Updated TimeTable of the Epicurean World

Quote from Joshua

I'm wondering if Eikadistes and Don can help clear up the succession of scholarchs for me. I was going by the link to the table posted by Cassius in #1, but then I found this list by Nate at Society of Epicurus and some of the dates don't match.

Protrarchus isn't mentioned at all in the table Cassius linked to, but does appear in SoFE list. The dates for Apollodorus are completely conflicting.

Nate, should I go with the list you posted at SoFE? It looks more complete.

I recently realized that a number of those dates from my study are inaccurate. Mostly, some of the more fragmentary characters are estimated, and one of my sources seems to have mixed-up BCE and CE in a few entires.

Given that, in a bizarre wave of serendipity, I have been scouring that document for the last few weeks to improve upon it and add additional Epicureans that have been found since Herculaneum papers continue to be decoded.

Quote from Don

Wasn't there a scholarch with a Roman name? Source amnesia on that one.

I'm thinking you mean Popilius Theotimus. He's the only listed Scholarach with a Latin familiar name.

There also seems to be some suggestion that after somewhere between Apollodorus the "Tryant" and Zeno of Sidon there was a fracture of inheritance that lead to some level of involvement from characters like Diogenes of Tarsus, the Ptolemys of Alexandria, and perhaps Orion the otherwise unattested Epicurean. I believe that is speculative.

Quote from Joshua

Thank You!

Quote from Cassius

Also for future reference, you indicated this morning that you found a better "keyword" to use in searching for something like this better than "timeline." Do you recall what that was?

Well, that's the trouble; there is the Gantt Chart which is infuriatingly close to what we need, and may actually be helpful in feeding a growing table of data into a chart maker. But it has it's downsides. For one thing, the resulting chart will almost always be longer vertically than horizontally, which means a pretty massive file for the amount of data presented.

Also, every one I've seen has the labels in a column on the left rather in the chart itself.

I just don't know how to search for this;

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Time…ian_history.jpg

without finding a lot of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_o…States_GDP.webp

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Josh, thank you for sharing this map. I think that this interdisciplinary approach is integral to a genuine interface with these ancient ideas, on their own terms. You'll see soon (as I think you also intend) to demonstrate those ideologies that functionally replaced the popularity of atomism (I'm fascinated by Gnosticism and Christian Heretics [heterodoxy} in particular) and I believe that incorporating a visual estimation of the popularity of mysticism, albeit is Gnosticism [The narrative of John the Baptist (x) Middle Platonism] or Pauline Christianity [Judaism (x) Mithraism (x) Imperial Worship (x) honestly, IDK, Saul of Tarsus' weird, personal affectations], we are looking at literal "Magic" that become more digestible to Greco-Roman peoples in terms of safety and security than Roman tolerance of *material* Polytheism.

It is definitely useful to see these things in their context. For example;

In a letter scholars have dated to c. 355, Julian the Apostate was commenting on the political inaction of the Epicureans;

Letter to Themistius the philosopher - Wikisource, the free online library

Another letter from the same advocates the Suppression of Epicurean texts;

Fragment of a letter to a priest - Wikisource, the free online library

Quote

Let us not admit discourses by Epicurus or Pyrrho; but indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books have ceased to be. Nevertheless there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts. For an error of speech is, in my opinion, by no means the same as an error of the mind, but we ought to give heed to the mind first of all, since the tongue sins in company with it.

By edict of a pagan emperor in a letter to one of his priests, Epicureanism becomes thought crime. It is actually worse in his view to think about than to speak about it, because speech is vulnerable to correction and purgation while thought is not.

The 15th century Florentine iconoclast priest Savonarolo would be proud.

Quote

“Listen women,” he preached to the crowd, “They say that this world was made of atoms, that is, those tiniest of particles that fly through the air.” No doubt savoring the absurdity, he encouraged his listeners to express their derision out loud: “Now laugh, women, at the studies of these learned men.”

A few decades after the reign of Julian came St. Augustine's survey of the situation -- "The ashes of Epicureanism are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them."

Within two centuries of Diogenes Laertius, there was almost nothing left.

I should have ended with a quote from Stephen Greenblatt; “Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.”

Quote from Joshua

It is definitely useful to see these things in their context. For example;

In a letter scholars have dated to c. 355, Julian the Apostate was commenting on the political inaction of the Epicureans;

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to…the_philosopher

Another letter from the same advocates the Suppression of Epicurean texts;

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragment_…ter_to_a_priest

Quote

Let us not admit discourses by Epicurus or Pyrrho; but indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books have ceased to be. Nevertheless there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts. For an error of speech is, in my opinion, by no means the same as an error of the mind, but we ought to give heed to the mind first of all, since the tongue sins in company with it.

By edict of a pagan emperor in a letter to one of his priests, Epicureanism becomes thought crime. It is actually worse in his view to think about than to speak about it, because speech is vulnerable to correction and purgation while thought is not.

The 15th century Florentine iconoclast priest Savonarolo would be proud.

Quote

“Listen women,” he preached to the crowd, “They say that this world was made of atoms, that is, those tiniest of particles that fly through the air.” No doubt savoring the absurdity, he encouraged his listeners to express their derision out loud: “Now laugh, women, at the studies of these learned men.”

A few decades after the reign of Julian came St. Augustine's survey of the situation -- "The ashes of Epicureanism are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them."

Within two centuries of Diogenes Laertius, there was almost nothing left.

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Julian is an interesting figure (as I've recently found), in being a refreshing, polytheistic alternative to the growing, mystical Christian cult, who was equally Platonic, and therein anti-Epicurean in his education. This is particularly interesting, in that at least four early Church Fathers, as recognized by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, were admitted Platonists who not only rode the wave of Plutarch's Middle Platonism, but positively inhaled the Neoplatonism of Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, who derived their adaptations based off explicitly Indian forms of super-natural, supra-mental, or ascetic expressions of religious devotion. It's an interesting period.