Note 483 — Chapter XIII · THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE AND MORAL TEACHING OF LUCRETIUS.
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A passage in the Captivi of Plautus (995-7), shows that these terrors did appeal to the imagination in ancient times, and thus might powerfully affect the happiness of persons of specially impressible natures, although they do not seem to have often interfered with the actual enjoyment of life,—
'Vidi ego multa saepe picta quae Acherunti fierent Cruciamenta: verum enimvero nulla adaequest Acheruns Atque ubi ego fui in lapicidinis.'
Mr. Wallace in his 'Epicureanism' (p. 109) writes, 'Whatever may have been the case in earlier ages of Greece, there is no doubt that in the age of Epicurus, the doctrine of a judgment to come, and of a hell where sinners were punished for their crimes, made a large part of the vulgar creed.... Orphic and other religious sects had enhanced the terrors of the world below,' &c. Cicero, however, is a better witness than Lucretius of the actual state of opinion among his educated contemporaries. The exaggerated sense entertained by Lucretius of the influence of such terrors among the class for whom his poem was written is a confirmation of his having acted on the maxim 'λάθε βιώσας.'