In Epicurean Philosophy Is Suicide (Or voluntary death of any kind) ever warranted?

    Just one detail to add to the list of ancient texts indicating suicide as an option for Epicureans under extreme circumstances:

    On his last day, Epicurus drank undiluted wine. With the dysentery he was in, this might have been suicide at least in the sense of accelerating the upcoming death.

    There was a presentation with more details on this speculation that Epicurus himself might have committed suicide at one of the Epicurean symposia in Greece a few years ago, but I could not find it in my collection of references now.

    Very interesting. I will email Christos and ask him if he remembers and what he thinks about that. Would undiluted wine be a depressant to breathing or otherwise help lead to death?

    Thanks again, Martin. Couple of things:


    (1) The exercise reminds me that we have a link database that people are welcome to add to here: https://www.epicureanfriends.c…/index.php?link-overview/ I used that to find the Athens Greece Epicurean website: https://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en.htm


    (2) I found the article, so I did not have to email Christos. Here is the presentation in full: https://www.epicuros.gr/arthra…_Panagiotopoulos_2017.pdf


    Unfortunately the only real detail is:


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    Moreover, the evidence that his friends put Epicurus in a tub of hot water and gave him undiluted wine as he wished is an insightful piece of information i.e. he was preparing for his end, with the help of his friends. He acted upon this when he knew his end was approaching and he did this in a most relieving manner. Hot water alleviated his severe pains and relaxed his body. The undiluted wine created mental relaxation. The undiluted wine hastened his end as it reacted on an already weakened body. In other words, Epicurus perhaps did what we call today "euthanasia in the final stages of incurable disease." He acted this way just before approaching his natural end and not a moment sooner, despite his unbearable pains. He managed this due to his philosophy.'



    But you have a very good memory, Martin.

    So, Diogenes Laertius says:

    ὅτε καί φησιν Ἕρμιππος ἐμβάντα αὐτὸν εἰς πύελον χαλκῆν κεκραμένην ὕδατι θερμῷ καὶ αἰτήσαντα ἄκρατον ῥοφῆσαι:

    16 [16] τοῖς τε φίλοις παραγγείλαντα τῶν δογμάτων μεμνῆσθαι, οὕτω τελευτῆσαι.

    Καὶ ἔστιν ἡμῶν εἰς αὐτὸν οὕτω:


    χαίρετε, καὶ μέμνησθε τὰ δόγματα: τοῦτ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος

    ὕστατον εἶπε φίλοις τοὔπος ἀποφθίμενος:

    θερμὴν ἐς πύελον γὰρ ἐληλύθεεν καὶ ἄκρατον ἔσπασεν, εἶτ᾽ Ἀΐδην ψυχρὸν ἐπεσπάσατο.

    οὗτος μὲν ὁ βίος τἀνδρός, ἥδε <δὲ> ἡ τελευτή.


    ἄκρατος pure, undiluted (strong) wine

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἄκρα_τος


    I always saw this as more palliative for the pain than any hint of suicide. Ancient Greeks typically watered their wine down in a krater to drink. Drinking undiluted wine would have been noteworthy.

    To me, this just points to the fact that one does everything to ease one's pain, but his drinking it and then dying seems to me that he was trying to eliminate pain from the disease/condition that was killing him and that he was on the verge of death already. I'd have to see evidence other than this text to convince me it was a suicide. And not Diogenes' poem. That was written hundreds of years after Epicurus's death.

    Quote from Don

    I always saw this as more palliative for the pain than any hint of suicide.

    Yes I have always presumed that too, but I am no expert on the effects of wine or even warm baths. I am not sure what kind of pain that disease causes, or whether it would even make sense to think that warmth of a bath might be of any relief. I suppose today we use narcotics and other such drugs when we are really in pain, and I presume things like "a shot of whiskey' are used to dull pain, but it would be interesting to hear more from a medical side, or from someone more familiar with ancient Greek medicine. For example, why wine as opposed to something else? As Nate has been mentioning lately, didn't the ancient Greeks have access to perhaps even hallucinogenic drugs that might also have been used for pain? To what extent was the undiluted wine "enjoyable" (as was maybe the warm bath) rather than something to hasten death? The way DL writes it, it is almost as if getting in the bath and drinking the wine would naturally be expected to lead to death, but if so that's totally unintuitive to me.

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    Hot water alleviated his severe pains and relaxed his body. The undiluted wine created mental relaxation. The undiluted wine hastened his end as it reacted on an already weakened body. In other words, Epicurus perhaps did what we call today "euthanasia in the final stages of incurable disease."

    Yeah, I'm fine with all that up until the euthanasia part. I have serious doubts that they knew the wine would "hasten his end." They knew it would relieve pain. The fact that his friends were around at the end to help him is the important aspect of that story to me.

    It'd be interesting to get a hold of this paper:

    Epicurus’ death

    Maria Bitsori & Emmanouil Galanakis

    World Journal of Urology volume 22, pages466–469 (2004)


    Abstract

    The aim is to present how an eminent philosopher perceived, reported and faced his progressing and ultimately fatal uropathy, 23 centuries ago. All available ancient Greek sources about Epicurus’ life and death were used and urinary tract–related medical knowledge in this era was reviewed. Epicurus died at the age of 71 from urinary calculus after having bravely suffered for a long time. Although he is often cited for his teachings against the fear of pain and death, his own way to death has been overlooked. His exceptional description of his own symptoms provides an unusual insight, given that our knowledge on diseases in older times is mainly based on surviving texts written by the then medical practitioners. Epicurus reported on his terminal symptoms, being entirely aware of the fatal outcome of a disease incurable at that time. Very soon after, Ammonius the Lithotomus in Alexandria was to improve the surgical procedures for urinary calculi. In an era when urinary tract surgery was considered to be an extraordinary means of treatment, Epicurus peacefully passed away, firm to his own teachings about tolerance to disease and pain, and leaving to us both an unusual medical record and a courageous attitude towards suffering and death.

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    As Nate has been mentioning lately, didn't the ancient Greeks have access to perhaps even hallucinogenic drugs that might also have been used for pain?

    Opium and Cannabis at the very least.


    Martin mentioned dysentery, but I was under the impression that it was known to have been strangury caused by kidney stones--in which case a warm bath is very commonly recommended to relieve pain related to swelling. And alcohol being a diuretic, meaning that it increases water loss through urine, might slightly increase the chance of flushing the stone. So not a terrible approach given the barbarous state of medicine at the time!

    Quote from Joshua
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    48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine, and venesection; open the vein on the inside.

    --Hippocrates; Aphorisms, Section VII; transl. Francis Adams


    http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/aphorisms.7.vii.html

    GREAT FIND, Joshua !!

    Here's the Greek:

    στραγγουρίην καὶ δυσουρίην θώρηξις καὶ φλεβοτομίη λύει: τάμνειν δὲ τὰς ἔσω.


    Interestingly, Diogenes has, in his transcription of Epicurus's letter, στραγγουρία τε παρηκολουθήκει καὶ δυσεντερικὰ

    "Strangury followed closely also by dysentery"

    But it would make more sense if it was supposed to be dysuria "painful urination" δυσουριην since Hippocrates treats those two conditions in the same aphorism.

    Those two words look similar enough and I could see someone not paying attention and confusing the two when copying a manuscript: ΔΥΣΟΥΡΙΗΝ vs ΔΥΣΕΝΤΕΡΙΚΑ

    More on akratos...

    ACRATUS (Akratos) - Greek God or Spirit of Unmixed Wine

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    Akratos was no doubt regarded as a deity of festive excess.

    Was ancient wine more alcoholic than modern wine?
    This article is taken from a contribution to the website &#39;Bad Ancient&#39;. It discusses the alcoholic content of ancient wines using ancient literature,…
    www.academia.edu

    Interesting article on ancient wine, ABV %ages, watering down, etc.


    I'm continuing to see both the undiluted wine and the warm bath as ways to ease his pain not to hasten his death.

    If the body does no more release water by urine, about the only other way to get rid of significant amounts of water is to stop dehydrating the content of the large intestine. Therefore, dysentery makes sense as a consequential symptom. That method does not have the fine regulation of the kidneys and likely leads to dehydration. Dehydration can easily be fatal. Alcohol is likely to accelerate death then. The evidence with respect to Epicurus committing suicide may not be conclusive enough but it cannot be dismissed either.

    Very interesting Martin, and continues to be an interesting topic. D.L thought it was an interesting enough detail to include in his biography, it's just a shame that he didn't make more clear what was thought of the significance of it.