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War, Death and Savagery in Lucretius: The Beasts of Battle in 5.1308-49

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Charles Segal
Charles Segal*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

‘Perhaps the most astonishing paragraph in the poem’ is Bailey's often quoted comment on 5.1308-49, the account of how men of the past tried to use wild beasts in war. ‘Fantastic’, ‘strange’, ‘bizarre’, ‘astonishing’, the product of ‘an intelligence fevered, perverted and cancerous’, a display of ‘obsessive exaltation’—such are the puzzled reactions of scholars to these disturbing lines.

The most recent commentator finds it full of ‘macabre and gory detail’ and ‘not integrated properly into its context’. And his reviewer's approval threatens to undo forty years' work on the patterns of thought, symbol and image in Lucretius: Bailey's biographical explanation, the poet's subjection to hallucination and even mental derangement, it is observed, ‘has never been satisfactorily refuted’. Even scholars who have sought to explain the passage rather than delete it as an interpolation or an aberration wonder whether the poet ‘has triumphed over the philosopher’ and therefore is called back to a more sober reality by the ‘recantation’ of 1341-49 (such things probably did not happen but might have, given the infinity of possible worlds).

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , January 1986 , pp. 1 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1986

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References

1. Bailey, Cyril (ed.), T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Oxford 1947Google Scholar), ad 1308–49 (iii.l529f.).

2. So, for instance, Ernout, A. and Robin, L. (eds.), Lucrèce, De Rerum Natura (Paris 1925-28Google Scholar), ad 1341–49; Perelli, Luciano, Lucrezio, poeta dell’ angoscia (Florence 1969), 49fGoogle Scholar. For a survey of similar views see Saylor, C.F., ‘Man, Animal, and the Bestial in Lucretius’, CJ 67 (1971-72), 310f.Google Scholar; McKay, K.L., ‘Animals in War and Isonomia’, AJP 85 (1964), 124Google Scholar; Costa, C.D.N, ed., Lucretius, De Rerum Natura V (Oxford 1984), 143Google Scholar.

3. Beye, C.R., ‘Lucretius and Progress’, CJ 68 (1962-63), 160–69, at 167Google Scholar.

4. Bonelli, Cuido, I motivi profondi della poesia Lucreziana, Collection Latomus 186 (Brussels 1984), 238Google Scholar.

5. Costa (n.2 above) ad loc.

6. Townend, G.B., reviewing Costa (preceding note) in CR 35 (1985), 274Google Scholar.

7. McKay (n.2 above), 127.

8. See Saylor (n.2 above), 306–16; Schrijvers, P.H., Horror ac divina voluptas: Études sur la poetique et la poesie de Lucrèce (Amsterdam 1970), 296–305Google Scholar; Kenney, E. J., ‘The Historical Imagination of Lucretius’, G&R n.s. 19 (1972), 12–24, esp. 19ffGoogle Scholar; De Grummond, W.W., ‘On the Interpretation of De Rerum Natura V 1308–49’, A&R 27 (1982), 50–56Google Scholar. For a brief defence see West, David, The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh 1969), 20 and 54Google Scholar.

9. For approaches along these lines see Bailey, Cyril, ‘The Mind of Lucretius’, A JP 61 (1940), 278–91Google Scholar; Friedländer, Paul, ‘The Pattern of Sound and Atomistic Theory in Lucretius’, AJP 62 (1941), 16–33Google Scholar; Elder, J.P., ‘Lucretius 1.1–49’, TAPA 85 (1954), 88–120, esp. 93ff.Google Scholar; Anderson, W.S., ‘Discontinuity in Lucretian Symbolism’, TAPA 91 (1960), 1–29Google Scholar; West (n.8 above), passim; Bollack, Mayotte, La raison de Lucrèce (Paris 1978), 268Google Scholar; Snyder, Jane, Puns and Poetry in Lucretius’ DeRerum Natura (Amsterdam 1980Google Scholar); Clay, Diskin, Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca NY 1983), 231ff. and 241ffGoogle Scholar. For ‘poetic truth’ in 5.1308ff. see Saylor (n.2 above), 306 and 313.

10. See especially 4.572ff. and 5.405ff.; in general Regenbogen, Otto, ‘Lukrez. Seine Gestalt in seinem Gedicht’ (1932) in Kleine Schriften, ed. F. Dirlmeier (Munich 1961), 370–75. CfGoogle Scholar. also 5.526–30, where Lucretius contrasts this world and what might happen in infinite worlds. For De Grummond (n.8 above, 55), lines 1341–49 show Lucretius’ self-consciousness of having ’ passed “beyond the pale”‘. The long account of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (1.82–100) is not followed by a palinode of the type mentioned above, but by a second-person address to Memmius, warning him of the dangers of being frightened by the myths of poets (1.102–6). This passage indicates the variety and flexibility of which Lucretius is capable in such palinodic passages. The phrase si fuit ut facerent is also a possible literary echo of the Homeric (Iliad 3.180 and 24.426).

11. For such working together of intellect and imagination see Anderson (n.9 above); West (n.8 above); Schrijvers (n.8 above). Also Amory, Anne, ‘Obscura de re lucida carmina: Science and Poetry in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura’, YCS 21 (1969), 145–68Google Scholar.

12. Schrijvers (n.8 above), 303f., takes a different though complementary approach: the ‘recantation’ serves to anticipate readers’ doubts and also to signal Lucretius’ use of ‘deception’ in the service of Epicurean truth. For this kind of delicate balance between political use of the myths and Epicurean criticism or self-conscious allegorisation see Schrijvers, ’ more recent study, ‘Sur quelques aspects de la critique des mythes chez Lucrèce’ in Syzetesis: Studi sull’ epi-cureismo greco e romano offerti a Marcello Gigante (Naples 1983), i.353–71Google Scholar. For Townend, G.B. (‘The Original Plan of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura’, CR n.s. 29 [1979], 110), 5.1341–49Google Scholar are ‘incoherent, though entirely Lucretian’.

13. Kenney (n.8 above), 21.

14. Ibid., 22. For the importance of facere here see also Onians, R.B., CR 42 (1928), 216Google Scholar.

15. Kenney (n.8 above), 19.

16. See Elder (n.9 above), 115ff.

17. For views along these lines see Saylor (n.2 above), 310 and 314; Kenney (n.8 above), 23; De Grummond (n.8 above), 53.

18. See Bonelli (n.4 above), 243f. For the importance of the irrational in Lucretius see Perelli (n.2 above), passim; Regenbogen (n.10 above), 349f.; Bradley, E.M., ‘Lucretius and the Irrational’, CJ 67 (1971-72), 317–22 esp. 321Google Scholar.

19. On the importance of the visual imagination in Lucretius see Bailey (n.9 above), passim, but esp. 285.

20. So 3.289 and 492; 6.177, 428, 1162. In 2.928 efferuere describes the earth ‘seething’ with worms after rain.

21. Postgate, J.P., Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 10 (1926), 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. So McKay (n.2 above), 124–35, passim; see Kenney (n.8 above), 24.

23. See also 2.944–62 and 1122–49. See in general Elder (n.9 above), 106ff.; Anderson (n.9 above), 13ff.; also Perelli (n.2 above), 41; Sikes, E. E., Lucretius Poet and Philosopher (Cambridge 1936), 18ffGoogle Scholar.

24. For the influential formulation of this tension or balance in terms of ‘process’ and ‘value’ see DeLacy, Phillip, ‘Process and Value: An Epicurean Dilemma’, TAPA 88 (1957), 114–26, esp. 125fGoogle Scholar.

25. Amory (n.11 above), 158f., juxtaposes ‘love, pleasure, peace, a governing Nature, the reproduction of life’ and ‘fear, superstition, war, death, and the degeneration of life’.

26. On this sense of natura see most recently Clay (n.9 above) ch. 3, esp. 93ff.

27. Cf. also the generalising mortalia saecla in 5.791.

28. Cf. too religio ‘giuing birth’ to crime and wickedness in 1.82f. (quod saepius illa/religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta). On the other hand the metaphor of ‘birth’ has a happier use for the inuention of music in 5.334 (peperere).

29. Note too the motif of the mountains in 5.824, of the animal genus that ‘exults wildly over the great mountains’ (in magnis bacchatur montibus passim) and earth’s generous bestowal of food (pabula laeta) on the ‘mountain-wandering race of wild beasts’, montiuago generiferarum (2.597).

30. For the merely ‘decorative’ view of the repetition see Giussani, Carlo, T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura (Turin 1898Google Scholar), ad loc. (iv.155). For a functional view of such repetitions see Ingalls, W. B., ‘Repetition in Lucretius’, Phoenix 25 (1975), 227–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the authenticity of 1315 see Bailey (n.1 above), ad loc. (iii.1531). Note too the echoing of Earth's winning the name of Mother (2.998) twice in Book 5 (5.795, 821).

31. The only place (of uncertain text) is also in the Magna Mater passage, 2.630, quos memorant Phrygios inter se forte cateruas [catenae, Q], which is widely emended to inter se forte quod armis, after Lachmann.

32. For the contrast of dissolution versus union, and , see Empedocles 31 B17, 22, 25 and 26 (Diels-Kranz). For his identification of , with Aphrodite or Kypris see B17.24, 22.5,75,95 and 98.

33. On Venus’ role on the struggle for life against death, peace against war in the poem see Elder (n.9 above), passim; Clay (n.9 above), 93ff.; Sellar, W.Y., The Roman Poets of the Republic3 (Oxford 1889), 350ff.Google Scholar; and recently Asmis, Elizabeth, ‘Lucretius’ Venus and Stoic Zeus’, Hermes 110 (1982), 458–70Google Scholar, with a useful discussion of previous scholarship.

34. Saylor (n.2 above), 315 and n.41, juxtaposes 3.179–83 and 6.1208–12.

35. On the parallel between Books 2 and 5 here see Nethercut, W. R., ‘The Conclusion of Lucretius’ Fifth Book: Further Remarks’, CJ 63 (1967-68), 99Google Scholar. See also De Grummond (n.8 above), 54, and Saylor (n.2 above), 312, who suggests a connection between the unnaturalness of the epithet anguimanus and the ‘unnaturalness of the users of such beasts’. I would add too that the aggressive people defended by the elephants in Book 2 are the remote and relatively innocuous Indians (Indi only here in the poem).

36. Saylor (n.2 above), 315 and n.41, aptly juxtaposes 3.179–83 and 6.1208–12.

37. On this last passage and its implications for the major themes of the poem see Segal, C., ‘Delubra Decora: Lucretius II 352–66’, Latomus 29 (1970), 104–18Google Scholar.

38. If Lachmann’s attractive emendation elephantis is accepted for the corruption in 2.42, elephants would again be associated with the violence of war and the folly of religio (cf. 2.44–46).

39. Lucretius seems to be playing with the humanised traits in this account of animal ‘voices’ (5.1081): he suggests an oxymoron-like contrast between saeuit and calcaribus in 1075. The young stallion ‘rages wildly’ (saeuit) when struck by the ‘goads’ or ‘spurs’ of love (calcaribus).

40. Cf. the contrast of plough and sword in 1297–1307 and 1308–40, briefly noted by Minadeo, Richard, The Lyre of Science (Detroit 1969), 97 and 131 n.50Google Scholar.

41. On the symbolism of earth and life see Anderson (n.9 above), 5–11. Note too the association of the sea with war and death in 5.1226–40 and 1290, as in 2.551–54 and 5.218ff., on which see also Anderson, 21f.

42. Commentators often note the beauty of the description. Giussani (n.30 above) finds 1359–76 ‘pieni di verità e di idillica soavità’ (iii.160); similarly Bailey (n. 1 above), ad 1373–75; Munro, H.A.J., T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex 4 (Cambridge 1893), ad 1378Google Scholar. With dulcis agellus cf. the association of dulcis with life and children elsewhere (e.g. 2.997, 3.66, 3.895f., 5.889); and cf. the ‘sweet laughter’ (dulces cachinni) of 5.1397. Cf. also in-dulg-endo in 5.1369.

43. Thus Bailey (n.1 above), iii.1539, calls 5.1379–1410 ‘a discursive section…in which [Lucretius] follows his fancy’.

44. On the negative value of war in the poem and particularly in Book 5 see Sellar (n.33 above), 290f.; Schrijvers (n.8 above), 304–08; Bonelli (n.4 above), 243f.; De Grummond (n.8 above), 53f. In proving the mortality of the world in 5.326–37 Lucretius begins with the great wars at Thebes and Troy as an indication of the lateness of the world’s origin (cur supera bellum Thebanum et funera Troiae/non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae, 5.326f.), as if war and death were the sure sign of great civilisations. He goes on, however, to list more peaceful arts.

45. On peace in the poem see Regenbogen (n.10 above), 368; Clay (n.9 above), 266.

46. See Bonelli (n.4 above), 239.

47. For the ‘war against wild beasts’ as an index of human progress in the Greek culturehistories see, for example, Plato, Protag. 322b. See also Cole, Thomas, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology, American Philological Assoc. Monographs 25 (Cleveland 1967), 123fGoogle Scholar.

48. On the false values of contemporary materialism pervading the culture-history see Taylor, Margaret, ‘Progress and Primitivism in Lucretius’, AJP 68 (1947), 190Google Scholar.

49. On 5.335ff. see Clay (n.9 above), 52f.; cf. also 6.1–8.

50. On the importance of the unchanging qualities in human nature for Lucretius’ pessimism see Beye (n.3 above), 168.

51. With the ‘knowing’ here in 5.1432f. cf. also 5.1282, sic facile est ipsi per te cognoscere, Memmi. This statement of ‘knowing’ introduces the discovery of metals and is the only place where Memmius (last named in 5.864) appears in the second half of the book. Cf. also 1412.

52. Cf. also 3.70 (where, however, sanguine is the first word in the verse): sanguine ciuili rem conflant, ‘with the bloodshed of civil war they extend their wealth’. For such localisation of specific words and phrases see Ingalls (n.30 above), 227–36, esp. 233ff.; also Minyard, J. D., Mode and Value in the De Rerum Natura, Hermes Einzelschrift 39 (Wiesbaden 1978), 8–42Google Scholar.

53. On the complexities and ambiguities in Lucretius’ view of history as progress or regress see Taylor (n.48 above), 180–94, esp. 189ff.; Nethercut (n.35 above), 97f., with attentions to earlier literature; Beye (n.3 above), 166–68; Borle, Jean-Pierre, ‘Progrès ou déclin de l’humanité?’, MH 19 (1962), 162–76, esp. 174Google Scholar; Manuwald, Bernd, Der Aufbau der lukrezischer Kulturenste-hungslehre, Abhandl. Mainz (1980) iii.51ffGoogle Scholar.

54. Cf. also the echo between the destructive inuidia of 1419 and that of 1126f., also in a moralising context that stresses the constants in human life (nec magis id nunc est neque erit mox quam fuit ante, 1135).

55. Cf. also the sinister results of the desire ‘to reach the top’, ad summas emergere opes, in 3.53. On Lucretius’ critique of the Roman value-system implicit in such moralising see now Minyard, J.D., Lucretius and the Late Republic, Mnemosyne Supplement 90 (Leiden 1985), 66Google Scholar.

56. On this bridging of the two books see Townend (n.12 above), 105 and Clay (n.9 above), 258f.

57. Cf. 5.1006–10 and 6.9–13. On this point see Taylor (n.48 above), 194; Borle (n.53 above), 174f.

58. Note the terminology of ‘invention’ and ‘discovery’ applied to Epicurus in 1.66, 5.9f., 5.13f.

59. See in general Scullard, H. H., The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge 1974Google Scholar). In Lucretius’ time elephants were used in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (Scullard 194ff.). Lucretius’ detail of the ‘towered body’ in 5.1302 suggests that he had seen representations of the ‘howdah’ often mounted on the backs of war elephants. Such scenes appear in Latium and elsewhere in Italy on the so-called pocula of the late fourth or early third century B.C. For illustrations see Bianchi-Bandinelli, R. and Giuliano, A., Etruschi e Italici prima del do-minio di Roma 2 (Milan 1976), 351 fig. 402Google Scholar; and Bianchi-Bandinelli, R., Roma: L’arte romana nel centro di potere 2 (Milan 1976), 25 fig. 28Google Scholar. See also the illustrations in Scullard, plate VII, a and b; plate X, b; plate XII; plate XVII, a and b.

60. Schrijvers (n.8 above), 296–308, esp. 303. On the elephants see also De Grummond (n.8 above), 54.

61. Kenney (n.8 above), 23; see also Saylor (n.2 above), 312.

62. This study was completed during a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1985–86, which I gratefully acknowledge. I also thank the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton for hospitality.