[Footnote 817: ][ (return) ] Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 100-118.
[Footnote 818: ][ (return) ] Diogenes Laertius, Maxim 2, in "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.
[Footnote 819: ][ (return) ] Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 275-280.
The concluding portion of the third book, in which Lucretius discourses on death, is a mournful picture of the condition of the heathen mind before Christianity "brought life and immortality fully to light." It comes to us, like a voice from the grave of two thousand years, to prove they were "without hope." To be delivered from the fear of future retribution, they would sacrifice the hope of an immortal life. To extintinguish guilt they would annihilate the soul. The only way in which Lucretius can console man in prospect of death is, by reminding him that he will escape the ills of life.
"'But thy dear home shall never greet thee more!
No more the best of wives!--thy babes beloved,
Whose haste half-met thee, emulous to snatch
The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,
Again shall never hasten!--nor thine arm,
With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal!--