The sources of De Rerum Natura

1. Lucretius 2 authority · 3 extended 5 citations · 23 passages

   book 2 6 passages anchored here · book 3 4 passages anchored here · book 4 10 passages anchored here · book 6 3 passages anchored here

   Lucretius repeatedly invokes conclusions he 'has taught' or 'proved' earlier in the poem as authoritative premises for the present argument, constituting self-citation of his own prior teaching.

   And since I've taught what the mind's nature is,

2. Annales Ennius 1 neutral 1 citation · 11 passages

   book 1 11 passages anchored here

   Ennius is cited as a poetic authority on the afterlife and metempsychosis; Lucretius neither fully endorses nor refutes his claims but reports them as part of the background of competing views about the soul.

   Yet Ennius too in everlasting verse

Each stands at a single passage. The chapter carries the anchors.

book 1 5 sources

Doctrine of homeomeria · Doctrine that all things press to the centre · Epicurean physics / Epicurus's teachings · On Nature / Peri Physeos (Empedocles) · On Nature / Peri Physeos (Heraclitus)

book 2 3 sources

Epicurean physics / doctrine of atoms and void · popular belief that the gods govern the seasons and harvests · the myth/cult of the Magna Mater (Cybele) as told by Greek poets

book 3 6 sources

De Rerum Natura (earlier books/prior teaching of Epicurus as transmitted by the poet) · Doctrine of the soul as 'harmony' · Theory of alternating body/soul particle interweaving · Traditional depictions of souls in the underworld · myths of the underworld (Tantalus, Tityus, Sisyphus, Danaids, Cerberus, Furies, Tartarus) · philosophical doctrine of atomism / Epicureanism

book 5 8 sources

Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees · De Rerum Natura (philosophical doctrine) · art of Greek astrologers · atomist doctrine on causes of stellar motion · charted diagrams of the zodiac · myth of Phaethon and the elemental war of fire and water · oracles of the Pythia at Delphi · reported dream-visions and deathbed confessions

book 6 4 sources

popular/folk belief about the gate of Orcus and soul-drawing under-gods · teachings of Epicurus (unnamed sage's doctrine) · unspecified Etrurian oracular scrolls (fulgural/lightning-divination texts) · unspecified poetic tradition on Pallas and the Acropolis

The harvest records where a citation is made: the paragraph in the citing book, and the book that paragraph stands in. It does not record which page of this book is meant. Where the citing text names a locus, you will find it in the quotation.

1. The Rights of War and Peace Hugo Grotius 1 authority 1 citation

   ch. 24

   Lucretius is explicitly cited for calling the earth a common grave.

   “In the same manner Lucretius calls the earth “a prolific parent and a common grave.

2. Letters to Lucilius Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 refuted 1 citation · 2 passages

   letter 110 2 passages anchored here

   Seneca explicitly says 'But it is false, Lucretius' before restating and correcting the claim, marking a refutation of the literal point even while retaining the image

   we have made all things darkness for ourselves.

3. On Tranquillity of Mind Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 endorsed 1 citation · 2 passages

   on tranquillity of mind 2 passages anchored here

   The passage explicitly attributes the quoted line to Lucretius and Seneca builds directly upon its truth in the following paragraph.

   'Thus does each man forever flee himself.

4. De Anima Tertullian 1 authority 1 citation

   de anima

   Lucretius' line is directly quoted as authoritative support for the principle underlying the soul's corporeality.

   But Chrysippus too lends him a hand, laying it down that corporeal things can in no way be deserted by incorporeal ones, since they are not even touched by them — whence Lucretius too says, ‘For nothing but body can touch or be touched’ — and that the body, being deserted by the soul, is affected by death.