Last night in our Zoom we discussed the apparent backsliding of Horace later in life from his earlier Epicurean views. Joshua talked about this in our most recent podcast and if I can find the quote he read then I will post it in this thread too.
As part of that discussed we mentioned but did not pursue that the environment after the defeat of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi was not favorable to the Epicureans.
I see in Haris Dimitriadis' preface to the second edition of his book he writes:
QuoteThe development of Epicurean ethics: As far as Epicurus’s philosophy is concerned, we know that following the introduction of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, it was abolished by law, along with the other philosophical schools.
The "abolished by law" is what I have heard but have not researched. I thought I had read that Augustus closed all the schools, not just the Epicurean, and that would predate the Christian issue. Presumably this would have hurt all the schools, but if the Epicureans were "taking Italy by storm" as Cicero complained, then this would have been especially damaging to the Epicureans.
I don't have more to add at the moment other than to start this thread in hopes of future discussion about this point.