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HEAD-FAKE: TWO JOKES IN LUCRETIUS 3.136–50

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2019

Michael McOsker
Michael McOsker*
Affiliation:
Ohio Wesleyan University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Towards the beginning of Book 3, Lucretius starts his description of the soul. According to Epicurus, the soul is divided into two, an irrational part, which is coextensive with the body, and a rational part, the ‘mind’, which is located in the chest. This position is a relic from an earlier, non–philosophical tradition, and was adopted by several different philosophers. But Alexandrian doctors would soon correctly locate the mind in the head, and later Epicureans would have to defend an increasingly uncomfortable and out-of-date position.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 903 - 904
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019

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References

1 Demetrius Laco does so at PHerc. 1012, cols. 42–7, with a citation of Zeno, probably the scholarch Zeno of Sidon who was his contemporary. For an edition of this papyrus with translation and commentary, see Puglia, E., Aporie testuali ed esegetiche in Epicuro (Naples, 1987)Google Scholar. For the medical discovery, see Cambiano, G., ‘Philosophy, science and medicine’, in Algra, K., Barnes, J., Mansfeld, J. and Schofield, M. (edd.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 585–613Google Scholar, at 601.

2 See Sanders, K., ‘Mens and emotion: De Rerum Natura 3.136–46’, CQ 58 (2008), 362–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Heinze, R., T. Lucretius Carus: De Rerum Natura Buch III (Leipzig, 1897)Google Scholar, 68—followed by Bailey, C., Titi Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Oxford, 1947)Google Scholar, 2.1012—calls the phrase quasi caput ‘nicht eben glücklich’, and thinks that the use of caput is an intentional protest against the rival theory. Kenney, E.J., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura Book III (Cambridge, 2014 2), 96Google Scholar finds a near personification, and Brown, P.M., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura III (Warminster, 1997)Google Scholar, 109 notes: ‘vivid, figurative language’. Ernout, A. and Robin, L., Lucrèce, De la nature, Livres III–IV (Paris, 1962 2)Google Scholar, 27 just provide philological data. No one thinks that this passage is funny. But people do find humour, or at least satire, in Lucretius: Bailey (this note), 1.8 recognizes a ‘vein of satire’, and Holtsmark, E.N., ‘Lucretius and the fools’, CJ 63 (1968), 260–1Google Scholar suggests that Lucretius intentionally placed inanis and solidum–stolidi, his own technical terms for the void and solid matter, in equivalent metrical position throughout 1.1–642 to refer mockingly to those who had different metaphysics, which is definitely extremely amusing.

4 So Ernout and Robin (n. 3), 29 suggest ad loc.

5 So Brown (n. 3), 109 ad loc.