SOURCE: Montserrat, Jesús M. and Luis Navarro. “The Water Cycle in Lucretius.”Centaurus 34, no. 4 (1991): 289-308.

In the following essay, Montserrat and Navarro examine Lucretius's explanation of the water cycle and praise his use of plain language.

1. Introduction

The lack of research work on ancient meteorology in the history of science has already become traditional.¹ It is our purpose to contribute to changing this tradition, since we find it inappropriate from the historical point of view. First of all, meteorology constitutes an important part of the ancient works devoted to the study of the natural world, at least in the Graeco-Roman tradition. Second, meteorology is a field in which conceptions about both micro and macrocosm very often appear merged together, thereby making it possible to infer a global picture of the universe. Meteorological phenomena, because of their large scope and relative simplicity, were to be explained by the...