Posts by Cassius

Great source Don. Now we just need someone to produce that in English. but as you say it's a great start on finding the citations to look for.

We need to produce a document with references to the scattered documentation that exists as to the sayings of Metrodorus. I'm therefore starting this thread with a quote referenced by Adrastus, and I hope at some point one of us will collect these into a single document. Please add other references to this thread to make that goal easier.

Quote from Seneca Letter to Lucillius 99

“Even at the moment when your son’s body is on the pyre, or your friend breathing his last, will you not suffer your pleasure to cease, rather than tickle your very grief with pleasure? Which is the more honourable—to remove grief from your soul, or to admit pleasure even into the company of grief? Did I say ‘admit’? Nay, I mean ‘chase after,’ and from the hands, too, of grief itself. ^28. Metrodorus says: ‘There is a certain pleasure which is related to sadness.’ We Stoics may say that, but you may not. The only Good which you^[11] recognize, is pleasure, and the only Evil, pain; and what relationship can there be between a Good and an Evil? But suppose that such a relationship does exist; now, of all times, is it to be rooted out?^[12] Shall we examine grief also, and see with what elements of delight and pleasure it is surrounded? ^29. Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you (METRODORUS?) should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. ^30. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. Do you think him to be badly off because he is no more, or because he still exists as somebody? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is no more—for what feeling can belong to one who does not exist?—nor from the fact that he exists; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage that death has in it—namely, non-existence.

Let me say again Adrastus thank you for posting that reference to Metrodorus and recommend to others that this is a great way of helping out on the forum.

We have many people (including me) who have limited reading experience in the secondary literature, especially people like Seneca or Cicero or Plutarch or Marcus Aurelius etc., who will regularly mix references to Epicureans into their standard fare of Stoicism or other viewpoints.

It helps everyone if those who are more fluent in the less-known sources will point out parallels such as Adrastus did here.

We really ought to have a section on "Writings/Sayings of Metrodorus" so that citations like this can be collected in one place.

This passage from Seneca very much echos Cicero's attack on pleasure in Tusculan Disputations. It also shows the importance of seeing Epicurus's wider definition of pleasure.

The ancient Stoics knew their Epicurus better than most Epicureans today, and certainly better than do modern Stoics. The ancient Stoics knew how critical it is to Stoicism (and to all enemies of Epicurus) to obfuscate and reject Epicurus' wider view of pleasure.

Everything in Epicurean ethics turns on recognizing that all feeling which is not painful is pleasurable. Yes it is painful to lose a friend, but as Metrodorus says even in that circumstance there are non-painful pleasurable feelings that come with the remembrance of the dead friend. And Epicurus says that even the worst pains are to dealt with by turning back to pleasure (properly understood), and focusing on the recognition that that which has been done cannot be undone.

Quote

VS55. We must heal our misfortunes by the grateful recollection of what has been, and by the recognition that it is impossible to undo that which has been done.

This is something I haven't focused on hard enough, and going through Tusculan Disputations is raising its importance in my mind. Epicurus teaches focusing instead on pleasure rather than constantly focusing on the pain and suffering as the Stoics (or at least the Cyreniacs) advise.

Thanks Adrastus for posting this because it is a good reminder of the point.

Quote

“Even at the moment when your son’s body is on the pyre, or your friend breathing his last, will you not suffer your pleasure to cease, rather than tickle your very grief with pleasure? Which is the more honourable—to remove grief from your soul, or to admit pleasure even into the company of grief? Did I say ‘admit’? Nay, I mean ‘chase after,’ and from the hands, too, of grief itself. ^28. Metrodorus says: ‘There is a certain pleasure which is related to sadness.’ We Stoics may say that, but you may not. The only Good which you^[11] recognize, is pleasure, and the only Evil, pain; and what relationship can there be between a Good and an Evil? But suppose that such a relationship does exist; now, of all times, is it to be rooted out?^[12] Shall we examine grief also, and see with what elements of delight and pleasure it is surrounded? ^29. Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you (METRODORUS?) should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. ^30. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. Do you think him to be badly off because he is no more, or because he still exists as somebody? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is no more—for what feeling can belong to one who does not exist?—nor from the fact that he exists; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage that death has in it—namely, non-existence.

And although it is not authentically ancient Epicurean, I think Frances Wright does an excellent job with the topic in her Chapter 10:

Quote

Death, then, is never our foe. When not a friend, he cannot be worse than indifferent. For while we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not. To be wise, then, death is nothing. Examine the ills of life; are they not of our own creation, or take they not their darkest hues from our passions or our ignorance? What is poverty, if “we have temperance, and can be satisfied with a crust, and a draught from the spring? — if we have modesty, and can wear a woolen garment as gladly as a tyrian robe? What is slander, if we have no vanity that it can wound, and no anger that it can kindle? What is neglect, if we have no ambition that it can disappoint, and no pride that it can mortify? What is persecution, if we have our own bosoms in which to retire, and a spot of earth to sit down and rest upon? What is death, when without superstition to clothe him with terrors, we can cover our heads, and go to sleep in his arms? What a list of human calamities are here expunged — poverty, slander, neglect, disappointment, persecution, death. What yet remains? Disease? That, too, we have shown temperance can often shun, and Philosophy can always alleviate.

But there is yet a pain, which the wisest and the best of men cannot escape; that all of us, my sons, have felt, or have to feel. Do not your hearts whisper it? Do you not tell me, that in death there is yet a sting? That ere he aim at us, he may level the beloved of our soul? The father, whose tender care hath reared our infant minds — the brother, whom the same breast hath nourished, and the same roof sheltered, with whom, side by side, we have grown like two plants by a river, sucking life from the same fountain and strength from the same sun — the child whose gay prattle delights our ears, or whose opening understanding fixes our hopes — the friend of our choice, with whom we have exchanged hearts, and shared all our pains and pleasures, whose eye hath reflected the tear of sympathy, whose hand hath smoothed the couch of sickness. Ah! my sons, here indeed is a pain — a pain that cuts into the soul. There are masters that will tell you otherwise; who will tell you that it is unworthy of a man to mourn even here. But such, my sons, speak not the truth of experience or philosophy, but the subtleties of sophistry and pride. He who feels not the loss, hath never felt the possession. He who knows not the grief, hath never known the joy. See the price of a friend in the duties we render him, and the sacrifices we make to him, and which, in making, we count not sacrifices, but pleasures. We sorrow for his sorrow; we supply his wants, or, if we cannot, we share them. We follow him to exile. We close ourselves in his prison; we soothe him in sickness; we strengthen him in death: nay, if it be possible, we throw down our life for his. Oh! What a treasure is that for which we do so much! And is it forbidden to us to mourn its loss? If it be, the power is not with us to obey.

Should we, then, to avoid the evil, forego the good? Shall we shut love from our hearts, that we may not feel the pain of his departure? No; happiness forbids it. Experience forbids it. Let him who hath laid on the pyre the dearest of his soul, who hath washed the urn with the bitterest tears of grief — let him say if his heart hath ever formed the wish that it had never shrined within it him whom he now deplores. Let him say if the pleasures of the sweet communion of his former days doth not still live in his remembrance. If he love not to recall the image of the departed, the tones of his voice, the words of his discourse, the deeds of his kindness, the amiable virtues of his life. If, while he weeps the loss of his friend, he smiles not to think that he once possessed him. He who knows not friendship, knows not the purest pleasure of earth. Yet if fate deprive us of it, though we grieve, we do not sink; Philosophy is still at hand, and she upholds us with fortitude. And think, my sons, perhaps in the very evil we dread, there is a good; perhaps the very uncertainty of the tenure gives it value in our eyes; perhaps all our pleasures take their zest from the known possibility of their interruption. What were the glories of the sun, if we knew not the gloom of darkness? What the refreshing breezes of morning and evening, if we felt not the fervors of noon? Should we value the lovely-flower, if it bloomed eternally; or the luscious fruit, if it hung always on the bough? Are not the smiles of the heavens more beautiful in contrast with their frowns, and the delights of the seasons more grateful from their vicissitudes? Let us then be slow to blame nature, for perhaps in her apparent errors there is hidden a wisdom. Let us not quarrel with fate, for perhaps in our evils lie the seeds of our good. Were our body never subject to sickness, we might be insensible to the joy of health. Were our life eternal, our tranquillity might sink into inaction. Were our friendship not threatened with interruption, it might want much of its tenderness. This, then, my sons, is our duty, for this is our interest and our happiness; to seek our pleasures from the hands of the virtues, and for the pain which may befall us, to submit to it with patience, or bear up against it with fortitude. To walk, in short, through life innocently and tranquilly; and to look on death as its gentle termination, which it becomes us to meet with ready minds, neither regretting the past, nor anxious for the future.”

This week we will return to our normal format and combine a general opening welcome with attention to a special topic, which this week will be "Death Is Nothing To Us."

Please join us if you can. If you're not on our current invitation list, let us know in this thread that you'd like to attend future sessions.

A discussion outline for this topic is here:

Death Is Nothing To Us

In cleaning up the subforum for our Sunday meetings I see that we did not create a thread last week, given that we held our Twentieth Meeting at this time since the 20th was on a Sunday. In order to avoid confusion in the forum listing I'm adding this filler to indicate that we did in fact meet, and in fact had one of our best-attended meetings ever.

We'll return to normal format on July 26th.

This is to call attention to the material that we'll be covering for the next several weeks in the Lucretius Today Podcast. We're now in Section III of Tusculan Disputations, and the material we are about to cover is some of the most intense and influential anti-Epicurean material remaining from the ancient world. We'll eventually cover Plutarch's attacks on Epicurus as well, but this section of Tusculan Disputations is packed with important arguments that has set the tone for anti-Epicurean consensus ever since it was written two thousand years ago. In going through these arguments we can better see where these issues originated (in most cases with Socrates/Plato) and why Diogenes Laertius records Epicurus taking the positions he took.

Anyone who has time to read through these sections and comment as we go through them would be doing themselves and us a favor. There are many leads to follow and lots of details to address, and much that we won't have time to cover in full on the podcast,

These key sections start around Section XV:

Cicero - Tusculan Disputations - EpicureanFriends Handbook

and they continue through a lengthy argument over the next sections thereafter.

We're also going to find some valuable material in Part IV, which expands the Ciceronian/Stoic objections to the way that Epicurus handles "grief" to other "perturbations" of the mind, and Part V, which summarizes the previous sections and gives the summation as to why allegedly virtue is the essence of and the only thing necessary for a happy life.

In Part IV Cicero takes the Peripatetics to task because they tried to say that strong emotions are not always bad, and they can even be useful (such as anger in wartime) so long as they are kept within bounds. Cicero sides with the Stoics and argues that any amount of disturbance can never be a good thing. This context makes it easier to see why Diogenes Laertius recorded that the wise man will feel his emotions more strongly than others, but this will not be hindrance to his wisdom. Seeing the broader dispute takes the fragment out of isolation and sets it off as part of a much larger dispute.

Tusculan Disputations became one of the most influential works in western literature, so it will be good for us to develop a comprehensive response as we proceed through the podcast.

Welcome to Episode 292 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint.

Today we continue in Part 3, which addresses anger, pity, envy, and other strong emotions. Today we'll continue into Section XVI, where we compare Epicurus' views on dealing with grief to those of other schools.

Thanks Patrikios. I am going to post about this further elsewhere but i spent some time today reviewing the remaining part of Section III of Tusculan Disputations (from where we are now to the end of the section).

For the next several weeks we're going to be reading some of the most intensely anti-Epicurean discussion anywhere in Cicero, but it's packed with important information that explains what the issues were all about and why Epicurus addressed them the way he did.

I'm going to post further and recommend that anyone who has time to read these sections would be doing themselves and us a favor, as there is a lot here the the podcasters are going to have to address and it would be good to see it discussed in detail here on the forum as we go through it.

We'll be starting in Section XVI next week:

Cicero - Tusculan Disputations - EpicureanFriends Handbook

.... and at least the next five or ten sections are packed with information on Epicurus.

I also had a chance to begin reviewing Part IV. That's going to take some strategic picking and choosing, as a lot of it is devoted to discussion Pythagorus and then the Stoics, but I've already picked up something significant that I did not realize.

Cicero takes the Peripatetics to task, and the Peripatetics and Stoics were at war with each other, apparently because the Peripatetics tried to say that these strong emotions are not bad in themselves, and they can even be useful (such as anger in wartime) so long as they are kept within bounds - which I gather fit into their endorsement of all things in moderation. At least in the part I have reviewed so far, Cicero sides with the Stoics and takes the Aristotelians to task for admitting that any amount of disturbance can be a good thing. It's easy to look upon those disputes between other schools as irrelevant, but when you see how the main debates were being framed by the older/larger schools it becomes easier to see how short or fragmentary comments by Epicurus were framed to engage in the same disputes. That short comment in Diogenes Laertius that the wise man will feel his emotions more strongly than others, but this will not be hindrance to his wisdom, becomes not just an isolated fragment but hugely important to seeing where Epicurus fit in these larger disputes.

This week's podcast is a little shorter than normal but contains discussion of an Epicurean viewpoint I bet few have heard of. Cicero tells us that Epicurus pushed back at the attitude of the Cyreniacs - later picked up by the Stoics - that we should constantly think about bad things happening to us. This is interesting material that sheds new light on several other references in the Epicurean texts.

Thread

Episode 291 - TD21 - Epicurus Pushes Back Against "Expect The Worst And You'll Never Be Disappointed"

Welcome to Episode 291 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most 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 we discuss this and all of our…

Cassius

July 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM

Episode 291 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Epicurus Pushes Back Against 'Expect The Worst And You'll Never Be Disappointed.'"

VERY nice!

Quote from Bryan

I never think of the Annicerian school!

Thank you. All of that is new to me too!

Also, I see that the original Latin may not imply "foot and horses" but "men and horses"

Cum his "viris equisque" ut dicitur, si honestem tueri ac retinere sententia est, decertandum est.

With this footnote from the Peabody edition:

Quote

Latin, viris equisque, literally, with men and horses, i. e. in full military array, with all the strength that I can muster, with might and main.

I'd say that's a quote that's highly relevant to keep in mind as we read Cicero.

When you're fighting someone with all the strength you can muster, sometimes you're going to fight up front and honestly, and sometimes you're going to fight by deception.

This Stoic-sounding statement is very much like Cicero's position that all disturbance should be avoided as stated in Tusculan Disputations:

Quote

69 Again, we must keep ourselves free from every disturbing emotion, not only from desire and fear, but also from excessive pain and pleasure, and from anger, so that we may enjoy that calm of soul and freedom from care which bring both moral stability and dignity of character. The retired life.But there have been many and still are many who, while pursuing that calm of soul of which I speak, have withdrawn from civic duty and taken refuge in retirement. Among such have been found the most famous and by far the foremost philosophers[P] and certain other[Q] earnest, thoughtful men who could not endure the conduct of either the people or their leaders; some of them, too, lived in the country and found their pleasure in the management of their private estates. 70 Such men have had the same aims as kings—to suffer no want, to be subject to no authority, to enjoy their liberty, that is, in its essence, to live just as they please.

"...brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good."

From Part 1:

Quote

5 Moreover, the subject of this inquiry is the common property of all philosophers; for who would presume to call himself a philosopher, if he did not inculcate any lessons of duty? But there are some schools that distort all notions of duty by the theories they propose touching the supreme good and the supreme evil. For he who posits the supreme good as having no connection with virtue and measures it not by a moral standard but by his own interests—if he should be consistent and not rather at times over-ruled by his better nature, he could value neither friendship nor justice nor generosity; and brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good.

Reasons for choice of subject and authorities.

6 Although these truths are so self-evident that the subject does not call for discussion, still I have discussed it in another connection. If, therefore, these [9]schools should claim to be consistent, they could not say anything about duty; and no fixed, invariable, natural rules of duty can be posited except by those who say that moral goodness is worth seeking solely or chiefly for its own sake. Accordingly, the teaching of ethics is the peculiar right of the Stoics, the Academicians, and the Peripatetics; for the theories of Aristo, Pyrrho, and Erillus have been long since rejected; and yet they would have the right to discuss duty if they had left us any power of choosing between things, so that there might be a way of finding out what duty is. I shall, therefore, at this time and in this investigation follow chiefly the Stoics, not as a translator, but, as is my custom, I shall at my own option and discretion draw from those sources in such measure and in such manner as shall suit my purpose.

Our "friend" Cicero says:

Now that these schools are out of date, Epicurus has come into vogue—an advocate and supporter of practically the same doctrine. Against such a philosophy we must fight it out "with horse and foot," as the saying is, if our purpose is to defend and maintain our standard of moral rectitude.

Quote from Cicero - On Duties - Gutenberg - Miller Edition

116 XXXIII. We have still left our fourth division, comprising propriety, moderation, temperance, self-restraint, self-control.

Can anything be expedient, then, which is contrary to such a chorus of virtues? And yet the Cyrenaics, adherents of the school of Aristippus, and the philosophers who bear the name of Anniceris find all good to consist in pleasure and consider virtue praiseworthy only because it is productive of pleasure. Now that these schools are out of date, Epicurus has come into vogue—an advocate and supporter of practically the same doctrine. Against such a philosophy we must fight it out "with horse and foot," as the saying is, if our purpose is to defend and maintain our standard of moral rectitude.

117 For if, as we find it in the writings of Metrodorus, not only expediency but happiness in life depends wholly upon a sound physical constitution and the reasonable expectation that it will always remain sound, then that expediency—and what is more, the highest expediency, as they estimate it—will [399]assuredly clash with moral rectitude. For, first of all, what position will wisdom occupy in that system? The position of collector of pleasures from every possible source? What a sorry state of servitude for a virtue—to be pandering to sensual pleasure! And what will be the function of wisdom? To make skillful choice between sensual pleasures? Granted that there may be nothing more pleasant, what can be conceived more degrading for wisdom than such a role?

Then again, if anyone hold that pain is the supreme evil, what place in his philosophy has fortitude, which is but indifference to toil and pain? For however many passages there are in which Epicurus speaks right manfully of pain, we must nevertheless consider not what he says, but what it is consistent for a man to say who has defined the good in terms of pleasure and evil in terms of pain.

And further, if I should listen to him, I should find that in many passages he has a great deal to say about temperance and self-control; but "the water will not run," as they say. For how can he commend self-control and yet posit pleasure as the supreme good? For self-control is the foe of the passions, and the passions are the handmaids of pleasure.

118 And yet when it comes to these three cardinal virtues, those philosophers shift and turn as best they can, and not without cleverness. They admit wisdom into their system as the knowledge that provides pleasures and banishes pain; they clear the way for fortitude also in some way to fit in with their doctrines, when they teach that it is a rational means for looking with indifference upon death and [401]for enduring pain. They bring even temperance in—not very easily, to be sure, but still as best they can; for they hold that the height of pleasure is found in the absence of pain. Justice totters or rather, I should say, lies already prostrate; so also with all those virtues which are discernible in social life and the fellowship of human society. For neither goodness nor generosity nor courtesy can exist, any more than friendship can, if they are not sought of and for themselves, but are cultivated only for the sake of sensual pleasure or personal advantage.

Let us now recapitulate briefly.

119 As I have shown that such expediency as is opposed to moral rectitude is no expediency, so I maintain that any and all sensual pleasure is opposed to moral rectitude. And therefore Calliphon and Dinomachus, in my judgment, deserve the greater condemnation; they imagined that they should settle the controversy by coupling pleasure with moral rectitude; as well yoke a man with a beast! But moral rectitude does not accept such a union; she abhors it, spurns it. Why, the supreme good, which ought to be simple, cannot be a compound and mixture of absolutely contradictory qualities. But this theory I have discussed more fully in another connection; for the subject is a large one. Now for the matter before us.

120 We have, then, fully discussed the problem how a question is to be decided, if ever that which seems to be expediency clashes with moral rectitude. But if, on the other hand, the assertion is made that pleasure admits of a show of expediency also, there can still be no possible union between it and moral rectitude. For, to make the most generous admission [403]we can in favour of pleasure, we will grant that it may contribute something that possibly gives some spice to life, but certainly nothing that is really expedient.

Display More

Cicero's "De Officiis" is one of his most famous works, but it has been many years since I read it. I don't see it discussed very frequently in Epicurean commentary because I don't recall that it makes as much specific reference to Epicurus as some of his other works, but no doubt the references are there and just need pulling out. I'll tag this thread with #Morality and we can add to this section some of our general dicsussions about morality and social duties.

De Officiis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quote from Kalosyni

This: ..."that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions"...

and..."I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties"

So then the question is what are a person's "social duties"?

And that's going to take us down a long road of discussing "social duties" in general. We actually don't have an existing thread on Cicero's "On Duties," which is one of his most famous works, so I will set that up and probably move that there to see talk about what might be the Epicurean commentary on that.