Do you have a specific verse where you feel like Lucretius praised him on this subject? I only see that he praises him relative to other elementaists before tearing him and the rest apart for what he sees as erroneous thinking regarding their prior assertions around the nature of matter, saying:
“Yet when it comes to fundamentals, there they meet their doom.
These men were giants; when they stumble, they have far to fall:”
(Book 1, lines 740-741)
I agree that he likely was a precursor to the later thinking in suggesting a compository model of life starting from pieces which combined to forms later on, but the lack of the source material makes it hard to truly assign credit.
It’s kind of like how the Greeks claimed atomism originated with the much earlier Mochus of Sidon, but we credit Democritus because we don’t have proof of Mochus at all but we do have the former’s writings. We don’t even so much credit Leucippus, Democritus’s teacher, as much as his student for the same reasons, similar to how we refer to “Plato’s theory of forms” and not “Socrates’ theory of forms.”
In any case, Lucretius oozes praise for Epicurus, comparing him to a god among men, and while he does say Empedocles was far above his contemporaries saying the same things he was, he doesn’t seem overly deferential to his positions as much as criticizing the shortcomings in the nuances of their theories with a special focus on theories of matter. I don’t think there’s much direct influence on Lucretius’s thinking around proto-evolution, even if there’s arguably plausible influence on Epicurus’s which in turn informed Lucretius.
Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth To water; add who deem that things can grow Out of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain; As first Empedocles of Acragas, Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas, Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves. Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits, Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores Of the Italic mainland. Here the waste Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats To gather anew such furies of its flames As with its force anew to vomit fires, Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anew Its lightnings’ flash. And though for much she seem The mighty and the wondrous isle to men, Most rich in all good things, and fortified With generous strength of heroes, she hath ne’er Possessed within her aught of more renown, Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear Than this true man. Nay, ever so far and pure The lofty music of his breast divine Lifts up its voice and tells of glories found, That scarce he seems of human stock create.
Of these [sc. the four-element theorists] the foremost is Empedocles of Acragas, born within the three-cornered terres- trial coasts of the island [Sicily] around which the Ionian Sea, flowing with its great windings, sprays the brine from its green waves, and from whose boundaries the rushing sea with its narrow strait divides the coasts of the Aeolian land with its waves. Here is destructive Charybdis, and here the rumblings of Etna give warning that they are once more gathering the wrath of their flames so that her violence may again spew out the fire flung from her jaws and hurl once more to the sky the lightning flashes of flame. Although this great region seems in many ways worthy of admiration by the human races, and is said to deserve visiting for its wealth of good things and the great stock of men that fortify it, yet it appears to have had in it nothing more illustrious than this man, nor more holy, admirable, and pre- cious. What is more, the poems sprung from his godlike mind call out and expound his illustrious discoveries, so that he scarcely seems to be born of mortal stock.
Do you have a specific verse where you feel like Lucretius praised him on this subject? I only see that he praises him relative to other elementaists before tearing him and the rest apart for what he sees as erroneous thinking regarding their prior assertions around the nature of matter, saying:
“Yet when it comes to fundamentals, there they meet their doom. These men were giants; when they stumble, they have far to fall:”
(Book 1, lines 740-741)
I agree that he likely was a precursor to the later thinking in suggesting a compository model of life starting from pieces which combined to forms later on, but the lack of the source material makes it hard to truly assign credit.
It’s kind of like how the Greeks claimed atomism originated with the much earlier Mochus of Sidon, but we credit Democritus because we don’t have proof of Mochus at all but we do have the former’s writings. We don’t even so much credit Leucippus, Democritus’s teacher, as much as his student for the same reasons, similar to how we refer to “Plato’s theory of forms” and not “Socrates’ theory of forms.”
In any case, Lucretius oozes praise for Epicurus, comparing him to a god among men, and while he does say Empedocles was far above his contemporaries saying the same things he was, he doesn’t seem overly deferential to his positions as much as criticizing the shortcomings in the nuances of their theories with a special focus on theories of matter. I don’t think there’s much direct influence on Lucretius’s thinking around proto-evolution, even if there’s arguably plausible influence on Epicurus’s which in turn informed Lucretius.
[edit: nevermind I see you already know about the following quotes. There’s other evidence of the influence in Sedley’s book I link below]
In De Reum Natura around line 716:
Or for a more modern translation from Sedley’s Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom