Posts by Don

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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?

Quote from Cassius

Or should we just conclude that images of the gods impacted us and led us back to the topic?

Quote from Cicero via Cassius

mental visions are conjured up by what Catius calls spectres

Quote from Cicero via Cassius

the mind can be so struck is more than I can see. It will be your duty to explain to me,

Both of these, while conveying Cicero's consternation at the idea, point to the Epicureans teaching that the mind was "struck" by images directly, especially in recollection of memories or thinking about something.

He are some relevant papers:

Theological Paradox in Epicurus

Theological Paradox in Epicurus

www.academia.edu

The Polytheism of the Epicureans

Epicureans have been branded atheists since antiquity, but although they might have held unorthodox beliefs about divinity, they did nevertheless believe in…

www.academia.edu

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They did not believe in the Olympians that Hesiod and Homer had depicted, but anthropomorphic yet bizarre gods: although these were compounds of atoms, they were immortal, unlike any other compound in the Epicurean universe, and there was quite possibly an infinite host of such deities, all alike and all nameless. These gods were not considered figments of the imagination by the Epicureans, but as real, living entities that actually existed, remotely, somewhere out there in the cosmos, doing very little aside from maintaining their supremely peaceful, painless, and tranquil dispositions. And these gods needed to be considered real in order to be genuine, ethical models for mankind to follow, which was their main function within the Epicurean world-view. The atoms of these gods, like everything in existence, were held to be perpetually in motion, constantly being emitted from their bodies as images that then travelled directly to the minds of mankind and thereby presented a true depiction of divinity, of peacefulness, and above all, of happiness, which would then be examples for individual Epicureans to follow on their individual journeys towards ἀταραξία, tranquillity.

The Gods of Philodemus

The Gods of Philodemus

www.academia.edu

Quote from Cicero On the nature of the gods 1.16

gods exist, because nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of all mankind. For what nation or what tribe of men is there which possesses untaught some preconception of the gods?12

Quote from Cassius

I mean this humorously and I am in no way turned off by the discussion as I find it fascinating but what's the sentence in the raw material that stands out?

"Discussion of the details of the Athenian calendar became in their hands so abstruse that for decades few other scholars have ventured into the jungle."

I have no opinions on this but reading about these details is fascinating.

Oh, and we're not even discussing the "abstruse" part!! If you take a look at their books in Internet Archive, you'll see abstruse! Calculations of days correlated with lunar cycles cross-referenced with prytanies and archonships with discussions of omitted days! By Zeus, the Athenian calendar was definitely a constant work in progress and it looks like it was overtly political and open to revision when it came to something as basic as the number of days in each month!!!

Quote from Cassius

I presume you would agree that the long discussion of images in Lucretius book 4 and other places in the texts does confirm that the Epicureans did consider "images" to be a physical phenomena of atoms moving through space, and not a matter of simple "thought." Right(?).

Oh, of course! It's all atoms and void. Images from a tree, a goat, a god, are all films of atoms (per the Epicurean theory). Thought itself is a physical phenomenon within our psykhē. But the images of the gods are so subtle they can only be perceived by the faculty of our minds in contemplation and dreams.

nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur

in mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae,

That line from Lucretius is pretty unambiguous to my reading.

Pritchett sounds like quite a Powerhouse!

PRITCHETT, William Kendrick

and to our current discussion:

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Kendrick Pritchett was a combative scholar who flourished in the rough and tumble of scholarly debate. While still at Princeton, before he was forty, he published Calendars of Athens with Otto Neugebauer, a leading historian of ancient science at Brown University. Renouncing published views he earlier shared with his mentor and collaborator, B. D. Meritt, Pritchett mounted a spirited defense of a lunar-observed calendar in ancient Athens and of the organization of the year of the Council of Five Hundred as described by Aristotle in his Constitution of the Athenians. Meritt adopted a more flexible constitutional system and relied more heavily on the evidence for the calendar in Athenian inscriptions. Hence was born a long and often bitter controversy between the two leading scholars in America on Attic time-reckoning and inscriptions. It was to continue until Meritt’s death in 1989. Discussion of the details of the Athenian calendar became in their hands so abstruse that for decades few other scholars have ventured into the jungle. This episode in the study of ancient Athens awaits its impartial historian.

Quote from Lucretius via Joshua

Those images which from their holy bodies

Are carried into intellects of men,

As the announcers of their form divine.

-Book VI, Leonard Translation

nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur

in mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae,

mentes = the mind, disposition, feeling, character, heart, soul

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, mens

Quote from Cassius

And of course the next step in that positioning is to take a position whether the "gods" exist ONLY as constructs of the mind or whether they also have independent physical existence in the manner described by Velleius. At the moment I can't remember your position on that (?) I presume you are siding with what we've often described as he "idealist" position vs the "realist" position (though I am not sure i really like those labels)

Yeah, I'm not fond of those labels either... but, yes, I'm siding with the Sedleyan "idealist" position.

But whether the Epicurean gods exist as mental constructs (i.e., goals toward which to strive) OR as physical entities in the μετακόσμια or intermundia, we humans will never see them with our physical eyes like a tree or a goat or another human. If we receive their images, we intercept the subtle images with the sensory faculty of our minds.

Quote from Cassius

it doesn't seem to entirely jibe with the references about receiving "images" of the gods

We receive images of the gods *in our minds.*

Per LSJ, in Ancient Greek, ἐναργής meant:

A.visible, palpable, in bodily shape, esp. of the gods appearing in their own forms, [Don's note: i.e., as in Homer when they appears as majestic, giant humanoids in person or in dreams or visions] or

2. manifest to the mind's eye

I cannot interpret any of Epicurus's words as meaning we see the gods with our physical eyes.

From the book Elli referenced in her post above:

Athenian calendars and ekklesias by Pritchett, W. Kendrick (William Kendrick). 2001

Accessible to borrow for free at Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/atheni…ge/n14/mode/1up

The chart on p. xiii:

From Pritchett's note on p. 56:

Pritchett also has a book on the Choiseul Marble, also available to borrow at Archive:

The Choiseul marble : Pritchett, W. Kendrick (William Kendrick), 1909- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

[8], 120 p. : 24 cm

archive.org

From that book, here is the footnote on p. 24

In light of Pritchett's critique of Meritt and his Choiseul Marble text, I may substitute Pritchett's work for Meritt's in my paper. However, from what I read in Pritchett's books, the basic thesis of the "earlier tenth/προτερα δεκατη" = 20th of the month still stands from my perspective.Pritchett does talk a lot about the omitted days that determined the hollow and full month, but the term for the 20th appears to stay intact. If someone checks out the book from Internet Archive, please feel free to correct me if I'm reading it wrong, please!

Pritchett also praises Chronologie Untersuchungen über das Kalenderwesen d. Griechen, insonderheit d. Athener

by Mommsen, August (1883) available for free (but in German!!) at Internet Archive as "the best collection of days in literary resources." In fact, Mommsen seems to be skeptical of the use of προτερα δεκατη; however, he also seems to assert that Epicurus's Will should be interpreted as Epicurus referring to both dates as the 20th within that section of his Will. If Martin would weigh in the German when he has a chance, it would be greatly appreciated. I'll put it below. That said, it appears Pritchett is fine with asserting "δεκατη προτερα = 20th" later and in the note in the Choiseul Marble. Mommsen did publish his work in 1883. Kendrick published in 1970, so I'm not sure Mommsen had access to the Choiseul Marble.

Mommsen, pp.93-94:

It's also instructive to remember the scholia to PD1:

[Elsewhere (Epicurus) says that the gods are discernible by reason alone, some being numerically distinct, while others result uniformly from the continuous influx of similar images directed to the same spot and in human form.]

[ἐν ἄλλοις δέ φησι τοὺς θεοὺς λόγῳ θεωρητούς, οὓς μὲν κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν ὑφεστῶτας, οὓς δὲ καθ᾽ ὁμοείδειαν ἐκ τῆς συνεχοῦς ἐπιρρύσεως τῶν ὁμοίων εἰδώλων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἀποτετελεσμένωι ἀνθρωποειδῶς.]

θεωρητούς

A. that may be seen

2. of the mind, to be reached by contemplation

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, θεωρ-ητός

λόγῳ "by reason" or "by thinking" or "through reasoning"

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

I don't really like Hicks translation of the scholia note: "the gods are discernible by reason alone". My preference would be, using the definitions, for something like "the gods are conceived by contemplation through reasoning."

We don't - can't! - see the Epicurean gods with our physical eyes. The "truth" of their existence takes place entirely in our minds by reasoning through their existence through contemplation. But through that contemplation, Epicurus asserts that their existence is εναργής "clearly discernable to us / manifest to us in our minds."

I continue to maintain that contemplation is the best translation for one of the characteristics of the sage, too. "The sage will also enjoy themselves more than others in contemplation, speculation, and theorizing" (my translation) For full explanation, see:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἐναργ-ής

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, ἐναργής

I literally used the dictionary definition.

For now, I'll just post a quick copy from my translation:

123f. ἐναργὴς γαρ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ γνῶσις.

• Here's our δέ "on the other hand."
• ἐναργὴς [δέ] ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἡ γνῶσις

"And the knowledge (ἡ γνῶσις (gnōsis)) of them (θεοί "gods", note the plural here) is ἐναργὴς." But what does ἐναργὴς mean?

It has two primary definitions:

• visible, palpable, in bodily shape, properly of gods appearing in their own forms (in Homer); so of a dream or vision; ex., ἐναργὴς ταῦρος "in visible form a bull, a very bull"
• manifest to the mind's eye, distinct

Epicurus can't mean the first meaning since he's adamant that the gods don't interact with humans. But the second definition coincides with his contention (and the idea of the prolepsis of the gods) that the gods are apprehended by the mind only. That also sets up a nice contrast with the first definition's use by Homer in describing the Olympian gods appearing "in visible form." Homer's gods were εναργής in one sense of the word; Epicurus's in the other sense.

Elli Thanks for calling my attention to the work by W. Kendrick Pritchett. I'll definitely take a look at their work and post thoughts over the next day or so.

Quote from Cassius

Are the two of you together?

No, we definitely have differences of opinion, but I'm more than happy to go back and dig into the research. Just currently involved in other commitments, so it'll be a little while before I can post again.