f
the "Iliad," Phoenix addresses himself to the recalcitrant Achilles as
follows:

"It fits not one that moves
The hearts of all, to live unmov'd, and succor hates for loves.
The Gods themselves are flexible; whose virtues, honors, pow'rs,
Are more than thine, yet they will bend their breasts as we bend
ours.
Perfumes, benign devotions, savors of offerings burn'd,
And holy rites, the engines are with which their hearts are turn'd,
By men that pray to them."[90:3]

Here is a general recognition of that which makes sacrifice rational. It
is because he conceives this presupposition to be mistaken, that
Lucretius declares the practices and fears which are founded upon it to
be folly. It is the same with all that is practically based upon the
expectation of a life beyond the grave. The correction of the popular
religion is due in his opinion to that true view of the world taught by
Epicurus, whose memory Lucretius thus invokes at the opening of the
Third Book of the "De Rerum Natura":

"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise
on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true
interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race,
and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted
marks. . . . For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a
godlike intellect has begun with loud voice, to proclaim the
nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the
walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation
throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is
revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do
shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp
frost harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether
o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely
round. Nature too supplies all their wants and nothing ever
impairs their peace of mind. But on the other hand the
Acherusian quarters[91:4] are nowhere to be seen, though earth
is no bar to all things being descried, which are in operation
underneath our feet throughout the void."[91:5]

In another passage, after describing the Phrygian worship of Cybele, he
comments as follows:

"All which, well and beautifully as it is set forth and told,
is yet widely removed from true reason. For the nature of gods
must ever in itself of n