Lucretius, Cybele, and Religion

Abstract

F OR A CENTURY, SCHOLARS HAVE BEEN PUZZLED by what they regard as the un-Epicurean flavour of Lucretius' allegorical interpretation of the cult of Cybele in De Rerum Natura 2.600 ff., which appears to favour a morality based on religious fear. Patin viewed it as a digression betraying Lucretius' actual enthusiasm for religion (l'antilucrece chez Lucrece). Perret and Boyance attempted rather to explain the passage by postulating that Lucretius had taken it more or less uncritically from another source. Mueller has modified this view substantially by noting that Lucretius does not copy the allegory uncritically, but introduces it in order to reject it.' However, it has yet to be appreciated how Lucretius' allegory actually expresses an orthodox Epicurean point of view. Admittedly, there is conclusive evidence that at least the kernel of the allegory was derived from a source. Similar interpretations of this cult were elaborated by Varro, Ovid, and the Stoic L. Annaeus Cornutus, and all four versions show sufficient correspondences to establish a common source. It is unfortunate, however, that the discovery of these parallels has led scholars to interpret Lucretius from the other sources without fully analyzing how his version differs. In fact, the differences in all four authors are more telling than the similarities. Each author shows not only accidental variations, but a pattern of changes which mould the allegory systematically to express his own point of view. This applies to Lucretius as well, and in the present paper, I shall attempt to understand his version philosophically, and to evaluate it as an Epicurean critique of the Cybelean cult. The systematic alteration of the allegory can be illustrated also from the other authors. Varro's version, for example, is preserved by Augustine (Civ. Dei 7.24 B-C). When Varro differs from our other sources, he tends to relate the mythic and ritual manifestations of Magna Mater to the physical earth, which he believes to embody the Divine Spirit. Thus, for him, the processional clangour which Lucretius presents as a powerful incitement of religious awe merely signifies the plying of the earth with metal tools in agriculture. Similarly, only Varro suggests a special meaning for the drum; it