Work on this article was undertaken while on leave in the first semester of 1994, first as a Visiting Scholar at Brown University, Providence, and subsequently as an Academic Visitor at King's College, Cambridge. I thank the Committee on Outside Studies Programs at La Trobe University for granting me this leave; thanks are due also to Professor David Konstan of Brown University and Dr John Henderson of King's College for their assistance and support. Further thanks to John Henderson for reading an earlier draft and for his comments, which were, as always, perceptive and stimulating.

Like many others I was saddened by the death of John Sullivan, who was unfailingly generous with his hospitality when I visited Santa Barbara; I appreciate the opportunity to offer my contribution to this collection of essays in his memory.

1. I have used ‘image’ as the translation for the Latin imago in this and the following passage in order to emphasise that the same Latin word is being used in both cases. However, in what follows I have left it untranslated, as the different contexts in which it is used would necessitate a different English word. Its basic meaning is ‘image’ in the sense of ‘likeness’ (as one might say of a portrait ‘it’s a good likeness’); however, it has two particular significations of importance to this essay: (1) the wax death-mask of a famous ancestor (of which aristocratic households had sizeable collections) stored in the atrium and paraded at funerals and (2) the thin outer layer which according to the Epicureans all physical objects constantly emit, thus enabling vision to occur (one of Lucretius’ translations of the Greek word eidolōn). In the rhetorical theory of the 50’s BCE it meant either the ‘imaging’ of an individual (usually by means of what we would call ‘simile’) to create a good or bad impression by association (see Rhet. Her. 4.62.15; Cic. De Or. 2.66.265f.) or one of a series of ‘images’ which the orator creates for himself and locates spatially in his mind in order to remember the details of a complicated case and the contents of his speech (Rhet. Her. 3.16.29–24.40; Cic. De Or. 2.87.356–88.360).

2. See for example Calvino, I., Six Memos for the Next Millennium, tr Creagh, P. (London 1992), 57Google Scholar: ‘We live in an unending rainfall of images. The most powerful media transform the world into images and multiply it by means of the phantasmagoric play of mirrors.’

3. So that, for example, in a consumer society such as ours, where economic growth is regarded as necessary for our continued well-being, those who are not ‘economically growing’ as individuals or who are dependent for whatever reason on community welfare are regarded as morally and socially inferior. The images that bombard us from the commercial world ‘promote and legitimate’ the consumerist lifestyle: cf. the second definition of ideology offered by Eagleton, T. (Ideology: An Introduction [London and New York 1991], 29Google Scholar) as ‘ideas and beliefs…which symbolise the conditions and life-experiences of a specific, socially significant group or class’. Earlier, in discussing the view of Thompson, J.B. (Studies in the Theory of Ideology [Cambridge 1984], 4Google Scholar) that ‘to study ideology…is to study the ways in which meaning (or signification) serves to sustain relations of domination’, Eagleton writes (op. cit., 5f., emphasis original): ‘A dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalising and universalising such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic; and obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself.’ It will be useful to bear these remarks in mind when considering the way in which Cicero has Scipio present his views in the DRP.

4. It is when Agamemnon prepares himself to go into battle at the start of his ‘mini-aristeia’ in Book 11 that we have the second of the Iliad’s four long formulaic ‘arming’ descriptions (11.16–46). These elaborately detailed passages constitute a narrative pattern set up by the first of them (Paris preparing for the duel with Menelaus at 3.330–39) in which the common element is the implication that the person concerned is dressing up to play a part that is beyond him (Paris as a typical warrior, Agamemnon as commander, Patroclus as Achilles and Achilles [in divine armour] as a god).

5. So masterly that it has persuaded a far wider audience than that at which it was originally directed. In fact its purpose is not to persuade the reader that Athens was really like this, but to underscore Pericles’ statesmanlike qualities—like Lincoln in the ‘Gettysburg Address’ he knows exactly what is appropriate for the occasion—and to give his readers an insight into the Athenian ideology. This like all the other speeches in Thucydides’ history must be seen in the light of the author’s programmatic statement at 1.22; this is the sort of speech that is appropriate for a politician like Pericles to give on an occasion such as this. That the lofty democratic ideals expressed in this speech are an expression of a dominant ideology rather than a factual account is shown by Thucydides not just in the narrative of the plague that immediately follows but also by his analysis of Pericles’ place in Athenian politics (2.65—note esp. 2.65.9: logōi men dēmokratia, ergōi de hupo tou prōtou andros arkhē, ‘in name a democracy, but in fact rule by the number one man’) and by what occurred when the people really took control after Pericles’ death.

6. That Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and Cicero’s De Re Publico are products of and responses to the political and intellectual crisis of the late 60’s and 50’s is most convincingly argued by Minyard, J.D., Lucretius and the Late Republic: An Essay in Roman Intellectual History (Leiden 1985Google Scholar). The question of the precise relationship between these two major literary figures is harder to determine. It is usually assumed that Cicero is responding to Lucretius (see e.g. Rawson, E., Cicero: A Portrait [London 1975], 49Google Scholar), and the virulent attack on the Epicurean pursuit of tranquillitas and otium with which the DRP as we have it opens could be taken as evidence for this view. Clearly Cicero was aware of what Lucretius was doing; he had seen extracts from or drafts of the DRN as far back as 54, as the well-known letter to Quintus shows (QFr 2.9), and if Jerome is to be believed was responsible for the publication of the poem on the author’s death in c.51, the same year that the Republic itself was completed and published (see Att. 5.12.2, Fam. 8.1.4). But it could equally be argued that Lucretius is taking up points raised by Cicero, particularly with regard to the way in which we respond to the view of order in the heavens, our perception of god/the gods and the use of historical exempla. The most likely explanation is that each was aware of what the other was thinking and writing; we know this was the case with Cicero in respect of Lucretius, and there seems little reason to doubt that the reverse was also true. As Minyard points out (op. cit. 72–76), the intellectual and social elite of Rome in the period in question was not all that large and lack of awareness of significant ‘work in progress’ would be more surprising than the reverse.

7. A convenient anthology of pronouncements reflecting republican ideology drawn from Cicero’s works is Lacey, W.K. and Wilson, B.W., Res Publico: Roman Politics and Society According to Cicero (Oxford 1970).Google Scholar

8. Cf. e.g. Fuhrmann, M., Cicero and the Roman Republic, tr. Yuill, W.E. (Oxford 1992; orig. German ed. publ. 1990), 113Google Scholar: ‘The dialogues of the 50s, with their mood of mingled hope and despair, were designed not only as a kind of surrogate action to help the author overcome grave disappointments; they also appealed to the sense of responsibility of his contemporaries and were a final attempt to point the way to better things.’

9. I use the Latin title (abbreviated to DRP) in order (a) to distinguish it from Plato’s Politeia, which is normally (if somewhat misleadingly) entitled Republic in English and (b) to draw attention to the semantic link between this work and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (abbreviated to DRN) which is not present in the English versions The Republic and The Nature of Things or (as Rolfe Humphries renders it) The Way Things Are. Cf. Wood, N., Cicero’s Social and Political Thought (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1988), 126Google Scholar: ‘In general it is worth remembering that in Rome the state was considered to be a ‘thing’ (another meaning of res), a property to be owned.’ In this sense both Lucretius and Cicero are exploring rerum natura; see in particular DRP 2.33.57, where the conceptual link between the general rerum natura and the specific rerum publicarum natura is clearly implied.—It should also be borne in mind that what follows is an analysis of a text, not a collection of views expressed at different times in different works; readers interested in the latter approach should consult Wood (op. cit.) and Lacey and Wilson (n.7 above).

10. There is no doubt as to the ‘implied readership’ of the DRP, but what of the DRN? Farrington’s notion that poetry of this kind has a real (as distinct from a posed) proselytising function and is therefore directed at a wider audience (Farrington, B., Science and Politics in the Ancient World [London 1939], 184f.Google Scholar) is unrealistic; to claim as he does that ‘poetry would reach a wider audience than prose…as a vehicle for philosophy’ and that this was why not only Lucretius but also Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles wrote in verse (ibid. 214n.9) seems to me quite wrong. One can hardly imagine a farmer going home after a hard day’s work in the fields and relaxing with a copy of Lucretius: that is the stuff of city-dwellers’ pastoral fantasy (cf Hor. Sat. 2.2). The choice of Memmius as addressee makes clear what should in any case have been obvious from the medium in which Lucretius chose to operate: he is writing for the educated elite, the ‘movers and shakers’ of the political world, who, like Memmius, liked to regard themselves as ‘culturally aware’ (for Memmius’ literary interests cf. Cic. Brut. 70.247, Ov. Tr. 2.433f., and his relations with Catullus and Cinna); he is also, like all poets, writing for other poets, as the dialogue with Catullus makes clear (cf. in particular the closing section of DRN 4, on which see Kenney, E.J., ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnem. 23 [1970], 366–92 at 380–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar). On the readership issue generally, see now Gale, M.R., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge 1994), 89fGoogle Scholar. Epicurus wrote in prose, and in order to reach the widest possible audience pared his system down to three short epistles and a set of 40 ‘principal doctrines’: that is the way to proselytise, as the early Christians-were also well aware. See Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 35–37 and Clay, D., Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca 1983), 56–81.Google Scholar

11. On the way in which the image of Rome in its optimum condition is represented as being handed down from generation to generation and so becoming itself an exemplum of mos maiorum (‘the way our forefathers did things’), see Minyard (n.6 above), 31f.

12. The basic meaning of this verb is ‘present for inspection’; see OLD s.v. la. On the contrast between Cicero and Plato cf. How, W.W., ‘Cicero’s Ideal in his De Re Publico’, JRS 20 (1930), 24–42Google Scholar at 26; on the significance of the fact that Cicero has a practising statesman rather than a philosopher as principal speaker, see Morrall, J.B., ‘Cicero as a Political Thinker’, HT 32.3 (1982), 33–37 at 34f.Google Scholar

13. All these terms are used to describe the leading statesman in what remains of DRP 5; see 5.3.5, 5.4.6 (rector), 5.6.8 (moderator), 5.7.9 (princeps and summus uir).

14. Cf. DRP 1.34.51, where Scipio’s remarks about opes taking over from uirtutes as the criterion of eligibility for ruling have specific relevance to Rome at the time of the first triumvirate—as indeed do Laelius’ about triumuiri seditiosissimi at 1.19.31.

15. Cf. Scipio’s paraphrase of Plato’s caricature of democracy run wild at DRP 1.43.66f.

16. For a recent discussion of the mixed constitution, see Wood (n.9 above), 158–75.

17. Cf. De Oratore 1.45.198, where a quotation from Ennius’ Annates is simply ascribed to summus poeta, ‘the top poet’. On Lucretius’ allusions to Ennius, see p.80 below.

18. Referred to by Scipio as ‘our Polybius’ (Polybium nostrum) at 2.14.27, where his historical accuracy is highly commended, and as ‘our guest Polybius’ (Polybius noster hospes) at 4.3.3. At 1.21.34 Laelius hints that Polybius’ views on the mixed constitution derive from Scipio’s own discourses on the subject. Much of what survives of Polybius Book 6 is devoted to theoretical matters; on the mixed constitution, see esp. 6.11.11. That Scipio should have this close intellectual relationship with a Greek historian is ideologically significant in itself.

19. The thematic or ideational link between Pericles and the great Roman statesmen of the good old days is brought out in the attack on comedy at 4.10.11. Cf. A. Michel, ‘Cicéron et la crise de la république’, BAGB 1990, 155–62 at 158f., who argues that Cicero’s princeps marks a direct reference to Thucydides’ prōtos anēr (see Thuc. 2.65.9 quoted n.5 above).—On the qualities and the role of the rector cf. Sabine, G.H. and Smith, S.B., Marcus Tullius Cicero On the Commonwealth (Columbus 1929), 48–51Google Scholar; Coleman, R.G., ‘The Dream of Cicero’, PCPS 10 (1964), 8–11Google Scholar; Colish, M.L., The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages I: Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden 1990), 93–95.Google Scholar

20. For the mirror as a metaphor for political image-making cf. the opening sentence of Seneca’s De dementia: scribere de dementia, Nero Caesar, institui, ut quodam modo speculi uice fungerer et te tibi ostenderem, ‘I have decided, Nero Caesar, to write about clemency in order that I might use it in place of a mirror and reveal you to yourself.’ When Lucretius comes to write about mirrors at DRN 4.269–323 he goes to great lengths to ensure that we are not deluded by what we see (or think we see) in them.

21. Not to mention the poem De Consulatu Suo which even succeeded in being offensive to Roman readers because of its blatant self-advertisement (Quintilian Inst. 11.1.24), consider Laws 3.6.14 where Cicero asks where such a person as Demetrius of Phalerum, the only true philosopher-statesman known to history, might be found, and modestly allows Atticus to suggest that he is not a million miles from where they are now sitting.

22. The Roman concept of the ‘uses of history’ was of course a very moral one: one uses the exempla of history—particularly as instantiated in the actions/res gestae of leading citizens—in order to learn what actions are worthy of praise or blame and thus to be imitated or avoided. Cf. e.g. Cic. Arch. 6.14 (where historical exempla are explicitly referred to as imagines), Tac. Ann. 3.65; more generally on the moral lessons of history see e.g. the moralising prefaces of Sallust’s monographs and Livy’s monumental history ab urbe condita. The image of famous men as a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected is a striking extension of this view. On Cicero’s view of the importance of history, see Mitchell, T.N., ‘Cicero on the Moral Crisis of the Late Republic’, Hermathena 136 (1984), 21–41 at 36.Google Scholar

23. Rep. 369b.

24. DRN 5.1019ff.; Scipio’s words (eius autem prima causa coeundi est non tarn imbecillitas quam naturalis quaedam hominum quasi congregatio, ‘the first cause of such a coming together was not so much weakness as a sort of what we might call gregariousness that occurs naturally in human beings’) echo, and thus suggest an attempt at direct rebuttal of, DRN 5.1023 (imbe-cillorum esse aequum miserier omnis, ‘that it is fair for everyone to pity the weak’).

25. Cicero’s own adherence to the belief that the orderly movement of the heavenly bodies is an ‘outward and visible sign’ of the controlling influence of divine reason is shown by his choosing at the two ends of his philosophical career to translate two Greek works in which this is a central tenet: the Phainomena of Aratus (before 86) and the Timaeus of Plato (late 45 at the earliest). Cf. also De Consulatu Suo fr. 2 (Soubiran) lines 6–10 (quoted at De Div. 1.10.17).

26. Cf. Laws 2.4.9ff., where this Stoic-derived analogy between ‘divine’ or ‘natural’ law and human law is spelt out in detail. For more detailed discussion of this idea see Sabine and Smith (n.19 above), 48–51; Hammond, M., City-State and World-State in Greek and Roman Political Theory Until Augustus (Cambridge MA 1951), 137Google Scholar; Hunt, H.A.K., The Humanism of Cicero (Melbourne 1954), 198fGoogle Scholar.; Wood (n.9 above), 70–89; Colish (n.19 above), 92–100. On contemplation of ‘the order of the heavenly bodies’ (caelestium ordinem) as an incentive to moral action at the individual level see e.g. De Sen. 21.77 (Cato speaking).

27. … sed tamen uincit ipsa rerum publicarum natura saepe rationem.

28. Cf. Luck, G., ‘Studia Divina in Vita Humana: On Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” and its Place in Graeco-Roman Philosophy’, HThR 49 (1956), 207–18Google Scholar at 208: ‘For Cicero, the great statesman is the living embodiment of the Universe as a natural order, thus fulfilling on earth the function of the Cosmic God.’ On the universe as a res publico ruled by the gods in Stoic thought, see e.g. DND 2.31.78.

29. Cf. Roconi, A., Cicerone: Somnium Scipionis (Florence 1967), 76f.Google Scholar, who describes this god as ‘non un deus che è princeps, ma piuttosto un princeps che è deus a differenza dei principes delle civitates terrene modellata sulla società cosmica’. The idea has Stoic associations: cf. Colish (n.26 above), 92. Büchner, however, denies the analogy: ‘er heisst&princeps, sicher nicht im Vergleich mit dem in de rep. gesuchten rector, tutor, princeps, sondern als Initiator und Ursprung aller Ordnung’ ( Büchner, K., M. Tullius Cicero De Re Publico: Kommentar [Heidelberg 1984], 459).Google Scholar

30. An explanation more thematically relevant than Powell’s observation that Scipio could have been no more than two years old when Africanus died: Powell, J.G.F., Cicero: Laelius On Friendship and The Dream of Scipio (Warminster 1990), 150.Google Scholar

31. The extent to which Scipio dwells on the probability that in Romulus’ case the story of his becoming a god may be true (2.10.17–20) is a foreshadowing of this: cf. Büchner (n.29 above), 185. That on the other hand those who are slaves to uoluptas (who can hardly be other than the pursuers of tranquillitas and otium of 1.1.2) and consequently ‘violate the laws of gods and men’ are doomed to multa saecula (‘many ages’) of suffering in the sublunary sphere (6.26.29) might be seen as the ultimate in the ideology of exclusion; cf. Eagleton (quoted n.3 above).

32. The ‘usefulness’ of religion as a means of maintaining social order is discussed more fully in the Laws (see esp. 2.7.16, 2.11.26); cf. Farrington (n.10 above), 203–07, and Kroy-mann, J., ‘Cicero und die römische Religion’, in Michel, A. and Verdière, R. (eds), Ciceroniana: Hommages à Kazimierz Kumaniecki (Leiden 1975), 116–28 at 122fGoogle Scholar. In Farrington’s view, Lucretius’ attack on traditional religion was an attempt to destroy its ideological function and thus subvert the Ciceronian position in much the same way as Epicurus had sought to subvert the Platonist in the Greek philosophical tradition.

33. Cf. e.g. Hor. Odes 3.5.1–4 (analogy between Jupiter and Augustus) and the more parodic rendition of what was obviously a commonplace in Augustan propaganda at Ov. Met. 1.204f. and 15.857–60.

34. In Cat. IV was delivered there; on the concordia ordinum see esp. 15–16. Vasaly, A., Representations: Images of the World in Cicero’s Oratory (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1993), 41–59Google Scholar, points out how Cicero makes rhetorical capital out of the location in which in Cat. I is delivered (the temple of Jupiter Stator) by relating its status as cultural icon to the content of his speech; he does the same with the temple of Concord in in Cat. IV.

35. Cicero had begun his introduction to Book 5 by quoting Ennius’ famous line moribus antiquis res stat Romana uirisque, ‘it is by ancient customs and [real] men that the Roman state stands’ (Annates 156 Sk.).

36. For Cicero cf. Coleman (n.19 above), 14, and Keyes, C.W., ‘Original Elements in Cicero’s Ideal Constitution’, AJP 42 (1921), 309–23Google Scholar at 323; for Virgil see Boyle, A.J., The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil (Leiden 1986), 112f., 172–76.Google Scholar

37. The ominous echo of the lex Valeria establishing the dictatorship of Sulla for that same purpose would not be lost on Cicero’s readership (see Appian BC 1.99). Powell (n.30 above) notes the echo but attaches no significance to it.

38. The various accusations are summarised by Powell (n.30 above), 82f. Historians are now inclined to dispute the view that there were ‘suspicious circumstances’ surrounding the death of the younger Scipio; see Büchner (n.29 above), 457. This however is irrelevant for our understanding of Cicero’s work; in its terms, the circumstances of Scipio’s death were highly suspicious.—One might note in passing that Cicero’s other major philosophical work of the 50s, the De Oratore, published in late 55, displays a similarly disturbing (and, since the author himself draws attention to this disturbing aspect in the preface to Book 3, similarly deliberate) choice of protagonists. Of the seven named participants in this dialogue—set, like that of the DRP, at a time of respite from turbulent political activity, this time in 91—only one survived the political violence of the following four years. See Wilkinson, L.P., ‘Cicero and the Relationship of Oratory to Literature’, in Kenney, E.J. and Clausen, W.V. (eds), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature II.2: The Late Republic (Cambridge 1982), 83.Google Scholar

39. Cf. Boyle (n.36 above), 142–46.

40. According to Wood (n.9 above), 179, ‘Cicero&is a hard-headed politician&seldom deluding himself as to what goes on and can go on in the harsh and brutal forum of Roman government. In a momentary fit of wistfulness, nostalgia for past times and anxiety over the catastrophic turn of public affairs, he might in retirement at one of his rural retreats conjure up a dream—as he does in the Republic—of what should be the case.’ The content and structure of the DRP, however, suggest something more anguished than mere ‘wistful nostalgia’. The tone is that of a Pericles who is only too aware that his vision is one of a lost world.

41. As noted by Bailey, C., Titi Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Oxford 1947), ii.591.Google Scholar

42. Cf. p.71 above. On Lucretius’ allusions to Ennius and his relation to the epic tradition generally see Gale (n.10 above), 106–14, and Hardie, P., Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986), 193–219.Google Scholar

43. Plutarch, Flamininus 12.6f. Cf. also the epigram of Polystratus (Anth. Pal. 7.297—late second century BCE) on the sack of Corinth by L. Mummius in 146 where the Romans are similarly called Aineiadai. On the development of the Aeneas legend and its importance in the ideology of the Roman state see Gruen, E., Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), ch.l.Google Scholar

44. The first line’s final word uoluptas (‘pleasure’) may seem out of place here, and is usually interpreted as if it were some kind of Epicurean ‘code’ to signify that we should read the opening lines as other than what they represent themselves to be (see e.g. Bailey [n.41 above], ii.589–91). But there is no reason for a first reader to impute an Epicurean meaning to it; the word is much more designed to evoke the Homeric imago of ‘laughter-loving Aphrodite’ and the pleasures of love-making enjoyed in Homer by both gods and mortals (see esp. the story of Ares and Aphrodite in Odyssey 8, which has an obvious relevance here). Second readers of course will pick up the double entendre; since all commentators are second readers, all do so. See e.g. Elder, J.P., ‘Lucretius 1.1–49’, TAPA 85 (1954), 88–120 at 100–06.Google Scholar

45. Annates 109 and 135 Sk.; the echo is noted by Bailey (n.41 above) ad loc.

46. ‘The proem is constructed in the traditional form of a Greek hymn’ (Bailey [n.41 above], ii.591).

47. For the way in which the opening lines of the poem appeal to the patriotic sentiments of specifically Roman readers cf. Nichols, J.H., Epicurean Political Philosophy: The De Rerum Natura of Lucretius (Ithaca 1976), 51fGoogle Scholar. However, while they may pose as a captatio bene-uolentiae (product of the poet’s didactic persona), their true purpose is to convey to readers important truths about themselves and the way their thinking is culturally conditioned. Cf. Conte, G.B., Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s Encyclopaedia, tr. Most, G.W. (Baltimore and London 1994: orig. Italian ed. publ. 1991), 32Google Scholar: ‘It is as though Lucretius&were reminding the reader that thought should look over its shoulder and not forget what it had to free itself from in order to become thought.’

48. Cicero takes the bait wonderfully here in his introduction to DRP 1: ‘This one thing I assert, that so great is the need [necessitatem] of virtue and so great the love of defending common safety [amorem ad communem salutem defendendam] given by nature to the human race that that force has conquered all the enticements of pleasure and tranquillity [uoluptatis otiique]’ (DRP 1.1.1 fin.). In a context in which the orthodox Epicurean position is being attacked, it is hard to believe that Cicero is not here seizing on Lucretius’ own words to advance the ‘civic duty’ line.

49. On the way in which this description evokes the imago of the giants’ assault on heaven— traditionally an archetypically impious and hubristic attack, here inverted to become a glorious and liberating exploit—see Gale (n.10 above), 42–45 and 192f. It is an excellent example of the way in which Lucretius demands a radical reorientation of our thinking.

50. On the nil admirari theme cf. Jope, J., ‘The Didactic Unity and Emotional Import of Book 6 of De Rerum Natura’, Phoenix 43 (1989), 16–34 at 25–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. See 5.795–825, 1.1–20, 1.250–61 respectively.

52. See esp. 2.644–60 and the remarks thereon of West, D., The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh 1969), 109–12Google Scholar. The immediate ideological function of this passage is to draw attention to the false premise on which a major Roman religious festival (the Megalesia) was based.

53. The others are simulacrum (‘likeness’, the most commonly used), figura (‘shape’) and effigies (‘representation’)—the last two much less common. For a discussion of Lucretius’ account of sense and mental perception, see e.g. Brown, R.D., Lucretius on Love and Sex (Leiden 1987), 13–28Google Scholar and bibliography there cited.

54. Cf. 2.434f.: tactus enim, tactus, pro diuum numina sanctajcorporis est sensus (‘for it is touch, touch, by the holy power of the gods, that is the sense-perception of the body’).

55. On the way in which this dream functions in the context of the Annates to make a statement about Ennius’ relation to the tradition, see Dominik, W., ‘From Greece to Rome: Ennius’ Annates’, in Boyle, A.J. (ed.), Roman Epic (London 1993), 39–42.Google Scholar The process by which Lucretius receives inspiration from the simulacrum of a dead Greek is of course utterly different, and the Ennian precedent is introduced here as a deliberate foil. For a discussion of the literary allusions in this passage (which go back to Hesiod's vision of the Muses at Theogony 22–34) and Lucretius' rejection of somnia (‘dreams’) as a source of poetic inspiration or information about rerum natura, see Kenney (n.10 above), 372ff., and Segal, C., ‘Dreams and Poets in Lucretius’, ICS 15 (1990), 253–62.Google Scholar

56. Iliad 23.103–07. Lucretius deliberately has Ennius (in oratio obliqua) echo Achilles’ words in the last two lines of this passage: Achilles’ goösa te muromenē te (‘groaning and shedding tears’, Il. 23.106) becomes Ennius’ lacrimas effundere salsas (‘pour forth salt tears’); Achilles’ moi hekast’ epetellen (‘gave me instructions about everything’. Il. 23.107) becomes Ennius’ rerum naturam expandere dictis (‘unfold the nature of things in words’). On the irony in the echoes of Homer here see Brown, P.M. (ed.), Lucretius De Rerum Natura I (Bristol 1984), 68.Google Scholar

57. Credo equidem ex hoc quod eramus locuti; fit enim fere, ut cogitationes sermonesque nostri pariant aliquid in somno&(‘Indeed I believe [the dream arose] out of what we had been talking about; for it is a common enough experience that the subject of our thoughts and conversations give rise to something in our sleep’, DRP 6.10.10). Cf DRN 4.962–72.

58. Lucretius’ explanation of how dream figures appear to move in spite of the fact that all individual imagines are static is given at 4.794–815.

59. To the objection that Lucretius is as absorbed by the imago of Epicurus as Scipio is by those of his ancestors, holding him up as the model that he wishes to follow and by whom he is inspired (cf. DRN 3.5ff., for example), the response is that as with the use of poetic imagery and motifs drawn from traditional religion and mythology, Lucretius is well aware of what he is doing. One can only deal with imagines safely if one understands what they are and how they work, and one can only do that if one has a clear knowledge of rerum natura untrammelled by ideological preconceptions. Cf. Nussbaum, M., ‘Beyond Obsession and Disgust: Lucretius' Genealogy of Love’, Apeiron 24.4 (1989), 1–59 at 27–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60. Segal, C.P., Lucretius on Death and Anxiety: Poetry and Philosophy in the De Rerum Natura (Princeton 1990), 171–75Google Scholar, discusses important aspects of this passage from Book 3 in terms of the imagines on which Lucretius has chosen to focus, but does not raise this significant general point.

61. Imagines in fact that inspire love and the desire to imitate, not patrotic pride and the desire to compete. See esp. 3.3–8. As one who has extended our intellectual imperium to encompass the infinite universe, Epicurus has done more than any conquering Roman general to improve the lot of suffering humanity. Lucretius here and elsewhere (see esp. 1.62–79, on which cf. Anderson, W., ‘Discontinuity in Lucretian Symbolism’, TAPA 91 [1960], 1–29 at 16f.Google Scholar) flirts with investing the imago of the Greek sage with the ideology of imperialism, both as conqueror and deified hero, but deliberately undercuts his own imagery by refusing to include the one element a Roman would absolutely insist on: the name.

62. We are not so much concerned here with the way in which mankind acquired the use of speech: that is a function of the variety of sounds that can be formed by the human voice acting together with tongue and lips and the fact that human beings are creatures of ratio. See 4.549–71, 5.1028–90. However language developed, it is an observed fact that human beings now live in communities with well-developed linguistic systems. For a discussion of the Epicurean view of the development of language and the relation between words and things, see Konstan, D., Some Aspects of Epicurean Psychology (Leiden 1973), 45–51Google Scholar, and DeLacy, P., ‘The Epicurean Analysis of Language’, AJP 60 (1939), 85–92.Google Scholar

63. This learned familiarity with the motus animi set up by objects and the words which denote them is called prolēpsis in Epicurean terminology; the process of acquiring these is described at Diogenes Laertius 10.33.

64. For Epicurus ‘all language symbols refer ultimately to empirical facts’: DeLacy (n.62 above), 85.

65. For a list of these ideologically charged terms and an account of their relation to mos maiorum see Minyard (n.6 above), 9.

66. 1.196f., 817–29, 912–14, 2.688–99, 1013–18. This of course is an imago (in the sense of ‘simile’ or ‘analogy’) of elementary particles in compounds just as as the motes in a sunbeam are an imago of particles in free flight (2.112–24). The way in which Lucretius uses ‘words-and-letters’ as an illustration of the structure of matter has led to considerable interest in his use of words as representations of reality: see e.g. Friedlander, P., ‘Pattern of Sound and Atomic Theory in Lucretius’, AJP 62 (1941), 16–34Google Scholar; Snyder, J.M., Puns and Poetry in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (Amsterdam 1980Google Scholar); Dionigi, I., Lucrezio: Le parole e le cose (Bologna 1988Google Scholar); Traina, A. (ed), Lucrezio: L’atomo e la parola (Bologna 1990).Google Scholar

67. See esp. Minadeo, R., ‘The Formal Design of the De Rerum Natura’, Arion 4 (1965), 444–61Google Scholar, and The Lyre of Science (Detroit 1969Google Scholar), passim. Cf. more recently Edwards, M.J., ‘Aeternus Lepos: Venus, Lucretius, and the Fear of Death’, G&R 40 (1993), 68–78.Google Scholar

68. Cf pp.75f. above.

69. That is, those who seek to make political capital out of appearing to conform to traditional values—as for example ‘enlarging the empire’ (cf Furius’ remark that fines imperii pro-pagauit, ‘he extended the boundaries of the empire’, is a term of praise in funerary inscriptions [DRP 3.15.24]) as Caesar was at that very moment doing in Gaul. Caesar’s manipulation of the political process showed an excellent understanding of the importance of maintaining the proper image (the Commentarii were obviously designed to do just that).

70. Cf. Epicurus Kuriai Doxai 31–33.

71. That is, they exist to protect human beings from the evils of anarchy, not to provide a means for the ego-driven to achieve glory for themselves and power over others. On this stage of human political history see Nichols (n.46 above), 143–48, and Fowler, D.P., ‘Lucretius and Polities’, in Griffin, M. and Barnes, J. (eds), Philosophia Togata (Oxford 1989), 120–50 at 144f.Google Scholar

72. On Memmius’ shifting political allegiances and his corrupt campaign for the consulship in 54 see Bailey (n.41 above), ii.598.

73. ‘Running the people’s thing?’ (with obvious reference to Scipio’s definition of a res publico at DRP 1.25.39), Pers. Sat. 4.1—introducing a dialogue between philosopher and politician whose satiric ancestry goes back to Lucretius/Memmius at least as much as Socrates/ Alcibiades (see Sar.1.1 for the appropriate signal).

74. See e.g. 1.80–82, 102–06, 943–45.

75. On the significance of this introductory exchange cf Hardie (n,42 above), 72f.

76. ‘The problem of evil’ is of course created by those who think that the world should be ‘good’ or has been created/is being controlled by a ‘good’ god. As pointed out above, natura has no room for these human moral concepts. I do not therefore subscribe to the admittedly tempting view of Commager that the suffering of the plague victims is a symbol of the mental state of the unenlightened (Commager, H.S., ‘Lucretius’ Interpretation of the Plague’, HSCP 62 [1957], 105–18Google Scholar, supported by inter alios Segal [n.58 above], 234f., and Gale [n.10 above], 227f.), precisely because of Lucretius’ concentration on the way disease affects the mind (see 6.1156f., 1183, 1213f., 1232–34): it is hard to see how one can retain one’s philosophical beliefs and a proper perspective on things if one is suffering from delirium or amnesia (or Alzheimer’s disease). The way in which disease attacks the mind and spirit is frequently cited in Book 3 as proof that the soul is mortal (e.g. 459ff., 476ff., 487ff” 510ff., 819ff.); the plague offers graphic illustration of this.

77. For isonomia as an ideological term (= ‘equality before the law’) in ‘democratic’ Athens see Herodotus 5.37.2, echoed in kata tous nomous…pasi to ison of Pericles’ Funeral Oration (‘equality for everyone with respect to the laws’, Thuc. 2.37.1). In Epicurean physics, however, the word means ‘the principle of balance’, and signifies the observed phenomenon that matter (atoms) balances non-matter (void), that the imperishable (gods) balances the perishable (worldsystems), and (most relevant here) that noxious particles balance beneficial ones (cf. DRN 6.1093–96). The understanding of what meaningful sounds (phthoggoi) really denote is crucial in Epicurus’ epistemology (see Letter to Herodotus 37); if we do not ensure that we strip words of their ideological associations, we will certainly misconstrue what we use them to describe. If for example we talk about the ‘laws’ of physics, we must remove from the word ‘law’ all human connotations (‘law and order’, ‘legislation’, ‘prescription for socially acceptable conduct’); if we do not, we will fall into the ‘Paul Davies fallacy’ and regard the existence of physical ‘laws’ as evidence for the existence of a cosmic legislator, introducing concepts like ‘the mind of god’. Lucretius likewise transfers politically charged words such as concilium (‘assembly’) and foedus (‘pact’) into a physical context; this is not so much ‘social metaphor’ as claimed by Cabisius, G., ‘Social Metaphor and the Atomic Cycle in Lucretius’, CJ 80 (1984/ 85), 109–20Google Scholar, but rather giving these words a ‘grounding in objective reality’. Cf Fowler (n.71 above), 146–49. It is my contention that Lucretius similarly seeks to strip the Latin word imago of its cultural and ideological associations.

78. As represented by Lucretius in the prologue to DRN 3, the Epicurean vision of ultimate reality is matter moving through void as an ever-present activity: totum uideo per inane geri res (‘I see things happening through the entire void’, 3.17). By contrast, res gestae have nothing but contingent existence as euenta (‘accidents’) (1.471–82). Cf. Gale (n.10 above), 109f. Thus res geri is not, pace Carbisius (n.74 above, 113f.), a political metaphor derived from res gerere (‘to administer public affairs’) but the ultimate in objective reality and the final example of Lucretius’ de-ideologisation of language.