Lucretius' exposition of the doctrine of images

Abstract

In Book 4 of the De rerum natura Lucretius gives an account of the Epicurean doctrine of sensation which in its main outlines is clear enough. But while the outlines are clear, it is not easy to see how some of the details fit into place, and the relevance of certain passages to their context has been much disputed. Editors have tried to solve these problems by boldly transposing lines from one place to another, or by marking certain passages as later additions not fully adjusted to their context. Book 4, being one of the least finished of the six books of the poem, was particularly open to this sort of treatment, and editors have been tempted to do for Lucretius what he did not live to do for himself. Nevertheless, although Book 4 clearly did not receive the poet's ultima manus, it is not sub stantially incomplete, and there is no reason to shy away from diffi culties by appealing to the unfinished state of the work. In this paper I shall argue that Lucretius' exposition of the doctrine of simulacra in 4.26-215 conforms to Epicurus' treatment of the subject in the Letter to Herodotus (46-48) and in the second book of the fTepi cpuaEcos and that, although the writing is uneven, the structure of the argument as it stands is coherent and satisfactory. In par ticular, I propose to examine three difficult passages which seem at first sight to interrupt the logic of the poet's argument.