DE M A L O R U M N A T U R A I 

Lucretius and the Nature of Evil 

N A T H A N I E L C A M P B E L L 

T H I S PAPER SEEKS TO EXPLORE T H E N A T U R E OF EVIL I N RESPECT TO T H E E T H I C S OF 

E P I C U R E A N P H I L O S O P H Y P R E S E N T E D I N L U C R E T I U S ' DE R E R U M N A T U R A . D R A W I N G 

O N A T O M I C P H Y S I C S A N D ITS C O M P L E T E C O R P O R E A L P H Y S I C A L I T Y , E P I C U R E A N P H I -

L O S O P H Y P R O D U C E S A N E T H I C A L SYSTEM I N W H I C H T H E H I G H E S T G O O D IS D E F I N E D 

I N T E R M S OF M A X I M U M PLEASURE B O T H I N T H E BODY A N D I N T H E M I N D . E V I L , 

T H E R E F O R E , M U S T BE A N Y T H I N G T H A T DETRACTS F R O M T H A T STATE OF P L E A S U R E . IT 

M A Y BE F U R T H E R C A T E G O R I Z E D AS E I T H E R N A T U R A L OR H U M A N E V I L . H O W E V E R , IT 

IS T H E EVILS I N D U C E D BY T H E M I S U N D E R S T O O D N A T U R E OF B O T H T H E G O D S A N D 

D E A T H T H A T ARE T H E M O S T H A R M F U L TO A PEACEFUL STATE OF M I N D . IT IS L U -

C R E T I U S ' G O A L TO R O O T O U T T H E S E EVILS A N D , I N D O I N G SO, E STAB LI S H T H E PEACE 

OF T H E G O D S I N T H E M I N D OF T H E H U M A N . 



"Ifpleasure, that lack of pain both physical and mental, 
defines the nature of good, then what, we might ask, is evil?" 

I . I N T R O D U C T I O N 

Of the three divisions of Hellenistic philosophy-physics, 

ethics, and logic-the study of ethics deals most closely with 

the foundations of human nature and asks, among others, 

the fundamental question: what is the nature of good and 

evil? Lucretius' Epicurean philosophy emphasizes the 

physics, and it is from the basic atomic physics that arise, in 

large part, the ethics of the system. The complete corporeal 

physicality of atomic physics, in which even the mind and 

soul are composed of material atoms, has interesting impli-

cations for an Epicurean ethics. Matter is always in a state 

of composition and decomposition, such that no com-

pounded substance is eternal, including both the mind (an-

imus) and spirit (anima) of a human. The mortal nature of 

being precludes any ethical considerations of an afterlife; 

the ethics, therefore, are concerned only with the good of 

the present. Furthermore, the inherent physical nature of 

everything, including the mind and spirit, focuses the 

ethics on actions and reactions to physical stimuli on the 

body and on the mind. Hence, "the highest good i n life is 

pleasure, defined as freedom from pain in the body 

(aponia), and freedom from anxiety and disturbance in the 

mind, a state called ataraxia."1 I f pleasure, that lack of pain 

both physical and mental, defines the nature of good, then 

what, we might ask, is evil? This is a question not so easily 

answered, for nowhere does Lucretius embark on a defini-

tive discourse on the nature of evil. Rather, we must cull his 

understanding of its nature from the entirety of the De 

Rerum Natura. 

It is without a doubt that evil exists in the world of 

Lucretius. One important leg of Lucretius' proof in Book V 

that the gods did not create the world asserts that the world 

is too flawed to have been crafted by the hands of perfect 

deities. His poetic discourse on the deficiencies of the cre-

ated world culminates in a description of the pitiful lot into 

which a human child is born, "as is fair for h i m to whom so 

many evils remain to pass in life" (ut aequumst / cui tantum 

in vita restet transire malorum).n John Godwin has even 

said that this passage "is a splendid piece of reasoning on 

the famous 'problem of evil' whereby the world, for all its 

undoubted beauty, is simply too faulty to be the result of di-

vine intelligence." 1 1 1 Yet, though this passage establishes 

that evil exists, it does not elucidate what evil is; for this, we 

must look further. 

E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 0 6 



It is important, first, to establish a linguistic approach to the 

treatment of evil by Lucretius. It seems clear that the prin-

cipal word used by Lucretius for "evil" is mains, with its ad-

jectival and substantival forms; indeed, it is used almost 

twice as often as all of its nearest synonyms combined. 1 V 

Yet, Lucretius uses the word malus only thirty-one times in 

the entire poem; for such a common word with such a wide 

range of uses, this seems surprisingly sparse in a work of 

more than 7 4 0 0 lines and almost 5 0 , 0 0 0 words. It wi l l 

soon become clear, however, that although the word is 

sometimes used with no more than poetic flourish, most 

often it is carefully chosen in order to craft and strengthen 

Lucretius' ethics on the nature of evil. 

I n many modern metaphysics, a distinction is made be-

tween evils that occur i n nature independent of human in-

fluence and evils that occur as a direct result of human in-

fluence and action. While Lucretius does, at least 

implicitly, draw this distinction, the difference does not af-

fect the nature of evil per se in his ethics, i.e. a natural evil is 

in itself just as harmful as a human evil. Lucretius does, 

however, recognize that, while we cannot necessarily exer-

cise control over natural evils, we can always exercise con-

trol over human evils because they originate from our own 

actions. Natural evils may at times be avoided by human ac-

tion, but their causation is quite independent of human ac-

tion. Human evils consitute graver evils in th ethics of 

Epicurean philosophy because human action, especially 

when armed with the tools of that philosophy, not only can 

more readily avoid them but can, and is the only agent that 

does, cause them. Furthermore, he understands that some 

human evils are more difficult, though never impossible, to 

resist because there are natural tendencies in humans that 

incline us to commit human evils; we must, therefore, 

work even harder to overcome them. 

I I . N A T U R A L EVILS 

First, we must understand that there are definite, natural 

evils for Lucretius. Bearing in mind that the good is defined 

in terms of an absence of pain, it follows that natural evils 

are those things which cause pain, i.e. disease, cold, and 

hunger: "for the body suffers more i n connection to these 

deficiencies, and the mind suffers many evils because of 

their infection" (corpus enim magis his vitiis adfine laborat, / 

et mala multa animus contage fungitur eius).v In Book V I , 

Lucretius wi l l specifically focus on the natural evil of dis-

ease, played out most spectacularly i n his description of the 

plague of Athens. His discourse on disease follows earlier 

sections in which he explains many natural phenomena. 

Beginning at line 639, Lucretius explains the nature of vol-

canoes; at one point i n the passage, he uses the fever of dis-

ease as a metaphor for the fire of volcanoes. "Disease" (mor-

bus) is both malus and "immeasurable" (immensus), and 

the earth is so full of it that its "power is able to increase" 

(vis queat procrescere) . V 1 While the imagery of a fever is cer-

tainly not unique to this description of volcanoes, it is inter-

esting that Lucretius should use such provocative adjec-

tives. Furthermore, he characterizes only the disease as 

malus and not the volcano; this would suggest that this de-

scription of disease is not only a metaphor for volcanoes but 

also a comment on the nature of disease i n its own right, a 

topic he wil l take up in full just a few hundred lines later. 

This characterization of disease as a natural evil becomes 

even stronger in the last verses of the poem in which 

Lucretius describes the plague of Athens. I n the course of 

only twenty-nine lines (1150-1177/78)/" he uses malus 

three times to describe the evil symptoms of the plague: the 

victim's tongue is weakened by evils, anxious anguish and 

complaints are mixed in with unbearable evils, and there is 

no rest from the e v i l . v m Hence, i t becomes clear that dis-

ease, along with other naturally occurring pains, is a natu-

ral evil in Lucretian ethics. 

I I I . T H E EVILS OF LOVE 

Now we shall deal with the much more complex realm of 

human nature and, likewise, human evils. Let us first take 

as an example Lucretius' treatment of sexual desire and 

love i n Book IV. After an involved discussion of the nature 

of dreams, Lucretius uses the concept of images affecting 

the senses to transition to a discussion of the nature of sex-

DE M A L O R I U M N A T U R A : L U C R E T I U S A N D T H E N A T U R E OF EVIL 



ual arousal and the ejaculation of semen." In frank and 

even slightly technical terms, he describes how images of 

an external body, the "messengers of a striking face and of 

a beautiful color" (nuntia preaclari vultus pulchrique col-

ons)* excite those parts of the body in which the semen 

atoms naturally congregate, causing them "to pour forth" 

(profundare).Ki When he describes, however, the action of 

the wi l l (voluntas) "to cast forth" (eicere) the semen, he notes 

that i t is sent "to where dread desire strains itself" (quo se 

contendit diva libido) x n and that "the body seeks that [place] 

i n which the mind is wounded by love" (idque petit corpus, 

mens unde est saucia amore).xm The problem, according to 

Lucretius, is when the purely natural urge to ejaculate is 

eclipsed by "the drop of sweet Venus" that "has dripped into 

[our] heartfs]" and has been followed by "frigid care" 

(Veneris dulcedinis in cor / stillavit gutta et successit frigida 

cura).xn I n successive passages he wi l l describe the various 

problems caused by the emotional connection of "love": the 

madness of the lover's absence; the insatiability of pent-up 

desires; the delusions created by the lovesick to hide real-

ity . x v Lucretius several times explicitly names these prob-

lems malus.xwl Indeed, all of these problems caused by the 

entanglements of love detract from the ataraxia that is so 

central to Lucretian ethics. 

our (natural) lustful desires with a prostitute, we do not lose 

the "enjoyment of Venus" (Veneris fructum); rather, we re-

ceive the pleasure of sexual fulfillment without the "pun-

ishment" (poena) of love. 

These "evils" that are produced by emotional attachment 

(and, for that matter, detachment) are human evils, for they 

arise from deliberate human action (voluntas). Although 

the sexual urge to ejaculate is entirely natural, i t is from this 

sexual urge, when corrupted by "incorrect" notions of its 

nature, that the human evil arises. Hence, we see that nat-

ural physical compositions can induce the conditions for, 

though not perforce necessitate, human evils. 

I V . H U M A N N A T U R E A N D H U M A N E V I L 

Furthermore, the systematic physical composition of the 

human creates general characteristics that may be inclined 

to commit human evils. To understand the nature of 

human action i n the mind (animus), we must first under-

stand the physical composition of the human soul (anima), 

a topic with which Lucretius deals at length in Book I I I . 

The soul is composed of four types of atoms. First, we have 

the three "natures" of the soul as observed from the soul as 

they leave the body of a dying person: wind or breath (aura), 

"To understand the nature of human action in the mind, 
we must first understand the physical composition of the 

human soul.. " 

How, then, are we to overcome the evils of love? As he tells 

us, we are "to flee the images" (fugitare...simulacra), "to 

drive away the fodder of love and turn our minds to some-

thing else," (pabula amoris / absterrere...atque alio convert-

er e mentem), and "to cast out, not retain, the collected liquid 

[of semen] into whatever body" (iacere umorem collectum in 

corpora quaeque / nec retinere).™1 Furthermore, even i f we 

reject the wounding blows of love straightaway by fulfilling 

heat or warmth (vapor), and, always commingled with the 

heat, air (aer)xvm None of these three can cause sensation 

and therefore thoughts in the mind, so there must be a 

fourth type of atom, nameless, which is the cause of sensa-

tions (sensifeorum motum).xlx From these causation atoms 

arise sensations that pass first to the heat, then to the wind, 

next to the air atoms, and finally to atoms of the body in 

general; x x in this way the soul serves as, in modern parl-

ELEM ENTS S P R I N G 06 



ance, the central nervous system. 

Next, we examine the mind (animus) and see within it three 

natures: heat (color), cold wind (frigida aura), and peaceful 

air (pacatus aer).xxl These natures are not the same as the 

atoms which compose the soul; there is, however, a clear 

connection between them, and it seems that it is the sensa-

tion received by each type of atom that gives rise in the 

mind to the corresponding nature. It is these three natures 

that, in turn, give rise to human behavioral types. The heat 

is assumed by the mind "when in anger it becomes hot and 

a sharper flame shines from the eyes" (in ira / cumfervescit 

et ex oculis micat acrius ardor).™1 Likewise, the cold wind, 

the "companion of fear" (comitesformidinis), "gives rise to a 

shivering in the limbs" (ciet horrorem membris)xxm Finally, 

the peaceful air exists "when the heart is peaceful and the 

face serene" (pectore tranquilo...vultuque sereno).xxw The 

nature of each human is determined by the corresponding 

proportions of soul atoms within him: a preponderance of 

vapor soul atoms wi l l create within h i m a nature more dis-

posed to color and hence to ira, and likewise with wind and 

air and with fear and tranquility, respectively. As we wi l l 

see, it is these natural dispositions that give rise to the 

human evils of inordinate anger or fear. 

Although an education (doctrina) can leave some people 

polished (politos), there wi l l always remain some vestiges of 

man's original nature. The key line, however, follows, i n 

which Lucretius deems these dispositions, and the result-

ant anger, fear, or forbearance, as mala™ explaining that " i t 

must not be thought possible for these evils to be pulled 

out, roots and all" (nec radicitus evelli mala posse putan-

dumst). Radicitus, the word meaning "root and all," is 

used only one other time by Lucretius, at line 877 of the 

same book; i n that context, Lucretius describes the man 

who proclaims to believe in the doctrine that the soul dies 

with the body, though his belief is false and empty, for there 

is still beneath his breast a prod (subesse...cordi 

stimilum)xxwn that pushes h i m to fear death: this man does 

not pull himself out of life root and all (nec radicitus e vita se 

tollit et eicit). The parallel between the two lines is striking: 

the first two words are identical; the third word and the 

third and fourth word very nearly match, both in sense and 

in spelling with the "e" and "v;" and the scansion, with the 

exception of the fourth foot, is identical. Furthermore, it is 

unusual for the second foot in both lines to coincide with 

the word ending. It seems clear that Lucretius meant for 

there to be a substantive connection between the two lines. 

The underlying connection seems to be the failure of the 

man on the one hand to root out the evil that is his propen-

sity to deviate to either anger or fear from a calm disposi-

tion, and on the other hand to root out his fear of death. X X V 1 1 1 

Both the disposition to anger and fear, and the fear of death 

are reactions and emotions that detract from the Epicurean 

ataraxia. Hence, we have the central Lucretian project: 

hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest 

non radii solis neque lucida tela diei 

discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque 

It is necessary, therefore, that neither the rays of the sun 

nor the clear darts of day shatter this terror and the shad-

ows of the mind, but that the outward appearance and 

theory of nature do so.xxlx 

These lines from Book I , repeated to close the introduction 

of Book I I I , clearly state Lucretius' primary end in present-

ing his philosophy: he must dispel the fear and darkness of 

the mind, which interfere with the ultimate good of pleas-

ure; this can only be accomplished through a thorough 

grounding in the (atomic) physics of nature. The first of 

our "failures," a natural disposition to anger or fear, is 

"rooted out" by an education in Epicurean philosophy by 

which one comes to understand the true, imperturbable na-

ture of the gods and thereafter is able to emulate them. The 

second "failure," the fear of death, is "rooted out" by the 

principal program of that education: dispelling the super-

stitions and misunderstandings of religion that bind man 

to a terrifying life after death, a life which in reality does not 

exist, for neither mind nor soul survive the death of the 

body. 

DE M A L O R I U M N AT U R A: L U C R E T I U S A N D T H E N A T U R E OF EVIL 



V. T H E FEAR OF D E A T H 

One might argue that a fear of death is, in fact, a natural 

fear, and that, just as man has the natural inclination to feel 

anger and fear discussed in Book I I I , so man has also a nat-

ural inclination to fear death; it could also be argued the re-

ligious superstitions "invented" by man are natural re-

sponses to the truly frightening prospect of quitting the 

mortal life on earth. Although he never explicitly answers 

such an objection, it seems clear that Lucretius would argue 

that the fear of death is not natural in the same way as the 

inclination towards anger or fear. There is a natural com-

position in the atoms of the mind that produces the inclina-

tion towards anger or fear. A fear of death, however, has no 

basis in the natural composition of the mind because the 

nature of death is inevitable and final; hence, there is no ra-

tionale for fearing death. 

In accordance with these ethics, therefore, Lucretius begins 

to debunk organized religion, just sixty-six lines into the 

poem, he begins to praise Epicurus, the "Greek man" 

(Graius homo), because it was under his feet that religion 

was trampled. Lucretius reviews the story of Iphigenia at 

Aulis as an example to demonstrate that "religion produces 

wicked and unholy deeds" (religio parit scelerosa atque 

impia facta).xxx Lucretius deems the slaughter of the inno-

cent girl i n the name of "religion" a wicked and unholy 

crime and from this singular incident he derives perhaps 

the best single encapsulation of "evil" in his ethics: "such 

great evils religion is able to advise" (tantum religio potest 

suadere malorum).10011 

Furthermore, we must understand that the gods have not 

ordained this unholy religion, for their nature is such that 

they are, i n fact, wholly removed from the affairs of our 

world, and therein lies their perfection, for they lead eternal 

lives absent the evil of pain that is i n our world. They are 

free from grief and danger, powerful in their own means, 

and in need of nothing that concerns us; hence, there is 

nothing that we can do either to gain their favor or to incur 

their w r a t h . x x x " Affected by no worldly weather, they live i n 

their quiet dwelling-places with their every need supplied 

by nature, such that there exists nothing that can take away 

from their "peace of mind" (animi pax).*101111 Yet, we falsely 

attribute to them the same "sharp angers" (iras acerhas) 
X X 3 U V that so plague our own hearts. Hence, we learn in Book 

V what true piety is: not to take part in the petty rituals and 

superstitions of religion, "but rather to be able to behold all 

with a peaceful mind" (sed mage pacata posse omnia mente 

tueri).xxxw This mens pacata is exactly the animi pax of the 

gods: true piety, true "religion" i f you wi l l , is to emulate the 

gods in attaining ataraxia. 

"It is this fear that so 
thoroughly throws human 

life into chaos..." 

Finally, in order to take up fully the Epicurean ethic, "this 

fear of Acheron [i.e. the Underworld] must be driven head-

long out the door" (metus illeforaspraeceps Acheruntis agen-

dus). 5 0 0 0 / 1 It is this fear that so thoroughly throws human 

life into chaos, staining everything "with the blackness of 

death" (mortis nigore), and, more important, leaving behind 

not a single "pleasure" (voluptatem).xxxml The great evils of 

this life spring from it, because, driven by the desire both to 

escape eternal punishment and to gain eternal glory after 

the death of the body, it drives men to blind ambition. It is 

this ambition that causes them "to trespass the bounds of 

justice" (transcendere finis / iuris) and to become "compan-

ions of crime and ministers of murder" (socios scelerum 

atque ministros / nodes); it is these "wounds of life" (vulnera 

vitae) that are nourished "by the fear of death" (formidine 

mortis). This leads to civil bloodshed in which men "pile 

kill ing upon ki l l ing" (caedem caede accumulant), and to the 

ultimate impious deeds in which men "cruelly rejoice in 

the sad death of their brother and even fear to eat at the ta-

bles of their relatives" (crudeles gaudent in tristi funere 

fratris / et consanguineum mensas odere timentque).xxxym 

These are the evils of the world, driven by a blind and 

E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 0 6 



irrational belief in and fear of the life after death. 

Although the terrifying punishments imagined by the 

Roman religion do not exist in a Tartarus that itself does not 

exist, yet they do exist here on earth in our present lives. 

Wretched Tantalus is not numbed by the empty fear of the 

great rock hanging above him; rather, it is we mortals who 

are oppressed by an empty fear of the gods and of a death 

that chance has inevitably fashioned for us all. Likewise, 

Tityos does not lie stretched out, his bowels eternally de-

voured by birds, but we each become Tityos when, lying i n 

the folds of love, we are consumed by the winged Cupid and 

the anguish of lovesickness. Sisyphus, too, lives here in the 

present day as he seeks out political power, for he wi l l never 

be satisfied in his quest and so is doomed ever to push the 

boulder of political ambition up the slope of empty power. 

Indeed, all of the dreadful punishments that falsely we fear 

to await us in the afterlife are, in fact, present here in our 

lives, and even when we do not feel the sting of the scourge 

or the burn of pitch upon our backs, yet we fear them with 

a guilty conscience because we do not understand that with 

death comes the end of these evils, not their increase. x x x i x 

So it is that Lucretius tells us in Book 6: 

quae nisi respuis ex animo longeque remittis 

dis indigna putare alienaque pads eorum, 

delibata deum per te tibi numina sancta 

saepe oberunt... 

Unless you spit these things out of your mind and banish 

far away thinking things unworthy of the gods and foreign 

to their peace, the holy power of the gods, lessened by you, 

will often harm you...xl 

V I . C O N C L U S I O N 

Hence, we see that natural evils like disease and famine do 

exist, but the Epicurean wi l l understand that these evils, as 

natural and often inevitable as death, are to be feared no 

more than the same. There exist also the natural evils of the 

human propensity to anger and to mistake the natural need 

to dispel a build-up of lust for a need to establish romantic 

entanglements. These evils, however, are conquerable and 

lead only to problems of emotional attachment, detach-

ment, and imbalance, and not to the grand scale of crimes 

we see committed on account of the fear of death. The 

worst kind of evil, however, is the human evil of living in the 

delusions established by religious superstition. Man mis-

understands the true nature of the gods because this super-

stition teaches h i m that the gods involve themselves in the 

sordid affairs of man. Man fears death because he fears the 

punishment that this superstition teaches awaits h i m after 

death. These superstitions cause man to drive himself into 

the evil of pain because neither does he understand the true 

nature of pleasure nor does he understand that his pain is 

rooted in his very fear of future pain that, in reality, wi l l 

never come. To overcome evil, therefore, is to overcome 

these mistaken natural needs, these fears and these super-

stitions, and to understand and implement these 

Epicurean doctrines. 

E N D N O T E S 

i Englert (xv) 
i i V.226-7. 
i i i Godwin (95) 
iv Data f rom Johannes Paulson's Index Lucretianus: 
foedus, -a, -um: used 4 times 
improhus, -a, -um: used 2 times 
scelus, -eris: used 5 times 
turpis, -is, -e: used 8 times 
vIII .733-4. 
vi VI.663-4. 
v i i Editors transpose line 1178 i n the MSS to before line 1175, 
thus making line 1177 i n the MSS line 1178 i n the critical text. 
v i i i VI.1150: debilitata malis; VI.1158-9: intolerabilibusque malis 
erat anxius angor / assidue comes et gemitu commixta querela; 
VI.1177(8): nec requies erat ulla mali 
ix Though Lucretius' discussion of sexuality is couched i n 
terms of the male arousal and ejaculation of semen into the fe-
male, he does note i n 11. 1192-1208, that intercourse and sexual 
pleasure are a shared experience (communus) between man and 
woman; therefore, his physics and ethics of sexuality, though 
only stated i n male terms, hold true as well for the female. 
x IV.1033. 
xi IV.1035. 
xi i IV.1045-6. 
x i i i IV.1048. 
xiv IV.1059-60. 
xv IV.1061-2, 68-9; IV.1076-1140; IV.1141-91. 
xvi IV.1119,1141, 1159. 

DE M A L O R I U M N A T U R A : L U C R E T I U S A N D T H E N A T U R E OF EVIL 



xvii IV.1063-6. 
xvii i III.232-4. 
xix III.241-45. 
xx III.246-51. 
xxi III.288-93. 
xxii TII.288-9. 
xxiii III .290-1. 
xxiv III .293. 
xxv These resultant actions are problematic, of course, only i n 
excess: "this man runs off more quickly to sharp angers, that 
one is tested more quickly by a small fear, or that th i rd man re-
ceives something more kindly than is r ight" (proclivius hie iras 
decurrat ad acris, / ille metu citius paulo temptetur, at ille / tertius 
accipiat quaedam clementius aequo) III.311-3. 
xxvi III.310. 
xxxvii III.873-4. 
xxxviii The fear that results f rom the disposition of the m i n d of 
the cold wind is a separate concept f r o m the fear of death. The 
fear of death is a specific, final, and ultimate fear; while the fear 
caused by the cold w i n d is simply the generic emotion of fear. 
xxix I . 146-8 
xxx I.83; original verb form peperit. 
xxxi I.101; original verb f o r m potuit. 
xxxii I.44-49. 
xxxiii III.18-24. 
xxxiv V.1195. 
xxxv V.1203. 
xxxvi III.37. 
xxxvii III.38-40. 
xxxviii 111.5 9-73. 
xxxix III.980-1023. 
x l V I . 68-71 

REFERENCES 

Lucretius. 2003. On the Nature of Things. Trans. Walter Englert. 
Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing. 

Lucretius. 2000. Lucretius: Selections from De Rerum Natura. Ed. 
John Godwin. London: Bristol Classical Press. 

Paulson, Johannes.1926. Index Lucretianus: Editio Altera. 
Leipzig: Wincornachdruck der Spamerschen Buchdrukerei.