Skip to main content
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Profaning Mars as Devictus in De Rerum Natura

  • EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: May 20, 2025

Abstract

This paper examines the term devictus (“totally defeated”) in the opening verses of De Rerum Natura. The term carries the heavy baggage of violence and conquest that Rome visited upon its enemies and is most at home in patriotic slogans of victory. The basic argument of the study is that devictus is a highly charged descriptor and especially when applied to Mars. Lucretius, I contend, is tapping into and manipulating an existing discourse of victor and vanquished to recast the war god in an intentionally provocative manner.

Bibliography

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Edited with Prolegomena, Critical Apparatus, Translations and Commentary, 3 vols., by C. Bailey, Oxford 1947.Search in Google Scholar

W. S. Anderson, “Discontinuity in Lucretian Symbolism”, TAPA 91, 1960, 1–29.10.2307/283840Search in Google Scholar

C. Ando, The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire, Berkeley 2008.Search in Google Scholar

E. Asmis, “Lucretius’ Venus and Stoic Zeus”, Hermes 110, 1982, 458–470.Search in Google Scholar

E. Asmis, “Venus and the Passion for Renewal in Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things”, in: H. Berressem/G. Blamberger/S. Goth (eds.), Venus as Muse: From Lucretius to Michel Serres (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 182), Leiden 2015, 41–54.10.1163/9789004292536_004Search in Google Scholar

W. W. Batstone, “The Fragments of Furius Antias”, CQ 46, 1996, 387–402.10.1093/cq/46.2.387Search in Google Scholar

A. Betensky, “Lucretius and Love”, CW 73, 1980, 291–299.10.2307/4349198Search in Google Scholar

K. R. Bradley, “On Captives under the Principate”, Phoenix 58, 2004, 298–319.10.2307/4135171Search in Google Scholar

V. Buchheit, “Epicurus’ Triumph of the Mind (Lucr. 1.62–79)”, in: M. Gale (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Lucretius, Oxford 2007, 104–131.Search in Google Scholar

B. A. Catto, “Venus and Natura in Lucretius: De Rerum Natura 1.1–23 and 2.167–74”, CJ 84, 1988–1989, 97–104.Search in Google Scholar

C. B. Champion, The Peace of the Gods: Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic, Princeton 2017.10.23943/princeton/9780691174853.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

J. H. Clark, “Ennius’ Annals as Historical Evidence in Ancient and Modern Commentaries”, in: C. Damon/J. Farrell (eds.), Ennius’ Annals: Poetry and History, Cambridge 2020, 262–279.10.1017/9781108650908.018Search in Google Scholar

D. Clay, “The Athenian Garden”, in: J. Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge 2009, 9–28.10.1017/CCOL9780521873475.002Search in Google Scholar

J. M. Cody, “Conquerors and Conquered on Flavian Coins”, in: A. J. Boyle/W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, Leiden 2003, 103–123.10.1163/9789004217157_004Search in Google Scholar

T. Cole, “Venus and Mars (De Rerum Natura 1.31–40)”, in: P. E. Knox/C. Foss (eds.), Style and Tradition: Studies in Honor of Wendell Clausen, Stuttgart und Leipzig 1998, 3–15.Search in Google Scholar

E. Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets, Oxford 1993.10.1093/oseo/instance.00076637Search in Google Scholar

M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols., Cambridge 1975.Search in Google Scholar

M. H. Crawford, Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean Economy, Berkeley 1985.Search in Google Scholar

H. S. Davies, “Notes on Lucretius”, The Criterion 11, 1931–1932, 25–42. 10.1177/0040571X3202514904Search in Google Scholar

M. Deufert, Kritischer Kommentar zu Lukrezens De rerum natura (Texte und Kommentare 56), Berlin 2018.10.1515/9783110479034Search in Google Scholar

R. E. Deutsch, The Pattern of Sound in Lucretius, New York 1978.Search in Google Scholar

L. Edmunds, “Mars as Hellenistic Lover: Lucretius, De rerum natura 1.29–40 and its Subtexts”, IJCT 8, 2002, 343–358.10.1007/s12138-002-0001-xSearch in Google Scholar

L. Fratantuono, A Reading of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, New York 2015.10.5771/9781498511551Search in Google Scholar

D. C. Fredrick, “Reading Broken Skin: Violence in Roman Elegy”, in: J. P. Hallett/M. B. Skinner (eds.), Roman Sexualities, Princeton 1997, 172–193.10.1515/9780691219547-009Search in Google Scholar

P. Friedländer, “Pattern of Sound and Atomistic Theory in Lucretius”, AJP 62, 1941, 16–34.10.2307/291222Search in Google Scholar

M. R. Gale, Myth and Poetry in Lucretius, Cambridge 1994.Search in Google Scholar

K. Galinksy, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction, Princeton 1996.Search in Google Scholar

G. Gambash/H. Gitler/H. M. Cotton, “Iudaea Recepta”, Israel Numismatic Research 8, 2013, 89–104.Search in Google Scholar

T. H. M. Gellar-Goad, Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matter: Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and Satire, Ann Arbor 2020.10.3998/mpub.11378464Search in Google Scholar

P. Gordon, “Some Unseen Monster: Rereading Lucretius on Sex”, in: D. Fredrick (ed.), The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body, Baltimore 2002, 86–109.Search in Google Scholar

P. Gordon, The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus, Ann Arbor 2012.10.3998/mpub.1826277Search in Google Scholar

A. S. Hollis, Fragments of Roman Poetry c. 60 BC-AD 20: Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford 2007.Search in Google Scholar

G. A, Keddie, “Iudaea Capta vs. Mother Zion: The Flavian Discourse on Judaeans and Its Delegitimization in 4 Ezra”, JSJ 49, 2018, 498–550.10.1163/15700631-12494235Search in Google Scholar

A. C. Levi, Barbarians on Roman Imperial Coins and Sculpture, New York 1952.Search in Google Scholar

S. McConnell, “Lucretius and Civil Strife”, Phoenix 66, 2012, 97–121.10.1353/phx.2012.0037Search in Google Scholar

S. McConnell, “Lucretius on the Nature of Parental Love”, Antichthon 52, 2018, 72–89.10.1017/ann.2018.1Search in Google Scholar

M. McDonnell, Roman Manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic, Cambridge 2006.Search in Google Scholar

A. D. Morrison, “Arguing over Text(s): Master-Texts vs. Intertexts in the Criticism of Lucretius”, in: D. O’Rourke (ed.), Approaches to Lucretius: Traditions and Innovations in Reading the De Rerum Natura, Cambridge 2020, 157–176.10.1017/9781108379854.010Search in Google Scholar

D. O’Rourke, “Lovers in Arms: Empedoclean Love and Strife in Lucretius and the Elegists”, Dictynna 11, 2014, 1–27.10.4000/dictynna.1080Search in Google Scholar

M. Pope, “Sweating with Blood and Civil Conflict in De Rerum Natura”, CJ 112, 2016, 41–55.10.1353/tcj.2016.0042Search in Google Scholar

M. Pope, “Ocular Penetration, Grammatical Objectivity, and an Indecent Proposal in De Rerum Natura”, CP 113, 2018 a, 206–212.10.1086/696823Search in Google Scholar

M. Pope, “Seminal Verse: Atomic Orality and Aurality in De Rerum Natura”, Eugesta 8, 2018 b, 108–130.10.54563/eugesta.442Search in Google Scholar

M. Pope, Lucretius and the End of Masculinity, Cambridge 2023.10.1017/9781009242349Search in Google Scholar

C. A. Reeder, “Wartime Rape, the Romans, and the First Jewish Revolt”, JSJ 48, 2017, 363–385.10.1163/15700631-12340149Search in Google Scholar

G. Roskam, A Commentary on Plutarch’s De Latenter Vivendo, Leuven 2007. 10.2307/j.ctt9qf176Search in Google Scholar

F. Santoro L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man’, ‘Woman’, and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose, Leiden 1992.10.1163/9789004329164Search in Google Scholar

A. Schiesaro, “Lucretius and Roman Politics and History”, in: S. Gillespie/P. Hardie (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, Cambridge 2007, 41–58.10.1017/CCOL9780521848015.004Search in Google Scholar

R. Schilling, La religion romaine de Vénus depuis les origines jusqu’au temps d’Auguste, Paris 21982.Search in Google Scholar

J. M. Snyder, Puns and Poetry in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Amsterdam 1980.Search in Google Scholar

L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Philological Monographs 1), Middletown 1931.Search in Google Scholar

M. de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, Leiden 2008.Search in Google Scholar

S. Weinstock, “Victor and Invictus”, HTR 50, 1957, 211–247.10.1017/S0017816000020927Search in Google Scholar

C. A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, Oxford 22010.Search in Google Scholar

P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, transl. by A. Shapiro, Ann Arbor 1988.10.3998/mpub.12362Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2025-05-20
Published in Print: 2025-07-04

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 16.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/phil-2024-0021/html
Scroll to top button