OLTRE LA PESTE. I MORBI NELLA ΦΥΣΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ LUCREZIANA

Abstract

In a situation of such exceptional magnitude as the pandemic that we are currently experiencing, the revived interest in Lucretius remains mostly circumscribed to the macabre and, perhaps, unexpected account of the so-called plague of Athens, to which the Poet dedicates the epilogue of his De rerum natura. The episode of the mortifer aestus, the deadly miasma that fell on the land of Cecrops, is, however, part of the wider, and no less interesting, framework of Lucretius’ treatment of diseases in Book VI of his poem. How does Lucretius conceive illness? What does it share with the other natural phenomena? How does the disease progressively take possession of the person suffering it?