Since the publication of Friedländer's influential article,Footnote 1 in which he was the first to point out the relationship between Epicurus’ atomistic theory and Lucretius’ wordplays, many studies of the crafted language (daedala lingua)Footnote 2 of the DRN have emerged, closely scrutinizing Lucretius’ poetic technique not simply as a mannerism but also in relation to his philosophical background. In support of this view, scholars have always cited the passages in the DRN,Footnote 3 where Lucretius presents the analogy between letters (elementa), which produce words and lines, and atoms (elementa), which constitute the world; therefore, words and world would be analogous in the poem of Lucretius. However, I would like to point out in Lucretius’ proem (1.5–8) another poetic device which consists not of an association of two similar words within the same line or in nearby lines but of the disposition of words that are not similar in the same sedes in successive lines, as a result of which the reader can see what the poet says, something comparable to an acrostic,Footnote 4 and requiring a vertical reading. It is not, therefore, about producing a play with sounds but rather about producing an image with the words on the written page.Footnote 5 As I shall argue, such an image is related chiefly to two of Lucretius’ philosophical and poetic models, Empedocles and Homer.
Before looking at the daedala imago, it is also important to remember the Empedoclean presence in the much-debated proem of the DRN, with its famous and controversial invocation to Venus (1.1–43).Footnote 6 It is not my intention here to discuss the presence of the goddess at the very beginning of a poem in which the poet preaches the Epicurean doctrine, or even to examine why Lucretius, as an Epicurean, starts with allusions to Empedocles.Footnote 7 What is crucial for my purpose in this article is that the presence of Empedocles in Lucretius’ proem is recognized, even if there is no agreement regarding the interpretation of such presence.Footnote 8
I can now move on to the proem and first look at its image of the world (1.1–13):
THE FOUR ‘ROOTS’
Discussing DRN 1.6–9, FurleyFootnote 9 was the first to note Empedocles’ four ‘roots’Footnote 10 in the proem. He recognized the ‘root’ air in line 6 as uenti, nubila and caeli; the ‘root’ earth clearly in line 7 as tellus, and the ‘root’ water in line 8 as aequora ponti. For the fourth ‘root’, Furley looked at line 9 and argued that caelum must be understood in a different way from the caeli of line 6, both at the end of their respective lines.Footnote 11 Although he mentioned lines 1–5, Furley did not draw attention to lumina solis (‘the light of the sun’) in line 5, immediately above caeli in line 6. If the repetition of caelum in line 9 is important, lumine in the same line, in the penultimate position, must have the same relevance, since it echoes lumina in line 5, in the same sedes.
The study of the proem was developed by Sedley,Footnote 12 building on Furley's observations, but also separating lines 1–5 from 6–9. He detected all four ‘roots’ at the very beginning of the DRN: the reference to the sky (2 caeli) as the ‘root’ air, to the sea (3 mare) as the ‘root’ water, to the land (3 terras) as the ‘root’ earth, and to the light of the sun (5 lumina solis) as the ‘root’ fire. I fully agree with Sedley's observations, but neither he nor Furley noticed that Lucretius arranged the four ‘roots’ at the endFootnote 13 of the successive lines 5–8, so that the reader can also see the layers of the world: the earth (7 tellus) between the sea or water (8 ponti), below, and the sky or air (6 caeli), above, and the sun or fire (5 solis), above all. Placing these key elements at the extremity of lines 5–8 brings to mind the simileFootnote 14 in which the doctor puts honey on the rim of a cup in order to give bitter medicine to children (DRN 1.936–50 = 4.11–25).Footnote 15
Lucretius, however, does not (after all) stop his ‘four roots’ at line 8, since the proem goes on to mention more explicitly air (11–12 aura fauoni | aeriae), water (15 rapidos … amnis; 17 maria … fluuiosque rapacis), earth (18 camposque uirentis) and fire (9 lumine caelum).Footnote 16 These do not enact the visual image (as did the identical sedes), but they do continue the Empedoclean theme in their own interestingly poetic fashions.Footnote 17
The terms used by Lucretius and their position in the verse, namely at the end of the lines, deserve further observations. The four ‘roots’ of Empedocles are not presented with a consistent vocabulary, rather they ‘are variously designated by the terms fire, air, earth and water, by the names of divinities, and by the most obvious manifestations in the physical world’.Footnote 18 For the ‘root’ fire, Empedocles uses, for example, πῦρ or ἠέλιος; for the ‘root’ air, ἀήρ or οὐρανός; for the ‘root’ water, ὕδωρ or πόντος; and for the ‘root’ earth, γαῖα or χθών.Footnote 19 It seems, therefore, that Lucretius in the proem alludes to the ‘roots’ by their manifestations in the physical world, using corresponding terms, such as sol (ἠέλιος) or pontus (πόντος), and that, like Empedocles, he uses varied vocabulary for indicating the four ‘roots’ throughout the poem.
In addition, I would like to draw attention to the arrangement of the terms in the Empedoclean lines, where all the four ‘roots’ are presented together: in three instances all the terms appear in only one line.Footnote 20 Apart from these lines, there is a tendency to place some terms at the beginnings of the lines. The most frequent pattern is to put two words at the beginning, one at the end, and for the fourth term to occupy any other position. This arrangement is found in three fragments: D 77a.3–6 (B 21.3–6): ἠέλιον (at the beginning of line 3), ὄμβρον (at the beginning of line 5) and αὐγῇ (at the end of line 4);Footnote 21 D 207.1–2 (B 109.1–2): γαίῃ (at the beginning of line 1), ὕδωρ (at the end of line 1) and αἰθέρι (at the beginning of line 2);Footnote 22 D 57.2–3 (B 6.2–3): here the ‘roots’ are presented by the names of gods: Zεύς (at the beginning of line 2), Ἀιδωνεύς (at the end of line 2) and Νῆστις (at the beginning of line 3).Footnote 23 There is only one example with three ‘roots’ placed at the beginning of successive lines: D 10.9–11 (B 115.9–11): αἰθέριον (at the beginning of line 9), πόντος (at the beginning of line 10) and ἠελίου (at the beginning of line 11).Footnote 24 In D 122.3–4 (B 38.3–4) there is one ‘root’ at the beginning (3 γαῖα) and another at the end of the same line (ἀήρ).Footnote 25 In only one example is a single ‘root’ placed at the beginning: D 190.1–2 (B 98.1–2), where Ἡφαίστῳ (2) is the first word.Footnote 26
Although there is no extant fragment where the terms appear as they do in the DRN—namely, the four ‘roots’ at the ends of successive lines—this tendency to collocate words, especially at the beginning of the line, can be another feature of Empedoclean λέξις, which Lucretius imitates, emphasizing the ‘roots’ by this position.Footnote 27 However, Lucretius not only highlights the four ‘roots’, placing them artistically in a specific place, but also makes us see Footnote 28 the layers of the world through the arrangement of the words. If this is the case, he goes one step further than Empedocles and gives even greater prominence to the ‘roots’, with his drawing of the universe, on the edge of the lines as an artist both of the elementa and the words.
ACROSTICS AND VERTICAL READING
I mentioned above that the reading I am proposing here is somehow similar to an acrostic and, I might even say, to a technopaignion, requiring the text to be read both horizontally and vertically. Quite apart from its associations with how Empedocles placed words in his lines, it is a Hellenistic characteristicFootnote 29 that can be traced back to didactic poets such as those by NicanderFootnote 30 and Aratus,Footnote 31 both of them poetic models in this genre for Lucretius. Therefore, I believe that the Roman poet by means of this image located at the edge of lines of verse inserts himself in the acrostic tradition, particularly an acrostic tradition related to didactic poetry. Castelletti, in a study of the allusions of Valerius Flaccus to Aratus’ Phaenomena,Footnote 32 focussing on the Flavian poet's use of acrostics, proposed three ‘objective criteria’ in order to ‘help verify’ whether an acrostic is intentional or not. These criteria are useful for my argumentation about elements located on the edge of lines of verse: ‘a) the relation between the acrostics and the context of the passage in which they appear; b) various signposting techniques devised by the author; and c) intertextual references that embed the acrostics within the literary tradition’.
The first criterion is the clearest: Venus is, as many scholars have pointed out, the Empedoclean principle of Love (φιλότης), and she acts on the ‘roots’,Footnote 33 bringing them into a unity. Second, words of ‘seeing’ could act as signpostsFootnote 34 to acrostics. This is the case with uisit (5) at the very beginning of the image. Even the phrase caeli subter labentia signa (2) could be interpreted as a sign to read in a vertical direction, and the mention of sky implies a vertical gaze.Footnote 35 This interpretation can be supported by other signposts present in the passage in which the LVCE acrostic occurs (5.710–16):Footnote 36
The word that initiates the acrostic is labitur (‘sinks, glides down’), the same verb as in the proem (labentia), and it could indicate the downward movement of the eye as it reads the acrostic.Footnote 37 Such movement is reinforced by subter (‘below’), where one finds signa (‘an image, as a work of art’).Footnote 38 Moreover, as KronenbergFootnote 39 has highlighted with regard to DRN 5.705–19, ‘Lucretius fills his LUCE acrostic passage and the surrounding context with words for light (luna, lumen).’ In the same way, in the proem and in the line immediately after it he places light (5 lumina; 9 lumine) in the penultimate position, significantly just before the first word of the image (solis) and in the line immediately following the last word in the image (ponti), as if embracing the words that should be read vertically. Furthermore, the repetition of ‘sky’ (6 caeli; 9 caelum) at the end of the lines draws attention to their extremities, where it is possible to see an image of the world. Finally, the third point in a way is the most difficult owing to the fact that, as far as I know, there is no tradition of producing an image by means of words at the edge of successive lines. Nevertheless, as I have mentioned, Lucretius inserts himself in the acrostic tradition, particularly related to didactic poetry. Perhaps, as KronenbergFootnote 40 has argued regarding DRN 5.705–19, Lucretius also emulates an Aratean name-acrostic in the proem, creating ‘his own brilliance’.Footnote 41
That Empedocles is an important point of reference in Lucretius’ proem is well known, and scholars have already paid a lot of attention to this. Aratus’ presence, however, at the beginning of the DRN, albeit acknowledged,Footnote 42 has not been extensively studied. Accordingly, in order to reinforce my arguments so far for the emulation of the Aratean acrostic, I would like to examine more closely the relationship between Lucretius’ proem and Aratus’ Phaenomena. As Asmis has argued, the Lucretian Venus is an allegorical rival to Stoic Zeus, the only ruler of the universe, according to Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus. While admitting that Lucretius does not necessarily depend on Cleanthes’ Hymn,Footnote 43 she draws attention to similarities between them. Irrespective of this possibility, it is almost certain that Lucretius knew the Phaenomena, whose opening hymn (1.1–18) presents Stoic ideas.Footnote 44 Moreover, there are verbal correspondences, some of them unnoticed hitherto, between the invocation to Venus and the invocation to Zeus, as follows: Phaen. 2 μεσταί and DRN 1.4 concelebras;Footnote 45 Phaen. 3 θάλασσα and DRN 1.3 mare; Phaen. 5 τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν and DRN 1.4–5 per te quoniam genus omne animantum | concipitur;Footnote 46 Phaen. 10 σήματ’ ἐν οὐρανῷ and DRN 1.2 caeli … signa. It seems, therefore, that Lucretius read Aratus’ Phaenomena, at least through Cicero's Aratea.Footnote 47 If so, ‘a feeble day light’ (Phaen. 786 φόως ἀμενηνόν) and ‘the slender and clear [moon]’ (Phaen. 783 λεπτὴ μὲν καθαρή τε) of the Stoic Aratus of SoliFootnote 48 were replaced by ‘the lights of the sun’ (DRN 1.5 lumina solis), the sky of the Epicurean Lucretius which ‘gleams with spreading light’.
Before examining in some detail the daedala imago, I would also like to add that the four ‘roots’—fire, air, land and sea—are not found elsewhere in the DRN in this sequence but only in the proem (1.5–8). There are, for example, several cases where three of them appear, but the order does not duplicate the layers of the world,Footnote 49 as it does in the proem, as I have been arguing. Finally, the words at the end of the successive lines are prepared for by the penultimate words because these can be related to the ‘roots’ as their products: lumina solis (‘the lights of the sun’), nubila caeli (‘the clouds of the sky’) and aequora ponti (‘the [calm] surface of the sea’),Footnote 50 always a neuter noun followed by a word in the genitive case. However, there is a significant exception: daedala tellus (‘the crafty earth’ or ‘the variously adorned earth’, 7).
DAEDALA IMAGO
There is even more in this passage. Lucretius, fine craftsman that he is, makes us see another image. Let me separate what I argue to be an imago from the rest (1.5–8), highlighting the ingenious ‘picture’:
I direct my attention now to daedala (7), which qualifies tellus, ‘the crafty earth’. In general, with small differences, the main commentariesFootnote 51 make reference here to Festus’ lexicon (Paul. Fest. 59.26), where the word is explained and Lucretius’ proem is mentioned along with passages from Ennius and Virgil.
I shall argue that, apart from the adjective's meaning and sense, Lucretius ‘draws’ with the words here and makes the reader see a picture, namely Daedalus’ famous flight. As I have already suggested, word order in DRN 1.5–8 is not random but rather has the purpose of showing an image of the world. It is not fortuitous, I think, that daedalus—a rare adjective—is also an attribute of wonderful things to see.Footnote 52 Here, in the horizontal reading axis, it describes the stupendous variety of suauis flores that are produced at the beginning of spring, but in the vertical reading axis the disposition of the words suggests an image of the flight of Daedalus, who must remain between the sky (6 caeli) and the sea (8 ponti) in order to reach the land (7 daedala tellus) safely. His son, Icarus, fell into the sea by trying to reach the sun (5 solis). Daedalus had enjoined his son neither to fly as high as the sun, nor to fly near the sea, but Icarus, not observing his father's recommendations, flew more and more highly, and, when the wax that bound the wings melted, he fell into the sea and died.
First, if in fact Lucretius ‘draws’ this picture with words on the ‘rim of his cup’, the narrative implied here could not only be the honey that helps readers to take the bitter medicine but also fulfil the key role of the admonition of the magister to the discipulus in didactic poetry.Footnote 53 As GaleFootnote 54 pointed out, ‘mythical imagery is acceptable provided it is used to illustrate vera ratio’.Footnote 55 Furthermore, the decision to place at the beginning of the DRN Daedalus, whose representations on artefacts have been documented by archaeology in archaic Italy since the sixth century b.c.,Footnote 56 does not seem accidental. When Daedalus was in Sicily, he artistically constructed (φιλοτεχνῆσαι), among other marvellous artefacts, a golden ram for the cult of Aphrodite of Mt Eryx, as Diodorus of Sicily tells us (4.78).Footnote 57 It is no coincidence, I believe, that in the proem, a hymn to Venus, we find an allusion, albeit indirect, to this artist who honoured the goddess.
My point can also be supported by another fragment of Empedocles (D 25 = B 128), usually attributed to his Καθαρμοί, not to the Περὶ φύσεως:Footnote 58
In the fragment, in which Kypris/Aphrodite is Φιλία, as PorphyryFootnote 59 glosses in transmitting the passage, Empedocles describes the first generations of men, when Kypris was the only divinity worshipped, and in the Golden Age (1–3). The passage must have been relatively well known in antiquity, not only because Porphyry mentions it but also because AratusFootnote 60 imitates it. The first men propitiated Kypris with images of her (ἀγάλμασιν), painted animal figures (γραπτοῖς τε ζῴοισι), perfumes, myrrh, frankincense and honey (4–7). Apart from the reference to visual arts, the adjective related to perfumes, δαιδαλέοδμος (‘with artificial fragrance’), is a hapax legomenon, and therefore stands out. Here again there is an indirect reference to Daedalus in a context in which Venus/Aphrodite, goddess of life and peace, is honoured.Footnote 61
IMAGO MVNDI AND ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF HOMER
In Lucretius’ proem Venus can be taken as the force which brings all living things to birth, among the many possible interpretations which critics have advanced.Footnote 62 In that sense the invocation is also allegorical.Footnote 63 As is well known, allegorical interpretations emerged around the sixth century b.c. as a response to criticisms of Homer such as those of Heraclitus of Ephesus and Xenophanes.Footnote 64 As I shall argue, such allegorical exegeses are very important in understanding how Lucretius too imitates Homer in our passage (DRN 1.5–8).
The Epicurean Lucretius imitates the beginning of the Homeric ecphrasis of the Shield of Achilles (Il. 18.478–608), whose allegorizationFootnote 65 is preserved in two ancient texts: in the Homeric Problems ascribed to HeraclitusFootnote 66 and in Eustathius of Thessalonica's Homeric commentaries.Footnote 67 The Empedoclean four ‘roots’ or elements are represented in one version by the four metals (Il. 18.474–5) with which Hephaestus makes the shield,Footnote 68 and in another version by the three world-divisions (18.483) and Hephaestus as fire.Footnote 69 Furthermore, the two cities, one at peace (18.491–508) and one at war (18.509–40), are taken to be allegories of the two cosmic forces, Love (Φιλία) and Strife (Νεῖκος),Footnote 70 and Heraclitus (All. 49.2) mentions Empedocles in this context, saying that he should recognize that his theory was already to be found in Homer.Footnote 71 In short, the poet as a philosopher who explains nature provides an image of the world with the Shield of Achilles.Footnote 72
In addition to the allegorical tradition already mentioned, it is possible by looking at Homer's Iliad to see how in the proem to the DRN (1.5–8) Lucretius imitates the very beginning of the ecphrasis (18.478–85), an imitation hitherto unnoticed by scholars:
First, although some scholars have correctly identified the three terms in the same line (483)—namely, earth, sky and sea—as the tripartite universe (a pattern that will be imitated in Latin poetry),Footnote 73 Lucretius probably saw here, as did some allegorical interpretations, the four elements or ‘roots’,Footnote 74 taking line 483 together with line 484 which has the sun at the beginning. Given that in Empedocles and in Lucretius the four ‘roots’ are designated by varied terms, it is very relevant for my purpose that the terms here used by Homer correspond to those used by Lucretius in the proem: ἠέλιος (484) and sol (5), οὐρανός (483) and caelum (6), γαῖα (483) and tellus (7), and θάλασσα (483) and pontus (8). Furthermore, only one term is repeated at the very beginning of Lucretius’ proem: caelum, in the same sedes in lines 6 and 9, as I have pointed out, exactly as is the case at the beginning of Homer's ecphrasis, where οὐρανός is also in the same sedes in lines 483 and 485.
However, the most important term here which links Homer and Lucretius very closely is δαίδαλα (482), announcing the many spectacular images which will be described in the Shield of Achilles. In addition, the word δαίδαλα plays an important role here because another word with the same root, δαιδάλλων (479 ‘adorning’), stands at the beginning of the opening of the ecphrasis, and δαίδαλα closes the introduction,Footnote 75 both words emphasizing the varied and marvellous images on the shield.
In Homer, however, Daedalus is not just the subject of an indirect reference; he is also explicitly mentioned in line 592. On the shield Hephaestus makes a dancing-floor, which is said to be similar to those Daedalus made in Cnossos for Ariadne. Therefore, the text itself establishes a link between the adjective, which qualifies works that are well decorated and difficult to achieve, and the proper name. Thus the works of Daedalus, who was the archetypical sculptor, are analogous to the works of Hephaestus himself,Footnote 76 since both men construct works which are θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι, such as the Shield of Achilles. So, if Lucretius imitates the Homeric passage, as I have argued so far, the word daedala in the proem of the DRN can also point to the image ‘drawn’ at the extremities of his poetic lines. It is important for Lucretius’ imitation that at the very beginning of his ecphrasis Homer refers to the rim of the shield where the description of the ornaments begins (479 πάντοσε δαιδάλλων, περὶ δ’ ἄντυγα βάλλε φαεινὴν). By decorating the extremities of his lines, Lucretius, in his invocation to Venus, imitates at the same time both Homer and the Ὁμηρικός Empedocles.
CONCLUSION
Lucretius, therefore, in the invocation to Venus, on the threshold of the book, alluding to Empedocles, his philosophical and poetic model, refers to the four ‘roots’ in various ways. In a manner hitherto unnoticed by scholars, he arranges the four ‘roots’ at the end of successive lines (DRN 1.5–8) in such a way that one can see the layers of the world, an image placed on the poem's extremities like the honey on the rim of a cup used by the doctor to give bitter medicine to children. As many scholars have pointed out, Lucretius praises Empedocles for the clarity of his λέξις, an important characteristic for the poet in making his reader see the rerum natura. Similes, analogy and images are essential in order to allow the invisible to become visible. In this sense, Daedalus, the skilled craftsman, who is able to amaze everyone's eyes with his wonderful works, is a very suitable character, here alluded to by the adjective derived from his name. daedala, as I have shown, plays an important role in the ecphrasis of the Shield of Achilles, a passage that has been interpreted allegorically as the image of the world and that has been imitated also by Lucretius in the proem. In addition, it is possible to see Daedalus’ successful flight to Sicily as a mythological example very suitable for the didactic genre in which the magister seeks to persuade the discipulus to follow his advice. Thus Lucretian language,Footnote 77 including daedala (DRN 4.551),Footnote 78 enables us to see that thin image which emanates from things, from the outermost body of things, and a discourse about the nature of things is by analogy an image of things (DRN 4.63–4):
