Atomism in the Aeneid: Physics, Politics, and Cosmological Disorder

Matthew M. Gorey, Atomism in the Aeneid: Physics, Politics, and Cosmological Disorder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). 9780197518748.

Reviewed by Robert E. Hedrick, III, University of South Florida, hedrick@usf.edu.

Matthew Gorey’s recent monograph, Atomism in the Aeneid, presents an intriguing study of philosophical allusions in Virgil’s epic. The author argues that Virgil engages with Epicureanism as filtered through Lucretius’s De rerum natura not just as poetry but as philosophy. He claims that the poet creates an overarching program whereby he alludes to the atomic theories of Lucretius in order to show polemically their failure and to undermine Epicurean cosmology as being incompatible with both the new Roman Imperial state and the poem’s teleological order. Gorey’s study builds upon the important work of Philip Hardie (who has argued for Virgil’s remythologizing of Lucretius), as well as Julia Dyson Hejduk and Pamela Gordon, in arguing that Virgil was a tendentious reader of Lucretius, constantly invoking his poem through verbal references while destabilizing his Epicurean message. While I do not agree with all of Gorey’s assessments (more on this below), the monograph is an important contribution to the study of philosophy in Virgil’s poem and is valuable for understanding a number of Lucretian allusions in the text.

In the Introduction, Gorey reviews earlier scholarship on polemical allusions in the Aeneid and lays out the main argument of the book. He sums up his thesis: “The fundamental argument of this book is that Virgil uses images of atomic motion in the Aeneid as a metaphor for disorder, part of a larger allegorical narrative that assimilates Aeneas’s personal struggles against various enemies into a cosmic conflict between order and disorder. Within this allegorical conflict, atomism functions as a sort of philosophical antagonist, an anarchic vision of natural philosophy over which Aeneas, who is generally aligned with natural, theological, and political forces of order, must ultimately triumph” (p. 11).  Thus far, the argument hews closely to that of Hardie’s Cosmos and Imperium (1986); however, the focus is more centered on atomism, not Lucretian arguments against traditional religio. Nevertheless, Gorey provides additional refinement, not only addressing cases in which Virgil inverts or remythologizes De rerum natura, which he calls “Static Allegory,” but also cases in which Lucretius’s atomistic philosophical content is preserved; in the latter instances, the author posits that the allusive references serve as metaphors for disorder and imply an anti-Lucretian cosmology in the Aeneid, which he calls “Dynamic Allegory” (p. 14). The best parts of the monograph are the close readings of Chapters 3–5, in which Gorey analyzes passages of the epic, noting inversion and remythologizing in Virgil as well as more subtle allusions to Lucretian philosophy and didaxis.

Before the analysis of the Aeneid can begin (in Chapter 3), Chapter 2 provides the philosophical foundation for Gorey’s later analysis. He discusses various criticisms of atomic and Epicurean philosophy in the ancient world as well as the intellectual background of Virgil himself. He surveys the many critiques of atomism going back to Aristotle’s criticism of Democritus through Cicero’s philosophical works, showing that one of the main complaints from rival schools was that the atomists (stupidly) rest their entire cosmology on random chance and luck as the source for atomic collisions, combinations, and dissolutions (Epicureans like Lucretius and Philodemus would of course dispute this [false] characterization). Gorey concludes that Virgil drew from these anti-Epicurean sources in crafting atomic imagery that “equat[es] atomism with disorder, confusion, and violence” (p. 30).

Chapters 3–5 provide the Virgilian evidence and Lucretian intertexts that Gorey analyzes through close readings. In Chapter 3, he examines the storm in book 1 and argues that it provides a key example of Virgil’s technique as he utilizes verbal and thematic references to Lucretius but challenges his message. He argues that Virgil “engage[s] with the philosophy of Lucretius’s poem, evoking atomism as a negative model of how cosmological and political structures fail in the absence of authoritative and intelligent guidance” (p. 54). The analysis of the storm (pp. 53–69) and its allegorical and atomic dimensions is excellent—one of the best sections in the book. Gorey engages with Hardie’s remythologizing/demythologizing dichotomy, but provides further nuance as he also notes where Virgil incorporates Lucretian language without remythologizing. Furthermore, the argument demonstrates Virgil’s engagement not only with Lucretius but also with anti-Epicurean works like Cicero’s dialogues. Chapter 3 continues with similarly thought-provoking close readings of the destruction and the abandonment of Troy by its gods in book 2 as well as Aeneas’s conflicted mind in book 4. Again, Gorey’s treatment of these topics is appealing. For the latter, he draws upon not only Lucretius as an intertext, but also Apollonius’s Argonautica, Ennius’s tragedy Iphigenia, Aristotle’s treatment of Democritus in De anima, and Cicero. Where Chapter 3 deals with “Trojans under the Influence of Atomism” (and the way that they manage to break away from its allure), Chapter 4 addresses non-Trojans, including discussions of Dido, various battle scenes, Mezentius, and Turnus as he faces off against the phantom Aeneas. This continues in Chapter 5 where Gorey focuses on the end of the poem and Turnus’s role in it.

Where the book falls short is in the frequent appeals to generalizations that all allusions to atomism in the Aeneid are completely negative. This largely falls into the old optimistic/pessimistic dichotomy for interpreting the poem; the author basically takes the optimistic view as an assumed fact. Here, the analysis and evidence do not always prove the conclusions drawn from them—for example, the assertion that “Virgil presents atomism as the default philosophical setting of cosmological and social disorder, and as a wholly negative force that the Trojans must escape in order to survive” (p. 73) comes off as hyperbolic (“wholly negative”—Servius would perhaps disagree, and so would a number of modern critics). Similarly, in the midst of a very good discussion of Alexandrian footnoting in Aen. 10.641–42 and the phrase fama est, Gorey goes perhaps too far in complaining about Harrison’s judgment on the scene, noting: “I believe that Harrison is correct in attributing some distance or reluctance to Virgil’s citation, yet it is strange that Virgil should not ‘vouch for events beyond the grave’ when he does just that for nearly the entirety of Book 6” (p. 104). But does Virgil genuinely do this? The voluminous secondary literature about Aeneas’s departure through the Gate of False Dreams as well as the Golden Bough includes many readings that are far less certain about the poet’s vouching for all the incidents in the Underworld. The discussion just comes off too short for such a complex topic. Likewise, Gorey’s broad outlook on the poem is that it is centered on the triumph of order over disorder. While this is a plausible reading of the poem, it is not the only one, and many critics would complain that there is plenty in the poem to problematize this interpretation. At times, Gorey recognizes this and provides a more nuanced assessment, as on p. 114: “Like many claims of victory and closure in the Aeneid, however, this twin rejection of Turnus and Epicurean cosmology in favor of the teleology of Roman power is complicated by certain suggestive details, and when Aeneas wounds and kills his opponent, Virgil reprises language from the Eumedes scene in Book 12 that subtly undermines the distinction between Turnus’ anti-Roman violence and Aeneas’s efforts to found a new political order.” More subtle distinctions like this would have helped throughout the book.

The scope of the book is perhaps simply too narrow to bear such sweeping assessments. Gorey’s monograph contains only 156 pages of content and really only provides close readings of a little more than a dozen passages (1.42–83, 1.133–56, 2.351–66, 3.135–42, 4.283–86, 4.704–5, 5.700–703, 8.18–25, 10.105–8, 10.354–61, 10.636–84, 10.907–8, 12.353–61, 12.521–26, and 12.896–926), several of which are less than a page. Many of these discussions are great—I will especially mention the one on Turnus and the phantom Aeneas in a “hollow cloud” (p. 106) as well as the analysis of Turnus’s interaction with Eumedes and its links to the end of the poem (pp. 112–29). But the sample size seems to me simply too small for firm general conclusions. Furthermore, Gorey does not sufficiently address the arguments for Epicurean readings of the poem, particularly those like Galinsky, Erler, and Cairns, who all have argued for Philodemus’s influence on the ethics of the poem. While Gorey acknowledges these interpretations in his introduction and again briefly in his conclusion, he does not sufficiently engage with their arguments or with how they utilize the works of Philodemus to read Virgil through an Epicurean lens.

While I provide these points of criticism, I want to make clear that the book is still an important contribution to understanding Virgil’s engagement with philosophy in the poem. Its close readings are informative and shed light on allusions that are generally well illustrated and thoughtfully discussed. The book is well laid out and easy to read. I only noted a few very minor typos throughout: on p. 71, the passage is Aen. 2.364–66, not 36, as stated; on p. 135, an extra “one” occurs in the phrase “neither Hardie nor anyone else one…” It will assuredly remain an important work on Virgil’s engagement with Epicureanism and atomism—both for those who ultimately agree with Gorey’s optimistic judgments on the poem and for those who wish to push back against them.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Lucretian Allusion, Virgilian Allegory (1–17)
1. Characterizations of Epicurean Atomism (18–51) 
2. Trojans under the Influence of Atomism (Epic Winners) (52–86)
3. Non-Trojans under the Influence of Atomism (Epic Losers) (87–111)
4. Turnus and the End of the Epicurean World (112–48)
5. Atomism and the Worldview of the Aeneid (149–56)