Excellent work on your website, Twentier, thank you! The only books I have on Philodemus' Rhetoric are Hubbell's translation (that Cassius shared) and Clive Chandler's work on books 1 & 2, did you use/find any other sources?
Thanks, Bryan! I appreciate your feedback.
I've only used Hubbell's translation as my resource.
I've also transcribed it as HTML:
Halfway through Book VII of Philodemus' On Rhetoric, I came across the following, surprising quotation:
"Rhetors prefer to live in a democracy, the worst form of government."
I am well aware of Plato's authoritarian politics ... Philodemus seems to identify "The People" with "a vicious mob".
Granted, this is taken out of context, as are many of Philodemus' fragments.
Still, it makes me wonder more about Philodemus' political positions, particularly his sympathy toward Julius Caesar. He has a lot to say about civic engagement in On Rhetoric.
This confirms, once again, that everything sounds better with a posh English accent.
Cellar door 
There is an added irony, noting that tattoos in ancient Greece would have been partially reserved for slaves given that Epicurus declares that we "must be the slave of Philosophy" (U199). 
Your post made me curious about tattoos in Ancient Greece. It seems they were taken as a sign of “Otherness.”
https://greekreporter.com/2023/07/15/tattoos-ancient-greece/
Indeed, ΔΕΡΜΑΤΟΣΤΙΞΙΑ seems to have been reserved as a punitive measure to identify slaves and criminals, both in ancient Greece as well as Persia (according to Herodotus, who records Greek soldiers as preferring death over being tattooed i.e. defeated and captured by the Persians). On the other hand, their geographical neighbors, the Thracians, Scythians, and Celts used the practice as a form of self-expression, as did/do Polynesian peoples, from whom we inherit the word "tattoo."
There are some colorful anecdotes about the battle of Thermopylae: https://www.actasdermo.org/es-dermatostik…578219021002456
I thought I might start a thread for this in the event that anyone has any ink to share.
I just got this done yesterday! My first share is ΛΑΘΕ ΒΙΩΣΑΣ (láthe biṓsas), a phrase found in Usener Fragment 551, an ancient invocation to cultivate a life of philosophical calm, estranged from egotistical ambitions, indifferent to accolades, immune to the allure of approval, unburdened by popular opinion, unimpressed by affluence, uninspired by opulence, and liberated from vain beliefs about fame, a life too blissfully unremarkable to appear on the turbulent pages of history.
Hi, Holly! Glad to see you here. 
I used that exact quote in an anti-Creationist editorial written for my high school newspaper after a creationist came to our school and presented during an assembly.
I remember that when my high school biology teacher announced that we would be studying evolution for the next few weeks, she said she wanted to impress upon us from the outset, and for us to tell our parents, that we would be studying it as 'only a theory.' *Still* contentious in the schools in 1994.
My 9th-grade biology teacher prefaced our lectures on Darwin and Mendel with a disclaimer on creationism and/or intelligent design. This was in 2004. I live in Florida. 
I think it is important to consider Epicurus' context in a post-Alexandrian world. Epicurus would have thrived at a time when the Greeks became linked with a trans-continental empire that made them aware of dozens of new languages, commodities, and religions. Diogenes records Epicurus as having had a fascination with Pyrrho, who accompanied Alexander's army to Northwest India and and modern-day Afghanistan, so we know that Epicurus had an interest in 4th-century BCE anthropology. One can imagine how an intellectual in this context might have been struck at the discovery that every group of humans whom Alexander encountered had some sort of cultural practice in which they reserved time to interface with inspirational or behaviorally-impactful images in their minds that do not correspond with physical objects in the immediate environment.
Knowledge of spiritual ideas would seem to have been confirmed by the independent attestation of foreign peoples. Based on the cultural exchange of ideas that occurred after Alexander's conquest, it would seem that everyone from every part of the planet knew that gods are sublime, in the same way that everyone from every part of the planet knew that water is refreshing and sex feels good. (Along those lines, every group of humans seem to have independently known that intoxication is memorable, and—what I continue to emphasize is not only not a coincidence, but is rather a fundamental feature of spirituality—almost every religion incorporates an intoxicant or intoxicating practice into the heart of their rituals). Indeed, knowledge of "the gods" is self-evident from Egypt to India and everywhere in-between: everyone has met the divine nature without ever having shaken its hand.
Since the gods did not proverbially walk door-to-door, introducing themselves to each civilization, each in its own tongue, the experience of the gods must be an internal phenomenon.
Do we have a picture of Fragment 551?
Here's another bust to consider, allegedly from the Museum of Neues in Berlin: https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-ins…es-museum/home/
This is allegedly the bust of Zeno of Citium.
I never realized that Bailey's collection of fragments were selected from Usener's:
Thank you for the recognition! The contents are essentially copied from the Hedonicon, with several exceptions (such as the inclusion of Lucian's Alexander the False Prophet). I am also trying to get permissions to host translations of Philodemus and Diogenes of Oinoanda on the website. So far, it's just the works of Epicurus as contained within Diogenes Laërtius and De Rerum Natura. A number of sites contain Epicurus' works, but not De Rerum Natura, and I've connected them with links.
Again, though, I would really like to see anyone else's transpositions and advice about ... anything. Like, which of those symbols represents a Nu, because I am fairly familiar with Nus, and their very basic, ancient Greek miniscule ("v") ... I know they're in there, but none of those look a lowercase "v" to me, and that lets me know I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I'd be curious what Bryan or Eikadistes or others make of the manuscript's πλειονος versus Usener's "correction." If we take the manuscript at its word, something like: we shall depart from life with/in the midst of/along with more beauty/nobility (μετα καλου πλειονος), exclaiming/proclaiming that we have lived well.
I have absolutely no idea. I genuinely can't transpose these fragments.
Here's my best attempt, which is utterly unhelpful:
This may as well be ancient Phoenician because I'm seeing Omegas with too many loops, and I don't understand why Kappas, Betas, and Taus are twice the height of the other letters, or why there seem to be spaces in the middle of words when there shouldn't be any spaces.
I'm curious what everyone else sees.
I clearly see a modern question mark [?] and one-half of a pair of parenthesis [ ( ] in the middle of a sentence with no sibling, and diacritics I've never seen before, and punctuation I cannot identify.
My conclusion is that Usener took MAJOR liberties, not only with translations, not only with his personal additions, but in the basic act of assigning symbols the wrong syllable.
"And [the sage] thinks it better to be unlucky in a rational way than lucky in a senseless way; for it is better for a good decision not to turn out right in action than for a bad decision to turn out right because of chance." (Epicurus, Epistle to Menoikeus 134-135)
What has "nature used to impress a notion of gods on our minds" if not the very images of the gods?
Drugs. And a few other things, but I'd like to start with drugs.
By definition, psychedelic chemicals are associated with the religious experience (from the ancient Greek ψυχή [psykhḗ]“mind" or "soul” and δῆλος [dêlos] “manifest" or "visible”). In addition to near-universal consumption of wine, as well as (what I deem to be) possible, recreational use of cannabis (as demonstrated by the Scythians according to Herodotus), the many Mystery Rites (such as the Orphic, Dionysian, and Eleusinian Mysteries) of Antiquity presented the average ancient Greek with a variety of ways to induce a religious experience, either through the inhalation or ingestion of psychoactive substances. The content of those experiences are categorically inspirational, and the experience, itself, can be psychologically and behaviorally transformational.
Dancing. It goes well with drugs for a reason.
Similar neurological patterns are activated through ritualistic dancing and/or drumming. In Islam, we see this with Sufi whirling, renown as inducing a mystical state. Dancing is a primary form of spiritual expression throughout the worlds cultures, too numerous to name. The repetitive, kinetic and acoustic rituals of rhythmic drumming and dancing are partners in inducing the religious experience. Dancing would have been a feature of Dionysian Mysteries, and the practice had a practical purpose, to induce the psychedelic experience, or, in Epicurean terms (so long as I am not conflating incompatible ideas), to "impress a notion of gods on our minds." Historically-speaking, getting high while dancing to rythmic music never gets old (and has never gotten old).
Meditation. It's another pathway to the gods.
Meditation yields similar neurological patters as drugs, dancing, and drumming. We can also throw chanting in this category (and, perhaps, singing). We find recorded examples in Tibetan Buddhism. For the same reasons that dancing and drumming induce psychedelic experiences, various forms of meditation, chanting, and breathing can facilitate psychological states in which lasting, psychologically-transformational impressions (such that we call them "divine") can be consciously apprehended. Focusing upon the icon of a deity can induce an experience that can lead to measurably-positive, behavioral changes. Here again, the Mystery Rites come into play.
Dreams. This is the big one in an Epicurean context.
I think that nocturnal dreams are the best example, not only because they are mentioned by Epicurus, but because they are the only psychedelic experience that occurs without consciously initiating it. Very rarely do we chose our dreams, and we are usually only observers of our dreams, much as, throughout the day, we are observers of sensations. A strong analogy can be made between the images our eyes apprehend in the day and the images our mind apprehends at night. Both are received without the bias of the rational mind, and can therefore be trusted as sources of data. As with optical illusions, it is up to the intellect to formulate a practical interpretation, but those images are already there for the intellect to consider when it awakens.
Those are some general ways of inducing transformational mental states that illicit the "perception of deities" and inspire the "divine nature". The Epicurean connection between piety and ethics reinforces to me the proposition (I'm making) that Epicurus' description of the gods (as impressive objects of a dreamy mind) can be expressed as a function of needing to provide a naturalistic explanation for psychedelic experiences, experiences that would have been common among ancient Greeks as demonstrated by the plethora of Mystery Rites.
Epicurean Philosophy is always practical, and Epicurean theology should be no different: sober vocabulary is required to ground theology in physics, or, in other words, to ground the religious experience within the framework of a universe that is made from particles dancing in void. Unlike the gods of metaphysicians, who were purely theoretical, the Epicurean gods were apparent, and the religious experience was not only accessible, but, through ritual, repeatable and reliable.
I can imagine a couple of questions here:
1. Do the terms "good" and "evil" even apply to elements/ atoms / void / matter, or are those things "neutral" in some way?
I think we can address this by acknowledging that Epicurus reserved "good" and "evil" for the domain of Ethics; on the other hand, Plato infused morality into his metaphysics as though "evil" was a property of physical objects that could be weighed and measured. (Here's a weird analogy: consider Romance languages that assign a gender to nouns, especially inanimate objects. It can be semantically misleading to apply a sort of personification to sexless objects that lack reproductive organs). Likewise, from an Epicurean perspective, the only measurable qualities of an atom are size, weight, and shape, and compound objects are only described by sensible properties (like color); matter, itself, does not have a moral dimension. I hesitate to even call particles morally "neutral" because we cannot measure the unconditional morality of a chair, or, for that matter, instruments of war, or harmful drugs.
Case in point, when my wife got out of the hospital (after 8 surgeries with 1 more to go), everyone was horrified that she was taking Oxycodone to manage the pain of those surgeries (this is heavily a consequence of the politicization of medical practices in the US). Too many were concerned that she was going to become addicted, and vocalized that concern ... and not enough people were concerned about that fact that she was in such excruciating pain she was at risk of a cardiac event. They weren't concerned with the (Epicurean) consequences of taking opiates, with weighing the advantages (decreased pain, a lower heart rate, etc.) against the disadvantages (constipation, fogginess, etc.). Rather, they engaged a (Platonic-Stoic) evaluation that we should abstain from opiates because they are fundamentally, categorically evil. This is a mistake, and caused us unnecessary grief.
Is he correct at the 2:20 point in the video to say that "matter in the Platonic worldview is EVIL?"
Plato proposed that one's immortal soul becomes trapped in the body like a prison at birth. Consequently, he saw death as the liberation from the soul's imprisonment in a cage of matter. In that regard, Plato saw the matter as being antithetical to the truth that is the Form of the Good.
He saw the material world as being a corruption of a realm of universal concepts, so the natural world and the particular objects within it are seen as cheap copies of a higher truth. In this regard, his propositions are parallel to many ancient Indian notions of ethics, which equates goodness with knowledge, and equates ignorance with evil. (Note the word "guru", which is derived from "gu" and "ru" which is translated as "dispeller [of] darkness", and note that Plato uses the light of the Sun as a metaphor for the the Form of the Good that overcomes the darkness of matter; neo-Platonists recognized this and found Platonism to be compatible with ancient Indian philosophies).
Based on that, I think it is correct to say that Plato saw matter as being evil.
