Lucretius, De Rerum Natura

Lucretius sets Epicurus's philosophy into Latin verse in De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things: an atomic universe of swerving atoms, no creation, no providence, and death as nothing to us. Lost to the Latin West for a millennium, the poem's recovery in 1417 re-arms the European critics of religion.

Tagged: Freethought Secular and Non-Theistic

The Event

Date

c. 55 BCE (approximate)

Also called

On the Nature of Things

Era

Classical Roots; Standard periodization of secular and non-religious history

Location

Rome; today Italy

Traditions

Secular

Streams

Freethought

Key figures

Lucretius

Key texts

De Rerum Natura

Connections

History Event Epicurus c. 341 BCE expounds

Primary Sources

• Lucretius, De Rerum Natura.

Secondary Sources

• Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. New York: Liveright, 2016.
• Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
• Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.

Provenance: HIST-1302; confidence 0.85; accessed 2026-10-28.

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