With his great poem, Lucretius took up the cause of Epicureanism at Rome, extolling its founder, Epicurus of Athens (341-271 B.C.E.), as "our father, the revealer of truth, the giver of fatherly precepts." Lucretius saw himself as a strict follower of the master, although he sometimes avoided the more abstruse points of Epicurus's argument and substituted for the master's dry prose a wealth of vivid observations and imagery which mark him as a true poet, and which made Epicureanism more appealing to a wider audience.
Much of Lucretius's poem, in six books, is concerned with detailing the atomic view of the universe. This includes discussion of the mechanical laws of nature, the mortality of the soul, and the moral theory that pleasure (meaning largely the absence of pain) is the goal of life. At the root of the discussion is the idea that atoms both eternal and infinite in number make up the physical universe, including the souls of humankind. However, while the universe is material, it is not deterministic: the "swerve" of atoms, a concept developed by Epicurus, accounts both for chance and for human free will.
One of the benefits of Epicureanism came with its abolition of the superstitious fear that the gods intervene in human affairs, and that the soul is subject to punishment in an afterlife. Since the soul, composed of extremely fine atoms, dissolves with the death of the body, humankind need not fear an eternity of pain and suffering.
Lucretius was taken up enthusiastically by educated Romans. But with the rise of Christianity, he was condemned for his denial of the soul's immortality and for teaching that pleasure is the end of life. Following a long period of neglect, Lucretius's work once more became a profound source of secular ideas, beginning with the revival of classical learning during the Renaissance.
Lucretius died about 55 BCE.