SOURCE: Allison, Robert. “Introduction.” In Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, pp. vii-xxxii. London: Hatchards, 1925.

In the following excerpt, Allison describes the early circumstances of Lucretius, the factors that led him to become a devoted follower of Epicurus, and Lucretius's views on nature and the human race.

Of Titus Lucretius Carus, one of the world's great poets, we know hardly anything. One of the maxims which his beloved Master, Epicurus, impressed upon his followers was, ‘Hide thyself, and pass through life unknown’; and so successfully has his pupil followed his advice, that no details of his life and works have come down to us. Although the contemporary of Cicero and Catullus, we know nothing of him beyond the fact, which Mr. Monro thinks certain, that he was born at Rome in 99 b.c., and died at the age of forty-four in 55 b.c. A story is told, on...