[762] Lucr. vi. 68 foll.
[763] Masson i. p. 285.
[764] Cic. N.D. i. 2. 3.
[765] Cic. N.D. i. 37. 102; to believe the gods idle "etiam homines inertes efficit."
[766] For this profound reverence for Epicurus see also Cic. N.D. i. 8. 18. It amounted to a faith. In this passage the Epicurean is described as "nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur, tanquam modo ex deorum concilio et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset." See also sec. 43 and Mayor's note; Cic. de Finibus, i. 5. 14; Masson i. 354-5, who quotes the most striking passages from Lucretius, e.g. v. 8-10:
deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi, qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam quae nunc appellatur sapientia, etc.
In a paper entitled "Die Bekehrung (conversion) im klassischen Altertum," by W. A. Heidel (Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie, vol. iii. Heft 2), the author, an American disciple of W. James, argues that the exordium of Bk. iii. indicates a psychological conversion of Lucretius.
[767] See Masson's chapter (p. 399 foll.) on the teaching and personality of Lucretius. Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p. 327 foll., and references there given. I may note here that the power of Epicurism as a faith depended also largely on the directness, downrightness, and audacity of its system, working on minds weary of philosophers' disputations and political quarrels.
[768] Cic. de Finibus, i. viii. to end (translation by J. S. Reid, Camb. Univ. Press). The following sentence in ch. 18, sec. 57, puts the Epicurean ethics in a nutshell: "Clamat Epicurus, is quem vos nimis voluptatibus esse deditum dicitis, non posse iucunde vivi nisi sapienter, honeste, iusteque vivatur, nec sapienter, honeste, iuste, nisi iucunde."
[769] What this quietism might mean for a Roman may be gathered from the following passage in Cic. de Finibus, i. 13. 43, in which sapientia is practical wisdom, the Aristotelian φρονησιϛ or the ars vivendi, as Cicero has explained it just before: "Sapientia est adhibenda, quae, et terroribus cupiditatibusque detractis et omnium falsarum opinionum temeritate derepta, certissimam se ducem praebeat ad voluptatem. Sapientia enim est una, quae maestitiam pellat ex animis, quae nos exhorrescere metu non sinat; qua praeceptrice in tranquillitate vivi potest, omnium cupiditatum ardore restincto. Cupiditates enim sunt insatiabiles, quae non modo singulos homines, sed universas familias evertunt, totam etiam labefactant saepe rempublicam. Ex cupiditatibus odia discidia discordiae seditiones bella nascuntur." And so on to the end of the chapter. The message of Lucretius to the Roman was practically the same. The remedy was the wrong one in that age; though it does not necessarily entail withdrawal from public life with all its enticements and risks, it must inevitably have a strong tendency to suggest it; and such withdrawal had, as a matter of fact, been one of the characteristics of the Epicurean life. See Zeller, Stoics, etc., ch. xx.; Guyau, La Morale d'Épicure, p. 141 foll.