General Thread on Dimitri Liantinis

The subject of Dimitri Liantinis came to mind today and it looks like some time ago I set up this sub-forum, but never really collected any material in it.

I have mentioned his work "Rome and The Stoa" a number of times, but we don't have any of it translated other than what Elli prepared in the two graphics attached to this message.

We also have this "Article" I prepared some years ago as review of "Gemma" - the only one of Liantinis' books which has been translated into English: A Link From Ancient to Modern Greece – Liantinis' “Gemma”

At some point in the future Liantinis' writings would be a good subject of discussion, but it probably will have to wait until we have more translated into English.

I see that Elli has posted this thread on the Facebook page and the content is definitely worth reposting here. Elli and I have talked about this book for many years, and it is a shame that (as far as I know) it has still not been translated into English. The only collection of Liantinis' essays of which I am aware in English is "Gemma" available on Amazon. Everything below this point is Elli's post:

-An excerpt from the book entitled : “Polychronio-Stoa and Rome” by Dimitris Liantinis that was a professor of Greek Philosophy in University of Athens.

<<Epicurus was not heard in his era as other philosophers were heard, nor after his era did the people hear him. However, he conquered many countries as much as those that were conquered by Αristotle and Alexander, and then only through hearing we heard a few of his words. In all history, no one wrote Epicurus' philosophy as a whole, with the only exception that stands out being the exceptional Lucretius.

Half of the people who heard the name of Epicurus, being as naive as carpenters on the sea, took him for a loser. The other half, as wicked as executioners with their axes, correctly detected his vigorous message of rebellion. They saw and were terrified of the harvest that might come from it. And they took their measures: The "uneducated," they called him - the "shepherd of pigs and oxen."

They quickly grabbed their axes and the other paraphernalia of gravediggers and covered the noble body of Epicurus's knowledge in mayflowers, and in the echoes of silence. The tangible moment for mankind was lost in front of their eyes.

Thus, mankind had been deprived of the great opportunity to enter a universe of frankness, responsibility, honesty, and beauty.

The Seljuks of the priesthood, the school, and the pen accused Epicurus with numerous suppositions:

That he supposedly over-simplified life, because he called it joy, lightness, and well being for he denounced the evils, the sufferings, and the sadness of life.

That he supposedly humiliated the decency of mankind, because he proclaimed:

"Let us eat and drink and enjoy our life, because tomorrow we will die."

That he supposedly despised the wise and the teachers, for he praised innovative knowledge of the self, and the freshness of the deep calling of the present. That he supposedly mocked the divine and the sacred.

Behind the eyelids of a man’s sleep, and as long as he lives, there are dreams, desires, beauties, truths, and delusions moving slowly, but when the man dies, it is spiders, scorpions, and lizards that creep out of man's skull.

If Epicurus's voice had not been blocked by man's fears, ignorance, and misanthropy, history would have taken another path. But the line and the course of the world is engraved with our shame: a shivering heart, a sheep's and hyena's mind, and the prominent belly that maddens by its rumblings.

The courtyard, the luminaire and the porch of our house concealed the façade, the studio and the roof. We were once of a noble generation. We the gypsies.

If Epicurus had passed from here- alas! only the Medes are passing – what would have remained in the world would be a simple kind of anti-religion. The unified consciousness, that is, the knowledge of nature, the clarity, the strength, the courage, and the positiveness. All that Epicurus described then as bravery, and Nietzsche, in the more recent past, described as "gay science" and "human, all too human."

With Epicurus, mankind had the opportunity to protect its future from an Atlantic of worthless things: miseries, lies, errors, frauds, sacred sessions, lives of saints, caps of priest and pope, crimes, and futile waste of the intellect.

And the opportunity was lost.>>