Posts by Joshua

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The modern science should take precedence over Epicurean metaphysics so far as the goal is to understand the nature of the universe to dispel fears, but Epicurean metaphysics should be also be given due consideration so far as to understand the Epicurean thought and it's implications on the rest of his philosophy.

I'm happy to see you've isolated this point of tension, and I think the approach is a good one. We've been talking a lot about prolepsis lately and I think in order to understand that we need to understand what Epicurus also had to say about the nature of the soul, about 'films', 'images', or 'eidola', and much more.

Epicurus certainly knew that humans would gradually acquire more and better knowledge about the cosmos, and that, as he suggests in the Letter to Pythocles, we should withhold judgment in certain areas where our knowledge is still tentative at best.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks Cassius !

Quote from Bryan

Hello Remus, welcome!

I am not familiar with the Memoria Press version, but I would like to recommend Hans H. Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata series (link). Everything is in Latin from the beginning, but illustrated and simple.

Ha! I had already grabbed a link to drop here before I saw your post.

I, too, recommend this as the best introduction. I also recommend reading the late Prof. William Harris' Homeric Prolegomena, but since his website at Middlebury College seems to be no longer operational, I'll see if I can attach a copy.

It seems the PDF is too large. Here is a download link;

Wormhole - Simple, private file sharing

Wormhole lets you share files with end-to-end encryption and a link that automatically expires.

wormhole.app

Note to Cassius , it would be good to have a copy of this on the filebase here at the forum.

We discussed this very briefly in September in this thread, maybe we can combine that thread into this one.

Something like that!

Looks great!

I'm reminded of a guy several years ago on the Stoicism subreddit. He got--or thought he got--a tattoo of Epictetus, but the bust he chose was actually one of Epicurus 😁

And I can't resist this poem from Robert Frost!

The three books I can think of that are absent from your list are;

• A Few Days in Athens by Frances Wright, a fictional story set in the Garden
• Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom by David Sedley, an in depth exploration of how Lucretius interpreted Epicurus
• The Sculpted Word by Bernard Frischer, a study of Epicurean bronzes and marbles from the ancient world

I would also glance over the following essays/lectures/letters and see if they catch your eye;

• John Tyndall's Belfast Address
• An essay on Lucretius from George Santayana's Three Philosophical Poets
• Prof. Ian Johnston's Lecture on Lucretius
• Lucy Hutchinson's Letter to the Earl of Anglesey, disavowing her very early translation of Lucretius

And it's sometimes fruitful to read the introductions to the various translations, even if you have no intention of reading the translation itself.

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But Lucretius was not a mere poet, casting into graceful language the interesting results of thought. He was a real student both of nature and man, and from his stores of information we may learn not only his errors but the happy guesses and pregnant suggestions of ancient science. Thus, for instance, his doctrines of elemental atoms and images have a real relation to the more substantial theories of modern times. Moreover, the questions vitally affecting the position of man in the world, which are suggested or discussed by Lucretius, are parallel to questions which have risen into prominence in connection with the increasing study of nature. Most conspicuous among these, is the relation of physical inquiry to religious belief. Objections were urged against such inquiry in ancient times, on the ground of its impiety and unbelief. Just as there are found in modern times those who reprobate the audacity and insufficiency of reason, there were those in the time of Lucretius who denounced the inquiries into physical phenomena as dishonoring immortal things by mortal words.

The views of Lucretius on the nature and origin of life, the progressive advance of man from the rudest condition, by the exercise of his senses and accumulated experience, his denial of final causes, his resolution of all knowledge into the intimations of sense, his materialism and consequent denial of immortality, and his utilitarianism in morals, all present striking parallels to the opinions of one of the great schools of modern thought, and one passage on the preservation and destruction of species looks like a faint poetic anticipation of a theory which has attracted much notice in the present day.

I can cite this example from Charles Frederick Johnson, published 11 years after Darwin's Origin of Species, when questions relating to teleology in nature were more urgent than they seem to us now. When Lucretius writes about the development of the eye and other organs, it's easy to gloss over what is really a full frontal assault against Aristotle. I probably wouldn't have picked up on that before reading this passage from Johnson.

Then there is this paragraph from Cyril Bailey;

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But it would be the greatest mistake to think of Lucretius or his master as the author of a mere polemic against religion. Still less is Epicurus justly represented—as has sometimes been the case—as patching together from various sources a crude piecemeal view of the world to combat superstition and afford a plausible basis for a moral theory of doubtful moral tendency. If there is one point that modern work at Epicureanism tends to reveal, it is that it was a serious philosophy, a consistent whole derived from a single starting-point and following step by step with logical precision. As such Lucretius had learnt it, and as such he intended to present it, and many of the difficulties which modern critics have found in his detail, many of the puerilities at which they have scoffed, are to be explained by the perfectly consistent and relentless application of his fundamental principles. He has seemed trivial or inconsistent or obscure to his critics, because they would not take him seriously enough.

So there is occasionally good fruit in these introductions (which are, I'll be the first to admit, just as often repetitive and tiresome). I don't have a favorite, but John Mason Good's is singularly bad.

Thank you Godfrey, it is Inspire, not Aspire

I do see it--between 'Aspire Red' and 'Modern Flat UI'.

😬

I did discover poking around in DRN the other day that Yellow River could be translated as flauus fluuius in Latin, which gave me no end of pleasure!

I have started a thread summarizing my current understanding of this issue here, and I will try to keep the top post there as accurate and up to date as I can.

In a thread started by Cassius in December of 2021, it was noted that David Sedley makes reference to a bust of Zeno of Sidon. Sedley relates the story of the discovery of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, and on page 96 he writes;

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"As Piaggio's work proceeded with agonising slowness, excitement mounted in the learned circles of Europe. There were expectations of a second Renaissance. Surely the lost poetry of Sappho, or some exquisite play by Menander, was about to come to light. These expectations turned to bafflement and disappointment when rumours started to emerge from Piaggio's workshop at Portici that the first columns deciphered contained a Greek prose text in which harmful effects of music were criticised. A flattering mention of 'Zeno' led to reports that the author was a Stoic. But when after nearly two years the unrolling was completed, the title given at the end turned out to be 'Philodemus, On music', and this Philodemus was soon identified as the Epicurean philosopher of that name, already known as the author of some attractive epigrams. The Zeno whom he praised was not the Stoic Zeno of Citium, but the Epicurean Zeno of Sidon, whose bust was among those found in the villa's library. It has since come to be generally accepted that the library was that of Philodemus' school."

--page 96, Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, by David Sedley

The bust in question is in bronze, and the name ΖΗΝΩΝ is inscribed on a round base.

File:Zeno - portrait for a library, Colosseum.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

This photograph of the bust, released by the photographer into the public domain, is accompanied by a citation directing the reader to The Sculpted Word, Bernard Frischer's seminal text on Epicurean iconography. In footnote 100 on page 123 Frischer writes;

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"The same method [of identifying Epicurean busts by their marked resemblance to Epicurus himself] applied, e.g., to the problem of whether the bust of Zeno found in the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum represents the famous Stoic philosopher or his later Epicurean namesake confirms the communis opinio that it is the former, not the later, since this Zeno does not look at all like an Epicurean."

Frischer offers several citations to follow up on this line of inquiry (Richter; Schefold; F. Poulsen; Pandermalis). I shall try to examine these sources in time, and keep this post up to date.

The bust found in Herculaneum does bear an unmistakable resemblance to another bust, this one discovered in Italy and thought to be a Roman copy of a Greek original.

File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Napoli, 1969) - BEIC 6353768.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

File:Zeno of Citium - Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

Both of the above photographs are released under a Creative Commons license.

Category:Zeno of Citium bust, Farnese collection (Naples) - Wikimedia Commons

This bust, certainly the most famous bust alleged to be of Zeno of Citium, likewise bears the inscription ΖΗΝΩΝ. The second link includes a note that runs as follows;

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Marble bust of Zeno of Citium. Farnese Collection, National Archaeological Museum of Naples (cat. no. 6128). By comparison with the bronze bust from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, it was established that this portrait is that of the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium, and not Zeno of Elea or Zeno of Sidon.

You can view the more detailed timeline compiled by @Twentier  here.

Zeno of Elea (c.490-c.430 BC) was a pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century in the Eleatic school, and was a student of Parmenides. He is notable for his work on paradoxes.

Zeno of Citium (c.334-c.262 BC), the founder of Stoicism, was an approximate contemporary of Epicurus, younger than him by perhaps seven years and outliving him by perhaps 8 years.

Zeno of Sidon (c. 150-c.75 BC ) was the seventh Scholarch of the Epicurean Garden just outside Athens, excluding both Epicurus and Metrodorus (who predeceased the founder). When Philodemus was a young man, it was the scholarch Zeno who trained him in philosophy, and Cicero himself heard Zeno lecture when the future statesman was in his twenties.

Wikipedia has a disambiguation page listing other notable figures from the ancient world sharing the name Zeno.

Given my historically lax approach to completing research tasks, Cassius has wisely suggested that I start a thread to get the basic facts on record and invite assistance and commentary. I am not on the point of suggesting that the two busts in question are portraits of Zeno of Sidon, and not Zeno of Citium as has been alleged. But I am suggesting that the opinion of Bernard Frischer and those he cites should not necessarily be taken as the last word on the subject. Neither bust can be positively identified with either philosopher; it is a question of weighing the circumstantial evidence, and remaining open to any fresh evidence that should come to light. The praxis of identifying hitherto unknown Epicurean busts and icons by studying them in comparison with known Epicurean busts and icons offers one such line of circumstantial evidence.

Another line of inquiry may place more emphasis on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the bronze bust; 1.) in a villa owned by an Epicurean, 2.) in a specialized library in that villa, devoted to housing the scrolls of Philodemus, and to the philosophy of Epicurus, and 3.) bearing an inscription of a name held in high esteem by the author of those scrolls and the students of that philosophy.

There remain several gaps in my knowledge, which I list here in no particular order.

• How do we account for the 122 years between the death of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, owner of the villa and patron of Philodemus, and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD that led to the preservation of the library and busts? Who owned the villa after he died, and why did they preserve the library?
• Are there any busts known to depict Zeno of Elea?
• Do the sources cited by Frischer go deeper in their analysis than he does in the footnote quoted above?

So I naturally assumed that there was a bust known with certainty to be that of Zeno of Citium, but the fact is that apart from the inscription Ζήνων there is no positive identification on any of them to suggest which of the philosophers who held that name were sculpted. It could be Zeno of Citium, Zeno of Sidon, or Zeno of Elea (student of Parmenides and author of Zeno's Paradox).

Piso died in Italy ~30 years after Zeno of Sidon died in Athens. There are 122 years between Piso and Vesuvius--who lived there in the meantime? Why did they preserve Philodemus' library? Were they Epicurean? If so, why is there a bust of the founder of Stoicism in the Villa? Perhaps Piso or his successors thought it was Zeno of Sidon.

I'll need to review Frischer's book. This kind of blows my mind--Philodemus studied under Zeno of Sidon, a bust of someone named Zeno is in the Villa that houses his library, and yet the whole world over knows it as a bust of Zeno of Citium...because it doesnt look Epicurean enough! If Bernard Frischer's is the last word on this subject, I don't think this investigation is over yet.

https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/villa_papiri/downloads/villa_papyri_objects.pdf

This PDF from the Getty Museum (page 14) suggests that a bust of Zeno of Citium might have been mistaken for a bust of Zeno of Sidon.

Edit; This text mentions a bust of Zeno of Sidon (control+f search 'sidon').

And this page from Wikimedia Commons quotes Bernard Frischer of The Sculpted Word as writing that "this Zeno does not look at all like an Epicurean."

I briefly discussed this video on the Monday night call.

...

"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

-Frank Herbert, Dune

Thank you, Cassius!

I was just wondering to myself how I should prepare for tomorrow, this is very helpful.

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And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much, and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive them to this, that things are no more of one quality than another? For to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to solve this objection, they teach,—that all things being mixed and confounded together, and yet one nevertheless being more suitable and fitting to one, and another to another, it is not possible that there should in all cases be a contact and comprehension of one and the same quality, nor does the object equally affect all with all its parts, every one meeting only those to which it has its sense commensurate and [p. 343] proportioned; so that they are to blame so obstinately to insist that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another. Let us then seek who those men are which bring in this opinion that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not those who hold that every sensible thing is a mixture, composed of all sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple, and do not make each one thing to be many?

‘αἱ δὲ πολυθρύλητοι συμμετρίαι καὶ ἁρμονίαι τῶν περὶ τὰ αἰσθητήρια πόρων αἵ τε πολυμιξίαι τῶν σπερμάτων, ἃ δὴ πᾶσι χυμοῖς καὶ ὀσμαῖς καὶ χρόαις ἐνδιεσπαρμένα λέγουσιν ἑτέραν ἑτέρῳ ποιότητος κινεῖν αἴσθησιν, οὐκ ἄντικρυς εἰς τὸ μὴ μᾶλλον τὰ πράγματα συνελαύνουσιν αὐτοῖς; τοὺς γὰρ οἰομένους ψεύδεσθαι τὴν αἴσθησιν, ὅτι τἀναντία πάθη γιγνόμενα τοῖς χρωμένοις ἀπὸ τῶν αὐτῶν ὁρῶσι, παραμυθούμενοι διδάσκουσιν, ὡς ἀναπεφυρμένων καὶ συμμεμιγμένων ὁμοῦ τι πάντων, ἄλλου δ᾽ ἄλλῳ πεφυκότος ἐναρμόττειν, οὐκ ἔστι τῆς αὐτῆς ποιότητος ἐπαφὴ καὶ ἀντίληψις οὐδὲ πᾶσι τοῖς μέρεσι κινεῖ πάντας ὡσαύτως τὸ ὑποκείμενον: ἀλλ᾽ ἐκείνοις ἕκαστοι μόνοις ἐντυγχάνοντες, πρὸς ἃ σύμμετρον ἔχουσι τὴν αἴσθησιν, οὐκ ὀρθῶς διαμάχονται περὶ τοῦ χρηστὸν ἢ πονηρὸν ἢ λευκὸν ἢ μὴ λευκὸν εἶναι τὸ πρᾶγμα, τὰς αὑτῶν οἰόμενοι βεβαιοῦν αἰσθήσεις τῷ τὰς ἄλλων ἀναιρεῖν: δεῖν δ᾽ αἰσθήσει [p. 428] μὲν μηδεμιᾷ μάχεσθαι πᾶσαι γὰρ ἅπτονταί τινος, οἷον ἐκ πηγῆς τῆς πολυμιξίας ἑκάστη λαμβάνουσα τὸ πρόσφορον καὶ οἰκεῖον: ὅλου δὲ μὴ κατηγορεῖν, ἁπτομένους μερῶν, μηδὲ ταὐτὸ δεῖν οἴεσθαι πάσχειν ἅπαντας, ἄλλους κατ᾽ ἄλλην ποιότητα καὶ δύναμιν αὐτοῦ πάσχοντας.’ ὥρα δὴ σκοπεῖν, τίνες μᾶλλον ἄνθρωποι τὸ μὴ μᾶλλον ἐπάγουσι τοῖς πράγμασιν ἢ οἳ πᾶν μὲν τὸ αἰσθητὸν κρᾶμα παντοδαπῶν ποιοτήτων ἀποφαίνουσι
σύμμικτον ὥστε γλεῦκος αὐλητήριον,
ἔρρειν δ᾽ ὁμολογοῦσι τοὺς κανόνας αὐτοῖς καὶ παντάπασιν οἴχεσθαι τὸ κριτήριον, ἄνπερ εἰλικρινὲς αἰσθητὸν ὁτιοῦν καὶ μὴ πολλὰ ἕκαστον ἀπέλιπον.

--Plutarch, Adversus Colotem

I consulted Sedley's reconstruction of the 37 books On Nature, but he writes that there is too little surviving evidence to reconstruct books 16-37. My initial reaction to the phrase παρὰ τὰς [ἐξ] ἡμῶ[ν] is that this sounds a lot like the simulacra or eidola of Lucretius' fourth book;

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Lastly those images
Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
In water, or in any shining surface,
Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
Fashioned from images of things sent out.
There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
Like unto them, which no one can divine
When taken singly, which do yet give back,
When by continued and recurrent discharge
Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
So well conserved that thus be given back
Figures so like each object.

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So in this reading of the fragment, the atomic films keep their proportion even though the usual case with atoms is a series of repeated collisions that, one would think, would quickly render these films unintelligible. However, Plutarch's mention of the "symmetry (of atom to sense organ; ie scent to the nose, taste to the tongue, etc) about which they talk so much" leads me to believe that he is responding directly to Epicurus as quoted in this fragment. I'm not entirely sure I have Plutarch's meaning though.

I am part way through Heroes, the second volume of Stephen Fry's Mythos series, and can heartily recommend them as a good reintroduction to Greek mythology. The audiobooks, read by Fry himself, are especially pleasant. The work is narrative and not scholarly, but the stories are good and the author is passionate about then.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07SLLYGF6?ref_=dbs_m_mng_wam_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks