The Classical Quarterly (New Series)

Table of Contents - 1979 - Volume 29, Issue 01  

Research Article

The Original Plan of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura

G. B. Townenda1

a1 University of Durham

In an earlier study I argued that the appearance of the name of Memmius in the first, second, and fifth books alone of Lucretius de Rerum Natura is only the most striking indication of a fundamental change in the poet's attitude towards his reader which is already well established quite a short way through book 5, and which makes it almost incontestable that Lucretius wrote books 3, 4, and 6 after he had lost all hope of converting Memmius to Epicureanism.