Vitae philosophorum

Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was as citizen of Athens of the deme Gargettus, and, as Metrodorus says in his book On Noble Birth, of the family of the Philaidae. He is said by Heraclides[*](i.e. Heraclides Lembos (F.H.G. iii. p. 70).) in his Epitome of Sotion, as well as by other authorities, to have been brought up at Samos after the Athenians had sent settlers there and to have come to Athens at the age of eighteen, at the time when Xenocrates was lecturing at the Academy and Aristotle in Chalcis. Upon the death of Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion of the Athenian settlers from Samos by Perdiccas,[*](Diod. Sic. xviii. 18. 9.) Epicurus left Athens to join his father in Colophon.

For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates.[*](307-306 b.c.) And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards put forward independent views by the foundation of the school called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his Life of Epicurus, says

Hence the point of Timon’s allusion[*](Fr. 51 D.) in the lines:

Again there is the latest and most shameless of the physicists, the schoolmaster’s son[*](The meaning is: a schoolmaster like his father before him. Cf. Dem. De cor.§ 258 ἅμα τῷ πατρὶ πρὸς τῷ διδασκαλεί ῳ προσεδρεύων. From Aristophanes, Acharn. 595-7, it seems that patronymics were used of persons engaged in hereditary occupations.) from Samos, himself the most uneducated of mortals.

At his instigation his three brothers, Neocles, Chaeredemus, and Aristobulus, joined in his studies, according to Philodemus the Epicurean in the tenth book of his comprehensive work On Philosophers; furthermore his slave named Mys, as stated by Myronianus in his Historical Parallels. Diotimus[*](One Diotimus who calumniated Epicurus and was answered by the Epicurean Zeno is mentioned by Athenaeus, xiii. 611 b, as having been put to death.) the Stoic, who is hostile to him, has assailed him with bitter slanders, adducing fifty scandalous letters as written by Epicurus; and so too did the author who ascribed to Epicurus the epistles commonly attributed to Chrysippus.

They are followed by Posidonius the Stoic and his school, and Nicolaus and Sotion in the twelfth book of his work entitled Dioclean Refutations, consisting of twenty-four books; also by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. They allege that he used to go round with his mother to cottages and read charms, and assist his father in his school for a pitiful fee[*](Compare again Dem.De cor.§ 258.); further, that one of his brothers was a pander and

Furthermore that he extolled Idomeneus, Herodotus, and Timocrates, who had published his esoteric doctrines, and flattered them for that very reason. Also that in his letters he wrote to Leontion, O Lord Apollo, my dear little Leontion, with what tumultuous applause we were inspired as we read your letter. Then again to Themista, the wife of Leonteus: I am quite ready, if you do not come to see me, to spin thrice on my own axis and be propelled to any place that you, including Themista, agree upon; and to the beautiful Pythocles he writes: I will sit down and await thy divine advent, my heart’s desire. And, as Theodorus says in the fourth book of his work, Against Epicurus, in another letter to Themista he thinks he preaches to her.[*](A perplexing passage. (1) As παραινετική is for the Stoics that branch of ethics which makes personal application of moral principles, the mss. may be right. (2) By changing αὐτῇ to αὐτήν, a little more sting is given to this tame remark: he thinks that she preaches. (3)If this is one of the fifty scandalous letters alluded to in § 3, Froben’s αὐτὴν περαίνειν, which Bignone and Apelt adopt, may be right. (4) If emend we must, a rude remark is quite as probable as a compliment,cf.§ 8. Hence νομίζει αὐτὴν παρακινεῖν, he deems her mad, if she says or thinks so-and-so, would be in the master’s blunt manner, and Themista (to use the language of Phaedrus, 249 d)νουθετεῖται ὡς παρακινοῦσα.)

It is added that he corresponded with many courtesans, and especially with Leontion, of whom Metrodorus also was enamoured. It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he writes in these

Again there was Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, who was his disciple and then left the school. He in the book entitled Merriment asserts that Epicurus vomited twice a day from over-indulgence, and goes on to say that he himself had much ado to escape from those notorious midnight philosophizings and the confraternity with all its secrets;

further, that Epicurus’s acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with life even smaller; that his bodily health was pitiful,[*](Cf. Aelian, Fr. 39 (De Epicuro eiusque discipulis). According to him the three brothers of Epicurus were all victims of disease. Plutarch (Non posse suaviter, etc., 1097 e) mentions the dropsy. However much his ailments were exaggerated by his enemies, they do not seem to have hindered him from literary work.) so much so that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair; and that he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene. Also that among other courtesans who consorted with him and Metrodorus were Mammarion and Hedia and Erotion and Nikidion. He alleges too that in his thirtyseven books On Nature Epicurus uses much repetition and writes largely in sheer opposition to others,

Epicurus used to call this Nausiphanes jelly-fish,[*](Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. i. 3 νῦν πλεύμονα καλῶν τὸν Ναυσιφάνην ὡς ἀναίσθητον; Plato, Phil. 21 c ζῆν δὲ οὐκ ἀνθρώπου βίον ἀλλά τινος πλεύμονος; Hesychius, s.v.; whence it appears that obtuseness and insensibility, not weakness or pliability, were the qualities imputed by this term.) an illiterate, a fraud, and a trollop; Plato’s school he called the toadies of Dionysius, their master himself the golden Plato,[*](An ironical compliment, probably on Plato’s style: cf. χρυσός τομος. It is not likely that Plato was ever regarded as a Midas or a golden simpleton, for which latter meaning Lucian, Pro lapsu in sal. i. ἐγὼ ὁ χρυσοῦς, is cited by Bignone.) and Aristotle a profligate, who after devouring his patrimony took to soldiering and selling drugs; Protagoras a pack-carrier and the scribe of Democritus and village schoolmaster; Heraclitus a muddler[*](In the same ironical sense in which Plato speaks of the Heracliteans who preached flux as τοὺς ῥέοντας (Theaet. 181 a), themselves in flux.); Democritus Lerocritus (the nonsense-monger); and Antidorus Sannidorus (fawning gift-bearer); the Cynics foes of Greece; the Dialecticians despoilers; and Pyrrho an ignorant boor.

But these people are stark mad. For our philosopher has abundance of witnesses to attest his unsurpassed goodwill to all men—his native land, which honoured him with statues in bronze; his friends, so many in number that they could hardly be counted by whole cities, and indeed all who knew him, held fast as they were by the siren-charms of his doctrine, save Metrodorus[*](This man (not to be confounded with the more famous Metrodorus of Lampsacus, cf.§ 22) must belong to the second century b.c., if he was a contemporary of Carneades (c. 215-130 b.c.).) of Stratonicea, who

went over to Carneades, being perhaps burdened by his master’s excessive goodness; the School itself which, while nearly all the others have died out, continues for ever without interruption through numberless reigns of one scholarch after another[*](So Aristocles; cf. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xiv. 21. 1, and Numenius, ib. xiv. 5. 3. The indications of time are so vague that this defence of Epicurus might be ascribed to D. L. himself. If, however, we compare the list of calum-niators of Epicurus cited in §§ 3, 4, we see that none of them is later than the Augustan age. To the same date belongs a passage in the article of Suidas on Epicurus—καὶ διέμεινεν ἡ αὐτοῦ σχόλη ἕως Καίσαρος τοῦ πρώτου ἔτη σκζʼ, ἐν οἶς διάδοχ οι αὐτῆς ἐγένον το ιδʼ. As Usener has shown (Epicurea, 373), the interval of 227 years is reckoned from 270 to 44 b.c.);

his gratitude to his parents, his generosity to his brothers, his gentleness to his servants, as evidenced by the terms of his will and by the fact that they were members of the School, the most eminent of them being the aforesaid Mys; and in general, his benevolence to all mankind. His piety towards the gods and his affection for his country no words can describe. He carried deference to others to such excess that he did not even enter public life. He spent all his life in Greece, notwithstanding the calamities which had befallen her in that age[*](In the siege of Athens he is said to have maintained his disciples, counting out to each his ration of beans (Plut. Demetr. 34).); when he did once or twice take a trip to Ionia, it was to visit his friends there.[*](Cf.Epist. 32 (Fr. 176 Usener). This celebrated letter to a child was written from Lampsacus on such a journey.) Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived with him in his garden. This is stated by Apollodorus, who also says that he purchased the garden for eighty minae;

and to the same effect Diocles in the third book of his Epitome speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life; at all events they were content with half a pint of thin wine and were, for the rest, thoroughgoing water-drinkers. He further says that Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held in common, as required by the maxim of

Ye toil, O men, for paltry things and incessantly begin strife and war for gain; but nature’s wealth extends to a moderate bound, whereas vain judgements have a limitless range. This message Neocles’ wise son heard from the Muses or from the sacred tripod at Delphi.[*](Cf. Petronius, Sat. 132.)

Among the early philosophers, says Diocles, his favourite was Anaxagoras, although he occasionally disagreed with him, and Archelaus the teacher of Socrates. Diocles adds that he used to train his friends in committing his treatises to memory.[*](Cf. infra, §§ 36, 83.)

Apollodorus in his Chronology tells us that our philosopher was a pupil of Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes[*](If this Praxiphanes was the pupil of Theophrastus, considerations of age would make it highly improbable that he could have taught Epicurus; cf. Usener, Fr. 123.); but in his letter to Eurylochus, Epicurus himself denies it and says that he was self-taught. Both Epicurus and Hermarchus deny the very existence of Leucippus the philosopher, though by some and by Apollodorus the Epicurean he is said to have been the teacher of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that Epicurus also attended the lectures of Xenocrates.

The terms he used for things were the ordinary terms, and Aristophanes the grammarian credits him with a very characteristic style. He was so lucid a writer that in the work On Rhetoric he makes clearness the sole requisite.

And in his correspondence he replaces the usual greeting, I wish you joy, by wishes for welfare and right living, May you do well, and Live well.

Ariston[*](This is no doubt the Academic philosopher, Ariston of Alexandria, pupil of Antiochus, criticized by Philodemus in his Rhetoric, V.H.2 iii. 168.) says in his Life of Epicurus that he derived his work entitled The Canon from the Tripod of Nausiphanes, adding that Epicurus had been a pupil of this man as well as of the Platonist Pamphilus[*](Cf. Suidas, s.v.; Cic. N.D. i. 72.) in Samos. Further, that he began to study philosophy when he was twelve years old, and started his own school at thirty-two.

He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes,[*](341 b.c.) on the seventh day of the month Gamelion,[*](The eighth month of the Attic civil year. Thus he would be born about February, 341 b.c. Plato died 347 b.c.) in the seventh year after the death of Plato.

When he was thirty-two he founded a school of philosophy, first in Mitylene and Lampsacus, and then five years later removed to Athens, where he died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad,[*](271-270 b.c.) in the archonship of Pytharatus, at the age of seventy-two; and Hermarchus the son of Agemortus, a Mitylenaean, took over the School. Epicurus died of renal calculus after an illness which lasted a fortnight: so Hermarchus tells us in his letters. Hermippus relates that he entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed wine, which he swallowed,

and then, having bidden his friends remember his doctrines, breathed his last.

Here is something of my own about him[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 106.):

Farewell, my friends; the truths I taught hold fast:
1. Thus Epicurus spake, and breathed his last.
2. He sat in a warm bath and neat wine quaff’d,
3. And straightway found chill death in that same draught.

His last will was as follows: On this wise I give and bequeath all my property to Amynomachus, son of Philocrates of Bate and Timocrates, son of Demetrius of Potamus, to each severally according to the items of the deed of gift laid up in the Metroön,

on condition that they shall place the garden and all that pertains to it at the disposal of Hermarchus, son of Agemortus, of Mitylene, and the members of his society, and those whom Hermarchus may leave as his successors, to live and study in.[*](Cf. v. 52 supra.) And I entrust to my School in perpetuity the task of aiding Amynomachus and Timocrates and their heirs to preserve to the best of their power the common life in the garden in whatever way is best, and that these also (the heirs of the trustees) may help to maintain the garden in the same way as those to whom our successors in the School may bequeath it. And let Amynomachus and Timocrates permit Hermarchus and his fellow-members to live in the house in Melite for the lifetime of Hermarchus.

And from the revenues made over by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates let them to the best of their power in consultation with Hermarchus make separate provision (1) for the funeral offerings to my

And let Amynomachus and Timocrates take care of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, so long as they study and live with Hermarchus. Let them likewise provide for the maintenance of Metrodorus’s daughter,[*](Possibly Danaë: cf. Athen. xiii. 593 c.) so long as she is well-ordered and obedient to Hermarchus; and, when she comes of age, give her in marriage to a husband selected by Hermarchus from among the members of the School; and out of the revenues accruing to me let Amynomachus and Timocrates in consultation with Hermarchus give to them as much as they think proper for their maintenance year by year.

Let them make Hermarchus trustee of the funds[*](That funds were raised by friends of Epicurus and placed at his disposal is certain from the letter to Idomeneus: Plut. Adv. Col. 18, 1117 d (Usener fr. 130) πέμπε οὖν ἀπαρχὰς ἡμῖν εἰς τὴν τοῦ ἱεροῦ σώματος θεραπείαν. Nicanor seems to have been a recipient of this bounty. How like Auguste Comte !) along with themselves, in order that everything may be done in concert with him, who has grown old with me in philosophy and is left at the head of the School. And when the girl comes of age, let Amynomachus and Timocrates pay her dowry, taking from the