Western Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-392390-8
• G. E. R. Lloyd, (1973), Greek Science after Aristotle. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04371-1
• William Ramsay, "Lucretius" in William Smith (editor), (1867), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Volume 2.
• William Stahl, (1962), Roman Science. University of Wisconsin Press.

Further reading[link]

Translations[link]

• Lucretius. On the Nature of Things: De rerum natura. Anthony M. Esolen, transl. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., 1995. ISBN 0-8018-5055-X
• Lucretius the Way Things Are: The De Rerum Natura. Rolfe Humphries, transl. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1968. ISBN 0-253-20125-X.
• Lucretius. On the Nature of the Universe. R. E. Latham, transl. London: Penguin Books, 1994. ISBN 0-14-044610-9.
• Lucretius. On the Nature of Things (Loeb Classical Library No. 181). W. H. Rouse, transl., rev. by M. F. Smith. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1992, reprint with revisions of the 1924 edition. ISBN 0-674-99200-8.
• Lucretius. On the Nature of Things (Hackett Classics Series). Martin Ferguson Smith, transl. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Co., 2001. ISBN 0-87220-587-8. (Review; responses to the review)
• Lucretius: The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics). A.E. Stallings, trans. London. Penguin Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-14-044796-5. Verse translation of De Rerum Natura.

Commentary[link]

• Brown, P. Michael (ed.). Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1997. ISBN 0-85668-694-8 (hb). ISBN 0-85668-695-6 (pb). (Review)
• Campbell, Gordon. Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura Book Five, lines 772-1104. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2003. ISBN 0-19-926396-5. (Review)

Sympathetic review of Campbell's book. At page 160, the reviewer concludes the following. "Lucretius on Creation and Evolution offers a bold and sophisticated attempt to come to terms with Lucretius' arguments on evolution in the spirit of the poem's most ambitious commentators. It deserves not only consultation but active perusal. I could not agree more with Campbell's commitment to putting Lucretius and Epicureanism into conversation with the present and with our own attempts to figure out where humans belong in a world of chance and impersonal necessity."

• Fowler, Don. Lucretius on Atomic Motion: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura, Book Two, Lines 1–332. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2002. ISBN 0-19-924358-1. (Review)
• Gale, Monica R. Lucretius and the Didactic Epic. London: Bristol Classical Pr., 2001. ISBN 1-85399-557-6 (Review)
• Greenblatt, Stephen, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011, ISBN 978-0-39306447-6
• Johnson, W.R. Lucretius and the Modern World. London: Duckworth, 2000. ISBN 0-7156-2882-8. (Review)
• Kennedy, Duncan F. Rethinking Reality: Lucretius and the Textualization of Nature. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Pr., 2002. ISBN 0-472-11288-0. (Review)
• Sedley, David. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1998. ISBN 0-521-57032-8. (Review)

External links[link]

Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article: De rerum natura

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: De rerum natura

• Text at thelatinlibrary.com
• Project Gutenberg e-text of an English translation of On The Nature of Things
• Translation of On the Nature of Things public domain audiobook from LibriVox
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Lucretius, with extensive discussion of On the Nature of Things
• Summary of On the Nature of Things, by section
• Analysis of Lucretius' "conversion" challenge in terms of designing a "meme" that would compete with the surrounding memes of creationism; "as doctors sweeten bitter medicine with honey", so Lucretius sweetened the conversion pill as poetry.
• Summarizing the creationist view of Lucretius's role: "As this is the viewpoint of modern evolutionists, the reader may appreciate that Lucretius, not Darwin, has been the principal spokesman for evolution during the last two millennia."

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The Tuatha Dé Danann ("peoples of the goddess Danu", Modern Irish pronunciation: [t̪ˠuːəhə dʲeː d̪ˠan̪ˠən̪ˠ], Old Irish: [t̪uːaθa d̪ʲeː d̪an̪an̪]) are a race of people in Irish mythology. In the invasions tradition which begins with the Lebor Gabála Érenn, they are the fifth group to settle Ireland, conquering the island from the Fir Bolg.

The Tuatha Dé Danann are thought to derive from the pre-Christian deities of Ireland. When the surviving stories were written, Ireland had been Christian for centuries, and the Tuatha Dé were represented as mortal kings, queens and heroes of the distant past; however there are many clues to their former divine status. A poem in the Book of Leinster lists many of them, but ends "Although [the author] enumerates them, he does not worship them." Goibniu, Creidhne and Luchta are referred to as Trí Dé Dána ("three gods of craftsmanship"), and the Dagda's name is interpreted in medieval texts as "the good god." Even after they are displaced as the rulers of Ireland, characters such as Lugh, the Morrígan, Aengus and Manannán mac Lir appear in stories set centuries later, showing all the signs of immortality. They also have many parallels across the Celtic world: Nuada is cognate with the British god Nodens; Lugh is a reflex of the pan-Celtic deity Lugus; Tuireann is related to the Gaulish Taranis; Ogma to Ogmios; the Badb to Catubodua.

Name[link]

The translation of Tuatha Dé Danann as "peoples of the goddess Danu" is necessarily imprecise. Old Irish tuath (plural tuatha) means "people, tribe, nation"; and dé is the genitive case of día, "god, goddess, supernatural being, object of worship"^[1] (they are often referred to simply as the Tuatha Dé, a phrase also used to refer to the Israelites in early Irish Christian texts).^[2]

Danann is also a genitive, for which the nominative case is not attested. It has been reconstructed as Danu, which by analogy with Anu is taken to be a female name. The name of the river Danube is believed to be Celtic in origin, and Celtic river deities are usually female; Hindu mythology has a goddess called Danu, who may be an Indo-European parallel. However, this reconstruction is not universally accepted.^[3] It is also written Donann and Domnann,^[4] which may link them with the Fir Domnann ("men of the Domnainn"), a people associated with the Fir Bolg in myth,^[5] who are historically attested in Connacht and may be related to the British Dumnonii.^[6]

Legendary history[link]

The Tuatha Dé Danann were descended from Nemed, leader of a previous wave of inhabitants of Ireland. They came from four cities to the north of Ireland–Falias, Gorias, Murias and Finias–where they acquired their occult skills and attributes. According to Lebor Gabála Érenn, they came to Ireland "in dark clouds" and "landed on the mountains of [the] Conmaicne Rein in Connachta; and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights". According to a later version of the story, they arrived in ships on the coast of the Conmaicne Mara's territory (modern Connemara). They immediately burnt the ships "so that they should not think of retreating to them; and the smoke and the mist that came from the vessels filled the neighboring land and air. Therefore it was conceived that they had arrived in clouds of mist".

A poem in the Lebor Gabála Érenn says of their arrival:

It is God who suffered them, though He restrained them
they landed with horror, with lofty deed,
in their cloud of mighty combat of spectres,
upon a mountain of Conmaicne of Connacht.
Without distinction to descerning Ireland,
Without ships, a ruthless course
the truth was not known beneath the sky of stars,
whether they were of heaven or of earth.

Led by their king, Nuada, they fought the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh on the west coast, in which they defeated and displaced the native Fir Bolg, who then inhabited Ireland. In the battle, Nuada lost an arm to their champion, Sreng. Since Nuada was no longer "unblemished", he could not continue as king and was replaced by the half-Fomorian Bres, who turned out to be a tyrant. The physician Dian Cecht replaced Nuada's arm with a working silver one and he was reinstated as king. However, Dian Cecht's son Miach was dissatisfied with the replacement so he recited the spell, "ault fri halt dí & féith fri féth" (joint to joint of it and sinew to sinew), which caused flesh to grow over the silver prosthesis over the course of nine days and nights.^[7][8] However, in a fit of jealous rage Dian Cecht slew his own son. Because of Nuada's restoration as leader, Bres complained to his family and his father, Elatha, who sent him to seek assistance from Balor, king of the Fomorians.

The Tuatha Dé Danann then fought the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh against the Fomorians. Nuada was killed by the Fomorian king Balor's poisonous eye, but Balor was killed himself by Lugh, the champion of the Tuatha Dé, who then took over as king.

A third battle was fought against a subsequent wave of invaders, the Milesians, from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (present day Galicia and Northern Portugal), descendants of Míl Espáine (who are thought to represent the Goidelic Celts). The Milesians encountered three goddesses of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Ériu, Banba and Fodla, who asked that the island be named after them; Ériu is the origin of the modern name Éire, and Banba and Fodla are still sometimes used as poetic names for Ireland.

Their three husbands, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine, who were kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann at that time, asked for a truce of three days, during which the Milesians would lie at anchor nine waves' distance from the shore. The Milesians complied, but the Tuatha Dé Danann created a magical storm in an attempt to drive them away. The Milesian poet Amergin calmed the sea with his verse, then his people landed and defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann at Tailtiu. When Amergin was called upon to divide the land between the Tuatha Dé Danann and his own people, he cleverly allotted the portion above ground to the Milesians and the portion underground to the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Tuatha Dé Danann were led underground into the Sidhe mounds by Manannán mac Lir.

The Four Treasures[link]

The Tuatha Dé Danann brought four magical treasures with them to Ireland, one apiece from their Four Cities:

• The Dagda's Cauldron
• The Spear of Lugh
• The Stone of Fal
• The Sword of Light of Nuada

Tuatha Dé Danann High Kings of Ireland[link]

The following is a chronology from the Annals of the Four Masters; based on reign-lengths given in Geoffrey Keating's Forus Feasa ar Erinn. Nuada's original reign lacks a precise start date.

• Nuada (first reign) AFM unknown-1897 BC; FFE unknown-1477 BC
• Bres AFM 1897-1890 BC; FFE 1477-1470 BC
• Nuada (final reign) AFM 1890-1870 BC; FFE 1470-1447 BC
• Lugh AFM 1870-1830 BC; FFE 1447-1407 BC
• Eochaid Ollathair AFM 1830-1750 BC; FFE 1407-1337 BC
• Delbáeth AFM 1750-1740 BC; FFE 1337-1327 BC
• Fiacha AFM 1740-1730 BC; FFE 1327-1317 BC
• Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine AFM 1730-1700 BC; FFE 1317-1287 BC

Tuatha Dé Danann family tree[link]

The following table is based on the genealogies given by Geoffrey Keating and in the Lebor Gabála Érenn, and references in Cath Maige Tuireadh. It is not clear whether the various Elathas and Delbáeths are meant to be different figures of the same name or different traditions regarding the genealogy of the same figure. It is also notable that Fomorians such as Elatha and Balor are closely related to the Tuatha Dé.

                                   Agnoman of Scythia
                                           |
                                         Nemed
                                           |
                                    Iarbonel Faidh
                                           |
                                       Beothach
                                           |
                                        Iobáth
                                           |
                                         Enna
                                           | 
                                        Tabarn
                                           |
                                          Tat
       ____________________________________|__________________________________
       |                                                                     |
     Allai                                                                 Indai
       |                                           __________________________|__________________________
       |                                           |                                                   |
     Orda                                         Nét                                               Elatha
       |                       ____________________|______________________________________________     |
       |                       |                                    |                            |     |
    Etarlám                 Esar Brec                           Delbáeth                        Dot  Bres
       |                       |                                    |                            |
       |                       |                                    |                            |
    Eochaid                Dian Cecht                            Elatha                        Balor
       |                       |                                    |                            |
       |            ___________|___________        _________________|______________________      |
     Nuada          |    |     |    |     |        |         |          |       |         |      |
    (Elcmar)       Cu Cethen Cian Miach Airmed   Dagda    Fiacha    Delbáeth   Ogma     Allód  Ethniu
   (Nechtan)        |          |                   |                    |       |       (Lir)
  _____|____        |          |      _____________|____________        |       |         |
  |        |        |          |      |      |     |     |     |        |       |         |
Etarlám Nemain  Bec-Felmas    Lug  Cermait Aengus Bodb Midir Brigid   Boann  Delbáeth  Manannan
  |                 |                 |                                     (Tuireann)
  |                 |        _________|_________          ______________________|__________________________________
  |                 |        |        |        |          |      |      |       |     |      |       |      |     |
Ernmas            Abean  MacCuill MacCecht MacGréine   Fiacha  Brian Iuchar Iucharba Danand Goibniu Credne Luchta Ollam
  |__________________                                                                                             |
  |        |        |                                                                                             |
 Ériu  =  Badb      |                                                                                            Aoi
Banba  = Macha      |
Fódla = Mórrígan = Anu
           

Other members of the Tuatha Dé Danann include:

• Abartach
• Beag
• Bé Chuille
• Brea
• Fand

See also[link]

• Dingle Diamond
• Olympian Pantheon
• Picts

Primary sources[link]

• Lebor Gabála Érenn ("The Book of the Taking of Ireland"), ed. and tr. R.A.S. Macalister (1938-1956 and 2009). Lebor Gabála Érenn. The Book of the Taking of Ireland. Irish Texts Society 34-5, 39, 41, 44, 63. 5 vols and index of names. Dublin: RIA. 
• Mesca Ulad

References[link]