Posts by Don

I have to agree with Joshua while also saying clearly I appreciate the passion and the general sentiment of Cassius 's post.

Once Epicurus's school and legacy were pretty much wiped out by the Justinian closures of the schools in the 500s or Arabs in the 700s if the Epicureans had a presence in Alexandria, they weren't considered a threat. They were once! No question! But the Triumph of Christianity in the literal sense of a Roman triumph where you celebrate the crushing of your enemies was total.

his site has some interesting excerpts:

http://www.bede.org.uk/justinian.htm

I agree that there may have been stray pockets of Epicureans and Epicureanism scattered about, but I have doubts there was a bust of Epicurus secreted away in the Vatican for them to throw eggs at, so to speak. The"Secret Archive" has been open to researchers for a number of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_A…ive?wprov=sfla1 I don't think they have the mummified body of Jesus hidden somewhere either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_R…ion?wprov=sfla1 Once Epicurus and his school and its students were stamped out, viciously and with maximum efficiency, I don't think the Church would have worried you much. They wielded the literal power of life and death over swaths of the world by the 400s and consolidated power soon after. They may have kept around a bust of Socrates or Aristotle because they could incorporate Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic ideas into Christianity. Anything of value from Epicurus they take, mold to their own, and completely erase it's provenance. They had nothing to fear (they thought) from a few stray letters or a copy or two of some obscure Latin poet. His Latin is elegant. What have we to fear.

I can't recall if you or Elli shared the link to Takis's paper but I accidently ran across it: https://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Panag…rusPortrait.pdf He seems to say it laid hidden until 1742.

Quote from Alex

I don't feel confident to participate yet, but I am sure this is the right place to keep learning about this subject (apart of the podcast). Great forum. Thanks.

Welcome, Alex ! Feel free to move at your own pace, and post when you're ready. We encourage questions!

Wikipedia has a nice list of Athenian archons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eponymous_archon?wprov=sfla1 and Sosigenes is right in there where he should be.

Quote from Cassius

Sounds like perhaps for practical purposes the 20th of January each year might serve as a reasonable approximation, if someone were looking for a stable date.

That's not a bad compromise. One could use the new calculations on the calendar link I sent, but that date is going to move around depending on the lunar cycles.

First, I'd suggest this one for current calculations:

http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/

For the date in 341 BCE, I'd be skeptical of any exact date. Trying to align the Olympiads and the lunar cycles of any Ancient calendar is fraught with complications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_calendar?wprov= Gamelion, the month of his birth according to Laertius, falls in January to February:

"And he was born as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, in the third year of the hundred and ninth Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes [342/1 B.C.], on the seventh day of the month Gamelion [January/February], seven years after the death of Plato.

Mea culpae! I misstated a couple things in this episode. Let me correct:

The Theban War that Lucretius refers to appears to be NOT the Spartan/Theban War I referenced. Since he talks about the Trojan War and the Theban War the latter would be the "Seven Against Thebes" conflict referred to in the Iliad and in the cycle of Greek plays on Oedipus and his children: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Against_Thebes This makes sense since that was would be in the heroic past just like the Trojan War.

#2: I said Phoebus referred to Apollo when we discussed Phaeton and the chariot of the Sun. That wasn't quite right either. Phoebus was an epithet of Apollo (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios?wprov=sfla1 ) but also "Helios is sometimes identified with Apollo: "Different names may refer to the same being," Walter Burkert observes, "or else they may be consciously equated, as in the case of Apollo and Helios." So, I wasn't entirely wrong, but I thought this clarification was important.

That is a beautiful book, Joshua !

I sincerely wish you all the best in your efforts to not pick up smoking again.

This one posits (political) reasons

https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/Lette…cember_21,_1857

but that appears to be as much conjecture as the title to P Herc 1005 (ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ....)

That quote's in a letter from Marx to LaSalle evidently.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709662?seq=1

For anyone not familiar with Aldus, here's a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus_Manutius?wprov=sfla1

Quote from Cassius

A likely guess is that they consider that when they include the Stoics they're implicitly including Epicurus, since "every knows" Epicurus was basically an ascetic like the Stoics (and the rest of the Greeks), but with a flair for using words in creative ways!

I wish it was that. I suspect no one has written a popular enough Epicurean self help book for her to invite on to the podcast.

https://www.happinesslab.fm/happiness-less…isode-9-lao-tzu

I'm posting this for two reasons:
1) I found the mention of Daoist "belly wisdom" striking in its similarity to Epicurus's emphasis on the belly/stomach. Not saying it's equivalent, but intriguing in similar terminology. Overall, an interesting podcast.
2) I was disappointed that Dr. Santos' mini series included Aristotle and the Stoics as representatives of ancient Greece with no mention of Epicurus. Although, maybe that's for the best. No mention is better than ascetism mentions.

https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/transcript/sol…e-tao-te-ching/ I haven't listened to this but saw in the description: "We talked about belly knowing versus intellectual knowing." That sounds Epicurean.

Quote from Cassius

Don you are actually or effectively a professional researcher. Do you have experience with Zotero?

Unfortunately, I don't have any personal experience with Zotero, although I've known people that speak highly of it.

I save all my PDFs of articles in Google Drive. That way they're synced across my computer or smart phone. Admittedly, I do most of my reading of Academia articles or other PDFs on my Google Pixel 2.

You know I'm going to post the original Greek for all these at some point, right?

https://herculaneum.uk/Villa%20dei%20…apiri%20p07.htm

Looks like the Herculaneum Villa Epicurus bust with his name was dug up in 1753 according to this catalog of the sculptures found there.

Quote from JJElbert

So is this saying there was no identifiable portrait of Epicurus in the "modern" era before 1742? Or at least between the end of antiquity (400/500 CE?) and 1742?

Quote from Cassius

So what are you thinking was in the mind of the sculptors as to the purpose of this herm in particular

Quote from JJElbert

In other statues the twin figures are an old man and a youth; the key feature in all of these artistic expressions is the curious interplay of limitation and continuity.

Metrodorus, who would certainly have succeeded Epicurus had he survived him, represented continuity–the master/student relationship, the succession of the scholarchs, etc.

I like that interpretation.

That's great, Joshua ! Thanks for that summary. I just saw online that those sockets on the sides of herms were for attaching arms. Those holes have confused me for a long time.

Quote from Cassius

And I think that "IF" is the key. It's not necessary; Epicurus knows it's not necessary; we know it's not necessary; everyone knows it's not necessary -- so why say something that everyone knows to the point of the observation being trite?

If we find ourselves in a situation where we were to only have just enough food to satisfy our hunger, we can still find pleasure. I don't think it's trite at all to make that observation. It's not necessary to be an ascetic. Firmly agree with that. But we don't need opulence to find pleasure. If we have access to opulence, that's great! Enjoy!! Saying "everyone knows" doesn't mean everyone acknowledges or practices what they know as "common sense." It is one of the jobs of the philosopher - especially one as dedicated to making the lives of everyone more pleasurable as Epicurus did - to hold up a mirror to people to get them to examine how they are living their lives.

Seneca says that Epicurus "used to observe stated intervals" where he would sparingly eat to test how much was necessary to satiate his hunger **as an experiment**. This is most likely the genesis of the whole bread and water "myth."

Pointing out "childish" common sense strategies doesn't rule out the opportunity to declare and defend profound philosophical truths. Epicurus was fighting on two fronts: arguing against the Platonists etc al one the one hand, and providing practical guidance for everyday life to common people on the other.

The Letter to Menoikeus isn't meant to be a philosophical treatise arguing against Plato but a practical summary of ethical teachings to his student. I agree it's not meant as a step-by-step "to-do list" but it's not meant to be deciphered like some sort of philosophical code either. Epicurus's straightforward, clear writing style is meant to say what he meant. I agree people try to extrapolate principles into absolutes, and I don't think Epicurus was saying live in a cave. But I do think he encouraged people to examine how they were living their lives and if what they were doing actually brought pleasure. The categories were a helpful shorthand to jump start that examination.