Lucretius' apocalyptic imagination
This essay discusses the apocalyptic features of Lucretius’ de rerum natura, suggesting a comparison with texts belonging to the corpus of Hellenistic Jewish pseudepigrapha; the description of the plague as a final ‘apocalypse’ with political and eschatological implications; and the connection between these aspects of the poem, the eschatological ten- sions in 1st century bce Rome, and those manifested in Hellenistic Jewish apocalypses.