I'm not saying he is one, I'm just saying there are red flags.
It is definitely useful to see these things in their context. For example;
In a letter scholars have dated to c. 355, Julian the Apostate was commenting on the political inaction of the Epicureans;
Letter to Themistius the philosopher - Wikisource, the free online library
Another letter from the same advocates the Suppression of Epicurean texts;
Fragment of a letter to a priest - Wikisource, the free online library
Let us not admit discourses by Epicurus or Pyrrho; but indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books have ceased to be. Nevertheless there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts. For an error of speech is, in my opinion, by no means the same as an error of the mind, but we ought to give heed to the mind first of all, since the tongue sins in company with it.
By edict of a pagan emperor in a letter to one of his priests, Epicureanism becomes thought crime. It is actually worse in his view to think about than to speak about it, because speech is vulnerable to correction and purgation while thought is not.
The 15th century Florentine iconoclast priest Savonarolo would be proud.
“Listen women,” he preached to the crowd, “They say that this world was made of atoms, that is, those tiniest of particles that fly through the air.” No doubt savoring the absurdity, he encouraged his listeners to express their derision out loud: “Now laugh, women, at the studies of these learned men.”
A few decades after the reign of Julian came St. Augustine's survey of the situation -- "The ashes of Epicureanism are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them."
Within two centuries of Diogenes Laertius, there was almost nothing left.
Thank You!
Quote from CassiusAlso for future reference, you indicated this morning that you found a better "keyword" to use in searching for something like this better than "timeline." Do you recall what that was?
Well, that's the trouble; there is the Gantt Chart which is infuriatingly close to what we need, and may actually be helpful in feeding a growing table of data into a chart maker. But it has it's downsides. For one thing, the resulting chart will almost always be longer vertically than horizontally, which means a pretty massive file for the amount of data presented.
Also, every one I've seen has the labels in a column on the left rather in the chart itself.
I just don't know how to search for this;
without finding a lot of this:
Link to main timeline; https://time.graphics/line/852902
This will be regarded as the final version.
Edit; the main repository will be in the forum Gallery at this link.
There are later figures, but the citation is usually something like "2nd Century" or "c. 250 AD". Too many different kinds of data make it difficult to plot well.
I suppose I should include Plotina's intervention on behalf of the school as an event.
Epicurean Scholarchs - Epicurus Wiki
I see also this list, which cites a scholar named T. Dorandi as having developed the authoritative list.
I'm wondering if Eikadistes and Don can help clear up the succession of scholarchs for me. I was going by the link to the table posted by Cassius in #1, but then I found this list by Nate at Society of Epicurus and some of the dates don't match.
Protrarchus isn't mentioned at all in the table Cassius linked to, but does appear in SoFE list. The dates for Apollodorus are completely conflicting.
Nate, should I go with the list you posted at SoFE? It looks more complete.
Couldn't sleep!
The .png file on my computer is 947 kb but it compresses to 236 kb when I upload it. I can send you the file if you have a way to upload it uncompressed.
Welcome, Novem!
That was a really interesting and informative introduction!
The fact is that we all took different roads that led to our interest in Epicurean Philosophy, and your grounding in utilitarianism is probably an advantage that a lot of us don't have.
I'm glad to see that you enjoyed Emily Austin's book, our interview with her was a lot of fun.
As for Epicurus' views on the gods and other controversial issues, we don't hold people to much of a litmus test (other than the no-politics rule, and no proselytizing). We have frequent discussions about all of these things, and nobody is asked to leave their brain at the door--people are more than capable of arguing in good faith!
Welcome to the forum!
Cicero is just willfully obtuse on this point, as we've been discovering. Pleasure refers to a wider range of feelings than he is willing to acknowledge. Even Socrates in Philebus is prepared to recognize that Aphrodite, though having one name, signifies a number different varieties of pleasure.
Epicurus' common greeting in his letters uses the the phrase Ἐπίκουρος Μενοικεῖ χαίρειν--"Epicurus to Menoikeus, joyful greetings".
χαίρειν is closely related to χᾰρᾱ́ mentioned above.
Two more October dates; today, Oct. 30 is the anniversary of the death of Poggio Bracciolini in 1459. Tomorrow, October 31st, is the anniversary of the opening of the Leiden University Library in 1587. Poggio was the first to bring Lucretius back in to circulation, but the two most important 9th century medieval manuscripts--the Quadratus and the Oblongus--are housed in the Library at Leiden.
The idealized garb of philosophers among the Greeks was taken from the symbols of Cynicism: a cloak to keep off the elements, a bag or purse to hold all of one's worldly possessions, and a staff for walking. The staff and purse are shown on the Boscoreale treasure's philosophy cup. No cloak was necessary here--all of the figures on the cup are skeletons, underlining the link between philosophy and death.
But Epicurus was not a Cynic. He also didn't hold forth publicly in the regimented world of the gymnasiarchs. Presumably he wore what was handy, some of it purchased and some, perhaps, gifted.
This mosaic from Herculaneum is thought to depict Greek philosophers as Romans would have imagined them.
A lot of it was fairly impressive for it's time. Compare, for instance, the atomism of Epicurus and Democritus with the cosmos of Aristotle's elements or essences;
| Atomism | Aristotelianism | |
| Law of Inertia | Correctly intuited that Force equals Mass times Acceleration. The atoms are in constant motion. Force is only required to accelerate or decelerate bodies, or to change their course. *Note that the swerve of the atoms is not consistent with this general principle. | Wrongly inferred that Force equals Mass times Velocity. Matter is naturally at rest; Motion ceases shortly after force is no longer applied. |
Matter Falling | The speed of atomic motion is uniform. | Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. |
| Description of Matter | Of the atoms, their are an infinite number of each kind of atom, but the kinds are merely innumerable. All atoms have three properties inseparable from their nature as atoms--weight, shape, and size. | Objects are made of one of the five classical elements. Air, fire, and aether naturally rise. Earth and water fall. |
| Extraterrestrial bodies | Everything that exists everywhere is composed of atoms and void. There are other worlds like ours, and other living things spread across the cosmos. | The heavenly bodies are made of aether, the quintessence or fifth essence, and aether is perfect. It gives to those bodies the most perfectly rounded shape--the sphere. |
| Nature vs Mind | "There is no purposiveness in Nature, but in the processes of nonpurposive creation she has brought into being a purposive creature, man. For him, being capable of reason, a telos is conceivable." -Norman DeWitt | "It is manifest that the soul is also the final cause of its body. For Nature, like mind, always does whatever it does for the sake of something, which something is its end." -Aristotle, On the Soul |
It just occurred to me that that might be a reference to the Palladium;
The Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy.
Thank you all!
But I suspect he would have disagreed with Pericles.
Interestingly, there is an epigraph in the Greek Anthology attributed to Menander;
"Hail, you twin born sons of Neocles, the one of whom saved his country from slavery, the other from folly."
The first was Themistocles and the second was Epicurus. Both were Athenian citizens, both had fathers named Neocles, both chose the Ceramicus--part cemetary, part potter's quarter--as their public haunt, and both appealed to the lower classes who had been left behind by the aristocracy (in the case of Themistocles) and their state-sponsored male-only Gymnasia (in the case of Epicurus).
Menander was born within a year of Epicurus, and pre-deceased him by twenty years, but it is anyone's guess as to whether the epigraph is genuine.
I listened to part of this episode on my lunch break and will listen to the whole thing again this evening, but my preliminary response is very positive! Dr. Boeri is a very engaging speaker, and it's a topic we haven't given a whole lot of time to in the past.
Thank you Onenski for your help in organizing and participating!
Plutarch, Moralia, Adversus Colotes
Desiderius Erasmus, The Epicure
Head of Aphrodite with Cross Incised on Forehead and Eyes Gouged Out
Matthew Stewart, Nature's God
Göttingen Archaeological Museum
epicureanfriends.com/thread/3430/For often
our body is ill—we see that clearly—
yet we feel pleasure in some other part 150
hidden within. Often the reverse takes place,
as well, when, by contrast, a man whose mind
is sad feel pleasure in his whole body.
In the same way, if a man’s foot pains him, [110]
perhaps at the same time his head may feel
no pain at all.
-Lucretius Book III, tr. Ian Johnstone
SOCRATES: Then let us begin with the goddess herself, of whom Philebus says that she is called Aphrodite, but that her real name is Pleasure.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human—it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike!
PROTARCHUS: Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring from opposite sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not pleasure be of all things most absolutely like pleasure,—that is, like itself?
SOCRATES: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: Very likely; but how will this invalidate the argument?
SOCRATES: Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good; now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener bad than good; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the identical quality existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all of them as good.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that any one who asserts pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and others bad?
SOCRATES: And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and sometimes opposed?
PROTARCHUS: Not in so far as they are pleasures.
-Plato, Philebus
