Lucretius, Heraclitus,
and the Muses

Daniel W. Leon (University of Virginia)

The large section of the first book of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura that is devoted to refutations of three rival “schools” of philosophy (each represented by a pre-Socratic philosopher and each contradicting Epicurean physical doctrine) is riddled with textual problems. Among the most divisive of these is the last word of line 657, which is corrupt in all of the primary manuscripts, but appears to name Heraclitus “the Muses.” Taken by itself this reference is perplexing, and numerous editors have attempted to replace it with something more palatable. I will show that “the Muses” is the correct reading both on paleographical grounds and because the rhetorical and literary strategies of the passage as a whole demand it.

Throughout this polemical passage, Lucretius is engaged in two related projects. First, he assimilates each named pre-Socratic philosopher to a whole class of thinkers through a series of allusions and puns so that his criticisms cannot be taken as responses to the individual philosophers. Second, by constant references to non-philosophical poets he weaves the philosophical tradition into the literary tradition to assert his own place within both. In the Heraclitus section he is especially concerned to associate himself with great teachers of the past, both poetic and philosophical, whose students continually misunderstand the message. Once the teachers are separated from the students, it becomes clear that Heraclitus (explicitly), and Hesiod and Parmenides (allusively) are the Muses. By associating himself with these riddling teachers, Lucretius draws an analogy between their project and his own, and uses the opportunity to urge his reader to strive for greater success than the foolish Greeks were able to attain. A brief look at Lucretius’ use of the Muses throughout the De Rerum Natura reveals a consistent connection between the poetics of teaching and his own philosophical program.