Titus Lucretius Carus was a Latin poet and thinker who lived in the 1st century BC. His exact date of birth and death is unknown, as is his place of birth, but general references are made to an area in Campania.
One piece of information about his life that is certain concerns his madness due to a love potion, which drove him to suicide according to the writings of Saint Jerome centuries later.
The poet is remembered as the author of De rerum natura, a poem in six books, inspired by the philosophy of Epicurus and the writings of Empedocles.
Lucretius managed to finish the work before he died, but not its form, which was then given to it by Cicero, in the version published later.
