Praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni

Tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas[33].

With fervid sincerity he announces the truth that 'to the man who would govern his life by reason plain living and a contented spirit are great riches'—

Quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,

Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce

Aequo animo[34].

Moderation, independence, and self-control are the virtues which Horace derives from his philosophy. He knew how to enjoy both the luxury of the city and the simple fare of the country. Lucretius is more alive to the dangers of pampering the body and enervating the mind. He is more active in his resistance to the common forms of indulgence: he shows more truly simple tastes, stronger capacity of natural enjoyment. He is vividly sensible of the apathy and ennui produced by the luxury and inaction of his age. Others among the Roman poets, with more or less sincerity and consistency, appear to long for a return to more natural ways, and paint their ideals of the purity and simplicity of country life. But no writer of antiquity is less of an idealist than Lucretius: there is no writer, ancient or modern, whose words are more truthful and unvarnished. There is no romance or self-deception in what he longs for. There may be some anticipation of the spirit of Rousseau in Virgil, and still more in Tibullus, but none whatever in Lucretius. The privations and rude misery of savage life are painted in as sombre colours as the satiety and discontent of his own age. It would be difficult to name any writer, ancient or modern, by whom the lesson of 'plain living and high thinking' was more worthily inculcated.

The passion of love, which, in its more violent phases, was seen to be a prominent motive in the comedy of Plautus, became a very powerful influence in actual life during the last years of the Republic and the early years of the Empire. Extreme license in the pursuit of pleasure was common among men and women of the highest rank: but, over and above this, the poetry of Catullus and of the elegiac poets of the Augustan age shows that in the case of young men of fashion and literary accomplishment (and these were often combined) intrigue and temporary liaisons had become the absorbing interest and occupation of life. With these claims of passion and sentiment, apparently so alien to the ancient strength and dignity of the Roman character, Lucretius felt no sympathy. No writer has shown a profounder reverence for human affection. In his eyes the crowning guilt of superstition is the cruel violation of natural ties exacted by it: the chief bitterness of death is the thought of eternal separation from wife and children: the first civilising influence acting on the world is traced to the power of the blandishments of children over the savage pride of strength. The pathos of the famous passage, at Book ii. 350, attests his sympathy with the sorrow caused by the disruption of natural ties, even in the lower animals. Other casual expressions, as in that line of profound feeling—

Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus[35];—

or such pictures, as that at iii. 469, of friends and relatives surrounding the bed of one who has sunk into a deep lethargy—