40 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura VI.96–159 (DE TONITRV)

For those not entirely submerged in the spirit of the modern age—those who occasionally feel like spectators of the intellectual attitudes of their contemporaries—the poem of Lucretius continues to work its “magic.” This perspective, famously shared by Albert Einstein in his 1924 foreword to the Diels translation, highlights the profound impression made by Lucretius’s “firm confidence” in the intelligibility of the world. Lucretius, as a faithful disciple of Epicurus, places absolute trust in the “causal connectedness” of every event in the universe. Einstein admired Lucretius as an “independent man equipped with lively senses and reasoning,” one who imagined a world based on an “atomistic-mechanical worldview” long before the advent of modern scientific results. For Einstein, Lucretius represents the triumph of speculative curiosity over the “slavish fear” of the unknown.

This transmission of wisdom across millennia is what David Attenborough identifies as the primary value of the printed book. Attenborough describes such works as “memes”—vessels in which human experience and knowledge are embedded and handed down from generation to generation, “outside the body.” He specifically values the 1515 Aldine edition of Lucretius, printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice. This edition, renowned for its “wonderfully elegant italic script,” served as a crucial tool for conveying information throughout the six centuries leading up to the electronic age. For Attenborough, the tactile experience of reading such an edition connects the modern scholar directly to the Renaissance humanists who first rescued Lucretius from the silence of the Middle Ages.

Lines 96–159 of Book VI serve as a definitive example of this causal logic. Here, Lucretius addresses the phenomenon of thunder (DE TONITRV), removing it from the realm of divine intervention and placing it within the “causal connectedness” of nature. By using physical analogies—such as the snapping of theater awnings or the crackling of laurel branches in a fire—he demonstrates that terrifying celestial events are the result of the regular motion of immutable atoms. By mapping the physics of the sky onto the mechanics of the household and the forum, Lucretius replaces the thunderbolts of Jupiter with the observable laws of matter and void.

2. DE TONITRV: Parallel Latin and English Text

The following text presents the Latin established by Hermann Diels (1923) alongside a corresponding English translation.

3. Critical Apparatus: Testimonia and Codices

This section provides the philological context for the text, synthesized from the Diels 1923 Preface and established scholarly traditions for Book VI.

Testimonia

The following ancient citations specifically reference Lucretius’s mechanical explanation of thunder:

• Sen. Nat. II, 20, 1: Seneca notes the Lucretian theory regarding the collision of clouds (concurrunt sublime uolantes) as the primary cause of thunder.
• Sen. Nat. II, 26, 4: References the analogy of theater awnings (carbasus) used to explain the varying pitches of thunderclaps.
• Plin. Nat. II, 113: Pliny discusses the “shattering” of clouds (perfrigit uis illa) as a mechanical rather than divine event, echoing Lucretius VI.127.
• Non. 408, 23: A general citation of Lucretian hexameters regarding the nature of the elements.

Codices (Sigla)

The textual tradition of Lucretius relies on several primary manuscripts. The following sigla are used to distinguish between them:

• O (Oblongus): Codex Vossianus Lat. Fol. 30. A 9th-century manuscript, written in the school of Alcuin at Fulda. It is the primary “witness” for the 1923 Diels edition.
• Q (Quadratus): Codex Vossianus Lat. Qu. 94. A 9th or 10th-century manuscript formerly belonging to the monastery of St. Bertin. It represents a different branch of the archetype.
• G (Gottorpienses): Schedae Haunienses. Fragments from a 9th-century manuscript preserved in Copenhagen; it closely follows the tradition of Q.
• V/U (Vindobonenses): Schedae Vindobonenses. 9th-century fragments preserved in Vienna, useful for verifying readings where O and Q diverge.

Textual Notes

• The “Saxonicus” (Os): A 9th-century corrector using Anglo-Saxon script who corrected the Oblongus (O) by referencing the archetype itself. His corrections often restore the “insular” readings that the original scribe missed.
• Dittography in Book VI: Lines 146–150 and 155–156 show significant repetition and corruption in the manuscripts (O and Q). Diels suggests these were either marginal variants that crept into the text or evidence of Lucretius’s unfinished state of revision.
• The “Otloh” (O1): A later corrector, likely the monk Otloh of St. Emmeram (11th century), who emended the text at Fulda. In Book VI, his hand is often seen attempting to “smooth” the difficult technical descriptions of cloud collisions.

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