system of means and ends, and introducing the belief in Providence and Prophecy, the universe was again subordinated to the interests of man. In both these respects Epicureanism stood in marked opposition to Stoicism. Otherwise it agreed with it in the general tone of its practical philosophy, and in its aim to make man independent of the outer world and happy in himself. CHAP. XIV. PART III. THE EPICUREANS. СНАР. XV. A. Epi curus. CHAPTER XV. EPICURUS AND THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL.1 EPICURUS, the son of the Athenian Neocles,2 was born in Samos3 in the year 342 or 341 B.C.1 His early education appears to have been neglected ;3 1 Consult, on this subject, the valuable treatise of Steinhart, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopædia, sect. i. vol. 35, pp. 459477. 2 Diog. x. i. He is frequently mentioned as an Athenian, belonging to the duos Gargettos. Diog. 1. c.; Lucret. Nat. Rer. vi. 1; Cic. Ad Fam. xv. 16; Elian, V. H. iv. 13. Diog. i.; Strabo, xiv. 1, 18. According to these authorities, and Cic. N. D. i. 26, 72, his father had gone there as a κληροῦχος. Apollodorus (in Diog. x. 14) mentions 7 Gamelion as the birthday of Epicurus. It was observed τῇ προτέρᾳ δεκάτῃ τοῦ Γαμηλιῶνος. Gamelion being the seventh month of the Attic year, the time of his birth must have been either early in 341 B.C. or the last days of 342 B.C. His father, according to Strabo, was a schoolmaster, and Epicurus had assisted him in teaching (Hermippus and Timon, in Diog. 2; Athen. xiii. 588, a). His mother is said to have earned money by repeating charms (kaapuol), and Epicurus to have assisted in this occupation (Diog. 4). Although the latter statement evidently comes from some hostile authority, it would seem that his circumstances in early life were not favourable to a thoroughly scientific education. His language in disparagement of culture would lead us to this conclusion, even were the express testimony of Sext. Math. i. 1, wanting: ἐν πολλοῖς γὰρ ἀμαθὴς He can, and at the time when he first came forward as an Επίκουρος ἐλέγχεται, οὐδὲ ἐν ταῖς κοιναῖς ὁμιλίαις καθαρεύων. Cic. Fin. i. 7, 26: Vellem equidem, aut ipse doctrinis fuisset instructior-est enim. non satis politus in artibus, quas qui tenent eruditi appellantur aut ne deterruisset alios a studiis. Athen. xiii. 588, a: èykukλíov maidelas ἀμύητος ὤν. According to his own statement (Diog. 2), he was not more than fourteen (Suid. 'ETIK. has twelve) years of age when he began to philosophise, i.e. to think about philosophical subjects. He subsequently boasted that he had made himself what he was without a teacher, and refused to own his obligations to those shown to be his teachers. Cic. N. D. i. 26, 72; 33, 93; Sext. Math. i. 2. It is, however, established that in his youth he enjoyed the instruction of Pamphilus and Nausiphanes (Cic.; Sext.; Diog. x. 8; 13;14; ix. 64; 69; Prom. 15; The names of two others are 2 According to Cic. 1. c., he denied the fact. Others, however, asserted it, and, among them, Demetrius of Magnesia. Diog. 13. 3 Whither he came, in his eighteenth year, according to Heraclides Lembus, in Diog. 1. Conf. Strabo,1. c.: тpapñvai paσiv ἐνθάδε (in Samos) καὶ ἐν Τέῳ καὶ ἐφηβεῦσαι ̓Αθήνῃσι. According to Hermippus (Diog. 2) Democritus first gave him the impulse to pursue philosophy; but this is only a conjecture. Besides Democritus, Aristippus is also mentioned as СНАР. XV. CHAP. 3 After having been active as a teacher in several schools in Asia Minor, he repaired to Athens about the year 306 B.C.,2 and there founded a School of his own. The meeting-place of this School was the founder's garden, and its centre of attraction was the founder himself, around whom a circle of friends gathered, knit together by a common set of principles, by a common affection for a master whom they almost worshipped, and by a common enjoyment of his cultivated society. Opponents charged the Epicureans with gross impropriety because they admitted not only women, but women of loose morality, to 6 a philosopher whose doctrines he curus resided for some time at Lampsacus, and there made the acquaintance of Idomeneus and Leonteus. 2 Diog. 2, on the authority of Heraclides and Sotion. According to him, Epicurus returns to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates, 307-6 B.C. Not immediately, however, since Diog. 2, says, on the authority of Heraclides: μéxpι μév τινος κατ' ἐπιμιξίαν τοῖς ἄλλοις φιλοσοφεῖν, ἔπειτ' ἰδίᾳ πως τὴν ἀπ ̓ αὐτοῦ κληθεῖσαν αἵρεσιν συστήσασθαι. On this celebrated garden, after which the Epicureans were called of and тŵν кhя ̈v, seе Diog. 10, 17; Plin. H. N. xix. 4, 51; Cic. Fin. i. 20, 65; v. 1, 3; Ad Fam. xiii. 1; Sen. Ep. 21, 10; Steinhart. Epicurus had purchased it for 80 minæ. This subject will be discussed at a later period. Such as Themista or Themisto, the wife of Leonteus (Diog. 5; 25; 26; Clem. Strom. iv. 522, D). Diog. 4; 6; 7; Cleomed. this circle of philosophic culture; but in the then state of Greece such conduct does not appear extraordinary. In this society Epicurus laboured for six and thirty years, and succeeded in impressing such a definite stamp on his School that it is now clearly recognisable after the lapse of centuries. In the year 270 B.C.1 he succumbed to disease, the pains and troubles of which he bore with great fortitude.2 Out of the multitude of his writings 3 only a few have come down to us, and these are for the most part unimportant ones. On the whole these fragments 5 bear out the unfavourable opinions which opponents expressed with regard to his style." Meteor. p. 92; Plut. N. P. Suav. Vivi. 4, 8; 16, 1 and 6; Lat. Viv. 4, 2. The best-known among these Taîpa is Leontion, who lived with Metrodorus (Diog. 6; 23), and wrote with spirit against Theophrastus (Cic. N. D. i. 33, 93; Plut. Hist. Nat. Præf. 29). Conf. Diog. 5; Philodem. rep Tappnrías, Vol. Herc. v. 2; Athen. xiii. 593, b, tells a fine story of self-sacrifice of her daughter Danaë. Ol. 127, 2, in the archonship of Pytharctus, and in his seventysecond year. Diog. 15; Cic. De Fat. 9, 19. 2 Diog. 15; 22; Cic. Ad Fam. vii. 26; Fin. ii. 30, 96; Sen. Ep. 66, 47; 92, 25. Hermippus (Diog. 15) by no means implies that he put an end to his own life. • According to Diog. Pro. 16, x. 26, he was, next to Chrysippus, the most voluminous writer of the ancient philosophers, his writings filling 300 rolls. The сс titles of his most esteemed works 4 Three epistles in Diog. 35; • Fragments in Diog. 5; 7. Besides the testament and the letter to Idomeneus (Diog. 16-22), many individual expressions of Epicurus have been preserved by Seneca. Aristophanes (in Diog. 13) calls his style idiwTIKWτárn. Cleomed. Meteor. p. 91, complains of his awkward and barbarous expressions, instancing: σapkòs εὐσταθῆ καταστήματα· τὰ περὶ ταύτης πιστὰ ἐλπίσματα· λιπάσμα ὀφθαλμῶν· ἱερὰ ἀνακραυγάσματα γαργαλισμούς σώματος. In this respect, Chrysippus may be compared with him. CHAP. XV. |