Lucretius and On the Nature of Things

Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99–c. 55 BCE) wrote one of the most remarkable works of Latin literature, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), a long poem in six books presenting Epicurus' philosophy to Roman readers. Lucretius explained that everything is made of atoms moving in the void, that atoms occasionally 'swerve' unpredictably, allowing for free will, and that the soul dies with the body.

He argued that fear of the gods and of death causes human misery, and that understanding nature frees us. He used vivid images, such as dust motes dancing in a sunbeam, to illustrate atomic motion. Little is known about his life. The poem nearly vanished in the Middle Ages, but in 1417 the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini found a manuscript in a German monastery, and its ideas fed into Renaissance and early modern thought about atoms, nature and religion.