Several personal characteristics may be inferred from the poem:
1. His earnestness and sincerity; iii. 28,
‘His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
percipit atque horror,’ etc.
Cf. the importance he attaches to his subject, i. 926,
‘Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
trita solo.’
2. His admiration for the great men of the past. Cf. iii. 1024-52, where Ancus, the Scipios, Homer, Democritus, and Epicurus are praised; the introductions to Books i., iii., v., vi., on Epicurus; i. 716-33 on Empedocles; i. 117-9 on Ennius.
3. His powers of observation and love of nature. Cf. i. 716-25; ii. 29 sqq., 40 sqq.; 323-32; iv. 572 sqq.
4. His experience of women. Book iv. 1037-the end.
5. His wide reading. The poem shows knowledge of Epicurus, Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Plato, the Stoic writers, Thucydides, Hippocrates, Homer, Euripides. Among Latin writers Ennius, Naevius, Pacuvius, Lucilius, and Accius are all imitated.
There is a reference to contemporary history in i. 41-3,