How did Lucretius disagree with Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras?

In his didactic poem On the Nature of Things, the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius systematically refutes the physical theories of the pre-Socratic philosophers Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras to establish the Epicurean doctrine of atomism.12

Lucretius’s disagreement with these thinkers centers on his commitment to a universe composed solely of infinite, indivisible atoms moving through an infinite void. While he admired Empedocles’s poetic style, he rejected the pluralist cosmologies that relied on qualitative elements or external forces to explain change. Specifically:23

• Empedocles: Lucretius opposed the theory that the world is composed of four "roots" or elements (fire, air, water, and earth) governed by the forces of Love and Strife. For Lucretius, all change is instead explained by the rearrangement of changeless, invisible atoms.432
• Anaxagoras: He rejected the notion that everything is contained in everything in the form of infinitely small parts, as well as the idea that an intelligent force (nous) initiates cosmic motion.4
• Heraclitus: Lucretius challenged the Heraclitean view of the world, which often emphasized flux and the primacy of fire as a fundamental principle, favoring instead the mechanical interactions of atoms in empty space.12

By refuting these systems, Lucretius aimed to demonstrate that the world is a product of natural, atomic processes rather than divine manipulation or complex qualitative mixtures.2