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"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."
Hail Eostre, goddess of Spring and renewal!
Hail Aphrodite, hail Venus, goddess praised by Lucretius, from whom new life springs!
(.... Metaphorically speaking, of course 
)
Collections Online | British Museum
So, there's the link to the British Museum
Not British but putting this article on the Villa dei Papyri here for future reference. Some great photos.
I realized this thread dovetails with our discussion on this thread regarding the Celts and Gauls since these mosaics are in a Gallo-Roman villa.
Plus the Celts were unrivaled (in my opinion) in their artwork* and metallurgy... And they invented the iron-rimmed wheel used for chariots! They were also courageous and respected for their prowess in battle, even in defeat, as portrayed in at least two ancient statues of defeated Gauls. The Celtic and German tribes were formidable enemies, the former eventually embraced within the Empire, that latter kicking the Romans butts (not the least in Teutoburg Forest) and setting a clear boundary to Roman ambition.
But my pride in my ancestral heritage may be showing just a bit with this post.
*PS: Okay, I'll give the Greeks their statuary and pottery, but Celtic artwork remains stunning. I'm including later Celtic artwork in the Christian era but items like the Books of Kells and Lindisfarne are unrivaled (again, my opinion)
Probably far more Italian in mannerisms than their Gallic or British counterparts.
Let's not sell the Gauls short. Take a look at the Gallo-Roman city of Nimes and its preserved colosseum and temple.
The Gauls weren't all Asterix and Obelix (although I have a soft spot for them as well as the historical Vercingetorix himself)
Yet ANOTHER modern scientific insight that Epicurus found 2,000 years ago: listening to your feelings leads to better decision making...
Can't start around the ~20 minute mark if you don't want to listen to the whole episode.
I would dearly love to find some surviving Catius and - whose the other one - Rufinius?
I heard a sobering statistic on a podcast the other day. It is estimated that we only have 1-3% of all the writings that survived from the ancient world. We will never have access to 97-99% of it all. 
Lucian was also Syrian, but has long been noted for his command of the Greek Language.
Agreed. Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Ancient World for quite some time. That's one reason Marcus Aurelius, a Roman *emperor* could choose to write his diary in Greek.
Joshua 's note about Lucian is one of the reasons Luke Ranieri chose to call his ancient Greek pronunciation convention "Lucian" https://lukeranieri.com/lucianpronunciation/
And I continue to think that it makes sense to situate Epicurus as particularly Ionian. Among the Pre-Socratics, Aristotle called the Ionians physiologoi---"those who study nature".
Agreed, he seems to be firmly in that Ionian tradition, although I wonder how Epicurus would feel about being seen as an Ionian and not Athenian. 
Oh, so according to that map, the Insubrians were a Celtic people. Interesting.
From Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods:
The Latin section starts for what it's worth here:http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…%3Asection%3D46
Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died lately, gives the name of spectres to what the famous Gargettian [Epicurus], and long before that Democritus, called images
In the translated letter:
English "spectres" = Latin: spectris
Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, spectrum
English "images" = Greek εἴδωλον (we've seen before!)
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, εἴδωλον
'Mental images" might be a better description.
Of possible interest:
With the importance of the word "world" in this episode, I'd encourage people to check out the thread I've linked to above, starting with Eikadistes 's post on equating κόσμος kosmos with "observable universe." It's a good thread and it's directly relevant to the topics y'all discussed here.
You can choose to imagine them, but I think it ought to be pretty apparent (at least in most situations) whether you are perceiving something that is "out there" beyond you, or whether you have chosen to summon the image from memory or from a new construct.
See, that's my sticking point here in reference to the gods. No one has ever seen a god and yet Epicurus says we have an image of them?
PS...
Has anyone tracked down the "the gods are giant-people-shaped and speak Greek" citation?
You would generally expect that images coming from real objects will be observed over time and in varying conditions and are thus repeatable, while images arising from random combinations would be unlikely to be repeated in substantially similar form
Hmm... I can repeatedly think about centaurs and unicorns in substantially similar forms.
I agree looking in the Lucretius sections may be helpful, but I'm not sure I agree (at first blush) on your repeatability criteria.
The Platonic (?) model implies (at least to me) something more supernatural
I don't believe that's the case.
"In the fifth century BC, Empedocles postulated that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. He stated that light has a finite speed."
Lots to wade through on this thread, but my responses will have to wait until tonight.
Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo!
Okay here are some random thoughts on this this morning:
I just happened across this passage in Lucretius, which relates to the LM passage discussed above:
"Unless you expel these ideas from your mind and drive far away beliefs unworthy of the gods and alien to their tranquillity, the holy divinity of the gods, damaged by you, will frequently do you harm: not because of the possibility of violating the gods’ supreme power, and of their consequent angry thirst for bitter vengeance, but because you yourself will imagine that those tranquil and peaceful beings are rolling mighty billows of wrath against you. You will be unable to visit the shrines of the gods with a calm heart, and incapable of receiving with tranquillity and peace the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds to reveal the gods’ appearance. The direct effect on your life is obvious." (Lucretius 6.68–79, Long and Sedley translation, The Hellenistic Philosophers)
This reads to me like the best resolution of the realist and idealist views that I've seen. It appears to acknowledge the realist view that the gods exist, while at the same time stressing that what is important to our well-being is how we view them.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Godfrey ! I had not seen this before.
For anyone who wants to see the Latin referenced here:
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Liber Sextus, line 43
quae nisi respuis ex animo longeque remittis
dis indigna putare alienaque pacis eorum,
delibata deum per te tibi numina sancta
saepe oberunt; non quo violari summa deum vis
possit, ut ex ira poenas petere inbibat acris,
sed quia tute tibi placida cum pace quietos
constitues magnos irarum volvere fluctus,
nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis,
nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur
in mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae,
suscipere haec animi tranquilla pace valebis.
inde videre licet qualis iam vita sequatur.
Images here is "simulacra": http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…ry%3Dsimulacrum
which seems to have the same double entendre that ειδωλον does in Greek.
Question: Is Lucretius (and Epicurus) referring to images received from gods "out there" somewhere... or is he referring to the images received of their statues in the shrines? "You will be unable to visit the shrines of the gods with a calm heart, and incapable of receiving with tranquillity and peace the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds to reveal the gods’ appearance." The fact that he talks first about visiting the shrines of the gods THEN goes directly to "incapable of receiving ... the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds" looks ambiguous, at least in this translation. Is it meant to be ambiguous? Does looking at a statue, an image, an ειδωλον or simulacra of the god, allow one to "see" that god in one's mind?
No answers, just posing a question I never thought of before reading this selection from Long & Sedley.
PS:
I ran part of that Latin through Google Translate (I know, not the greatest option!!), and got this:
...and you will not approach the temples of the gods with a calm heart, nor will you be able to receive these images of the divine form in the minds of men, from the body which is a holy image.
That last part (underlined) sounds to me like the the images are coming from the temples and the images are coming from whatever is in the temples.
I found this line of thinking intriguing, maybe simply because its novel to me. But maybe that's one reason Epicurus was able to enthusiastically advocating taking part in the regular worship of the Greek gods. It was the statues of the gods, the images in the temple as well as seeing the statues themselves that gave the Epicurean access to an image in the mind of a literally larger-than-life, blessed, incorruptible being to which the Epicurean could aspire. Hmm...Food for thought for me at least.
