On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (68 page)

178–9
leaden bullets | Melt
: for the notion that sling bullets can travel so fast that they melt, cf. 306 ff. below, Aristotle,
De Caelo
289
^a
, Theophrastus,
Meteorology
6. 20–1, Virgil,
Aeneid
8. 588, Ovid,
Metamorphoses
2. 726–9, 14. 825–6, Lucan,
Civil War
7. 513, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 57. 2, Statius,
Thebaid
10. 533–4.

197
They vent their indignation with a roar
: Lucretius takes over and demythologizes the traditional imagery of the winds controlled in a cave by the god Aeolus (cf. e.g. Homer,
Odyssey
10. 47 ff.). Epicurus talks of the clouds as like ‘vessels’ (
Letter to Pythocles
100).

209
from the sun’s light
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
101, Empedocles fr. A. 63, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 12. 3.

219–20
thunderbolts
: ancient scientists distinguished between lightning flashes (
fulgura
in Latin) and thunderbolts (
fulmina
: cf. Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 12. 1 ff.). Like Theophrastus (
Meteorology
6. 3 ff.), Lucretius emphasizes that thunderbolts are fiery and have a penetrating power.

221
sulphur
: in fact the smell is due to ozone from the electrical discharge, but the belief that it was due to sulphur was widespread from the time of Homer (e.g.
Iliad
8. 133), although this passage is the first explicit extant statement of the belief in scientific literature (cf. the
Problems
ascribed to Aristotle 937
^b
25, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 21. 2).

229
As sounds and voices do
: cf. 1. 489 ff.

231
wine inside a vessel
: cf. e.g. Pliny,
Natural Histories
2. 137.

247–8
they never strike | From a clear sky
: cf. 99. Later Horace will ascribe a conversion from Epicureanism to thunder from a clear sky (
Odes
1. 34). See below 400 ff.

251–4
so that we think…
: 251–4 are repeated from 4. 170–3.

257
like pitch
: cf. Homer,
Iliad
4. 275 ff. The reference to people seeking shelter is a typical feature of epic similes.

278
in the hot furnace
: the imagery of the forge (see above on 148–9, and below 681 ff.) suggests the myth of the Cyclopes toiling underground to make the thunderbolts of Zeus.

287
A violent tremor now assails the earth
: cf. 358. Belief in ‘underground thunder’ was widespread and often ascribed to supernatural sources (cf. e.g. Aeschylus,
Prometheus Bound
993, Sophocles,
Oedipus at Colonus
1606, Euripides,
Hippolytus
1201).

292
the universal Flood
: cf. 5. 412. We are reminded again of the fact that our world will one day be destroyed: we move from the everyday experience of thunder and lightning to future destruction on a cosmic scale.

306
a leaden bullet
: see above on 178–9.

329
catapults
: cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
12. 921–3.

335
all weights naturally possess | A downward momentum
: cf. 2. 203 ff.

349
the pores
: the theory of small pores in compounds is used several times in the following accounts, e.g. 492, 776 ff., 979 ff., 1129; cf. 4. 344 ff., 949 ff., 976 ff.

352
It readily dissolves bronze
: cf. Aristotle,
Meteorology
352
^b
, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 31. 1, Pliny,
Natural History
2. 137.

357
In autumn thunder shakes the house of heaven
: spring and autumn are usually seen as the main seasons for thunder (cf. Theophrastus,
Meteorology
6. 68 ff., Horace,
Odes
1. 4. 7 ff.), but Epicurus is said by one source to have claimed that it was more frequent in summer (John Lydus (fifth–sixth century
AD
),
On Portents
21. 5, cf. Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 57. 2). For the imagery of
the war of the elements, cf. 5. 381 ff.: as ever, the implication is that the world is not providentially ordered, and that, if the war got out of hand, the world could be destroyed.

381
scrolls of Tuscan charms
: augury was especially associated with and practised by the Etruscans (cf. Cicero,
On Divination
1. 72, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 41 ff., Pliny,
Natural Histories
2. 138, John Lydus,
On Portents
).

383–5
And ask them whence the flying fire has come…
: 383–5 are repeated from 87–9: see notes.

386
what harm
: i.e. in terms of religious pollution. A place struck by lightning was known as a
bidental
(perhaps from the sacrifice of sheep and goats,
bidentes
), and was enclosed as a sacred place: cf. Lucan,
Civil War
1. 606–8, 8. 864, John Lydus,
On Portents
47–52.

390–1
Why do they not arrange that when a man | Is guilty of some abominable crime| He’s struck
: cf. 2. 1101 ff. For the arguments here against divination, cf. Aristophanes,
Clouds
397 ff., Epicurus fr. 370, Cicero,
On Divination
2. 44–5, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 42 ff.

400
Never when the sky is cloudless
: see above on 247 ff.

417
why does he wreck the holy shrines of gods
: cf. 2. 1101–2, Aristophanes,
Clouds
401, Cicero,
On Divination
1. 19, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 42.

424
Those whirlwinds which the Greeks name from their nature | Presters
: Lucretius uses the Greek word
prester
, which has connections with words for ‘burn’ and ‘blow’ and covers both fiery and watery whirlwinds: hence the connection with thunderbolts (cf. Hesiod,
Theogony
846), though Lucretius concentrates on waterspouts. Cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
104 ff., Aristotle,
Meteorology
369
^a
, Seneca,
Natural Questions
5. 13. 3, Pliny,
Natural Histories
2. 131 ff.

426
a kind of column
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
104.

434
as though a fist thrust by an arm
: Lucretius mocks the implicit anthropomorphism of religious explanations.

451
Clouds form
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
99, Theophrastus,
Meteorology
7, Vitruvius (first century
BC
),
On Architecture
8. 1 ff. The connection between clouds and religious belief goes back to the beginnings of Indo-European culture: already in Homer, Zeus is termed the ‘cloud-gatherer’. Cf. 4. 131 ff. on the shapes of clouds as suggesting mythical monsters.

470
from the surface of the sea
: the (roughly) correct origin of clouds in water vapour goes back to the pre-Socratic philosophers, cf. Xenophanes (sixth century
BC
) fr. B26, A46, Anaximander A11.

471–2
clothes… hung out on the shore
: Lucretius uses the analogy several times: cf. 1. 305 and in this
Book 6
. 114, 504, 617 ff.

483
come into our sky from outside
: cf. 2. 1105 ff., 5. 366 ff., 6. 665 ff. and 954.

492–3
channels of the ether |… breathing-holes
: like all compounds, the world has a protective outer membrane, which is, however, permeable with the out-side and permits interchange of atomic matter with the environment (cf. 2. 1105 ff., ‘Aetius’ 2. 7. 2, and see below on 6. 954).

495–6
rainy moisture
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
99–100.

526
the rainbow
: cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
109 ff.

527
all those other things
: Lucretius abbreviates his treatment of the remaining meteorological phenomena such as snow (cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Pythocles
109–10, Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 99): they have fewer theological implications. He also omits any systematic discussion of the causes of wind (cf. e.g. Aristotle,
Meteorology
365
^a
ff., immediately before the discussion of earth-quakes).

535
earthquakes
: Epicurus’ treatment of earthquakes comes after whirlwinds but before other atmospheric phenomena: Lucretius’ order of treatment marks a clearer break between phenomena of the sky and of the earth. Lucretius details three causes (535–51 subsidence, 552–6 earth falling into pools, 557–607 circulation of underground winds). Epicurus has the third and first of these (in that order): Theophrastus,
Meteorology
15, adds fire to provide an explanation in terms of each of the four elements. Aristotle,
Meterology
365
^b
ff., makes winds the major cause. Cf. Epicurus,
Letter to Herodotus
105 ff., fr. 350–1, Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 98, Seneca,
Natural Questions
bk. 6, Pliny,
Natural Histories
2. 191 ff., ‘Aetius’ 3. 14. Both Greece and Italy were (and are) major centres of seismic activity, and the mysterious phenomena associated with earthquakes were long a source of religious awe, in Greece linked to Poseidon (Neptune), the sea-god. At Rome, earthquakes were seen as portents (cf. Livy 3. 10. 6 etc.), and, like thunderbolts, the subject of the ‘Etruscan discipline’ (see above on 6. 381).

545
age and time
: the personification of time and the stress on the role of decay are distinctively Lucretian: cf. e.g. 1. 225, 325 ff., 2. 69 ff.

565
men fear to believe
: cf. 5. 235 ff.

585–6
Sidon in Syria | And Aegeum in the Peloponnese
: sometime towards the end of the fifth century
BC
(cf. Strabo,
Geography
158c, Seneca,
Natural Questions
6. 24. 6), and in 373–372
BC
respectively.

590
sunk down to the bottom of the sea
: as well as Helice and Buris in the Aegeum earthquake (cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
15. 293 ff.), compare the story of the mythical Atlantis in Plato,
Timaeus
23e.

608–9
nature does not cause | The sea to increase in size
: already for Aristotle an old puzzle (
Meteorology
355
^b
, cf. e.g. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
8. 835 ff.), and treated by Lucretius as one of a series of wonders (
mirabilia
) which must be given a rational explanation to avoid the temptation to lapse back into religion. The position of Lucretius’ treatment, between earthquakes and volcanoes, has
often seemed strange, but all three are phenomena on a massive scale which need to be put in their place. For all the schools, the wise person is not affected by wonder at unusual phenomena: cf. Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of the Philosophers
7. 123, Horace,
Epistles
1. 6. 1 ff. Collections of these phenomena (the so-called ‘paradoxographic’ literature) began to be made from the third century
BC
.

617
clothes dripping with water
: see above on 471–2.

639
Mount Etna’s throat
: the proverbial volcano for both Greeks (e.g. Pindar,
Pythian
1, alluding to the eruption of 475
BC
) and Romans (e.g. Seneca,
Letters
79): the last eruption (presumably referred to in 641 ff.) had been in 122
BC
(cf. Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
2. 96). A later one around the time of Caesar’s death was treated as a portent (Virgil,
Georgics
1. 471 ff.). Vesuvius at this date appeared extinct. ‘Longinus’ in his treatise
On the Sublime
(35. 4, date uncertain) remarks on our wonder at ‘the craters of Etna in eruption, hurling up rocks and whole hills from their depths and some-times shooting forth rivers of that earth-born, spontaneous fire’: there is a poem devoted to the subject amongst the works in the ‘Appendix Vergiliana’ ascribed to Virgil. Volcanoes were often discussed along with earthquakes and other ‘meteorological’ phenomena (e.g. Aristotle,
Meteorology
367
^a
, Strabo,
Geography
1. 3. 16 (based on Posidonius) ) but also in a more general context of marvels (e.g. Pliny 2. 236 ff.). They do not seem to be discussed in the
Letter to Pythocles
, but there may be a missing section.

660
The fiery rash
: erysipelas, see below on 1167.

670
the realms of heaven | Are set on fire
: possibly just a reference to the glow of the sky from the lava, but the ancients were aware that lightning sometimes accompanies eruptions because of electrical discharges from the clouds above the crater: cf. Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 30. 1.

681
Etna’s mighty furnaces
: recalling Hephaestus’ forge in mythology (see e.g. Aeschylus,
Prometheus Bound
363 ff.), but the role of a combination of wind and fire is similar to that in a blacksmith’s forge (cf. Aristotle,
Meteorology
366
^a
).

687
heated in fury
: the description recalls the myths of the Titan Typhoeus and the giant Enceladus, said to be imprisoned under Etna: see e.g. Pindar,
Pythian
1. 15 ff.

694–5
the sea | Breaks on the mountain’s roots
: the Mediterranean volcanoes are all on the coast, and the sea frequently figured in explanations of both volcanoes and earthquakes. Aristotle (
Meteorology
366
^a
) comments that in Sicily the sea is thought to run in channels beneath the earth, and to drive violent winds back into it, while Posidonius also associated volcanic activity with movements of the sea (cf. Strabo 6. 2. 11, Seneca,
Natural Questions
2. 26. 4–7).