This work concludes with a discussion of a plague that befell Athens, and all of book 6 is a critique of theological explanation of natural disasters.
This work concludes with a discussion of a plague that befell Athens, and all of book 6 is a critique of theological explanation of natural disasters. According to St. Jerome, its author committed suicide, leaving the work to be edited by Cicero. Book 3 describes the dissolution of the soul into particles, and ends with a diatribe against the fear of death. In book 2, the author compares the motion of atoms to sheep on a hillside, and he accounts for free will by proposing the existence of a random atomic "climanen" or "swerve." Influenced by a similarly-titled book by Epicurus, this is, for 10 points, what long poem by the Roman philosopher Lucretius.
This work concludes with a discussion of a plague that befell Athens, and all of book 6 is a critique of theological explanation of natural disasters.
{De rerum natura} or On {the Nature of Things} or On {the Nature of the Universe} (accept equivalents)