PREFACE

This volume contains the acta of the colloquium on 'Lucretius and His Intellectual Background' which took place under the supervision of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam from 26 to 28 June 1996. This colloquium brought together a number of specialists in Hellenistic philosophy and literature to study the context and sources of Lucretius' De rerurn natura. Several reasons may be given for this specific choice of focus. One reason concerns the direction Lucretian schol ars hip itself has taken over the last decades. Now that the 'psychological' approach appears to have lost its appeal and the phantoms of the 'mad poet' and the 'antilucrèce chez Lucrèce' are no longer with us, Lucretian schol ars are more and more trying to explain particular features of the De rerurn natura by reference to the affiliations of doctrine and method between Lucretius and others (Epicurus, the Epicurean tradition, or other Greek and Roman philosophers and poets). However, there is still no consensus nor on the degree to which Lucretius faithfully represents Epicurus' philosophy, nor on the extent to which he incorporates elements from other sources. Further explorations therefore appear to be called for. Another reason is that the study of Hellenistic thought has made considerable progress over the last decades. Thus the research on the papyri from Ercolano and on the fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda has allowed us to draw in some fIner shades in our picture of the Epicurean tradition. But also in other areas, such as the history of Stoic philosophy, or ancient doxography, scholarship has advanced. It seems legitimate to ask where all this leaves Lucretius, and whether we are now better placed to determine his position within the larger contexts of Epicureanism and Hellenistic philosophy. The present volume approaches this question of Lucretius' position along two different lines. The first ni ne papers systematically explore the relation between Lucretius and specifIc other authors or schools. The remaining nine papers rather offer what rnight be called 'case studies' sketching the background of particular motifs or passages in Lucretius. Within the group of general studies the frrst fIve deal with the relation between Lucretius' poem and the Epicurean tradition. David Sedley discusses Lucretius' use of Epicurus' On Nature and attempts to reconstruct Lucretius' Arbeitsweise in writing the DRN. Graziano Arrighetti then focuses on how the DRN as a didactic poern fits into the Epicurean tradition, despite this tradition ' s alleged hostility towards poetry . Tiziano Dorandi discusses the evidence on the Epicurean circles in the area around the Bay of Nap1es in the frrst century Be. The possibility that Lucretius was