How Letters from a Stoic drew on On the Nature of Things
A documented line of influence: Seneca demonstrably engaged Lucretius’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
On the Nature of Things
Lucretius · c. 55 BCE
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Letters from a Stoic
Seneca · c. 64
Ancient RomeRelevance
6/10
On Letters from a Stoic’s page
- Seneca quotes Lucretius's On the Nature of Things directly in these letters, returning to its imagery of cosmic decay in Letters 12, 30, and 58
- He admired the verse even as a Stoic answering an Epicurean — borrowing Lucretius's lines, then turning them to conclusions Lucretius never held
- Read the poem first and you'll catch Seneca arguing with it line by line
On On the Nature of Things’s page
- Seneca read Lucretius closely — and quotes him in the Letters
- The Epicurean's images of cosmic decay, the "rotten stones" of a universe wearing down, resurface in Letters 12, 30, and 58
- Seneca sparring with the great Epicurean poet's verses, then bending them toward Stoic ends, is one of the running pleasures of the Letters