To apply to myth the reigning science of the day, in an attempt to transform it into a factual chronicle of human affairs, means inevitably to mangle what is most intrinsic to myth: its kaleidoscopic abundance, its playfulness, its immeasurable depth.

The ideal of brotherhood is supposed to put everyone on equal footing. In reality, it has served as a moratorium on the cultivation of fatherly responsibility, barring everyone from the requisites for adulthood.

This world, as it figures in Lucretius’ magnum opus, is of Epicurean make. It is a world denuded of divine influence, reduced to a drab and tranquil steadiness. Its substantial uniformity also foreshadows, to an uncanny degree, the empirical emptiness of modernity.