Sunday, December 21 - Zoom Meeting - 12:30 PM - Topic: Lucretius Book Review - Book One Starting Line 80

Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides has more background on the events described in today's reading, here presented by Agamemnon in dialogue:

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But after the army was gathered and come together, we still remained at Aulis weather-bound; and Calchas, the seer, bade us in our perplexity sacrifice my own begotten child Iphigenia to Artemis, whose home is in this land, declaring that if we offered her, we should sail and sack the Phrygians' capital, but if we forbore, this was not for us. When I heard this, I commanded Talthybius with loud proclamation to disband the whole host, as I could never bear to slay daughter of mine. Whereupon my brother, bringing every argument to bear, persuaded me at last to face the crime; so I wrote in a folded scroll and sent to my wife, bidding her despatch our daughter to me on the pretence of wedding Achilles, it the same time magnifying his exalted rank and saying that he refused to sail with the Achaeans, unless a bride of our lineage should go to Phthia. Yes, this was the inducement I offered my wife, inventing, as I did, a sham marriage for the maiden. Of all the Achaeans we alone know the real truth, Calchas, Odysseus, Menelaus and myself; but that which I then decided wrongly, I now rightly countermand again in this scroll, which thou, old man, hast found me opening and resealing beneath the shade of night. Up now and away with this missive to Argos, and I will tell thee by word of mouth all that is written herein, the contents of the folded scroll, for thou art loyal to my wife and house.

We learn moments later that Achilles has no knowledge of this sham marriage.

This book has a chapter on Lucretius and his use of Latin.

Quote from Joshua

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Live-Lati…e/dp/0374284520

This book has a chapter on Lucretius and his use of Latin.

Long live Latin : the pleasures of a useless language | WorldCat.org

Gardini shares his deep love for Latin and encourages us to engage with a civilization that has never ceased to exist, because it's here with us now, whether…

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Cassius , In our Sunday discussion, there was mention of Epicurus and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Here is a link to the article where this was discussed.

Metrodorus the Mystes

Metrodorus the Mystes

Second Commentary on Metrodorus of Lampsacus

hiramcrespo.substack.com

by Hiram Crespo.

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In his Epistle to Timarchus, Metrodorus says:

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"Let us respond to beauty with beauty: for, by plunging, so to speak, into a communion of affection, we have freed ourselves from earthly life to rise to the mysteries of Epicurus, a truly divine revelation." - as reported in Against Colotes, 1117

Hiram provides quite a few textual references and focuses on translations to bring out a better understanding of his references to the Epicurean Mysteries and concludes his article with this.

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I believe both Metrodorus and Epicurus, as well as their companions, were natural mystics. Like Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse, they derived blissful awe from the study and contemplation of nature. They were mystics in the Greek sense of the word mystes: they had been initiated into certain doctrines, which unified them and made them an inner group of like-minded co-religionaries.

Metrodorus’ emphatic use of “truly” in his Epistle to Timarchus demonstrates that these mysteries were not a mere parody, but were considered an initiation into an accurate, scientific, natural cosmology that freed initiates from superstitious fears and errors. I conclude that the Epicurean Kathegemones—although they rejected supernatural claims—were, therefore, in their own way, no less than mystics, and that they in fact saw themselves as mystics according to the true prolepsis of the word.

This is a way that I feel Epicurus taught us to study nature to better understand her mysteries.