Did Epicurus Intend To Commit Suicide By Drinking Unmixed Wine On His Last Day?

Methanol (as opposed to ethanol) is lethal in concentration. This is why moonshine is dangerous. Wine has methanol in very low concentrations, but wine-making is as much science as art, and I suppose it's possible there were genuine mishaps.

On the other hand, ethanol is a competitive enzyme inhibitor for methanol, so it ought to have reduced the risk...

I learned all of this from an episode of House M.D., so take it with a bezoar.

Edit; this is almost certainly not the answer.

I had to check the Greek:

ἑκουσίως ἀφεῖναι τὴν ψυχὴν ἀκράτου πίνοντα τοῦ οἴνου.

Sure enough, it seems to be just wine unmixed with water. That's not fatal, last time I experimented myself... Just sayin'

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

Quote from Don

I had to check the Greek:

ἑκουσίως ἀφεῖναι τὴν ψυχὴν ἀκράτου πίνοντα τοῦ οἴνου.

Sure enough, it seems to be just wine unmixed with water. That's not fatal, last time I experimented myself... Just sayin'

I found a Healthline article, with the following excerpt:

Quote

Is there a lethal BAC?

Generally, once your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is 0.40 percent or over, it’s dangerous territory. At this level, there’s a risk of coma or death.

Source

Very interesting! There must be something else going on, or else we need to revise our general view that Epicurus did not commit suicide!

This is a pretty important point, actually, so will be good to do our best to track it down.

I don't know that we've previously discussed this article by Maria Bitsori:

Epicurus' death

The aim is to present how an eminent philosopher perceived, reported and faced his progressing and ultimately fatal uropathy, 23 centuries ago. All available…

www.academia.edu

It gets close to the issue but as I read through it doesn't really address the argument at length. I see that it does include a reference I've never seen before. The way it's written it sure sounds like it's referencing Epicurus, but the footnote refers to Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius (1930) Meditations: 9. 41. Edited and translated by Haines CR. The Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp 254–257) Perhaps Aurelius is referring to Epicurus, or perhaps I'm just not reading it properly.

Quote

Epicurus obviously followed these palliative measures in his final-stage disease. Surgery could have been a more appropriate management. Surgical interventions in urinary tract diseases were not unknown at the time [7], but most probably they couldn’t help in this specific case. On the other hand, the philosopher himself did not seem eager to accept any extraordinary medical intervention: ‘‘nor did I let the physicians ride the high horse as if they were doing grand things’’ [15]

This is an interesting question. We're in the realm of speculation and most likely we will never know for sure but I always found the beginning of the letter to Idomeneus quite peculiar: "On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. [...]"

How could Epicurus know that it was the last day and why he called it blissful? To me, it sounds a bit like: "There's nothing much to be done, so I feel relief as I made a decision to pull the plug today and end the suffering".

Maybe it would be worthwhile to closely inspect original Greek to shed more light on this sentence?

Quote

How could Epicurus know that it was the last day and why he called it blissful? To me, it sounds a bit like: "There's nothing much to be done, so I feel relief as I made a decision to pull the plug today and end the suffering".

It's difficult to separate the fact from the wish-thinking. I knew three different people to whom this kind of foreknowledge has been ascribed. A husband who sent flowers to his wife at work on the morning of his death. A woman who worked tirelessly to repeal a law she believed was immoral, and died in her bed with her hands clasped over her abdomen the day that law was repealed. A man who requested blackberry brandy and died after draining the glass.

I do not accept these uncritically, and would not suggest a cause outside of nature even if I did, but I don't think it's impossible for a person to know that the moment of their death is at hand. Maybe they feel that death is coming on in the same way that we feel a sneeze is coming on. Maybe they can even choose a time to stop struggling for life and let go. Fifty years after signing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the 4th of July, the last living members of the committee that had produced that document.

Jefferson's Last Words

What did Jefferson say shortly before he died on July 4, 1826.

www.monticello.org

This is the word used in Epicurus' letter:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, τελευτ-αῖος

"Τὴν μακαρίαν ἄγοντες καὶ ἅμα τελευταίαν ἡμέραν τοῦ βίου ἐγράφομεν ὑμῖν ταυτί.

Why does he use ἐγράφομεν "we write"? 1st person plural?

Quote from Don

Why does he use ἐγράφομεν "we write"? 1st person plural?

I've been considering if this choice was a reflection of those texts being expressions of the collective thought held by the leaders of the Garden, or else, if it evident (as I think might be the case with the Last Will) that someone was transcribing on behalf of Epicurus, or else, copying material.

I see we have discussed some of these questions at length in a thread from 2022;

Thread

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

[…]

I know you bring this up on occasion, but I can never remember the textual reference. Where is that?

Don

December 7, 2022 at 7:14 AM

edit; see @Martin's comment  #61 in that thread.

We discussed this issue briefly in tonight's Wednesday Zoom and I thought I remembered that there was another Epicurean thought to have committed suicide. As is often the case i can sometimes remember the first letter of a name but often mess up the main part. In this case the name I could not remember did start with a D, but it appears to be one Diodorus as referenced by Seneca (see below).

And I see in that earlier thread that there is some issue that maybe Democritus went out in similar way.

Post

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

More from James Warren (same source):

it is the result of a calculation that the alternative would be a continued life of pain. Provided life has pleasure left in it,we will continue to live. And the Epicurean sage will be sufficiently schooled to continue to find pleasure in life under conditions which others would find unbearable—Epicurus' own example of composure in the face of terminal illness demonstrates this. 345 Seneca reports the suicide of an Epicurean named Diodorus. On this…

Cassius

December 8, 2022 at 10:14 PM

Quote from Bryan

he took his own life by drinking neat wine."

-- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.23.12 (2nd century AD)

ἑκουσίως ἀφεῖναι τὴν ψυχὴν ἀκράτου πίνοντα τοῦ οἴνου.

DL10.15 Hermippus relates that [Epicurus] entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed wine,

Ἕρμιππος ἐμβάντα αὐτὸν εἰς πύελον χαλκῆν κεκραμένην ὕδατι θερμῷ καὶ αἰτήσαντα ἄκρατον ῥοφῆσαι:...

Just had to check it was the same word. Sure enough. ἄκρατον