Abstract

Towards the beginning of Book 3, Lucretius starts his description of the soul. According to Epicurus, the soul is divided into two, an irrational part, which is coextensive with the body, and a rational part, the ‘mind’, which is located in the chest. This position is a relic from an earlier, non–philosophical tradition, and was adopted by several different philosophers. But Alexandrian doctors would soon correctly locate the mind in the head, and later Epicureans would have to defend an increasingly uncomfortable and out-of-date position.