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Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), Epicurean poet (see epicurus), author of the De rerum natura (DRN), ‘On the Nature of Things’ (c.94–55 or 51 bce ?). We know less about the life of Lucretius than about almost any other Latin poet. His full name is given only in the manuscripts of his work (pun on Carus, 1. 730 ?), and nothing is known of his place of birth or social status, though both have been the subject of much speculation. *Jerome's version of the Chronicle of *Eusebius puts his birth in 94 bce, and says that he was 44 when he died, but the *DonatusLife of Virgil puts his death in 55, on the same day that Virgil assumed the *togavirilis (6, though there are textual problems), and a note in a 10th-cent. manuscript (H. Usener Kl. Schr. (1913), 156, 196–9) says that he was born 27 years before Virgil, i.