Posts by Don

And the prosciutto is great!!

I had never seen that before, but I could easily accept the Epicurean & epicurean implications of that, both pigs and food.

Thanks for these, Godfrey !!

I'll have to see if we have the book in the library and scan them there.

That Hermarchus seems to coincide with this one with its base:

Post

RE: The Early Epicureans v1.0 [video]

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3702/

The base of this statue reads Ἕρμαρχoς Hermarchos and is the image on the book cover to the left.

Don

May 3, 2023 at 9:36 PM

Quote from Cassius

Koerte: A. Koerte. Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta, Leipzig, 1890

Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta collegit scriptoris incerti Epicurei Commentarium moralem, subiecit Alfredus Koerte : Metrodorus, of Lampsacus, d. 277 B.C : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

26

archive.org

I find it interesting that the phrase is often translated as "Live unknown" as if the imperative verb is "Live!". But the verb here is λάθε:

Quote from Quora

Linguistically, the phrase λαθε βιωσας uses the verb λανθανω, which I think is unique to Ancient Greek: it roughly means ‘to escape the notice of…’ takes the accusative of the person whose attention you avoid and the participle of the action you do without the person noticing. Complicated! The phrase literally means “Escape the notice [of everyone?] having lived your life”.

λαθε= inflection of λᾰνθᾰ́νω (lanthánō):

second-person singular aorist active imperative

It's also a singular imperative. It's addressed to one person.

A. (active) to escape notice

1. (transitive) escape a person's notice

2. (transitive) to do [+participle or rarely infinitive = something] without being noticed [+accusative = by someone]

So, using 2 it literally does go something like the Quora answer gives.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λανθάνω

In light of all that, is it a commentary having something to do about being concerned with what happens *after* one's death?

Quote from Hellenistic Greek

the aorist infinitive does not express progressive aspect. It presents the action expressed by the verb as a complete unit with a beginning and end.

Quote from Nate

To be fair, Hedonists (albeit Cyrenaics, or Epicureans, or others) have always been accused of excess by their philosophical and religious opponents.

And it appears it wasn't even just philosophical opponents. It appears that the "Epicurean" as cook or gourmand was even a familiar trope in New Comedy. There are "contemporary or near-contemporary [to the life of Epicurus] depictions of Epicureans, considering at length the buffoonish chef, a stock character in the New Comedy often depicted as an Epicurean to lambaste sensual pleasure and lack of self-control." Source

Ancient Greek comedy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here's the entry from the Oxford English Dictionary with its historical citations:

Noun

A person devoted to sensual pleasure, esp. to eating and drinking; a hedonist; a glutton. In later use also: a person who cultivates a refined taste for, or takes a particular pleasure in, fine food and drink; an epicure. In early use chiefly depreciative.

a1450 (▸c1435) J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) l. 225 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 381 (MED) Fals lust..of epicuriens.

a1475 (▸?a1430) J. Lydgate tr. G. Deguileville Pilgrimage Life Man (Vitell.) l. 12786 ‘I wolde se What Epicuriens sholde be.’..‘That perfyt ffelycyte Ys, that a man lyk hys delyt, ffolwe alway hys appetyt.’

a1572 J. Knox Hist. Reformation Scotl. (1587) 188 Simon Preaston..a right Epicurian.

a1652 J. Smith Select Disc. (1660) i. iii. 21 Those poor brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the meer husks of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with.

1728 S. Whatley tr. J. Lenfant Hist. Council of Constance I. 577 Jerome was such an Epicurean in his Prison, that he spent his whole Time in Drunkenness and Gluttony.

1825 W. Scott Talisman x, in Tales Crusaders III. 250 He was a voluptuary and an epicurean.

1855 J. L. Motley Rise Dutch Republic I. ii. i. 256 A horde of lazy epicureans, telling beads and indulging themselves in luxurious vice.

1935 Washington Post 16 Oct. 5 There are a few real epicureans of the table.

2008 National Jeweler 1 Oct. 18 It [sc. chocolate] has become a bonbon for adults, to be savored by epicureans.

Adjective:

Originally: devoted to the pursuit of pleasure; (hence) hedonistic, gluttonous. Now chiefly: designating a person who takes a particular pleasure in fine food and drink; characteristic of, or suitable for, such a person; gourmet. Cf. epicure n. 2.

1583 W. Chauncie tr. P. Viret Worlde Possessed with Deuils ii. sig. F.vi Their Epicurian life [Fr. leur vie Epicurienne], giuen ouer to al filthinesse and enormitie.

1612 C. Demetrius tr. Most True Relation Earth-quake sig. B2v All at their plenteous and Epicurean voluptuous tables, fall to drinking, swilling, and carowsing deepe healths.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Antony & Cleopatra (1623) ii. i. 24 Epicurean Cookes, Sharpen with cloylesse sawce his Appetite.

1641 J. Milton Of Reformation 84 Warming their Palace Kitchins, and from thence their unctuous, and epicurean paunches.

1656 A. Cowley Misc. 37 in Poems Voluptuous, and Wise with all, Epicuraean Animal!

1750 Student 1 No. 6. 214 I'll be temperate, and stoutly withstand all the allurements of delicious fare, and the seducements of epicurean companions.

1765 Parasite II. xvii. 204 He dined at the Twopence Halfpenny Ordinary in Newgate Street (which we cannot suppose to have been a very Epicurean Meal).

1826 Monitor (Sydney) 15 Dec. 245/3 He who has fed upon corn for six-months, can eat a ‘fat cake’, with a true epicurean relish.

1850 T. Carlyle Latter-day Pamphlets vi. 15 No longer an earnest Nation, but a light, sceptical epicurean one.

1856 H. Penciller Rural Life in Amer. viii. 222 An epicurean fare we lived on, too.

1934 G. Ross Tips on Tables 37 An entree to delight any epicurean soul.

1954 Life 1 Feb. 44/2 Fancy preparing an epicurean feast so fast!

2008 IPA Rev. (Austral.) July 11/2 Slow food is not just an epicurean delight—it is a political and ideological movement.

Quote from Nate

Christianity.

It goes back further than that. Dr. Gordon's book documents the idea back to or shortly after Epicurus's own lifetime

Quote from Little Rocker

Gotta get in early with the kids before they learn any different, I suppose.

Μήτε νέος...μήτε γέρων...

"Neither must one who is young delay in loving and pursuing wisdom; nor should one who is old grow weary of loving and pursuing wisdom; because it is neither out of season nor untimely for the health of the psykhē."

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, BOOK VIII, Chapter 8. EUDOXUS (c. 407-357 B.C.)

Eudoxus in Diogenes Laertius

https://sites.unimi.it/zucchi/NuoviFile/Warren09.pdf

ARISTOTLE ON SPEUSIPPUS ON EUDOXUS ON PLEASURE

JAMES WARREN

Quote from Cassius

"once saved, always saved" issues in Christianity

I have my doubts. It didn't seem to take with me.

Quote from Cassius

you would think that it would be hard to guarantee that every decision is wise.

I've taken that, in part, as once you pull up your empty ideas about death, fate, etc., you won't fall back into error.

Additional thought on this: The word μακάριος "blessed" is regularly used to describe both the life of the god and the life of a human in Epicurean texts, so those lives have to share some similarities. The big difference, as I see it, is the "incorruptibility" of the gods. The gods don't fall from their completely blissful state... Ever. But this does have a complement in human life. Diogenes Laertius says that "once the sage has become wise, they will no longer fall back into ignorance."

That incorruptible is...

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Α α, , ἀφέψ-ημα , ἄφθαρ-τος

uncorrupted, undecaying

Romans 1.23 includes the word referring to "the glory of the incorruptible God."

I Corinthians 15:52 uses it for "the dead will be raised incorruptible."

I find the description of the sage and the god intriguing. Not identical but complementary? Parallel?

To bring this back to Eikadistes 's original question, I wanted to look again at that word translated as "affected"

Quote from Don

ὥστε οὔτε ὀργαῖς οὔτε χάρισι συνέχεται:

so that it is not affected by anger or gratitude (Saint-Andre)

ὥστε with the indicative, to express the actual result with emphasis.

συνέχεται (3rd person singular middle/passive indicative < συνέχομαι can mean (as far as I can tell, anyone please correct me!) "afflicted with" but other connotations are impelled or disturbed, constrained by, trapped.

So, if ὥστε introduces a "result" of that which is blessed/incorruptible not causing trouble to itself or others... Wait, that sounds an awful lot like "neither harm nor be harmed." Hmm... Not the same words as PD31, but similar sentiment?

We'll look at συνέχομαι in a second, but I find it interesting that the negation is on the nouns and not the verb: It's not "not affected by" it's "neither anger nor gratitude" affects them (singular them btw).

συνέχομαι is the passive/middle form of συνέχω.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Σ ς, , συνευτροφέω , συνέχω

So one of the passive connotations is "to be constrained oneself, distressed, afflicted, and, generally, to be affected by anything whether in mind or body." I can see this describing Joshua 's suggested interpretation. It wouldn't preclude the god from being itself angry or grateful (for variation in its pleasure) but it's not affected or constrained by the anger or gratitude of others, including humans. Which could serve as a model for human behavior. Don't be constrained by the anger or gratitude of others but pay attention to your own anger and gratitude. Philodemus talks about natural anger and other kinds of anger. The god could feel natural anger, but isn't affected by the empty anger of others?

Real Harm, not Slight: the Prerequisites for "Natural Anger" in Philodemus' On Anger and their Influence on Vergil | Society for Classical Studies

Philodemus and the Peripatetics on the Role of Anger in the Virtuous Life | Society for Classical Studies

Anger and the Desire for Revenge

Abstract. This chapter examines Philodemus' diatribe On Anger, a principal piece of On the Passions and an important contribution to the philosophical literatur

academic.oup.com

Google Scholar

For your convenience, a Google scholar search for Adam Krokiewicz

FYI

Adam Krokiewicz – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia

pl.wikipedia.org

If someone wants to run that through Google translate

From the Hermarchus book.

The "breathing" seems to be reconstructed from:

επισπωμ(......)ευ(.)α

I'd have to see the digitized manuscript to accept πνεύμα from that fragmentary text.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πνεῦμα

That "breath, air, wind, spirit" could have multiple interpretations.

Even επισπωμ(ενους) seems to be related to aorist middle participle of ἐφέπω (ephépō); Mid. to follow, pursue.

The transliterated προιεμενους appears related to προΐημι which *can* mean "utter sounds" but that is a long way from conversation.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, προΐημι

PS

Here is the rest of fragment 39...

I got called away yesterday and didn't have a chance to follow-up on this post. Just realized this morning that #39 had more to it! I'm going to work on done translation because this is going to change my perspective, I'm betting

PPS. Here's the papyri.info entry for Philodemus's On the Gods

DCLP/Trismegistos 62386 = LDAB 3551

Makes it a little easier to copy and paste text and gives a better idea of the condition of the papyri itself.

Eikadistes : Came across this compilation of Hermarchus's fragments. However, it's in German, Greek, and Latin, but it's a start:

Quote from Joshua

1. Do not trouble about the gods, for the gods do not trouble about you.

I'm beginning to like @Joshua's interpretation. It also seems to correspond to the Letter of Menoikeus section:

Quote from Letter to Menoikeus

So, they (i.e, the hoi polloi, "the many") believe the greatest evils are brought to the wicked from the gods as well as the greatest aid to the good, because the hoi polloi are believing that the gods accept those who resemble themselves who are similar through all excellences and goodness; all those not of their sort are strange and alien.

But this idea that the gods bestow evils and aid is a mistaken idea about the gods, according to Epicurus. The gods are not swayed by prayer or sacrifice or ...gratitude to them.

PD01: Broken up:

Τὸ μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον οὔτε αὐτὸ πράγματα ἔχει οὔτε ἄλλῳ παρέχει,

(singular) That which is blissful and immortal has no troubles itself, nor does it cause trouble for others,

ὥστε οὔτε ὀργαῖς οὔτε χάρισι συνέχεται:

so that it is not affected by anger or gratitude (Saint-Andre)

ὥστε with the indicative, to express the actual result with emphasis.

συνέχεται (3rd person singular middle/passive indicative < συνέχομαι can mean (as far as I can tell, anyone please correct me!) "afflicted with" but other connotations are impelled or disturbed, constrained by, trapped.

So, if ὥστε introduces a "result" of that which is blessed/incorruptible not causing trouble to itself or others... Wait, that sounds an awful lot like "neither harm nor be harmed." Hmm... Not the same words as PD31, but similar sentiment?

ἐν ἀσθενεῖ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον.

for all such things come about through weakness

More food for thought...