Sweating with blood and civil conflict in "De Rerum Natura"

• Autores: Michael Pope
• Localización: Classical journal, ISSN 0009-8353, Vol. 112, Nº 1, 2016, págs. 41-55
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Critics regularly note that sanguine sudare, “to sweat with blood,” appearing twice in DRN, is striking and they offer some verbal parallels in other texts. The phrase and these parallels have not been investigated beyond these passing comments. In this article I examine Lucretius' use of the phrase within his poem and in other sources. I argue that the phrase, as Lucretius employs it, is multivalent in meaning and is a signal to his audience that evils are threatening Rome. By placing the phrase in conversation with similar and identical locutions found in war and teratological contexts, I show that Lucretius uses the phrase to induce his audience to consider the causes and consequences of violence and looming societal collapse. The phrase is more than a fine expression, it is for Lucretius another method to stimulate introspection and radical change among Rome's elite.