Titus Lucretius Carus (Pompeii or Herculaneum, 98/94 BC – Rome, 15 October 50 BC or 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher, a follower of Epicureanism. “Titus Lucretius Carus, having been driven mad by a love potion, after writing some books during the lucid intervals left to him by his madness, died by suicide.” Thus wrote Saint Jerome in the 4th century AD. These are the scant pieces of information available to us about the life of Lucretius, which remains almost entirely unknown. What is known with certainty is that he was the author of De Rerum Natura, a didactic epic poem divided into six books (each exceeding one thousand hexameters), entirely devoted to transmitting the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus to the Roman world, and regarded as one of the absolute masterpieces of Latin literature. In this poem, Lucretius becomes the spokesman for Epicurean theories concerning the reality of nature governed by a “natural order” independent of the gods and the role of humankind in an atomistic and materialistic universe: it is a call to personal responsibility and an encouragement to mankind to become aware of reality, in which human beings are victims from birth of passions they are unable to understand. The author assumes the task of providing humanity with the tools to eliminate fear and attain ataraxia (absence of disturbance), with the aim of freeing mankind from the fear of the gods and of death through reason, criticizing religion and presenting a material, infinite universe governed by natural laws indifferent to human beings. In Book V of De Rerum Natura, the one devoted to cosmology and life on earth, Lucretius explicitly mentions the mythological figure of Scylla. His reference occurs in a section dedicated to “portenta et monstra” (prodigies and monsters), where the poet, applying the principles of Epicurean physics, questions the existence of monstrous and supernatural creatures. Scylla thus becomes an exemplary case through which Lucretius refutes traditional mythological beliefs, maintaining that such beings can neither come into existence nor survive according to the laws of nature, reaffirming the primacy of a rational explanation of phenomena, including, precisely, those marine phenomena that occur in the waters before the Rock of Scylla.
“But there were never Centaurs, nor can there ever exist creatures of double nature and double body, put together from heterogeneous limbs, so that the faculties of beings born from this species and that could correspond sufficiently. This may be understood even by a dull mind. First of all, within three years the spirited horse is in its prime, but the child is not at all; for often he will still seek in sleep the milk-filled breasts of his mother. Then, when old age robs the horse of its mighty strength and its limbs grow weak as life departs, only then does the boy reach the flower of youth, and adolescence begins for him, clothing his cheeks with soft down. Therefore, do not be led to believe that from man and the seed of beasts of burden, of horses, Centaurs can be formed and exist, or Scyllas with half-marine bodies girded with savage dogs, and all other creatures of this kind, whose limbs we see to be discordant with one another; which neither flourish, nor gain bodily strength, nor lose it through old age at the same time, nor burn with similar passions, nor agree in uniform habits, nor are the same things beneficial to their limbs. For often one may see that bearded goats grow fat on hemlock, while for man it is a violent poison. Since, moreover, flame is accustomed to cook and burn the tawny bodies of lions just as much as any other species of flesh and blood that exists upon the earth, how could it have come to pass that a single creature with a threefold body, lion in the forepart, dragon in the hindpart, and a goat in the middle—the Chimera—could breathe from its mouth a fierce flame issuing from its body?”
In the text, Lucretius explains that the existence of hybrid beings such as Centaurs, Chimeras and Scylla is materially impossible according to the principles of nature (atomism). His argument is based on the idea that every creature is born from its own “seeds” (specific atoms) and follows its own life cycles and stages of development, which are incompatible among different species. Lucretius mentions one of the legends associated with the myth of Scylla, which portrays her as a beautiful nymph whose lower body was composed of ferocious dogs and who, dwelling in the cave at the base of the rock bearing her name, terrified sailors passing through the Strait, as an example of a mythological monster that cannot exist in nature because the different parts of her body (woman and dogs) are not subject to the same laws of growth and development. Lucretius’ argument is based on the different rates of growth and ageing of Scylla’s various body parts: a creature composed of a woman and dogs would possess parts with incompatible life cycles. The human part would reach maturity at one rate, while the canine parts (with their “barking entrails” or “barking dogs”) would do so at another. What would be nourishment for one part could be poison for the other, making its biological existence impossible. Lucretius argues that nature does not allow the fusion of limbs from different species into a single living and functioning organism, nor can there exist animals of double nature and double body, composed of heterogeneous limbs, since the different parts would require different and incompatible nourishment and conditions of growth. Through this reasoning, consistent with his Epicurean philosophy, which seeks to free mankind from fear of the gods and from superstition, Lucretius dismantles the idea that mythological monsters are real manifestations of nature or divine signs, reaffirming that the universe is governed by physical and rational laws, not by divine whims or monstrous exceptions, thus illustrating the absurdity of mythological legends.
Giuseppe Ribuffo
