For a work written more than two thousand years ago in a society in many ways quite alien to our own Lucretius De Rerum Natura contains much of striking even startling contemporary relevance. This is true above all of the fifth book which begins by putting a strong case against what it has recently become fashionable to call intelligent design and ends with an account of human evolution and the development of society in which the limitations of technological progress form a strong and occasionally explicit subtext. Along the way the poet touches on many themes which may strike a chord with the twentyfirst century reader the fragility of our ecosystem the corruption of political life the futility of consumerism and the desirability of limiting our acquisitive instincts are all highly topical issues for us as for the poems original audience.