Posts by Bryan

THANK YOU!

I have been reading through your letter to Herodotus a little every day. "Shining a new light" may seem trite, but it applies to your brilliant and beautiful work (I looked at that letter very closely last year, but you brought out many different and new ways of looking at it).

Just as a point of discussion: I was initially a bit surprised by your preservation of cases in the transliterations used in your translation -- certainly not something I have ever seen before -- but now I think it serves as a linguistic bridge to draw a potential student closer to the original!

Posting an update to coins and rings I have been making, They are still a bit rough, but if anybody wants any, let me know. The necklaces and the coins are the easiest to make, and the Lucretius Trio ring is "on hold" at the moment (but I should be able to make more, somewhat better versions, soon).

Quote from Don

Glossarium

Yes on page 677, Usener says "τρικαλίνδητος, τρικυλίνδητος. ac similiter τρικυμία dicta. Epicurus dicit 'paratus sum ad vos quocumque iubebitis me ut trochum praecipiti cursu volventem agere (trudere)'"

So he takes it as as a colloquialism, but based on the wheel imagery.

Quote from Joshua

'thrice-garlanded'

I fully agree with your line of thinking, Joshua.

The sentence ending with "ὠθεῖσθαι / to be pushed" has led most translators toward the "wheel" interpretation -- but it can just as easily mean "compelled."

With that problem out of the way, τρικύλιστος certainly has a basic meaning of "rolled three times" -- but with κυλιστός meaning "twined in a circle, an epithet of a kind of garland" (as LSJ states, and as you and Athenaîos have shown) -- "rolled" can certainly refer to a garland. (It seems most of the "garlands" Athenaîos is discussing are worn on the head, so I think we are talking about wreaths.)

So the only remaining mystery is the prefix "three" -- which could easily be a colloquialism for either entwining three different plants to make one wreath, or just placing one upon the other -- the effect would be similar.

*******

Regarding "Three," we do see our Philōnídēs of Laodíkeia honored with three distinct wreaths (στέφανοι) in the inscription Attica, IG II2 1236:

"...the people honored him: both [the elder] Philōnídēs himself and his sons Philōnídēs and Dicaearchus – with citizenship, and crowned them with (1) a wreath of laurel and again with (2) a golden wreath... ...to praise [the elder] Philōnídēs of Laodicea and his sons Philōnídēs and Dicaearchus, and to crown each of them with (3) a wreath of myrtle, which it is customary to use when crowning their own benefactors."

Significantly, these are specifically honors given to Philōnídēs by the Athenians.

*****

So it could mean, in the context of Epikouros' letter to Themísta, "with all the honors you have given me in your letter" (i.e., crowned with multiple compliments)"

It is not much of a connection, but Lucius Lucretius Trio was an older contemporary (and presumably relative) of our Lucretius, and the crescent moon shows up on some of his coins.

Oh, I was just pointing to the (1) specific meaning "hooked" vs. (2) merely meaning "bulk." I know he usually uses "bulk," but I am not sure if he uses "hooked."

Quote from Eikadistes

ὄγκοι (ónkoi, “hooks”),

Although that exists, Epíkouros mostly uses:

 "ὄγκος (B), ὁ, bulk, size, mass of a body"

ὁ ὄγκος is really his main word for "particle."

I fully agree with your point, even using this example I could see us being "oncologists" instead of "atomists" (but that word was taken for other uses).

For the threefold division, it seems that "empty" has a negative connotation in Epistemology and Ethics, but is neutral in Physics.

Quote from Don

VS423.

I think you want U423, and so for the rest.

Is that from a version that has the Greek and English already paired?

I read that part of 62 as "The addition of judgment concerning the unseen... ...is not true in such cases: since everything envisioned or comprehended through our attention to [mental] perception is true."

The addition of judgment, then, is the source of the error, not "attention to mental perception."

In the sentence we are looking at aliquam is an adjective, from aliquis and usually means "some."

Less common is the adverbial use of aliquam, and only there does it mean "somewhat, to some degree" which comes close to "largely."

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=aliquis&la=la#lexicon

"aliquis, indef. adj., some, any"

Plutarch, in his Reply (at 1116c) says this -- and then ends with a helpful quote from Colotes:

But I should like to ask the very man (Epicurus), who brings this indictment, if his school does not see this distinction in their own system, whereby some objects are enduring and unchanging in their being, just as atoms too in their doctrine are forever the same because they are too hard to be affected, while all aggregates of atoms are subject to flux and change and come into being and pass out of it, as innumerable films leave them in a constant stream, and innumerable good others, it is inferred, flow in from the surroundings and replenish the mass -- which is varied by this interchange and altered in its composition, since in fact even the atoms in the interior of the aggregate can never cease moving or vibrating against one another, as the Epicureans say themselves.

"It is true" you (Colotes) say "that this sort of difference in ways of being is found in the actual world. But Epicurus shows himself a better philosopher than Plato in applying 'being' to all alike -- to the intangible void and resistant body and to the elements and their aggregates, holding that a common and single way of being is found in both the eternal and the generated, both the indestructible and the destructible, both the unaffected and enduring and changeless realities that can never be expelled from their being and those whose being lies in the fact that they are acted upon and changed and which never for an instant remain as they were."

The "aliquam" from your list is the adverb "largely," --- which is not that common -- but in this sentence it is a version of aliquis and means "some."

"It is thought better to obtain some part rather than none [at all]."

Lists of the books from these two paragraphs:

Quote from Don

The idea that Zeno questioned the authorship of the letter to Pythocles is speculative at best

Yes I fully agree. Although Usener puts this in the "Spurious Letters" section, ὑποψία only means there was some uncertainty regarding them.

The Greek, indeed, is broken, but it could go something like:

"[Zeno, because he was] approaching the [writings] of the men [i.e., the founders of the school] with precision, regarded those [precise points] that were accepted by them from the foundation [of the school] as very important – therefore he acquired some uncertainty regarding..."

Which makes sense -- and happens to us all the time!

Also, he would have been very aware that the idea of "separating" is at the center of the word he uses for "compound."

Great question. I cannot find a good quote for this.

(We do have the scholion 10.73c "it is clear [Epicurus] states that the cosmoi are also perishable because their parts are transforming")

Impermanence is certainly part of the discussion of whole natures vs. qualities -- with only the necessary qualities of whole natures existing as permanent (starting at 39c).

[Don, I accidently posted just after you, but I see we jumped on the same section!]

Quote from Don

Zeno’s name doesn’t appear in the manuscript, so I'd suggest looking at Epicurus's titles, too.

I agree.

Zeno’s name is not preserved in that column of P.Herc. 1005. (7/10), so while many scholars infer Zeno of Sidon as the author of these books, I am unsure.

1. Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀτόμων Ἀνομοιότητος (On the Dissimilarity of Atoms)
2. Περὶ Παρεγκλίσεως καὶ τῆς τοῦ Ἀθρόου Προκαταρχῆς (On the Swerve and the Initial Beginning of the Aggregate)
3.0 Περὶ Τελῶν (On Fulfillments, "On Ends"), which contains
3.1 Περὶ Τελειώσεως Ἄκρας καὶ τῆς Εὐδαιμονίας (On the Highest Perfection and Wellbeing)
4. Περὶ Γραμματικῆς (On Grammar)
5. Περὶ Ἱστορίας (On History)
6. Περὶ Παροιμιῶν καὶ τῶν Ὁμοίων (On Proverbs and Similar Things)
7. Περὶ Λέξεως (On Terminology)
8. Περὶ Ποιημάτων Χρήσεως (On the Usage of Poems)
9. Περὶ Εὐσεβείας (On Piety)

Zeno is mentioned once in the succeeding surviving columns, where Philódēmos is talking about his time with Zeno, and their frustration that "most of the Epicureans" have "inaction in the books."

We know Epikouros wrote an "On Piety" (as Cicero and Philodemus say) but for the rest of these, I think this is the only source (these are not in D.L.'s list).

A translation of the second half of the column, with speculative insertions is:

"...but also, in response to the accusations against the reasoning and the way of life of those around Epíkouros – through these writings, he [i.e., Zeno of Sidon]^? made his defense – supplying incredible [amounts of material] of the things in [Epíkouros']^? books concerning each: such as On Grammar, On History, On Proverbs and Similar Things, and On Terminology, and On the Usage of Poems, and On Piety…"

Another possibility is that both are true. Just as there was "On Piety by Epikouros" and also an "On Piety by Philodemus" -- these titles could be shared by Zeno and Epikouros.

Less important, but just for fun:

Quote from Don

black, short and deformed. (πάντας ἀνθρώπους μέλανα[ς] εἶναι καὶ μικροὺς καὶ δι̣[εσ]τραμμένους) [Book footnote suggests a reference to "Pygmies"]

Although he does talk about Anthony having Pygmies in another work, here I do not think Pygmies are in-mind:

"..but it will be possible if someone were to present this in a similar way and also those things that all the [Epicureans] accomplished who entered into our school along with Hérmarchos: [presenting them] as those who had intended [to do something] and also as those who had accomplished [that thing], which I do not think [was the case] in times before [them] – with all humanity [before then] being obscure [in their expressions], small [minded], and corrupted [in their actions]..."

Quote from Eikadistes

drew [much] unmixed [wine]

Around 280 ^BC (when Epíkouros was about sixty-one), after the first failed Gallic invasion, we read the following about one of the Gaulish leaders:

"There was still a hope of saving the life of Brennus, so far as his wounds were concerned; but, they say, partly because he feared his fellow-countrymen, and still more because he was conscience-stricken at the calamities he had brought on Greece, he took his own life by drinking neat wine."

-- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.23.12 (2nd century AD)

It is often said, "The Greeks thought drinking unmixed wine was fatal" -- but that idea could not have lasted beyond one planned "final party" unless there were some truth to it. Right? I know I’m missing something.

Quote from Don

Twelve Principles

Yes, I think the only reference to the work we have is at D.L. 10.44b (that color shifts with atomic position).

Quote from Eikadistes

EUDEMUS (4th – 3rd-century BCE) mentioned in a letter written by Epicurus

Do we know anything else about this particular Eúdēmos ?

There was a man named Eúdēmos [of Pergamon] who wrote commentaries on Epíkouros' work On Nature. However, he was a teacher of Philōnídēs of Laodíkeia (and therefore was active around 180 BC) – so he could not have been the recipient of letters from Epíkouros.