Welcome to Episode 198 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.
This week we continue our discussion of Books One and Two of Cicero's On Ends, which are largely devoted to Epicurean Philosophy. "On Ends" contains important criticisms of Epicurus that have set the tone for standard analysis of his philosophy for the last 2000 years. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.
Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition
We are using the Reid edition, so check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.
As we proceed we will keep track of Cicero's arguments and outline them here:
Cicero's Objections to Epicurean Philosophy
Last week we continued in Book 2 at Section IV and this week we will pick up at the same place.
We may have a little "live-action" reporting in this episode. Martin will be calling in today live from the Gottingen Architectual Museum where he is visiting the artifacts relating to Epicurus. Anyone who is reading this shortly after I am posting it is welcome to post questions or picture requests to Martin!
Plutarch, Moralia, Adversus Colotes
Desiderius Erasmus, The Epicure
Head of Aphrodite with Cross Incised on Forehead and Eyes Gouged Out
Matthew Stewart, Nature's God
Göttingen Archaeological Museum
epicureanfriends.com/thread/3430/Episode 198 of Lucretius Today is Now Available! This week we return to our coverage of "On Ends" Book Two, and we summarize several aspects of where we are in the discussion.

Cassius December 26, 2023 at 10:39 AM
Unread Threads
-
- Title
- Replies
- Last Reply
-
-
-
Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources 20
- Cassius
April 1, 2022 at 5:36 PM - Philodemus On Anger
- Cassius
July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
-
- Replies
- 20
- Views
- 6.9k
20
-
-
-
-
Mocking Epithets 3
- Bryan
July 4, 2025 at 3:01 PM - Comparing Epicurus With Other Philosophers - General Discussion
- Bryan
July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
-
- Replies
- 3
- Views
- 436
3
-
-
-
-
Best Lucretius translation? 12
- Rolf
June 19, 2025 at 8:40 AM - General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
- Rolf
July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
-
- Replies
- 12
- Views
- 1.1k
12
-
-
-
-
The Religion of Nature - as supported by Lucretius' De Rerum Natura 4
- Kalosyni
June 12, 2025 at 12:03 PM - General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
- Kalosyni
June 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
-
- Replies
- 4
- Views
- 967
4
-
-
-
-
New Blog Post From Elli - " Fanaticism and the Danger of Dogmatism in Political and Religious Thought: An Epicurean Reading"
- Cassius
June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM - Epicurus vs Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
- Cassius
June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM
-
- Replies
- 0
- Views
- 2.5k
-
Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com
What's the best strategy for finding things on EpicureanFriends.com? Here's a suggested search strategy:
- First, familiarize yourself with the list of forums. The best way to find threads related to a particular topic is to look in the relevant forum. Over the years most people have tried to start threads according to forum topic, and we regularly move threads from our "general discussion" area over to forums with more descriptive titles.
- Use the "Search" facility at the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere." Also check the "Search Assistance" page.
- Use the "Tag" facility, starting with the "Key Tags By Topic" in the right hand navigation pane, or using the "Search By Tag" page, or the "Tag Overview" page which contains a list of all tags alphabetically. We curate the available tags to keep them to a manageable number that is descriptive of frequently-searched topics.