Abstract: Lucretius made it plain that his poem was designed to liberate man from superstition, the fear of death and the tyranny of priests: “When man’s life lay for all to see foully groveling upon the ground, crushed, which displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect, a man of Greece was the first that dared to uplift mortal eyes against her. . . . but all the more they goaded the eager courage of his soul, so that he should desire, first of all men, to shatter the confining bars of nature’s gates. “