Posts by Don

So yeah, that first draft paper I posted is going to have a substantial revision that includes Pliny's text in addition to other points discovered. All in all, I keep seeing a stronger case for Gamelion 20 as THE day of Epicurus's birthday.

Quote from Cassius

Also Don what do you take Pliny's point to be in this discussion? The "thus?"

We don't live on after we die. The portraits (to which he was referring in the previous section) simply display the wealth of the dead people, not their character.

And this is important for the 20th discussion because Pliny was not Epicurean but he reported what he saw and what he was told. The fact that his villa was close enough to Pompeii and Herculaneum that he could get to the doomed city while the eruption was happening tells me he undoubtedly had contact with Epicureans. He didn't celebrate the Eikas but he could have easily seen people celebrating it. Same goes for Pliny the Younger of someone wants to say that her added this to book 35. Either way, we're covered!

From my perspective, this is big. I just found this in Pliny 's Natural History, 35.2:

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Thus it is that we possess the portraits of no living individuals, and leave behind us the pictures of our wealth, not of our persons.

And yet the very same persons adorn the palæstra and the anointing-room4 with portraits of athletes, and both hang up in their chamber and carry about them a likeness of Epicurus.5 On the twentieth day of each moon they celebrate his birthday6 by a sacrifice, and keep his festival. known as the "Icas,"7 every month: and these too, people who wish to live without being known!8 So it is, most assuredly, our indolence has lost sight of the arts, and since our minds are destitute of any characteristic features, those of our bodies are neglected also.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXV. AN ACCOUNT OF PAINTINGS AND COLOURS., CHAP. 2. (2.)—THE HONOUR ATTACHED TO PORTRAITS.

The footnote - from John Bostock in 1855! - says "6 In reality, his birth-day was not on the twentieth day of any month; but, for some reason which is not known, he fixed upon this day.—B. He was born on the seventh day of the month Gamelion."

LOL!! Although later parts were published posthumously by Pliny the Younger shortly after Pliny's death during the destruction of Pompeii, Pliny's Natural History is from the 1st century CE **when there were still practicing Epicureans right in Herculaneum near where Pliny actually had a villa!!!*** Pliny no doubt knew Epicureans first-hand!! For me, I'm going to take the word of Pliny over a 19th century scholar!

In Latin:

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iidem palaestras athletarum imaginibus et ceromata sua exornant, epicuri voltus per cubicula gestant ac circumferunt secum. natali eius sacrificant, feriasque omni mense vicesima luna custodiunt, quas icadas vocant, ii maxime, qui se ne viventes quidem nosci volunt. ita est profecto: artes desidia perdidit, et quoniam animorum imagines non sunt, negleguntur etiam corporum.

Quote from Cassius

I wonder if Epicurean possibly, or Stoic.....

My guess would be Aristotelian because he obviously liked to make long lists of things

I found last night that Hesychius of Alexandria in his Lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words written in the 5th or 6th c. CE includes the following entry:

δεκάτη προτέρα· ἡ πρὸ εἰκάδος, ὡς ὑστέρα· ἡ μετ' εἰκάδα

δεκάτη προτέρα· ἡ πρὸ εἰκάδος ("for/instead of εἰκάδος/20th"), like ὑστέρα· ἡ μετ' εἰκάδα ("after εἰκάδα/20th, i.e., 21st")

PS: Note - I'm getting that use of πρὸ from LSJ, definition III.1.

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

III. in other relations:

1. of Preference, before, rather than, κέρδος αἰνῆσαι π. δίκας to praise sleight before right, Pi.P.4.140, cf. Pl.R.361e; πᾶν δὴ βουλόμενοι σφίσι εἶναι π. τῆς παρεούσης λύπης anything before, rather than, their actual trouble, Hdt.7.152 (so, in order to avoid, “π. τοῦ δεινοτάτου” D.54.19); “πᾶν π. τοῦ δουλεῦσαι ἐπεξελθεῖν” Th.5.100, cf.4.59; ἑλέσθαι, αἱρεῖσθαι, or κρῖναί τι π. τινός to choose one before another, Id.5.36, Pl.R.366b, Phlb.57e; π. πολλοῦ ποιήσασθαι to esteem above much, i.e. very highly, Isoc.5.138; “π. πολλῶν χρημάτων τιμήσασθαί τι” Th.1.33, cf.6.10; π. ἄλλων more than others, Pl.Mx.249e (v.l.), cf. A. Th.1002; δυσδαίμων . . π. πασᾶν γυναικῶν ib.927 (codd., lyr.); “π. πάντων θεῶν τῇ Ἑστίᾳ πρώτῃ προθύειν” Pl.Cra. 401d: after a Comp. it is redundant, “ἡ τυραννὶς π. ἐλευθερίης ἀσπαστότερον” Hdt.1.62, cf.6.12, Pl.Ap.28d, Cri.54b, Phd.99a; for ἤ after “ἄλλος, οὐδεὶς ἄλλος π. σεῦ” Hdt.3.85, cf.7.3.

Hesychius of Alexandria - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's an ancient author providing specific definitions for both δεκάτη προτέρα and δεκάτη ὑστέρα as alternative names for the 20th and 21st days of the month.

Hesychii Alexandrini lexicon : Hesychius, of Alexandria : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

Quote from Cassius

I just clicked through to

https://athenianyear.wordpress.com

That's quite a website!

I'll be curious to see where he got his information on the names of the days.

It appears to meet that his calculations are the same as the calendar at

HMEPA: Hellenic Month Established Per Athens temporary

Oh, and not a criticism btw! Just speaking from experience

I would be careful about too rigidly sticking to a set of questions: Q, A, Q, A, repeat. The best "interviews" are a conversation, albeit a "structured" conversation, but I'd suggest keeping the "conversation" part firmly in mind.

More on akratos...

ACRATUS (Akratos) - Greek God or Spirit of Unmixed Wine

Quote

Akratos was no doubt regarded as a deity of festive excess.

Was ancient wine more alcoholic than modern wine?

This article is taken from a contribution to the website 'Bad Ancient'. It discusses the alcoholic content of ancient wines using ancient literature,…

www.academia.edu

Interesting article on ancient wine, ABV %ages, watering down, etc.

I'm continuing to see both the undiluted wine and the warm bath as ways to ease his pain not to hasten his death.

Quote from Kalosyni

favorite ice cream flavor

If y'all ever find yourselves in NE Ohio, you owe it to yourself to go to Mitchell's Ice Cream for the Vegan Chocolate! Best @#$& chocolate ice cream - vegan or otherwise - anywhere!

Mitchell's Homemade

www.mitchellshomemade.com

For holiday reading or viewing, Muppet Christmas Carol is/was a family tradition when kids were under the roof

Quote from Cassius

it's not a good likeness,

At least it hews closer to the traditional bust than others I've seen. It strikes me as "Epicurus as a Renaissance scholar."

Horace, Satire 2

Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Satyrarum libri, book 1, Improbus, dum vitia quaedam declinant, in contraria incidere.

Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace), The Works of Horace, book 1, Bad men, when they avoid certain vices, fall into their opposite extremes.

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The tribes of female flute-players,1 quacks, vagrants, mimics, blackguards;2 all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give a poor friend [5] wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and father in tasteless gluttony, buying with borrowed money all sorts of dainties; he answers, [10] because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others.

(audatur ab his, culpatur ab illis.)

So that Latin on the etching refers to Tigellius in Horace's writing and not to Epicurus, but the artist used it anyway. This demonstrates how easily lines can be taken out of context and how important it is to track down the source of quotations.

Quote from Joshua

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48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine, and venesection; open the vein on the inside.

--Hippocrates; Aphorisms, Section VII; transl. Francis Adams

http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/aphorisms.7.vii.html

GREAT FIND, Joshua !!

Here's the Greek:

στραγγουρίην καὶ δυσουρίην θώρηξις καὶ φλεβοτομίη λύει: τάμνειν δὲ τὰς ἔσω.

Interestingly, Diogenes has, in his transcription of Epicurus's letter, στραγγουρία τε παρηκολουθήκει καὶ δυσεντερικὰ

"Strangury followed closely also by dysentery"

But it would make more sense if it was supposed to be dysuria "painful urination" δυσουριην since Hippocrates treats those two conditions in the same aphorism.

Those two words look similar enough and I could see someone not paying attention and confusing the two when copying a manuscript: ΔΥΣΟΥΡΙΗΝ vs ΔΥΣΕΝΤΕΡΙΚΑ

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open the vein on the inside

OUCH!

It'd be interesting to get a hold of this paper:

Epicurus’ death

Maria Bitsori & Emmanouil Galanakis

World Journal of Urology volume 22, pages466–469 (2004)

Abstract

The aim is to present how an eminent philosopher perceived, reported and faced his progressing and ultimately fatal uropathy, 23 centuries ago. All available ancient Greek sources about Epicurus’ life and death were used and urinary tract–related medical knowledge in this era was reviewed. Epicurus died at the age of 71 from urinary calculus after having bravely suffered for a long time. Although he is often cited for his teachings against the fear of pain and death, his own way to death has been overlooked. His exceptional description of his own symptoms provides an unusual insight, given that our knowledge on diseases in older times is mainly based on surviving texts written by the then medical practitioners. Epicurus reported on his terminal symptoms, being entirely aware of the fatal outcome of a disease incurable at that time. Very soon after, Ammonius the Lithotomus in Alexandria was to improve the surgical procedures for urinary calculi. In an era when urinary tract surgery was considered to be an extraordinary means of treatment, Epicurus peacefully passed away, firm to his own teachings about tolerance to disease and pain, and leaving to us both an unusual medical record and a courageous attitude towards suffering and death.

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Hot water alleviated his severe pains and relaxed his body. The undiluted wine created mental relaxation. The undiluted wine hastened his end as it reacted on an already weakened body. In other words, Epicurus perhaps did what we call today "euthanasia in the final stages of incurable disease."

Yeah, I'm fine with all that up until the euthanasia part. I have serious doubts that they knew the wine would "hasten his end." They knew it would relieve pain. The fact that his friends were around at the end to help him is the important aspect of that story to me.

So, Diogenes Laertius says:

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Hermippus relates that he entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed wine, [16] which he swallowed, and then, having bidden his friends remember his doctrines, breathed his last.

Here is something of my own about him29 :

Farewell, my friends ; the truths I taught hold fast :

Thus Epicurus spake, and breathed his last.

He sat in a warm bath and neat wine quaff'd,

And straightway found chill death in that same draught.

Such was the life of the sage and such his end.

29 Anth. Pal. vii. 106.

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ὅτε καί φησιν Ἕρμιππος ἐμβάντα αὐτὸν εἰς πύελον χαλκῆν κεκραμένην ὕδατι θερμῷ καὶ αἰτήσαντα ἄκρατον ῥοφῆσαι:

16 [16] τοῖς τε φίλοις παραγγείλαντα τῶν δογμάτων μεμνῆσθαι, οὕτω τελευτῆσαι.

Καὶ ἔστιν ἡμῶν εἰς αὐτὸν οὕτω:

χαίρετε, καὶ μέμνησθε τὰ δόγματα: τοῦτ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος

ὕστατον εἶπε φίλοις τοὔπος ἀποφθίμενος:

θερμὴν ἐς πύελον γὰρ ἐληλύθεεν καὶ ἄκρατον ἔσπασεν, εἶτ᾽ Ἀΐδην ψυχρὸν ἐπεσπάσατο.

οὗτος μὲν ὁ βίος τἀνδρός, ἥδε <δὲ> ἡ τελευτή.

ἄκρατος pure, undiluted (strong) wine

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

I always saw this as more palliative for the pain than any hint of suicide. Ancient Greeks typically watered their wine down in a krater to drink. Drinking undiluted wine would have been noteworthy.

To me, this just points to the fact that one does everything to ease one's pain, but his drinking it and then dying seems to me that he was trying to eliminate pain from the disease/condition that was killing him and that he was on the verge of death already. I'd have to see evidence other than this text to convince me it was a suicide. And not Diogenes' poem. That was written hundreds of years after Epicurus's death.

Long & Sedley On Gods (attached)

That is a fascinating line of thought, Eikadistes .

My thoughts have most consistently turned to thinking of the prolepsis of the gods as connected with the capacity of all humans (I would think) to experience awe and wonder, but I can't readily point to an academic paper or ancient text to back me up on that.

Mind-altering substances and rituals we're definitely part of ancient cultures. Lookin' at you, Dionysus!!

Quote from Cassius

I started to look for another word than "transmission" as that implies a signal being intentionally sent to an object.

Emanating?