Posts by Don

Quote from Cassius

Is any of the rest decipherable?

Most of it, I believe. On Anger is one of the most intact Herculaneum papyri.

ΒΥΒΛΙΑΚΟΙC

I have no idea with which emoticon to respond to your find, Joshua!!

😲😆😭😱🤯🤢

"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." I've never been more glad that I wasn't raised Catholic than after reading the post above. That's very unfortunate.

For what it's worth, I really like the Perseus Lucretius. Not for the translation, but the clickability of each word.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Liber Primus, line 1

Maybe helpful?

In Perseus:

animans † part sg pres masc nom of animo

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

Quote

b. Subst., any living, animate being; an animal (orig. in a wider sense than animal, since it included men, animals, and plants; but usu., like that word, for animals in opp. to men.

Quote from Joshua

It's clear that Epicurus makes no distinction between lower animals and humans in this paragraph--both are equally motivated to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. In fact, the reference to fear in the preceding sentence really seems to drive home the point; it is humans and gods even more than animals that are under discussion.

Agreed. Living being means living being. All living beings.

I think another interesting way to look at this is using the title of one of Epicurus's books in that list of Diogenes Laertius:

Περὶ βίων δ᾽

On Modes of Living, in 4 books

Those was a book on the ways to make living a opposed to the physical process of living itself.

I get the idea that living is living for Epicurus, in using ζωή since he can use it for humans and gods.

Diogenes uses ζωή here:

[74] "And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. [On the contrary, in the twelfth book "On Nature" he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes different from these. They do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the things we see. [And the same holds good for their nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think it happens upon the earth also.]

And here in 34:

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being παν ζωον, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined; and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words.53So much, then, for his division54 and criterion in their main outline.

OH!! The passage is from Menoikeus!! Egads! I feel dense!

Here's my translation, first:

For the sake of this, we do everything in order to neither be in bodily or mental pain nor to be in fear or dread; and so, when once this has come into being around us, it sets free all of the calamity, distress, and suffering of the mind, seeing that the living being has no need to go in search of something that is lacking for the good of our mental and physical existence.

Here's my commentary on that word in 128e.

τοῦ ζῴου "the living being" genitive singular of ζῷον, the word we met way back in 123b in Epicurus's discussion of the gods. "A god" was described as a ζῷον. So, are we to take the word in 123b as "living being" there as the word implies here in 128b? Or is the ambiguous nature of the word still at play in the description of a god? The debate continues.

The ambiguous nature of the word is:

τὸν θεὸν ζῷον "a god (is a) ζῷον. But what is a ζῷον?

ζῷον (zōon) is where English zoology comes from.

LSJ gives two primary definitions:

living being, animal

in art, figure, image, not necessarily of animals (or a sign of the Zodiac)

So, unfortunately, at this point in the Letter we can't necessarily resolve the question of what the nature of the gods (or of a god) is according to Epicurus. Some scholars think Epicurus believed the gods were material beings ("living being, animal") somehow living between the various world-systems (cosmos) in the universe. Some think Epicurus believed the gods were mental representations or personifications of the concepts ("figure, image, sign") of blessedness.

Looks sweet! But a monumental task you've set for yourself!

You raise an interesting question about ζωή vs βίος.

It appears entire theses have been written on that very question! Ex...

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/226161443.pdf

An Examination of “Life” in Aristotle Concerning the Distinction Between βίος (Bios) and ζωή (Zoe)

See also

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

βίος .life, i. e. not animal life (ζωή), but mode of life.

It seems that βίος is more the mode of life, the way of living; ζωή is more the substance of life, the physical processes of life. I can't see this in the references to this in Menoikeus:

124. ὅθεν γνῶσις ὀρθὴ τοῦ μηθὲν εἶναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸν θάνατον ἀπολαυστὸν ποιεῖ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς θνητόν.

So, correct understanding is that death is nothing for us, and this is what makes the mortality of life enjoyable.

126.

Ὀ δὲ παραγγέλλων τὸν μὲν νέον καλῶς ζῆν, τὸν δὲ γέροντα καλῶς καταστρέφειν εὐήθης ἐστὶν οὐ μόνον διὰ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς ἀσπαστόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι μελέτην τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν καὶ τοῦ καλῶς ἀποθνήσκειν.

So, the one who exhorts, on the one hand, for the one who is young to live nobly; and, on the other hand, the one who is old to come to an end nobly is a good-hearted simpleton not only because life is to be welcomed but also because the practice of living well, nobly, and beautifully and the practice of dying well, nobly, and beautifully are the same.

Now... Having said all that....I realize I'm not sure if that's helpful at all to you, Joshua Feel free to let me know!!

Cassius: Take a look at that pdf I linked to. Some good thoughts there.

And I personally don't have a problem with that line:

Every disturbance and unprofitable desire is removed by the love of true philosophy.

Usener calls that U457. disturbing there is ταραχώδης tarakhōdēs which is related to ataraxia.

It looks like sections 27-31 of the letter are supposed to be from an Epicurean text. Again, check out that pdf.

Oh, this looks promising?

http://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Tempelis_Epicurus_Porphyry.pdf

Checking our copy of Long & Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, entry 25C , is Usener 221. Their note reads:

Quote

Context: culmination of a long string of ethical quotations from Epicurus. For the Epicurean medical metaphor, cf. Gigante [271], Nussbaum [270].

So, we should look at the preceding "string" to see if we agree with that context in the letter. The anonymous nature of the quotes just gives me pause.

Gigante is in Italian in Cronache Ercolanesi, 1975, 53-61

Nussbaum is her chapter in Schofield & Striker, The norms of nature: studies in Hellenistic ethics (1986)

Quote from Little Rocker

Usener fr. 221)

Since we're getting down the thread here, here's a link to the can of worms that got opened on that fragment :

Thread

Porphyry - Letter to Marcella -"Vain Is the Word of the Philosopher..."

I was talking to @EricR this morning and trying to remember the source of this quote. In tracking it down it seems to come from Porphyry's letter to Marcella -- but do we really know this is attributable to Epicurus? Usener seems to think so, but why? Anyone recall?

U221

Porphyry, Letter to Marcella, 31, [p. 209, 23 Nauck]: Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body,…

Cassius

June 12, 2023 at 11:34 AM

I would laugh and tell the existential, "Pleasure and pain may be the only universals."

(Maybe that's a little harsh, but that was my first reaction.)

Quote from EricR

So did you experience the world differently prior to reading Epicurean ideas?

Not really having thought about (it just happened gradually), I would say my decision making process has definitely changed.

Quote from EricR

"does the philosophy change your experience of being"?

If by "experience of being" you mean "how one experiences the world", the answer has to be "yes." One's "experience of being" is inextricably linked to what one pays attention to. By focusing on - seeking out - pleasure in both little and big ways, one's experience of the world is changed.

Here's another from the letter to Marcella:

[ U203 ]

Porphyry, Letter to Marcella, 29, p. 209, 1: But insofar as you are in want, it is through forgetfulness of your nature that you feel the want. For thereby you cause to yourself vain fears and desires.

There seem to be quite a few.

Here's the entry in Stobaeus' Florilegium, 82.6 (lxxxii, 6; ΠΒ'.6) that clearly attributes the saying to Pythagoras (Πυθαγόρου ) and cites Porphyry's letter to Marcella.

Ioannis Stobaei Florilegium, recognovit Augustus Meineke ... v.0003.

Well, this is all a bit disturbing It appears Usener was *assuming* that Porphyry's unattributed quote was Epicurus and not Pythagoras?? On the basis that it "sounded" something Epicurus would have said??

PS: Honestly, this makes me skeptical of any Usener fragment not specifically citing Epicurus, the Epicureans, Philodemus, or a similar reference within the ancient text. For example,

This is fine:

[ U380 ]

Aetius, Doxography, I.29.6 [p. 326 Diels] (Plutarch, I.29.2; Stobaeus Anthology, Physics 7.9): Epicurus says that chance is a cause which is uncertain with respect to persons, times, and places.

But this now??

[ U533 ]

Uncertain Epicurean Author, Vol. Herc. 2, VII.21 col. XXVIII: The chief of all goods, even if there weren’t any other, is that by which he who possesses it advances toward virtue.

So who knows who wrote U533 and yet it's included in his Epicurea!

By Zeus! I don't know what to believe now!