  There has been much discussion regarding the supposed unorthodoxy of an Epicurean writing philosophical verse, but it has not been established that Lucretius was breaking any school edict. Epicurus’ own hostility to poetry had, it seems, belonged in a tradition that went back at least to Plato, focusing on the morally harmful content of the poetry, by Homer and others, that played such a large part in the Greek educational curriculum. That versification as such was considered objectionable in the school’s earlier tradition has not been shown. Lucretius’ own explanation of his choice of a poetic medium is that philosophy is medicine for the soul, and that the charms of verse can function like the honey that doctors smear on the rim of a cup of bitter medicine, to persuade children to drink it for their own good. For, Lucretius loves to remind us, when it comes to fear of the unknown, we are all of us mere children, terrified of the dark.