Lucretius
Lucretius was a Roman poet and philosopher of the first century BCE, known for *De Rerum Natura* (*On the Nature of Things*), a long poem expounding Epicurean philosophy.
The work explains atomic theory, the mortality of the soul, and the workings of nature without divine intervention.
His name appears in discussions of ancient materialism and scientific thought: Lucretius anticipated modern physics by two millennia.
Athenian pleasure-seeking sage
- ataraxiaImperturbable peace of mind
- pleasureHappy, satisfied feeling
- painBodily or emotional distress
- GardenNamed place designation
tranquility · hedonism · kinetic · ethics · mortality · fear of death · gods · superstition
Smallest elemental units
- voidWithout legal effect
- DemocritusAncient atomism's founder
- indivisibleUnable to be divided
- particlesMinute pieces of matter
matter · swerve · collision · motion · infinite · corpuscles · materialism · mechanism
State without monarchy
- LatinAncient Roman language
- CiceroAncient Rome's greatest speaker
- civil warDomestic armed conflict
- aristocracyRule by hereditary elite
patron · Rome · Italian · classical antiquity · Virgil · Ovid · Horace · Roman literature
European cultural reawakening
- rediscoveryFinding something previously known
- NewtonFamous scientific surname
- JeffersonThird American president
- EnlightenmentEra prioritizing reason over dogma
influence · transmission · manuscript · materialism · secularism · atheism · scientific revolution
Science of matter and energy
- cosmologyStudy of universal structure
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- sensationPerceived stimulus or phenomenon
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
mortality · soul · mind · natural phenomena · thunder · lightning · plague · weather
Epicurus
Athenian pleasure-seeking sage
Garden · tranquility · hedonism · kinetic · ethics · mortality · fear of death · gods · superstition · moderation
atoms
Smallest elemental units
- voidWithout legal effect
- DemocritusAncient atomism's founder
- indivisibleUnable to be divided
particles · matter · swerve · collision · motion · infinite · corpuscles · materialism · mechanism · determinism
Republic
State without monarchy
aristocracy · patron · Rome · Italian · classical antiquity · Virgil · Ovid · Horace · Roman literature · Golden Age
Renaissance
European cultural reawakening
- rediscoveryFinding something previously known
- NewtonFamous scientific surname
- JeffersonThird American president
Enlightenment · influence · transmission · manuscript · materialism · secularism · atheism · scientific revolution
physics
Science of matter and energy
- cosmologyStudy of universal structure
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- sensationPerceived stimulus or phenomenon
empiricism · mortality · soul · mind · natural phenomena · thunder · lightning · plague · weather · astronomy
hexameter
Six-foot poetic line
invocation · Venus · proem · imagery · simile · metaphor · allegory · sublimity · epic · meter
- Ancient RomeRome, Julius Caesar, Caesar, gladiator, gladiators
- classicsHomer, Iliad, the Iliad, Odyssey, the Odyssey
- LatinLatin, Latin vocabulary, Latin roots, Latin alphabet, Latin phrases
- Latin LiteratureCicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Caesar
- metaphysicsessence, being, reality, existence, substance theory
- Ancient PoetsHomer, Sappho, Virgil, Ovid, Horace
LucretiusPlato
Greek philosopher, academy founder
Thomas Aquinas · Leibniz · Pythagoras · Hegel · Berkeley
LucretiusDante Alighieri
Augustine of Hippo · Plato · Pascal · Kierkegaard · C.S. Lewis
LucretiusDante Alighieri
John Milton · Augustine of Hippo · Dante · Pseudo-Dionysius · Rumi