Paradosis and Survival

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Paradosis and Survival
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Paradosis and Survival
Three Chapters in the History of
Epicurean Philosophy
Diskin Clay
Ann Arbor
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
Copyright by the University of Michigan 1998
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
@ Printed on acid-free paper
2001 2000
1999 1998
4 3 2 1
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise,
without the written permission of the publisher.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
The photograph of Diogenes New Fragment 7 is courtesy of Martin Ferguson Smith;
the plan of the main buildings of Oenoanda and the Diogenes fragment distribution
are courtesy of the Oenoanda Survey of the British Institute of Archaeology at
Ankara.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clay, Diskin.
Paradosis and survival : three chapters in the history of
Epicurean philosophy / Diskin Clay.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-472-10896-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Epicureans (Greek philosophy) 2. Epicurus. I. Title.
B512.C57
187-dc21
1998
98-29087

CIP

Tol; Oil ot;,
t; Kat' OiKiQV
KQ1i t;1 wO

Preface
The fifteen studies reprinted here were written as contributions to three distinct
chapters in the history of Epicurean philosophy. The philosophy of Epicurus
represents a potent revival of pre-Socratic philosophy in an age of teleology and
theology dramatically initiated by Plato's Timaeus and followed by Aristotle's
De Caelo. Epicurus also advocated an ethical philosophy that centered not on the
polis but on the individual and his or her community of friends. It had its origin
in the philosophical communities Epicurus attracted to himself in Mytilene and
Lampsakos on the Hellespont years before he established himself in Athens in
306 at the age of thirty-five. We know very little of his activities before he moved
to Athens.
Athens is the center of the five studies that make up the first chapter of this
book. In this chapter I treat the first legible chapter in the history of Epicurean-
ism and the first generation of the Epicurean school. In a second chapter and the
five essays that make it up, I move west to Italy and to the educational writings of
Philodemus preserved in the library of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum and to
Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, a philosophical poem on origins and ends and
specifically on the origin and end of our world. The writings I deal with in the
chapter on Italy were composed in the first half of the first century B.C., when the
Epicurean movement had spread from its epicenter in Athens west into Italy. In
the third chapter of this collection, I move east of Athens to a remote mountain
site in Lycia and into the second century A.D. In the five studies included under
the name of the city of Oenoanda, I treat the last legible chapter in the history of
Epicurean philosophy in antiquity and the philosophical inscription of Diogenes
of Oenoanda. In their range, these fifteen studies take the reader over nearly five
hundred years of varied landscapes and very difficult terrain.
My engagement with Epicurean philosophy did not begin with Epicurus or
Athens. It started in Italy in the last decades of the Roman Republic with
Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. My dissertation at the University of Washington
(1967) was a study of Lucretius' translation of Greek philosophy. My first
publication in this field appeared in 1970 (essay 7 in this collection). This
reading of the proem to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and the subject of my
dissertation took me directly back to Epicurus and from Epicurus back to the
pre-Socratics. In my treatment of Lucretius, I tend to ignore, because Lucretius

seems to have ignored, the developments in Hellenistic philosophy after the
viii / Preface
death of Epicurus. That leaves a gap of 215 years in the history of the Epicurean
school between the death of Epicurus in 270 B.C. and the De Rerum Natura of
Lucretius, which was known to Cicero in 54 B.C. The activities in Campania of
Epicureans who were the contemporaries of Lucretius are represented by a
single essay on Philodemus of Gadara (essay 6), who, like Lucretius, was com-
mitted to converting his contemporaries to Epicurean philosophy, but who,
unlike Lucretius, addressed his writings to those of his contemporaries who
could read his formidable Greek.
As we reach the final columns of Philodemus' histories of the Academic and
Stoic philosophers, we encounter the names of his friends, acquaintances, and
contemporaries: he speaks, for example, of Menekrates of Mytilene (a student of
Antiochus of Ascalon) as resident in Sicily "until recently" and of his students as
"our acquaintances" (PHere. 1021.24.8-11 and 35.5-8, discussed in essay 6).
Lucretius names only one contemporary, his reader, Gaius Memmius. But if
Lucretius seems "a lone wolf" (as Otto Regenbogen once styled him), he is
gregarious with at least one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, and I argue (in
essay 8 especially) that Lucretius' poem on the origins and dissolution of the
world goes back beyond Epicurus and reflects Lucretius' independent under-
standing of the poem (or poems) of Empedocles.
The exploration of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura undertaken in both my
Lucretius and Epicurus (1983) and the four essays of chapter 2 (Italy) brings us
face-to-face with what I have come to regard as the problem of "transparency."
Readers of Lucretius are in a more comfortable position than readers of Epi-
curus. Because of the loss of so much of Epicurus' On Nature, Lucretius'
philosophical readers are disposed to read the De Rerum Natura as if it were a
transparency and a window through which we can view in the distance Lu-
cretius' sources or a single source resembling Epicurus' On Nature. In essay 10 I
introduce some reflections on the problems created by the appearance of trans-
parency. Some of Lucretius' sources in Epicurus can, in fact, be discovered as
they are embedded in the De Rerum Natura (as I show in essay 1). But the only
clear and sharp focus to be gained in reading Lucretius is not the blurred
penumbra of some lost text of Epicurus; it is gained by looking straight at the De
Rerum Natura itself. In their concentration on the Roman rather than the Greek
and on what we have rather than what we have lost, my studies of Lucretius are
contemporary in spirit with the studies of Cicero published recently in J. G. F.

Powell's collection Cicero the Philosopher (1995). I see Lucretius as a Roman
poet and apostle of Epicurean philosophy, who re-created the worldview of
Epicurus for his own age, and who was inspired by a conception of himself as
both following in the steps of Epicurus and traversing a terrain no poet before
Preface / ix
him had set foot on (see essay 8). As a thinker and as a poet whose first language
was Latin, Lucretius had a sharp eye for the philosophical models latent in the
metaphors of Greek natural philosophy, and he brings them back to life as
models and similes in his De Rerum Natura, which itself becomes a model for
the invisible world of atoms moving in void (see essay 9).
As I reflect on the approaches I have taken to Epicurus and his fellow
philosophers in Athens, to Philodemus in Herculaneum, to Lucretius in Italy,
and to Diogenes in the mountain fastness of Oenoanda, I realize that there is a
salient contrast between the chapters on Athens and Oenoanda and the four
studies of Lucretius in the chapter on Italy. I still find Lucretius one of the
loneliest figures in the history of Latin literature. He recognizes an unmistakably
Roman world and writes in Latin for a Roman audience; but other than his
reader, Memmius, he does not recognize the Romans or Greeks who were his
contemporaries, except as types unenlightened by the true philosophy. He resists
the kind of social integration into the context of an age and culture that I attempt
in my studies of Greek Epicureanism in Athens and Oenoanda. The most strik-
ing contrast with Lucretius' loneliness is the gregariousness of Cicero, who
names almost every contemporary philosopher, including Lucretius. Lucretius
speaks of Epicurus as a god, yet in his De Rerum Natura he betrays no awareness
of the importance the cults of Epicurus had for his contemporaries in Italy and
for Philodemus (cults whose history and significance I explore in essay 5).
Most of the essays devoted to Athens and Oenoanda are explorations of the
social, rather than the doctrinal, meaning of the word OtXoco4ia, "philosophy."
The apparent exceptions are my treatment of Epicurus' conception of justice
(essay 2) and of Diogenes of Oenoanda's two separate and connected treatments
of dream visions (essay 14). Yet it soon becomes apparent that Epicurus' con-
ception of justice is centered not in the polis but in the individual and in com-
munities of like-minded individuals who share the same values. When placed in
context, Diogenes' treatment of dreams makes him a rationalist and scientist in
an age of dreams, as was Epicurus himself when he wrote to his mother to deny
the portentious and prophetic character of dreams.
The essays on the first generation of the Epicurean school-or better,
community-in Athens constitute a history of paradosis and survival. In these
essays I attempt to show how Epicurus transmitted what was essential in his
philosophy, in the memorable form that persuaded Diogenes Laertius to pre-

serve intact Epicurus' careful work as the epitomator of his own philosophy, in
the three doctrinal letters and Master Sayings that make up the bulk of book 10
of Diogenes' Lives of the Philosophers (see essays 1 and 2). Although my
argument has inspired some doubt, I still believe that I have discovered the
x / Preface
evidence to show that Epicurus also preserved copies of his On Nature and
letters in the Metroon, or state archives of Athens (see essay 3). It has long been
known that he deposited his last will and testament there. I have also assembled
the scattered tesserae of evidence to frame a paradoxical picture of the hero cults
Epicurus established for his family, for his close associate Metrodorus, and for
himself during his own lifetime (see essay 5). In essay 41I come to terms with the
significance of our many editorial perplexities over the attribution of Epicurean
wisdom to an individual Epicurean. Our very perplexity is, I argue, the symptom
of Epicurus' success in making his philosophy the property of his fellow phi-
losophers. In fact, he succeeded in creating that ideal society-envisaged by
Socrates in Plato's Republic-where the words mine and thine are replaced by
ours.
My work on Oenoanda, the last chapter in this very partial history of Epi-
cureanism, began in the spring of 1972 at the University of Lille, where I was the
guest of Professor Jean Bollack and his colleagues. There I helped direct the
memoire de maftrise of Mlle Claire Millot on the fragments of the philosophical
inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda, Atude de l'inscription du mur de Diogene
d'Oenoanda (1972). As I arrived in Lille, I was familiar with the eighty-eight
fragments of Diogenes discovered in the nineteenth century, which had recently
been published in a Teubner edition by C. W. Chilton (1967). New were sixteen
fragments discovered by Martin Ferguson Smith during his visits to the moun-
tain site of Oenoanda in the summers of 1968 and 1969 and published in the
American Journal of Archaeology in January 1970 and October 1971. In one of
these, New Fragment 7, I discovered Epicurus' account of how he survived a
shipwreck, apparently on his way back to Lampsacus from Athens (essays 11
and 12). In the case of these essays, the word survival is quite literal. I then
turned to another set of new discoveries. Two of the long blocks Smith had
discovered were from Diogenes' Ethics Treatise (New Fragments 13/12); three
others were from his Physics Treatise displayed above his Ethics (New Frag-
ments 1, 5/6). New Fragment 1 was seen to carry forward the argument of
Chilton's fragment 7, and together these six blocks carried the most extensive
argument we have recovered from Diogenes' monumental inscription. In this
argument, Diogenes puts forward an Epicurean interpretation of dreams. The
syntax I propose for these fragments has not been followed by two later editors
(Casanova and Smith, who do not agree on an ordering themselves), but in essay

14 I present again, with some corrections, Diogenes' argument and the texts that
articulate it.
The work begun at Lille put me in contact with Martin Ferguson Smith, Alan
Hall, and the Oenoanda Survey, which Alan Hall led for a decade (1974-83). I
Preface / xi
joined this survey during the summers of 1975 and 1977. My work on the
mountain called Asar Bel, the ridge with the ruins, led to a monograph, The
Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-
1983 (1990). Searching for Diogenes among inscriptions honoring his fellow
citizens led to an appreciation of Diogenes in his civic context. I bring out some
of the details of this civic and cultural context in a final essay on Diogenes, "A
Lost Epicurean Community" (essay 15).
One of the essays included here has not yet been published. Essay 6 will
appear in Philodemus and the New Testament World (to be published by E. J.
Brill of Leiden). I reproduce the other essays as they have appeared over nearly
three decades. Reviewing them has given me the occasion to make some neces-
sary corrections. In an introductory footnote to each essay, I attempt to acknowl-
edge briefly the most relevant and important new work on my chosen topics.
Where it has been possible, references to new editions and to some new con-
tributions included in the bibliography are indicated in the text and notes by
square brackets. In the bibliography I identify the editions I have referred to and
give fuller references to the works I cite than was permitted by the varying

protocols of the places where fourteen of these essays first appeared.

Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the following journals, institutions, organizations, and individ-
uals for first publishing and then allowing me to reprint thirteen of the essays that
appear in this book: Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie for essay 1 ("Epi-
curus' Last Will and Testament"); Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies for
essays 2, 11, and 15 ("Epicurus' Kvpia A6a XVII," "Sailing to Lampsacus:
Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 7," and "A Lost Epicurean Com-
munity"); Hesperia and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for
essay 3 ("Epicurus in the Archives of Athens"); the firm of Gaetano Maccharioli,
Naples, for essay 4 ("Individual and Community in the First Generation of the
Epicurean School"); Marcello Gigante and Cronache ercolanesi for essay 5
("The Cults of Epicurus"); Transactions of the American Philological Associa-
tion for essay 7 ("De Rerum Natura: Greek Physis and Epicurean Physiologia
[Lucretius 1.1-148]"); Jean Bollack and the Cahiers de Philologie for essay 8
("The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration"); Gabriele Giannantoni, Director of
Elenchos, for essay 9 ("An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor"); Quinto
Cataudella, Director of Sileno, for essay 12 ("The Means to Epicurus' Salvation:
The "Crux" at Diogenes of Oenoanda, NF 7 II 12"); and finally the American
Journal of Philology for essays 13 and 14 ("Philippson's 'Basilica' and
Diogenes' Stoa" and "An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams").
My remaining acknowledgments are professional and personal. My Epicurean
studies began in the summer of 1966, when I read Lucretius' De Rerum Natura
with Leo Strauss. My debt to him has only grown since I dedicated Lucretius and
Epicurus (1983) to his "memory and paternal image." At another stage, in 1972,
Jean and Mayotte Bollack offered me the stimulating company they had gathered
in the Centre de Philologie at the University of Lille III and their own strong
encouragement to pursue my Epicurean studies. In Lille I first met Graziano
Arrighetti, who has remained a friend and colleague ever since. Marcello Gigante,
Francesca Longo Auricchio, Livia Marone, and Adele Tepedino Guerra have all
helped me with the text and understanding of the papyrus central to my study ofthe
cults of Epicurus (PHerc. 1232), and in May 1983 Professor Gigante allowed me
to study the papyrus in the Officina dei Papiri in Naples. He was also the host to
two international congresses, from which I returned with many treasures: the first
in Naples in May 1983, the occasion of my first presentation of the argument of

essay 5 ("The Cults of Epicurus"); the second in Naples and Capri in May 1993,
xiv / Acknowledgments
the occasion for presenting essay 9 ("An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor"). I am
grateful to Piet Schrijvers for the inspiring example of his own work on Lucretius
and for the conference he organized in Amsterdam in June 1996 on Lucretius and
his intellectual background, which gave me occasion to return to Lucretius and
speak of his "Gigantomachy" and engagement with Aristotle's On Philosophy
(see essay 10, "Lucretius' Gigantomachy").
I turn east to the mountains of Turkey and the site of ancient Oenoanda and
the work I did there with Martin Ferguson Smith and the late Alan Hall in the
summers of 1975 and 1977. To them I dedicated my study of the new discoveries
of the philosophical inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda (1990), and to Martin
Ferguson Smith I now renew my thanks for his great encouragement, help, and
companionship. Alan Hall died in 1986, but I carry with me his friendship and
interest in the civic inscriptions of Oenoanda and their context. J. J. Coulton has
supplied two of the figures for chapter 3 of this book and provided me with an
understanding of the plan and buildings of Oenoanda.
David Furley invited me to test my interpretations of Epicurus' last will and
testament and the cults of Epicurus in the context of his seminars on Epicurus at
Princeton University. There they found a challenging audience, and David
Furley has always provided me with the challenge of the high standards of his
own scholarship. David Sedley and A. A. Long have been ov t ocogogve in
the study of Hellenistic philosophy since I first met them at the Centre de
Philologie at the University of Lille III in 1973. Charles Kahn published my first
essay on Epicurus (essay 1, "Epicurus' Last Will and Testament"). He has been a
constant ogotoo44ov, stimulus, and friend as I have taken the divided paths of
Epicurean and Platonic studies.
Ellen Bauerle at the University of Michigan Press has been extremely helpful
and encouraging. The survival of Paradosis and Survival and the form the
publication finally took owes a great deal to her and her choice of an anonymous
reader.
Lastly, I think of friends closer to home. Jenny Strauss Clay has never flagged
in her support of my work, even as it centered on dubious philosophical and
Epicurean topics. My three daughters, Andreia, Hilary, and Christine, have
tolerated with a decent mixture of amusement and curiosity the remoteness of
my templa serena at home and my trips abroad. My wife, Sara, has provided me
with a kepos at home and has never yet changed the keys to its gate as I return

from travel abroad.
I recall all these friends, at home and abroad, as I dedicate Paradosis and
Survival with the words Epicurus used to issue an invitation to his friends, at
home and abroad.
Contents
Abbreviations ............................................ xvii
Chapter 1. Athens
1. Epicurus' Last Will and Testament ..................... . ...... 3
2. Epicurus' Kvpia A64a XVII............................... 32
3. Epicurus in the Archives of Athens ........................... 40
4. Individual and Community in the First Generation of the
Epicurean School .................. .................... 55
5. The Cults of Epicurus ................. .................. 75
Chapter 2. Italy
6. Philodemus on the Plain Speaking of the Other Philosophers ....... 105
7. De Rerum Natura: Greek Physis and Epicurean Physiologia
(Lucretius 1.1-148) ................. ................... 121
8. The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration ........................ 138
9. An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor .......................... 161
10. Lucretius' Gigantomachy ................................... 174
Chapter 3. Oenoanda
11. Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda, New
Fragment 7 .......................................... 189
12. The Means to Epicurus' Salvation: The "Crux" at Diogenes of
Oenoanda, NF 7 II 12 ............... ...................200
13. Philippson's "Basilica" and Diogenes' Stoa (Diogenes of
Oenoanda, Fr. 51) .................. ...................207
14. An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams ....................... 211

15. A Lost Epicurean Community ............................... 232
xvi / Contents
Bibliography.............................................. 257
Passages Cited............................................ 273
General Index............................................. 277

Illustrations following page .................................. 188
Abbreviations
AGPh
AJA
AJP
ANRW
ArchDelt
AS
BCH
BEFAR
BICS
CAF
CAG
Cahiers
CErc, also Cronercol
CP
CQ
CRAI
Cynics
DG
Epicureismo
Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophie
American Journal of Archaeology
American Journal of Philology
Aufstieg und Niedergang der rdmischen Welt.
Berlin and New York, 1972-
'ApXatoXoyitKv AE&Xtov
Anatolian Studies
Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique
Bibliothbque des Ecoles frangaises d'Athbnes et
de Rome
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of
the University of London
Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. Ed. T. Kock.
Leipzig, 1880-88.
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. 23 vols.
and 3 supplements. Berlin, 1882-1909.

Etudes sur l'Epicurisme antique. Ed. J. Bollack
and A. Laks. Cahiers de Philologie 1. Lille,
1976.
Cronache ercolanesi
Classical Philology
Classical Quarterly
Comptes rendus de 1 'Academie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres
The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity
and Its Legacy. Ed. R.B. Branham and M.-O.
Goulet-Caz6. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Lon-
don, 1996.
Doxographi Gracei, 4th Ed. Hermann Diels.
Berlin, 1879.
Epicureismo greco e romano: Atti del Congresso
Internazionale Napoli, 19-26 Maggio 1993. Ed.
G. Giannantoni and M. Gigante. 3 vols. Naples,
1996.
xviii / Abbreviations
Epicuro, Epicuro2
FGrHist
GCFI
GettyMusJ
GGR
GRBS
HSCP
HTR
ID
IG
IGR, also IGRR
JbClPh
JHI
JHS
JPhil
LSJ
MDAI(A), also AthMit
Nauck2
NF(F)
OGIS
OJh
PCG
PCPS
G. Arrighetti. Epicuro: Opere. Turin, 1960. 2d
ed., 1973.
Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Ed.
Felix Jacoby. 1923-.
Giornale Critico di Filosofia Italiana
J. Paul Getty Museum Journal
M. P. Nilsson. Geschichte der griechischen Re-
ligion. 2d ed., 2 vols. Munich, 1941.
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
Harvard Theological Review
Inscriptions de Delos. Ed. F. Diirrbach. 1923-

37.
Inscriptiones Graecae
Inscriptiones Graecae ad res romanas perti-
nentes. 3 vols. 1906.
Jahrbiicher der classischen Philologie
Journal of the History of Ideas
Journal of Hellenic Studies
Journal of Philology
H. G. Liddell and R. Scott. A Greek-English
Lexicon. Revised by H. Stuart Jones. Oxford,
1968.
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archiologischen In-
stituts (Athen)
A. Nauck. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
2d ed. Leipzig, 1889.
New Fragment(s) of the inscription of Diogenes
of Oenoanda
Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae
Jahreshefte des sterreichischen arch-
iologischen Instituts
Poetae Comici Graeci. Ed. R. Kassel and C.
Austin. Berlin and New York, 1983-.
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological So-
ciety
Papyrus Herculanensis
Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saeculi I, II,
III. 2d ed. Ed. E. Groag and A. Stein. 1933-
PHerc,
PIR2
also Pap. Herc.
Abbreviations / xix
RAAN
RAC
RE
REG
RhM
RivFC, also RFil., RivFil
Roscher
SBB, also SBBerl
SEG
SIFC
SO, also SymbOslo
SVF
TZHTHEIE
TAM
TAPA
Tradition
TGrF
UCPCP
VS, also DK, Vorsokr.
WS
ZPE
Rendiconti dell'Academia di Archeologia, Let-
tere e Belle Arti di Napoli
Reallexikon fuir Antike und Christentum. Stutt-
gart, 1941-.
Real-Encyclopddie der klassischen Alter-
tumswissenschaft. Stuttgart and Munich, 1893-
1973.
Revue des Etudes Grecques
Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie
Rivista di Filologia Classica
W. H. Roscher, ed. Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der
griechischen und romischen Mythologie.
Leipzig, 1886-90.
Sitzungsberichte der koniglichen Preussischen

Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica
Symbolae Osloenses
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Ed. H. von Ar-
nim. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1903-5.
ETZHTHEI" Studi sull'epicureismo greco e lat-
ino offerti a Marcello Gigante. 2 vols. and an
index vol. Naples, Biblioteca della Parola del
Passato 16. 1983.
Tituli Asiae Minoris
Transactions of the American Philological Asso-
ciation
Tradition and Innovation in Epicureanism. Ed. P.
A. Vander Waerdt. GRBS 30, no. 2 (1989).
Tragicorum Graecorumfragmenta. Ed. B. Snell
and S. Radt. Gottingen, 1971-.
University of California Publications in Classi-
cal Philology
Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. Ed. H.
Diels and W. Kranz. 3 vols. Berlin, 1958.
Weiner Studien
Zeitschrift fiir Papyrologie und Epigraphik


Chapter 1
ATHENS

Epicurus' Last Will and Testament
I. Epicurus to Pythocles: Greetings
Kleon has brought me your letter in which you show your affection for us
and worthily repay us for our concern for you. In it you tried sincerely to
rehearse the arguments which have as their aim the life of happiness; and you
asked me to send you a concise outline of my reasoning concerning the
phenomena of the heavens as a help to keep these doctrines in mind. Else-
where, you say, you found these matters difficult to remember even though,
as you tell us, you study them constantly. (ad Pyth. 84)
Pythocles' difficulties with Epicurus' teaching concerning ta meteora cannot
now be fully appreciated, except perhaps by the student of the considerable
fragments of Book XI of his Iept 6 0oq. To judge from the language of the
Letter to Pythocles requests such as those of Pythocles were prompted by a
manner of presentation which Epicurus seems to characterize as lacking conci-
sion, order, and clarity of outline.
Except for what has survived in Book X of Diogenes Laertius and the
Gnomologium Vaticanum, Epicurus' philosophy seems a private and esoteric
affair. For a great part of his career he seems to have written in and for a small
Reprinted from AGPh 55 (1973): 252-280. I have taken this argument further in Lu-
cretius and Epicurus (Ithaca and London, 1983), 54-81, and in my report on Diogenes of
Oenoanda's use of the Kptat A6 at, "The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of
Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-1983," ANRWII.36.4 (1990): 2532-2541. I returnm to
the practice of memorization in essay 2. Martha Nussbaum has given a good characteriza-
tion of the method of memorization and meditation in the context of Epicurean therapy, in
The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, 1994), 131-
135. Part 3 of this essay now has the support of David Sedley's expert edition and
revealing presentation of Epicurus' argument against determinism (waged in Epicuro2,
34), in ETZHTHEIE, 1:11-51, and in The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1987),

20.
4 / Paradosis and Survival
group of fellow philosophers- o
too o oveg he calls them,' and all that
has now been recovered of his philosophy from Herculaneum-fragments of his
letters and On Nature-centers on his private concerns and those of his fellow
philosophers. His very language bears the marks of an isolated and esoteric
philosophical dialect which was current in Epicurus' garden early in the 3rd
century B.C. and understood and spoken there and then, but which is now dead
because of its apparent lack of connection with Greek as it was used and spoken
outside of Epicurus' garden.2
The On Nature resembles Epicurus' most esoteric writings-his letters-in
that it was meant for only a few and written within a context of familiarity which
presupposes much that we shall never recover. It is an esoteric work, written
over a long period of time;3 it reflects not so much Epicurus' attempt to present a
coherent and ordered account of the nature of things as his concern for justifying
1. Epicurus himself uses the word only in his last will and testament (D.L. X 16.10-
21.11). The term is hardly new with him (cf. Aristotle, ENIX 12), but the concentration of
compounds in vv- in his will and in later Epicurean writings is an indication of the kind
of philosophical family he had gathered about him. Later, members of this family (to5 g ye
[K]a&d ilv oix[iav] iitavta;) are distinguished from 'r6v i oOev, Pap. Herc. 1232
(Vogliano) fr. 8.6-9. In Philodemus' iepit Happoiaa; (Olivieri) we hear of oi avxoad-
(ov mg, 75.4 and 79.1-4; in his Rhetoric (Sudhaus) he speaks of a method of inquiry
through question and answer (6 avGrlqtb6 stp6nog), I 241 [col. XI 8-12]. This method
is not new with the Epicureans nor distinctive of them, but rather characteristic; cf. SV74.
2. Arrighetti's characterization of the language of Epicurus' long treatment of the
problem of freedom of thought and action as "veramente un testo da iniziati" (Epicuro
570 [Epicuro2 626]) is accurate for almost all of Epicurus' esoteric writings and repro-
duces in fact the essentials of Aristophanes' criticism of Epicurus' language as 4tg
i 8trrdrj (D.L. X 13). Usener (praef xlii) and Schmid (RAC 5 [1962] cols. 709-711)
distinguish between Epicurus' "esoteric" and "exoteric" styles. In their difficulties and
design, the Letters to Herodotus and Pythocles seem to stand halfway between the garden
and the outside world. Practically, such a distinction has been borne out in the history of
the survival of Epicurus' vast literary activity. The esoteric writings survive by accident in
the library of Piso at Herculaneum; the exoteric in Diogenes Laertius.
3. Like the letters of Epicurus' epistolary, the separate books of On Nature were
dated by Athenian archon years. Of the 37 rolls which compose this book, subscriptions
are preserved for nine and dates for only two. Book XV was written in the archonship of

Hegemachus (300/299); Book XXVIII in that of Nicias-"the Nicias who followed
Antiphates as archon" (296/295). Such a clarification makes it certain that in their present
form the subscriptions of On Nature do not go back to Epicurus himself. The dates for
these two books seem to be the basis (with Epicurus' establishment in Athens) for
Steckel's dating of On Nature to ca. 306-292, RE Supplementband XI (1968) 588-589.
[In essay 3, I argue that these dates derive from Epicurus' decision to deposit his books in
the archives, or Metroon, of Athens.]
Epicurus' Last Will and Testament / 5
and securing his physiology in terms of the controversies which preceded it and
called it into being. To judge from the fragments of its 37 books, Epicurus
addressed his most ambitious work to a small circle of disciples and associates.
In parts, the On Nature seems to record the discussions of Epicurus and his
closest associates. Its language is highly technical and its argument presupposes
a knowledge of matters known within the circle of the 4ikot, but not outside.
Phrases such as [knj3]otnaXiav [6] ilgeig Xyogev [t&k2t]v (Epicuro [33]
[= Epicuro2 34] 21.4-10) make it plain that Epicurus is addressing his thought to
a group with a language of its own-a philosophical dialect known to a few, but
not widely current. The very presence of anonymous polemic and sarcasms like
ti; t[6]v 6hxv (Epicuro [24] [= Epicuro2 26] 43.23) show that the issues around
which the On Nature revolves were well enough known to those for whom it was
meant. They are issues too which were not settled into any organized doctrine.
Often a topic is left in suspense with the promise of a fuller treatment later on in
the books that follow.4
Despite his stern demand for clarity and insistence on using words in their
most obvious meaning, Epicurus uses many words which could have had no
obvious meaning since they were freshly coined; as Wilamowitz said, he
"revels" in new formations.5 His reader encounters a surprisingly dense con-
centration of technical terms and highly abstract expressions. Suspended in an
involved syntax appear words which are either hapax legomena, new to Greek,
or new in the sense Epicurus gives them.6 Epicurus insisted on words being
interpreted in their immediate sense (t6 otp6~rov Evv6ilta, ad Hdt. 38.1); but for
the reader outside of Epicurus' circle, what could have been the first notion
called up by a term such as 6 *oF0tO_' ;g tp6itog (Epicuro [23] [= Epicuro2 24]
43.3-4), or a description like "the condition of the nature (of the soul, that is)
being unsuspended" (to6 gi aiopo4gEvov ti g c;0 o;, Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2
34] 17.5-6)? Oi tw6ig j; yKptua (Epicuro [27] [= Epicuro2 29] 22.9), it
seems, might have evoked the fundamental notion underlying it only for the
reader familiar with Aristotle's onvO-og oo0 ita.7
4. Epicuro [23] [= Epicuro2 24] 51.5-9; [24] [= Epicuro2 26] 45.6-13; [29]
[= Epicuro2 31] 22.1-10. [31] [= Epicuro2 34], the book on the problem of necessity,
appears to have been more self contained to judge from [its conclusion] 33.4-10.
5. "Er schwelgt in Neubildungen," Gnomon 5 (1929) 465.
6. Like Zeno, advena quidam et ignobilis opifex verborum (SVF I 33-35), Epicurus

was attacked for his many new words and styled a barbarian-apparently by Posidonius
(Us. 89.18-29); cf. Plutarch, Against Colotes 1116 E.
7. So the term is explained by Schmid in his Epikurs Kritik der platonischen Ele-
mentenlehre (Leipzig 1936) 18. Epicurus' meaning is quite different from Aristotle's and
Like his book On Nature, Epicurus' letters, or IpayatEiat as they were
known to Philodemus, were written within a closed context of familiarity. When
Epicurus writes that a letter is meant K[ai K]otvfi[t x]ai'c i8[i]at (Epicuro [52]
[= Epicuro2 59].3), he has in mind an audience first of the friend to whom he had
written and then the circle of his friends, but not the world at large. In one of his
letters preserved in Seneca, he writes to one of his fellow philosophers (consors
studiorum) that he has only one audience in mind: haec ego non multis, sed tibi,
satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus (Ep. 7.11).
The intimate nature of Epicurus' thought and friendships becomes clearer
from the personal details of his letters and even from the treatment of the
philosophical questions to which the single books of On Nature were devoted.
The problems to which Epicurus responds in his letters are in the main personal,
but involve in their humble level the larger and lasting concerns of his philo-
sophical thought. In a letter preserved on the wall of the stoa in Oenoanda which
Diogenes had inscribed with the gospel of Epicurus, we probably have Epicurus'
response to his mother's troubled dreams and fears for his distant son. Epicurus
appeals to his doctrine of eidola and tells his mother to cheer up: "these appari-
tions do not bode that we are suffering any evil."8
Book XXVIII of the On Nature seems to be the record of a discussion
between Epicurus and Metrodorus. Despite the somewhat incongruous appeals
to Metrodorus (J Mrijop6dcopE), it is plain from its fragments that Epicurus
composed this book in response to his fellow philosopher's embarrassment in
countering the clever arguments and spoiling questions of the Megarians. Here it
is the pressure of arguments like that known as 6 yxeKKa1Lvggsvo; rnoanp that
brings Epicurus to reassert his doctrines of thought and language and to provide
Metrodorus with a method of argument and criticism which should allow him to
go back and face the nettling questions of the Megarians:9 "We should then rely
seems to be an innovation created to describe what Lucretius calls the maxima membra
mundi.
8. Epicuro [65] 21-23 [= Epicuro2 72; Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 122 III.1 Chilton
[= fr. 125 III.1 Smith]. [Likewise, as I show in essay 11, Epicurus' surviving a shipwreck
at sea is the occasion for his reflecting on chance in a letter to friends in Lampsacus.]
9. Epicuro [29] 17.16; the argument about the "shrouded father" is identified by
Diogenes as an argument of the "sorites" type, developed by Euboulides of Megara, D.L.
II 108. The tradition of Epicurus' attempt to counter the praestigia of the dialecticians in

Cicero's Academica II 14.45-16.49 might go back to this book of his On Nature. Epi-
curus also wrote a separate tract against the Megarians (D.L. X 27) and Metrodorus went
on to write another against the dialecticians (D.L. X 24). [We now have Klaus Dboring's
collection of the testimony to the "Megarians," Die Megariker: Kommentierte Sammlung
der Testimonien (Amsterdam 1972), and David Sedley's recovery of Diodorus Cronus in
on these indications and perceive distinctions, and if we follow this procedure in
all our arguments we shall not have to look foolish in any particular question"
(Epicuro [29] [= Epicuro2 31] 20.26-21.2).
The book ends with an indication of the intimacy of the discussions out of
which it grew (ta got [rta] KQai Mr po&opr tC-[8' doloy]rjjva) and a
cavalier recognition of the diffuse, casual, and inclusive nature of Epicurus'
record of these discussions: [ix]avro[] oiv ilgiv i1oX ci yo irit rcobi nap6v-
tog (Epicuro [29] [= Epicuro2 31] 21.30-22.2).
According to its subscription (or title), Book XXVIII of the On Nature was
composed during the archonship of Nicias (296/95).10 Epicurus was then 45 and
had been established in Athens for just over a decade (since the summer of 306).
When he completed the last of the remaining books of the treatise On Nature
cannot be determined with as much certainty. The only other book whose date is
preserved by its subscription is XV which was written in the archonship of
Hegemachus (300/299).
If it is no longer possible to reconstruct in detail and year by year the
development of Epicurus' thought, the character of a crucial shift in his presenta-
tion of his thought can be determined with certainty. This development might
well have had antecedents, such as a scrap from a letter to Timocrates (Epicuro
[84] [= Epicuro2 92]), which makes its appearance in the Letter to Herodotus the
more dramatic for their now being lost. This important letter carries no date,
which is regrettable, since together with Lucretius' poem it affords us our most
complete and coherent evidence for Epicurus' physiology. There is only the
conjectural assumption suggested by its opening (35.1-3) that it was written
after Epicurus had completed his On Nature and some of his longer books and
before the Letter to Pythocles which looks back to it as i txph ntIopij (85.7).
Between 300/299 and 296/295 Epicurus completed 14 books (XV-XXVIII) of
the On Nature which leaves 9 books to complete the collection. If Epicurus' pace
of writing was even, and probably it was not, the year in which he finished his
treatise On Nature might be put near to the end of the 290s.11 But these dates are
clearly elastic and can expand or contract. All a history of Epicurus' intellectual
career can reasonably indicate is that at some point well on in this career, perhaps
"Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Philosophy," PCPS, N.S., 23 (1977) 74-120.]
10. The subscription reads: [ix t]6Av dpai[ov] I y[p]d6 ni Nudou tiov g[c]
'A[vt]dvrnv and poses the question of the meaning of the phrase i xtiv apativ. [I

return to the question in essay 3.]
11. In his RE article (note 3) 583, Steckel dates Pythocles' death to 290. This might
afford a fixed point in the chronology of Epicurus' writings, but I have not been able to
discover any evidence for this date.
some time in the second decade of the third century, perhaps before, Epicurus
came to the realization that his positive teaching was difficult to disengage from
the polemical context in which it had been formed and refined. Perhaps this
realization is commemorated in his saying that the "wise man will be dogmatic"
(D.L. X 121 b7).
Both the letters to Pythocles and Herodotus register Epicurus' awareness that
if his philosophy was to leave its lasting mark on all those who were eager to
master it as their means to a life of happiness, he would have to present this
teaching in a new and memorable form. The three letters preserved by Diogenes
Laertius, the condensation of thought which is set out in the epitomes,12 and the
Kptat A6at, all witness a stage of development initiated with Epicurus'
realization that a new form of writing was necessary to make his teaching
accessible and permanently useful to those who were willing to master it. His
polemical ardor begins to cool, but does not grow cold; one of his epitomes was
characteristically a condensation of his tracts against the physicists (D.L. X 27).
Cicero used the word dumeta to describe Epicurus' polemical style (N.D. I
24.68) and Epicurus himself, although he does not speak of thickets, admits that
his earlier exposition of his thought on atmospheric phenomena was neither
clear in its outline, nor concise, nor easy to remember. How then did he reduce
the complex and diffuse thought of his esoteric writings into a avopov cxa
treptypaoov StXoayt6gov? Epicurus must have asked himself this question.
Its answer is near at hand, although it has not been sought. He turns to a manner
of organization and presentation very much like that of the so-called totx*etc-
6et of the IV century. His Letter to Herodotus was the first, and for centuries it
remained the closest, philosophical analogue to the Elements of a contemporary
known as the totFxtawilg. In his concern to give his doctrine the stamp that
would make it memorable, he returns to some of the 1noOfixat of early Greek
moral thought. The refinement and organization of his physiology he called a
6totxtwmoq -a term first attested in Greek from his Letter to Herodotus. In its
aims and in its method of securing and systematizing what had been won in the
polemic of the earlier treatises, it answers very closely to the requirements for
the stoicheiosis of geometry as Proclus articulated them for the codification of
thought represented in Euclid's Elements.13 In 10 elementary propositions of his
12. None of these epitomes has survived except for the Letter to Herodotus. The
evidence for the so-called "Great Epitome" comes from the scholia embedded in the

Letter to Herodotus. These reveal that it set out the arguments for at least two of the
master propositions of the Letter to Herodotus: cf. 39.7; 40.8; 73.6.
13. In primum Euclidis Elementorum Commentarii (Friedlein) 73.25-74.9. The asso-
ciation between Epicurus' stoicheiosis and that of Euclid is made by De Witt, Epicurus
Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus presented his thought on nature in its essentials,
clearly, and comprehensively.
In his last will and testament, Epicurus made provisions that his garden be
given over to Hermarchus, his fellow philosophers and successors (D.L. X 17).
On his death bed he urged his friends to remember his doctrines (g vro68E t6
86 orat). Well before his death he had made the careful dispositions which
would make this possible. The letters and Kvptat A6a preserved in Diogenes
Laertius were written as another kind of final disposition, not that of his few real
possessions and obligations, but that of his 86ygara. The Letter to Pythocles
reflects Epicurus' awareness of the difficulties of his earlier writings. One of
Pythocles' main difficulties was that Epicurus' writings on atmospheric phe-
nomena were hard to remember and reconstruct. His word seems to have been
8otrlv6veita. Its opposite is 6pvrg6vowra which Aristotle had defined in
his treatise On Memory as 06a t6dtv 'tv6 bet, diGnrp ti gaOrgatit~a. Careless
writing, by contrast, is hard to memorize: 't 6o a ka aeircig (De Mem.
452a). To make his meteorology accessible to Pythocles, Epicurus attempted to
present his thought in an orderly manner. Before, to judge from On Nature XI, it
had been polemical, diffuse, and discursive.
Of the three letters that to Herodotus is the most explicit on Epicurus' motives
for drawing up his philosophical testament. From the opening paragraph it
emerges that Epicurus conceived of this stoicheiosis or elementary presentation
of his physical doctrines as useful to two, or strictly three,14 groups of readers,
and His Philosophy (Minneapolis 1954) 45, but Proclus' description of the stoicheiosis
culminating in Euclid makes any claim of a direct influence of Euclid on Epicurus
problematic.
14. Bailey followed Giussani in interpreting the epitome referred to in ad Hdt. 35.3 as
the "Great Epitome," Epicurus: The Extant Remains (Oxford 1926) 174. Strictly the first
paragraph of the Letter to Herodotus speaks of three kinds of reader: those who cannot
study in detail the longer works (35.1); those who have made sufficient progress in the
study on nature (35.7); and those who have mastered it (36.5); at the end of the letter these
two last groups collapse into one (83.8). If Epicurus had two separate epitomes in mind,
his Greek should indicate as much. As his letter now stands the two groups for which
separate epitomes were meant are not clearly distinguished. Kai . . . 8 (35.7) makes it
clear that Epicurus wrote the Letter to Herodotus with two main groups of reader in mind.
Giussani's supplement of -a Kai Kai, Studi Lucreziani (Turin 1896) 7, note 7 suggests the

awkwardness of his interpretation and has no MS authority. Looking to the end of the
letter, its double scope is unmistakable from 32.10-83.13; cf. 37.1. Since Epicurus had a
considerable range of readers in mind, the Letter to Herodotus is neither esoteric nor
exoteric, and its difficulties, like those of the Letter to Pythocles, are indicative of the
compression necessary to a stoicheiosis; Epicurus' word for this is n wcvo4ua, ad Hdt.
36.9.
and that it was designed to make his physiology and the calm which it had as its
end accessible to a following larger than the fellow philosophers. To read the
letter to refer to two separate and distinct epitomes is to lose sight of its conclu-
sion and worse, of the character and purpose of the most critical phase in the
development and survival of Epicureanism. I give the beginning of the letter in
English since the English translations I have turned to for help fail to convey the
precise sense of Epicurus' Greek. This Greek is difficult and symptomatic of its
difficulty are a dismaying array of textual difficulties. The passages which stand
out in italics represent a decision on how the Greek of the letter might have read.
A new and severe edition of this letter-properly entitled La lettre d'Epicure-
shows how much easier it has been to reject a MS. tradition than to refuse a
tradition of scholarship that emends it.15
Herodotus, for those who are unable to study in its detail each of my
separate treatments of physical matters or to examine with care my more
extensive writings, I have prepared an epitome of my philosophy as a whole
with an eye to presenting my most general views at least so that they can be
properly grasped and remembered. My aim has been to enable my readers to
come to their own aid in the most critical matters and on any occasion in so
far as they have made progress in the understanding of nature. Those too who
have made sufficient progress in the theoretical view of the general truths of
nature should memorize the outline of my entire philosophy as I have reduced
it to elementary form. For often we stand in need of general concepts, less so
of concepts bearing on particular problems. We need to return to these general
concepts constantly, but need to memorize only as much as will enable us
to form a master conception which can be applied to cases and clear up
those problems calling for their particular explanation. This is possible only
once the most general scheme of my philosophy has been mastered and
memorized.
And even for the student who has mastered the study of nature the ability to
summon up rapidly his concepts is of critical importance, and this is impos-
sible unless what he knows has been reduced to elementary propositions
(ototxtdaipa) and simple formulas.16 For there can be no adequate con-
15. Jean and Mayotte Bollack and Heinz Wismann, La lettre d'Epicure (Paris 1971),
especially 11-37. [I review this edition of the letter in AGPh 56 (1974) 188-193.]
16. Even for the student ... The text given in La lettre d'Epicure preserves the

reading of the Parisinus: to erutctouopyg~tvov, which is taken with axpt3~iwcrog
and translated "precision accomplie." Kcai (36.5) remains untranslated. Von der Muehll's
emendation i tutu ctoupyqrjgvp gives the sense translated above and reiterated in
densation of the complete round (iepto&tia) of my general teaching if it fails
to encompass in concise formulations the possible explanations of matters of
detail as well.
Given then the usefulness of such a method for all those who have gained
some experience in the study of nature, I have drawn up for you an ele-
mentary presentation (totx*iox0otv) of my general doctrines in the form of an
epitome. Since my life has gained its calm in the constant study of nature, I
pass on this watchword to you.'7
II
This letter has survived precisely because it served the purpose for which it was
written. Diogenes Laertes reproduces it, along with the letters to Pythocles and
Menoeceus, as Epicurus' condensation of his entire philosophy (*v al; i aav
tiv Eatvrovo toio~iav Erttia rggrat, X 29). As for Epicurus' physiology,
Diogenes reports that it was to be found in the 37 books of his On Nature and in
his letters cKar oto~niov-"laid out element by element" (X 30). In the Letter
to Herodotus there are nine elementary propositions which Epicurus lays down
as the foundation for an understanding of nature (45.1-2). Significantly all are
translated into the first two books of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, and Lu-
cretius' translation of Epicurus' axiom of change makes it virtually certain that
this proposition is also a stoicheioma (54.3-6 = II 748-752). If this is one of
Epicurus' stoicheiomata it counts as the tenth of twelve which he seems to have
set out in a book with the title Ai AQe Kx aro tetEt o (44.9 E). It is placed
among them by the scholiast to the Letter to Herodotus.18 These 10 stoi-
cheiomata of the Letter to Herodotus, together with the first two remedies of
Epicurus' e pca0apgaKog (KA I and II), are the only originals in Epicurus'
Greek (as much of it as survives) which have been translated into the Latin of the
De Rerum Natura. Given the terms of Epicurus' last will and testament, it is
proper to see Lucretius, and not Hermarchus, as his principal beneficiary.
83.7-10.
This is impossible unless. . . supplying with Diano (tovito 6vartov gi rdvtov) at
36.7, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 12 (1943) 11.
17. I have drawn up for you.., reading with Usener notrlod aGot at 37.5. The last
sentence is extremely dubious.
18. This same Scholion connects the Epicurean axiom of change with the nine other
stoicheiomata set out early in the Letter to Herodotus, 44.6-10. The syllogistic form of

this axiom is also distinctive and characteristic of Epicurus' manner of presenting the
stoicheiomata.
The ten stoicheiomata are:
Letter to Herodotus
1. Nothing comes into being out of nothing.
38.8-39.1
2. Nothing is reduced to nothing.
39.1-2
3. The universe always was as it is and always
will be.
39.2-5
4. The universe is made up of bodies and void.
39.6-40.2
5. Bodies are atoms and their compounds.
40.7-9
6. The universe is infinite.
41.6-10
7. Atoms are infinite in number and space ex-
tends without limit.
41.11-42.4
8. Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number,
but the variety of their shapes is indefinite,
not infinite.
42.10-43.4
9. Atomic motion is constant and of two kinds.
43.5-44.1
10. Atoms share only three of the characteristics
of sensible things: shape, weight, mass.
54.3-6
De Rerum Natura
I 145-150, 159-160
I 215-218, 237
II 294-307; V 359-363
I 418-428
I 483-486
I 958-964, 1001
I 1008-1020

II 522-527
II 95-102 (I 952)
II 748-752
Z2ot)eiov (elementum) is the basis of the term which Epicurus used to
describe the manner in which he presented his physiology to Herodotus. Etot-
oxwt and its product, crtott6gtacra, are terms which were new to Greek (in so
far as we know) and first attested in the Letter to Herodotus.19 But the process of
reduction, refinement, and simplification which the term stoicheiosis describes
appears to have been a major trend in the scientific thought of the IV century as it
was known to Proclus in the V century A.D. Proclus himself was the author of
19. Ad Hdt. 37.4 For other stoicheioses see E. R. Dodds, Proclus: The Elements of
Theology (Oxford 1963) xi and 186 and von Arnim on Hierocles' LotxeIto tc 'EtO1LK,
BKT IV (1906) xiii.
two stoicheioseis-the so-called Elements of Theology and the less known
JXotxeic0atg 0v cNn20-apparently the only Greek successor to Epicurus' at-
tempt to reduce his physiology to a number of elementary theoretical proposi-
tions (stoicheiomata) which interlock in a systematic account of the nature of
things. Proclus' introduction to the most influential stoicheiosis of the ancient
world brings the special terms of Epicurus' letter into their proper focus and sets
the most important phase in the development and transmission of his thought
into the context which makes it most readily intelligible.
To begin with the most elementary-the term stoicheion itself. Aristotle had
made it clear from his analysis of the term (Met. A 1014b) that its primitive
meaning of the irreducible (or atomic) units out of which compounds are formed
and back into which compounds are reduced was capable of extension to the
fundamental demonstrations of logic (ai tp6trat atno6eiEtg). By extension then
whatever is unitary and small and capable of many applications comes to be
called an "element."
Although he seems to have avoided the primitive meaning of the word for the
most elementary facts of the physical world (except in his account of his physiol-
ogy to the young Pythocles), Epicurus did use the term in its wider sense and
much as it was defined by Aristotle. In his Letter to Herodotus Epicurus de-
scribes his definition of velocity as a stoicheion. His language makes it plain that
he regarded the nine propositions set out earlier in the letter as stoicheia: 3ppa-
8ovg . .. Kai tQisovg tav~Krt1 rKl 0 1K aVtKton1 ogoi Oi X)ia tave xpt-
tov1 KT Kaiovio itataxeiv oyotiov (46.9-10; 47.7). Kai i toito looks
back to the stoicheiomata and their usefulness.21
'rot Eiioac is a distinctive term in Epicurus and one which survived in the
language of his school.22 It is formed from stoicheion and presupposes it. Like
Epicurus' many and wonderful abstracts in -ma, it described the result or out-
come of a process (aTot i&oatcg/Ka'rcotOXEtoi0at) of reducing a complex
mass of doctrine to the elementary simplicity and integrity of its constituent and
basic conceptions. A stoicheioma is not a stoicheion. It is something which has
been fashioned into a stoicheion and this process of reduction is a stoicheiosis
(ad Hdt. 37.5).
The results of his stoicheiosis are described variously by Epicurus: they are
20. Ed. Helmut Boese, Die mittelalterliche Ubersetzung der Ioto~xEiat OvcIKT1i
des Proclus (Berlin 1958).

21. Cf. Lucretius I 330-331; adHdt. 37.1; adPyth. 85.2; and Philodemus, Rhetoric II
288.9-17 [Sudhaus].
22. Philodemus, Rhetoric I 140.40; I 141.15-18; I 104.29-34 [Sudhaus] where ge-
Oo~ot and ot
1ctcuat Ka0Oo tKai appear together.
aia Otogxnetogat a brought together and refined in simple formulations.23 Or,
as Epicurus stands back to contemplate his stoicheiosis at a distance, he sees the
outline or map of his entire philosophy as he has reduced it to its simple
elements: ov -cutov ti;g oX1g srpayga c*ia tov K atF Ot ftgtLVOV (35.8).24
He also speaks of a condensation (ncvxvoga) comprising the unbroken round of
his fundamental doctrines (36.9). The term here translated, with some hesitation,
as "round" is tepto8Ficta. It has been taken to describe the flight of the mind to a
point where it can gain a vantage over all of nature,25 but it is much more likely
that Epicurus used the word as it is used by Aeneas Tacticus for the round or
patrol of the strong points of a fortified city. Although he reminded his followers
that because of death they inhabited an unwalled city (SV 31), Epicurus took
great pains to surround his garden with walls to protect these followers from the
doubts and turmoils of life. This is the security Epicurus meant to provide by his
23. Simplicius' statement of a like matter is much the same: 6iflXov 6ti toi ar&a stpog
moticwatyv ittVijnSetac, In Aristotelis Categorias (Kalbfleisch, Berlin 1907) 13.28. The
verb avvdy0 might convey Epicurus' care in refining the language of his stoicheiomata to
its sharpest edge; cf. Diogenes of Arcesilaus, IV 33, and Proclus of Euclid (Friedlein)
74.2.
24. The terms tintog and 60aoxpig help Epicurus' reader to a proper understanding
of the hypothesis of the letter; so does the adjective eirpiypaog, ad Pyth. 84.5.
Epicurus is set on making clear his main concepts on nature in their distinctive outlines
and avoiding a thicket of particulars. In their sense of outline, matrix, or general impres-
sion, both thirog and 6oaxcp;;g are opposed to axpi3eta; cf. Aristotle, NE 1104al-10
and more remotely, Plato, Republic 414 A; and Strabo II 1.41; II 1.30. 'Evatoupayi o, a
term Epicurus shared with the Stoics, explains tvntog and the physical basis of Epicurus'
stoicheiosis; cf. ad Hdt. 49.2; Lucretius IV 297; and Diano (note 16) 12 and GCFI 22
(1941) 9-11 for a more elaborate discussion. [I offer additional comments on the meta-
phor of the seal impression in essay 9.]
25. De Witt (note 13) 110 understands Epicurus to describe by JtEpto& ia what Plato
described by tepioo;g in Phaedrus 247 D, and seems to have some support in sources as
diverse as Lucretius and the bishop Dionysius of Alexandria; cf. R. M. Jones in CP 21
(1926) 111-113. But against this interpretation of periodeia as a tour of the universe is the
language of Epicurus himself; cf. ad Hdt. 83.10; and ad Pyth. 85.6. Periodeia is most
naturally explained as a round of activity, especially that of a patrol making the rounds of
a fortified city; cf. Aeneas Tacticus (Schdne) I iii, xxii, xxvi; and Strabo, IX 3.1; Phi-

lodemus, Rhetoric I 248; II 53 [Sudhaus]; Methods of Inference (Phillip and Estelle De
Lacy) XXXV 6 with note. The stoicheiomata are then the stations in the round of
Epicurus' physical doctrines. [I attempt to reinforce this interpretation of the term in
Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca and London 1983) 186-191. On this point I have not
persuaded Charles Segal; see his Lucretius on Death and Anxiety: Poetry and Philosophy
in De Rerum Natura (Princeton 1990) 114.]
last will and testament. It is something best described by one of its principal
beneficiaries:
nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae.
([Lucretius] II 7-10)
Each of the terms of Epicurus' philosophical testament requires careful inter-
pretation, but taken massively the first paragraphs of the Letter to Herodotus
show that Epicurus, in ordering, condensing and refining his earlier thought,
fashioned a stoicheiosis whose aim is elegantly, if not completely, expressed by
the requirements Proclus found perfectly fulfilled in Euclid's Elements. A pas-
sage from Proclus' introduction to the first book of Euclid does not set out all
that Epicurus required of his own stoicheiosis, but it deserves study for bringing
Epicurus closer to his contemporaries, especially the geometers of the IV cen-
tury who were at work securing and refining the work of their predecessors.
Such an alignment might well seem odd, if not bizarre. A Stoic claimed that the
Epicureans never stirred up the "learned dust" (eruditus pulver) of geometry,26
which goes too far. Such an alignment will not make Epicurus seem a physiolo-
gist among geometers. But in his concern for the methodic ordering and presen-
tation of his thought, it does make him a geometer among physiologists.
Proclus' requirements are four. In some points his language is that of Epi-
curus:27
Such a treatise ought to be free of everything superfluous, for that is a
hindrance to learning; the selections chosen must all be coherent and con-
ducive to the end proposed, in order to be of the greatest usefulness for
knowledge; it must devote great attention both to clarity and to conciseness,
for what lacks these qualities confuses our understanding; it ought to aim at
the comprehension of its theorems in a general form, for dividing one's
26. Balbus in N.D. II 18.48.
27. The translation of Proclus 73.25-74.9 [Friedlein] is that of Glenn Morrow, Pro-
clus' Commentary on the First Book of Euclids Elements (Princeton 1970) 60-61.
Heath's translation oft& Iauvvdyovra in 74.2 as "everything that embraces a science and
brings it to a point" would bring Euclid's language closer to that of Epicurus, The Thirteen

Books of Euclid's Elements (New York 1956) I 115; see note 23 above.
subject too minutely and teaching it by bits make knowledge difficult to
attain.
These terms reflect those of the letters to Herodotus and Pythocles and are
revealing for the new form Epicurus gave his doctrines to enable them to reach
beyond the kepos, the fellow philosophers, and the life of Epicurus himself.
They reflect not only Epicurus' intentions for his stoicheiosis, most of them, but
his judgement of the fundamental shortcomings of the earlier and esoteric works
in which he had developed his thought. The new form in which he preserved his
philosophy survives in three letters (especially the stoicheiomata of the Letter to
Herodotus) and the Kptatm A6at.
According to Diogenes, it was the custom of the Epicureans to range their
logic (KavovtK6v) with their physics. Their logic they described as xpt
Kpuitrpio) Kai apf Sg and simply atotxet crt ov (X 30). In antiquity Epicurus
was not renowned as a logician. Because of this perhaps it is now fashionable to
repeat the venerable opinion that he had a "profound distrust for logic and
abstract rules of thought."28 It must seem strange then that his logic or "Kanon"
was the portal to his physics and his philosophy as a whole (t 6 KVOVtKOV
6i80; eit Tv cpaygamtciav -xFet, D.L. X 30) and that the master propositions
of his physics should reflect a concern for a clear demonstration of their validity.
The fundamental truths set out in these propositions are something to which
there is no direct access or witness in our senses. One of the deepest paradoxes of
Epicurus' philosophy is that its most fundamental concepts all refer to rca
&la-matters which lie beyond what our senses can report to us; but matters
which are of such enormous importance that they alone can properly explain the
sensuous world. The Letter to Pythocles seems to refer to these propositions as
6o0a oval i (et u rW4viav toiq atvog;votq (86.5).
Thus the Epicurean manner of speaking of the Kanon as cotXetttK6v (that
part of philosophy which arrives at elementary principles) and cepi KptTlpioD
Kai apfg finds its explanation and justification in Epicurus' concern for urging
his reasoning concerning the fundamental truths of nature in conformity with his
tests for truth. Diogenes Laertius reports three such criteria for Epicurus: our
senses, conceptions or "anticipations" (7tpoiiystg), feelings, and adds some-
what oddly that the Epicureans added to these a fourth criterion, what they call
at 0avtc a extioat ij; &tavoiac.29
28. The language is that of Cyril Bailey, The GreekAtomists and Epicurus (New York

1964) 235, whose characterization is at bottom that of Cicero (Us. 243).
29. Oddly since Epicurus himself speaks of these as in some sense a criterion; ad Hdt.
In the Letter to Herodotus Epicurus provides an approach to his stoicheiomata
in laying down as their "foundation" two fundamental rules of his Kanon.30 The
first asks that words be understood in their immediate and clear significance:
AvdyKyar y op t6 tp&ov vv6r!a aO' 6atov <06yyov OKE
iaa tK i gllOV
aco6&Ei4eog 7po6Ei90oat.31 This first requirement for philosophical thought
provides a point of reference or a court of appeal for all matters of opinion,
inquiry, or difficulty. The terms which Epicurus uses for this appeal, dvdy, and
&vay Oyl, are familiar from philosophical Greek and have a logical application in
Aristotle. But they also possess a legal sense which, given the fundamental
metaphors informing Epicurus' language for logical matters, might well be
present in his choice of words.32 The claims and perplexities of philosophical
thought are ultimately reducible to the immediate and almost atomic clarity of a
word's first significance. This is the appeal which justifies three of Epicurus'
stoicheiomata.
The second rule laid down in the Letter to Herodotus also seems to be
applicable to matters of opinion, inquiry or difficulty, but its scope is more
narrowly limited to two kinds of things-what Epicurus calls t6 icpoogpvov and
I6 dSrqlov-objects which are remote but which can become clear on a nearer
view, and those objects about which the senses can give no accurate report
(38.3-8). These general considerations introduce Epicurus' master propositions,
all of which concern ts 6i6r a. The criteria to which Epicurus appeals for a
decision on the truth of these fundamental propositions are (1) the immediate
notion evoked by a word or "subject"33 to it, and (2) the evidence of our senses
and the other criteria of truth.
One of the most apparent difficulties of the truths of the catechism of the
Letter to Herodotus is that they are accessible to the mind, not as it makes
inferences from appearances, but by virtue of that something (the ti of D.L. X
32.10) which is contributed by reasoning. The archai, atoms and void, are
50.4; 51.2; KA XXIV. The difficult passage from the Letter to Herodotus is well translated
by David Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists (Princeton 1967) 206-207.
30. Diogenes speaks of Epicurus' Kanon as supplying the Oo~ot to his physics (X
30)-a term usually translated by "approach." But the term might come from the lan-
guage of architecture, like kanon itself; cf. IG II2 244.98 and the iEo6ov tif;g Kpicag in
Polystrati liber incertus fr. 3, viii (p. 84) which Vogliano (Epicuri et Epicureorum Scripta
[Berlin 1928] ad loc.) thinks is a quote from Epicurus. The same architectural metaphor

re-emerges both in Sextus (182.18 Us.) and Lucretius IV 513-521.
31. Ad Hdt. 38.1; cf. 73.1-5 and Colotes' In Lysin, Cronert Kolotes und Menedemos
165: adLka ! tv f yr a viv i.t gv 62Ia iM v tripriv "toi ;4 0Oyyo; cc& t 6 vapydg.
32. LSJ s.v. avaywy II 6.
33. Cicero renders this by vis subiecta vocibus, De Fin. II 2.6.
unknowable from the senses and radically unlike anything accessible to us from
the sensuous world. The senses reveal a world of colors, smells, sounds; a world
which is defined by horizons, limits, extremes; and a world in which some things
appear at rest. But the elements of Epicurus' teaching reveal nihil desertum
praeter spatium et primordia caeca.
What is striking about the stoicheiomata is the form of demonstration Epi-
curus gave them. All but two are presented with some kind of demonstration,
and nine are isolated from the rest of the letter by Epicurus' statement that taken
together they provide an adequate foundation for the understanding of the natu-
ral world (45.1-2). In the rest of the letter Epicurus is content to legislate his
physiology and his doctrines are introduced by phrases such as 6ei 861 Kai
vogjEtv.34 The connection between Epicurus' Kanon and the stoicheiomata
must then be an intimate one. The language which describes the rules of the
Kanon suggests that Epicurus thought of himself as laying down the foundations
for all thought concerning the nature of things and establishing for physiology a
court of ultimate appeal. The two rules from the Kanon which precede the
stoicheiomata both make them possible and reveal their form.
The first rule concerns the evidence of language; the second the clear testi-
mony of our senses, feelings, and conceptions. Although Epicurus believed that
all discourse and argument are riveted to the senses, sensation itself is a witness
for only a few of his fundamental doctrines. The senses testify to the truth of one
of the twin propositions of stoicheioma 4-that which resolves the universe into
bodies and void: 6 a ta gev yp pg Earty abl r
atiiot irA tdvrcov
iaprtvpe. The senses also constitute the ultimate test for any reasoning concern-
ing ta adela (39.9-10). The phrase (cit*p posinov 'C6 op6o6Ev at 39.9 is a
clear reference back to the second rule of the Kanon (38.2-7) and makes the
connection between his logic and physiology apparent.
The question of the existence of the void is taken up in this same stoicheioma,
but it is one that aisthesis cannot settle directly. But sensation can, by its testi-
mony to motion, decide the case against those who deny the existence of void. In
all the senses are direct witnesses to the following propositions: bodies exist [4];
bodies are in motion [9]; seeds are necessary for generation [1]. Sensation is also
the ultimate appeal for the constructions of reasoning, which they can either
"corroborate" (entgaptivpo(yt) or testify against (dvt iap rupovat) or be neu-
tral to (oK &avt taptopoct).

This is the genius of the most common form of argument adopted in the
34. In contrast to... ;g ap't aeSe trIO of 45.2 comes the series ofi 8 S& Ka vogi-
triv 49.1, Kat gTv
ti v 6yil"v vowtrov 53.8 and the like.
stoicheiomata. Epicurus cannot show the doubter an atom or a patch of void. But
a problem can be formulated in terms of a decision between two rival claims to
truth. The false claim can be appealed to the test of experience by a simple
manoeuvre. Epicurus converts the conclusion of the true claim (the apodosis he
presents in his stoicheiomata) to the protasis of its rival by contraposition. Four
of his stoicheiomata are demonstrated by this kind of argument (1, 2, 3, 7). The
hidden advantage of the contrapositive argument is that Epicurus' own teaching
is never put directly to the test of his own criteria. By appealing the claims of
rival doctrines to the test of his Kanon he wins his point. His own claims are
simple declarative sentences; those of his rivals are presented as if clauses unreal
for present time.
All of Epicurus' master propositions have a prehistory in Greek thought, but
in the Letter to Herodotus they are given a new and distinctive form of demon-
stration which can be displayed as follows:
P (euv6v ottv);
for (yap) if not P, then not Q (Kivrltg).
But Q;
therefore P.
It is possible to translate this figure into the second undemonstrated argument
type of Stoic logic.35 But such a translation, although it was made later by
Philodemus and Sextus, is misleading. To account for the demonstration of
stoicheioma 4 as "if not P then not Q. Q; therefore P" is to disguise the distinc-
tive form Epicurus gave his demonstrations and to sever at a blow their connec-
tion with his Kanon. In his physiology Epicurus does not begin with propositions
but with statements. And even in the stoicheiomata which represent Epicurus'
most dogmatic statement of his physiology he remains polemical. It is the
pressure of rival interpretations of reality which helps explain the form of the
contrapositive proof. One can either accept the truth of Epicurus' conclusions or
the absurdities of their rivals.36 Or more accurately, one can accept Epicurus'
35. Cf. Sextus adv. Math. VIII 329 (Us. 272). In his note to this passage Usener warns
against interpreting the form of this argument as that of Epicurus himself. Cf. Philodemus,
Methods VIII 26; XI 33; XII 14; XIV 11-25; and XXX 35-XXXI 36 [De Lacy] where
Philodemus distinguishes between Stoic avaoic l and Epicurean analogy.
36. In his analysis of Colotes' criticism of Democritus, Phillip De Lacy states the
matter well by citing Cotta's characterization of Epicurean argument (N.D. I 25.69),

"Colotes' First Criticism of Democritus," in Isonomia: Studien zur Gleichheits-
vorstellung im griechischen Denken (Berlin 1964) 70.
conclusions because of the absurdities of their rivals. The test of the truth of the
conclusions following from these rival hypotheses presented as conditions con-
trary to fact in present time hangs on the simple appeal to the rules for truth laid
down in the Kanon. In four critical cases the senses refute the conclusions
rivalling the stoicheiomata. Things do not spring up at random-men from the
sea and fish from the skies (stoicheioma 1); the world has not been dispersed into
the void (7); nor annihilated by the restless wasting of matter (2). This is the
genius of Epicurus' manner of presenting his positive doctrine and its connec-
tion with his Kanon. He has managed to vindicate his doctrine by putting on trial
those of his rivals. It is thus possible to speak of the stoicheiomata as 06a
govax VFgxet ouggooviav toig #0tvogevot.
Earlier in his career, Epicurus had criticized Plato for failing to show that his
elementary bodies were atomic: "why, if he supposed these solids to be atomic,
did he fail to give a demonstration that atomic bodies exist?"37 He goes on to ask
"but if these bodies are not atomic, why should anyone think that the remaining
things are formed from them; these he (Plato) constructs out of any other kind of
thing" (Epicuro [27] [= Epicuro2 29] 26.7-10). These unanswered questions
constitute the "archeology" of the stoicheiosis of Epicurus' Letter to Herodotus.
The stoicheiomata have their origin in the demands Epicurus made of earlier
physiology. If the survival of the world as we know it was to be guaranteed,
elementary matter had to be solid, indissoluble, and unchangeable. Earlier theo-
ries of the stoicheia were inconceivable simply because they had arrived at
elements which were plainly not solid and thus divisible and subject to change.
None of the four elements which had been considered stoicheia could answer to
Epicurus' requirements: "how could one suppose water or air or fire (indivis-
ible), since he cannot even suppose that earth is solid and indissoluble"?38 What
has been called the "catechism" of the Letter to Herodotus was formulated to
give the only true answers to the unanswered questions of the On Nature.
The solutions to three of the problems of the On Nature seem to be syllogistic
as they appear in the Letter to Herodotus, and are familiar from earlier Greek
thought. Ultimately, their form is explained by the first of the rules set down in
the beginning of the letter. Although they seem syllogistic in their form, Epi-
curus would have considered them as immediately evident and the form of his
37. Epicuro [27] [= Epicuro2 29] 26.3-6, apparently in spite of Timaeus 54D-56C:
but as Schmid points out, Plato's &ES ~epead are not "atoms" but solids, Epikurs Kritik

22.
38. Epicuro [27] [= Epicuro2 29] 23.1-4; cf. ad Hdt. 54.5; 56.7; Epicuro [33] [
Epicuro2 36] 24.1-6; DO fr. 5 col. III 9-11; and Lucretius I 665-679; 787-797; 915-
920; II 753-756; 826-833; III 513-520.
demonstration as no more than a way of revealing their evidence: avdyKrl y&ap 6
npltoov Avv6ri a K0a' EKrxtov 06yyov i0e6at Kai gqu9Ov ano8i em;
npoo8Ei80at. It is by means of this principle that Epicurus can show that the
universe or All is infinite (stoicheioma 6); that the All was as it is now and
always will be (3); and that atoms have none of the qualities of visible things
save shape, weight, and mass (10).
Is the All infinite? Stoicheioma 6 answers this question by an appeal to the
almost atomic clarity of the word av and the first rule of the Kanon. The same
kind of appeal clears up the perplexities of the terms d'cog and 6intpov. Once
we reduce our difficulties to the clarity of our conceptions of niav and Wwetpov
(nav'tiv v6gcart t6 np&cr Onotgtaygvov vapy g Ert, D.L. X 33.5), we are
brought to realize that if anything lay outside of t6 nav, or if t6 ov excluded
anything, we could no longer speak of it as to6 tav. This same appeal to the
immediate clarity of language works for the question of the atoms. Can they
change? According to the axiom of change (stoicheioma 10; cf. 4), they cannot.
Atoms are atoms; that is, they are solid, indissoluble, and incapable of change.
They cannot therefore share those qualities of the visible and sensuous world
which are variable.39
From the language of Epicurus' formulation of the rules of his Kanon it
begins to appear that language, as he conceived it, has irreducible kernels or
"atoms" of meaning which resist analysis eig St6 atpov. An infinite analysis of
matter leads to nothing (r6 t l 6v); of language to KEvo' 406yyot (ad Hdt. 37.9).
In Epicurus' moral thought isvoSogia (KA XXX) is the counterpart of Kevo'
906yyot; as desires can be distinguished according to their objects into those
which can be easily satisfied and those which have no real object and can be
satisfied only with difficulty (ad Men. 130.9), philosophy itself has only two
objects: things and mere sounds (D.L. X 34.10). It is this clarity of language
which Epicurus thought of as the foundation and step course of his philosophy.
Epicurus' Kanon provided the regula prima for most of the propositions of his
stoicheiosis. In the case of two of the stoicheiomata, 5 and 9, it is not clear that
Epicurus has appealed to any principle or rule other than that of his own author-
ity. Stoicheioma 5 breaks the word bodies down into its two possible meanings:
compounds and the atoms which make them up, but clearly the definition of
body does not exist only on the level of language. Stoicheioma 9 concerns
motion and is again a simple distinction between two kinds of motion introduced

39. Cf. Philodemus, Methods XVIII 4-16 [De Lacy] and the telling distinction be-
tween 6pot as Epicurus used them in his physical writings and the ntoypa ai or illustra-
tions he used elsewhere (92 Us.).
by the assertion that bodies are constantly in motion. Why this must be Epicurus
does not say. His theory of effluences requires and explains this proposition, but
as it figures in the letter to Herodotus it is laid down as a matter of dogma. In
view of its later notoriety it is odd that there is no mention of a third species of
motion-the 1eivrtyv apevxktt XKfiv fl[v] 'Enixovpog Fg _0[-] fyayE~v-as
Diogenes calls it (DO fr. 32 [Chilton] col. III 1-10 [= fr. 54 III.6 Smith]). There
is no mention of this "free motion" in what survives of Epicurus, except perhaps
for an allusion to it in his On Nature.40
III
It now seems impossible to determine when Epicurus published the collection of
his sayings and opinions known as the K6ptat A6at-a work which far outdis-
tanced either On Nature or the Letter to Herodotus in its influence and fame. It is
tempting to assign this book to the period of the letters to Herodotus and
Pythocles-but only for reasons of a coherence of motives. Like the Letter to
Menoeceus the Kvptat A6at cannot be anchored in the chronology of Epi-
curus' writings, but it is clear that some part of the prehistory of both works lies
in On Nature. It seems too that the Letter to Menoeceus was the source for some
at least of the Kvptat A6at. Thus a date for the publication of the Kvptat
A6at is a fact in the history of the development and presentation of Epicurus'
thought which is beyond recovery, if not conjecture. But why he brought to-
gether and published at least the nucleus of the doxai now included in the
K6ptat A6at (and Gnomologium Vaticanum) is suggested by the title he gave
the collection of his doxai: they are xiptat.
More than two centuries after Epicurus' death they were still known as
Epicurus' K6ptat A6ct and variously described. Cicero called them sententiae
selectae; brevis; gravissimae. Gravissimae comes closest to the Greek descrip-
tion of these doctrines as Kvptc(tatia (p. 68 Us.). More admiringly Cicero calls
them quasi oracula sapientiae. But this is no more than a faint and deformed
echo of what Epicurus had said himself (SV 29). Clearly its title attracted the
attention of the Greeks who knew the book, for it is noticed in most ancient
references to it.41
But Cicero's versions of this title seem inadequate to Epicurus' intentions and
inadequate to Epicurus' Greek. Usener adopted Cicero's translation of the title
40. Arrighetti (p. 575 = Epicuro2 pp. 631-632) argues that this is the implication of
Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2 34] 22.13-16.

41. Collected by Usener, pp. 68-70 and 342.
as sententiae selectae to head his edition of the doxai, because that is what he
thought they were. Yet the manner in which better Epicureans than Cicero
referred to these doxai speaks against this version of the title and the view of the
origin of the collection which it suggests. A papyrus from Herculaneum de-
scribes the first four of the Kvptat A6at (which another Epicurean papyrus
describes as the t*cpacpga.acog) as Kvpt itca ra and justifies their place at the
head of the collection. Wealth, refinement, beauty, and like advantages are
things external to us and weigh little in the balance against the most important
matters: "for this reason those doxai which are most important (d Kaopttiata)
are those which are placed at the head of the Kptat A6at." And, the papyrus
seems to continue, "they might also be called the last (or most perfect) prin-
ciples."42 They were in fact so called. As he introduces them as the "colophon"
of his life of Epicurus and of his entire work, Diogenes says that he has used
them to conclude his book because they are the beginning of the life of happiness
(et XprpodgJ6vot tf vtfg E iagoviaq dpp~i, X 138).
The title Sententiae Selectae fails to suggest this sense of the adjective and is
no more than a notice of Usener's view that the main collection of Epicurus'
doxai grew up only after his death around a small nucleus of sayings to which
Epicurus himself attached great importance (praef xlv). But the so-called
~repa pgap p og does not stand as the frontispiece to the Kvptat A6at for
comprising the most exquisite of all Epicurus' sayings. It is there for comprising
t & KvptcatitQ.
How should this title be translated if not by the current English versions of
Selected or Especially Approved or Authorized Sayings? Master Sayings (the
French Pensees maitresses) seems to answer best to Epicurus' intentions. In
Epicurus' surviving writings Kvpthiatia is coupled with 6o2a (ad Hdt. 82.2) and
giytoract (KA XVI), yet just how those things which are general and greatest
explain the sense of xvpt)ta a is not immediately clear. The root of the notion
is visible in the substantive Kpto, "master," and later, in the New Testament,
"lord."43 In Epicurus' last will and testament he makes his close associate
Hermarchus master over the revenues of the garden (Kptov t6v ltpoao6(ov,
D.L. 20.1), and in one of the Vatican sayings he reminds the world that no man is
master of his tomorrows (SV 14). From a root sense of mastery or control the
42. Pap. Herc. 1251 (Schmid) col. xv; p. 68 Us.
43. Aristotle's use of the adjective xvptog in NE 1113b30-1114b25 might have

influenced Epicurus in his choice of words and certainly explains the moral impulse
behind it. Here and elsewhere Aristotle uses the term to describe those things which we
have control over and are accordingly responsible for. For a better statement of the
connection between Aristotle and Epicurus, see Furley, Two Studies 184-195.
adjective can come to be applied to fear and other disturbances and their empire
over the soul and therefore to their crucial importance for human happiness (ad
Hdt. 81.2). Thus the adjective is understandably ambiguous: it can describe what
Epicurus regarded as the fundamental and deep-rooted sources of fear and
anguish,44 and at the same time Epicurus' teaching which he designed to dispel
these terrors.45 Such doxai are then master thoughts. They were meant to be
mastered and to dominate the thoughts and calculations of those seeking free-
dom from the empire of the fundamental fears of mankind. Indeed, to become
free, Epicurus' disciple had to become a slave to the true philosophy (cf. Seneca,
Ep. 8.7).
Throughout antiquity this little book of doxai bore the authority of Epicurus.
Lucretius seems to refer to its wisdom and guidance as the patria praecepta of
his master (III 9-10). Cicero spoke of oracula sapientiae, as did Epicurus
himself (SV 29), and the collection of his sayings discovered in the Vatican
entitles them 'Eutico5pov Ipooviot&. It seems that, like the master proposi-
tions of his physiology, Epicurus meant his master sayings to be memorized.46
In fact they were memorized by later Epicureans as a kind of catechism. It is
clear that Epicurus was at great pains to formulate these doxai in a manner which
would make them memorable and free them from the polemical and discursive
contexts which had entangled them and padded their precise point. As is the case
for the Letter to Herodotus, On Nature preserves the matrix in which some of the
K3pta A6taoc must have been generated. The most distinctive of these are pitted
against Democritus' view of necessity and originate (in so far as we can tell) in
the polemic of On Nature and the book Epicurus devoted to the question of our
freedom of thought and action.
One of the arguments Epicurus impresses against the notion of mechanical
necessity is elegant, if it is not new. It neatly turns the argument against itself and
makes it impossible to live with. In one passage from On Nature, Epicurus'
formulation of his counter argument is rather loose and, unfortunately, in-
44. The tca paai of the soul; ad Hdt. 35.5; 78.1; 79.5; and KA XII.
45. Ad Hdt. 83.11; cf. 36.6; 78.1; 82.2; KA XII; and Lucretius III 16.
46. This expectation is clear from the letters: adHdt. 35-37; 45.1-2; 68.3; 82-83; ad
Pyth. 84-85; cf. 95.4 and 116.4; and ad Men. 123.1-2; 127.4; 135.5. Mvrigovev-tv can
simply mean to bear in mind and not to memorize word for word. But for Epicurus the
memorization of his doctrines necessarily preceded their meditation and application iga

voipaut (ad Hdt. 83.12). Cotta's unkind remarks on the slavery of Epicurus' followers to
his words is perhaps a reflection of the fact that later Epicureans treated his doctrines as
young scholars did their morning recitations: ista enim a vobis quasi dictata redduntur
quae Epicurus oscitans halucinatus est, N.D. I 25.72 with Pease's note and M. L. Clarke,
Higher Education in the Ancient World (London 1971) 27.
complete: "And yet he disputes with someone over this very point as if his
adversary refused to improve his opinion on his own account (5[t' ]avtr6v).
And supposing that he continues to carry on his arguments by appealing to
necessity ad infinitum, he fails to realize that by the very fact of referring the
soundness of his own reasoning to himself and the viciousness of the opposing
point of view to his opponent, if he does not come to a stopping point in himself
but attributes the principle of necessity. .. ."47 The papyrus does not preserve
the conclusion of this involved sentence or of Epicurus' argument, but one of the
Vatican sayings does:
He who claims that everything happens "out of necessity" has no grounds
for complaint against the person who denies that everything happens "out of
necessity," for his very denial happens "out of necessity." (SV 40)
In another attempt to destroy the grounds of the mechanical necessity which
he saw as a part of earlier atomism and its apparent indifference to the freedom
of the individual, Epicurus retrenches into the grounds of his own thought-his
canons for judgement. Here again it becomes clear that these canons were
developed as a test of the truth of propositions and not the means to discovering
the propositions themselves: ambigua secernere, falsa sub specie veri latentia
coarguere (Seneca, Ep. 89.11). Epicurus' argument is that the cause or source
(apfl) of many of our actions lies in nothing external to us, but in our firm
knowledge of certain truths:
One thing which always depended on us (to- 4igfov) was our realization that
if we fail to grasp the rule and principle which allows us to judge all that is
inferred from our opinions and foolishly follow the expressions of the many
we will lose every basis for discovering the truth. (Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2
34] 31.12-20)
Epicurus often returns to the truth of this important realization. But the form
of this sentence from his book on freedom of thought and action struck Usener as
odd (inasmuch as Epicurus used a future indicative rather than an infinitive) and
thus possibly the relic of a ivpia 86ba formulated before Epicurus put it to use
against the Eigapg*vi of the physikoi.48 But here, as in the case of three of the
47. Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2 34] 28.6-17; cf. 27.3-9; DO fr. 32.9-14, col. III 9 [= fr.
54 III 9-14 Smith]; Protagoras 324 E and Furley, Two Studies 187. [The career of this
mode of argument has been followed by Myles Burnyeat, "Protagoras and Self-Refutation
in Later Greek Philosophy," Philosophical Review 85 (1976) 44-69.]

48. Praef xlv.
Kvptat A6at which reproduce its form and general sense,49 Epicurus is spell-
ing out the consequences of abandoning his criteria in one of the most vivid
forms available to him in Greek:
If you challenge the evidence of all of your senses you will not even be left
with a basis to assert which of them is in error by appealing the decision to
any of the others. (KA XXIII)
What is remarkable about these doxai is the dogmatic urgency of the condi-
tional sentences whose conclusions are vivid threats. It was in the fixed and
unwavering principles of thought and action, even more than in the exiguum
clinamen of his theory of motion, that Epicurus discovered a means to asserting
and vindicating the freedom of willing and choosing against the mechanical
necessity of the physikoi. Once a man is in possession of what Lucretius called
the rationes vitae, neither necessity nor chance can overwhelm him. The moral
optimism of such a view is not completely foreign to Democritus who is gener-
ally seen as the object of Epicurus' attack on the view which returned our actions
to ananke. Whatever he said about motion, Democritus had said that 4p6vrlt;
and e vE-og 6 v8epK if are our guides for most things in life.50 Epicurus
knew this saying and sharpened his own thought against it:
Bpaxoa co() t1JTi n7capEui97c t" t 86 JT a ytob a K. t K1KptcatLo 6 oyto6g
StcK K KQ KaKaT tov 6vVerfJ Xp6vov T o) fio) tO t1c Kai toKdiEt.
(KA XVI)
Epicurus recorded the results of his own careful reasoning concerning rt
Kvpt6 Taxa in his K6ptat A64at and the stoicheiomata of his Letter to Hero-
dotus. These and the yoteia toi cakqfg ifv of the Letter to Menoeceus
(123.2) were designed to provide the disciple with a point of rest and stability in
the confusion of controversy and moral choice and a means to overcoming the
fear and uncertainty inspired by the awesome events of nature. For Polystratos
who succeeded Hermarchus as the head of Epicurus' garden, the master's kanon
(cf. ad Hdt. 51.9-11) provided an unshakeable conviction on every occasion it
was invoked: a&akeXtov ioti iep eK6dotiov Tiv tieGtv.51 The precepts of his
49. KA XXIV; XXV; cf. XXII where 8i replaces e si , and SV 57.
50. DK 68 B 119. [See essay 2, p. 33.]
51. HIpi a,6yov xatca0povi~ s (Wilke) col. IIIb8 [= XII 26 Indelli]. Comparable
in sense is Epicurus' a6s3Xtio;g aSp6trg, ad Hdt. 83.4; rtayig, Epicuro [29] [

Epicuro2 31] 15.9; and Lucretius' sense of confirmare VI 998.
master, as he had formulated them in the late disposition of his thought, seem to
have been clearly impressed in Lucretius' mind and the tracks in which he set his
feet more than two centuries later:52
Te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus, inque
tuis nunc ficta pedum pono pressis vestigia signis.
And still later, in Asia Minor, the Epicureans proved to be the only witnesses
who did not flinch before the strange genius of Alexander of Abonouteichos. As
Lucian saw, their yvpgrp was 6a8aavtivr.53 Of the others present temptat enim
dubiam mentem rationis egestas (Lucretius V 1211).
Epicurus meant his Kptat A6at and stoicheiomata to be impressed in the
minds of his disciples so that they would endure as stable rhythmic movements
of soul atoms which could not be confused or drastically altered by the incursion
of new eidola and impressions from without.54 These stable memores motus
which were one of the ends of Epicurus' stoicheiosis of his thought provided, as
they were stamped in the minds of his disciples, grounds for thought and action
which were both free and rational. The principles compressed into Epicurus'
letters and Kptat A6at represented one of the most compelling cases of t& s
iltov--those things which have their origin within us and lie within our control
(cf. SV 40). But they could remain fixed in the mind only once they had been
mastered with precision. And this was a matter of constant exercise:
One must laugh and at the same time philosophize and look after his own
affairs . . . and never cease to utter the words of the correct philosophy.
(SV 41)
Given the importance of this inner fortress for freedom from turmoil, it is
hardly surprising that Epicurus went to great pains to make this thought r9Fep t6ov
Kvptrtatiov memorable. The discovery of another collection of sayings at-
tributed to Epicurus at the end of the last century allowed a better appreciation of
the great care he took to refine his thought to its sharpest point and ofjust how he
52. III 3-4 (repeated at V 55-56). The association of Lucretius' vestigia with Epi-
curus' stoicheiomata is the suggestion of Carlo Diano, Sagezza e poetiche degli antichi
(Vicenza 1968) 77.
53. Alexander Pseudomantis 17; Epicurus himself Lucian calls icyxog, 25. [I re-
turn to the Epicureans and Alexander of Abonouteichos in essay 15 and in "Lucian of
Samosata: Four Philosophical Lives," ANRW 11. 36.5 (1992) 3438-3445.]
54. Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2 34] 17-18.6; 26.9-15; Pap. Herc. 1251 (Schmid) col.

XI 5-11 and Diano in GCFI 23 (1942) 23, note 2.
often gave his thought its fine edge by sharpening it against the nto0fiKat of
earlier Greek wisdom literature. Usener saw immediately that the new Vatican
saying Kabv avayKl, aX' o6egia avayr fiv ge 't' avyKg (SV 9) was in
fact Epicurus' adaptation of the old joke about women attributed to Sousarion:55
KQKOV y)vcfKS, cxXX'V 6ri6t1g ,
OK *EOttV OtKEIV OiKtaV LVE1 KaKOv.
Even more instructive and perhaps surprising for Epicurus who had the reputa-
tion of never appealing to poetry to support his own views (cf. D.L. X 26.9) is the
fact that he turned to the poetry of Solon for his own terse expression of the
character of the just and unjust lives. Under KA XVII (= SV 12)
'O bixatog qatapaK'moatog, 6 8' 6tKog CXet Gtr g tapafic ygwov,
two lines from Solon, known only from Plutarch (Vita Sol. 3), can be seen in
faint but unmistakable outline:
'E avgwv 8 0aXa ca ap6dooEmat" iv &b etq
ac gv r1j KiVT, JtQVt(OV 6 tKtatotiaIT.
Doxai such as these succeeded in impressing themselves in men's minds far
abroad from the kepos where they originated; the stoicheiomata did not, except
as they are embedded in the argument of the De Rerum Natura. The genius of the
K5ptat A at is that they succeeded in their purpose by slightly altering, or
reforming, the memores motus which were established in the minds of many
early in the III century B.C.56
They continue to be remembered in Rome more than two centuries later.
Lucretius translated two of the first and most important in the De Rerum Na-
tura,57 and Cicero can ask of the Epicureans who were his contemporaries the
rhetorical question: Quis enim vestrum non edidicit Epicuri Kvpia; A6o aq?
(Fin. II 20). His friend and dependent Philo had (N.D. I 113), and it is sure that
others had too. One example is the first and most important of the remedies of
55. Kock CAF I p.3 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci 2.147-148 West]; WS 10 (1888) 180.
56. [I explore the background and meaning of KA XVII in essay 2.] The evidence for
the memorization of gnomai comes mainly from Plato and the orators; Protagoras 325 E;
Laws 732 B 6-7 and D 4-7; 811 A. Nicolaus Bachius, Solonis Atheniensis carminum
quae supersunt (Bonn 1825) 11, long ago brought together the evidence for the memori-
zation of Solon's poetry and its gnomai.

57. I 44-49 (= II 646-651); III 830-845, especially 838-841.
the te-rtpa apgaxog (KA I). It was immensely influential and intimately bound
up with the first of Epicurus' stoicheiomata. It was memorized and appealed to
as a part of Epicurus' catechism. Lucretius refers to it as such an article of
reason: nam bene qui didicere deos securum agere aevum (V 82). All those who
had mastered Epicurus' teaching that the gods lead a life without care would
refuse to see them at work in the violence of thunder and lightning. A flash of
lightning could only come about opera sine divum. What is especially interest-
ing about later references to KA I is its application; it is evoked to be applied to
cases- what Epicurus called ata& ghpog axpt jidcixa. Horace can see a flash of
lightning but remain unperturbed:
Namque deos didici securum agere aevum,
nec siquid miri faciat natura, deos id
tristis ex alto caeli demittere tecto.
(Satires IV 101-3)
Seneca, when he maliciously denies apotheosis to Claudius, appeals to KA I to
show that the dead emperor cannot become an Epicurean god: modo dic nobis,
qualem deum istum fieri velis. 'ElrtopEtog O6Eo non potest esse.: oi' catbg
tparyga x t it o~t~T X2 ot; iapext (Apocolocyntosis 8).
One problem with both the Kptat A6,at and the Gnomologium Vaticanum
is that some of the sayings of Epicurus are elsewhere attributed to Hermarchus
and Metrodorus, even against the strong tendency to refer all Epicurean wisdom
to a unique source: apud istos quidquid dixit Hermarchus, quidquid Metrodorus,
ad unum refertur (Seneca, Ep. 33.4). A few of the sayings of the Vatican
collection are attributed to Metrodorus by anthologists and a Berlin papyrus
shows that SV51 comes from a letter of Metrodorus.58 In most cases it is difficult
if not impossible to discriminate between the sayings of Epicurus and those of
his close associates, which is instructive in itself.59 The confusion over the
attribution of certain Epicurean doxai would seem to arise from Epicurus' in-
sistence that his friends memorize his teachings.
Diocles of Magnesia was taken aback by this insistence, but records the fact:
Y'pgvaFd8c tov yvcopigov Ka && gv 'a;g ixv 't a
oautov yypag'vr
(D.L. X 12). Once memorized and mastered these sayings entered the common
58. In this case a letter of Metrodorus to the young Pythocles. But there is no evidence
for attributing SV 51 to Metrodorus; as Vogliano saw clearly, it was Epicurus who
enunciated the general principle, and his disciple who applied it to cases, StItal 13 (1936)

278. [I return to this problem of attributing Epicurean wisdom in essay 4.]
59. SV 10, 30, 31, 36, 47.
domain (cf. Seneca, Ep. 12.11). The very difficulty of assigning all of these
sayings confidently to Epicurus is in fact a tribute to Epicurus, for it is in itself a
testimony to the success of the most important stage of his teaching-that of
making it exoteric. Since Epicurus took such care to make his teaching memor-
able, KOrte is right in saying that it is no wonder that Metrodorus should have
come to regard his master's thought as his own.60 This precisely was Epicurus'
intention. A token of his success is the fact that his followers came to regard the
principles of this teaching as t i4 e4igv. At his death Epicurus is said to have
urged upon his friends one of the most important provisions of his last will and
testament: toig t <IXot; niapayyEiXavta rv 6oygatcov gagvfiO0at, ou to
TeXxE V ct (D.L. X 16). Diogenes was impressed by this scene and offers his
own version of Epicurus' last words:
xaipE~t i -ai ugv60n 'T 'a 66ygaera.
When Epicurus died, gvignr and itapap tiygaa were, as they had been for
centuries, the major features of Greek education. Schoolmasters attempted to
form their pupils by having them memorize and rehearse the nxoOicxat of their
ancestors. To my knowledge Epicurus was the first Greek philosopher who
demanded that his disciples memorize and constantly rehearse those of his
doctrines he considered xvptctrata .61 Against the background of the philosoph-
ical controversies of his age and its violence and instability (tapaXai), it is not
difficult to see why. The stoicheiomata and the Kvptat A6at were designed to
provide Epicurus' disciple with an unshakeable basis for thought and action and
to free him from dependence on things external (cf. SV77). To this end Epicurus
devoted much care. Thinking of the effect of Epicurus' itapa6Soot on later ages,
it is tempting to speak of the "Epicurean doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the
master."62 In his moral teaching at least Epicurus was inspired by a certain vigor
and genius of expression: multae tamen artis. And art, as Epicurus understood it,
was a method of producing what is of advantage to life (Epicuro [205] [= Epicu-
ro2 231]).
60. Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta (Leipzig 1890) 540. Diels later called attention to
this same source of confusion in the attribution of anonymous Epicurean material, SBB
1916 (= Kleine Schriften 293).
61. "Epikur ist der erste Europiaer, der die Psychagogik durch methodische Beherzi-
gungs-Akte aus Ubung des Memorierens entwickelt und in seiner Gemeinde getibt hat,"
Paul Rabbow, Seelenfiihrung: Methode derExerziten in derAntike (Munich 1954) 130; cf.

127-130; 336-338 and the detailed exposition of Schmid, RAC 5 (1962) cols. 742-745.
62. As Stokes does in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature (Oxford 1921)
23.
Epicurus' art was to have created a number of fast impressions, of con-
stant memores motus, in the minds of his disciples. These could not be disturbed
or drastically altered by the onset of new and upsetting impressions from the
world without. New experience is interpreted and stabilized by reference to
these sure anchors: T 8& 'capaEtia i. . . vv~Eif gvi4yrlv ExEtTv oA K)vxa
KvptcrwatOv (ad Hdt. 82.1). This is precisely what the Letter to Herodotus was
designed to provide: ovitog o6 6yog S vcz6cg, K ataxOE6;0 get' aKptciaQ,
olgat, ... a6 ~rlycov aic6v
pbg 't oi Xoucoi av6povg aSpdtricta
yie6atO (83.1-5).
Unless Epicurus' doctrine was mastered exactly, it could not serve the end for
which it was meant, since it could not be summoned up by reflex (gca vogat't).
These fixed concepts also represent Epicurus' answer to the dangerous doctrine
of necessity which Epicurus saw in the physikoi. Finally, the principles and
origins of thought and action must recede not to ananke, but to the principles of
truth deeply rooted in the mind. The mastery of Epicurus' teachings concerning
"ta )vptd) rata is that act of will and calculation which would make his disciples
free. This is the intent of Epicurus' last will and testament and the reason why he
called the little collection of his sayings the Kptat A6,at.
The inscription Diogenes had inscribed for the benefit of mankind on the
walls of a stoa in Oenoanda fully justifies the title of Epicurus' Kvptat A6at
and reveals the intentions of his philosophical testament:
That which contributes most to our happiness is our disposition over
which we are masters (T ,8ta6eOt~a g igtg KSxptot). Service in the army is a
hard thing, especially when you are under another's orders. And even if it
succeeds, the art of persuasion is filled with heady passion and turmoil. Why
then do we pursue the kinds of things which lie in the control of others? (Fr.
41 Chilton [= fr. 112 Smith])
Some time before this was inscribed, the meaning of xiptog as Epicurus
applied it to his doxai was expressed by a Stoic in one terse phrase: "col 86at 86~
g it 86 at ieig * ptot Kc o5 ta& Ktc6 (Epictetus I 9.37).63
63. This paper owes much to the kepos-like setting of the Center for Hellenic Studies
in Washington D.C. where it was first elaborated and presented and much to Leo Strauss
and Phillip De Lacy whose careful readings have helped it in many places where it was

obscure or mistaken.
Epicurus' KipiQ A6a XVII
In 1888 Usener published a collection of sayings Karl Wotke had discovered in
the Vatican with the title 'Ettxcopo I Hpo6oxvrl;tg-the "Pronouncement of
Epicurus." In all, this new gnomologium contained some 81 pronouncements,
twelve of which had been long familiar from Diogenes Laertius. The rest, except
those which were already known as the pronouncements of Metrodorus, were
new; or new in their Greek original.'
The new Vatican collection irritated sores surrounding the question of the
genesis and authenticity of the Kiptat A6at which Usener had opened a year
before.2 But some of the new sayings were in fact the pronouncements of
Epicurus; and they allowed a better appreciation of the care Epicurus took in
refining the language of his moral teaching to its sharpest point. One of the new
sayings (Sententia Vaticana 68) Usener spotted as the reformulation of one of
Epicurus' gnomai known in its earlier form from Aelian and Stobaeus.3 The
saying they knew as:
Reprinted from GRBS 13 (1972): 59-66. Recently, justified stress has been placed on the
importance of tranquility in Epicurus' thought. New studies are Alberto Grilli, "AIA-
8EIII in Epicuro," in XTZHTHiII, 1:93-109; Martha Nussbaum, "Therapeutic Argu-
ments: Epicurus and Aristotle," in The Norms of Nature, ed. M. Schofield and G. Striker
(Cambridge, 1986), 31-74; and Marcello Gigante, "Philosophia medicans in Filodemo,"
CErc 5 (1975): 53-61. Julia Annas has given a new interpretation of the concept of
"empty" anger in "Epicurean Emotions," in Tradition, 145-64, which makes the object of
"empty" desires and emotions specific and not generic. This helps us place Epicurus'
conception of justice in the larger context of his moral psychology. Philip Mitsis has
elaborated an analysis of justice and the other virtues and drawn attention to the potential
for disturbance in the Epicurean devotion to friendship, in Epicurus 'Ethical Theory: The
Pleasures of Invulnerability (Ithaca and London, 1988), 59-97 especially.
1. WS 10 (1888) 175-201.
2. In the preface to his Epicurea (Leipzig 1887) xliii-li.
3. 473 Us.; cf. Usener (supra n. 1) 181. The shorter version of the saying is also
preserved with five other sayings attributed to Epicurus in Cod. Palat. gr 129 and is
published by Usener in WS 12 (1890) 2.

32
Epicurus' Kupia A6a XVII / 33
6o iyov oi5 czvov, &XX6 to1r)tq ye ov3V iKavOv
was apparently not neat enough for Epicurus. If Usener is right, he reduced his
thought to the curt and elegant
ob v iKavov o 6Miyov to iocav6v
"nothing is enough for the man for whom what is enough is little." Another of
the new sayings from the Vatican made it clear that Epicurus not only went to
pains to reformulate his own language, but that of others. Usener recognized that
one of the new sayings, which had survived until Wotke's discovery only in the
translation of Seneca (SV 9; Ep. 12.10), was in fact Epicurus' ingenious adapta-
tion of the comic lines attributed to Sousarion:4
K xKOv yvvcES.caX X' 6go 0), 8rjgtQa,
O1JK Et1V OtKEtV OiKcZV VaVEV KaKO.
On this improbable model Epicurus fashioned his teaching on ananke:
Kaxobv avayKrl, aXX' o8g6ia avyx r TV getd aaVyK.rl;.
This is not only a reformulation or parody, but a reformation of earlier wisdom.
As Usener conjectured, Epicurus' maxim is not only formed on the model of
K cKoV vatiKEg, but it tacitly corrects its model on the point of the necessity of
resignation to the evil of marriage.
Epicurus seems then to have realized that one way to make his moral teaching
memorable was to alter slightly the memores motus5 established in the minds of
his readers. By fashioning his own doctrine on the template of older precepts, he
corrects his predecessors by reformulating their doctrines. The most striking
case of such a reformation comes from the Kptcat A6da. Usener noticed that
KA XVI had its origin in Democritus:6
6vOp&rnot t xrg i 8oXov PictX6vavto 2p6actv iSi1g 1aovXirj. 3at& yap
O~pov6 ivot"crl lax)(;altta, :E 8n ciatia tv f I Ov :oS 0, 4uspK~it
4. Kock, CAF I p. 3 [cf. essay 1, p. 28]; cf. Usener (supra n. 1) 180.
5. For the conception of memory suggested in Lucretius 3.1040 cf. Epicuro (ed. G.
Arrighetti) [31] [= Epicuro2 34] 20.6-14.
6. Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker0, B 119. 6 puepKei1 is Diel's emen-

dation of the MSS 6o4v pKeiv.
What Usener did not see is that Epicurus' language is clearly a response to
Democritus and, in its changes, a correction:
fpaeax60 iv) etli 7accp i
8 U ta, &a y T xtaa K K1)apt o tQ 6 Xoyai6;
St61KTKE Kt Kaxat atov ovvYf Xp6vov tot piolov 8tot6ei xai 8tot Kit t.
There are few changes, but Democritus hardly remains the same. The main
refinements are p3paya for Bata; ti& aXtra is corrected by and restricted to ta
gpytoia xai KvptUi tara. Kart0vet is replaced by 8totxui and Evgvetog
o&epKIrji by oytog6;. And Democritus' strong expression
ayieat is
changed to itapgct ttit. All these changes appear to be deliberate revisions
designed to bring out in more humble language the essential truth Epicurus
discovered in Democritus; and they compel attention to what Epicurus seems to
have objected to in Democritus' way of stating the relation between chance or
fortune and calculation. For Democritus the sharp eye of the helmsman was a
guide through dangerous waters. For Epicurus, who placed his highest good in a
harbor sheltered from wind and wave, the scope of a man's concern and calcula-
tion contracts to his own household7 and those of his affairs that are of greatest
importance to him and his peace of mind. Fortune is not at war with the power of
reason; it breaks in on him. Epicurus' word for this is nrapsegti rtt, which can
describe any sudden incursion into a man's city, house or affairs.8
Even more interesting is the language of the saying which follows (XVII).
Looking in the direction indicated by Usener, Peter von der Mtihll believed that
he had discovered the original of this saying too in Democritus.9 Surprisingly,
7. So I take 8totKw0. Comparable is Epicuro [71] [= Epicuro2 78 ]12] and the sense
of iaic ti v itepi t6ov Kvpt)ato)v oixovogitav in Ep. ad Hdt. 79.8 and Epicuro [23]
[= Epicuro2 24] 50.7-12. In SV 41 Epicurus combines philosophy and attention to one's
household.
8. The verb rnapeg.tiitt occurs at the end of the Letter to Herodotus (82.2) to
describe those sudden and repeated events which terrify the ignorant; it is used twice in
the Iepi p0ies; to describe the incursion of new thoughts and simulacra, Epicuro [31]
[= Epicuro2 34] 32.17, where the notion which breaks in on one's consciousness is said to
"flow out" again, and [32] [= Epicuro2 35] 10.6. Significantly, in Philodemus' Rhetoric
(ed. S. Sudhaus) I 267.7, it is associated with iapa il. Alciphron (ed. A. Meineke) gives
the closest parallel to the sense of the word in Epicurus: "Ep;g - ox5c ea apegirev
itr6 xo v oytagoi vrepvacOat.
9. Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. B 215; "Epikurs Kvptat A6,at und Demokrit," Festgabe

AdolfKaegi (Frauenfeld 1919) 117. [An important new presentation of Democritus as an
ethical thinker is Charles H. Kahn's "Democritus and the Origins of Moral Psychology,"
AJP 106 (1985) 1-31, especially 1-4 and 19-21.]
Epicurus' Kupia A6a XVII / 35
perhaps, it predates Democritus and goes back to the early VI century B.C. Under
Epicurus' terse formula
o t&Kcoog atpapcaK6tatog, 6 8' a&Ktog 6Xsi rl-g aSpaxfSg y~lxv
can be seen the language of Solon:10
e av &n 6E 0aac
tapt6eat Iv o t; ar atfv
,l.r KtV1, 7dVtV Gt v &tKaottvaq.
Epicurus' use of this couplet might seem strange at first for a man in whose
school history was mute and the name of Solon never heard; especially for a man
whose political thought is at times reduced to AaO j tco6aq and Mfl iroXlt-
tE5 Eo06at. Yet Epicurus contradicts the best known of Solon's ethical precepts in
one of the Vatican sayings (i g tr rtap~r x6a &yaO6 a6xdpttoog 4qvf i ;l -
yoa tXog 6pa aSKxpov) iov)11 and takes Solon's poetry as his model for KA
XVII, where Epicurus' language preserves that of Solon (St ato iarl) and com-
bines two of the main terms in which Solon had expressed his conception of
justice: these are 6iKrl and trap6doom.
These lines from one of Solon's elegies owe their preservation to the oddness
of calling the sea the "justest" of all things. Plutarch was struck by the metaphor
and reproduces these lines to illustrate the archaic character of Solon's "physiol-
ogy" (v &E roig atrKO g aS&toig ost iav Ka t apXatog). Since Plutarch cites
this distich along with fr. 10 (Diehl3 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci fr. 9 West]) (EK
vgA ;
Eierat xiovog g~vog & x8cxaXdrlg) it is clear that the association
between the events of nature and those of the polis struck him as archaic and not
10. Plut. Vita Sol. 3 (= fr. 11 Diehl3 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci fr. 12 West]).
11. SV 75, for which the perfect commentary is Epicurus' letter to Idomeneus, Epi-
curo [45] [= Epicuro2 52]. This saying proves Usener right in his objection to the
language of De Finibus 2.21.67: in vestris disputationibus historia muta est. numquam
audivi in Epicuri schola Solonem nominari; the proper word is not nominari, but laudari
(Epicurea, p. 329). Metrodorus did in fact mention Solon and legislators like him with
contempt, Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta (ed. A. Kdrte) fr. 32. Usener took SV 75 as an
attack against the Peripatetics, WS 11 (1889) 170, but the passages he cites in Aristotle
(Eth. Eud. 1219b6 and Eth. Nic. 111Oal0) neither use the language Epicurus responds to
nor could give him ground for attack. Epicurus seems to be the first to know the saying of
Solon in this form; cf. the testimony collected in A. Martina's Solone (Rome 1968) no.
202. Given the ancient reluctance to associate the names of Solon and Epicurus, it is
hardly surprising that the name of Epicurus is nowhere mentioned in A. Masaracchia's

Solone (Florence 1958).
the physical doctrine that the sea is stirred up rather than calmed by the winds.
But in this interpretation Plutarch understood the true character of Solon's
thought and saw in the metaphors uniting nature and the city the old-fashioned
way of speaking of the two as if they were one.12 Edmonds, who could not
conceive the sea as the "justest" of all things, did not, and severed the connection
between nature and the polis by forming an adjective never seen before or again
in Greek-axatotdar, "the quietest of all things." One sure indication of the
archaic character of Solon's thought Av oi;g rnnotoig is that the term biKr is
never reproduced in the frequent application of these gnomic lines later in
antiquity. Herodotus, Polybius, Livy and Cicero all evoke the calm of the sea as a
paradigm for things political, especially for the naturally placid disposition of
the demos.
None of these ancient references to the two lines from Solon combines
dtapaia with 5ixrl, and Edmonds' strange emendation is worth recalling only
as a modem example of the failure to appreciate the metaphoric and archaic
character of Solon's thought. Yet what both ancients and modems have failed to
see, or have ignored, Epicurus saw quite clearly: 8i rl and &tapaiia are con-
nected. Yet in Epicurus' KA XVII Solon's metaphor seems to be reversed. If a
man is just he is like the sea when calm. The epithet atdpatog can describe the
sea in Greek;13 if it evokes the sea in KA XVII, it is because it has its model in
Solon and because of the importance of the calm and radiant sea in Epicurus'
moral thought. It is said that he did not use omrnament or metaphor in his writings
(CXppri't X&et Kxpia, Diog. Laert. 10.13), but Epicurus, as were Solon and
Democritus14 before him, was fascinated by the prospect of the sea when calm;
or perhaps it is more accurate to say, as Nietzsche does, when it has become
12. W. Jaeger calls attention to the association of nature and the polis in Solon,
Paideia, transl. G. Highet, I (Oxford 1939) 142 n. 1, as had N. Bachius, Solonis Athe-
nienensis carminum quae supersunt (Bonn 1825) 96, when he printed frs. 10 and 11
(Diehl3) as one poem. This association is set out with more care and in more detail by
Gregory Vlastos in his "Solonian Justice," CP 41 (1946) 65-83, and especially 65, 68-
69. For the association in Anaximander and Alcmaeon, see Vlastos in CP 42 (1947) 156-
78, especially 157-58, 168-73. Masaracchia, op. cit. (supra. n. 11) 301, is therefore
hopelessly far from the truth when he speaks of a "sovrapposizione di immagini e di
termini."
13. As in the Aristotelian Problemata 994b28. [These observations on the metaphoric

connection between the natural and the political are reinforced by Lowell Edmunds' study
of disturbance in Cleon, Knights, and Aristophanes' Politics (Lanham, Md. 1987) 5-20.]
14. Cf. fr. A 1 (Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr. II 84.21) where the adverbs yakvrig and
sat6ai;g describe the calm of the soul; Vorsokr II 129.16 and, in another but analogous
context, fr. A 152.
Epicurus' KvpiaD A6a XVII / 37
calm.15 For Solon this calm was a natural state; for Epicurus it is not natural in
the sense that it is inborn or the ordinary and right state of things if left to
themselves. The justice and dtapca~ia of the soul is rather a state for which we
naturally strive. As he treats the problem of freedom in his IIEpt osE ,
Epicurus speaks of t iv 6apxif[g r]apab[01r] a6ty (Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2
34] 21.10-20), and he must be echoed in his conception of the early turbulence
of the soul by Lucretius, who speaks of illa naturae cuiusque animi vestigia
prima (3.308-09).
Solon's conception of things is quite different, and it is significant that the
verb tapac6o occurs again in our fragments of Solon's poetry to help express
his conception of justice and Eunomia. Just as the violent disturbances of the
natural world are provoked by the concentration of one element at the expense of
the others, any improper distribution brings imbalance and turmoil. If someone
other than Solon had taken control of Athens, he would not have restrained the
demos and would not have been satisfied until he had churned up the state and
scooped off the thick cream for himself:16
ovK av aK'LsXe 86fiov 068' xiLa to
ty1X aVtapa a ; iap iXt ev yaka.
Forms of both il and tapo co figure in Epicurus' characterization of the
just man. They have their origin in Solon's conception of justice and the natural
equipoise of the just state of things. But in Epicurus the larger context of the
polis is completely absent; characteristically Epicurus speaks only of the
individual-o6 tKatog, and appears to have banished the word 6iKrl with all of
its earlier associations from his vocabulary. In his surviving writings atpig
does not occur, and n6t; appears only once as a metaphor in SV 31. Ataraxia
has become in Epicurus an ethical norm which centers not in the polis but in the
human heart. Yet the calm of the sea, which Solon had called the "justest" of all
things, remains for Epicurus an ethical norm-not for the city but for the
individual.
15. "Solch ein Glitick hat nur ein fortwaihrend Leidender erfinden konnen, das Gltick
eines Auges, vor dem das Meer des Daseins stille geworden ist," Die frbhliche Wiss-
enschaft 44 (Werke in drei Biinden, ed. K. Schlechta, II [Munich 1966] 68).
16. Fr. 25.6-7 (Diehl3 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci fr. 37.7-8 West]); cf. fr. 23 (Plut. Vita
Sol. 15.1 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci fr. 33a West]), where the participles tvydg g and
"apaEga occur together. Vlastos, CP 41 (1946) 69 and n. 37, properly connects the sense
fr. 11.

of KvOc4IgEvov of fr. 1.61 [= Iambi et Elegi Graeci fr. 13 West] with the verb rapaGo in
Epicurus had other terms to describe the calm of the just man. Possibly the
remotest from the metaphor of the sea and its arapatia is the "lack of suspen-
sion of the nature (of the soul)" (Epicuro [31] [= Epicuro2 34] 17.5). But even in
an abstract expression such as this the prospect of the sea at calm might have
some influence over Epicurus' thought and expression.17 His Letter to Hero-
dotus opens with the statement that he had discovered the greatest calm in his
constant occupation with the study of nature (iotovto gdaXtcraL yyaXiviov - r
PiO, 37.3), and concludes with the assurance that the rapid review of the most
important principles of his physiology will secure for his followers the calm of
philosophy (yaX lvtcg6g, 83.13). Plutarch reproduces this metaphor when he
reports that Epicurus placed the highest good in the deepest calm-as within a
harbor sheltered from winds and waves (6k p e v dXv ,t Xig~,hvt v Qt Kco)),
544 Us.). In answer to the description of old age as a refuge for all ills, Epicurus
placed the peace and security of old age in a like harbor.'8
This calm and freedom from turmoil (yakvrli and drapaia) is the dominant
metaphor in Epicurus' moral thought. The pair of terms draapaia and rapaxi
has its connection with the language of Greek medicine, and possibly Epicurus'
appreciation of its rightness for the agitation of morbid states is reflected in
Lucretius' description of a fit of epilepsy: ut in aequore salso I ventorum validis
fervescunt viribus undae.19 In Greek, the health of the body and peace of mind
can be described by the word ataraxia. The man who is at peace (d6dpaxog),
fearing no harm from others and offering none himself, is atrr Ki~atipq
d66xyrlog (SV 79; cf. KA I and Ep. ad Men. 127.10).
17. Epicurus' phrase is i6 gil aiwpovuEvov ri;g 4gnco; cf. 434 Us. and Pap. Herc.
1251 (ed. W. Schmid, Ethica Epicurea [Leipzig 1939]) col. 6.8. The verb is also used by
Diogenes of Oenoanda to describe the currents of air aloft in which the sun is tossed, fr. 8
(ed. C. W. Chilton [= fr. 13. Smith]) col. 4.3.
18. SV 17; cf. Antiphanes, fr. 255 (ed. Kock, CAF [PCG fr. 255 Austin-Kassel]), who
compares old age to an altar as a "refuge" for all kinds of evil. Bion's version of this same
conceit (Diog. Laert. 4.48) can be read as a sardonic comment on SV 17 (Kae0pttKv);
cf. Usener's comments (supra n. 1) 184.
19. 3.493-94. In his commentary to Book III of Lucretius (Leipzig 1897) 126, Heinze
compares Galen, Comm. in Hippocr. aph. vol. 17 B 544. [Ut in 3.493 is Heinze's emenda-
tion.] Recently Charles Segal has drawn attention to a closer parallel to the language of
Lucretius in the Hippocratic Hepi lnrcv, CP 65 (1970) 180-82. In the treatise on breaths

a fit of epilepsy is described as a storm and the return of health yai:vr:" aa ravrog -oi
accrog 1 a yaxKvi; iv rj ~o~gat yivojivr;g iwamuat 6 v6da r (p. 252, ed. Jones,
Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2 [Cambridge, Mass. and London 1923]). This use of the
verb actOicrgt to describe the quieting down of unsettled conditions might help to
explain what Epicurus calls ilovi l ararwxa at1rl; cf. G. Vlastos, CP 41 (1946) 69 n. 36,
and the sense of Ep. ad Men. 128.1-10.
Epicurus' Kupia A6 a XVII / 39
By the very fact of calling attention to Solon's conception ofjustice, Epicurus
silently stresses how different his own conception is from that of Solon. The
terms imrl and atapata do not bridge the gap. Epicurus' thought has freed
itself from the polls, any larger organization of society than KotV)viat, and from
any vestige of a conception of iK1. When he speaks of the agreements on which
societies rest, Epicurus is careful to state that such agreements are possible at
any time and in any place whatsoever ( xa' 6trl XKoc oilrote &at t6rtox, KA
XXXIII). Justice is regarded, like injustice and pleasure, only in terms of its
effect on the individual. And injustice does not harm society as it had in the
thought of Solon, but the individual. Justice is accompanied by calm and plea-
sure (cf. KA V); injustice by the greatest turmoil, anxiety, and fear of detection
and punishment. This is the Epicurean argument of the De Finibus and a natural
development of KA XVII: justice makes the soul calm, injustice makes it tur-
bulent.20 This precisely is what Epicurus meant when he said that by itself (Ka0'
avtiiv) injustice is not an evil (KA XXXIV): it is only an evil in that it makes
the soul turbulent-rapaXifg yegov.
20. R. Philippson in his "Die Rechtsphilosophie der Epikureer," Archiv fiir Ge-
schichte der Philosophie 23 (1910) 302, fails to understand the thought compressed into
KA XXXIV: "Aufkeinen Fall kann er besagen, dass man das Unrecht nur aus Furcht vor
Strafe meiden solle." This is hardly Epicurus' point, and what he says is plain: injustice is
not an evil of and in itself, but in the uneasiness and turmoil it creates in the soul of the
man who dreads detection and punishment. Unaccountably, Philippson appeals to KA
XVII in his discussion of KA XXXIV (p. 321) without seeing the light it throws on his
troublesome saying. For more light, see Torquatus' remarks in De Fin. 1.16.50;

Democritus, Diels-Kranz, Vorsokr B 215; and Epicurus frs. 531, 532 Us.
Epicurus in the Archives of Athens
Aristotle was not an Athenian, yet his interest in the history of the polis in which
he lived for more than three decades as a resident alien made possible a book of
428 pages entitled Aristoteles und Athen.1 Epicurus was an Athenian, the son of
Neokles, of the deme of Gargettos and the tribe of the Philaidai (Diogenes
Laertius, X. 1), but for him no Epikur und Athen is readily conceivable. Epicurus
was a philosopher who appears to have made his life conform to his teaching and
his basic political teaching was gi oXttE&680at. But appearances are deceiv-
ing.2 Epicurus was raised in Samos and came to Athens at the age of 18 to serve
Reprinted from Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History, and Topography Presented to Eugene
Vanderpool, Hesperia Supplement 19 (Princeton, 1982), 17-26. The prospect of Epicurus
depositing his writings in the Archives of Athens among the decrees of the city seems
especially incongruous by contrast with the very private Epicurean library in the Villa dei
Papiri at Herculaneum. In his "The Public Archives in Fourth-Century Athens," GRBS 30
(1989): 537, William C. West makes the interesting observation that "the ordinary indi-
vidual, with the assistance of the public slave (Sup6rtog), would . . . be able to gain
access to the archives." The creation of a central archive in Athens apart from the
Bouleuterion has been convincingly dated by Alan L. Boegehold to the period between
409 and 404 B.c., in "The Establishment of a Central Archive at Athens," AJA 76 (1972):
23-30. For a history of the Epicurean library at Herculaneum and the papyri that make it
up, there is now Guglielmo Cavallo's meticulous Libri Scritture Scribi a Ercolano,
Supplement 1 to CErc 13 (1983), and "I rotoli di Ercolano come prodotti scritti: Quatro
reflessioni," Scrittura e Civilta 8 (1984): 5-30; also extremely helpful is the treatment of
Marcello Gigante in Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum, trans. Dirk
Obbink (Ann Arbor, 1995). Gigante (p. 22) questions my hypothesis but does not explain
the presence of these dates by Athenian archon year in the writings of Epicurus I survey
here. Tiziano Dorandi reviews the evidence of the papyri from Herculaneum for the
sequence of Athenian archon years in two studies: "Testimonianze sugli arconti nei papiri
ercolanesi," CErc 10 (1980): 153-174 and "Gli arconti nei papiri ercolanesi," ZPE 84
(1990): 121-138. The series extends from Theophilos (348/7) to Niketes (84/3).
1. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Berlin 1893.
2. As is shown by the texts discussed by A. Vogliano, "Nuovi testi storici," RivFC,
n.s. 4, 1926, pp. 310-332 and A. Momigliano, "Su alcuni dati nella vita di Epicuro,"
RivFC, n.s. 13, 1935, pp. 302-316. Philodemos' treatise on the engagement of Epicurus

40
Epicurus in the Archives of Athens / 41
as an ephebe. He returned to Athens permanently after having spent years trying
to establish himself as a philosopher and teacher, first in Kolophon, then in
Mytilene, and then, for a period of over four years, in Lampsakos on the Helle-
spont. His ties with that city were so strong that Strabo could call him a virtual
citizen of Lampsakos, rp6tov tv6 A pyarlv6v; and his letters to Idomeneus,
Polyainos, Leonteus and his wife Themista, Metrodoros, Hermarchos and
Kolotes are testimony to how enduring these ties were.3 But it is Athens with
which we are concerned.
Diogenes Laertius has a date for Epicurus' definitive return to Athens: ndkty
cvsAEiv arc' 'Ava tKpdrovg (307/6).4 There is nothing peculiar about this
date, although, when he is making use of the Chronicle of Apollodoros, it is
Diogenes' habit to cite his source and give the synchronism between Olympiad
and Athenian archon year.5 For the date of Epicurus' settlement we have only
the latter. And this reminds us of a peculiarity about his life and writings: the
dating of his writings by Athenian archon year.6 Epicurus is the only Greek
philosopher whose works are dated by the year of the eponymous archon in
which they were written. And for his writings we have a total of at least 30 dates
and the names of 16 archons. They range from 300/299 B.C. and the archonship
of Hegemachos to the archonship of Pytharatos and the year of Epicurus' death
in 271/0 B.C. The dates preserved for two books of Epicurus' summa on physics,
the Ip p oc cg, and the date for the death of Pythokles which comes from
Philodemos' treatise on the praxis of Epicurus' life as a philosopher, the Ilpay-
in the practical affairs of life, the flpa'yacreia, contains words of praise for an Epicurean
who for the 63 years of his life had abstained from the life of his city, col. XXIII.1-10; W.
Liebich (Aufbau, Absicht und Form der Pragmateiai Philodems, Berlin-Steglitz 1960, p.
66) is fully justified in arguing that this man can not be Epicurus.
3. Cf. Strabo, XIII.1.9, the letters included in G. Arrighetti, Epicuro: Opere, 2nd ed.,
Turin 1973, [40]-[133], and the new fragment from Oenoanda of a letter of Epicurus
describing a shipwreck on his way to Lampsakos, D. Clay, "Sailing to Lampsacus:
Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 7," GRBS 14, 1973, pp. 49-59 [essay 11 in this
book]. For the sources of the dated writings of Epicurus, see Appendix, Bibliographical
Note.
4. During the archonship of Anaxikrates, Diogenes Laertius, X.2.
5. Contrast, e.g., V.9-10; II.44; and X.14-15.
6. I give a list of the 30 dates we have for Epicurus' writings in an appendix to this

article, Epicurus' Dated Works. Usener had compiled a digest of the letters of Epicurus
identified by Athenian archon year in his Epicurea, Leipzig 1887, pp. 132-143, and the
evidence from the Epicurean papyri in Herculaneum is for the most part included in W. K.
Pritchett and B. D. Meritt, The Chronology of Hellenistic Athens, Cambridge, Mass. 1940,
pp. XV-XIX. There is more evidence than they adduced, and Usener'sfasti are long out
of date.
atat, and which gives us a terminus ante quem for Epicurus' Letter to
Pythokles, have been welcome to the modern historians of philosophy who have
attempted to determine a development in Epicurus' thought and his manner of
presenting it.7 But the ancient author to whom we owe most of our dates for
Epicurus' letters seems to have put the dates he provides so generously and
needlessly to no use. Philodemos gives us dates for some 24 of Epicurus' letters
and these range from the archonship of Nikias (295/4) to that of Pytharatos
(271/0), but he gives us no idea of why he gives them.
Philodemos' editors in the last century, Bichler and Gomperz, were not
puzzled by the dates they found in his various citations from the letters of
Epicurus, but they did take them as evidence that Philodemos had a collection of
Epicurus' letters which was organized chronologically by the Athenian archon
year in which they were written. Usener doubted this, but it is hard to see a better
explanation of Philodemos' habit of referring to the letters by archon year.
Seneca seems to have possessed such a collection of Epicurus' letters in the next
century, for he speaks of Epicurus' proud frugality as he knew of it from the
letters Epicurus wrote Polyainos of Lampsakos during the archonship of
Charinos (291/0): in his epistolis quas scripsit Charino magistratu (Epistulae
18.9).8 But it remains to ask why Epicurus' letters and the individual books of
his H p~i 'Oe o;g were known by the archon year of their composition.
The question leaps to the eye. But it is a question that is so obvious that, to the
best of my knowledge, it has never been asked. And, if it has been asked, its
answer and its importance for Epicurus' survival as a philosopher and the history
of Epicureanism seem to have been forgotten. We possess nothing like these
dates for the writings of any other Greek philosopher. Demokritos calculated
that he wrote his Mikros Diakosmos 730 years after the fall of Troy (Diogenes
Laertius, IX.41), but in the case of the writings of Epicurus it is unlikely that they
derive from the latter's concern for his fasti. He was no annalist. His real concern
was for his own survival as a philosopher, and our dates for his writings are a
symptom of this. It is a concern which makes him an Athenian more deeply
involved in the state of Athens than has been thought. I shall argue that at some
7. D. Sedley, "Epicurus, On Nature Book XXVIII," Chronache Ercolanesi 3, 1973,
pp. 13-17 and my own "Epicurus' Last Will and Testament," Archivfiir Geschichte der
Philosophie 55, 1973, pp. 255-256 [essay 1, pp. 6-8, in this book].
8. This connection was first made by F. Biichler in his "Philodems irepi e o3eiag,"

Jahrbiicher fiir klassische Philologie 91, 1865, p. 540 (= Kleine Schriften I, 1915, pp.
610-611), and T. Gomperz follows him in his, "Ein Brief Epikurs an ein Kind," Hermes
5, 1871, p. 386. Usener doubts this hypothesis, but he does not say why, op. cit. (footnote
6 above), p. 132.
time after his settlement in Athens, and possibly as early as 307/6 B.C., Epicurus
decided to preserve his writings in an authoritative and inalterable form and on
the same footing as the laws and decrees, the 8rj6ota ypddggaca, of the state of
Athens. To this end he deposited them in the Metroon where they were kept
under the year of the archon in which they were written. But first the evidence.
The writings for which we have dates range over three decades, that is, for the
greatest part of Epicurus' life in Athens. The first date that survives for a work of
Epicurus comes from the subscription to Book XV of his On Nature. From the
end of Papyrus Herculanensis 1151 we have the date of its composition, e4'
'Hy axgd o.9 The last date is for a letter Epicurus wrote Mithres, the Syrian who
had served Lysimachos as minister of finance, during his last illness and in the
archonship of Pytharatos (271/0). If we did not have a date for this archon from
other sources, we would have it from this letter from Philodemos' Ilpaytgareiat
in which Epicurus writes Mithres that in a way he welcomes the prospect of
death.10 The some 30 dates we have for Epicurus come from two kinds of
writing: The first is the highly technical treatises that make up Epicurus' On
Nature; the second is the letter. Both are "esoteric" and the more remarkable for
having been preserved.
The first of the two dated books of Epicurus' On Nature preserved in the
library of L. Calpurnius Piso in Herculaneum, Pap. Herc. 1151, gives us
the number of the book, the earliest date we have for a writing of Epicurus
(300/299), and a stichometric total of XXXHH or 3,200 lines. A second sub-
scription is preserved for Book XXVIII of Epicurus' On Nature: it is dated to
the archonship of Nikias, "the Nikias who succeeded Antiphates as archon"
(~y[p]dq6r't dtoNti.iov oi g[,Er] 'A[vrtt]rtv). It is also noted that our papyrus
was copied "from the ancient exemplars.""11 This subscription makes it abun-
dantly clear that the dates we have for Epicurus' writings cannot go back to
Epicurus himself but must have another explanation. There is another date like
the date that has come down to us for Nikias in Pap. Herc. 176, a treatise by an
unknown Epicurean on the first generation of the Epicurean school. It is for a
9. Cf. Appendix, No. 1.
10. Cf. Appendix, No. 30. Diogenes Laertius, X.15, gives the date of Epicurus' death
as 01. 127.2 = the archonship of Pytharatos on the authority of Apollodoros (FGrHist, 244
fr. 42).

11. Cf. Appendix, No. 2 and p. 46 below.
letter written in the archonship of Diokles, the third archon of this name (s(nit)
[tp]iovi AtoK Xov[, 286/5), to Anaxarchos, Leontion and others.12 It too
makes us seek an explanation for the dates of Epicurus' writings in a source
other than his annalistic concern to log his own writings. For Epicurus was no
Demetrios of Phaleron or Krateros and his interest was not in the register of the
archons of Athens (cf. Diogenes Laertius, 1.22).
The other kind of writing for which we have dates is the epistle. All but one of
the dates we have for Epicurus' letters come from papyri recovered in the Villa
dei papiri in Herculaneum. The majority of these dates come from six treatises of
Philodemos of Gadara; three come from Pap. Herc. 176, a treatise whose title is
lost, but which relies on a collection of the letters of Epicurus and his close
associates to reconstruct a chapter in the early history of his school. This treatise
resembles Philodemos' documentary account of Epicurus' engagement in the
affairs of his friends and philosophical associates, a treatise he entitles the
FIpaygacrat -in effect, the acts of the epistle. To document the praxis to
which Epicurus brought his philosophy to bear, Philodemos drew on a collection
of Epicurus' letters. Some, but not all, of those he cites he identifies by the
Athenian archon year in which they were written. And it might be significant to
our search for an explanation of the dates we have for Epicurus' writings that no
letter quoted by Philodemos, the author of Pap. Herc. 176, or Seneca antedates
the archonship of Nikias and the year 296/5. That is, we have no secure date for
any writing of Epicurus from the period before his settlement in Athens.13 The
dates in Philodemos and in Pap. Herc. 176 take us from the archonship of Nikias
and 296/5 to that of Pytharatos and 271/0. The fact that Philodemos dates a letter
Mithres sent Epicurus to the archonship of Demokles (278/7) must mean that the
collection of letters which Philodemos was using contained not only Epicurus'
letters but those of his correspondents.14 Briefly, our dates from the Villa dei
papiri derive from these sources: ten come from Philodemos' FTpayg atzrat,
which is also our source for the date of Mithres' letter to Epicurus; four come
from his treatise On Wealth and his documentation of Epicurus' poverty and
12. Cf. Appendix, No. 17.
13. According to Usener, op. cit. (footnote 6 above) and Momigliano, op. cit. (foot-
note 2 above), p. 303, Charinos by whose archonship some six of Epicurus' letters are
dated (cf. Appendix, Nos. 8-13) was archon in 308/7. He was, but an inscription from the
Athenian Agora (I 6703) brings to light another archon of this name whom Meritt dates to

291/0, "Greek Inscriptions," Hesperia 26, 1957, no. 10, pp. 53-54.
14. The date comes from Philodemos, 1Ipcay teiat XXIX.17 [Leibich]; cf. F. Sbor-
done, "Per la storia dell' epistolario di Epicuro," in Studi alessandrini in memoria di A.
Rostagni, Turin 1963, p. 35.
frugality (and there is possibly a fifth); three or four come from his On Piety,; two
from two papyri On Epicurus; another two from a tract Against [the Sophists]
(as its title has been restored); and two from a historical work On the Stoics.15
There are also dates for three letters quoted by the author of Pap. Herc. 176.16
Other authors quote from Epicurus' letters. Diogenes Laertius reproduces
three letters entire, but gives no date for them, although he gives the dates
of Epicurus' birth and death by both Olympiad and Athenian archon year.
Diogenes of Oenoanda preserves a letter of Epicurus to his mother and still other
letters of the master, but without dates. Plutarch, Sextus and Athenaeus all knew
Epicurus' letters, but if they knew their dates they do not reproduce them. Only
Seneca, as we have seen, refers to the letters Epicurus sent Polyainos by their
date, the archonship of Charinos (Epistulae 18.9). The last author we know to
cite a letter of Epicurus is Didymus Caecus, but it is unlikely that a date to the
archonship of either Isaios or Eythios should be restored to fill a gap in the
papyrus text of this new letter.17
The dates we have for Epicurus' letters give an approximate date for the death
of Pythokles and therefore a terminus ante quem for the Letter to Pythocles
(278/7) and, as a consequence of this, for the Letter to Herodotus to which the
Letter to Pythocles looks back (ad Pyth. 85.6-7). We have some dates for the
long and difficult association between Epicurus and Timokrates of Lampsakos,
but this association, as it is known from Epicurus' letters, must now be abbrevi-
ated by the discovery of a Charinos who was archon in 291/0. Previously the
Charinos (or Kairinos) of 308/7 gave a date for these letters.18 And, thanks to the
Ipay gtariat, we have a date for Epicurus' attempt, with the aid of Timokrates'
brother Metrodoros, to gain freedom for Mithres who was being held by Kra-
teros in the Macedonian garrison down in the Peiraieus in 277, the date of
Metrodoros' death. And finally, we have the date of Epicurus' death in 271/0
from his last letter to Mithres whom he made the minister to his own obliga-
15. From the Ipay a zctti come Nos. 4, 6, 15, 18, 20, 23, 26, 27, 28 and 30 of the
Appendix; from On Wealth, Nos. 7, 12, 13, 14: there might be an archon hidden under the
letters of col. XXXVIII.8 (Tepedino Guerra, p. 68: aatov, but his name still has to be
recovered; from On Piety, Nos. 10, 11 (which might contain the names of two archons)
and 16; from On the Stoics, Nos. 22 and 24; from adv. [Sophistas], Nos. 21 and 29; from
On Epicurus, No. 9; from On Epicurus II, No. 3.
16. Nos. 5, 17 and 25.

17. The suggested restorations are those of Arrighetti, op. cit. (footnote 3 above),
[133]. The text of Didymus' commentary to Ecclesiastes is published by G. Binder, L.
Koenen and L. Liesenborghs, "Ein neues Epikurfragment bei Didymos dem Blinden,"
ZPE 1, 1967, pp. 33-44.
18. Cf. footnote 13 above.
tions.19 But in all this wealth of dates we are still without an explanation for the
dates themselves.
II
For this we must turn back to a subscription to one of the books of Epicurus' On
Nature, Book XV. This takes us back to the archonship of Nikias and Pap. Herc.
1479/1417 (once a single roll). In the subscription to this book we read:
Fr. 13 XIII (Sedley)
11 sup. 'E[iK]o5po
KTr'
14 FK] tv apzaiov [
1 inf.Ey[p]dq Fitt NtKioi rovi t[E]6
'Av[' t] atiriv
A clue and a question come from the notation EK] tov .pxaiov, which
Sedley, the most recent editor of this book, translates "from the old exem-
plars."20 There can be no question that the roll from Herculaneum is a copy from
the "old exemplars" but what is the word "old" modifies and where were these
old exemplars? I would restore the word for these exemplars as a'roypwmv,
"Originals, or exemplars," and look for a parallel in a source that gives us an idea
of where these ancient originals were preserved. My source is Athenaeus and his
description of the activities of the "Peripatetic," Apellikon of Teos, who not only
bought up the library of Aristotle but attempted to take from the archives of the
state of Athens, the Metroon, the original copies of the ancient decrees which
were kept there: is i''K to Mrtpov tcv 2axatwv act6ypaarj oto t ov
i5atpoi4wvog EKtTi O.21 Here, I think, we have an answer to our question about
the place where the original of Pap. Herc. 1479/1417 was to be found. And this
is a place to which we have been directed by the editors of this roll. As Sedley
says of the subscription of Book XXVIII of Epicurus' On Nature: "this arche-
type may well have been an Athenian one dating back to Epicurus' own lifetime,
in which case our papyrus is more likely to have been copied from it in Athens
19. Appendix, No. 30.
20. Op. cit. (footnote 7 above), p. 56.
21. Athenaeus, V.214 D-E, in R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora, III, Literary and

Epigraphical Testimonia, Princeton 1957, no. 469.
than in Italy."22 But whether these copies were made in the garden itself is still a
question and it is a question which takes us back to Nikias, the successor of
Antiphates. Why was it important to the scribe of our papyrus to give not only a
title of his book, and the total of the lines he copied, but the seemingly extra-
neous information that the book he had copied was written in the archonship of
Nikias, the Nikias who succeeded Antiphates as archon? It would seem that this
precision about Nikias arises from the fact that within the period of Epicurus' 36
years of residence in Athens there was another Nikias who was archon in 283/2
and the notation tit Nixio) by itself was not sufficient to date the book. But
why this concern with the archons of Athens?
These archons bring us around to the question of dates and to a hypothesis of
August Boeckh who conjectured that the documents deposited in the State
Records Office of Ancient Athens, the Metroon, were stored in bins under the
year of the archon in whose term of office they were submitted to the gram-
mateus of the Boule.23 It appears that at some time after he had established his
school in Athens, Epicurus realized that the surest way to preserve his writings
in an authoritative and inalterable form was to deposit them in the distinguished
company of the laws and decrees of the state of Athens. We know from Diogenes
Laertius that Epicurus deposited his will in the Metroon, and he seems to have
been the first Athenian who, as a citizen without public office, gained access to
the Public Records Office for the registry of his own, private affairs.24 But such
is the gap between papyrology and epigraphy, or philosophy and history, that the
connection between the dates preserved in the papyri from Herculaneum and the
testimonia for the Metroon has not been seen. Or perhaps it is the ostensibly
retiring and private character of Epicurus' philosophy, whose most notorious
political maxim was gl roXlti5aiOat, that has made it difficult to believe that
Epicurus was both the first and only private individual we know of to deposit the
record of his testimentary bequests in the state archives of Athens and the only
philosopher and, indeed, the only writer to secure his own survival and integrity
there.25
22. Op. cit. (footnote 7 above), p. 11. [Sedley now suggests that the meaning of this
phrase is that it might concern "his early works," "Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-
Roman World," in Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. M.
Griffin and J. Barnes, Oxford 1989, 107.]
23. For Boeckh's hypothesis, cf. C. Curtius, Das Metroon in Athen als Staatsarchiv,

Berlin 1868, p. 23.
24. Diogenes Laertius, quoted in the paragraph below (= Agora III, no. 480).
25. By a law of Lykourgos, the tragedies of Aischylos, Sophokles and Euripides were
deposited in "a public place," which I would not hesitate to identify as the Metroon, to be
This explanation for the dates that have come down to us for the writings of
Epicurus helps recover the precise sense of Epicurus' language when, in the
Letter to Herodotus and in the On Nature, he refers back to his earlier writings.
The Letter to Herodotus looks back to some of these as iExaoracz tov iepi ceg
avayeypaggavcov ilJiv (35.1-2) and Book XXVIII of the On Nature looks back
to an earlier treatise On Ambiguity (possibly an earlier book of this same treatise,
Cv to[i] HIep't ag[ ]tl3oXia; lg[i]v avaycypaggivotg). This is precisely the
word Epicurus uses to refer to his registry of his bequest to Amynomachos and
Timokrates (of Potamos), "in accordance with the deed to each of these recorded
in the Metroon" (xaa i iv Fv 4 Mrp av x ypypaggaEv v KaQtpp 86i6tv).26
Epicurus was not simply writing up a series of treatises interpreting the physical
world or a tract on ambiguity, he was recording them, and, providentially
enough, the language of the later Epicureans who make use of these documents
reflects their character as official documents.27
But there is an obstacle to this interpretation of the dates that have come down
to us for Epicurus' writings, and this arises from the very library that has given
us 29 of our 30 dates. The dating of the transactions of Hellenistic philosophers
by Athenian archon years is not peculiar to Philodemos' treatment of Epicurus.
From two histories of the Stoics and Academics in Athens, there are still more
read (or dictated) by the secretary of the city to those intending to produce them, cf. Agora
III, p. 160, note 1. The case of Epicurus is different, and, indeed, very much like the case
of Herakleitos who deposited his book in the temple of Artemis in Ephesos (cf. Diogenes
Laertius, IX.5). Epicurus' protectress was the Mother of the Gods.
26. Diogenes Laertius, X.16. See footnote 24 above.
27. For the language of On Nature XXVIII, cf. Arrighetti, op. cit. (footnote 3 above),
[31]14.27. The term is the same as the word Epicurus uses to describe his deed of his
property to Amynomachos and Timokrates as this is "recorded" in the Metroon, Diogenes
Laertius, X.6. G. Klaffenbach's fundamental study of the epigraphical evidence for the
archives of the Greek states, "Bermerkungen zum griechischen Urkundwesen," SBBerl,
1960, no. 6, pp. 5-41, is itself a repository for the term avaypdaety in inscriptions
providing for the making of official copies of important documents to be deposited in a
city archive (e.g. the official copy of a treaty between Smyrna and Magnesia, OGIS, no.
229, lines 85-86: avcaypayatjt8 ~ ma 6 ypa to?~ ooi.a rig ;13ovfg oi;K o 8io Rt
avtiypcaa tig 6kooyi;ag [ei g t6 g]6tov, cited, op. cit., p. 11). A passage from
Philodemos' Ilpaygariat seems to reflect his sense of the "official" character of the

documents he is using to illustrate the transactions of Epicurus' life; here he uses the term
tpoaKatiaxc wepio6 in connection with the letters he has cited concerning Epicurus and
Mithres, XXXII.9, C. Diano, Lettere di Epicuro e di suoi, Florence 1946, p. 18: "Let these
additional documents which we have now put on record explain why we have spoken of
Mithres." For the term aitaoppilctv, cf. Klaffenbach, op. cit., p. 20.
dates, fixed by reference to Athenian archon years, which enter into the fasti of
these schools and, since they clearly go back to the Chronicle of Apollodoros,
help flesh out the third and fourth books of this enormously influential work. It
was soon appreciated that the so-called index of Academic philosophers was in
part derived from Apollodoros, and the history of the Stoic philosophers, pre-
served in Pap. Herc. 1018, makes it abundantly clear that it depended on Apol-
lodoros, 6 To; t6ro g KaL t o xpovo ug avaypayag, for its chronology of this
school.28 Both works must come from a work known to Diogenes Laertius as
Philodemos' "Syntax," or succession of the philosophers (Diogenes Laertius,
X.3); and both must derive their dates from Apollodoros. Accordingly, they
have been digested in Jacoby's collection of the fragments of Apollodoros.29 Yet
two observations need to be made about the dates in these historical works of
Philodemos: the first is that they are quite unlike the dates we have for Epicurus
in that they are all concerned with deaths and successions and not writings. We
learn of the nodal dates in the lives of Kleitomachos, Boethos, Lakydes, and
figures such as Moschion and Melanthios of Rhodes, but their works are never
mentioned; the second observation is simply that of Apollodoros' editor, Felix
Jacoby, who saw that if Philodemos' chronology went back to Apollodoros:
Apollodoros' own Chronicle must itself go back to some earlier source. And, for
Epicurus, he thought this source to be Epicurus' own letters and the memorials
of his contemporaries and students.30 So we are brought back to the late 2nd
century B.C. and the time Apollodoros spent in Athens and the possibility that he
derived some of his dates for the life of Epicurus from the place where his fasti
were kept as faithfully as the date of his birth was kept by the community he left
behind him: the Metroon in the Agora of Athens.
There is evidence that Epicurus' library was also preserved in the garden, but
the prospect of Epicurus' survival in the State Records Office of ancient Athens
is even more paradoxical than that of Sokrates installed in the Prytaneion with
free meals for the rest of his life. Another philosopher was housed more briefly
in the Metroon. This was Diogenes the Cynic who found shelter in a large pithos
there; and Stilpon had the courage to enter the building, which was the precinct
of the Mother of the Gods, with garlic on his breath.31 Much later, in the 2nd
century after Christ, Favorinus of Arles could find there the formal indictment
28. Cf. F. Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik: Eine Sammlung der Fragmente, Berlin 1902,
fr. 78 and p. 12.

29. Ibid., frs. 53b, 100, 97, 70, 71, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102 and 80a and b.
30. Ibid., p. 335; cf. his remark on the character of Apollodoros' evidence for an
earlier period, p. 52.
31. Cf. Agora III, nos. 479 and 481 for Diogenes; and no. 471 for Stilpon.
against Sokrates, doubtless filed with the documents registered under the arch-
onship of Laches (400/399).32 Whether he could have found Epicurus' testa-
mentary bequests, the 37 rolls of his Hepi ~ OG0wg, and his letters with those of
his associates is an interesting question.
What is certain is that Epicurus' survival in Athens was more secure than that
of Aristotle, concerning whose prudence he had some hard things to say (Dioge-
nes Laertius, X.8). We have the story of the survival, such as it was, of Aristotle's
work from Strabo. And we now know that De Witt was wrong in his conjecture
that "in the fortuitous survival of the Greek mss., it seems that the writings of
Epicurus have met a like fate with those of Aristotle."33 Their fates were quite
dissimilar, and Epicurus did not leave much to chance. Like Aristotle, he did
leave his books to his successor (Diogenes Laertius, X.21), but Epicurus' books
remained in Athens after his death as he had wished, both in the Metroon and in
the private setting of his garden. Aristotle willed his library to Theophrastos
from whom it passed to Theophrastos' student Neleus who took it to Skepsis
where it passed into the hands of Neleus' heirs. There it was buried early in the
2nd century B.C. and finally disinterred and sold to the wealthy collector Ap-
ellikon of Teos.34 We have already met Apellikon. It was Apellikon who at-
tempted to remove the original copies of ancient decrees from the Metroon in
Athens. Little did he know that with these ancient documents of the state of
Athens he could have found the writings of Epicurus.
APPENDIX: EPICURUS' DATED WORKS
Bibliographical Note: I have used as an armature for the chronology of the
Athenian archons after 308/7 the table in W. K. Pritchett and B. D. Meritt, The
Chronology ofHellenistic Athens, Cambridge, Mass. 1940, pp. xv-xix, with the
later revisions which A. E. Samuel has incorporated in the table he gives for this
period in his Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Classical
Antiquity, Munich 1972, pp. 212-213. The sources for the dated writings of
Epicurus are cited from G. Arrighetti, Epicuro: Opere, 2nd ed., Turin 1973. In
the case of Philodemos and Pap. Herc. 176, I cite the following as well: for the
32. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, II.40 (= Agora III, no. 478).
33. Epicurus and his Philosophy, Minneapolis 1954, p. 46.
34. Strabo, XIII. 1.54; cf. J. P. Lynch, Aristotle 's School: A Study of a Greek Educa-
tional Institution, Berkeley 1972, pp. 200-202. [There are two recent treatments of
Apellikon and the Aristotelian corpus: the first is that of Carnes Lord, "The Early History

of the Aristotelian Corpus," AJP 107, 1986, 137-161; the second is that of Luciano
Canfora, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, trans. M. Ryle, Berkeley
and Los Angeles 1990, chapters 6 and 10.]
Izpayga ciat and where possible, C. Diano, Lettere di Epicuro e di suoi, Flo-
rence 1946 (now reprinted in Epicuri Ethica et Epistulae, Florence 1974); also,
F. Sbordone, "Per la storia dell'epistolario di Epicuro," in Miscellanea di studi
alessandrini in memoria di A. Rostagni, Turin 1963, pp. 26-39; for Philodemos,
On Wealth, A. Tepedino Guerra, "Il primo libro 'Sulla ricchezza' di Filodemo,"
Chronache Ercolanesi 8, 1978, pp. 52-95; for On Piety, T. Gomperz, Philodem:
Ober Frammigkeit, Leipzig 1866; for Against the [Sophists], F. Sbordone, Phi-
lodemi adversus [Sophistas], Naples 1947; and for On Epicurus and Pap. Herc.
176, A. Vogliano, Epicuri et Epicureorum Scripta in Herculanensibus Papyris
Servata, Berlin 1928, p. 21-55 (Scriptor Epicureus Incertus = Pap. Herc. 176),
pp. 57-61 (On Epicurus II) and 63-73 (On Epicurus).
[Supplement: Philodemus' history of the Academy has been edited by Tiziano
Dorandi, Filodemo. Storia dei filosofi: Platone e l'Accademia, Naples 1991.
Dorandi has also edited his history of the Stoa, Filodemo. Storia deifilosofi: La
stod da Zenone a Panezio, Leiden 1994. Both treatises, especially the first, are
rich in dates by Athenian archon years, but in neither is an archon year employed
to date a letter or book of Epicurus. By contrast, Philodemus' separate and
polemical treatise "On the Stoics" dates two letters of Epicurus by Athenian
archon years (entry nos. 22 and 24). This has been edited by Tiziano Dorandi,
"Gli Stoici," CErc 12, 1982, pp. 91-133. For the character of the three treatises
that preserve these dates, see essay 6. Dirk Obbink has edited still another source
for the dates of Epicurus' writings by Athenian archon years, Philodemus: On
Piety, Part 1, Oxford 1996. He discusses the dates of Epicurus' letters in his
comments on entry no. 11, pp. 430-432.]
(307/6 Anaxikrates
The date of Epicurus' move to Athens, Diogenes
Laertius, X.2.)
300/299 Hegemachos
No. 1. I-p~' Q I ug Book XV (Arrighetti, p.
292).
296/5
Nikias
No. 2. IeiH t (kcg Book XXVIII (Arrighetti, p.
321).
No. 3. A letter written c't NtKiou, Philodemos,
On Epicurus II, fr. 1.7 (Vogliano, p. 59).
294/3
Olympiodoros No. 4. A letter to a person unknown, from Phi-
lodemos, Ipayg aEiat XIV.11 (Sbordone

1963, p. 31; Arrighetti, [105]).
292/1
Philippos
291/0
Charinos
290/289 Telokles
289/8
Aristonymos
No. 5. A letter to Polyainos and Leonteus of
Lampsakos on the Stoics in Athens, Pap.
Herc. 176, fr. 5, XXIV.14-15 (Vogliano, p.
50; Arrighetti, [67]).
No. 6. To Themista of Lampsakos reporting on
the young Pythokles, Philodemos, HIpay-
gea tat IV.8-10 (Arrighetti, [50]).
No. 7. To friends in Lampsakos on poverty, Phi-
lodemos, On Wealth XXXV.38 (Tepedino
Guerra, p. 67; Arrighetti, [96]).
No. 8. Letters sent to Polyainos, Charino mag-
istratu, Seneca, Epistulae 18.9 (Arrighetti,
[83]).
No. 9. A letter to Polyainos? Philodemos, On
Epicurus, fr. 5.1 (Vogliano, p. 65; Arrighetti
[84]).
No. 10. A letter to a person unknown, Phi-
lodemos, On Piety, Pap. Herc. 1098, X.12
(Gomperz, p. 125; Arrighetti, [106] [lines
938-939 Obbink]).
No. 11. To a person unknown, Philodemos, On
Piety, Pap. Herc. 1077, X.1 (Gomperz, p. 105;
Arrighetti, [107] [lines 840-841 Obbink]).
No. 12. To Polyainos on poverty? Philodemos,
On Wealth XXXIV.8 (Tepedino Guerra, p. 66;
Arrighetti, [108]).
No. 13. A letter to a person unknown, Phi-
lodemos, On Wealth XXXV.8 (Tepedino
No. 14. To Mithres, on a reversal of fortune, Phi-
lodemos, On Wealth XXXVI.9 (Tepedino

No. 15. To Mithres, acknowledging a contribution
to the school, Philodemos, -IpaygaiczIat
XXXIV.1 (Diano, p. 32; Arrighetti, [74]).
No. 16. To Phyrson of Kolophon on the piety of
a certain Theodotos, Philodemos, On Piety,
Pap. Herc. 1098, XII.15 (Gomperz, p. 127;
Arrighetti, [93] [lines 797-801 Obbink]).
286/5
Diokles
No. 17. A letter to Anaxarchos and Leontion,
Pap. Herc. 176, fr. 5, XXV.31-32 (Vogliano,
p. 51).
285/4
Diotimos
No. 18. To Phyrson, Philodemos, Hplayga'ceiat
XV.1-2 (Arrighetti, [94]).
No. 19? If the name Diotimos is that of the
archon; cf. No. 11. A Diotimos appears in
Pap. Herc. 1780, VIII, fr. 1 [On Piety, lines
841-842 Obbink]. If he is Diotimos Eiv6atou
gacz~i6"8 he cannot be the recipient of a let-
ter from Epicurus; cf. W. Croenert, Kolotes
und Menedemos, Leipzig 1906, pp. 82-83.
284/3
Isaios
No. 20. To a person unknown, Philodemos,
-Ipaygadciat XXXII.14 (Diano, p. 19; Ar-
righetti, [110]).
No. 21. To a person unknown, apparently on the
education of the sons of Menoikeus, Phi-
lodemos, adv. [Sophistas], fr. 16 (Sbordone
1947, p. 78; Arrighetti, [111]).
283/2
Euthios
No. 22. On a setback of the Macedonians to a
person unknown, Philodemos, On the Stoics,
Pap. Herc. 339, V.9 (Arrighetti, [112]) ["Gli
Stoici" VI.9 Dorandi].
281/0
Ourios
No. 23. To Leonteus, Philodemos, Hlpaygatciat
XXXII.15-16 (Diano, p. 19; Arrighetti, [68]).
279/8
Anaxikrates
No. 24. To a person unknown, Philodemos, On
the Stoics V.13, it'] 'AvatK[p]a[tovg (cf.
Croenert [under No. 19], p. 54, n. 259) ["Gli
Stoici" VI.13 Dorandi].
278/7
Demokles
No. 25. To Kolotes of Lampsakos, possibly on
the death of Metrodoros, Pap. Herc. 176, fr. 5,
XXVIII.3-4 (Vogliano, p. 54 [cf. Gomperz in
Hermes 5, 1871, pp. 387-388]; Arrighetti,
[62]).
No. 26. To Mithres, Philodemos, Hlpayga 'cat

XXIX.17 (Diano, p. 15; Arrighetti, [75]).
274/3
Euboulos
No. 27. To Idomeneus of Lampsakos, Phi-
lodemos, FIpaygat iat XXVI.14 (Diano, p.
12; Arrighetti, [60]).
No. 28. To Mithres on frugality, Philodemos,
1Ipaygati iat XXX.16-17 (Diano, p. 16; Ar-
righetti, [76]).
No. 29. To a person unknown, asking for some
books of Demokritos, Philodemos, adv. [So-
phistas], fr. 13 (Sbordone 1947, p. 75; Ar-
righetti, [113]).
271/0
Pytharatos
No. 30. To Mithres on his approaching death,
Philodemos, 1HpaygQatat XXXI.3-4 (Diano,

p. 17; Arrighetti, [77]).
Individual and Community in the First
Generation of the Epicurean School
The biographer proceeds from work to work,
from interpretation to interpretation, always
seeking the author behind the book. If a human
being stands out whom we can recognize as such,
if the individual features unite themselves into a
single portrait which as a unit is credible, the
task of the philologist is accomplished.1
1. Philological Problems
Cicero called Metrodorus virtually another Epicurus: paene alter Epicurus. His
reasons for doing so are interesting on two counts. The first and most obvious is
Cicero's recognition of how close Metrodorus is to Epicurus in his conception of
true happiness: "ipse enim Metrodorus, paene alter Epicurus, beatum esse
describit his fere verbis: 'cum corpus bene constitutum sit et sit exploratum ita
futurum."2 Second is the philological problem Cicero's nearly verbatim quota-
tion poses for the editors of Metrodorus and Epicurus. Korte, who vindicates this
as a fragment of Metrodorus, has Cicero and Clement as witnesses to its pater-
nity.3 Yet Usener had just published it in his Epicurea (of 1887) as fr. 68 in a
slightly different form. His witness was Plutarch who attributes the conception
to the Epicureans generally: to yap E Q0iae6g capKobg KartaTrL Ka xa T6 iept
Reprinted from XYZHTHZIX, 1:255-79.
1. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Platon (Berlin 1919), I, p. 8 as translated
by Harold Cherniss in his challenging essay on the presuppositions of such an approach to
ancient poetry, Me ex versiculis meis parum pudicum, "University of California Publica-
tions in Classical Philology" 12 (1943), pp. 279-292, reprinted in J. P. Sullivan, Critical
Essays on Roman Literature (Cambridge, Mass. 1962), p. 21.
2. Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta (in "JCPh" Suppl. 17, Leipzig 1890) fr. 5.
3. Cic., Fin. 1128 92; Tusc. II 9 27 and V 9 27; Off III 33 117; Clem. Alex., Strom. II
131, p. 185.7-8 Stahlin-Frichtel.

55
talit T ctOv Os i ,ct tat v cxd potcadtrv apv i atotvrv 8E1F to t
toyile t c SvOavagvot; (Non posse 4. 1089 d). Aulus Gellius, Cleomedes,
and Origen all stand on the side of Epicurus as witnesses to the paternity of this
saying. Where should the editor stand?
Here the editor is in need of Solomonic wisdom. Usener, on the strength of his
many witnesses and the context in Plutarch, assigns the saying to Epicurus'
1H-pit tilog (fr. 68; cf. p. 122.23). But KOrte had Cicero (in four passages) and
Clement as witnesses for Metrodorus. Confronted with this difficult discrimina-
tion, Metrodorus' editor formulates a principle which is important for an appre-
ciation of how Epicurean philosophy became the property of all Epicureans: "It
is likely that it was Epicurus who formulated these words and Metrodorus who
adopted them on account of their force and bite. And, since Epicurus was not
reluctant to repeat time and time again the sayings he had honed with the greatest
care, it is no wonder that Metrodorus used this saying of the master as his own."4
What we do not have in Metrodorus' reiteration of this truth is the codicile
Epicurus added to his definition of the highest and most secure form ofjoy (yapa
and not i68atovia): this understanding is accessible to those who are capable
of rational calculation-toig tXoyilgctOQat 6vag votg. One of these thought-
ful people, it seems, was Metrodorus who applied this principle of Epicurus to
his own argument that we have more responsibility for our happiness than things
eternal to us.
Here we confront a well known difficulty in the history of Epicurean philoso-
phy which was well expressed by Seneca in his contrast between the freedom of
Stoic thought and the Epicurean devotion to the authority of Epicurus: "Non
sumus sub rege, sibi quisque se vindicat. Apud istos quidquid Hermarchus dixit,
quidquid Metrodorus, ad unum refertur" (Ep. 33.4; cf. p. 62 below). And, in-
deed, Seneca illustrates this very tendency when he attributes to Metrodorus his
own Stoic paradox that only the philosopher can have a proper sense of grati-
tude: "scito idem dicere Epicurus: Metrodorus certe ait solum sapientem referre
gratiam" (Ep. 82.11 = fr. 54 Korte). Seneca knew both Metrodorus and Epicurus
at first hand, but apparently he did not know what little we know about Epicurus'
attitude towards gratitude,5 and reasonably enough he took Metrodorus' attitude
as reflecting Epicurus'. It is a step from Seneca, who knew Epicurus directly and
4. Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta, p. 540. Krte's reference to Usener's treatment of
this problem in the newly discovered Sententiae Vaticanae (Epikurische Spruchsamm-

lung, "WS" 10, 1888, p. 181) is appropriate for reasons I sketch in Epicurus 'Last Will and
Testament, "AGPh" 55 (1973), pp. 271-280 [essay 1 in this book].
5. For which we have D.L. X 118 = fr. 589 Us. as a starting point.
Individual and Community in the First Generation of the Epicurean School / 57
knew his letters well, to Lactantius who knew neither and saw Epicurus through
Lucretius. As a consequence, quidquid Lucretius dixit, ad unum refertur6
Our philological problems in editing Epicurean texts seem to spring from a
common source. In the history of Epicureanism it has often been difficult to
"individuate" an Epicurean writer in his distinctive physiognomy. Epicurean
faces seem to resemble Epicurus and in even as distinctive a face as that of
Lucretius can be seen the mask of Epicurus' "paraphrast."7 The ancient ten-
dency to attribute all Epicurean wisdom to Epicurus is well illustrated by the
philological difficulties presented by recent discoveries of Epicurean texts, in
manuscript, on papyrus, and on stone. The discovery of Epicurean texts which
became known only after Usener had published his Epicurea in 1887 holds a
lesson for the philologist who considers the "enucleation" and "individuation"
of ancient texts as his only task. Many of his philological dilemmas arise out of
his failure to consider the kernel in its husk and the individual in his community.
A year after Usener published his Epicurea, he was compelled to write: "Es
gibt noch Uberraschungen fiur den Philologen."8 His surprise was at Wotke's
discovery of a collection of 81 sayings described collectively as The Voice of
Epicurus ('Eaxto5po THpoothvrotg) in Cod. Vat. 1950, or, as they are called
now, the Sententiae Vaticanae. Still other surprises were to await the philologist,
from Egypt, from a virtually unheard of mountain city in N.E. Lycia, and from
the collection of papyri in the Berlin Museum. They are interesting for our
purposes because they illustrate how difficult it is to distinguish an individual
voice in the collective wisdom of the Epicureans and more importantly because
they force us to turn our attention away from the individual Epicurean to the first
generation of the Epicurean community in Athens.
When K6rte published his collection of the fragments of Metrodorus in 1890,
four of the sayings which were attributed to Epicurus in the Vatican ms. became
the property of Metrodorus. Indeed, they had already been claimed for Metro-
dorus by Duening twenty years earlier.9 A fifth neither Duening nor Korte
thought to claim for Metrodorus, but a papyrus from the Berlin Museum shows
that the address preserved in SV 51 (rcvv06vogai ov tiv KTar dcKpa KiVrlatV
6. Cf. Div. Inst. VII 3 13 Brandt and now, R.M. Ogilivie, The Library of Lactantius
(Oxford 1978), pp. 84-87.
7. This is the language of Robert Boyle in his Some Considerations touching the
Usefulness of Experimental Naturall Philosophy (Oxford 1664), I, p. 75.

8. "WS" 10 (1888), p. 175.
9. De Metrodori Epicurei vita et scriptis (Leipzig 1870) where SV 10 is fr. 3; SV 30
fr. 29; SV31 is commented on as possibly a saying of Metrodorus, p. 63 (cf. fr. 339 Us.);
and SV 47 is fr. 26.
dq0ove'ctpav cpbg &dpo8 toixv vtEvty) comes from a letter of Metrodorus
to the young Pythokles. Yet, despite all appearances, this does not mean that
Metrodorus is the sole author and the authority for the advice he offers the young
man who inspired such interest in the Epicurean community in Athens. Of these
five Vatican sayings, only one, SV 31 (Metrodorus, fr. 51 K6rte), appears in
Arrighetti's Epicuro.
One of these new Epicurean sayings, SV47, involves philology is still another
surprise, announced in the "Bulletin de correspondance hellenique" for 1892.10
Usener greeted the publication of the first fragments of the philosophical inscrip-
tion of Diogenes of Oenoanda as he had greeted Wotke's discovery in the
Vatican library: "Das eben ausgegebene Heft des 'Bulletin de correspondance
hellenique' bringt uns eine Uberraschung."11 There were still more surprises to
come from the rubble of Oenoanda. But one of the first was the discovery of the
Letter to Mother which was long disputed between Diogenes and Epicurus.12
This letter is now generally and properly attributed to Epicurus, and here philol-
ogy should be content. But this letter was displayed on the wall of Diogenes'
stoa, along with still other letters and above a series of Diogenes' own letters.13
With the past decade of new discoveries at Oenoanda by Martin Ferguson Smith
and the British Institute of Archeology at Ankara, it is now quite apparent that
Diogenes in his conception of his own life and writings offers us a sustained
imitatio Epicuri. Epicurus attempted to reach and influence the larger world by
what can be called the acts of his epistle (or Pragmateiai); so did Diogenes.
Epicurus gave the final stamp to his ethical teachings in his Kptat A6at; along
10. By Georges Cousin, Inscriptions d'Oenoanda, "BCH" 16 (1892), pp. 1-70.
11. "RhM" 47 (1892), p. 414.
12. The course of the dispute is conveniently summarized by Chilton in the commen-
tary to his edition of the fragments of Diogenes (Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments,
Oxford 1971, pp. 106-108) and Martin Ferguson Smith in his publication of NF 24
(Thirteen New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda in Erginzungsbdinde zu den Tituli
Asiae Minoris 6, Wien 1974, p. 31 f.), on which cf. note 22 below.
13. For the most recent reconstruction of the back wall which carried Diogenes'
inscription, cf. Smith, Fifty-Five New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda, "Anatolian
Studies" 28 (1978), p. 45; I offer my own reconstruction in my report on the new
discoveries from Oenoanda, The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda:
New Discoveries (1969-1977), to appear inAufstieg undNiedergang der ramischen Welt,

II, vol. 3 [actually 1969-1983, ANRW 11 36.4 (1990) 2446-2559 and fig. 3; see fig. 4 in
this book]. [Martin Ferguson Smith argues for a different disposition of the documents on
the wall of Diogenes' stoa in Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription (Naples
1993) 76-108. For some last reflections on the date and location of Diogenes' inscription,
see the epilogue to essay 15].
with other ethical sayings they underwrite Diogenes' Ethical Treatise and are
imitated in his own maxims (the Sententiae Variae). Epicurus drew up a last will
and testament and assured its survival (and that of his community); from Oe-
noanda we have the opening of Diogenes' own will.14 And here we come to the
philological problem presented by SV 47 ( = Metrodorus, fr. 49 Kcrte) and
Diogenes' inscription at Oenoanda.
Epicurus' philanthropy has its late reflection in Diogenes' project to help
mankind; indeed, his choice of a verb to describe this project says everything
entroipyiv (fr. 2 V 7 Chilton [= fr. 3.V.7 Smith]). Diogenes conceived of
himself as an alter Epicurus and as such the bringer of aid and comfort to
mankind.15 In this preface, in which Diogenes gives his reasons for displaying
his inscription and its "helps," he seems to be carefully imitating Epicurus as he
presents himself well prepared for death at the sunset of his life and ready to
depart with a fine anthem of thanksgiving for having lived and enjoyed a full life.
Here is his text as it can be restored from both Epicurus and Metrodorus (fr. 2 II
7-III 5 Chilton [= fr. 3.II.7-III.5 Smith]):
[pit 8]o gaig yap ij81 I [toi []ioi K0 LaeGt[Koi] St& T6 y fpa; 110 [ at
6]oov ovo Tt ul[ovt]eg &avavtyv I [Ai t]o iv p t I [Kca o] Ratav[og I
Ohp r6tv 8' ] II wv ripot6arog i I Oak1loagv, Itva gil I poX OAv, Ro l
B0siv zi' Tt; 15 ovKpixotg.
A hive of philological problems surrounds this imperfect text. Clearly, Diogenes
is imitating Epicurus' defiant challenge to fortune which is preserved in SV 47:
1poKatiIX rgai ca, JO T6rj, KQa 7 Va iv cflV y 7apsit5lxYVty v vpaa. Kai
0''t Goto O1)a,2 1 o{)8F i Jtpt6oGc 60)to1V avtOVh K oT o QL)X'
Otav d0 oXp v Eayi ya 7RpoYztt1oQavt tf)ti1v K otli (al)t(9KEO) vwg t-
ptutXa' olivot cL7tkt4v K 0) {1V ta KcALo1) vatcvo Etow vovtt S v
igtiv 134P 3i'at. But what is one editor's SV 47 is another's fr. 49. Here again
Korte had Cicero as a witness for Metrodorus. In giving his own version of its
opening, Cicero attributes the saying to Metrodorus directly: "Occupavi te,
inquit, Fortuna, atque cepi omnisque aditus tuos interclusi, ut ad me adaspirare
non posses" (Tusc. V 9 27). The relations between Epicurus, Metrodorus, and
14. Fr. 50 Chilton [= fr. 117 Smith]. The other elements of Diogenes' imitatio Epicuri
I develop in my report on the new fragments (note 13 above), V 1 [and in essay 13 in this
book].
15. The relevant comment on Diogenes' choice of EirxKOvpciv is that of George N.

Hoffman, Diogenes of Oenoanda: A Commentary (University of Minnesota Dissertation
1976) p. 166. For the association of exixovpog and co'0p, cf. Plat., Resp. V 463 b 1.
Diogenes become even more complex once it is seen that Diogenes is imitating
not only the language of SV47 (which his defective text helps restore)16 but that
of Metrodorus, fr. 52 Krte as well: ov Waxaptitg t6v y povtx, KQx' 6Oov
y7lpaoOy tEXEVa, aX' ei "oig yaaOoig g m n uilpcat, which is the basis of
my supplement to Diogenes (fr. 2 III 1 Chilton [= 3.III.1 Smith]). Is Diogenes
imitating Epicurus, or is he imitating Metrodorus? There is no clear cut answer
to this question, but there is a way of putting it in a context which makes its
precise answer less interesting than the practice which gives rise to philological
problems such as these. This is the practice of emulation, imitation, and com-
memoration which characterized the first generation of the Epicurean com-
munity in Athens. In this context, individual features tend to blur, but a distinct
physiognomy begins to emerge for the group itself.
But to stay with philology and the new Epicurean texts which challenge the
editor to discover an individual in the communal wisdom of the Epicureans:
There are three new texts which demand a Solomonic wisdom on the part of
their editor. The first of these is an Oxyrhynchan papyrus; the second a papyrus
from the collection of papyri in the Berlin Museum; and the third an inscribed
block from Oenoanda. When Grenfell and Hunt published a fragment of a
philosophical letter on piety in 1899, they were inclined to regard it as the work
of an Epicurean and "possibly Epicurus himself."17 But Diels, when he pub-
lished his commentary on the new fragment, called attention to a striking feature
of Epicurean literature in general: "Denn es ist ja bekannt, dass die spaiteren
Epikureer, von deren Schrifttum wir einige Uberreste haben, von Metrodor bis
zu Demetrios Lakon und Philodem, ja bis zu Diogenes von Oinoanda hinab, alle
die Sprache der Schulbibel in einer Weise sich angeeignet haben, wie wir es nur
in der peripatetischen und ekklesiastischen Literatur finden."18
This waning is pertinent as we come to a Berlin papyrus Vogliano published
twenty years later. Here we have still another collection of Epicurean sayings
(and fragments of six sayings in all).19 In col. II of PBerol. 16369 we have the
16. As Usener might have seen when he emended it?,eiovo; of the Vatican ms. by
tauCovog, "WS" 10 (1888), p. 195, had the new text of Diogenes been available. Actually
he makes no use of his emended text when he comes to edit Diogenes, fr. 2 II 13 Chilton
(note 11 above), p. 431.
17. Oxyrhynchus Papyri II (London 1899), p. 30.
18. Ein epikureisches Fragment fiber Gatterverehrung, "SAWW" 1916, p. 891

(Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte der Antiken Philosophie, ed. W. Burkert, Darmstadt
1969, p. 293).
19. Frammento di un nuovo 'Gnomologium Epicureum, ' "SIFC" N.S. 13 (1936), pp.
267-281.
text of SV 51. It had been recognized that the source of this exhortation must be a
letter; we now know that the context of the saying was a letter of Metrodorus to
Pythokles. And so we have a new fragment of Metrodorus. Yet, as Usener said,
there are still surprises for the philologist. The fact that this saying comes from a
letter of Metrodorus does not mean, as Vogliano saw, that Metrodorus is the
author of the saying. Rather it seems to derive ultimately from the Symposium of
Epicurus, which is in form a dialogue between Epicurus and Polyainos.
Vogliano's way of extracting us from the dilemma over the authorship of this
saying is, I believe, the only way of accounting for the confusion over its
attribution: "The Master has affirmed a general principle [in this case, applied to
Polyainos]; Metrodorus has applied it to the case of Pythokles."20
Our last text comes as even a greater surprise. In 1972 Martin Ferguson Smith
discovered an inscribed block in Oenoanda which he thought belonged to Epi-
curus' Letter to Mother.21 The dimensions of the block were in favor of this
attribution, but its argument was not. The author of this letter is urging someone
to veer away from the speeches of the orators and listen to some of "our"
doctrines (NF 24 I 3-6 [ = fr. 127. 1.3-6 Smith]). This is clearly an apotropaic
protreptic, for it twice urges its recipient to abandon the schools of rhetoric for
"our gathering" and come to knock upon the doors of philosophy (I 1-3; 7-10).
No Greek, not even Epicurus, could have had such a mother, and as Smith now
recognizes, it is better to look for another recipient.22 My suggestion is that
Diogenes has preserved a letter of Epicurus to Hermarchus, whose early attrac-
tion to rhetoric is well known.23 There is, however, an adjective that makes this
tentative suggestion a complex proposition. According to Smith (in his revised
text of the inscription), Epicurus is inviting his mother to "the calm entrances
to our community" ( - t&I; ig] I t6 nvsvX60v i gov [a] i aOig hiY680o0,
I 2-4).24 But "calm" might be better translated as "impassive" and it makes for a
20. Ibid., p. 278.
21. Cf. note 12 above. In his publication of NF 110, a fragment from a letter of
Epicurus to console Pyrson of Colophon on the death of his son, Hegesianax, Smith is
willing to envisage the possibility of still other letters on the course of the Letter to
Mother, "Anatolian Studies" 29 (1979), p. 79 f.
22. I express my doubts about Smith's assignment of NF 24 to the Letter to Mother in
my review of Thirteen New Fragments, "AJPh" 97 (1976), p. 309, and I find a fellow
sceptic in Marcello Gigante, Scetticismo e Epicureismo (Napoli 1981), p. 186.

23. Cf. D.L. X 24 = Hermarchus fr. 1 Krohn (Der Epikureer Hermarchus, Berlin
1921, p. 17). For his views of rhetoric, cf. frr. 40-44 Krohn [= frr. 35-36, 38-39, 37
Longo Auricchio]).
24. Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Fragment 24, "AJPh" 99 (1979), pp. 329-331.
[Smith now prints [cvv]taOeig, fr. 127.1.3-4.]
line which is slightly short (15 letters rather than 17 or 18). Another adjective
would fit: o gotona6Eig. Its rightness is confirmed by Plutarch's quotation from
an equally apotropaic and protreptic letter of Metrodorus to Timarchus: notil-
to0y iv t caXov 7c aikoig, g6vov o KataS6v1vtE aig 6otonaOEtat; Kai
a&aXkaytv-rg tEsc -oi y a ipioi Eig 'Etrcotpo (h0 aLXT1hog O6qavtia pyta
(fr. 38 Korte). The Epicurean community was entered through an exclusive
community of feeling and it is just possible that in his exhortation to Timarchus,
Metrodorus was recalling Epicurus' appeal to Hermarchus. From the language
of these appeals, it is but a step to the Acts of the Apostles.25 And, to return to the
beginning of Diogenes' inscription, it seems more likely that his conception of
his mission at the end of his life goes back to Epicurus. But, for reasons that will
now become clear, it is also possible that he is imitating Metrodorus in his
imitation of Epicurus.
2. Emulation, Commemoration, and Imitation
Hermarchus brings us back to Seneca and his characterization of the Epicurean
devotion to the authority of Epicurus. This he contrasts with his own Stoic
liberty and sets in distinctively Roman terms: "Non sumus sub rege. . . Omnia
quae quisquam in illo contubernio locutus est, unius ductu et auspiciis dicta
sunt" (Ep. 33.4; for the rest of the text, cf. p. 56 above). The Roman notions of
Epicurus' regal and imperial authority are wrong for the attitudes of the Epi-
cureans who gathered around Epicurus, first in Mytilene, then in Colophon and
Lampsakos, and finally, for some 36 years, in Athens. If one of the great aspira-
tions of Epicurean philosophy was the imitation of divinity, it was accom-
plished, in great part, by the imitation and emulation of those who had become
most perfect in their imitation of the gods.26 Seneca's term ductus is the only
term which is, in fact, appropriate for the Epicurean respect for the leadership of
Epicurus; but then it fails to recognize that there were other leaders in the first
generation of the Epicurean community. Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Poly-
25. Cf. the language of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, Act. Ap. 14, 15: ca i sig;
6gotonaO6ig ~iev 6giv iiv0prnot. Relevant too is the community of feeling of Plato's
Republic V 462 a-b and the term 6oroa6ig at 464 d 4.
26. Evidence of this aspiration comes from Epicurus' Letter to Mother, fr. 52 IV 8-10
Chilton [fr. 123.IV.8-10 Smith]; Ep. Men. 135; SV 33; it is the theme of Wolfgang Fauth,
Divus Epicurus: Zur Problemgeschichte philosophischer Religiositit bei Lukrez in

Aufstieg und Niedergang der ramischen Welt I: 4 (Berlin 1973), pp. 207-209.
ainos were all Ka0qyF tv6S.27 The conception of the philosophical life as a way
and of philosophers as guides to those entering upon it is hardly new with
Epicurus, but it is abundantly illustrated by Epicurean literature. Seneca records
Epicurus' Hesiodic conception of the three possibilities of arriving at the road to
the truth. This passage is important, because it gives us Epicurus' opinion of the
capacities of two of his closest associates and suggests what the new letter from
Oenoanda seems to suggest: Hermarchus needed to be compelled to the truth:
"Quosdam ait Epicurus ad veritatem sine ullius adiutorio exisse, fecisse sibi
ipsos viam; hos maxime laudat quibus ex se impetus fuit, qui se ipsi protulerunt:
quosdam indigere ope aliena, non ituros si nemo praecesserit, sed bene se-
cuturos. Ex his Metrodorum ait esse; egregium hoc quoque, sed secundae sortis
ingenium" (Ep. 52.3). As for the third group, they do not need someone to help
them on their way; they need someone to drive them: "Si quaeris huius quoque
exemplar, Hermarchum ait Epicurus talem fuisse."28 But what of Epicurus him-
self? Did he reach the truth, as he was known to have claimed, with no one to
help him along the way? Metrodorus had his own opinion on this inevitable
question and it was that Epicurus would not have made the progress he did, if
Democritus had not led the way (his word is tpoKa0 0y(fato: Seneca's
praecesserit).29 This is a surprising comment, or it would be surprising in the
light of later attitudes about the first Epicureans. But it puts Epicurus on the level
of Metrodorus. At this level a new perspective begins to emerge on the first
generation of the Epicurean community in Athens and in it Epicurus does not
eclipse his closest associates, stellas exortus ut aetherius sol. Epicurus was quite
capable of emulation himself and when it came to the death most of his dearest
friends had led the way.
If the Platonic memorials of Socrates can be described as commemorating a
"Socrates become young and fair" (Ep. II 314 c), the memorials of the first
generation of Epicureans commemorated the "fellow philosophers" in sickness
and death and illustrate the Socratic notion of philosophy as a preparation for
27. The testimonies for the Epicurean use of this and related terms have been usefully
collected and annoted by Francesca Longo Auricchio in her La scuola di Epicuro, "CErc"
8 (1978), pp. 24-26.
28. Ep. 52.4 (fr. 192 Us.; Hermarchus fr. 11 Krohn [= fr. 18 Longo Aurichio]).
29. Fr. 33 Korte. Plutarch, who was sensitive to Metrodorus' metaphor of the path of
philosophy, attributes this saying to Metrodomrus' On Philosophy (or Metrodorus concern-

ing philosophy), no. XXIII in KOrte, Adv. Col. 3. 1108 e. A likely conjecture is that this is
a fragment from Metrodorus, On the Progress towards Wisdom (D.L. X 27); cf. SV48 and
10 and fr. 37 Korte. For an echo of Metrodomrus' claim about the relation between
Democritus and Epicurus, cf. fr. 234 Us.
death. This is one of the reasons I have preferred to speak of an Epicurean
community rather than an Epicurean school. As Seneca puts it, it was a common
life rather than any schooling that made these early Epicureans what they
were-non schola sed contubernium.30 Their life together was commemorated
as their philosophy was tested by illness and finally by death. Epicurus wrote a
memorial on the death of his brother Neokles which he addressed to Themista in
Lampsakos. In Usener's Epicurea, this is a bare title (p. 106.17), but there is (as
we shall see) more to it than this. He wrote still other memorials on the deaths of
his other brothers, Chairedemos and Agathoboulos.31 Plutarch knew these pam-
phlets well and had a sharp and unfriendly sense of how the illnesses and deaths
which so absorbed Epicurus' attention destroyed the foundations of the Epi-
curean claim to happiness in a confident expectation of future stability. He asks
just what encouragement or jubilation Epicurus could have found in his care for
Metrodorus, Polyainos, and Aristoboulos (a slip for Agathoboulos) in their
illness and death (Non posse 22. 1103 a). Plutarch's knowledge of these affairs
came from the memorial writings of Epicurus and these were not all pamphlets.
His Metrodorus was a work in five rolls (D.L. X 28).
Plutarch's description of Epicurus' care for his brothers and friends in their
last illnesses is accurate, if not sympathetic: OEpwaetcov vooVXa r1 Ka-
taOprIvov a&coOvilKovtcaq 8tLeXe c. It is not quite that he mourned them in
death; he commemorated them as their philosophy was tested as they lay dying.
And his mourning was a peculiar thing. Memory took the place of lamentation:
avri y6o0 Ugvignr.32 His memorials were not a "viewing" of the Epicurean dead;
they displayed them as they showed themselves in dying.
The Epicurean library in Herculaneum has preserved for us scraps of still
other commemorative volumes. One is roughly contemporary with Epicurus and
by an Epicurean who was a part of the extended community which had its roots
in the Greek East. We recognize the name of its author, Karneiskos, from
Philodemus' Pragmateiai. His two volumes on the death of his friend Philistas
preserve both the celebration of an Epicurean life lived as it should have been
30. Ep. 6.6. The term is well evaluated by De Witt in his Epicurean Contubernium,
"TAPA" 67 (1936), pp. 55-63.
31. Cf. D.L. X 27-28 and the remarks of Usener on the proper names in the titles of
Epicurus' writings, Epicurea, p. 93.
32. In his publication of the new letter to Pyrson of Colophon, Smith adduces many of

the passages which illustrate this theme (note 21 above, p. 80 f. [now fr. 128 Smith]). To
his evidence I would add SV 66. As for Plutarch's choice of a present participle, cf. Fred
Miller, Epicurus on the Art of Dying, "The Southern Journal of Philosophy" 14 (1976),
pp. 159-67. Our passage from Plutarch and fr. 205 Us. add to the terms of his discussion.
lived and an attack on Praxiphanes' bogus conception of such a life. Like a great
deal of Epicurean literature, it has an addressee, Zopyros.33 There survives still a
last vestige of this genre of writing in PHerc. 1041, which describes, "in
schlichten Sprache," the illness of a philosopher.34 These commemorative writ-
ings are the natural extension of the letters of consolation directed from Athens
to Epicureans elsewhere in the Greek world. Metrodorus wrote to his sister Batis
to comfort her on the death of her son, and, when Metrodorus himself died,
Epicurus wrote her again to comfort her for the loss of a brother. He also wrote
his old friend Pyrson in Colophon to console him on the death of his son
Hegesianax.35 We know this name as the title of one of Epicurus' books (D.L. X
28). Was this letter the size of a papyrus roll? Or was Hegesianax the object of
both a letter of consolation and a memorial pamphlet? For the second possibility
we have a parallel in Epicurus' 1ep' 3iov, which was both a book and a series of
letters.36
In facing illness and death, Metrodorus was the guide to Epicurus, as were
almost all of his closest associates, with the exception of Hermarchus. Metro-
dorus did not survive to write a memorial volume on Epicurus, but he did write
On the Illness of Epicurus (D.L. X 24; IV in Korte). His Testimonials (or
Mapt~vpiat) might have belonged to this same genre. It seems likely that under
these bare titles belong some of Metrodorus' sayings on illness, death, and
fortune. As usual, some of these sayings he disputes with Epicurus.37 But what
must be the most puzzling case of mistaken identity comes in Metrodorus on his
own illness (fr. 46 Korte). Once again, we owe our knowledge of this illness to
33. PHerc. 1027, published by W. Croenert in his Kolotes und Menedemos (Leipzig
1906, Amsterdam 1965), pp. 69-72, 179.
34. PHerc. 1041, published by Croenert, Kolotes, pp. 73 f., 97, 179, who appropri-
ately adduces RS XL.
35. Cf. note 21 above.
36. Cf. D.L. X 30.
37. These are frr. 49-53 in KOrte's collection. Two of these are already familiar: SV
47 = fr. 49 Korte; and fr. 52, which has provided the basis for restoring the text lost from
Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 2 II 14-III 1 Chilton [= fr. 2.II.14-1III.1 Smith]. It is similar in
expression to SV 31 (&ptyv 8 06avato iavre; 6vOp toot x6Xtv d ateixtaov oKxovtev,
which Kdrte prints as his fr. 51). Gigante's comment on the problem of the paternity of
this maxim is relevant to our study of the philological problems which arise out of the

cohesion of the Epicurean community and its beliefs: "L'incerta patemrnita della honesta
exclamatio non e solo un fenomeno della tradizione escerptoria e gnomologica; la sen-
tenza rispecchia fedelmente la posizione dottrinaria della scuola epicurea di fronte alla
morte," La chiusa dell "De Morte" di Filodemo in Ricerche Filodemee (Napoli 1969), p.
90. The last of these, SV30 (and fr. 53 Korte) is also attributed to Epicurus in Codex Palat.
129, fol. 23.10 ; cf. Usener's edition (note 8 above, p. 323).
Plutarch (Non posse 16. 1097 e). He presents us with an unnamed Epicurean
gathering his friends together for a feast, even when he was suffering from a
form of dropsy. And yet he did not abstain from drink. As he recalled the last
words of Neokles, he was overwhelmed by a wave of tears and a peculiar form
of pleasure: K a i'tv e6iatrov NEoK% oVg X6yAYv g~gvrj uvog Et KEto ti g~-E&
axpycov i8torp6oq) il6ovi . Who is Plutarch describing? Kcrte attributed this
touching episode to a writing of Metrodorus on his own illness (de morbo suo)
and could have noted that the peculiar pleasure of grief was a phrase Metrodorus
used in his letter of consolation to his sister (his fr. 34). His evidence for this
attribution comes from Celsus who makes no mention of the feast or the peculiar
pleasure of grief remembered; he only reports a tradition that Metrodorus, when
he was suffering from a form of swelling called askites, could not endure his
thirst but would drink and then vomit (De Medicina III 21). The difficulties of
reconciling these two separate accounts of what might have been two distinct
events led Korte to a very un-Solomonic division. He sundered the Plutarchean
passage in two and gave the first half to Metrodorus and the second to Epicurus.
(Neokles was, after all, Epicurus' brother.) It would, as Korte says, have been
exceedingly strange if both Epicurus and Metrodorus should have suffered from
the same form of renal disease and endangered their health by not abstaining
from drink.38 This confusion of two distinct lives brings to mind the Christian
conception of the lives of the saints not as a number of lives but a single life lived
in imitation of Christ.
Imitation and emulation were ingrained in the Epicurean conception of the
philosophical life. We know from Seneca how Epicurus and Metrodorus were
rivals in the frugality of their lives (Ep. 18.9). The memorial literature of the first
generation of the Epicurean community is perhaps the clearest expression of a
tendency to offer an individual life as a model (or 86yga) of the philosophical
life.39 Our next source for an appreciation of the importance Epicureans placed
on conformity to the lives of the philosophers who had "led the way" for others
to follow comes from PHerc. 1471 and Philodemus' record of the lectures Zeno
of Sidon gave in Athens on the place of plain speaking (nrapp ta) in Epicurean
education. De Witt exploited this treatise to make the society of the kepos in
Athens and Epicurean schools elsewhere the prototype of the organization of an
38. Cf. Korte, p. 560. He did not notice the similarities between the testimonia he
produces as fr. 46 and Diogenes Laertius' description of Epicurus' death, D.L. X 15-16.

39. Cf. Karneiskos' term in his memorial for Philistas, PHerc. 1027 XVI 2 (note 33
above). In this context, the term describes Praxiphanes' example of how not to write the
life of a philosopher.
American or Canadian university.40 Yet De Witt's interest in Epicurean society
was not misplaced and this small treatise remains our best evidence for the
method of instruction in the Epicurean community in Athens and presumably in
Epicurean communities elsewhere in the Greek and Roman world. (Zeno proba-
bly delivered these lectures in Athens, but it is important to remember that our
record of them belongs to the Epicurean library in Herculaneum).41
On Plain Speaking is informed by the distinction between the leaders and
those who are under their guidance; those who are fully formed as philosophers
and those who are still being "prepared" (oi KGaTaYKSUG alO6tvot). At one point,
Zeno distinguished between two kinds of disciple: the kind of student who will
prove difficult is contrasted with the student who has a disposition to friendship,
a good will, and "long established imitation of those who have led the way."42 A
method like this is recalled by Seneca who quotes one of Epicurus' injunctions
for its application to his own method of spiritual guidance: "Sic fac, inquit,
omnia tamquam spectet Epicurus" (Ep. 25.4-5). The better choice is, as Seneca
adds unkindly, to live as if you are under the constant gaze of some good man.
We know from Cicero and Pliny how constant and piercing this gaze was for the
Epicureans who lived with statues and portraits of Epicurus, and even carried his
likeness on their rings and drinking cups.43
3. Many Members of One Body
For the Epicurean strolling along the gardens of Epicurus in the outskirts of
Athens, it was quite impossible to forget the dead in the thought of the living.
This was the thought of Atticus, as he walked with Phaedrus: "nec tamen Epicuri
oblivisci, si cupiam, cuius imaginem non modo in tabulis nostri familiares sed
40. Organization and Procedure in Epicurean Groups, "CPh" 31 (1936), pp. 205-
211. He has been rightly criticized for this distortion of the organization of Epicurean
groups by Gigante in his treatment of this same treatise, Ricerche Filodemee, p. 59.
41. Cf. Anna Angeli and Maria Colaizzo, Iframmenti di Zenone Sidonio, "CErc" 9
(1979), p. 51 f.
42. inap[a tiiv] ano4it[v]rnotv 8& -ilv noAxp6vtov t6ov aOiTyqcdv o)v V a 7-10; cf.
XIII a 12 Olivieri and Xen., Mem. III 10.3. The Epicurean practice of imitation of the
founders of the Epicurean school has its parallel in Epictetus' studied and sustained
imitatio Socratis; cf. 1.19.16; 2.6.26 and Klaus Daring, Exemplum Socratis, (Hermes
Einzelschriften 42, 1979), p. 51.
43. Cf. Plin., NH 35.5; and Cic., Fin V 1 3 (quoted directly below). [The power of this

image is the subject of Bernard Frisher's The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philo-
sophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1982).]
etiam in poculis et anulis habent" (Fin. V 1 3). If it was impossible for Atticus to
forget Epicurus as he walked in his gardens, there was no way an Epicurean,
living in Athens, could forget the great men of the first generation of his com-
munity. For Epicurus, death was nothing to us, but the Epicurean dead were
crucial for the cohesion of those living in the new group which had its center in
Epicurus' gardens. Their memory was kept alive in many guises: they survived
in the books devoted to their memories and in their likenesses. And Epicurus
was the name given to the sons of two of Epicurus' oldest and closest friends.44
For still later generations he was remembered, as Atticus attests, in his portraits
and his likeness on rings and cups. The portrait on the drinking cups is a
curiosity, but it has its context and its explanation in the central manifestation of
the solidarity of the Epicurean community: the banquets which brought the
group together once a month and on other appointed days during the year to
honor the founders of the school in a hero cult.
Such a practice would appear to fly in the face of Epicurus' warning a60
itt ag and the notion of a hero cult to honor Epicurus and the other founders of
the school has never been seriously entertained, despite the evidence that points
to it, simply because nothing could seem more alien to Epicurean beliefs. For the
Epicureans, there were no "grateful dead." There are a number of contradictions
apparent in some of the actions Epicurus took to enlarge and preserve the
integrity of his community. To these actions we owe Plutarch's essay Live
Unknown; we also owe them more reflection than Plutarch gave them. In re-
sponse to Epicurus' injunction "live unknown," Plutarch replies in kind: grl~&
&6naiin iI3 tXovS ; n t ia tS be. gr&b at (oin it a twliti y ai
Kotvaf "pQdrnaf; 'ti 8 Ei TOWE ntVfl&coi(Ov Kc c- KC)v lvo~ot; "i L zi jaivpt6-
Sg oriixov inki Mtprp66opov, F'_t 'Aptoix63ov)ov, E Xatpkrlgov ypao6-
pcvat Kfl vvat t6gvat 4 toir6v(og iva 'r arcoOav6vrsg XdOomtv; (3. 1129
a). In all of these actions Plutarch discovered a hive of contradictions. But they
are set out in an interesting syntax. What does Epicurus' will have to do with the
common meals of his companions and what do these have to do with his
memorial writings? How do the common meals fit in this context and how do
they contradict Epicurus' injunction "live unknown"?
The answer comes from Epicurus' last will and testament.45 In it, Epicurus
carefully provided for the survival of the community of fellow philosophers
44. To the son of Leonteus and Themista, and the son of Metrodorus, cf. D.L. X 26

and 19.
45. As De Lacy and Einarson suggest in their Loeb edition of the dialogue (Plutarch's
Moralia XIV, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, p. 329, note d). [The cults of Epicurus are the
subject of essay 5 in this book.]
which he had gathered about him by endowing an annual funeral cult for Metro-
dorus, for himself, for his brothers, and for Polyainos. It is the memorial charac-
ter of these cults and their common meals which struck Plutarch as a strident
contradiction to Epicurus' injunction "live unknown." The provisions of this
will, which he was careful to deposit in the State Records Office of Athens (the
Metroon),46 were guaranteed by the two Athenians he named as trustees. Epi-
curus' last will and testament is a philosophical document of great importance, if
ancient philosophy is to be conceived of as a manner of living as well as a system
of doctrines. In his will, Epicurus took pains to guarantee the survival of this
common life of philosophy in his garden-4vbtatpiEtv iKara tL oYo(tav.47
There are five separate religious festivals which Epicurus meant to endow
and perpetuate. The language of his will makes it clear that they were already a
matter of custom in the Epicurean community when Epicurus came to give
thought to the survival of this community after his death. His first provision is for
the yearly funeral cult (ra& vayigata) in honor of his parents and brothers
(D.L. X 18). The second provision is for the annual celebration of Epicurus'
birthday on the tenth day of the month of Gamelion. Third, and most important,
is for the gathering on the twentieth of each month to commemorate Metrodorus
and Epicurus himself. Epicurus' language is either imprecise here or it indicates
that he was honored himself, along with Metrodorus, during the last years of his
life.48 Fourth is the provision for the "day" of his brothers during the month of
Poseideon. Clearly, the "day" celebrated was the day of their birth, as is the case
46. For the significance of this and the dating of Epicurus' writings by Athenian
archon year, see now my Epicurus in the Archives ofAthens, in Studies in Attic Epigraphy,
History, and Topography presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Hesperia Supplement 19
(Princeton 1982), pp. 17-26 [essay 3 in this book].
47. This conception of philosophy as a way of life is quite apparent in Epicurus'
provisions for the care and education of the sons of Metrodorus and Polyainos otno-
coTov'wvy aTwtv a Ka vtowv gO(E' 'Epg6pxou, D.L. X 19) and his characterization of
Hermarchus as "having grown old with us in the life of philosophy" (D.L. X 20).
48. Cf. Ka E ig "iv ytvog vlv O6vo~ov exa K o ) 1avog Tag eiKWYt C(V G)ag-
too6 tov'v giv i;g t;v gflv e Kxa1 Mttpo8dpou (gvi uv) )aaKcTtea'ayIavrvv (D.L.
X 18), which makes it appear that the 20th of each month was the day appointed to honor
both Metrodorus and Epicurus at the time Epicurus came to write his will. Mvijgn is
Aldobrandini's addition of the mss. of Diogenes, based on the language of Cic., Fin. II 31

101. It creates an awkwardness which would have Epicurus the object of a hero cult even
in his own lifetime. Andre Laks' suggestion that ei;g tv is an ellipse for ei;g ilv fapay
has the support of the immediate context of the phrase, but its difficulty is that in Greek
St. pa can mean birthday and Epicurus had already spoken of his ycv ktog i; gpa and
will go on to speak of the "day" of his brother and Polyainos (cf. note 49 below), La vie
d'Epicure in "Cahiers de Philologie" 1 (Lille 1976), p. 88.
with the last provision of the will which endows a festival for the "day" of
Polyainos, to be celebrated during the month of Metageitneon-Ka 0a tep Ka
1itig (just as we do now).49 Such are the provisions of Epicurus' will and such
is the religious calendar of the Epicurean year.
Both Plutarch and Cicero knew this passage from Epicurus' will and they
were quick to pounce upon its contradictions with Epicurus' professed beliefs as
a philosopher. In their eagerness, they fail to inquire into the purpose of the cults
which Epicurus was providing for. The annual sacrifices in honor of Epicurus'
parents and brothers are familiar from Greek religion as the yevtUta of the
family. And, as Burkert reminds us, the family cult of the dead is the foundation
and expression of the identity of the family.50 Yet the group of friends who
survived Epicurus were not members of his family, and his successor, Her-
marchus, was not an Athenian and could not inherit Epicurus' land and other
property. This is the reason why Epicurus appointed the two Athenians,
Amynomachos and Timokrates, as his trustees (D.L. X 16). But in their annual
sacrifices and common meals in honor of the members of Epicurus' family, the
Epicurean community in Athens became a family itself, and even referred to
itself as a family.51 In this new principle of social organization, we glimpse
Epicurus' true intentions. Death is nothing to the philosopher, but the Epicurean
dead were something to the living because they bound them together into a
philosophical family.52
It is a step from the Epicurean funeral cult to the members of Epicurus' family
to the annual celebration of the birthday of the head of this new philosophical
family on the tenth of Gamelion.53 The "day" devoted to his brothers must have
49. For this meaning of the word, cf. Wilhelm Schmidt, Geburtstag im Altertum,
Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 7 (1908), p. 40, who cites Hesychius:
1 lepa" t yevF0st.
50. Griechische Religion der archaischen undklassischen Epoche (Stuttgart 1977), p.
299. S. C. Humphreys has some pertinent comments on the Epicurean cult of their dead in
her study Family Tombs and Tomb Cult in Ancient Athens: Tradition or Traditionalism?,
"JHS" 100 (1980), p. 101 and 121 f.; for the contrast of the cult of the Epicureans with that
of the Athenian genos, cf. F. Bourriot, Recherches sur la nature du genos: Etude d'histoire
sociale Athenienne-Priodes archaique et classique (Paris 1976) II, pp. 1077-1179.
51. As in Philodemus' description of one of the common festival meals of the Epi-
cureans, On Epicurus, PHerc. 1232, in Vogliano, Epicuri et Epicureorum Scripta

(Berolini 1928), fr. 8 I 7-10; on which, cf. J.-A. Festugibre, Epicure et ses dieux (Paris
1982), p. 31 and n. 2. [This is T 16 in essay 5 in this book.]
52. The principle seems to be the same in Epicurus' conception of the reverence given
to the philosopher: 6 tooi o4ov 6e j43 g a 00y6v pkya Lt f3ogtvq, SV 32.
53. Especially if the cult of heroes developed out of a cult of the dead, or is a
been a joint celebration held at some time during the month of Poseideon; and
there was also the "day" in honor of Polyainos during the month of Metageit-
neon. What manner of Greek cult is this? And what manner of cult is the
monthly celebration in honor of Metrodorus and Epicurus on the twentieth of
each month-ra;ig iKacht? The celebration of the "day" of Epicurus' three
brothers could not have been a funeral cult, since this had already been provided
for. The answer to this question is ready at hand, but De Witt connects the
communal and memorial meals of the Epicureans with the Christian com-
memoration of the last supper.54
The festival meals of the Epicureans are not as foreign to Greek and Athenian
religious practices as these. If the yearly cult to Epicurus' parents and brothers
was a funeral cult, the "day" of the brothers could only have been a hero cult,
with its sacrifices and common meal.55 And in the monthly cult to the memory of
Metrodorus and Epicurus there was something of divinity.
What is especially fascinating about the sacred calendar of the Epicurean year
is that it united a group whose members were not related by ties of family or
kinship or citizenship. We know a great deal about the hero cults of the smaller
groups which made up the Athenian state, especially the cults of the deme of
Erchia.56 But perhaps the closest parallel to the common cults of the Epicurean
community comes from the contemporary records of the orgeones of Athens. As
William Scott Ferguson observed in his study of the Attic orgeones: "In the
schools of philosophy, the members of which were thiasotai in fact, if not in
name, citizens and aliens mingled from their founding"; as, indeed, they did in
"gesteigerter Totenkult," as Pfister thought, Die Religion der Griechen und Romer
"JAW" 229 (1930), p. 260; cf. A. D. Nock, The Cult of Heroes, "Harvard Theological
Review" 37 (1944), p. 143.
54. Epicurus and his Philosophy (Minneapolis 1954), p. 105; St. Paul and Epicurus
(Minneapolis 1954), p. vi, and 66 f.
55. For these meals, cf. Plut., Non posse 4. 1089 and 16. 1097 e; Cic., Fin. II 31 103;
Philod., AP XI 44; Ath. VII 298 d, and note 51 above [T 9, 8, and 11 in essay 5]. As for the
suggestion that the festival to celebrate "the day of the brothers" was in fact a hero cult, cf.
the text of PHerc. 1251, or Etica Comparetti, XXII 2, and the few words which seem to
point to a conception of the heroism of some "heroic" men as they faced the ends of their
lives, and Gigante, Ricerche, p. 157 f. Festugibre, op. cit., assembles some examples from
elsewhere in the Greek world of religious foundations for a hero cult such as the founda-

tion Epicurus provided for in his will, but does not suspect a hero cult at the base of the
festivals, p. 34, n. 3.
56. Whose sacrificial calendar has been published by Georges Daux, under its myste-
rious title, La grande demarchie: Un nouveau calendrier sacrificiel d'Attique (Erchia),
"BCH" 87 (1963), pp. 603-634, and digested by Jon Mikalson in his The Sacred and Civil
Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton 1975).
the associations of the orgeones.57 And the Epicureans were, in fact, called
thiasotai (cf. fr. 414 Us.).
Philodemus' On Epicurus (PHerc. 1232) makes it clear that the group
celebrating the festivals of the Epicurean year included the members of the
Epicurean "family" (toi; K zmtc& ilv oiiav) as well as outsiders (oit i cOev) and
joined citizens and aliens in the communion of Epicurean philosophy.58 We have
already had a glimpse of one of their common meals in Plutarch's account of
how Epicurus assembled his friends for a common meal and remembered the
last words of his brother Neokles (Non posse 16. 1097 e; cf. p. 68 above).59
Plutarch and Athenaeus afford still more evidence for these meals, as does a
poem of Philodemus.60 It is possible that meals such as these provide the context
in this world for the monumental reliefs representing the heroized dead at a
banquet, a possibility which is borne out by the inscriptions which show that
they are dedicated to "heroes."61
Wilamowitz came as close as any scholar has to an accurate characterization
of the cults of the Epicurean community in Athens. His explanation is well
known, and open to very damaging criticism, but on the Epicureans at least he
came close to the truth. As he saw it, the philosophical communities of the
Academy, Peripatos, and Garden were technically 0iwaot and it was to their
religious character that they owed their "legal status." As he states his view in an
often repeated epigram: "ein Kotv6v ohne xotva iepa nicht gedacht werden
kann."62 But unlike the Academy, the Garden was not united by its cult to the
57. The Attic Orgeones, "Harvard Theological Review" 37 (1944), p. 68; cf. Nock,
art. cit., p. 126.
58. Cf. PHerc. 1232, fr. 8 I 7-10 Vogliano [T 16 in essay 5].
59. Cf. note 55 above [T 20 in essay 5] and the language of IG II2 1369.24 as a parallel
to the passage from Plutarch's Non posse 16. 1097 e.
60. Cf. note 55 above [T 24, 11, and 8 in essay 5]. Interestingly enough, Philodemus'
poem inviting Piso to a banquet specifies a feast (of requisite Epicurean simplicity) held
on the twentieth of the year (uixd6a ecvicov ivta5otov) AP XI 44. 3) and perhaps
reflects the context of Rome rather than that of Athens. [I recognize David Sider's new
interpretation of this puzzling language in the introductory footnote to essay 5.]
61. The inscriptional evidence has been gathered by Rhea N. Thonges-Stringaris in
her Das griechische Totenmahl, "Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaiologischen Instituts:
Athenische Abteilung" 80 (1965), p. 48 f.; cf. 50-52. Of the inscriptions (monument 91 in

her collection), one is from Athens and about the date of Epicurus' death (Agora, I 4707).
It bears the dedication XPTLIE HPQI; cf. nn. 111, 30 and 41. Unlike Thonges-Stringaris,
I would look for a single context for these monuments representing banquets of the dead
among the living and in their annual hero cults (contrast pp. 62-68).
62. Antigonos von Karystos, Philologische Untersuchungen 4 (Berlin 1881), p. 274.
The religious character of the schools of philosophy in Athens has become a com-
Muses. Rather it honored the unmusical founder of the Epicurean community
himself as a ifjpog t tir g. His monthly honors he shared with his closest
associate, Metrodorus. His annual cult he shared with his brothers and Poly-
ainos. To the question of whether the Epicureans were united in a kind of
thiasos,63 the answer can only be yes. There is good reason to view this thiasos
as devoted to a hero cult in honor of the first generation of the founders of the
Epicurean community. But the monthly meals in honor of Metrodorus and
Epicurus represent something more than a hero cult.
Epicurus and Metrodorus, the associate Cicero rightly called paene alter
Epicurus, were honored on the twentieth of every month. We have evidence for
an Apollo six6&tog; we also have evidence for an Epicurus Kix tog.64 Like the
gods who were honored in the early days of each month in the sacred calendars
of the Greek states, Epicurus and Metrodorus were honored on the twentieth of
each month. And this, as Wilhelm Schmidt once suggested, might be the expla-
nation for the two dates we have for Epicurus' birthday. In his last will and
testament he gives his birthday as the tenth of Gamelion (D.L. X 18); but
Diogenes Laertius gives it as the seventh (D.L. X 14). Did his followers move
the day on which they celebrated his birth from the tenth to the seventh, to honor
him on the day sacred to Apollo? It would seem so.65
To Plutarch's question: What is the meaning of these gatherings and common
monplace in the discussion of philosophical groups; cf. Festugibre, op. cit., p. 31, n. 2.
Wilamowitz' view that the Athenian schools of philosophy owed their legal status to their
religious character (pp. 263-291) has been decisively challenged by J. P. Lynch, Aris-
totle's School: A Study of a Greek Educational Institution (Berkeley 1972), pp. 112-134.
For an elaboration of his criticism of the modern view of the ancient schools of philoso-
phy as "universities," cf. John Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy, Hypomnemata
56 (Gottingen 1978), pp. 148-158. Yet Wilamrnowitz came closer to an understanding of
the Epicurean school as a religious association than any scholar before Festugiere. I quote
his general description of such a foundation for its clear applicability to (and inspiration
in) the case of the Epicureans: "wenn zehn leute sich zusammentun umrn jeden 20 eines
monats ein symposion zu halten (das stets mit einem gemeinsamen heiligen gesange und
mit trankspende beginnt), so wird ihnen diese verpflichtung als stiftung eines ifp ;
Ei Saig (oder auch zu ehren eines 8aiWv oder e6 oder ijpo; ahnlichen namnens)
erscheinen" (p. 275).
63. Lynch, op. cit., p. 120 f. His answer, "There is no reason whatsoever for believing

that it was."
64. Cf. Festugibre, op. cit., p. 31, n. 2.
65. Art. cit., p. 44. An example of a group of Hebdomaistai to the Pythian Apollo
comes from a fragmentary votary relief in the collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities
of the Detroit Institute of Arts published by Emmanuel Voutiras, "AJA" 86 (1982), pp.
229-232.
meals we now have an answer. They meant nothing to the dead; but of the living
members of the Epicurean community, both of the "family" and those who lived
outside the garden, they made a single body. The Epicurean gods joined in these
celebrations, but like the gods of the polis they were at a distance from the
community of fellow philosophers. But their own heroes were nearby and their
cult was the focus of their identity as a group.66
Was this identity bound to a place? We know of hero cults in private houses,
but if the garden of Epicurus was within the walls of Athens, as some have
thought, it cannot have been the site of the graves of the founders of the Epi-
curean community. But there is good evidence that it was located outside the
walls of Athens, not far from the Academy. Here, on the outskirts of Athens, we
discover, quite by surprise, the "monument" of the Epicureans. In Heliodorus'
Aethiopica, a woman seeking her pleasure passes the suburban garden by and
there she sees "the garden where the monument of the Epicureans is."67 She took
the same route as had Atticus and Phaedrus long ago. Demainete had other
thoughts in mind, but as Atticus walked in the garden of Epicurus his mind
turned inevitably to the founder of the Epicurean community.
66. "Die G6tter sind fern, die Heroen sind nah," Burkert, op. cit., p. 318.
67. The relevance of this passage from Heliodorus to the problem of locating the
garden was seen by M.L. Clarke, The Garden of Epicurus, "Phoenix" 27 (1973), p. 386 f.
Heliodorus' word for this monument is gvita. The relevant comment on his choice of
word comes from F. Eichler's study of the use of this word in Greek inscriptions:
"Wahrend &ofto urspringlich einfach die Grabstatte anzeigt, ohne eine Beziehung zu dem
Bestatten herzustellen, ist ivfi a immer mit Ruicksicht auf diesen gebraucht," "Athe-
nische Mitteilungen" 39 (1914), p. 139. In the Hellenistic period, there were sometimes
graves of heroes located within a city. Some of the evidence for this departure from
normal Greek practice is presented by Martin Nilsson, Die hellenistische Schule
(Muinchen 1955), pp. 64-67. The monument of the Epicureans must, however, be located
outside the walls of Athens. [The relation of the garden to the Academy, Stoa, and
Lyceum is elegantly illustrated by the drawing Candice Smith has produced for A.A.
Long and D. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge 1987), volume 1, p. 4.]
Their cult to the heroized founders of their community and their sacrificial calendar must

be included in any future study of the Hellenistic schools.
The Cults of Epicurus
1. The Paradox of Epicurean Cult
Dans les travaux les plus recents, consacr6s aux cultes des h6ros, ceux de
Deneken, de Foucart, de M. Famrnell, le nom meme de Pythagore n'est pas
prononc6. Aussi peut-il sembler qu'il y ait quelque hardiesse ai vouloir 6tudier
le culte h6roque de ce personnage.1
All the more daring, it would seem, is the willingness to study the hero cults of
Epicurus--both the cults he established for the heroic dead of the first genera-
Reprinted from CErc 16 (1986): 12-28. A sketch of this study appeared as "The Cult of
Epicurus: An Interpretation of Philodemus' On Epicurus (PHERC. 1232) and Other
Texts," in Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia (Naples 1984), 2:677-
679. The text of PHerc. 1232, fragment 8, column 1, is published, with the new readings I
note in my edition here, in Adele Tepedino Guerra, "Nuove letture del fr. 8 col. 1 PHerc.
1232, Filodemo, Su Epicuro," in Acts of the XVIII Congress ofPapyrology (Athens 1988),
1:225-231. David Sider has offered a new interpreation of the meaning of the adjective
vuxta tov in T 8, line 3 (Philodemus' invitation to Piso in AP 11.44). By this interpreta-
tion the adjective applies to Piso and his annual visit to one of the monthly celebrations of
the Epicureans in Naples on the twentieth of the month. See Sider, "The Epicurean
Philosopher as Hellenistic Poet," in Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice
in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace, ed. D. Obbink (New York 1995), 46-50. The
argument of this essay fits well in the context of the essays included in volume 3 of B. F.
Meyer and E. P. Sanders, eds., Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World (Philadelphia
1983), and, in its concentration on the solidarity deriving from participation in the cults of
the Epicureans, it adds a dimension missing in Abraham Malherbe's contribution to
Meyers and Sanders' third volume, "Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics" (46-
59). The importance of the image of Epicurus and Epicureans as "good Athenians" has
been recently emphasized by Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates (Berkeley 1995), 113-
122. In this connection, it is well to recall that for Aristotle and for the Greeks generally,
some of the most important components of honor were "sacrifices, memorials in verse
and prose, offerings, precincts, . . . tombs, images . . ." (Rhetoric 1.1361a34-36
Kassell).
I have only been able to note briefly and in square brackets the publication of Phi-
lodemus: On Piety, Part 1 by Dirk Obbink (Oxford 1996). Anyone who has worked on
this difficult text will read this book with great pleasure and great relief. Obbink has

75
tion of his philosophical community in Athens and the hero cults he founded to
honor his own memory in his own lifetime. What could be more paradoxical
than cults devoted to the heroic dead among philosophers whom Dante remem-
bered for "making the soul die with the body" (che l'anima col corpo morta
fanno, Inferno X 15)? Dante placed these philosophers among the heretics and it
would seem with consumate justice. The heresy and paradox of the cults Epi-
curus established for himself and for his dead associates dissuaded even Boy-
anc6 from following the lead of the evidence he had gathered for the cults of the
Epicureans in Athens in his study of the cult of the Muses among the Greek
philosophers. Boyance saw the Epicureans as a fundamentally religious society,
but in the precise and telling provisions by which Epicurus endowed and per-
petuated the cults he had established in his lifetime he could see no apotheosis
and no heroization.2
It is not difficult to see why Boyanc6 left the cults of Epicurus undisturbed in
his examination of the cult of heroes among the Greek philosophers. No Muses
succeeded in restoring to their original order the columns belonging to the two sections of
the papyrus, which had been regarded as separate papyri once the original papyrus had
been cut in half. The columns that have a direct bearing on the argument of this essay are
columns 26-36, lines 723-1022, in the new edition. Obbink's comments on these col-
umns and his essay "Epicurus and Greek Religion" (Philodemus, 1-23), as well as his
earlier "The Atheism of Epicurus" (in Tradition, 187-223), come as welcome supports to
the argument I make here.
1. P. Boyance, Le culte des muses chez les philosophes grecs: Etude d'histoire et de
psychologie religieuse (Bibliothbque des lcoles frangaises d'Athenes et de Rome 141),
(Paris 1937), p. 233.
2. "Il ne s'agit donc ni d'une apoth6ose, ni meme d'une heroIzation, au sens de ce
mot qui le rapproche a une apotheose," op. cit., p. 324. Boyance makes this claim in the
face of Epicurus' last will and testament (DL X 18) and its unmistakable provisions for
the hero cults Epicurus established for himself, Metrodorus, his brothers, and Polyainos
during his own lifetime (Texts 2, 6, 12, and 13 reproduced in Part 3 of this essay). Of the
three scholars he cites, op. cit., p. 233, as having neglected the much less obvious
evidence pointing to a hero cult of Pythagoras, only one, F. Deneken, saw the provisions
of Epicurus' will as evidence for a cult of heroes among the Epicureans; cf. his article on
Heros in Roscher's Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der griechischen Mythologie (Leipzig 1886-
1890), p. 2534 f. Appropriately, he draws a parallel with the religious foundation Epikteta

established nearly a century later in Thera to honor the heroic dead of her family, IG XII
3.330 (now published with excellent photographs by T. Ritti in Iscrizioni e rilievi greci nel
Museo Maffeiano di Verona (Roma 1981), no. 31). F. Pfister only touches the evidence for
the cults of Epicurus in his Der Reliquienkult im Altertum (Religionsgeschichtliche Ver-
suche und Vorarbeiten 5), (Giessen 1909-1912), vol. II, p. 490 f. and only in connection
with the rare monthly cults to the dead (cf. T 6-11 and note 22 below). For the earlier
studies which confront the evidence for the cults of Epicurus, cf. note 8 below.
The Cults of Epicurus / 77
received their honors in Epicurus' garden; and the clear evidence pointing to the
existence of hero cults among the Epicureans in Athens and in Rome seems to
have been buried by the heavy covering of their fundamental philosophical
beliefs. For these, no soul survived the death of the body and in death there could
be no "grateful dead"; the Epicurean was to die as if he had never lived; and the
Epicurean gods, if not the Epicureans themselves, were completely indifferent to
the human gestures of prayer and sacrifice.3 Beneath this covering of philosophi-
cal beliefs, however, lies Epicurean practice and this practice does not seem to
have disturbed the fundamental doctrines of Epicurean ethical theory.
Yet to the outsider it seems to have flown in the face of theory. Plutarch had a
sharp and unfriendly eye for the apparent contradictions between Epicurean
3. The apparent contradiction of the private cults of Epicurus and his participation in
the religion of Athens with the fundamental tenets laid down in Kyria Doxa I (as concerns
the gods) and II (as concerns the complete lack of sensation that defines death) is
something noticed by many of the ancient witnesses to the cults studied here (T 4 and 8; 5
and 10; and 20). To these, one can add Posidonius, Posidonius I: The Fragments, Edel-
stein and Kidd (Cambridge 1972), F 22 a and b; Cicero, DND 144.122-123 (referring to
Posidonius); and Plutarch, Non Posse 23, 1103D, as well as the clear indications of
Philodemus' awareness of the apparent contradictions between Epicurus' theory and
practice in On Piety, p. 118.3-20 and 127.8-28 [col. 51, lines 1449-76 and col. 28, lines
783-810 Obbink]. For the passages from Philodemus, G. D. Hadzsits, Significance of
Worship and Prayer among the Epicureans, "TAPA" 39 (1908), p. 77, is a good example
of what can be called the "Posidonian" or prudential interpretation of the evidence for
Epicurean piety ("[Posidonius disseruit] quaeque is de deis immortalibus dixerit invidiae
detestandae gratia dixisse," in the formula of Cicero in DND I 44.123). The evidence for
the hero cults of the Epicurean community in Athens calls into question the axiom of B.
Laum: "Fur jedweden Totenkult ist die condicio sine qua non der Glaube an ein Fortleben
in irgendwelcher Form," Stiftungen in der griechischen und rbmischen Antike: Ein
Beitrag zur antiken Kulturgeschichte (Leipzig 1914), p. 41. As for the outward gestures of
Epicurean piety towards gods and men, there is epigraphic evidence from the sanctuary of
Amphiaraos at Oropus and the Asclepeion at Athens to suggest that women from the
Epicurean community in Athens made dedications in both places; see C. J. Castner,
Epicurean Hetairai as Dedicants to Healing Divinities, "GRBS" 22 (1982), pp. 51-57;
and in Rhodiapolis, Heraclitus, the priest of Asclepius, received heroic honors from a
number of bodies, including the Council of the Aeropagus and the Epicureans in Athens,

IGRR III no. 733.
Most remarkable of all is the herm of Phaidros Appius Saufeius erected as a dedication
to the Eleusinian dieties in the Eleusionion of Athens. As A. E. Raubitschek remarked: "To
erect a statue or herm of an ordinary mortal in the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddesses
would have been unusual, and I have found no other example, but to erect the herm of an
Epicurean philosopher in a sanctuary and to dedicate this herm to goddesses whose activity
and perhaps very existence was questioned by the man thus honored, require some
explanation," Phaidros and his Roman Pupils, "Hesperia" 18 (1949), p. 101 f.
theory and practice. To Epicurus' injunction Xa0 ~ittba he could retort: "Do
not send your books to all and sundry, both men and women alike . . . Do not
make arrangements for your funeral," and in this same treatise devoted to the
refutation of Epicurus' precept "live unknown" he goes on to ask the significant
question: "What is the meaning of your common meals? And what of the
gatherings of your associates and the fine people who join them? And what of
the countless lines devoted to Metrodorus, Aristoboulos, and Chairedemos,
laboriously composed and collected to preserve their memory even in death?"4
Cicero too had been puzzled by the elaborate provisions of Epicurus' will. Why
would he, of all philosophers, have provided for the annual celebration of his
birthday during the Attic month of Gamelion, or for the feasts given on the
twentieth of each month to honor his memory and that of Metrodorus?5 And
Pliny had a similar difficulty with the practice of the Epicureans of his own age.
In his history of Roman portraiture, he evokes a scene, which must have been
familiar, of Roman Epicureans displaying images of Epicurus in their chambers:
"They offer sacrifice on his birthday, and on the twentieth of each month they
celebrate a festival they call the icadas-they of all people, who do not want to
be known even when they are alive!"6
Epicurus had made the careful provisions for the perpetuation of these fes-
tivals in his last will and testament (preserved by Diogenes Laertius, X 18).7
These provisions perplexed Cicero and Plutarch, just as the practice of the
Epicureans who were his contemporaries perplexed Pliny, who gives us evi-
dence for the survival of the cults of Epicurus in Rome more than three centuries
after Epicurus' death. The many details illustrating the character of these fes-
tivals and the hero cults devoted to the memory of the Epicurean dead have
never been brought together as a whole.8 But taken together they give us a
4. T 20. For an explanation of the syntax of thought that relates this series of
questions, see below.
5. T 4 and9.
6. T 5 and 10.
7. Digested in section 3 of this essay as T 1, 2, 6, 12 and 13.
8. This might be expected in the three general treatments of the Greek hero referred
to by Boyanc6 in his treatment of heroization among the Greek philosophers (note 1
above) and in A. Brelich's, Gli eroi greci (reprinted Roma 1978). The older studies of
Greek associations inevitably glimpse the character of the cults of Epicurus, at least as

these are documented in his will; cf. E. Ziebarth, Das griechische Vereinswesen (Leipzig
1896), p. 72 f. and F. Poland, Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens (Leipzig 1909),
p. 228. But it was Wilamowitz who saw in the memorial cults to Metrodorus and Epicurus
within the kepos the evidence for the status of the Epicurean community as a thiasos,
Antigonos von Karystos (Philologische Untersuchungen 4), (Berlin 1881), pp. 288-290;
picture of the religious foundation of Epicurean society which is fuller and more
vivid than the few details out of which Boyanc6 made his sketch of the cult of
Pythagoras. These details are tesserae now scattered in a number of sources, but
one fragment of evidence comes from an author who knew intimately the
character of the Epicurean cults of his own day as they had migrated to Italy: and
he knew the evidence for these cults within the lifetime of their founder.9
Philodemus' short treatise On Epicurus (PHerc. 1232) preserves what must be
our earliest piece of evidence for the cults of Epicurus as they had been estab-
lished in his own lifetime. In this treatise, Philodemus invokes the language in
which Epicurus invited the members of his household, his friends and associates,
and those "outsiders" who were well disposed to him and his friends to join in a
festival-not in honor of the gods, as Philodemus' editors have thought, but the
heroic dead of his own philosophical family.
Here is the column which Vogliano called the "queen" of the papyri from
Herculaneum.10 This column has often been studied in isolation, but Fr. 8 Col. I
has a context that prepares for it. It would seem that Philodemus' paraphrase of
cf. 275 and his Der Glaube der Hellenen (Berlin 1932, reprint Darmstadt 1955), vol. II, p.
288. Like Pfister (note 2 above), E. Rohde took note of the annual sacrifices to Epicurus
on the day of his birth (T 2-5) and remarked that heroic festivals also fell on the hero's
birthday, Psyche: Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen2 (Leipzig u.
Tuibingen 1898, reprinted Darmstadt 1980), vol. I, p. 235 n. 1; vol. I, p. 233. But he did not
see a hero cult.
Students of the papyri from Herculaneum come closer to an appreciation of the nature
of the cults Epicurus established in his will and they deal with more evidence than the text
of DL X 18. Important for our purposes are the remarks of A. Angeli and M. Colaizzo, I
frammenti di Zenone Sidonio, "CErc" 9 (1979), pp. 91-94 (commenting on their Fr. 11,
PHerc. 1005 Col. XI Sbordone) and M. Capasso in his edition of PHerc. 346 Col. XIII,
Trattato etico epicureo (PHerc. 346), (Napoli 1982), pp. 41-50. Intriguing is the passing
comment of S. G. Pembroke on the endowments of Epicurus' will: "With these endow-
ments, heroic status enters the age of the common man," in M. I. Finley, The Legacy of
Greece (Oxford 1981), p. 311 (a reference I owe to Jenny Strauss Clay). I have given a
very partial presentation of these cults in Individual and Community in the First Genera-
tion of the Epicurean School, in ITZHTHXIX: Studi sull'epicureismo greco e romano
offerti a Marcello Gigante (Napoli 1983), pp. 255-279 [essay 4 in this book].
9. Of the testimonia presented in section 3 of this essay, T 8, 16 and 17 and essential

passages from the On Piety (quoted on p. 83 below) all come from Philodemus. It is likely
that a passage from On Piety, p. 118.24-28 Gomperz [col. 51, lines 1451-61 Obbink], is
evidence for the cults to Epicurus' parents and brothers; cf. DL X 10.
10. "Columnarum hanc reginam in papyris Herculanensibus adservatarum ap-
pelaverim; hic vere afflatu divino spirantia verba, hic vere aurea dicta perpetua semper
dignissima vita!," Epicuri et Epicureorum Scripta in Herculanensibus Papyris Servata
(Berolini 1928), p. 126.
Epicurus' invitation is designed to give still another example of how Epicurus
reminded his associates of the end to which human nature is destined--the
stable and pleasurable condition of the body."1 Significant for the interpretation
of our column is the fact that memory figures both in the fragments that precede
it and in what follows.12 There is also a phrase, strikingly reminiscent of Epi-
curus' language in his last letter to Idomeneus, which evokes a sense of gratitude
in the recollection of past pleasures.13 And finally, in the fragment immediately
preceding Fr. 8 there is a contrast drawn between what is admired by the
philosopher and the objects of popular admiration.
The themes of memory, the ethical end of human activity, and the contrast
between the attitude of the philosopher and the outside world are all present in
the text of Fr. 8. Indeed, the contrast between "those things admired by the
many" in Fr. 7 Col. III seems to carry over into the first five lines of Fr. 8.14
2. PHerc. 1232 Fr. 8 Col. I
(T16)
Sigla
Bassi
Bi
Tepedino Guerra
Vo
The Neapolitan drawing of Gennaro Casanova
The Oxford drawing
D. Bassi, tXooSbigov rtspi 'Etcovpov (A?), B, in Mis-
cellanea Ceriani, (Milano 1910), pp. 514-529.
E. Bignone, Nuovi studi su testi e dottrine epicuree,
"RFIC" 43 (1915), pp. 538-542.
Nuove letture del Fr 8 Col. I PHerc. 1232, Filodemo, Su
Epicuro
A. Vogliano, Epicuri et Epicureorum Scripta in Her-
culanensibus Papyris servata (Berolini 1928), p. 70.
.]A [.] [------------]E [--
..TNOTT.[----------------]EMH[...
8[t]a .apaxoDS g[ox]0oik tia; [E-

11. Cf. Fr. 6 Col. III 7-10.
12. Fr. 7 Col. III 11 and Fr. 8 Col. II 20.
13. Fr. 6 Col. II 10-17, an address to Metrodorus. This passage, with its evocation of
the sense of gratitude for the pleasures of the past, recalls Epicurus' letter to Idomeneus,
DL X 22 (fr. 138 Us.; [52] in G. Arrighetti, Epicuro: Opere2, Torino 1973); cf. Plutarch,
Non Posse 4.1089A and 1095B.
14. Fr. 7 Col. III 14-18.
P1 TOW QpIA5TOV Ki gaXKaplA[To-
5 t6]'rov Ov6wv] Evy[oia;.
...
[Ka]X~iv E 5X[i6]Octa W5oS r
[K]ciT6 'r v oiic~iav] &tcvta; Kai
[r]6ov F4oOv [gi&v]a ircipaX~4-
10 iova; 6o T [a]; [i]voiczq [Ki]
[Ti]oi 4 iXo v xovx . [oN ya6i&r-
gywyijat v ir]o tpcLTiToV-
TQC tfV KEVT V Ka lX YcoX6,-
15 yrflj-]ov b6agcxy[o y]iav, &X' v
'rotai; 0 o)[; oi]K~iotuEv~p-
T(cOV, Oir(OS [y1cO]yilOflta i
20
titit Ea~vT[65v gac]KapicI 1r.0
1.D[A4 .. KQO]1]KOVTQ. QT
*..71A[-----------------
't6]v ~i[Xov----------
3 TAE N; TA 0; 'r&; ir[cpi Bi; 'ra; T't' [&ca Vo; [ufft ToL;] && 'rcpdxol);
[ox]oiiT&;tagirp] I i T6wv dpi Trwv Kiga ~pg['To I td]rov 45c6ex[v] Evy[oicz;
Tepedino Guerra; 4 ap[a]pi6Itow Bi; gapapl[roT6Irwv Vo; 5 Ev g[Epet &E
O*]P~tv Bi; Ev i[vi jt SOVTcL; Vo; iKu[]; scripsi; ye[X]av6w; Ri; yeV~av w a
Vo; iKa[X,]6w Tepedino Guerra; 9 [jn b&v' 6X]w; Vo; 11 ir[op' 'Xa)TOv) 1[c]i
ira[p6 Ri; 16 oiK]eiot; Vo; O]eiot; Bassi; rXk]eiot; Bi; 19 n)[yxu]ayicoxtv Ri;
iiv]ayiwctv Bassi; ga]Kapia Bi; 6[ O] ok6[o]Oo[ivat Bassi; 21 KQOli]KoVTQ
Vo
Translation
... as concerns those who experience turmoil and difficulty in their conceptions
of natures that are best and most blessed. [But Epicurus says] that he invites
these very people to join in a feast, just as he invites others all those who are
members of his household and he asks them to exclude none of the "outsiders"
who are well disposed both to him and to his friends. In doing this [he says], they
will not be engaged in gathering the masses, something which is a form of
meaningless "demagogy" and unworthy of the natural philosopher; rather, in

practicing what is congenial to their nature, they will remember all those who are
well disposed to us so that they can join on their blessed day (?) in making the
sacred offerings that are fitting to . . . Of the friends...
Commentary
The 24 lines of this column seem to articulate into four sentences. The first is
fragmentary and ends with line 5. The second is virtually complete; it needs the
supplement of some verb of saying at the end of line 5 and ends with line 12. The
third ends with line 21. Very little can be made of the fourth. Philodemus seems
to be reporting Epicurus' language, as Vogliano saw, op. cit., p. 125: "Verba
Epicuri ab illius doctrinae sectatore paene integra referuntur." He also seems to
be following the method of his On Piety and Pragmateiai, a method which A.
Henrichs has well described as "composition by compilation," Toward a New
Edition of Philodemus' Treatise On Piety, "GRBS" 13 (1972), p. 67.
PHerc. 1232 has already been seen to preserve quotations from two of
Epicurus' letters. One comes from a letter to Metrodorus Fr. 6 Col. II ([73] in
Arrighetti); the other in Fr. 5 might come from a letter to Polyainos ([84] in
Arrighetti). What Vogliano did not comment on is the manner in which
Philodemus shifts from the third person in his account of Epicurus' invitation (in
lines 5-12) to the first person plural (in lines 12-21). The verb which controls
the sequence of infinitives with the accusative ([xa]XEiv ex0x[Ei]0at, line 6;
[o]i5 Tl tay(Tc etv To-[t]o nparttovlaq, lines 12-14; and veplyovivraq
g[v]1][o68]1oo6at in 16-17) is likely to be a verb of saying and its subject
Epicurus. Thus, Tepedino Guerra's supplement [XFMyt 8]. From the language of
this column and from Philodemus' practice elsewhere in reconstructing
Epicurus' ethical "praxis" from his letters, it seems virtually certain that Fr. 8
Col. I preserves still another quotation from one of Epicurus' letters. It is
possible that the people to whom this invitation is primarily directed (the thtovS
of line 6) are the group Epicurus seems to rebuke in PHerc. 176 (T 14), if
e[nF]|xhr[ ]Ev is to be restored in line 14.
There appears to be an abbreviated version of our text in Philodemus, On
Piety, p. 104.2-9 Gomperz [col. 29, lines 811-840 Obbink] (T 17), where it is
adduced to illustrate Epicurus' practice of addressing the gods and taking oaths
by invoking the gods (lines 10-18 [820-825 Obbink]). It is not clear, however,
from the text of Philodemus' On Piety to what kind of festival Epicurus was
inviting his guests. Diels understood the festival to be one of the monthly
Eix Sg; (cf. T 6-11), and if he is right in his conjecture for T 17 it is likely that

the festival involved in our column (T 16) is the monthly festival Epicurus
established in his own lifetime to honor the "memory" of both Metrodorus (who
had died) and himself (cf. T 6). But Diels' supplement of iixa[o]t for Gomperz'
EIKAIAIAQO in line 4 (p. 104 bottom) cannot be right; cf. Ein epikureisches
Fragment iiber Gotterverehrung, "SBB" 1918, p. 894 (Kleine Schriften zur
Geschichte der antiken Philosophie, ed. W. Burkert [Hildesheim 1969], p. 296).
If this is the case, the eikades honored still other members of the Epicurean
community in Athens in its first generation, for those invited to it are asked to
"remember all those who are well disposed to us" (lines 17-19).
3 8[t]& tapdXoSg g[ox]ovct... This language has a parallel in Philodemus'
citation from a letter of Epicurus on the public piety of the Epicureans, On Piety,
p. 126 [col. 31, lines 879-889 Obbink]. 1-19 Gomperz; fr 386 Us. ([114] in
Arrighetti): 1jg[Ei;] O*o; I O60mgEv, 4otv, [6oL]IkxgK Ka KaXg oi [Ka6O]I1Ket,
Ka[ K]&, [S] tdvlta tp6tou3v [K]It toig vdpo [fl]10[v] tait ;6at;
a[v]ItoiS Ev toig spi t6iv apioctov K[ai] I egvotrv taltapdttovug. It is
also the basis for Bignone's restoration of eptpi in line 3 and it suggests that
g[rjO~v is a possible restoration in line 2. o [Ka6]I1E t in lines 11-12 supports
Vogliano's Ka610[Kovta in line 21. For g[ox]Oo5t, cf. the language of Porphyry,
On Abstinence I 51.2 Bouffartigue, where the verb figures in the contrast
between the security and calm of the philosopher and the tumultuous life of the
many who have no assurance that they will have the grounds for security in the
future: Oi yov toXho' 8t toito, Kaiicp toXd KEKtrjgIEVOt, th
into ety6vcov avijvota goOovyty. For Epicurus turmoil was the effect of
traditional religious beliefs; cf. fr. 384 Us. (Plutarch, Non Posse 8.1092B and
1091F).
PHerc. 1232 is one of the scattered pieces of evidence for Epicurus'
psychology of a religious life which had both its public and its private character,
and it registers Epicurus' distinction between the great public festivals of the
many and the private festivals of his own community. The private observances
of the Epicurean religious calendar could be whole-hearted, but the public
observance of state cult involved a divided mind which observed the outward
ceremony as the occasion for a higher order of reflections on and worship of the
gods as Epicurus conceived them to be. For this the most important documents
are Philodemus, On Piety, p. 126.1-19 Gomperz (just cited) and the later
Epicurean tract on piety from Egypt, which gives instructions for the attitude one
should adopt in state worship or religious 6)pia; that the meaning of this term
(in Col. I 31) is religious observance is convincingly illustrated by D. Obbink in
his "POxy. 215 and Epicurean Religious Oxopia," in Atti del XVII Congresso

Internazionale di Papirologia (Napoli 1984), vol. II, pp. 607-619. How
tremendous and disturbing a state cult could be is well captured by G. Zuntz in
his Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia
(Oxford 1971), p. 183: "The glorious city [Akragas], in its continuous worship,
must have resounded with the shrieks of dying animals, its air reeking with the
stench of blood and burning carcasses." But even more disturbing were the
beliefs that informed these acts.
3-5 t ag I The traces of the papyrus suggest either T or HI. Thus Bignone's ic[Epi
and Vogliano's ta gt' '.[6cag. Given the space available, Bignone's restoration
seems the most plausible; cf. Philodemus, On Piety, p. 126.16 [col. 31, 887-888
Obbink]. An apparent parallel for Vogliano's restoration comes from PHerc.
1418 Col. XXXII 4 Spina ("CErc" 7 [1977], 63), but in Philodemus'
Pragmateiai the phrase refers to a form of human life and not an ideal.
3-5 'c6g7c[4]pi t6v apito m rca giaxaptg[tolta]umv 4ioum[v] vvoiag. All
commentators of this column have referred this language to Epicurus'
conception of "the blessed and imperishable"-that is, to the gods. In his Nuovi
Studi, p. 539, Bignone pointed to the parallel in the language of Philodemus, On
Piety, p. 126.9-19 (quoted above) to secure this interpretation; as he did in his
L'Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro, second edition
(Firenze 1973), vol. I, p. 559 n. 318. In this he is followed by Vogliano, op. cit.,
p. 126, and W. Schmid in his article Epikur "RAC" 5 (1962), col. 748
(= Ausgewahlte philologische Schriften [Berlin and New York, 1984], p. 207),
and by J.-A. Festugibre, Epicurus and his Gods, trans. C. W. Chilton (Oxford
1955), p. 22 f., whose comments on this passage are still the most valuable we
have on the religious character of this text.
If Vogliano's supplement of *v g[vi igt lxovtag were secure, it could be
argued that these lines are a reference to the group referred to in lines 17-18 ("to
remember all those who are well disposed to us"), but Tepedino Guerra's reading
of N for M in line 5 and her compelling supplement of evv[oiag exclude the
possibility that Epicurus is referring here to the heroic dead of his philosophical
community. It would seem, then, that the contrast between Epicurean religious
"praxis" and that of the city, intimated in Fr. 7 Col. III, is firmly established in
line 5 of our column. Support for Tepedino Guerra's supplement comes from
Epicurus, Ad Hdt., 76.9-77.11, a passage I translate in my Lucretius and
Epicurus (Ithaca and London 1983), p. 103 f.
4 axaptg[olta]'mov Tepedino Guerra's supplement fits the space available
better than Bignone's ga [a]pltiotv, and the superlative is right in the context.

The adjective is unusual, however, as a description of the gods, since elsewhere
Epicurus uses this and related words to refer to humans; cf. SV 17, 52, and his
letter to Apelles, [43] in Arrighetti.
6 Ka]X iv evx[6ifl]0at The infinitives clearly depend on some verb of saying
lost in line 5. Tepedino Guerra supplies [XMyet &6]. The subject of the verb is
Epicurus, who is writing to invite the people described in lines 6-12 to a private
religious festival of his community in Athens. The invitation seems to be
referred to by Philodemus in his On Piety (T 17), where we have the participle
AQEXav'ta (lines 8-9), a c~fat for the middle Ea x[Ei]0cat (line 9), and
ndavt]aq, which seems to embrace the groups distinguished in lines 6-12.
6-12 This distinction between Epicurus' close associates "those of his
household"-and the well meaning "outsiders" who are invited to join them in
this private celebration might be implicit in T 20, where Plutarch speaks of the
"gatherings of your associates (ntvr iiov) and the fine people who join them."
In addition to these, there is the group of associates to whom Epicurus addresses
the letter of invitation from which our passage in Philodemus' On Epicurus
depends, the awtoi S of line 6. Clearly they were identified by Philodemus in
what precedes our column.
7 .a[0]d g xa'... This supplement, which fits the remains of the letters and has
the added merit of making the conjectures of Bignone and Vogliano
unnecessary, has no parallel in Epicurus or in Philodemus (so far as I can
discover), and Phrynichus dislikes the adverbial conjunction intensely, despite
its defense in the usage of Phylarchus, p. 425 Lobeck. There are examples of
Kc aOt and KaOg Kai in the papyri; cf. L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundziige
und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig and Berlin 1912) vol. I, part 2,
11A53, and also in the Aristotelian Problems 891b34, and On Plants, vol. I, part
2, 818a16, as well as I Cor. 15.49, and Diogenes of Oenoanda, NF 13 line 8
Smith ("AJA" 75 [1971], p. 380 = fr. 35 I 8 in A. Casanova, Iframmenti di
Diogene d'Enoanda [Firenze 1984] [fr. 43.I.8 Smith]).
10-12 The importance of benevolence to Epicurean society is crucial to an
understanding of this passage, which puts Epicurus at the center of his society
and his friends in its inner radius. Here the reflexive pronouns must refer to
Epicurus, who is not named in this context. In its sensitivity to sympathy and
goodwill, the religious society of the Epicureans, which was founded on private
cults like this, resembles the societies of the Attic "orgeones"; *Svotat seems to

recognize the possibility of hostility to a group that was not clearly a part of
traditional civic religion; cf. IG II2 1326.5-6 and 26 and B. D. Meritt's com-
ments on a new inscription from the Athenian Agora (of ca. 300 B.c.), Greek
Inscriptions, "Hesperia" 10 (1940), p. 56. W. S. Ferguson noticed the similarity
between the societies of "orgeones" and the schools of philosophy in his study,
The Attic Orgeones, "Harvard Theological Review" 37 (1944), p. 68; yet
included in the Epicurean community in Athens were not only non-citizens, but
women, and a slave, as well as children. There are other texts which reveal the
importance of goodwill and sympathy for the Epicurean community in Athens;
cf. fr. 183 Us.; Plutarch, Non Posse 15.1097E; AdPyth. 84; SV67; PHerc. 1418
col. XII 11 and XIV 5 Spina; Metrodorus, fr. 38 Korte; Diogenes of Oenoanda,
NF 24 I 3-6 [127.I.2-3 Smith], where I would restore t&[; i;] tb I Gvv X6v
i~gv [6ogoto]taOsig ;0i68o; (cf. Individual and Community, p. 263 [essay 4,
pp. 61-62]); and Porphyry, On Abstinence 52.4 Bouffartigue. There is also the
final recognition of this attitude in Epicurus' letter to Idomeneus, DL X 22 ([52]
in Arrighetti).
12-15 [o]5 yap 8flI ayowyiotyv toi[t]o tpacLtovI t ; tijv K vv ' iavot-
oX6[lyo[i]ov rg ay[ y]iav... "Demagogy" is Epicurus' derisive term for the
avfyvpt; of the polis and its phratries and gene; cf. Isocrates, XII 263, and
Epicurus' similar injunction concerning the philosopher in DL X 121b: Ka
Yxolv KartaoxevKdoty, 6 X' ov5 6 60' 6 c0ayyifot: he will neither gather
crowds in establishing a school nor will he deliver discourses at public festivals
(DL X 120a, o5 tnav1yvptuiv). One thinks of Conon's entertainment of the
entire population of Athens after his victory off Cnidus, Athenaeus I 3D. As
Epicurus said himself, it was never his intention to gain popularity; fr. 187 Us.
His distaste for some forms of worship is illustrated by his reaction to Colotes'
sudden gesture in falling to the ground and embracing his knees as if he were a
god or monarch, Plutarch, Adv. Col. 17.1117 B-C. As Epicurus wrote in
response to this demonstration, such an impulse is "unworthy of the natural
philosopher" (&vnto6yritov).
15-17 a/&' Cv I toig tfig -4oem[g oi]x iot; eveplyo vta... The immediate
support for Vogliano's supplement comes from the language of the anonymous
Epicurean tract on piety, POxy. 215 Col. I 3-4, and its conception of the natural
pleasures that derive from attending religious festivals: t]6 tig So e; ..
oi]KEiov; cf. Col. II 1-6 in the text of D. Obbink, who offers a new and
persuasive interpretation of the meaning of O cpia in this treatise; op. cit., pp.

616-619. For Epicurus there appears to have been a natural impulse to worship
and a natural pleasure derived from it; cf. Philodemus, On Piety, p. 128.7-12
[col. 26, lines 730-740 Obbink] and fr. 386 Us. This language in PHerc. 1232
makes it likely that Philodemus has adduced Epicurus' invitation to this private
festival of his community in order to illustrate just how he engaged his
theoretical understanding of the natural end of human life in the practices of his
own life; cf. Fr. 6 Col. III 7-10.
17-19 g[v] [o ]6oat avrtov I trv -; e5v[oiaq] i giv 6vtcv . . . The
memorial character of Epicurean festivals such as this is well brought out by
Texts T 6, 20, and 24, and it is something I have attempted to illustrate in
Individual and Community, pp. 264-270 [essay 4, pp. 63-66]. In his "Per una
nuova edizion del Filista di Carneisco (PHerc. 1027)," in Atti del XVII
Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia (Napoli 1984), vol. II, p. 416 f., M.
Capasso has provided an improved text for Col. XVI 1-14 of this memorial
pamphlet [which he has edited in Carneisco: Il secondo libro del Filista (PHerc.
1027), (La Scuola diEpicuro 10), (Naples 1988)]. Here we have another piece of
evidence for how the Epicurean is expected to comport himself at the death of
his friends; their own comportment seems to have given them "heroic" status; cf.
PHerc. 1251, Ethica Epicurea, ed. W. Schmid (Leipzig 1939), Col. XXII 2-3.
What emerges from Fr. 8 Col. I of PHerc. 1232 is the fact that benevolence to
Epicurus himself (or to his friends) is also sufficient for an associate to be
remembered in a hero cult. The plural in line 17 would suggest that this festival
is one of the eiK aeSg and not one in honor of a single individual. As I will
suggest in sequel, memorial pamphlets such as Epicurus' Metrodorus and
Neocles and Kameiskos' Philistas were read during these festivals (which I take
to be the suggestion of T 24). The life of Philistas afforded a model (66 yga) of
the philosophical life; so apparently did the lives of the first generation of the
Epicurean community in Athens. Significant for the importance of these lives is
PHerc. 1418 Col. XXXII 4 Spina. Examples of heroes serving as models for the
lives of their worshippers are given by J. Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales de la
pensee religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grace classique: Etude
preliminaire pour aider a la comprehension de la pidte athinienne au IVme
siecle (Genbve 1958), p. 128 n. 11.
19 6rc; ov[yxaO]ayicotyv . . . This verb (Bignone's supplement) makes it
clear that we are dealing with a cult to the dead and not a cult to the gods.
Herodotus, 1144.5, gives the classic distinction between the two cults in the case
of Heracles (where the contrasting terms are th 6 ava'p Oioval and dcS ijpwt

vayiovati cf. I 167.2, and Pausanias II 10.1, as well as the *vayi txia
Epicurus provided for in his last will and testament (T 1). In contrast, we have a
clear indication of public cult to the gods in Philodemus, On Piety, p. 126.10
[col. 31, line 880 Obbink] (60ojEv). Yet does the language of this column
provide evidence for a hero cult to the dead? In an earlier period, KaOayi EtV
could mean a holocaust offering (as in Herodotus II 47.3), yet even in this case
some part of the victim is consumed by the worshippers; cf. the other passages
cited by Rudhardt, op. cit., pp. 236-238. In this text on the private cult of
Epicurus, there is a clear indication that a meal would follow this joint sacrifice
in the verb Eimox[EI]Oat (line 6); and the evidence of T 8, 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 22,
and 24 makes it clear that we are not dealing with holocaust offerings to the
dead. Bignone detected an allusion to these common meals in Damoxenus'
Fosterbrothers (Athenaeus III 101A-102B [PCG V fr. 2]), where the Epicurean
cook uses the significant word KaOiflyta, L'Aristotele perduto, vol. I, p. 561.
In the other attestations, the compound oyKaOayity describes the
consumption of a sacrifice by a portentous bolt of lightning, Plutarch, Aemilius
24; and the treatment of the gall bladder in sacrifices to Hera Gamelia, Plutarch,
Marriage Counsels II 141C (oi ti ya ita 06ovrFg "Hpa # v xo2lv o
onyKaOayicovt 1tog 6;iXXot Sepoig, &AX' 4X6vrg
pptyav etap& a6v
[ojiov).
20 i ti ieavur[6v ga]Kapiat This word has been interpreted by Bignone,
L'Aristotele perduto, vol. I, p. 560, and Festugiere, op. cit., to be an instance of
axapita as blessedness ("felicita"). An alternative, illustrated by my
translation, is to take it as an adjective with i*Dpa understood (as in T 13). It
combines with i g pa in Epicurus' letter to Idomeneus, DL X 22 ([52] in
Arrighetti): i'v gc Kapiav dyov'tg... lgipav.
21 Ka6ih]Kovra The same expression in Philodemus, On Piety, p. 126.11-12
Gomperz (quoted on p. 83 above) and POxy 215 col. II 5-6 Obbink.
24. ]NCI Probably to]v oi[mov.
3. The Cults of Epicurus
Testimonia
The cults perpetuated in Epicurus' last will and testament (DL X 18 = T 1, 2, 6,
12, and 13):

Annual sacrificial offerings to the members of Epicurus' family:
T 1 'EK &E t6(OV ytvogi*V(OV iipoa6&OV t6)V 6E6oguEVO)V a' , i1giv
'Ag1Jvog6xcQ Kai TitLoxpatEt KcatQ to 6iwa'tv gwpt E65Oe)av gPO'
Epgapxov 3KO7co141EVO~ t S TQ ra Vay ia't4x'tq) tactpt K11 T
grit Kaifl o; &&X oI; Cf. T 22, and Philodemus, On Piety p. 118.
20-28 Gomperz [col. 51, lines 1452-1461 Obbink].
The annual celebration of Epicurus' birthday on the 10th of Gamelion:
T 2 ... a 1giv aE i 'r v EiO i~u~vrv ay*Eo0at y~vEOXtov i t*Epav
F -KQov tiouat ii rpotpa &eKat13 -coi5 FagiXktwvo; (continued in T
6). Cf. T 22.
T 3 Menippus, apud DL VI 101: T6 6 v'Vtol) Kv)vH(ov ) fXia E6Yti
&~Ktpt ... Fova; 'E~cKovpov Kail Ta;Opl Eogva ir' aivtdv
EiKcL&X ( = T 7).
T 4 Cicero, Fin. 2.31.101: Quero, autem, quid sit quod, cum dissolutione,
id est morte, sensus omnis exstinguatur, et cum reliqui nihil sit
omnino, quod pertineat ad nos, tam accurate tamque diligenter caveat
et sanciat "ut Amynomachus et Timocrates," heredes sui, "de
Hermarchi sententia dent, quoad satis sit ad diem agendum natalem
suum quotannis mense Gamelione" (continued in T9).
T 5 Pliny, NH 35.5: . .. Epicuri voltus per cubicula gestant ac
circumferunt secum. natali eius sacrificant (continued in T 10).
The festivals held on the 20th of each month in honor of Epicurus and
Metrodorus:
T 6 ... W61iup Kai Et; tilv ytvog*~vrjv rnvo~ov KWato1 J Tvo; tci;
EiKWY1'tv t(OV OOO)Vvt(cov rjgiV Ei; tTv i vj 'LVE Kai
M~qtpobcdpoo (gvitjv) KatatctaygV~V.
(gvijv) add. Aldobrandini; cf. Cicero, Fin. 2.31.0 (T 9).
T 7 Menippus, apud DL VI 101 (= T 3)

T 8 Philodemus, AP XI 44:
90 l Paradosis and Survival
avptov Ei; Xvnirv 6E iaXxt6&, ptXtatE IkicIov,
, Vatrj XK~ t oaootXi -apo;,
EiKa~a 6icvi~ow v ta~ ov Et'6' 6icoXtIy&;
ovOatQ KaBpogiou XtoyEvfj 7tpo6ty,
5 a'&XX' -tpov 6s o ~tavaXr0ea; & X' F~aiocsrn
FW1]IK0ov yairl; 7cou)?d) XtXPOTEPc.
"v be itOtLE atp J13Kai r gea ;o cL a, HIov,
alge Kx t1S iKQ&L 7C~otprjV.
T 9 Cicero, Fin. 2.31.101: ... itemque omnibus mensibus vicesimo die
lunae dent ad eorum epulas, qui una secum philosophati sunt, ut et sui
et Metordori memoria colatur.
T 10 Pliny, NH 35.5: . .. feriasque omni mense vicesima luna custodiunt,
quas icadas vocant, ii maxime, qui se ne viventes quidem nosci
volunt.
T 11 Athenaeus 7.298D: 'E~cKo1L'pcto; &e -r ixgia~ar n6iv
'r~66 &iv ov EXvil y h ov~v Hap1S; &ogczi)'
The joint cult of Epicurus' brothers during Poseideon:
T 12 rnvmiX*'icoav o Kitl'lciv 666O0thi fgpav to i o6Et6E4voS;
cf. T 25.
The cult of Polyainos on the 6th of Metageitnion:
T 13 imvti'roItu av o Kiatir)vIo2ixivoi novia ny~tvui-Ovo;
KcIOctep Ka~i 1 i.
T 14 PHerc. 176 fr. 5 XXVII 5-19 Vogliano:
o 6' 'E-
7ciKOv)pOc KQV tO)t fv E-
wxnv~o; rn avtoi ME-
nay~t[v]u~vo; [K]ni~nv], -cw5-
10 -rtin XE~,u'tl avtco; [6]7cp
sivXoyov, &iita tarttys-

ve0Xitov 6xnxoto;. KiA
oxo6om & a'[c]xoXicx;e[ ..
15 2t~rff . ]Ev eWvt6 ca tek[e-
iflv 6y v [t]fv 8JtcFK[E]X[*YD-
The cult of Pythocles (?) or Apollodorus:
T 15 PHerc. 176 fr. 5 XVII 1-7 Vogliano (cf. Angeli, I frammenti di
Idomeneo di Lampsaco, "CErc" 11 [1981], p. 71, fr. 34 and p. 97 f.):
o(m t')oi5 &pk['tov] K ca 6~
't[i'v] CKoopc[v ~tx~au7p[(-
5 paGKE1)rjv 'twv i[co]O0"tov
vE6On &8[uijv(O~v].
Invitations to the festivals cf. T 14:
T 16 Philodemus, On Epicurus, PHerc. 1232 Fr. 8 col. I [pages 80-81
above]
T 17 Philodemus, On Piety, p. 104.2-11 Gomperz [col. 29, lines 8 12-819
Obbink] :
2 ................. arv m It
3 ........... tcxivntv (?) 6ytv
6 ................ 'rTlv oiKlLV . .
7 .....................X7t2ajntpv-
8 vvt)a (?) KaK&1GXe~v-
9 tc itavt)x; e iwfyu.
T 18 Philodemus, AP XI 101 (= T 8)
The common meals:

T 19 PHerc. 176 Fr. 5 XVIII 4-7 (= T 14)
T 20 Plutarch, Live Unknown 3.1 129A: ti ycap at' Kotva~T pwwEatc Ti &
a~tOW F-TTrI&ivi0) c~KacLXOV rnvo~ot; 'ti b& ac, upt66*E;6'rixov
~iti MrTip6owpov, zi 'Ap T~o13Xvov, Vt Xalpe6r~gov ypwa6oi*vxn
i a flvTaTT6o1EvQt OXotvo S iva z jb &toOavvtES X6Ou~v;
T 21 Plutarch, Non Posse 4.1089C (fr. 436 Us.): ov'r toiv~pox;i
cO&xpovcL; Eixoc Fvbta'tpIf5&vT irctvoia tthe totovtov obe~ m~
EGK(OitTEV ctUTov Kapva6T~Jc caitpcTOT, OtOV E 0rj1Thpi&OV
6vaXy6Ont, rco6Kxt H&ia xai AeovTicq nvifXOov f itoi5 O&6ov
Crctov (j tc6aQ; KOEi 6S UtVflca notoXO1c5TXTc.
T 22 Aeliani fr. 39 (fr. 218 Us.): o13TO 8&E apQ aVjv lovijg 11TTO 6
'Ent'iKo1po; O)6 c TE '&QiTOW XaXQTO)v ev'Tc1 &aOip Kx i~ L3o1
~ T() gv 2WIip xaiL ti-
iKQ'T01 QX0b ,
ayo
a Ta Ot) &iouh, Kxfl MrjTpobpcO 6e xKi lHOX1MaiVw TOb
tpo~tprjkwOt, ecLUT be &t 6UYiO), 1into T , WYO)tQaTO nktX ov
np2t~O~jJov Ka EWTW)OQ 6 o 6 q. a aTh~aS k tXi0 oii otijOat d;
ava6 j ~Ta 'E v iT txcTQ 7cQ) taE ' E~rjvcLt 0 tpoTevO1]; 'Tc Kai
6xjio~6yo; 013T0.
The character of the festivals:
T 23 Philodemus, AP XI 44 5-7 (= T 8)
T 24 Plutarch, Non Posse 16. 1097E (= Metrodorus, fr. 46 Korte): votdov
v0(~ov CK~Tx tr~ cVCL 6 ta6T~q pi?(OV (YlVVfye Kxai 013K e O0v~t T1
7coGaw(O)j1 TOe) 13pO13 T(96 pO7t -K tc OW EYXtT(Ov NeoKX~ovx
Xoyov ~ v ~~~~OS Etr] OT~ ~T K a ap1)V ibi&pOItC(9 t16vij.
Commemorative cups and images:
T 25 Cicero, Fin. 5.1.3: Tum Pomponius: At ego, quem vos ut deditum
Epicuro insectari soletis, sum multum equidem cum Phaedro, quem
unice diligo, ut scitis, in Epicuro hortis, quos modo praeteribamus,
sed veteris proverbi admonitu vivorum memini, nec tamen Epicuri
licet oblivisci, si cupiam, cuius imaginem non modo in tabulis nostri
familiares, sed etiam in poculis et in anulis habent.

T 26 Pliny, NH 35.5 (= T5)
The location of the site of the cult:
T 27 Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1.16.5: Knemon: Xa ti &bi notiv;/ ifb,
(Thisbe) ov KticfLov o1XOa, ~"EyEv, vOa t6 gvflga tvv
'ErK ovpEcov; ev'raOc Eig Sc inpav eXO6wv rpig ve.
Translation
T 1. And from the proceeds [of the garden estate] which have been willed by us
to Amynomachos and Timokrates let these make a distribution with the help of
Hermarchus to insure the funerary offerings to my father, to my mother, and to
my brothers . . . T 2. and to hold our customary birthday celebration each year
on the tenth of the month of Gamelion . . . T 3. Now, the books of the Cynic
(Menippus) are thirteen ... The Ancestry [or birth?] of Epicurus and The
Festivals of the twentieth Day observed by them [the Epicureans]. T 4. My
question is this: How can it be that, since all sensation is extinguished with [the]
dissolution [of the body and soul], and, since there survives absolutely nothing
that can effect us, he [Epicurus] takes such pains and care to insure and to
establish that "Amynomachos and Timokrates," his heirs, "provide that there is
enough to celebrate his birthday each year during the month of Gamelion .. ."
T 5. They display images of Epicurus in their bedrooms and carry them about
with them. They offer sacrifices on his birthday . . . T 6. (continuing T 2) ...
just as (insuring) the gathering of those who are our fellows in philosophy,
which has been established on the twentieth of each month to honor our memory
and that of Metrodus. T 7. = T 3. T 8. Dearest Piso, tomorrow a companion who
loves the Muses will draw you to a simple shrine after the ninth hour to celebrate
with a dinner the annual festival of the twentieth. If you miss sows' udders and
the drink of Bromios, born in Chios, you will see the truest of companions and
what you hear will be sweeter by far than the land of the Phaeacians. And, Piso,
if ever you turn your eyes towards us, we will transform our sober festival of the
twentieth into one of greater abundance. T 9. (continuing T 4). . . and also that
they should insure provisions for the dinners, held on the twentieth of each
month, of those who are his fellows in philosophy to cherish his memory and
that of Metrodorus. T 10. (continuing T 5). . . and they observe a festival on the
twentieth of each month, which they call the eikades-they of all people, who
do not want to be known even when they are alive. T 11. An Epicurean celebrant
of the festival of the twentieth who was one of our fellow diners said, when an
eel had been set out in front of him: "The Helen of the meal has made her

appearance. Now I will be her Paris!" T 12. (continuing T 6)... and let them
join in celebrating too the day sacred to Polyainos during the month of
Poseideon; T 13. and let them join in celebrating too the day sacred to Polyainos
during the month of Metageitnion, just as is our practice now. T 14. Even during
his lifetime Epicurus attributed special significance to this day, the sixth [?] of
Metageitnion, since he [Polyainos] died on this day, which is a reasonable
conjecture, or since he had his birthday on this day.... And he bade others...
to celebrate this ceremony as well . . . T 15. We made arrangements worthy of
the excellent Pythocles, making his funeral as fine as possible, and we arranged
for the preparation of the dinners too which it is customary to give in honor of
people of a nature such as his. T 16. = Text of PHerc. 1232 Fr. 8 Col. I. T 17. He
himself [celebrates] this festival [as do those] of his household, making a fine
display and inviting all to dinner. T 18. = T 8. T 19. = T 14 lines 4-7. T 20. What
is the meaning of your common meals? And what of the gatherings of your
associates and the fine people who join them? And what of the countless lines
devoted to Metrodorus, Aristoboulos, and Chairedemos, laboriously composed
and collected to preserve their memory even in death? T 21. Nor is it fitting for
people of moderation and self control to dwell on thoughts such as these nor the
kinds of activities Carneades ridiculed him [Epicurus] for engaging in, as if he
were to reckon from a log "How many times I slept with Hedeia and Leontion"
or "Where I drank wine from Thasos" or "How many sumptious dinners I ate on
the festival of the twentieth." T 22. And so Epicurus was so much the slave to
pleasure that as one of his last acts he wrote in his will that funerary offerings
should be made once a year to his father, to his mother, and to his brothers, and to
Metrodorus and Polyainos, who we have already mentioned, as well, and twice
as much for himself, prompted by his dissolute character to give himself
preference even there-the clever man! And he made arrangements for tables of
marble to be made and placed in his tomb as offerings, our feaster who cannot
wait for the festival, our gourmand. T 23. = T 8 lines 5-7. T 24. Even though he
was suffering from a disease called "askites" he would bring some of his friends
together for a dinner and did not refrain from exacerbating his dropsy by taking
liquid and melted with a peculiar kind of pleasure mixed with tears as he recalled
the last words of Neokles. T 25. Then Pomponius [Atticus] said: "But I, whom
you like to attack as devoted to Epicurus, spend a great deal of time with
Phaedrus, who, as you know, I am particularly fond of, in the gardens of
Epicurus, which we just passed. Yet, warned by the old proverb, I remembered

the living; but I could not forget Epicurus, even if I wanted. Our associates have
his likeness not only on wood panels, but even on their drinking cups and rings."
T 26. = T 5. T 27. Knemon: "But what should I do?" And she [Thisbe] said: "You
know the garden where the Epicureans have their monument? Go there at
evening and wait."
This column of Philodemus' On Epicurus combines with evidence scattered in
many sources to give us a new and fuller appreciation of the religious praxis of
the Epicureans from the time of the founding of the hero cults of Epicurus until
the age of Pliny and Plutarch. Epicurean cult began with what was most familiar
to the members of the Epicurean community gathered in Athens-an annual cult
to the parents and brothers of the founder. This involved the traditional and
annual offerings at the grave of the dead (T 1), and it had as its effect, and likely
as its purpose, to unite a group of "friends" which included non Athenians,
women, a slave, and children. That is, those private cults which assured and
renewed the solidarity of the family made for a new kind of social solidarity.15
None of the dead honored by these cults could have benefited from these
offerings, but they formed a bridge which made it possible for a new member of
the group of fellow "philosophers" to cross over from the family and civic cults
with which he was familiar into a new religious society with very different
conceptions of death, the gods, and the meaning of prayer and sacrifice.
For Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus' last will and testament was a testimony of
Epicurus' gratitude towards his parents and generosity to his brothers.16 He
might have been thinking of the provision by which Epicurus perpetuated the
joint cult of his brothers during the Attic month of Poseideon (T 12 and 24). All
three seem to have been active in the life of Epicurus' community and their
illnesses and deaths seem to have been commemorated in memorial
pamphlets.17 This additional cult commemorating the "day" of the brothers
15. Thus, these rituals were known as the yev~ita, or days of commemoration for the
dead of the family on the day of their birth; cf. F. Jacoby, Genesia, "CQ" 38 (1944), pp.
65-75. For the hero cults perpetuated in Epicurus' will, the characterization of W. Burkert
is relevant: "der Heroenkult ist ein Zentrum ortsgebundener Gruppen-Identitat,"
Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart 1977), p. 316. B.
Frischer provides an essential description of the Epicurean community as a surrogate
family in his The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient
Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1982), p. 206 f.
16. DL X 10.10: i te tpbg toi; yovdcag cEacptcia xaici itpbg toi; 6Sd oi;
EvinotcL tp6 '"CEo i oiSic ixtaS fp6trj;, w S6rXov xxK t&V 8tc9rjK(v toi Ki 6tt
awtot ouvr otoo6o4v catw, & iv v8o6ta'tog 6 rpostprldvog Mig; cf. Philodemus,

On Piety, p. 118.24-28 Gomperz [col. 50, lines 1430-1437 Obbink].
17. The essential information concerning Neokles, Chairedemos, and Aristoboulos
can be found in the index of Usener's Epicurea (Leipzig 1887). (Agathoboulos in
makes it clear that we are dealing with a new hero cult and not the annual cult,
which was already provided for (T 1).18 Epicurus never expected his brothers to
enjoy the offerings of either cult; nor did he expect them to enjoy the feast shared
by the living in the manner of the majestic reclining figures of the Attic funerary
reliefs.19 Rather, the memory and example of these philosophical lives were
meant to benefit the worshipper in holding up to him an ideal for the conduct of
his own life. This is precisely what Epicurus meant when he said that "the
worship of the philosopher is a great good to his votary."20
Then there come the other annual cults to honor the memory of other
members of the Epicurean community in Athens: Polyainos of Lampsacus (T 13
and 14) and the young Pythocles (T 15). In the case of the cult of Polyainos, the
author of PHerc. 176 is unsure of the significance of the day which Epicurus
chose for his cult; it would seem that even when Polyainos was alive Epicurus
attached a special significance to his "day," the sixth of Metageitnion. Was this
the day of his death? Our author thinks that this is the most reasonable
supposition (T 4 lines 10-11), but his alternative-that the sixth was his
birthday-is the only reasonable supposition, since heroes were honored on the
day of their birth.21 This is the case of the festival Epicurus established on the
day of his birth, given in his will as the tenth of Gamelion (T 2); Epicurus'
Usener's Index is simply a record of a lapse in Plutarch's memory; cf. T 20.) All three
brothers figured in pamphlets of Epicurus (DL X 26-27, p. 85 Us.). One can add Phi-
lodemus, On Piety, p. 118.18-23 Gomperz [col. 50, lines 1421-1425 Obbink], to the
evidence for Neokles' praise of his brother. His last words seem to have been commemo-
rated in Epicurus' Neokles (a memorial pamphlet written for Themista in Lampsacus); cf.
T 24, and T 20 (discussed on p. 99 below).
18. Cf. T 12. There is a similar arrangement for the heroic dead of the family of
Epikteta, where there were yearly sacrifices to the Muses (on the 19th of Delphinion),
Phoinix and Epikteta (on the 20th) and Kratesilochos and Andragoras (on the 21st); cf. IG
XII 3.330 (no. 31 in Ritti, Iscrizioni) Col. II 29-III 2; IV 6, 10-19, 23-31 and IV 8.
19. A genre fully described by R. N. Thoenges-Stringaris in her Das griechische
Totenmahl, "Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts: Athenische Ab-
teilung" 80 (1965), pp. 1-99; cf. my remarks on the evidence collected in Individual and
Community, p. 276 n. 61 [in this book, essay 4, n. 61].
20. 'O to o oi o efpuS g dayaO6v ptya ti ef3o hvp mt (in Usener's emended
text), SV 32; Arrighetti properly cites Seneca, Ep. XI 8 (fr. 210 Us.) as an illustration of

this doctrine (op. cit., p. 562).
21. The evidence in Pfister, op. cit., II, p. 489 f. (who cites none of the evidence for the
cults of Epicurus) and W. Schmidt, Geburtstag im Altertum (Religionsgeschichtliche
Versuche und Vorarbeiten 7), (Giessen 1908), p. 40.
language makes it clear that this festival had already become a matter of custom
at the time he made up the will that devised the provisions for its perpetuation
(tilv 1 iitoigvrv fy&cO8at yevOXtov ij pav).
And moving as close to the gods as was humanly possible, there was the
festival for which the Epicureans were best known-that established on the
Apollonian day on the twentieth of each month which Epicurus fixed-again
during his own lifetime-to commemorate Metrodorus as well as himself (T 6-
10).22 In striking contrast to the cult of Plato in the Academy, the cult of
Epicurus was celebrated both on his birthday, as befitted a heros ktistes, and on
the twentieth of each month as befitted a god: deus illefuit, deus. Yet Lucretius'
language in praise of the divine and heroic founder of his philosophy (V 8)
confirms our natural tendency to forget that the Epicurean EiKa&atoai also
gathered to commemorate the memory of Metrodorus.
Our text, PHerc. 1232 Fr. 8 Col. I (T 16), fits securely into this series of
testimonia for the cults of Epicurus. It preserves, as we have seen, an invitation
which Epicurus directed to a large group, including the members of Epicurus'
household in Athens and outsiders, to join in a communal sacrifice to honor the
heroic dead of his philosophical community. Perhaps the most remarkable
feature of this invitation is Epicurus' conception of the attitude of benevolence
and friendliness (Fi-votat) that made for an entry into the Epicurean community
in Athens on the occasion of this private festival and which, as directed to
Epicurus and his friends, helped elevate one of his close associates to the status
of hero. There is also the vivid contrast between the semi-private cult of the
Epicureans and the "demagogy" of the great religious cults of the city of Athens.
This "dies festus Epicureorum" (as Vogliano called it) was not a public festival
offered to the gods of the city; it did not require of the small group of sacrificial
associates the "secession" into the self and concomitant mental translation of
popular beliefs into the refined theology of the Epicurean.23
22. The evidence for the Athenian college of Eixabeig, a group to honor the hero
Eikadeus in worship of Apollo Parnessios, is alluded to by Festugibre, op. cit., p. 22 n. 15.
The evidence for this college comes from a decree of 324/3, IG II2 1258; cf. Ziebarth, op.
cit., p. 182.
23. The phrase "secession" I take from Seneca, Ep. 25.6: "incipiam tibi permittere,
quod idem suadet Epicurus: Tunc praecipue in te ipse secede, cum esse cogeris in turba"
(fr. 209 Us.). This psychology of a new and private piety does not apply to the cults of

Epicurus himself, but it is best documented in POxy. 215 Col. I 16-32 and II 1-8, and
Philodemus, On Piety, p. 126.1-19 Gomperz (quoted on p. 83 above). Hadzsits, op. cit., p.
79, speaks of "mental reservation."
We do not know much of the actual character of the festivals which constitute
the private religious calendar of the Epicurean year. Epicurus clearly made an
attempt to provide them with a splendid setting;24 and he also decided to invite
people who were well disposed to him and his friends from the outside world (T
16 and 20). Following the sacrifice there was a common meal (T 16), and these
meals, which De Witt compared to the yawai of the Christians, are a distinct
and often observed feature of these cults; thus Plutarch can ask ci y&p ctii otvat
ipaneat; (T 20).25 Beyond these sacrifices and common meals, there seems to
24. T 15 (Ent [actp]v[v]a[v](e)g) and T 18 (it Xgnpv/[vavt]a). Festugiere, op.
cit., p. 23 n. 21, cites Strabo's description of the feasts of the mysteries at Ephesos (E Oct
S tvt oi v*ot 0t2Xo Xovat adXto'ta Xr r ptag vta 0 e)ic; a Xgnpv6gevot, XVI
20), but without reference to these passages. Similar arrangements are recorded on a
document of the orgeones of the "god" Hypodektes in IG 112 2501 (from the end of the
fourth century B.C.); cf. the discussion of W. S. Ferguson, The Attic Orgeones, "Harvard
Theological Review" 37 (1944), p. 81 f.
25. Epicurus and his Philosophy (Minneapolis 1954), p. 105. These common meals
of the Epicureans play a prominent role in our testimonia for the cults of Epicurus; not
only do we have Plutarch's question concerning their gatherings and common meals (T
20), but there is the evidence of T 16 (line 6) 8, 9, 11, 15 (where the meals to commemo-
rate the memory of Pythocles are said to be customary "in honor of people of a nature
such as his"), 17, 21, 22, and 24; as well as Damoxenus, fr. 2 Kock [PCG V fr. 2 Kassel-
Austin]. The cups known to Cicero which bore the image of Epicurus (T 25) obviously
connect with these commemorative meals. Drinking cups and cushions are a part of the
furniture of the dining hall that Strato left to Lyko (DL V 62).
Yet these meals challenge a dogma in the study of Greek religion concerning the cult
of the dead (heroic or not). The clearest statement of this dogma can be found in Rohde,
op. cit., I, pp. 148-152; as distinguished from the cult of the gods, the cult of heroes did
not involve table fellowship, since the offerings to these chthonic divinities were sup-
posed to be holocaust. In the case of the Olympians, feasting followed sacrifice; in the
case of the cult of heroes it did not. (Cf. Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana VIII 5: ei &8
6va, xa
ayov; and Herodotus I 31, as against a text like Lucian, On Mourning 9:
'ptEovtat E dp a 'rtaig ap' isv zoti iat toi KaOay to otvot; "ittv6v rtawv; cf.
19.) But A. D. Nock has provided a powerful marshalling of the evidence that demon-
strates that there was table fellowship in the cult of heroes, The Cult of Heroes, "Harvard
Theological Review" 37 (1944), pp. 141-178 (reprinted in Essays on Religion and the

Ancient World, ed. Z. Stewart, Cambridge, Mass. 1972, vol. II, pp. 575-602). The
problem was raised in an acute form by the discovery of a record of a group of Attic
orgeones dedicated to the worship of a hero and heroines which provided for the distribu-
tion of the flesh of the sacrificial victim.
This was first published by B. D. Meritt in "Hesperia" 11 (1942), pp. 282-287; W. S.
Ferguson's comment on this text reveals the power of the old dogma: "The objects of
worship are specifically a hero and heroines, yet in making the sacrifice the orgeones
violate every provision of the ritual normal in the cult of the dead," op. cit., p. 78.
have been discourse. Philodemus (T 8 lines 6-7), promised Piso words "sweeter
by far than [those heard in] the land of the Phaeacians."
And a passage from Plutarch can be pressed to give us a more concrete idea of
the kind of discourse heard earlier among the Epicureans of Athens (T 24). Here
we have an account of an Epicurean (who must be Epicurus himself)26 who
would gather his friends for a feast and break into tears as he recalled the last
words of Neokles. This suggests that a reading from the memorial literature,
which was once so prominent a feature of Epicurean philosophy, was a part of
the hero cults of Epicurus.27 In this case, it seems likely that this anecdote from
Plutarch describes a reading of Epicurus' commemorative volume Neokles on
the occasion of the festival honoring the "day of the brothers" (T 12). This
hypothesis would help explain the strange collocation of details in a passage
adduced as evidence for the common meals in Plutarch's Live Unknown (T 20).
The gatherings of Epicurus' associates and the fine people who join them
connect with the long memorial volumes devoted to Epicurus' brothers because
a recitation from these pamphlets was a part of celebration held to honor the
"day of the brothers."
Finally, there is the evidence for the setting of these ritual meals. The Greek
cult of heroes was indissolubly connected with the graves of heroes,28 and one
would expect to find, in either the literary or the archaeological record, some
evidence for the place of the Epicurean cults. From the literary record, we have
the passage from Heliodorus' Aethiopica (T 27), first sighted by M. L. Clarke,29
which gives us the evidence for a monument (gvftga) of the Epicureans outside
26. Divided by Usener into fragments 186 and 190 and fr. 46 in Korte, Metrodori
Epicurei Fragmenta (in "JCPh" Suppl. 17), (Leipzig 1890). For the problem of the
paternity ofthis fragment, see my Individual and Community, p. 268 f. [in this book, essay
4, pp. 65-66].
27. For an account of this memorial literature, see Individual and Community, pp.
264-270 [in this book, essay 4, pp. 63-66] and now M. Capasso, op. cit., for Kamrneiskos'
Philistas (PHerc. 1027). Something like this is imagined for the common meals of the
Epicureans by A. Barigazzi: "Intomrno alla tavola del banchetto essi ricordavano il maestro
e la sua dottrina, che aveva svelato ai mortali la possibility di ragiungere una feliciti
superiore a quella dei Feaci" (inspired, obviously, by T 8), Uomini e dei in Epicuro (P O.
II, 30-32, n. 215), "Acme" 2-3 (1955), p. 51. But, once again, the center of attention
focuses on Epicurus and not the memory of his fellow philosophers which he was so

zealous to preserve.
28. Cf. Pfister, op. cit., pp. 450-459, Burkert, op. cit., 312-319, and the valuable
study of J. S. Rusten, FEITON HPQZ: Pindar s Prayer to Heracles (N 7.86-101) and
Greek Popular Religion, "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology" 87 (1983), pp. 289-
297.
29. The Garden of Epicurus, "Phoenix" 27 (1973), p. 386 f.
Athens. And Aelian adds to this a detail so fantastic (and so typical of Aelian and
his attitude towards Epicurus) that it has never been taken seriously. Did
Epicurus really arrange for a marble table to be set up as an offering by his
grave? We can be sure that Epicurus never intended such a table as an offering to
himself, but we do know that tpa6aczt were important accessories of the cults
of heroes in Greece.30 So were the statues which were set up as memorials to the
dead in their rpvr or ilp a.31 Perhaps our last piece of evidence for the cults of
Epicurus comes from the archaeological record and from the area of Epicurus'
garden where a collection of statues has been unearthed which G. Dontas has
associated with Epicurus and his garden.32 We do not know if these statues were
still standing when Atticus walked through Epicurus' garden in the company of
Phaedrus (T 25), but we do know that the images of Epicurus and his associates
were essential to the commemoration that became an essential part of Epicurean
philosophy and we know from Pliny that the Epicureans in Rome carried
portraits of Epicurus as they sacrificed to him on his birthday and celebrated the
eikades (T 5 and 10).
Epilogue
The solid evidence for the cults of Epicurus makes the enthusiastic and religious
language of Epicurus and his associates seem less extravagant than they seemed
to Plutarch who seems to have no notion of the fundamentally religious
character of Epicurean society. Thus, when a nameless Epicurean is described as
"proving at his end one of the heroic men," the word "hero" is not a metaphor.33
We have seen the evidence for the hero cults Epicurus established for six of his
30. Cf. W. S. Ferguson, op. cit., p. 80 n. 27 [and Obbink's note to On Piety col. 30,
lines 843-44 (pp. 432-33)].
31. Perhaps the best examples of such statues are the blocks bearing the inscription of
Epikteta of Thera; from the names inscribed in large letters above the text of the inscrip-
tion, it is clear that graves of the heroic dead of this wealthy and pious family were
honored by statues. This is confirmed by the inscription itself, Col. I 9-25, and VIII 20-
24, in Ritti, op. cit.; Cf. DL V 51 for the bust of Aristotle in the Museion of the Lyceum; V
52 for the statue of Nikomachos; and IG II2 1326 for the statue of Agathocles, next to that
of Dionysos.
32. G. Dontas, Eixovtcrtx& B, "Ap. A Xr." 26 (1971), pp. 16-33, especially 21-25.
33. ... ipt4xi[6i]v 6[v]Opeino[v ev t]*lEt ye[v6] ~evog, in Ethica Epicurea, Pap.

Herc. 1251, Col. XXII 2-3, ed. W. Schmid (Leipzig 1939).
close associates who preceded him in death; and there is abundant evidence
for the cult of Epicurus himself. The festival another Epicurean treatise evokes
at its end is not a Platonic metaphor for a feast of discourse; what it describes
is most probably a real commemorative festival in which the discourse
of the worshippers returned to the exemplary careers of the heroic dead of
the Epicurean community and a reading from its once rich memorial litera-
ture.34 And when an Epicurean is described as the vilg of another, it
could well be that the tradition of ritual, commemorative meals which survived
in Italy in the first century B.C. provides a context for the praise of the
dead.35
But when such language is reflected in Lucretius or in the philosophical
inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda, something has changed. For one thing,
Lucretius and Diogenes restrict their enthusiastic and devout praise to a single
individual, Epicurus.36 He was the founder of the cults of his philosophical
community and in a true sense a heros ktistes, and it is in his life that we see the
most eloquent exemplification of the attempt to imitate the divine (6goi otq
O4). But, while the language of Lucretius and Diogenes remains religious, it no
longer reflects the religious praxis of an Epicurean community. Their language,
while religious, has become metaphoric and in it we have heroism without a hero
cult. And we have come to lose sight of the wisdom of the heros ktistes who
established and perpetuated the paradoxical cults that were to give coherence
and social identity to the diverse members of the Epicurean community in
Athens. Epicurus explicitly recognized that true piety was not a 0cpa ia tOv
0n6v. Its object was to come to approximate the object of its veneration, and in
the case of the cults to the Epicurean dead the worship of the philosopher was a
great good not to the philosopher, but to the worshipper (SV 32). It would seem
that the good of the private cults he established for his community was twofold:
first, they gave the members of his community who aspired to the tranquility
of the philosophical life a model in the lives and deaths of the philosophers
who had come before them to show them the way; and they made for a sense of
34. In Trattato etico epicureo (PHerc. 346), fr. XIII 18-24 Capasso.
35. In Iframmenti di Zenone Sidonio, ed. A. Angeli and M. Colaizzo, "CErc" 9
(1979), p. 75 (Fr. 11, from Philodemus, PHerc. 1005 Col. XI 9); for the religious context
of this language, the commentary of Angeli and Colaizzo (pp. 90-94) is valuable.
36. Lucretius I 62-79, III 1-30, 1041-1044, V 1-54; Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 14

(fr. 75 in Casanova [fr. 73 Smith]); NF 7 Col. III 12-14 Smith (New Fragments of
Diogenes of Oenoanda, "AJA" 75 [1971], pp. 366-369; fr. 73 in Casanova [fr. 72.III.12-
14 Smith]). [For the interpretation of NF 7, see essays 11 and 12.]
group identity and belonging as nothing else could. In doing this these cults
provided a bridge for those who would cross over from the larger society of the
polis to "open the doors to our community which are entered through fellow
feeling."37
37. In the language of Epicurus, as quoted by Diogenes of Oenoanda, NF 24 [fr. 127
Smith]. For the text, cf. M. F. Smith, "AJP" 99 (1979), pp. 329-331, and my Individual
and Community, p. 263 [in this book, essay 4, p. 61-62]. As Casanova notes in his edition
of the fragment (Fr. 124) my supplement of 6toto]xcOseig ioi68og (Col. 12) seems long;
but d]IrnaOig is hardly Epicurean.
The cults of Epicurus are strikingly similar in their context and social function to the
burial practices of the koina or religious associations of foreigners on Hellenistic Rhodes,
so well characterized by P. M. Fraser in his Rhodian Funerary Monuments (Oxford 1977),
p. 60 and 63 ("These commemorative reunions at the tomb were certainly not only
calculated to keep alive the memory of the departed 'friend' or 'brother,' but also in
general to cement the bonds which linked the members of the koinon to each other.")
At the conclusion of this study, thanks are due to several of the scholars at work on the
papyri from Herculaneum. First, I would like to thank Professor Marcello Gigante for his
hospitality at the Officina dei Papiri in Naples as well as the inspiration of the XVII
International Congress of Papyrology where I presented a first version of The Cults of
Epicurus; also Professor Graziano Arrighetti who presided over the round table on
Epicureanism in May of 1983 and who heard a version of this paper in Princeton. I am
also grateful to Dr. Livia Marrone for reviewing with her expert's eye the text of PHerc.
1232 Fr. 8 Col. I; and to Dr. Adele Tepedino Guerra whose new text of T 16 has redirected
my interpretation of the papyrus on several crucial points. This new text and an expert
philological commentary will appear among the Acts of the XVIII International Congress
of Papyrology, and I thank her cordially for making her Nuove letture del fr. 8 col. 1
PHerc. 1232, Filodemo, Su Epicuro available to me and for allowing me to refer to it

before its publication.

Chapter 2
ITALY

Philodemus on the Plain Speaking of the
Other Philosophers
Philodemus was the author of a history of philosophy entitled The Ordering
of the Philosophers. Histories of the Academic and Stoic philosophers are a
part of this larger work. He was also the author of sharply polemical trea-
tises against other philosophers, among which On the Stoics stands out for
its hostile engagement and partisan sarcasm. Since Domenico Comparetti's
edition of Philodemus' history of the Stoic philosophers, the contrast between
his treatment of the Stoics in these two treatises has been well appreciated.
What has not been appreciated is the explanation of this contrast. I argue
that Philodemus' twin treatises "Academicorum Historia" and "Stoicorum
Historia" lack the polemical engagement and vigor of a work like On the
Stoics because they reflect his interest in philosophical prosyletising and edu-
A version of this essay will appear in Philodemus and the New Testament World, ed. John
Fitzgerald (Leiden, 1998). Fuller bibliographical information for the works cited can be
found in the bibliography. For the texts of Philodemus I used the following editions. For
The Stoics: Tiziano Dorandi, "Gli Stoici," CErc 12 (1982): 91-133. For "Academicorum
Historia": Siegfried Mekler, Academicorum Philosophorum Index Herculanensis (Berlin:
1902); Konrad Gaiser, Philodems Academica: Die Berichte iber Platon und die Alte
Akademie in zwei herkulanensischen Papyri, Supplementum Platonicum 1 (Stuttgart and
Bad Cannstatt, 1988); Tiziano Dorandi, Filodemo, Storia dei filosofi: Platone e l'Aca-
demia (PHerc. 1021 e 164), La Scuola di Epicuro 12 (Naples, 1991). For "Stoicorum
Historia": Domenico Comparetti, "Papiro ercolanese inedito," RivFC 3 (1875): 449-555;
Wilhelm Cr6nert, Kolotes und Menedemos (Leipzig, 1906); A. Traversa, Index Stoicorum
Herculanensis (Genoa, 1952); Tiziano Dorandi, Filodemo, Storia dei filosofi: La stoa da
Zenone a Panezio (PHerc. 1018), Philosophia Antiqua 60 (Leiden, 1994). For On Plain
Speaking: Alexander Olivieri, Philodemi Iepi appatag libellus (Leipzig, 1914). For
De Ira: Giovanni Indelli, ed. Filodemo; L'Ira, La Scuola di Epicuro (Naples, 1988). I cite
Philodemus on "Gli Stoici" and on the Academic and Stoic philosophers in the editions of
Dorandi; I cite his On Frank Criticism in the edition of Olivieri, helped by the joint trans-
lation edited for the society for Biblical Literature by John Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Asmis.
All translations from Philodemus' On Frank Criticism are from this joint translation.
Philodemus: On Frank Criticism, Introduction, Translation, and Notes by David Konstan,
Diskin Clay, Clarence E. Glad, Johan C. Thom, and James Ware (Atlanta, 1998).

105
cation so impressively displayed in his On Frank Criticism (Iep't rcapprjlt-
ag). This essay is a probe into the connections between this work and Phi-
lodemus' histories-not of Academic and Stoic philosophy, but of the
Academic and Stoic philosophers and their character as educators and prac-
titioners of the art of icappi a.
"The Ordering of the Philosophers" (i t6v Xtoto64o v hvcxat;g)
Other than his epigrams, which Cicero mentions derisively and dismissively,
and which bear an attribution to Philodemus in the Palantine Anthology, the only
work for which Philodemus was known in antiquity and in early modern Europe
was a work of at least ten books entitled il -6 v tXo64y0o Xivratg.I Since the
painful and sometimes destructive sectioning and unrolling of the papyri of the
library of the Villa dei Papiri, other works unmentioned by later authors have
become better known than this work, which we shall entitle "The Ordering of the
Philosophers."2 Philodemus' Rhetoric and On Methods of Inference have been
well studied, and recently his On Death, On Poems, and On Music have been the
subject of intense interest.3 And interest in the philosophical part of Philodemus'
On Piety will dramatically increase now that Dirk Obbink has restored the
ordering of the columns of the two sections into which the original papyrus was
divided and presented the text in an admirable edition, translation, and commen-
tary (Philodemus: On Piety, Part 1, [Oxford, 1996]).
Yet an understanding of the organization and scope of "The Ordering of the
Philosophers" has remained out of reach. Tiziano Dorandi, who has edited two
1. DL 10.3 cites book 10 as evidence for Epicurus having inspired (ai icpo-
tpey agvp) his three brothers to join his philosophical community. Cicero's remarks
come at In Pisonem 70-71. Twenty-one epigrams are collected in D. L. Page, Epigram-
mata Graeca (Oxford, 1975), 291-300. Some were edited by Marcello Gigante in Fil-
odemo: Epigrammi scelti (Naples, 1970). They are now edited as a whole and translated
by David Sider, The Epigrams of Philodemus (Oxford, 1998).
2. It has long gone under the Italian title "Rassegna dei filosofi" (rassegna means
"muster" or "review").
3. The recent interest in these works is well documented in ANRWII 36.4 (1990), in
Tiziano Dorandi, "Filodemo: Gli orientamenti della ricerca attuale" (2329-2368), and
Elizabeth Asmis, "Philodemus' Epicureanism" (2369-2460). To these studies one should
add the collection of essays in Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice in Lu-
cretius, Philodemus, and Horace (Oxford, 1995) and the important edition of Philodemus'

On Poems 5 to which many of these essays are indebted, Cecilia Mangoni, Filodemo: Il
quinto libro della Poetica (PHerc. 1425 e 1538), La Scuola di Epicuro 14 (Naples, 1993).
Philodemus on the Plain Speaking of the Other Philosophers / 107
of the books that must have belonged to it and Philodemus' polemical treatise
On the Stoics, which he rightly thinks did not, has clearly set out the history and
the problems of recovering the plan of the work as a whole from the evidence of
the Herculaneum papyri. He concludes that its plan remains an enigma.4
Two observations need to be made both on the ivtia tg and on the scholar-
ship devoted to it. As for the work itself, as we know it best from Philodemus'
twin histories of the Academic and Stoic philosophers, it is most remarkable for
its conspicuous lack of polemic and partisan zeal. Domenico Comparetti, who
edited Philodemus' history of the Stoic philosophers in 1875, justly observed
that it shows no signs of having been written by an Epicurean.5 Both Theodor
Gomperz and Siegfried Mekler, who edited Philodemus' history of the Aca-
demic philosophers under the title Academicorum Philosophorum Index Her-
culanensis, note the dispassionate and "colorless" character of Philodemus'
treatment of both Academic and-more surprisingly-Stoic philosophers.6 As
for the scholarship devoted to "The Ordering of the Philosophers," it is equally
remarkable that it has concentrated on associating the papyri that might have
been a part of this ambitious work but has left those papyri deemed ineligible for
consideration in its penumbra. Philodemus' history of the Academic and Stoic
philosophers has not been integrated into his fuller production as a philosopher
and historian of philosophy and education in philosophy. It is true, as Marcello
Gigante has suggested, that Philodemus' large aim in these histories of philoso-
phy was to integrate Epicurean philosophy into the long history of Greek phi-
losophy and present it in this large context to his own age and to the elite of his
adopted country.7 In this, his project coheres with the nearly contemporaneous
projects of Lucretius and Cicero, who saw themselves as the first Romans to
convey to their fellow Romans in adequate Latin the message of Epicurean and
Greek philosophy. The result of both the disengaged attitude of the author of
4. "Filodemo storico del pensiero antico," ANRW II. 36.4 (1990): 2407-23, giving a
summary of an earlier characterization in "La 'Rassegna dei Filosofi' di Filodemo," RAAN
55 (1980): 31-49. Elizabeth Asmis also gives a catalogue of the works she takes to belong
to the EXvtcz t, in "Philodemus' Epicureanism," 2374 n. 20, as does Michael Erler in
"Epikur-Die Schule Epikurs-Lukrez," in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie:
Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 4, part 1, ed. H. Flashar (Basel, 1994), 297-301.
5. "Papiro ercolanese inedito," 471.
6. Gomperz in Jenaer Literaturzeitung 2 (1875): 604 (as reported by Dorandi in

"Filodemo Storico del pensiero antico," 2422); Mekler in Academicorum Philosophorum
Index, xxxi-xxxii. The observation is made once again in Asmis, "Philodemus' Epicure-
anism," 2376.
7. Gigante, La bibliotheque de Philodeme et l'epicurisme romain (Paris, 1987), 40;
cf. Dorandi, "Filodemo Storico del pensiero antico," 2422-43.
these histories and the concentration of scholars on the other writings of Phi-
lodemus only as these might be seen as part of the vvtia tg is that the character
and purpose of this history have still to be fully understood.
I do not claim to understand the structure and contents of the Lvvtat; as a
whole: we have significant evidence for Philodemus' histories of only two
schools, which pick up, as is usual for the Herculanean papyri, only well into the
argument. Nor do I claim to fully understand Philodemus' motives for compos-
ing this history of not Greek philosophy but Greek philosophers. But my reading
and review8 of Tiziano Dorandi's scrupulous new editions of Philodemus' histo-
ries of the Academic and Stoic philosophers suggests that these works lack the
polemical edge found, for example, in his treatment of the Politeiai of Zeno of
Kition and Diogenes of Sinope in his tract On the Stoics, precisely because they
were part of an educational project visible in On Frank Criticism (HIep't ap-
priaS), his biography of Epicurus, his tract On Anger, his treatise On Flattery,9
and his Philosophy in Action (HIpayg.aiat), a work I have referred to-with
due reverence-as Philodemus' "Acts of the Epistle."'1 In this case study of
philosophy as it manisfests itself not in theory but in action, the epistles in
question are the letters of Epicurus." The inclusion of letters as evidence for a
philosopher's life and philosophy as his philosophy exhibits itself in action
might, as Graziano Arrighetti has suggested,12 be Philodemus' contribution to
the tradition initiated in Peripatetic biography. In this biographical mode, the
subjects of biography are pressed into service to provide the biographer with the
evidence for their own lives. In a sense, such biography is autobiographical. In
this study, I will focus on Philodemus' treatments of Academic and Stoic phi-
losophers and their relation to his treatise On Plain Speaking, or, to give it the
title by which it will become known in English, On Frank Criticism.13
8. AJP 118 (1997) 146-49.
9. Studied in Tristano Gargiulo, "PHerc. 222: Filodemo sull'adulazione," CErc 11
(1981): 103-27; Francesca Longo Auricchio, "Sulla concezione filodemea dell'adula-
zione," CErc 16 (1986): 79-92; Clarence E. Glad, "Frank Speech, Flattery, and Friend-
ship in Philodemus," in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech, ed. J. Fitzgerald
(Leiden, 1996), 23-29.
10. Clay "A Lost Epicurean Community," in Tradition, 324 (in this book, essay 15, p.
242). Usually, it is referred to simply as the "Tractatus."
11. PHerc. 1418, edited by Werner Liebich in Aufbau, Absicht und Form der Prag-

mateiai Philodems (Berlin-Steglitz, 1960) and by Luigi Spina in "Il trattato di Filodemo
su Epicuro e altri (PHerc. 1418)," CErc 7 (1977): 43-83.
12. Dieci anni di papirologia ercolanese (Naples, 1982), 17.
13. Already the subject of the first three essays included in Fitzgerald, Friendship,
Flattery, and Frankness of Speech.
The title Dorandi has given Philodemus' treatments of the Academic and
Stoic philosophers is Storia deifilosofi. In want of a subscription to PHerc. 1021,
Philodemus' first history of post-Platonic philosophy has gone under the unin-
formative title Mekler chose for it at the beginning of this century, Academ-
icorum Philosophorum Index Herculanensis. The word obvta t; occurs in nei-
ther of Philodemus' companion treatises on the history of the Academic and
Stoic philosophers. The word that comes closest to giving us a title for these
histories is civa[y(oy at the end of Philodemus' "Academicorum Historia" (col.
XXXVI, line 19 Dorandi). No title is preserved in the subscription to PHerc.
1018, which gives us Philodemus' history of the Stoic philosophers.
In the Catalogo dei Papiri Ercolanesi (Naples, 1979), the title of this treatise
is given as [ht o ljgo)o I HI~p' tv adt6 Zijvcovog tw&uv ixa aip p I ov
anatvtovlo]-[i]x[ot .....] I Ev[vta co;g t6v tkooo6v I Pif[o;]. This is ap-
proximately the title A. Traversa gave the work in his edition, Index Stoicorum
Herculanensis (Genoa, 1952). The reader will appreciate how ambitious Tra-
versa's supplements are. The near inspiration for his heavily reconstructed title
comes from the title Domenico Comparetti first gave its companion work
(PHerc. 1021) on the Academic philosophers, otoS6itov 3vtatgt; t6v It-
Xoo6cov. Comparetti's inspiration was, of course, the notice in Diogenes Laer-
tius, who cites the tenth book of Philodemus' 1 tv too600)v 6vattg -a
book obviously devoted to the school of Epicurus and his inspiration to the life
of philosophy (10.3). The word that deserves stress is philosophers-not phi-
losophy. Philodemus' twin histories follow the pattern of another work usually
referred to as T& Xpovtc6 ("The Chronicles") of Apollodorus of Athens, but
also known as I lpovd 5vtcat; ("The Chronological Ordering").14
One way of illustrating the character of Philodemus' histories of the Aca-
demic and Stoic philosophers, both in their successions and in their students, is
to observe that Philodemus evinces virtually no interest in the doctrines main-
tained or rejected by his philosophers. His is not the kind of work attributed to
(the other) Apollodorus of Athens by Diogenes Laertius. It is not a avayoy
t6v Soyga iv. This Apollodorus is, evidently, the "tyrant of the Garden," who
assumed leadership of the Epicurean school in Athens in around 150 B.C.15 In his
"Academicorum Historia," Philodemus mentions the progress made in geometry
in the age of Plato and in the Academy (Y. 3-17 Dorandi), and in "Stoicorum
14. As it is described by Diodorus Siculus at 13.103.4 (= FGrHist 244, fr. 35).

Apollodorus of Athens is an important source of Philodemus in both his histories: see F.
Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik: Eine Sammlung der Fragmente, Philologische Unter-
suchungen 16 (1902); FGrHist 244; note 34 in this essay.
15. DL 7.181; for the scant details, see Erler, "Epikur," 280-81.
Historia" he mentions in passing Ariston of Chios' doctrine on indifference
(X.8-10 Dorandi). The strange lack of interest in "philosophy" in a history of
philosophers contrasts with Philodemus' vivid and mordant interest in doctrine
(dogma) in the case of a work such as On the Stoics. When he comes to mention
the Epicureans in these histories of Academic and Stoic philosophers, there is no
hint of Philodemus' allegiance to this school. He speaks for instance of Metro-
dorus of Stratonikeia as having once "listened [to the lectures] of the Epi-
cureans" before turning to the Academy of Carneades ("Academicorum Histo-
ria" XXIV.9-12 Dorandi). At the end of his history of the Stoics, Philodemus
says that he knew Panaetius' pupil Thibron (LXXVI.6-7 Dorandi), and he
speaks of another pupil, Apollonius of Ptolemais, as "our friend" ("Stoicorum
Historia," LXXVIII. 3 Dorandi).
On the Stoics
What makes the Stoics of Philodemus' history of the Stoics exempt from the
criticism he mounts against them in On the Stoics? The contrast becomes evi-
dent in the points of contact between Philodemus' On the Stoics and, for want of
a better title, his "Stoicorum Historia." Philodemus' "Academicorum Historia"
begins with Plato and Eucleides of Megara and their pupils and clearly envisages
a sequel in a history of the other schools (XXXI.15-19 Dorandi). But let us first
consider Philodemus' two very different treatments of the Stoics. Here the
contrast in treatment can be seen at its starkest. Zeno is a figure central to both
works. In On the Stoics he is mockingly praised as the "chorus leader" and
"founder" of the Stoic school in order to daub his followers with the stain of the
outrageous doctrines of his Republic (IHoltuiaia).16 These followers are called
"these noble men," "these paradigms of sanctity"; and their doctrines are de-
scribed-derisively-as "noble."17
Irony gives way to abuse, and Philodemus brings out the cynic character of
Diogenes' Politeia by speaking of the Stoics who were pleased to adopt the life
of dogs and commit the outrageous acts that he discovers in the Politeiai of both
Zeno and the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope-open homosexuality, a community of
wives and "children," cannibalism, parricide, to name a few of his damning
16. O Kopuaciog [a[vctv], XIII. 24 Dorandi, rf;g dyoyiof I &pXrlytrrlv, XIV.221-22
Dorandi. He is "filled with disgraceful teachings" (dva6etto; axpi pv 5oya'tov,
XIV.23 Dorandi).
17. tog; ycevvcatovg, XV. 2 Dorandi; toig wtavaugit, XVIII. 5 Dorandi; & K Qit TWv

[dv0p]0icmov, XVIII. 1 Dorandi.
particulars (XVIII.1-XXI Dorandi).18 It is abundantly apparent from On Frank
Criticism that Philodemus espouses the constructive 1tappqoia the philosopher
addresses to his pupil. But, as he views them in On the Stoics, the founders of the
Stoic school will say anything and everything. They know no restraint.19 A
remark at the conclusion of this tract reveals that Philodemus' polemic was
provoked by Stoic attacks on the Epicureans, a hostility already apparent in
Philodemus' reference to the Epicureans expelled from Phalannai and Messene
because of their doctrine of pleasure (111.6-8 Dorandi): "But we [Epicureans]
have long ago purged our ears and mind and do not come into contact with this
most grievous slander, as we have shown" (XXII.5-10 Dorandi). Nonetheless,
uritur et loquitur.
"Stoicorum Historia"
The contrast with Philodemus' very different treatment of Stoic philosophers in
his "Stoicorum Historia" requires an explanation. Here, too, Philodemus speaks
of Zeno and his Politeia, in a context where he describes the unease of some
Stoics over the proposals of Zeno's political philosophy and refers to Zeno's
youthful Politeia as being "in some manner stitched together" (IV.4-5 Dorandi).
He also repeats from On the Stoics the phrase "a finger demonstrates it" (IV.5-7
Dorandi; cf. On the Stoics, III.13 Dorandi), to convey the fact that, despite the
embarrassing doctrines the Politeia puts forth, it cannot be attributed to any
thinker other than Zeno. Since we have focused on Zeno and the two very
different treatments of his Politeia in Philodemus' two treatises on the Stoics, we
might continue to focus on Zeno to observe the contrast between Philodemus'
polemical engagement in On the Stoics and his strange disengagement from
polemic in his "Stoicorum Historia," before considering an explanation for the
contrast.
In his history of the Stoic philosophers from Zeno to his own contemporaries,
Philodemus is interested in the character and the lives of the Stoics. Philodemus'
18. We are reminded of how shocking these doctrines were both in Philodemus'
Roman context and in imperial times by Miriam Griffin and David Krueger in their
contributions to Cynics: Griffin, "Cynicism and the Romans: Attraction and Repulsion"
(191-92); Krueger, "The Bawdy and Society: The Shamelessness of Diogenes in Roman
Imperial Culture" (222-39).
19. Dorandi's characterization of Philodemus' argument and his tactic of pairing
Stoic and Cynic is telling: "Cinici e Stoici vivono alla maniera dei cani, abusano la

parrhesia, indossano un mantello doppio, sequono considerazioni che scadono su un
piano per lo pi sessuale," ("Gli Stoici," 94).
deepest engagement in the thought of his subjects might come in his remark on
Ariston of Chios, "who declared indifference as the end of life" (X.8-10
Dorandi).20 What attracts notice about Philodemus' treatment of the Stoics (and
the Academics as well) is that there is no hint of sectarian hostility to them,
although Philodemus does betray some irritation at the anonymous eulogy of
Zeno treated in columns VI and VII. Occasionally, he gives dramatic scenes from
the lives of his Stoics and the actual words of the dialogues in which his
philosophers engaged. The first and most striking scene involves Zeno. Envoys
from Antigonus Gonatas reached Zeno in Athens. The Macedonian king was
considering which position to offer Zeno and told him through his envoys, "A
person as bad as you will not even be able to scold bath attendants!" Zeno replied,
"You say . . ." (VIII Dorandi). We have lost his riposte. It must have been clever,
biting, and philosophical. But the theme of the Stoics and their relations to
dynasts is important to Philodemus, especially in the cases of Zeno's students
Perseus (XIII-XVI Dorandi) and Panaetius (LXVIII Dorandi) as is the theme of
the character of the Stoics (and Academics) as teachers. Diogenes Laertius
preserves what at first seems a very different account of Zeno's relations with
Antigonus and reproduces a letter of extreme politeness in which Zeno declines
the king's invitation to join him in Pella. In his place, Zeno sent Perseus and
Philonides of Thebes.21 But the next column in Philodemus' treatment of Zeno
makes clear that Antigonus was merely teasing the old philosopher and that he
treated him "as his equal and peer" (VIII.2 Dorandi). Philodemus' interest,
clearly, is in Zeno's frankness before a powerful figure like Antigonus.22
This side of Philodemus' history of the philosophers reminds us both that one
of the meanings of toao~ia is "a way of life" (as it is for Epicurus' in his last
will and testament; see DL 10.17) and that Philodemus was the author of the
fascinating treatise On Frank Criticism (IHopi tappr ia;). In "Stoicorum His-
toria," Cleanthes provides a dramatic case study in tolerance-not of the plain
speaking of the philosopher, but of public abuse. Cleanthes shows us the re-
straint Philodemus recommended in a teacher who would employ plain speaking
20. James Porter addresses this passage in his "The Philosophy of Aristo of Chios," in
Cynics, 166-167, and explores the meaning of indifference in Aristo's thought.
21. DL 7.6-9. Diogenes reproduces the letters from Apollonius of Tyre's tract on
Zeno.
22. An account of their relationship is to be found in W. W. Tam, Antigonus Gonatas

(Oxford, 1913), 29-36. In view of the evidence, Tam states: "If we seek the bond of union
between these two opposite natures, we shall probably find that it consisted in a kind of
savage honesty common to both, a desire for the thing as it really is" (35).
with discretion as well as firmness in his treatment of two poets who were his
students. One, the comic poet Baton, who has left us some interesting popular
philosophical disquisitions-excerpted precisely because they were popular
philosophy-insulted Cleanthes in a comedy.23 Arcesilaus resented the insult
and wanted to remove Baton from the Stoa. After a short tonic dialogue with
Arcesilaus on what is most important to human happiness, Cleanthes allowed
Baton to stay (XXII-XXIII Dorandi), but Cleanthes then had to face the abuse
of another student, the tragic poet Sositheos, who in a satyr play mocked
Cleanthes' style of speech (we have the quotation in XXIV.3-9 Dorandi).24
The point is that the philosopher will both employ and endure plain speak-
ing in-and even abuse from-his students. Rather than expelling the offend-
ers, Cleanthes allows them to remain in the Stoa, gradually to win them over
(XXV.1-3 Dorandi). In his treatise on "How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a
Friend," Plutarch recalls the incident that involved Cleanthes and Baton: "When
he wrote a line insulting Cleanthes in a comedy, Arcesilaus read him out of the
school. But, when Baton won Cleanthes over and repented of what he had done,
Arcesilaus made peace with him" (Moralia 55C). This anecdote from Plutarch
puts the anecdote in Philodemus' "Stoicorum Historia" squarely in the context
of plain speaking. Oddly, we hear of Cleanthes and his stern frankness in On
Frank Criticism-a treatise devoted almost entirely to the moral education of
the Epicureans. Here Philodemus' is discussing the tactic of an audacious use of
frankness and says that those who employ it will not diverge from the paradigm
of two masters, Metrodorus of Lampsacus and Cleanthes: "... so that they [will
employ frankness] aggressively in regard to [laziness and] procrastination.
Therefore, they [will be] rather too strict {in the application of frankness} if they
were born in want of things conducive to [good will] and friendship and toward
the long-term imitation of those who taught {them} . . . [in] the process of
teaching or moments of teaching they will in no way differ from Cleanthes or
Metrodorus, for it is obvious that an attentive {teacher} will employ a more
abundant {frankness}" (col. Va and Vb Olivieri). In sequel, Philodemus stresses
how the dosage of medicinal plain speaking must be adjusted to the character of
the individual student (col. VIa Olivieri).
A large collection of curt responses-usually directed at dull young men and
one directed at Antigonus Gonatas-collected around Cleanthes after his
23. PCG IV T 4 (p. 28) Kassel-Austin.

24. This attack was known to Diogenes Laertius, 7.173 (SVF 1:603 and TrGF 1:99, fr.
4, p. 272).
death.25 As for Metrodorus of Lampsacus, we know from the immediate sequel
that he recognized that his associate and peer Polyaenus was "often rather
insinuating himself into conversation and quite sociable."26 Metrodorus is also
mentioned later in On Frank Criticism, when Philodemus quotes his renegade
brother Timocrates as saying "that he both loved his brother as no one else did
and hated him as no one else" (XXb. 1-5 Olivieri). This remark might derive
from a letter Metrodorus wrote to his older brother Metrodorides about the rift
between Metrodorus and Timocrates. Metrodorus also wrote a polemical tract
against his brother, as did Timocrates against Metrodorus.27
"Academicorum Historia"
We can now return to Plato and the Academy, with which Philodemus began.
Once again, the relation between the philosopher and the man of power is a
matter of great interest to Philodemus. In the case of the Stoics, Philodemus'
attention is trained on Zeno in his relation to Antigonus, on the political career of
Perseus, and on the involvement of Panaetius in the affairs of both Athens and
Rhodes, where he was given the title "the second founder"; each of these cases
illustrates the intimate connections between philosophers and dynasts-or
demoi.28 Indeed, one of the Stoics attempted to become a dynast. In the course of
his discussion of Perseus, Philodemus' mentions the treatise of Hermippus of
Smyrna on just this subject, "On Those Who Abandoned Philosophy for Politi-
cal Power."29
One could well expect that Philodemus would be interested in the relations
between Plato and the court of Syracuse, because a philosopher's autonomy and
25. See SVF 1:597-619, especially the replies given in 597 (to Antigonus Gonatas),
605 (to Arcesilaus), and 605-617 (his sharp and clever responses to stupid questions).
26. Olivieri VIa. 11-14 (= Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta fr. 45 Korte).
27. Philodemus On Anger XII.26-29 Indelli and Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta fr.
31 KIrte.
28. On Zeno and Antigonus, see the passages reviewed earlier in this essay from
column VIII; Perseus' relations with Antigonus and his aw t b f3ioc are taken up in
columns XIII-XVII; Panaetius is called the "second founder" (86evitpog Kticotg) of
Rhodes at LXXII. 5; cf. Plutarch, "Precepts for governing a Republic," Moralia 18.814D.
29. "Stoicorum Historia" XVI.2 Dorandi. The title of this work seems to have been
Hopi t 6v d6 toooia; eig 58vaowyia pteraowravtov: see Dorandi, ad loc. and
Filodemo, Storia deifilosofi: Platone e l'Academia, 91 n. 350; Fritz Wehrli, Die Schule

des Aristoteles, Supplementum 1, Hermippos der Kalimacheer (Basel, 1974), fr. 90.
freedom of speech are tested and vindicated in such contacts as these. In the
"Academicorum Historia" Plato naturally plays a large role. Philodemus gives a
sketch of the literature on Plato's early life and of the moment when, after
spending time with the Pythagoreans of Italy, he arrived at the court of Dio-
nysius I in Syracuse. His description of this first encounter between philosopher
and dynast recalls the earlier and paradigmatic meeting of Solon and Croesus in
Lydia: "Dionysius showed himself to be ill at ease in response to Plato's forth-
rightness [cappilia[v]], because, when Plato was asked who he thought was
more blessed than others, Plato did not say Dionysius" (X.11-15 Dorandi). The
crucial term is not blessed but napprjaia. And, in the context of the confronta-
tion of philosopher and tyrant, we cannot translate the term by "frank criticism."
That Philodemus' (and his teacher Zeno of Sidon's) interest was fixed on this
philosophical honesty, which is the beginning of an openness to philosophy and
moral reformation, is suggested by a fragmentary passage from his On Frank
Criticism, where he seems to return to Plato, the proverb "a second tack," and the
relation between Plato and Dionysius II, who could not bear the frank speech of
the philosopher, who was his inferior in station and in power (XVb-XVIa
Olivieri). I will return to this passage as I come to Philodemus' On Frank
Criticism.
The long section on Polemon reflects a number of the themes shared by
Philodemus' histories of the Academic and Stoic philosophers and his treatment
of plain speaking (in On Frank Criticism), which is mainly but not entirely
devoted to the first generation of the Epicurean school in Athens, as "those who
led the way" (oi 1aQOryr0t6veg, oi KaOTfl' dagtvot) provided models for the
philosopher in his therapy of his pupils. Polemon's youthful excesses were
notorious in the biographical tradition on which Philodemus depended.30 He
clearly depended on the Lives of Philosophers of Antigonus of Carystus.31 But
his attention fastens both on the austere and tough character of Polemon after his
conversion and on Polemon's relation to the philosopher who converted him to
philosophy, Xenocrates. After troubles with the law and a life of public drunken-
ness and lasciviousness, Polemon decided to leave Athens to live just outside its
walls, in the Academy, where many in the Academy built reed huts to keep him
company. Philodemus writes, "He seems to have nutured a youthful admiration
for Xenocrates, and this admiration resulted in his constant praise [of the phi-
30. IV. 25-XV Dorandi. The testimony for Polemon and fragments relative to his

career are collected in M. Gigante, Polemonis Academici Fragmenta (Naples, 1977).
31. Gaiser includes the Antigonus of Carystus' Life of Polemon in his elaborate
reconstruction of Philodemus' sources and their sources, Philodems Academica, 129-131.
losopher] and the fact that he emulated his conduct in everything [atgwto
[6vro]0Ev 'rd aepV arnroi]" (XIV.41-45 Dorandi). This emulation is familiar to
Philodemus from the example of those Epicureans who engaged in "the long-
term imitation of those who taught them" (On Frank Criticism Va Olivieri).
Among the Academics, Philodemus also records the case of Charmadas' emula-
tion of Agathocles of Tyre ("Academicorum Historia" XXIII.8 Dorandi).
For there to be an emulation of a teacher on the part of the pupil, the pupil has
to come to admire his teacher. In the case of Xenocrates and Polemon, this
admiration did not come about automatically or through Polemon's simply
listening to Xenocrates' lectures. Polemon was hunted by Xenocrates. Phi-
lodemus' words are: "But once he had been hunted down by Xenocrates and
introduced to him, he transformed his life to such an extent that he never relaxed
the expression of his face or changed his posture or altered the tone of his voice"
[0rip.t 6' crO EvoKpatovKaKi K vt [O]{ r5ati4, oaoiro ri Er[?,]a
Katcn 'rov pi[o]v, 6oXe 6nrhore ri'v tov poemcot avrcxiav 8ta[X1i]at Kai
&Xty uotoui[at] g[fj]-r 6v t[6]vov rf1fg [4owf]] ("Historia Academ-
icorum" XIII.10-18 Dorandi). Proof of Polemon's transformation comes in the
attack of the mad dog that terrified his companions and left Polemon with a
wound in the groin but impassive (XIII.20-27 Dorandi). The metaphor of the
philosopher's hunt for the young is as old as Plato's Sophist, where the sophist is
described as a "paid hunter of the young" (Sophist 231D).32 At the end of his
history of the Academic philosophers, Philodemus mentions a pupil of Car-
neades, Phanostratus of Trachis, who is notable for his expert and refined inves-
tigation of all methods of winning pupils over (6 ipbg; [rc]a[6a]v vy xcr yiav
iK[ptlp]0)[vog, XXXVI.4-5 Dorandi). Philodemus' On Frank Criticism is that
investigation's Epicurean counterpart.
On Frank Criticism
PHerc. 1471 preserves in fragmentary form the title of Philodemus' On Frank
Criticism: IAOAHM[OT] TQN KAT EHIITOMHN EEEIPFAIMEN N HIEPI
HOQN KAI BION TUN ZHNQN[ EXO]AQN. The title is fuller and better
preserved than most, but it presents a problem. It is clear from the syntax of this
32. This theme is pursued by W. Schmid, in "Die Netze des Seelenfaingers: Zur
Jagdmetaphorik im philosophischen Protreptikos des Demetrios Lakon (Pap. Herc. 831),"
Parola del Passato 10 (1955): 440-447; reprinted in Ausgewilte philologische Schriften

(Berlin and New York, 1984) 48-55.
work and the accusative-plus-infinitive constructions dependent on "he [Zeno]
said" that Philodemus depends on the lectures that he heard Zeno of Sidon give
and that he transcribed; and we in turn are dependent on Philodemus for the
abbreviated discussion of characters and ways of life and their bearing on the
question of how the philosopher should approach the student he believes needs
correction and improvement. Like some of the devoted students he describes in
his histories of the Academic and Stoic philosophers, Philodemus preserved the
lectures of his teacher. From Philodemus' history of the Stoics, we know the
very different fates of two of Carneades' students who prepared versions of his
lectures. One, Zeno of Alexandria, was exposed to humiliation by the master in
front of his fellow students; the other, Hagnon of Tarsus, won his master's favor
("Academicorum Historia" XXII.35-XXIII.7 Dorandi).
Philodemus' abridgment of Zeno's lectures creates a dependency that makes
a judgment about the treatise On Frank Criticism a delicate matter to evaluate:
are we hearing the abbreviated speech of Zeno, or is the voice of Philodemus
also audible?33 The same dilemma faces us in an evaluation of his works on the
Academic and Stoic philosophers. Clearly, Philodemus owes a great deal to
Apollodorus of Athens, the "chronographer," in his "Academicorum Historia";
and he owes something to this "man of letters" (and poet of comic trimeters) in
his "Stoicorum Historia." He is not reticent about his debts.34
Whatever Philodemus owes on credit, his spending habits are apparent in his
two histories of the philosophers and in his On Frank Criticism. There are
obvious differences between these histories and Philodemus' presentation of
33. David Sedley has ventured to say that "it seems not overbold to suggest that many
of his works should be thought of as in some ways comparable in content to Arrian's
transcripts of Epictetus' teaching ("Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-Roman
World," in Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. M. Griffin
and J. Barnes [Oxford, 1989], 104). My own sense of the matter is that Philodemus'
interests and philosophical personality are also expressed by the choices made in an
abridgment (KaGt' iiTro jv).
34. Philodemus actually quotes sections from Apollodorus in his history of the Aca-
demic philosophers (XXVI.35-44, XXVII.1-12, XXVII.32-XXVIII.16, XXVIII.35-
XXIX. 16, XXVIII.39-XXX.11, XXXI. 1-12, 34-XXXII.10, 14-16 Dorandi. These pas-
sages appear in FGrHist 224 as frs. 47 and 52-60. The conspectus provided by Dorandi
for Philodemus' dependencies in both works is synoptic: Filodemo, Storia deifilosofi:

Platone e l 'Academia, 83-99; Filodemo, Storia deifilosofi: La stoa da Zenone a Panezio,
32-35. In Philodemus' history of the Stoics, Apollodorus is referred to as "the man of
letters" [6 ypaqwxa r~t6g] (LXIX.4-5 Dorandi). Gaiser provides a more elaborate con-
spectus and stemmata in his discussion of the sources of Philodems' history of the
Academics, Philodems Academica, 87-133.
Zeno's lectures on frank criticism. The first proceed in chronological sequence
and sometimes provide archon years, in the manner of Apollodorus of Athens.
Zeno's lectures pursue a variety of topics and are structured on Philodemus'
summary of Zeno's responses to at least fourteen questions concerning the range
of reactions to frank criticism. Most of these questions (described as TlXo1.va
or t62ot) concern the sage or philosopher (Go 6g); a few concern his pupils.35
For his histories, Philodemus relied on a variety of sources; for On Frank
Criticism he relied on Zeno. The histories concentrate on Academic and Stoic
philosophers in that order and in chronological sequence from Plato and Zeno to
Philodemus' own contemporaries; On Frank Criticism concentrates on the first
generation of the Epicureans in Athens and is extremely general in its description
of philosophical education. Thus, only Epicureans of the first generation of the
school are actually named in On Frank Criticism-Epicurus first and foremost,
then his associates Apollonides, Hermarchus, Idomeneus, Leonteus, Metrodorus,
Polyaenus, Pythocles, and Timocrates, the renegade brother of Metrodorus. We
have noticed the single case of a Stoic named (Cleanthes, Vb.2 Olivieri).
But the interests that all three works share in common are also apparent. Like
Zeno of Sidon, Philodemus is more concerned in these three treatises with
character, with the choice and condition of life, and with education rather than
doctrine. Philodemus is also interested in the theme of the philosopher and his
ambiguous and dangerous relation to the powerful. The relation between Plato
and the court of Syracuse is treated in Philodemus' history of the Academic
philosophers. I suggest that it is also glanced at in On Frank Criticism.
The topos of the confrontation of tyrant and philosopher is as old as Hero-
dotus' account of the meeting between Solon and Croesus (Histories 1.30-33).
It is also one of the questions Philodemus addresses in a specific form at the end
of On Frank Criticism: "Why is it that, when other things are equal, those who
are illustrious both in resources and reputations abide {frank criticism} less well
{than others}? (XXIIb.10-13 Olivieri). The possible reference to Plato occurs in
the context of the question "Will philosophers diverge from one another in their
frankness" (IIIa.3-5 Olivieri). In column XVb Philodemus seems to be treating
the philosophers who have erred in their use of forthright criticism and are
forced to take "another tack." The expression "second sailing" is proverbial in
Greek, and Plato seems to recognize it as he describes his second trip to Sicily
35. See Philodemus frs. 5.6-8, 53.2-6, 67.9-11, 70.5-7, 74.3-10 (four questions,

apparently on the sons of wealthy fathers); 81.1-4 (explicitly concerning the oo6g);
88.1-4 (on students). See On Frank Criticism Ia.1-4, IIIa.3-5 (oi co4oi), XIXa.5-8,
XXIa.1-5, XXIb.12-15, XXIIb.10-13, and XIVa.7-9 Olivieri.
and his attempt to influence Dionysius II of Syracuse.36 Olivieri thought that we
might have here a reference to Plato; Philippson thought not.37
Plato's encounters with Dionysius I and Dionysius II were notorious, and
Plutarch, in his treatise on "How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend," twice
cites Plato's diplomatic tact in handling Dionysius II.38 The text of Philodemus
can be read to continue: "when he encountered {him, i.e. Dionysius II}, he
{Plato} missed the mark in the exercise of plain speaking, but he [set] no value
on those very persons who best recognize what concerns them" (XVIa.1-5
Dorandi). Others faced Plato's difficulties in the court of Syracuse-for ex-
ample, the Socratic Aeschines and the lyric poet Philoxenus.39 As another in-
stance of plain speaking with the great, Philodemus reports an anecdote concern-
ing Alexander the Great and the people who asked him whether they should
address him in a Greek or a barbarian fashion (fr. 24.8-12 Olivieri).
The best-known passage in Philodemus' On Frank Criticism does not con-
cern criticism only; it reflects the allegiance Epicureans of his day swore to
Epicurus: "... we shall admonish others with great confidence, both now and
when those {of us} who have become offshoots of our teachers have become
eminent. And the encompassing and most important thing is, we shall obey
Epicurus, according to whom we have chosen to live" (fr. 45.1-11 Olivieri).
Such obedience makes all the more relevant to the Epicurean the cases of
apostacy Philodemus considers in the works we have reviewed: the case of
Dionysius "the renegade" (6 etaO0 Evog) in his history of the Stoics and the
painful case of Timocrates in his On Frank Criticism.40 But what impresses
36. Letter 7.337E (ij.... ap pa opeia te ca ItnoiS). Plato evokes the proverb in
Phaedo 99D, Statesman 300C, and Philebus 19C.
37. Olivieri in his note ad loc.; Philippson in his review of Olivieri, in Berliner
Philologische Wochenschrift, 27 May 1916, 688.
38. Moralia 7.52F and 26.67C-E.
39. The difficulties of Aeschines are recognized in Plutarch Moralia 26.67C-D (So-
cratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae VIA 11 [1990] Giannantoni). Diodorus Siculus 15.6 is
our source for the anecdotes concerning Philoxenus of Cythera and Dionysius I. Sum-
maries of the traditions concerning Plato's dealings with the court in Syracuse can be
found in Alice Swift Reginos, Platonica: The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writings
of Plato, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 3 (Leiden, 1976), 70-85; Mekler,
Academicorum Philosophorum Index, 6-7; Frangois Lasserre, De Liodamas de Thasos a

Philippe d'Oponte, Thmoinages et fragments (Naples, 1987), 669-72.
40. David Sedley ("Philosophical Allegiance") well demonstrates the importance of
On Frank Criticism for the question of philosophical allegiance in the Greco-Roman
world. We have noted the reference to Timocrates; Dionysius is mentioned in "Stoicorum
Historia" X.48 and XXIX.5 Dorandi.
more is Philodemus' sense of his own authority: xa vv 6tapeiyavTEgs of
Ka0[qy1]-65v oitog a6it"ogot yevv0 vtreg. Philodemus' debt to his sources
and to those who led the way before him is great, but the project he undertook in
his histories of the Academic and Stoic philosophers is very much his own. It is
also a part of still other projects that deal with the education of the philosopher
by the philosopher. When Philodemus speaks of Epicurus as the philosopher
"according to whom we have chosen to live," his word i(t)pi 0a suggests the
word for a philosophical sect, aipeatg. His project of treating the role of frank
criticism in his presentation of Zeno's lectures on frank criticism and its role in
the education of the philosopher explains why Philodemus is so nonsectarian in

his histories of the other philosophers, the Academics and the Stoics.
De Rerum Natura: Greek Physis and
Epicurean Physiologia
(Lucretius 1.1-148)
De rerum natura-On Nature, On the Nature of Things, On the Nature of the
Universe, The Way Things Are: for the modemrn reader, Lucretius' poem begins
with its title. For Lucretius' first reader, however, it is likely that the poem began
with its beginning:
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divumque voluptas.
Reprinted from TAPA 101 (1969): 31-47. I expand this argument in chapter 3 ("Lu-
cretius' Proem") of my Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca and London, 1983), where it is
integrated into the argument of that book. Carlos L6vy has returned to the meaning of
natura in Roman philosophy, and in the case he makes against Heidegger's understanding
of the term o6vtg, he denies (thus affirming Andre Pellicer's results) that natura is
attested in Latin in the sense of birth; see L6vy, ed., Le concept de Nature a Rome: La
Physique (Paris, 1996), 18-19. Lucretius' use of the word natura in De Rerum Natura
1.21 and 5.331 cannot, however, be subject to this edict against an etymological under-
standing of the word, reinforced by the use of aytg in Empedocles. Quod superest at
lines 44-45 of the proem are still excluded from the proem by brackets in Konrad
Muiller's edition of 1975. In Lucretius: On the Nature of Things (Cambridge, Mass., and
London, 1975; rev. ed., 1992), his Loeb revision of W. H. D. Rouse's Lucretius, Martin
Ferguson Smith has the courage to remove them; Smith cites the second thoughts Bailey
expressed in his commentary (vol. 2 [Oxford 1947], 601-3). Robert Brown has a judi-
cious treatment of the "contradiction" between the Venus of the proem and the Venus of
book 4 in Lucretius on Love and Sex: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura IV 1030-1287
with Prolegomena, Text, and Translation, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 15
(Leiden, 1987), 91-99. David Sedley has returned to the unmistakable importance of
Empedocles' Aphrodite and poem On Nature for the proem of Lucretius, in "The Proems
of Empedocles and Lucretius," in Tradition, 269-96, and he has reminded us of the
importance of David Furley's "Variations on Themes from Empedocles in Lucretius'
Proem," BICS 17 (1970): 55-64.

121
Except for rasuras in O and Q, there is no evidence that antiquity recognized
Lucretius' poem as the De rerum natura.1 In a letter to his brother Quintus,
Cicero speaks of Lucreti poemata, but says nothing further to suggest a title.2
Curiously, in this same letter he writes of another philosophical poem of which
only the title now survives, the Empedoclea of a Sallustius who is otherwise
unknown. Ovid and the late grammarian Diomedes agree in speaking of Lucreti
carmina, where Vitruvius and Lactantius agree in associating Lucretius' argu-
ment with the phrase de rerum natura.3
De rerum natura is the natural description of Lucretius' argument, since it is
the seal Lucretius fixed upon the poem himself.4 Thus, although the poem is
announced as De rerum natura in none of the MSS, it proclaims itself as such
(1.25), and by signaling its argument as de rerum natura it aligns itself directly
with Empedocles, Epicurus, and the whole of early Greek physiology.5 Unlike
Ennius' Epicharmus, Cicero's Aratea, and Sallustius' Empedoclea, Lucretius'
De rerum natura declares itself the continuation of a tradition, and not a Roman
copy of any individual philosophy. It is not an Epicurea.
In Greek the title and investigation rcep' t0 6kog had by the mid-first century
B.C. a long established tradition, but just what its Latin equivalent might have
suggested to a Roman reader unfamiliar with Greek physical speculation is
difficult to determine. The phrase de rerum natura describes the writing of three
shadowy contemporaries or near contemporaries of Lucretius. Catius, Egnatius,
and Varro of Reate are all said to have written de rerum natura, and not baldly de
1. For the evidence of the MSS for the title of Lucretius' poem, see Bailey, T Lucreti
Cari De rerum natura libri sex (Oxford 1947) 2.583. This is the text I have used through-
out. Epicurus is cited from G. Arrighetti, Epicuro Opere (Turin 1960) and referred to as
Epicuro, except for the three letters included in Diogenes Laertius 10, the Kyriai Doxai
(= KD), and the Gnomologium Vaticanum (= SV). [I supply the numeration of Arrighetti's
second edition (Turin 1973) in the notes that follow.]
2. Ad Q. ft. 2.9.3. F. H. Sandbach has argued that by poemata Cicero was not
referring to the entire De rerum natura, but to only a part of it-possibly the proem, CR
54 (1940) 75-76. U. Pizzani, however, has adduced evidence to suggest that Cicero's
puzzlingpoemata can refer to the entire poem, I/problema del testo e della composizione
del De Rerum Natura di Lucrezio (Rome 1959) 38-40.
3. Ovid, Amores 1.15.23; Diomedes, Gramm. Lat. 1.482.20 (Keil); Vitruvius, De
arch. 9, praef 17; cf. 1.7; de rerum natura, quae graece physiologia dicitur, philosophia

explicat; Lactantius, Div. inst. 2.12.4.
4. 1.25, 4.969-70, 5.335.
5. Galen, De elementis 1.9, p. 487 (Kuihn), states that all the "ancients" gave their
works this title (quoted by Munro at 1.25). This opinion itself is an anachronism for most
of the writers listed by Galen (cf. Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers [Cam-
bridge 1957] 101 note 1), although it was current in Lucretius' time.
De Rerum Natura / 123
natura-the obvious calque for it*p 4ocE;g-and possibly it is the authority
gained by Lucretius' phrase that fixed de rerum natura as the canonical descrip-
tion for any Latin treatise n2pit 5ciEos.6
Even so, natura alone, or natura determined by rerum, could hardly have
conveyed to a Roman reader what physis suggests in Greek, because it possessed
then a range of significance which corresponded to only the most elementary and
non-philosophical meanings of the word in Greek.7 What compels notice is that
Lucretius introduces the concept of physis/natura not as it was most familiar in
Latin, but as Latin was capable of making the concept of physis most readily
intelligible. To state the matter in terms provided by Epicurus in his Letter to
Herodotus, the word natura emerges into Lucretius' argument not as it was most
common in Latin (Kaat riv ts i'trv opav),8 but as it is returned to its original
conception (t6 tporov evv6o a) of birth and genesis.9
In the matrix of the first 20 lines of Lucretius' invocation, rerum natura can
have no other meaning. In its context it is the summation of all that has been said
of Venus genetrix,
quae rerum naturam sola gubernas.
(1.21)
6. This is the conclusion of F. Skutsch for Egnatius, RE 5.2 (1905) 1993-94, al-
though it is not absolutely compelling. For Varro of Reate and Catius, see K. Sallmann,
Archiv fiir Begriffsgeschichte 7 (1962) 239-40.
7. I. Fisher, "Le sens du titre De Rerum Natura," Melanges linguistiques (Bucharest
1957) 17-21, argues that the term natura was not the equivalent ofphysis as it figured in
the title peri physe6s, and notes (wrongly) that Lucretius first uses the phrase de rerum
natura as it would have been familiar to his readers-"sur la naissance des choses" (19).
In describing it as de physica rerum origine vel effectu the scholastic title for Lucretius'
poem conveys some of the sense of rerum natura in 1.21 and 25. Comparable to this rare
sense of natura as birth or origin is the recens natura mundi of 5.330-31, especially taken
in connection with the genitalis origo terrarum of 5.324-25. What is by far the fullest
account of the word natura in Latin neglects both passages in rejecting the possibility that
rerum natura might reflect the primary sense of the word as birth or genesis; Andr6
Pellicer, Natura: Etude simantique et historique du mot latin (Publications de la Facult6
des lettres et sciences humaines de l'Universit6 de Montpellier 27 [Paris 1966]) 377-78,
cf. 42-45. What Pellicer fails to envisage is the possibility that Lucretius might have
deliberately introduced natura as genesis as the first stage of his way to physis.

8. Ad Hdt. 70.3-5, duplicated in Lucretius' haec soliti sumus, ut par est, eventa
vocare, 1.458. On the same principle, compare Ad Hdt. 46.6 and Lucretius 4.30; Colotes'
In Lysin, Cronert, Kolotes undMenedemos (Munich 1906) 165, col. I (I11267.5-8); and Ad
Hdt. 67.2, 76.7.
9. Ad Hdt. 38.1. Taking Epicurus' language in such a sense is abusive of his mean-
ing, but very possibly illustrative of Lucretius' interpretation of his Greek.
Without the compass of Greek, Lucretius' Roman reader is brought from the
vividly apparent conception of natura as union, birth, and increase, which is the
root sense of Greek physis, 1o to a larger conception which seems to derive as
much from Presocratic thought as it does from the atomism of Epicurus. By the
time Lucretius has launched into the physical argument of his poem proper, his
reader has been given a good notion of what physis and physiologia represent in
Greek and what they will come to mean in Latin. The rerum natura of 1.21,
vividly revealed in its root sense of genesis, is the road to the larger and more
complete conception of physis reached by the outset of Lucretius' philosophical
arguments proper. The language of Aristotle's Physics describes the movement
of Lucretius' proem better than any other:
Go v feyojvrd; yg ,~v t; 66Sog
S tv ei g E OI v (2.1.193B12).
When in line 25, Lucretius repeats the phrase rerum natura to describe the
argument of his poem, his commentators lay out compendiously what they take
him to mean by this phrase generally. By anticipating, as Lucretius' first reader
could not, the range of meanings given res, natura, and rerum natura in the
poem, Munro, Bailey, and others lose sight of Lucretius' manner of introducing
a theme alien to Latin poetry.11
Natura first emerges into the De rerum natura in its primitive and largely
10. This meaning of physis (from 0$to/ev 06a; cf. 5 74rnvKev) is not so rare as
Burnet, Ross, and Lovejoy would have it, although it does not survive a lexicographer's
approach to the history of ideas, e.g. Lovejoy and Boas, "Some Meanings of Nature," in
Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore 1935) 447, AI. For Lucretius, who
translates gignetai by nasci (Ad Hdt. 38.8-39.1 = 1.145-50, 159-60) and ap6l6lei by
perire (Ad Hdt. 39.1-2 = 1.215-18; cf. Plutarch, Adv. Col. III6C [282 Us.] and Lucretius,
2.1010-12),physis, especially as he knew it from the poetry of Empedocles, came alive in
its root meaning of birth, genesis, increase. Cf. Empedocles [DK31] B8 and Plutarch's
masterful commentary onphysis as genesis in the whole of Empedocles' poetry, Adv. Col.
1111F-13F, which preserves for us fragments B9, 10, and 11 of Diels. For this conception
ofphysis it is significant that in the Katharmoi, Phys6 is opposed to Phthimend, B 123.1.
Some of the evidence for a conception of physis as genesis comes from Xenophanes, VS
B29, Plato, Laws 892C, Aristotle, Metaphysics A 1014B16, and Physics 2.1.193B12, for
which cf. Zeno, SVF I fr. 171 (= DL 7.156). [Lucretius' vivifying awareness of Greek
metaphor is the subject of essay 9 in this book.]
11. Sallmann's description of Lucretius' situation is admirable: "In this regard it

should be kept in mind that Epicurus' conception of physis belongs to the last stage of a
long philosophical tradition, where it was Lucretius' task to form his terminology out of
the very beginnings of Roman literature" (above, note 6, p. 250). Unaccountably, he
begins his study of this concept with a chapter on Die Natur als Atomitdt (144-66). It is
well to remember that where Epicurus found it necessary to prove the impossibility of a
visible atom, Lucretius felt the need to demonstrate the very existence of invisible bodies.
dormant sense of birth and genesis in an evocation of the invisible power of
Venus genetrix whose empire is rerum natura-immediately the "birth of
things." And Lucretius' invocation is pregnant with terms revealing physis/
natura in its primitive sense of coming into being. The metaphor of Greek physis
has become alive in Lucretius' natura, and it permeates its context. Exortum (1.5)
and exortur (1.22) represent in fact common Latin equivalents for genesis and
gignetai.12 In Lucretius' invocation, as in more of Greek thought than is gener-
ally granted, physis or natura is conceived of as genesis. Its root sense is first sug-
gested in Aeneadum genetrix (1.1), then in genus (1.4), genitabilis aura favoni
(1.11), generatim, and finally in quae rerum naturam sola gubernas (1.21).
Lucretius has evoked the spring of the cycle of union, birth, and growth, and
invoked Venus as the unseen power behind the beginning of the cycle. In a
metaphor reminiscent of Parmenides, of Empedocles, and even of Cleanthes in
his Hymn to Zeus, Venus is said to govern events of genesis.13 The metaphor is
wholly alien to Epicurus, for whom physis bears only the faintest traces of
Physis.14
It is in the philosophical poetry of Empedocles that Lucretius discovered an
awareness of physis as genesis, and it is the language of Empedocles that pulls
12. This equivalence is well documented for Cicero by Pellicer (above, note 7) 370
note 2. Oras taken in close connection with exoriri (cf. primordia, ordia prima, exordia)
might be added to P. Friedlander's list of examples of Lucretius' "atomology," AJP 62
(1941) 16-34. The bond between oras and exoriri is especially apt because, by Lucretius'
conception of genesis, things (res) emerge by accretion from the darkness of the primor-
dia caeca-dias in luminis oras. The phrase is Ennian (perhaps deriving from Empedo-
cles), but the thought is Lucretian. Cf. 1.70, 179-80, 227-lumina vitae. [Further
examples of Lucretius' "atomology" are to be found in J. M. Snyder, Puns and Poetry in
Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, Amsterdam 1980, and in my review, AJP 103 (1982) 220-
23.]
13. Parmenides VS 28 B.3-6; for Empedocles, see the discussion of W. Kranz,
Hermes 96 (1943) 85-88; in Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus the verb occurs twice, SVF
1.121.35 and 123.1. Elsewhere in Lucretius the government of nature is evoked only as it
replaces that attributed to the gods, 5.77 and cf. 5.1236-40.
14. In what survives of Epicurus there are only very faint traces of the personification
of Physis; in Lucretius, Natura has taken the reins from the hands of the gods, and
governs her domain by strict law. Compare the expressions of 5.73-90 with 2.1090-

1104. Heidel's account of the Presocratics and their transfer of the rule or government of
the world from the gods to physis serves well for Lucretius, Proceedings of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences 45 (1910) 94. The only traces of Physis in Epicurus are
visible asphysis refers to human nature; Ad Men. 129.9, 133.3; KD xv, xxv; SV21, 25, 37.
Epicurus does, however, speak of the commands of the visible world (Ad Pyth. 86.9), and
the voice of the flesh (SV 33; cf. Lucretius 2.17). In all these expressions he avoids the
word physis. By contrast, compare Lucretius, 3.931-62.
into their proper focus many of the terms of Lucretius' invocation to Venus.
Lucretius begins where for Empedocles men both begin and end: with physis as
genesis; for physis is the name they wrongly attach to birth or concretion, and
death is the name they give dissolution.15 Physis is the proper name for birth if
birth is properly conceived as a mixis.16 The name Empedocles gives this pro-
cess is mixture and not physis, and the empire he sees behind it is Aphrodite
whose work it is to bring together, to join, and to fashion parts into wholes.'7 The
shapes and surfaces of the world as it has come into being about us are all the
work of Aphrodite (VS 31 B71.4):
&6a viv yuyaac ouvapo6O vt' 'ApoSit~rt.
In both Lucretius and Empedocles, a sense of etymology and an awareness of
the metaphors (or models) revealed in etymology is a mode of understanding. A
thing is as it has come into being. In Lucretius, who encounters the special
character of Empedocles' language with the keen awareness of a man for whom
Greek is a foreign language and for whom his own language has implicit in it the
model of atomic processes, etymology (or "atomology" as Paul Friedlander has
called it) is a mode of thought. It is Lucretius' exquisite sense of the metaphors
of Empedocles' poetry that sharpens the focus of some of the terms of the
invocation to Venus.
Of these concelebras (1.4) is the first encountered, and it is followed directly
by concipitur (1.5). What is it that Venus does? Does she fill land and sea "with
her presence" (Bailey), or is it by her invisible empire that "les terres fertiles en
moissons se peuplent de cr6atures" (Ernout)? All of these renderings are vaguely
pleasing, yet they are all out of focus. Taken in their root sense (t6 tpotov
15. VS B8. Comparable, as Plutarch saw, are [VS 31] B9.4, 11.2, and 15. Thus both
physis and thanatos are properly eponomata for the mixis and diallaxis of Empodocles'
roots. Cf. Anaxagoras, VS 59 B 17, which seems a version of the thought of Empedocles.
Against Colotes, who seems to have interpreted physis rightly as birth (for which see
Westmann, Plutarch gegen Kolotes, Acta Philosophica Fennica 7 [Helsingfors 1955] 57),
Plutarch attempts to vindicate Empedocles' meaning by interpreting physis as genesis,
Adv. Col. 1112S; cf. [Aristotle] MXG, 975b7 (= VS 1.262.6).
16. Even so, Empedocles speaks of compounds growing together and growing apart,
as well as mixing and separating, [VS 31] B17.1-13. (Stag0cOcat) and 26.9; cf. A72;
B26.7 and B95 (cogxeoQ6a).
17. For the many craft metaphors which characterize Aphrodite's work, see F. Solm-

sen, Journal of the History of Ideas 24 (1963) 476-78.
vv6orlta) the verbs concelebras and concipitur denote a gathering together'8
made possible by the calming influence of Venus who settles the winter seas and
fosters (1.11) the reopening of life on earth. By her influence she compels the
animal world to gather together across the barriers which have separated kind
from kind; she has filled kind with desire or longing for kind (1.20):
efficis ut cupide generatim saecla propagent.
Cupido in Latin, like it66og in Greek, is desire, but often it is desire for
something absent or distant.19 The world is full of desires, but the passion
inspired by Aphrodite is pothos, the longing of kind for kind, of saecla for
saecla-usque cupide in Veneris compagibus haerent (4.1113):
9v es K6toit 8tagopa Kxa Qv&tXa cQavTa n7Ckovtat
6v b' 6' 3i' ( VtCo6t'lrC Kt & fi otit O0 itca1.20
Like concelebras and concipitur, propagent carries a metaphor which is brought
into focus by its etymology, which is apparent in the Greek nyvvvat, to
"peg."21 Empedocles' Aphrodite is the joiner and harmonizer; she fashions with
the rivets of love (B87), just as Lucretius fashions words together into rhythmic
verse (1.25). In a like manner, the Venus of Lucretius' proem brings together and
joins or causes to propagate animal kind. This is the history of physis or genesis
18. For Concelebras cf. 2.342-46. "You who make the land and seas abound" is a
somewhat better version since it does not have implicit in it a doctrine of res ex nihilo.
Venus attracts kind to kind, calms the winter seas, makes commerce possible; cf. 5.848,
962. This stage of things must necessarily precede conception, for which follow the
progress of 2.544-46, and 1.555, 4.1269, 5.548.
19. Plato, Cratylus 420A, and in general, V. Ehrenberg, "Pothos," in Polis undImper-
ium (Zurich 1965) 458-65. In this regard, it is significant that in Lucretius cupido can
describe at once animal instinct (1.16 and 20), human lust (the dira cupido of 4.1090), and
the natural impulse or tendency of matter (2.199 and the cuppedo medii of 1.1082). The
connection between Empedocles' pothos and Lucretius' cupido seems to be guaranteed
by the passages brought together in the body of the text, as well as in the doctrine of
human desire as it is fed by the simulacra of the object of desire. Cf. 4.1061-62, the
umorem collectum of 4.1065, the collecta cupido of 4.1115, and the pothos of Empedo-
cles [VS 31] B64.
20. [VS 31] B21.8, and cf. B 110.9, 22.5.
21. In the poem of Empedocles, myvvat is a verb which frequently describes the
work of Venus, [VS 31] B75, 86 (cf. 87), and of compounding generally, B 15.4, 56, 107.1;

her mechanical means to such unions are rivets, bindings, and glue, B33, 34, 86, and 87.
The root sense of Lucretius' propagent (1.20) emerges most clearly in 5.849-50, and is
possibly visible in the common Lucretian expression quo pacto.
as it can be written from Lucretius' invocation to Venus: gathering, union,
concretion, and by increase, birth.
concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis.
(1.5)
The events of the evocation of spring (1.1-25) are, in their carefully defined
stages, exactly paralleled in Lucretius' first elaboration of his argument de rerum
natura:
rerum primordia pandam
unde omnis natura creet res, auctet, alatque.22
Here for the first time the spring of genesis and Venus is seen as only a partial
view of things and only a stage in the cycle of nature. Empedocles' version of
physis is a double tale; in Lucretius' version of Natura, Venus is supplanted by
Natura as the cycle (cf. 5.731-50) moves from genesis to dissolution:
quove eadem rursum perempta natura resolvat.
(1.57)
There is perhaps no better way of making the special character of Lucretius'
language plain than to contrast it with that of one of his unacknowledged pre-
decessors in Latin philosophical poetry. The lines come from Pacuvius' Chryses,
ultimately from Euripides' Chrysippus (and the thought of Anaxagoras).23
id quod nostri caelum memorant, Grai perhibent aethera:
quidquid est hoc, omnia animat format alit auget creat
sepelit recepit in sese omnia, omniumque idem est pater
indidemque eadem aeque oriuntur de integro atque occidunt.
In the progress of the events of Lucretius' invocation, his reader contemplates
the events of atomic concretion writ large. The mechanism of Empedocles'
22. [1.55-56.] For the Greek conception behind Lucretius' auctet alatque, see F.
Solmsen, AJP 74 (1953) 46, and note 47.
23. The passage from Pacuvius is reproduced by Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum
Fragmenta2 (Leipzig 1889), with Euripides, fr. 839 and the testimony of Vitruvius (De
arch. 8, praef 1) which takes the doctrine back to Anaxagoras. These and other similar

texts are discussed by L. Alfonsi in Hermes 96 (1968) 118-21.
mixis, so clearly conveyed in the metaphors of carpentry and joining, is in no
wise alien to Epicurus. Lucretius has reproduced the mechanism of these events
in the root sense of the verbs which carry on the movement of the invocation to
Venus. In both Empedocles and Epicurus, physis and genesis is conceived of as
rn.ycptatq or concretion. Lucretius' verbs serve his philosophy in as much as
they reveal in their etymology the models of how things (res) come into being.
But in stark contrast to Empedocles and Lucretius, behind the events of physis or
genesis, Epicurus saw no Physis, no Venus, and no Aphrodite-only perhaps the
exiguum clinamen. As Simplicius knew, for the atomists there is no genesis
without motion (306 Us.).
As he progresses into his argument, Lucretius restates his theme in somewhat
larger terms, and speaks for the first time of the vera ratio (1.51) to which he
means to introduce his reader. New in the philosophical program announced in
lines 54-61 is the argument de summa caeli ratione deumque (1.54), and the
shift in emphasis from the broad vision of the spring of the cycle of nature to the
material out of which Natura (and no longer Venus) creates and sustains all
things and into which she resolves them. It ver et Venus (5.737). Natura, like
Venus, is represented as an agent, and the stuff out of which she brings things
into being Lucretius names materies (1.58), genitalia corpora (1.58), and sem-
ina rerum (1.59). All these terms keep close to the primitive meaning of physis
as birth and increase and are immediately intelligible in their context. Primordia
(1.55) and corpora prima (1.61) are freer from the associations of genesis and
are Lucretius' more neutral equivalents for the apa i of Greek physics. Lu-
cretius takes pains to stamp these terms as bearing a special sense (quae nos
appellare suemus, 1.58-60), but he goes further to suggest that the two terms not
immediately comprehensible from the context of the proem are appropriate to
what they describe (1.60-61):
suemus et haec eadem usurpare
corpora prima, quod ex illis sunt omnia primis.
After setting out the philosophical program of the De rerum natura, Lucretius
leaves his argument first to stress the achievement of its founder (1.62-79), and
then to urge its necessity (1.80-101, 102-26, 127). As Ludwig Edelstein argued
with a daring which carried him beyond the lambent walls of tradition and back
to the context of the proem and the history of Greek thought, the Graius homo of
1.66 need not be Epicurus. In the history of Greek thought "knowledge of nature

was achieved through a long line of inspired thinkers, the Presocratics and
Epicurus, the Epicurean system being, so to say, the entelechy of Presocratic
ideas."24 The physiologist of the proem, like his object in physis, is simply
Greek. One will later recognize him as Epicurus, but one does not and cannot
know this from Lucretius' proem. The real difficulty with this identification is
that it is premature and neglects Lucretius' manner of introducing his argument
and its necessity. Thus, in the final characterization of his philosophical matter,
Lucretius speaks of the "dark discoveries of the Greeks" (Graiorum obscura
reperta, 1.136).
But where Lucretius' introduction of physis is an introduction to Greek
physis, his introduction to physiologia is distinctively Epicurean. The ethical
impulse to physiology emerges dramatically into the poem as the threat of
religion is exposed first in its primitive and Greek setting (1.62-101), and then
as it is translated into the Roman context of Ennius' poetry (1.102-26). Thus,
lines 62-79 of the proem give the historical beginnings of Greek physiology,
while their sequel in lines 80-126 gives the ethical necessity for mastering an
understanding of nature.
Ennius represents for Lucretius both a forerunner in Latin philosophical
poetry and a dangerous rival to the truth.25 It is the threat of Ennius' doctrine of
the afterlife with its basis in dream visions that Lucretius meets head-on by a
reformulation of the argument of his poem (1.127-35). In direct contradiction to
the rerum naturam (1.126) which the spectre of Homer expounded to Ennius in
his dream vision, Lucretius states his argument for a second time. In this restate-
ment his philosophical program is refined and sharpened by the pressure of the
ethical demands made upon it; it has taken on a fuller scope with the demonstra-
tion of its necessity. Where a comprehensive account of the heavens and the gods
had been announced before (1.54; cf. Ad Hdt. 79.5), both gods and celestial
phenomena are included in the rubric superis de rebus (1.127; cf. 1.62-65),
which is Latin for rpi ist6v gvetspov (cf. KD XI). What is especially apparent
in this "second syllabus" is a shift in emphasis from a concern for the material
24. "Primum Graius homo," TAPA 71 (1940) 85.
25. Lucretius' view of his predecessor's achievement in physiology can be gathered
from a confrontation of the first few fragments of the Annales with Lucretius' presenta-
tion of Ennius' vision (1.112-26). Ennius' vision is a dream vision (frs. V-VII Vahlen
[1-3 Skutsch, with commentary, 147-153] and fr. I of the Epicharmus), which is suffi-
cient to explain in part Lucretius' attack on the vanity of dreams: tibi iam fingere possunt
somnia quae vitae rationes vertere possint (1.104-5). Further compare fr. IV of the

Annales [fr. 12 Skutsch] with Lucretius 1.119; fr. XII with the alternatives Lucretius sets
out in 1.112-16. The adverb divinitus in 1.116 reproduces the divinitus of the Annales, p.
5.10 [fr. 8.2 Skutsch]. The antagonism between the teaching of the two poets is apparent
in the very fact of Lucretius' placement of his "second syllabus" in direct contradiction to
the rerum natura of Ennius.
for generation to a concern for the laws of heaven and the human soul. Accord-
ingly, the stress is placed on the discovery of causes (1.127-35):
quapropter bene cum superis de rebus habenda
nobis est ratio, solis lunaeque meatus
qua fiant ratione, et qua vi quaeque gerantur
in terris, tunc cum primis ratione sagaci
unde anima atque animi constet natura videndum
et quae res nobis vigilantibus obvia mentis
terrificet morbo adfectis somnoque sepultis,
cernere uti videamur eos audireque coram,
morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa.
New is the argument on the origin of nature of the soul26 and the explanation of
the simulacra which seem to guarantee a belief in an afterlife and divine empire
over the soul in death. The gods and the phenomena of the heavens, the soul and
the dream visions which seem to guarantee it an afterlife: these are the most
urgent problems of Epicurean physiology, because they are the most urgent
terrors of mankind. As far as Epicurus was concerned, if the violence of the
heavens and the thought of death inspired no terror, there would be no need of
physiology (KD XI).
It is clear that by the "nature" of the soul, here conceived of as both anima and
animus, Lucretius understands natura in its primitive sense of birth or origin,
and sees the problem as posed in two alternatives: either the soul is born and is
thus mortal, or it enters the body at birth and is thus preexistent (cf. Cicero, Tusc.
1.18). In the terms of these alternatives, the soul's nature can be qualified as nata,
which in the course of the poem will come to equal 06ap i;27 this is the
alternative urged with such passionate ardor in Book 3 of the De rerum natura. It
challenges the disquieting doctrine of the soul which is that of Ennius: in the
language of Book 3 it teaches that the soul is something immortal and that it
enters the body at birth (3.670-71):
immortalis natura animai
constat et in corpus nascentibus insinuatur.
26. animai 1.112, but in anticipation of the later development of the concept of the
soul, anima/animus in 1.131; cf. 3.35-36, 417-24.
27. In 5.242-43 mortalia and nativa are equated. Comparable are expressions such as
corpore nativo (5.241) and nativos animantibus et mortalis ... animos (3.417). 5.60

defines any compound as mortal.
In the De rerum natura the adjective immortalis properly describes only the
atoms, the void, the universe which is their sum, the gods, and, as far as the soul
is concerned, death (3.869).
Conscious of the poverty of his native speech, Lucretius has introduced his
theme so as to enrich Latin with an exposition of the Greek tradition of physis
and the Epicurean conception of physiologia. Natura is first introduced in terms
of generation, which is the high road to the larger conception of Natura which
brings things or compounds (res) into being, sustains them, and reduces them to
their first beginnings. Natura is also introduced as the visible and circumscribed
world of our experience, the frame of this world (1.71; cf. 1.321). As it describes
the gods (1.44) and the human soul, natura suggests the constitution of that
which is immortal and that which is mortal. Although Lucretius does not include
the gods in his definition of those three things which can be properly regarded as
eternal (3.806-18), the soul is obviously the kind of thing which can be dis-
solved by the blows of matter. Its natura is that it is nata, and thus mortal. Omnis
per se divum natura (1.44) translates Epicurus' T6 paxaptov i a 6Oaprov28
and more nearly approaches Epicurus' usage than any of the other terms of the
proem.
But the understanding of the physical world and its invariable processes is not
the enterprise of theoria, abstract and detached. Nature as it is represented in
myth (thefama deum of 1.68) inspires terrors which only a clear grasp of its deep
fixed laws can dispel. This is the proper and the only function of Epicurean
physiology, and to convey this to his Roman reader, Lucretius directly opposes
Ennius' account of the afterlife with his own account of the nature of things. It is
the threat of religion to man's peace of mind which impels him to physiology
and provokes those questions the Epicurean is compelled to ask of nature. It is
the movement of the proem from a presentation of Greekphysis to a presentation
of the ethical necessity of Epicurean physiology which explains Lucretius'
"double syllabus."
It is this system of reason and reasoning which is announced in the vera ratio
(1.51) Lucretius promises to put before his reader. It is a ratio which might seem
impious in its beginnings (elementa, 1.81; cf. 150), but one which will steel the
mind against the terrors of religion itself (1.110, 128). Ratio as it first appears in
the proem might be translated as the "true account" (1.50), and then as the
"comprehensive account" of the gods and heaven (1.54, the 1upt tract ciaictt

28. KD I (= SV I). Epicurus' more common designation of the divine is either theia
physis (Ad Pyth. = 113.11 and 11.5.11, SV 24) or aphthartos kai makaria physis (Ad Hdt.
78.7, Epicuro 65.35 [Epicuro2 72.35, Epicurus' Letter to Mother]).
of Ad Hdt. 79.5). Here the placement of summa caeli ratio deumque before
rerum primordia reflects precisely what is stressed by Epicurus. The impulse to
physiology is not theoria, abstract and indifferent, but the moral necessity of
mastering fear, anxiety, and all other forms of tiapaxi. Accordingly, what
physiology-Epicurean physiology-affords is not an abstract account of
physis, the natural world and its processes, but a ratio and facultas restandi
(1.110; cf. 3.45).29
Thus, while the concept of nature which Lucretius develops in his proem is
not distinctively Epicurean, his statement of the impulse to physiology is ex-
plained by premises which are exclusively Epicurean (1.146-48):
hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radii solis neque lucida tela diei
discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
These lines are repeated thrice again in the poem (2.59-61, 3.91-93, 6.39-41),
and on each occasion they provide, as they do here, the bridge from the ethical
premises of physiology to physiology itself. In Lucretius' formulation which
introduces the logical foundations of his enterprise, natura and ratio come
together to express what Epicurus meant by physiologia. Lucretius does not
translate the Greek word by Cicero's calque naturae ratio, rather he renders the
concept by naturae species ratioque.30
Yet natura as it is revealed by ratio lies furthest from the sensuous world of
the proem and its evocation of spring in the poet's invocation of Venus. Sunk
deep below the species verna diei and the suavis daedala tellus of the proem is a
world barren of the sensuous qualities of this; a world deprived of all sound,
smell, taste, and color. The ultimate truths of the Epicurean ratio are revealed in
the apocalypse which closes Book 1. Here Lucretius contemplates nil. . . deser-
turn praeter spatium etprimordia caeca (1.1109-10). And again, in the opening
to Book 3 (13-16):
29. For the ethical premises of the entire poem and for physiologia itself, cf. Ad Hdt.
76.8-82.9; for the doctrine of divinity (1.44-49), cf. 76.11-77.11, 78.6-8, and KD I (=
SV I); for the fear produced by the simulacra of the dead and absent, cf. SV 24 and
Epicurus' letter to his mother (Epicuro 65 [Epicuro2 72]). Finally, for the function of
physiology itself, cf. Ad Hdt. 78, KD XI, XII (= SV 49).
30. Naturae ratio is Cicero's calque for physiologia, Div. 1.90, 2.37, and ND 1.20. But
this is not Lucretius' formula, although Reiley (Studies in the Philosophical Terminology

of Lucretius and Cicero [New York 1909] 23), Traglia (De lucretiano sermone ad phi-
losophiam pertinente [Rome 1947] 56 note 332), and Ernout (Lucrece De Rerum Natura:
Commentaire [Paris 1962] ad. loc.) interpret it as such.
nam simul ac ratio tua coepit vociferari
naturam rerum, divina mente coorta,
diffugiunt animi terrores, moenia mundi
discedunt, totum video per inane geri res.
The starkness and horror (3.29) of the ultima naturai (1.1116) do not come
into sight in the proem. The remoteness of the rerum primordia of Lucretius'
"first syllabus" is suggested only in the final characterization of his theme and its
difficulties (1.136-45):
nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta
difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse,
multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum
propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem;
sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas
suavis amicitiae quemvis efferre laborem
suadet et inducit noctes vigilare serenas
quaerentem dictis quibus et quo carmine demum
clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti,
res quibus occultas penitus convisere possis.
Lucretius' theme and the difficulties inherent in it are finally characterized by the
phrase Graiorum obscura reperta (1.136)-a phrase variously translated, but
with little sensitivity to the difficulties it involves.31 Ernout's "ces obscures
d6couvertes des Grecs" is quite literal, but difficult if taken literally. If Lucretius
regarded his argument and its Greek inventors as obscure, they would share in
the vice of the oracularly cryptic Heraclitus, who earns Lucretius' contempt as
clarus ob obscuram linguam (1.639). The difficulty is compounded if one insists
in reading the poem backwards and taking the Graius homo of the proem as
Epicurus. The Graius homo might well be Epicurus, but one cannot know this
31. Biichner, anxious to reconstruct the Entstehungsgeschichte of the poem, is one of
the few critics to question the meaning of obscura in 1.136. In it he detects a slightly
derogatory tone, and points to 3.1-2 to show that a change in attitude has come about,
Beobachtungen iiber Vers und Gedankengangen bei Lukrez (Hermes Einzelschriften I,
1936) 111-13. Barwick, Hermes 58 (1923) 152 note 2, interprets both occultae res and

obscura reperta as "dunkler schwerverstiindlicher Stoff."
from the proem.32 In any case, it is extremely doubtful that Lucretius would
regard the writings of Epicurus in particular as obscura, since it is precisely the
quality of clarity (cnnjvetaF) that his master insisted upon (3.1-2):
E tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen
qui primus potuisti inlustrans commoda vitae...
The non-committal "dark discoveries" of Munro (adopted by Bailey) is a
better translation of obscura in that it makes possible another interpretation by
its deliberate ambiguity. This interpretation is that Lucretius' Graiorum obscura
reperta refers to that class of things which Epicurus and Greek physiology
generally noted as tr 6 8ic a. There are two pieces of evidence which show that
under Lucretius' Graiorum obscura reperta lies tI 6 8ra of Greek physical
speculation. The first is the language of Lucretius, the second that of Cicero.
In its context the antithesis of obscura and inlustrare is followed and paral-
leled by another antithesis-res occultas and penitus convisere (1.145). Con-
visere is a rare verb in Latin; it occurs twice again in the De rerum natura.33
Taken with res occultas it reproduces the Greek of the Letter to Herodotus
(ouvopav if8rl rp't iv 8a6iXov), which Lucretius' proem has here come to
parallel.34 The second piece of evidence for sharpening the focus of obscura by
bringing it into line with the special force of tId 6&ilka in Greek comes from
Cicero, who describes Greek physics (physike) as naturae obscuritas.35
32. The consequences of the simple and surface fact that Lucretius' proem is an
introduction to Epicureanism are subtly drawn out by Leo Strauss in his "A Note on
Lucretius," in Natur und Geschichte: Karl Liwith zum 70. Geburtstag (Stuttgart 1968)
322-31 (now reprinted in Liberalism Ancient and Modern [New York 1968] 76-85).
33. Cf. 2.357 and Lucretius' simile likening the quest of physiology with the tracking
of hounds, 1.402-9. By this conception the semeia of Epicurean physiology become the
vestigia of Lucretius' investigation gi; ixvog toi 8iov, for which like expressions can
be found in the Greek ofAd Pyth. 96.2, and Philodemus, On Methods of Inference (ed. P.
H. and E. A. De Lacy (Philadelphia 1941 [revised edition, Naples 1978]) xxi 20, xxix 2.
[The metaphor is examined in essay 9 in this book.]
34. Both Lucretius' proem and the Letter to Herodotus agree in moving from the
difficulties of the task of physiology to the first of the major propositions of Epicurus'
stoichei6mata (Ad Hdt. 38.8-39.1 = 1.145-50, 159-60).
35. To my knowledge it has not been noted in connection with this passage in
Lucretius that the noun obscuritas bears a technical sense which connects it with the

physics of Greek philosophy, that is, with the inquiry into the invisible structure of the
visible world. In Cicero's De oratore (1.68) Greek physics is introduced within the
tripartite division of philosophy as naturae obscuritas; cf. Fin. 5.51, Acad. 1.19 (with
Reid's comments), and Augustine's characterization of the Presocratics, Civ. Dei 2.7.
The ultima naturai of Epicurus' ratio are remote from the sensuous world of
the proem, yet for Lucretius and Epicurus the ultimate truth does not hide in the
deep,36 nor is it the way ofphysis to conceal herself (cf. Heraclitus, VS 22 B 123).
Binding the sensuous world with that reached by reason is what Epicurus called
the analogy and symphony between phenomena, the senses and the unseen
(a6pcxara).37 Thus, where Lucretius' Graiorum obscura reperta can be taken to
refer generally to the reperta obscurorum of the physiologists, his formula
naturae species ratioque can best be taken to describe physiology as it was
conceived of by Epicurus.
Cuius (1.149) demonstrates that for Lucretius naturae species ratioque
cohere in one close-knit concept which cannot be broken down into the6ria
(species) and physiologia (ratio).38 Epicurus does in fact speak of ) irept~i 0-
eom; O8opica,39 but by this he means speculation guided by the logical premises
of his physics. In Lucretius, as in Latin generally, species has the force of
outward appearance (except as it translates idea). Bailey, who understands the
phrase somewhat as I would, translates "the outer view and inner law of nature."
A more accurate translation might be "the look and law of nature." The point at
issue here is that for Lucretius, as for Epicurus, such a formulation is possible,
given the source of all knowledge in the experience of the senses. Nature is full
of voices, commands, and instruction. Very possibly Lucretius' species reflects
the 6oytg of Anaxagoras' 6otg t 'v 6iXov -r i catv6gava, but the principle itself
was a fundamental tenet of the more pragmatic of the physicists.40
Kleve, SO 38 (1963) 29-31, is right in connecting the occultae res of 1.145 with the force
of ta addla in Greek; the special sense of obscura reperta also comes into focus when
aligned with this term.
36. In contrast to the notorious dictum of Democritus, VS 68 B 117 (= DL 9.72). Cf. P.
Natorp, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Erkenntnisproblems im Altertum (Berlin 1884)
209-34.
37. Epicuro 127.10-15 [Epicuro2 137.10-15]; cf. Adv. Col. 1124B, and below, note
40.
38. This separation is made in most of the commentaries (most recently by U. Pizzani,
Lucreti De Rerum Natura [Rome 1960] 155), but it has no more authority than an
educated guess. I entirely agree with Bailey (ad. loc.) that here "the idea is one in
Lucretius' mind."
39. Ad Hdt. 35.7 (in roughly the same context as Lucretius). In 59.7 the6ria and logos

are joined, but not as they are in Lucretius, where species cannot be interpreted primarily
as speculation. By contrast, Cicero's version of thearia is naturae contemplatio, Acad.
2.127; cf. ND 1.50.
40. For the Epicurean versions of Anaxagoras' dictum, see 263 Us., DL 10.23.7, and
Philodemus [On Methods of Inference] vii 8, xv 25, and compare xxvii 30 and passim. A
From the logical and poetical development of this principle in the De rerum
natura, it is clear that Lucretius has arrived at the perfect expression of Epi-
curean physiology, whose unshakable foundation and step course is the clear
evidence of our senses: tdvovw xprn1ig cac O0E~gltog 1i )vapyta (247 Us.).
Thus, in establishing the theoretical truths concerning that class of things which
Epicurus marked off as ta adela, it is possible for Lucretius to speak of the
compulsion of nature and true reasoning as if they were one and the same: sed
vera tamen ratio naturaque rerum cogit (1.498-99). Here as in 1.149, the world
of the senses and the world which is accessible only through reason coincide.
Elsewhere in the De rerum natura reason and the visible are seen as standing
widely apart,41 but in Lucretius' exposition of his argument, they telescope into
a single concept to express the Epicurean view of physiology.
thorough study of the principle involved in Anaxagoras' dictum has been made by H.
Diller, Hermes 67 (1932) 14-42.
41. 2.1023-47, 1050-51, 3.273, 4.385, 796 (cf. Ad Hdt. 47); but contrast 5.335.
This essay is an expanded version of a chapter of my dissertation on Lucretius'
Translation of Greek Philosophy, Seattle 1967 (Microfilm Order No. 67-14, 162), and its
end is the proper place to thank Leo Strauss for turning me to Lucretius in a memorable
summer seminar, Professor John B. McDiarmid for his help with the Presocratics, and

Professor William Grummel who directed the dissertation.
The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration
Der Graben ist weiter und tiefer. Er ist vor allem deshalb so schwer zu
iiberspringen, weil wir hart an seinem Rande stehen.
Heidegger, "Der Spruch des Anaximander," in Holzwege,
Frankfurt am Main 1950, p. 303
The distance that separates us from Lucretius is greater than we take it to be, and
the gap, or abyss, between Lucretius and his reader is not to be measured by a
span of two millennia. Across from us we can make out the remote and solitary
figure of a poet making his way across the pathless slopes of Pieria to reach and
drink from the sources of his inspiration (I, 921-950; IV, 1-25). Yet this remote
figure of a poet, who works late into the quiet of the night seeking the nature of
things and the language and poetry that will reveal it to his reader (I, 140-145;
cf. IV, 969-970), seems familiar, for Lucretius seems to present himself as a poet
among poets. It is Lucretius himself who has brought us to the edge of the gap.
At the beginning of his poem he invokes Venus (I, 28); at its end, he will
invoke Calliope (VI, 93). He represents himself as a poet: he is spurred on by the
sharp blows of the thyrsus and the prospect of fame (I, 922-923); he drinks from
pure springs (I, 927-928; IV, 2-3); and he seeks on the slopes of Pieria the
crown that Ennius was the first Roman poet to bring down from a mountain that
was better known than Pieria (Helicon, I, 118; I, 928-930; IV 3-5; VI, 95).
Lucretius presents himself as a bee in a meadow of flowers (III, 10-13); his
verse as polished and an adornment of his argument (VI 82-83), or as honey
coating and disguising his argument (I, 947 and IV, 22). He compares his poetry
to the song of swans (IV, 181; 910); and he speaks of himself as a swallow (III,
6-7).
Reprinted from J. Bollack and A. Laks, eds., Etudes sur l 'Epicurisme antique, Cahiers de
Philologie, vol. 1 (Lille, 1976), 203-227. A good deal is said about Lucretius' relation to
Empedocles in the following pages. The reader should turn to Monica Gale's discussion
of this relation (for more on the relation, see the opening footnote to essay 7) and of
Lucretius' use of myth in her Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), 58-75,
129-155.

138
The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration / 139
And finally, Lucretius speaks of himself as a prophet (V, 110-113). At the
end of the De Rerum Natura, as he nears the finish line his muse will mark out
for him and bring him to (VI, 92-95), he mounts a venerable chariot that had
carried at least two philosophical poets before him (VI, 47; 93). These familiar
poetic attributes are all to be found in Lucretius' poem. And their very famil-
iarity tempts us to mistake Lucretius and his poem. Lucretius does not mark off
for his reader how far he moves away from his presentation of the familiar
features of himself as a poet. But he does not need to, for his method is to let his
reader arrive at his own conclusions about Lucretius' invocation to Venus and
his evocation of spring, genesis and the quickening breath of the West wind (I,
11). As he approaches its end and his goal, he calls upon Calliope, his clever
Muse (callida musa, VI, 93), and he asks her to point out to him the finish line in
his race to the conclusion of his poem. We come to this goal in the grim
description of the deathbearing wave of disease that brought destruction to the
highest pinnacle of human development, Athens (cf. V, 1148-VI, 6). Between
the genitabilis aura fauoni of the proem (I, 11) and the mortifer aestus of VI,
1138, Lucretius has moved over a great distance.
This essay presents an attempt to recover some of this distance, along with the
art of reading a philosophical poem which begins with the familiar, the appeal-
ing, and the traditional, in order to bring its reader over the gap that separates the
lovely appearance of a spring day (the uerna species of I, 10) and the prospect of
dissolution and destruction with which the De Rerum Natura ends.
Ways Taken
In marked contrast to the shadowy group of philosophers which critics have
seen, or have thought to see, in the background of the De Rerum Natura, stands
the solitary figure whose name seems to sum up Lucretius' philosophical
sources. He is named only once in the poem (III, 1042-1044), but as the
argument of the poem develops, he does not need to be named to be recognized:
III, 3 te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus, inque tuis nunc
ficta pedum pono pressis uestigia signis,
5 non ita certandi cupidus quam propter amorem
quod te imitari aueo; quid enim contendat hirundo
cycnis, aut quidnam tremulis facere artubus haedi
consimile in cursu possint et fortis equi uis?

tu pater es, rerum inuentor, tu patria nobis
10 suppeditas praecepta, tuisque ex, inclute, chartis,
floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta,
aurea, perpetua semper dignissima uita.
The De Rerum Natura proclaims itself the reiteration of a path already taken. Its
very syntax suggests its relation to Epicurus: inque tuis nunc / ficta pedum pono
pressis vestigia signis. The lines set the compass of Source Criticism.
Lucretius speaks of signa: marks, impressions. Epicurus had spoken of a way
and the movement along it that led to the end of philosophy. Especially towards
the end of his life he became more interested in establishing a clearly marked
path for his disciples to follow, and the words 686 and p3a8iw occur with
significant frequency in the three major letters preserved in Diogenes Laertius.1
From the Vatican collection of Epicurus' Pronouncements comes the exhorta-
tion (SV 48): etpoOc6at 'rv x0tipav "tTf itpo pcaS KxpEiitto) notyiv, O) aV V
68 f .v" 6e'tSaV 8' *i it;pa ~XOo uv, 6 oa1Xg e OpaivEO9a0 (We must
attempt to make the next day better than the day before, until we are on the way,;
and once we have come to our goal, feel joy, steadily, calmly). Later Epicureans
recognized that Epicurus had discovered and marked a road-or better, a way
they were to follow. It seems that none saw this more clearly marked out before
him than did Lucretius. In the apotheosis of Epicurus which begins Book VI, he
speaks again of a road:
VI, 26 exposuit... bonum summum quo tendimus omnes
quid foret, atque uiam monstrauit, tramite paruo
qua possemus ad id recto contendere cursu.
It is natural enough to see the language of this passage and the aurea dicta of the
proem to Book III as centering on Epicurus' moral thought and his carefully
formulated ethical maxims, or patria praecepta, some of which can be seen in
the Latin of the De Rerum Natura.2
1. Schrijvers, (1970), p. 21, n. 11, gives a list of examples. Kenney, (1970), pp. 369-
370, connects the auia Pieridum with the untrodden paths of Hellenistic poetry, and
Bollack, (1959), p. 658, makes a revealing connection between the iter of II, 1114-1117
and the rt6pov vytv0ov of Empedocles B 35, 1-3 DK.
2. I, 44-49 (= II, 646-651) = KA I; Compare III, 830-846 and KA II; I, 690-700
and KA XXIII; V, 1151-1160 and KA XXXV; Boyanc6, (1936), p. 322, stresses the
religious character of Epicurean society, and compares the aurea dicta of II, 12 with the

golden sayings of Pythagoras.
But this focus is too narrow. In Epicurus, the word 686; and questions of
method are more prominent in his physiology than in his ethical writings.3
When, in the proem to Book V, Lucretius speaks again of following in Epicurus'
footsteps, he is following a path marked by the fundamental principles of Epi-
curus' physiology:
V, 55 Cuius ego ingressus uestigia dum rationes
persequor ac doceo dictis, quo quaeque creata
foedere sint...
Elsewhere it is clear that the route to a rational account of the world is not always
the shortest and most direct. The best example of the circuitous approach to a
problem is Lucretius' treatment of the magnet, which poses the difficulty of
explaining action over a distance. It is a problem which can be approached only
by a review of the fundamental theoretical considerations which explain the
working of the world. When Lucretius states that the problem is best approached
by long detours (nimium longis ambagibus est adeundum, VI, 919), he is follow-
ing the principle and the path marked by Epicurus who insisted that his followers
make the round (nepiobog) of the main principles of his physiology as they
approach the particular problems posed by nature.4 Passages like Lucretius'
treatment of the magnet make all the clearer the method that stands behind a
statement such as that which closes Book I:
I, 1114 Haec sic pernosces parua perductus opella;
namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca
nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai
peruideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus.
Sources of Inspiration
For the ancients, sources were springs as well as the books we now speak of as
Quellen and originals, forgetting entirely one of the meanings of origo.5 By habit
3. Ad Her, 35, 7, with 36, 7; 1-3, and 83, 3 and 10.
4. Ad Her, 36, 9; 83, 10; ad Pyth. 85, 6.
5. Origo means a spring of water And, though it is generally a mere waste of
ingenuity to tie the sense of a word down to its supposed derivation, Isuspect that the most
fruitful way of understanding the word "originality" may be to remember this meaning,

Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic (Oxford 1911), p. 263.
and inclination we speak of models, originals, debts, the "sources," and more
often the "source," that lay open before Lucretius' eyes. But for the ancients
some springs were sacred and the source of inspiration for those who drank from
them. Lucretius speaks of such sources in a manner which is deceptively tradi-
tional and strikingly original. He first speaks of them in the exordium which
introduces the difficult argument on the infinity of the universe:
I, 921 Nunc age quod superest cognosce et clarius audi.
nec me animi fallit quam sint obscura; sed acri
percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor
et simul incussit suauem mi in pectus amorem
925 Musarum, quo nunc instinctus mente uigenti
auia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
trita solo. iuvat integros accedere fontis
atque haurire, iuuatque nouos decerpere flores
insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam
930 unde prius nulli uelarint tempora Musae.
What stands out is the word auia-it is the first word of the proem to Book
IV. Here and elsewhere in the poem Lucretius insists that his enterprise is novel.
It is this sense of the novelty of his poetic theme that Lucretius presents as the
well of his enthusiasm and love for the Muses. The great hope he has of glory
stems from his perception of his place in the history of this world:
V, 335 denique natura haec rerum ratioque repertast
nuper, et hanc primus cum primis ipse repertus
nunc ego sum in patrias qui possim uertere uoces.
Given the theme the exordium of Book I announces, and the language Lucretius
chooses to express it, the mindful reader is brought to think back on another
breakthrough in the history of the world-that of the Graius homo of the proem
(I, 66):
I, 75 omne immensum peragrauit mente animoque,
unde refert nobis uictor quid possit oriri,
quid nequeat...
Both Lucretius and Epicurus made their way through an infinite universe which

is defined only by strict laws and a method (cf. I, 80-82). The deliberate
parallelism drawn by Lucretius between himself and Epicurus leads to an expla-
nation of how it is that Lucretius can portray himself as following in Epicurus'
footsteps and at the same time striking out through a trackless region to the
sources of his inspiration. The explanation lies in the words auia Pieridum. The
a2Etpov of Epicurus and the auia Pieridum are one and the same. But the
universe of Epicurus is delineated in the arid and technical prose, the vi ov
Xoytg6g, of a man who had little use for poetry and considered the Muses
Sirens.6 The universe of the De Rerum Natura is one presented in and seen
through poetry. Its ratio is one that leads its reader to see through poetry.
One thing that is not traditional in what has been called Lucretius' "apology"
is his conspicuous failure to invoke his Muses as he had invoked Venus (I, 28)
and will invoke Calliope (VI, 92-95). In the exordium at the end of Book I,
Lucretius asks nothing of the Muses. Rather he evokes traditional themes to
stress his originality. The wreath he seeks from the Muses brings to mind Ennius,
I, 117
qui primus amoeno
detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret.
And inevitably, the auia Pieridum bring Hesiod to mind; the "integros fontis"
the springs of Helicon. Tacitly, it would seem, Lucretius has evoked a tradition
stretching from Hesiod to Ennius to make his claim that he and not Hesiod or
Ennius is the first truly philosophical poet.
Helicon is mentioned again in the De Rerum Natura: indirectly, when poets
are called the comites Heliconiadum (III, 1037). Lucretius is not a Moxvdcav
OEpdanov (Hesiod, Theogony, 100). He is a follower of Epicurus. He is original in
his bold attempt to properly express Epicurus' philosophy in Latin verse. And he
was the first and last poet to expound his great theme in poetry. And thus
Lucretius is permitted to speak of "himself"-ego. This emphatic "I" breaks
into the poem only when Lucretius is speaking of his poetry, and its limitations.7
Helicon rises in Boeotia. Mt. Pieria, on the Macedonian side of Olympus. In
Lucretius' references to poetry there seems to be a distinction between Helicon
and Pieria and possibly an opposition. The Muses of Pieria and their song are
mentioned twice in the De Rerum Natura (I, 926; 946 = IV, 1; 21). Their song is
Lucretius' song. But Helicon is a mountain frequented by other poets. It is the
6. irnatS icav 6i otc6av, acaptc, e T cat6tov apatvog (D.L. X, 6 = fr. 163 Us.
[Epicuro2 89]). Plutarch seems to have detected Epicurus' wry allusion to Odysseus and

the Sirens in one of his letters to Pythocles (p. 150, 12 Us.).
7. I, 25; I, 943 (= IV, 18); III, 316; V, 55.
mountain from which Ennius brought down his crown (I, 118); from which
philosophers forced harmonia and improperly applied this musical term to the
soul (III, 130-135). It is the source of plaintive song (IV, 547). Poets accompany
the Muses that dwell there (III, 1037); and on its slopes grows a tree which is
said to be deadly to men when in flower (VI, 786-787).
By contrast Lucretius traverses the trackless reaches of Pieria alone. The
springs of this mountain have no name. The steps and song of dancing Muses
cannot be heard there; on its slopes, no shepherds pasture their sheep. If there is a
distance in the De Rerum Natura between Pieria and Helicon, and therefore a
tacit distinction between Lucretius and other poets, its explanation might lie in
the fact that the associations of Helicon are local and inextricably bound up with
the Ascraeum carmen of Hesiod, while Pieria is associated with the more univer-
sal Olympus.8 Pieria is more on a level with the 6ant pia of Epicurus' view of
the universe than the less lofty Helicon.
The Muses
Between Lucretius' description of his enthusiasm (I, 921-930) and his "apol-
ogy" proper (I, 931-950), there is a gap filled by a tacit question: Why will the
Muses crown the poet?9
I, 931
primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis
religionum animum nodis exsoluere pergo,
deinde quod obscura de re tam lucida pango
carmina, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore.
935 id quoque enim non ab nulla ratione uidetur;
sed ueluti pueris absinthia taetra medentes
cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum
contingunt mellis dulci flauoque liquore,
ut puerorum aetas improvida ludificetur
940 labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum
8. The Muses of Pieria have been seen as far south as Helicon; cf. Callimachus fr. 1
and 2 Pfeiffer (AP VII, 42, 5-6); but Pieria is the birthplace of the Olympian Muses,
Hesiod, Theogony, 53, with West's note; cf. fr. 7 Merkelbach and West, where Olympus
and Pieria are associated, as they are in Bacchae, 410 and Scutum, 201-206.
9. Schrijvers, (1970), p. 30, n. 6, is right to sense a difficulty in the logic which
moves from I, 930-931. The most obvious bridge between Lucretius' statement of the
source of his inspiration and I, 931 is that of his merit and originality: prius nulli uelarint

tempora musae (930) and primum quod (931).
absinthi laticem deceptaque non capiatur,
sed potius tali pacto recreata ualescat,
sic ego nunc, quoniam haec ratio plerumque uidetur
tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque
945 uulgus abhorret ab hac, uolui tibi suauiloquenti
carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram
et quasi musaeo dulci contingere melle,
si tibi forte animum tali ratione tenere
uersibus in nostris possem, dum perspicis omnem
950 naturam rerum qua constet compta figura.
Here we have Lucretius' answer to his tacit question. The Muses will crown
the poet because of the great things which are his argument; because its surface,
touched with their sweet honey, will attract the reader to the point where it
becomes possible for Lucretius to release him mind and soul from the bonds of
traditional religion of which the Muses themselves are a minor and innocuous
part. In part, because the bright surface of his poem will bring to light a dark
theme.1o Lucretius' poem is attractive and brilliant; its argument is bitter and
dark. And this is the justification for Lucretius' decision to write poetry (non ab
nulla ratione uidetur, I, 935). If taken on its own terms, Lucretius' poetry makes
palatable, or approachable (labrorum tenus, I, 940), an argument that seems grim
and bitter to those who have not been exposed to it. In some sense, his poetry,
and even his presentation of it, is a deception (I, 941). The significant repetition
of the rare contingere makes clear that Lucretius considers, or represents, his
poetry as a coating.1'
It remains to determine if this, the most explicit statement Lucretius makes
about his philosophical poem, is not itself deceptive, or only a partial statement
of the relation between his argument (ratio) and its form (carmen).
III, 655 Hic siquis mare Neptunum Cereremque uocare
constituet fruges et Bacchi nomine abuti
mauult quam laticis proprium proferre uocamen,
10. Nec me animi fallit quam sint obscura, I, 922; obscura de re, I, 933. Here
Lucretius' theme is the infinity of the universe-an adelon.
11. I, 934; 938; 947; II, 670. Lucretius' simile, if it is taken seriously, has an important
consequence. Poetry is something extemrnal to, and fundamentally unlike, the substance of
Lucretius' argument. Cf. Plato, Republic 601b; 607a, and the term fucata, II, 644, and

multa . . . sunt ornanda politis / uersibus, VI, 82-83.
concedamus ut hic terrarum dictitet orbem
esse deum matrem, dum uera re tamen ipse
660 religione animum turpi contingere parcat.
Lucretius' manner of treating poetry and its themes is seldom as explicit as this.
And even then it is not so explicit an evocation and rejection of a tradition as was
Eliot's calling up "Thunder rolled by the rolling stars / Simulates triumphal cars"
in his Four Quartets:
That was a way of putting it-not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn out poetical fashion.
Lucretius' evocation of the rites of Cybele was no worn out poetical fashion.
Because his method is to attract his reader to the surface of his poem and then
bring him to look through its surface to the argument that lies beneath, some
readers have become so attached to his musaeum mel that they have failed to see
a method in his shifts from "poetry" to its underlying ratio. One expression of
Lucretius' method of evoking a traditional theme and reaffirming his reader's
attachment to it, and then bringing him to a vantage from which he can both see
through the surface of the poem and interpret it, is the first element of the verbs
which describe the activity of the reader: perpotet (I, 940); perspicis (IV, 25);
pernosces perductus (I, 1114); peruideas (I, 1117).12
The failure to appreciate how the poem moves from the invocation of Venus
at its beginning to the theology which asks nothing of gods who can be moved by
neither anger nor a sense of gratitude [I, 44-49] to the Venus of Book IV-our
uoluptas and muta cupido (IV, 1057)-has wrought havoc in the text of the De
Rerum Natura and filled the poem with contradictions.13 As men commonly
conceive of them, the gods do not exist. Venus cannot be moved by Lucretius'
prayer: aeternum da dictis, diua, leporem (I, 28). But the goddess, as most men
think of her, can move Lucretius' reader: to the point where it becomes possible
for him to realize that what is truly divine can be moved neither by a sense of
gratitude, nor anger, nor precedent (I, 49; II, 651; cf. I, 26-27). And that the
goddess men call Venus has her origin in human passion and desire: Haec Venus
12. Here I disagree with Schrijvers' formulation of Lucretius' method as perfalsa ad
uera, (1970), p. 41. The traditions Lucretius evokes (thefalsa) have some basis in human
experience and in reality. The Muses are one example. The tradition of Cupid's arrows is
another. It is explained ultimately, as it was not at the beginning of the poem (uulnere
amoris, I, 34), by a theory of vision and love, IV, 1048.

13. So lines I, 44-49 do not appear in Bailey's Oxford text. They are the product of an
interpolator irrisor (Isaac Vossius) or a lectorfrustra curiosus (Lachmann).
est nobis (IV, 1058). Tityos too is no more than the worries and anxieties of the
lover: Tityos nobis hic est (III, 992).14
If this is our Venus, and if Bacchus, Neptune, and Ceres are abusive descrip-
tions of wine, the sea, and grain, Lucretius' reader is brought to ask: What then
are our Muses? The Muses (or Muse) make other appearances in Lucretius'
poem: the spring song of the shepherds, inspired by gusts of the West wind
sounding through hollow reeds, is called a country Muse: agrestis enim tum
musa uigebat (V, 1398), and editors do not capitalize the word. But the Lucretian
commentary on the Muses of his "apology" is his treatment of the echo and the
beliefs it gives rise to:
IV, 578
ita colles collibus ipsi
uerba repulsantes iterabant dicta referri.
580 haec loca capripedes satyros nymphasque tenere
finitimi fingunt et faunos esse loquuntur
quorum noctiuago strepitu ludoque iocanti
adfirmant uulgo taciturna silentia rumpi
chordarumque sonos fieri dulcisque querelas,
585 tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum,
et genus agricolum late sentiscere, cum Pan
pinea semiferi capitis uelamina quassans
unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hiantis,
fistula siluestrem ne cesset fundere musam.
590 cetera de genere hoc monstra ac portenta loquuntur
ne loca deserta ab diuis quoque forte putentur
sola tenere. ideo iactant miracula dictis
aut aliqua ratione alia ducuntur, ut omne
humanum genus est auidum nimis auricularum.
579 dicta OQ: docta Lachmann.
Querelae, plaintive songs such as these, are also heard on Helicon (IV, 547;
cf. V, 1384).15 What the inhabitants of remote places hear is not the distant song
of the Muses, or Pan, but the echoes of men calling out in the mountains (IV,
14. I have attempted to write a sketch of the history of Venus in the De Rerum Natura,
(1969), pp. 33-39. [I develop this history in Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca and London
1983), pp. 226-234.]
15. The line is corrupt, but the association of Helicon and an anonymous plaint (cum

liquidam tollunt lugubri uoce querelam) is sure. Cf. the close parallel in V, 1382-1386.
575-578). The larger context of Book IV makes it clear that the Muses, if they
are to be explained by the ratio they help disguise, are cases of 7cpoo8ogal6-
geva; they are constructs the mind has added to real experience; res / animus
quas ab se protinus addit (IV, 468).16
In the company of Centaurs, Chimaeras, and Scyllas, the Muses have their
origin in human experience. But they arise from sounds, not from things seen. In
the long run of the poem, these goddesses of poetic tradition take their place with
the gods as they are created by men, with Venus and Veneres nostras (IV, 1185),
Cybele, Pan, and the gods of the country. They are the wonderful additions of the
mind to its experience. These are our Muses. It is the art and the method of
Lucretius' philosophical poem to move from what is appealing and traditional to
a vantage which both comprehends and transcends tradition.
Prophecy
Epicurus, who was not a poet, called his philosophy prophecy (SV29). It is clear
that he had his reasons for making a claim often made by poets for their inspira-
tion. When it has gotten a proper distance from the world it describes, physiol-
ogy becomes a kind of prophecy:17 Mv o 6T OvTig (v ti j G6Et KQa kiaf3bv
p6vov pto vov dv&i3 roig pt o etXg otaoyotooiOg 1T 1iv 3etpiav
- K Wv alcova i x fl K I& "dt t' i6va tc t yi c66iva icp6 ' i ov'ca
(F'_o6tEva Korte, Iliad 1. 70; Fo6tva Q): (Remember that although you are
mortal and have received a limited span of time, you have ascended to infinity by
means of the arguments concerning nature-and to all of time, and have looked
upon "those things that are, that will be, and were before. ")
Here is another element in Lucretius' presentation of his poetry and its
inspiration. It is both Epicurean and poetic. It seems traditional, and can and has
been compared to the conceptions of earlier poets who spoke of themselves as
16. Cf ad Her 50-51 and the opinatus animi quos addimus ipsi IV, 465; IV, 386;
460-461; 816; V, 154.
17. SV 10 (= Metrodorus fr. 37 Korte). The attribution of this exhortation to Epicurus
seems secure, given the language of the bishop Dionysios of Alexandria, in Eusebius,
Praep. Ev., XIV, 27 8 (PG XXI col. 1288), Lucretius III, 14-30, and Cicero, Tusc. Disp.,
I, 21; 47-48. [The problems of the paternity of such Epicurean sayings is taken up in
essay 4 in this book.] The prophetic character of Epicurean philosophy, and of Greek
physiology, is recognized by Ovid, Tristia, II, 425-426; cf. Empedocles B 15, DK, and

Athenaeus, 187 b (p. 115, 13 Us.).
inspired "prophets."18 But in Lucretius, the emphasis falls more on prophecy
than on inspiration. In the De Rerum Natura, poetry, philosophy, and prophecy
are first found together in Empedocles and his followers:
I, 732 carmina quin etiam diuini pectoris eius
uociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta,
ut uix humana uideatur stirpe creatus.
This conception of physiology as prophecy is itself Empedoclean and carries
over into Lucretius' judgement of those who held the theory of four elements:
I, 736 quamquam multa bene ac diuinitus inuenientes
ex adyto tamquam cordis responsa dedere
sanctius et multo certa ratione magis quam
Pythia quae tripodi a Phoebi lauroque profatur.
It is language like this which Lucretius will use to prophesy the end of this world
(II, 1048-1174). In its free flight (liber iactus, II, 1047), the mind mounts to a
point from which it can look down upon the infinity of the universe and the
origin and impending destruction of this world and worlds like it. And this is the
point of view of the end of Book II and the beginning of Book V, where
Lucretius takes up again the great theme of the perishability of the world:
V, 110 Qua prius aggrediar quam de re fundere fata
sanctius et multo certa ratione magis quam
Pythia quae tripode a Phoebi lauroque profatur.
multa tibi expediam doctis solacia dictis.
The language Lucretius had used to praise Empedocles and his followers now
describes his own argument. One reader of the poem has properly asked: N'est-
ce pas comme une fagon de se proclamer un nouvel Empedocle?19 On reflection,
no. Lucretius' proclamation is even more ambitious. In Book V, Empedocles
enters the poem as Lucretius attempts to convey the difficulty of reaching a
conception of the perishability of this world. It is characteristic of Lucretius'
view of the philosophical poets who came before him that he should adopt and
18. Kambylis, (1965), p. 27-28, notes many of the passages in which poets speak of
themselves as "prophets"; cf. Bacchylides, 9, 3 Snell. Munro's note at I, 102 is valuable
for his statement of the Roman conception of the uates.

19. Boyance, (1960), p. 60.
adapt Empedocles' language on the impossibility of framing from the senses a
conception of the divine, in order to bring before the mind the difficulty of
imagining the death of a world which has lost all of its divinity (V, 114-234; cf.
II, 1090-1104). Empedocles' Greek finds its silent commentary in Lucretius'
application of it. Three lines of his poem were known to Clement who gives a
subject: [31 B 133 DK] t6. . . O0ov, 6 'AKpayatitv6; gnrot notouig,
o1JK y z EX t Yao0at Cv 6 Ocaktoi; tOc6v,
r t-'cipotq fxp6io aXa3 iv, iptEp tietF TGs rrj
7rstOog a vpdtototv a&gQatbg si; 4pv a rciixtet.
The divine, says the poet from Acragas:
Cannot be approached or gotten to in the range of our eyes or grasped by our
hands, which is the broadest way of persuading men that falls into the mind.
V, 97
nec me animi fallit quam res noua miraque
accidat exitium caeli terraeque futurum,
et quam difficile id mihi sit peruincere dictis;
100 ut fit ubi insolitam rem apportes auribus ante
nec tamen hanc possis oculorum subdere uisu
nec iacere indu manus, uia qua munita fidei
proxima fert humanum in pectus templaque mentis.
As often happens when one poet refers to another, the more things seem to
remain the same, the more they change-an axiom especially true of the Roman
poetry of allusion.20 Lucretius is alluding to Empedocles, for the allusion behind
lines V, 97-103 is not isolated and local, but it informs its context. At least one
detail of Empedocles' language comes to be seen as valid for Epicurean theol-
ogy: ovx aut X pat apef v finds its echo in mannuum tactum suffugit et ictum
20. In his "Doctus Lucretius," (1970), pp. 366-392, Kenney has done much to show
that Lucretius' poetry shares many of the distinctive characteristics of Hellenistic poetry,
including its poetics of allusion. The subtlety of Lucretius' own allusions shows that he
was not a peculiar throw-back or literary anachronism in his own time (p. 373). But for
some of Lucretius' readers, a wink is not as good as a nod. A. A. R. Henderson, (1970), p.
742, cannot see that Lucretius III, 152-160 is a wink at Sappho's description of her
emotions, fr. 31 Lobel and Page. Rather Lucretius found it in an Epicurean source in
which it was already so applied (to fear). Once the allusion is seen, it is important to
remember: Man kann somit nicht ein Stiick aus dem andern interpretieren, sondern nur

jeweils die veranderte Richtung bestimmen, Bollack, (1959), p. 658.
(V, 150). But the allusion seems to say still more, for it subordinates the impos-
sibility of following sense experience to a conception of divinity to the
difficulties of the poet who will convince his Roman reader of the perishability
of a godless world. Here again, in the case of Empedocles, Lucretius evokes
earlier philosophical poetry in order to assert the superiority of his own argu-
ment. Since the universe is now as it always was and always will be, the
philosopher who understands its eternal laws becomes, like Chalcas and the
Muses, a prophet. And here again the ancient themes of poetry and inspiration
are comprehended within a new philosophy and a new philosophical poetry.
Invention
In antiquity, poets were makers, not finders. But invention figures importantly in
Lucretius' conception of his own poetry and in his statements about the sources
of his inspiration. One source of inspiration is the world revealed by Epicurus'
discoveries-the naturam rerum, diuina mente coortam (III, 15).21 Another is
Lucretius' sense of being at once Epicurus' follower and the first to reveal
adequately to the Roman reader Epicurus' discovery of the nature of things. His
sense of originality derives from his sense of history. Cicero reproached the
Epicureans who were his contemporaries for their lack of interest in history: in
uestris disputationibus uero historia muta est (De fin. 11.21.67). Unfairly, and
narrowly. In the vast conception of history that envisaged the simultaneous
formation and destruction of worlds in infinite time and space and reduced the
Roman conception of res gestae to euenta . . . corporis atque loci (I, 478-482),
Lucretius could look upon Epicurus as a tp6tog E-peti;-as the rerum inuen-
tor (III, 9). His attachment to Epicurus was not ahistorical. It depended on a
conception of history in which events two centuries old can be regarded as
"recent":
V, 335 denique natura haec rerum ratioque repertast
nuper, et hanc primus cum primis ipse repertus
nunc ego sum in patrias qui possim uertere uoces.
By this conception of history, discoverers are themselves discovered. The
same language which had described Lucretius' place in world history (ipse
repertus) comes to describe the greatest product of a city which is itself the
21. I accept the reading of the Oblongus (coortam) and Waszink's defense of it in

Mnemosyne, NS 2 (1949), p. 68-69. Cf. I, 732; II, 1051.
pinnacle of civilization (cf. the summum cacumen, V, 1457 and VI, 1-4). This
product is Epicurus-uirum tali corde repertum (VI, 5). Lucretius' description
of himself as discovered in Book III might have dissuaded Bailey from his
vacuous explanation of repertum in VI, 5 as little more here than the participle of
sum.22 As a part of the gradual discovery of the arts of improving life, the
discoverer of the true account of the world is himself discovered. So Lucretius is
himself discovered two centuries later, and this discovery makes possible the
first adequate proclamation in Latin of the reason and nature of things. The
inspiration of the discovery of the maiestas cognita rerum (V, 7) is one of the
most abundant and purest sources of the De Rerum Natura. It is Lucretius' sense
of history and discovery that explains too why the language which describes the
gradual discovery and illumination of Lucretius' reader also describes the prog-
ress of civilization:23
V, 1452 usus et imprigrae simul experientia mentis
paulatim docuit pedetemptim progredientis.
sic unumquicquid paulatim protrahit aetas
1455 in medium ratioque in luminis erigit oras.
namque alid ex alio clarescere corde uidebant,
artibus ad summum donec uenere cacumen.
Calliope
I, 1 Aeneadum genetrix, hominum diuumque uoluptas
alma Venus...
aetemrnum da dictus, diua, leporem.
There is one other invocation to a Muse in the De Rerum Natura: as he ap-
proaches the end of his poem, Lucretius mounts a chariot that he calls insignis
22. (1947) III, 1555. A long series of discoveries (reperta) have led up to Epicurus
and his discoveries: cf. V, 2 and 13; money and gold (V, 1113); metals (V, 1241; 1281;
1286); writing (V, 1445); cf. V, 1279; 1414-1415.
23. Usus and experientia (V, 1452) are crucial for the mastery of Lucretius' argument:
V, 822-847; III, 206-207; as is a quick mind, I, 402-409. In some matters (adela), the
progress of Lucretius' reader must be cautious, V, 529-533, but gradually he draws the
hidden workings of nature out into the light (V, 1453-1454): I, 402-409; V, 1028-1032;
1288-1389. In a sense, Lucretius' poem imitates the processes of nature, in which one
thing springs up from another: alid ex alio, I, 263; III, 970. Cf. V, 1456; I, 407; 1114-

1117.
(VI, 49), and appeals to Calliope to direct him to the finish line that will mark the
end of his poem and course:
VI, 92 Tu mihi supremae praescripta ad candida calcis
currenti spatium praemonstra, callida musa
Calliope, requies hominum diuumque uoluptas,
te duce ut insigni capiam cum laude coronam.
This is a familiar representation of the poet and his chariot. It brings to mind
Pindar, Parmenides, and Empedocles. It is Lucretius' last representation of
himself as a poet. Unfortunately, it is not complete. He began to speak of
mounting a chariot as he introduced the argument of the last book of the De
Rerum Natura.:
VI, 43 Et quoniam docui mundi mortalia templa
esse (et) natiuo consistere corpore caelum,
45 et quaecumque in eo fiunt fierique necessest,
pleraque dissolui, quae restant percipe porro;
quandoquidem semel insignem conscendere currum
Bernays saw that this picture of the poet and his chariot is incomplete and that
something has been lost after line 47. Lucretius returns to this chariot at the end
of the proem to Book VI when he asks Calliope to point him to the white finish
line set out before him and the long course of his argument. Here again he uses
the adjective insignis-now to describe the fame which he sees as his prize.
What Lucretius' invocation to Calliope helps explain is the sense he would give
insignis: Lucretius has once again turned to Empedocles in order to present and
set off by contrast the distinctive character of his own argument De Rerum
Natura.24
24. Waszink is one of the few of Lucretius' commentators who goes beyond noting
that the invocation of VI, 92-95 might be inspired by the two invocations to a Muse we
know in Empedocles (B 3 and 131 DK) to notice some of the differences this comparison
brings to light: There is a remarkable difference in the function of the Muse or Muses in
the two poets: Lucretius connects the Muse (or rather the musaeus lepos) with the element
of yiw8o; in poetry, whereas Empedocles (probably after the example Hesiod's The-
ogony, ... ) represents his doctrine as coming from the Muse (B 4, 2: ;g S nap'

ipte'prg ic ecrat toi tccra Mooarig, to be connected with B 23, 11: c it' ,0t, 0eoi
There are two passages in Empedocles where he turns to a muse. Both seem
to enter the larger context of the proem to the final book of Lucretius' poem. The
first must come from the beginning of the IIepi' g0oS; the second Diels
assigned to the Katharmoi, against the weight of the evidence that puts it in the
last book of the HIp' OcE;g.25 In the first of these invocations, Empedocles
does not name his Muse. He calls her white-armed, a virgin, and nokogviorn-
an ambiguous epithet which, as Jean Bollack has suggested in his commentary
to this passage, is best rendered by "she who remembers many things."26 In an
invocation of five lines preserved by Hippolytus, Empedocles calls upon his
muse once again (viv a~'re ncapieraco, B 131, 4 DK) and this time he calls her
by name, Calliope. What both passages have in common is the expression of the
need for divine help in a poem that speaks of the gods and the theme of piety.
This is the language with which Empedocles appeals to the gods and his muse
for the first time in his poem:
B 3 DK (= 14 Bollack)
X26 0o 'tcv gv gaviuv anotpiyate yXl6oar1g,
K 8' o6atcv otodt'c(OV Ka0apTlv o eboate 1t1yfIv.
Kai o , o)gvilTi X6KewCOXeve apOive Moi6a,
4 avtojatc ~v 6gtq t"civ Ta ptot6ty axo5 ty,
ic*%tu Einap' EB x 3iig ,Xao6oi' *_%i' vov a&pgw
aflS6 y' Ei66 oto Pt i Etat 6v0Ea ttgfi
7tpbg Ovqitwv aver Oat, e4' c '' 6Ilg nxeov iirv
8 0apoe ti "'r - 6 b i oO Toi ' axpotot Oodet
And this is the language of his second appeal:
t pa gi0ov axo xoa;). For Lucretius Epicurus, the pater et rerum inuentor, has taken the
place of divine power-and hence has to be revered as such (V, 8: dicendum est deus ille
fuit, deus, inclute Memmi), (1954), p. 254, n. 37.
25. This is not the place to rehearse the arguments which assign B 131-134 to the
account of the gods which Empedocles reserved for the third book of his Hopi 4 i0eog.
They are clearly set out in Charles Kahn's "Religion and Natural Philosophy in Empedo-
cles' Doctrine of the Soul," (1960), p. 6, n. 8. What seems significant from the point of
view of the evidence of Lucretius is that he turns to Empedocles' X6yog concerning the
gods in the last two books of his own De Rerum Natura in order to present the distinctive
character of his own argument. The argument of Books V and VI-de summa caeli
ratione deumque (cf. I, 54)-necessarily introduces an account of the gods, and the theme

of piety: cf. V, 84-90; 110-180; 1160-1240-especially 1203; VI, 48-79; 251-255;
387-422; 762-768; 1276-1279.
26. Empedocle III, 1, (1969), pp. 28-29.
B 131 DK
e ydp e0i piov Evexv tvog, aL3potiE Moica,
it gti pa; ,sXta; (a&E rot) 8t' apovtibo; X0iv,
Evxo tv vp v aQ-e , aptao ao, Kakt6oita,
ag' OfOtv JaKdpo)v aaOOv ,6yov 4!aivovwt.
(0'& tot) Wilamowitz, Maas: e ~ Tot Diels: ier*tipag ii tecrv V.
Lucretius too appeals to Calliope, but he calls her a callida musa, giving her
name in Latin a sense it did not have in Greek.27 He speaks too of the flowers of
fame, and his language (ut insigni capiam cum laude coronam, VI, 95) seems to
respond to the language of Empedocles' e86oto Ateijaat v60a "tgifg (B 3, 6
DK). Both poets speak of their chariots, although it is not clear that Lucretius
asked his Muse for a chariot in what has been lost from his poem after VI, 47.
Whatever he said in this lacuna, it is clear that both Lucretius' Calliope and
Empedocles' Muse will accompany their poets in their course (cf. R tilr in B 3,
5 DK and te duce in Lucretius VI, 95).
Lucretius' allusions to his closest and greatest predecessor in philosophical
poetry seem to go beyond the parallels between the two poets' Muses, chariots,
and the flowers of fame. Both poets reveal a doctrine that involves an account of
the gods. And both poets speak piously, and partially, as befits mortal and
limited men. Lucretius' account of the gods is incomplete, or apparently so,
because he does not seem to fulfill his promise of a further discussion concerning
the gods and their place in the universe: quae tibi posterius largo sermone
probabo (V, 155). What the argument of the final two books of Lucretius' poem
demonstrates is that the gods had nothing to do with the origin of the world, that
they have nothing to do either with its workings or with human affairs, yet they
are not completely absent from human experience. Rather, the divine is far
removed: semota ab nostris rebus seiunctaque longe (I, 46 = II, 649). They are
not completely absent since it is the tenuous and barely perceptible image of
their tranquillity that affords men with their remote notion of true tranquillity
and dtapaia. At the end of Book V Lucretius defines true piety as the ability to
contemplate everything and anything with a mind that has found its calm:
placata posse omnia mente tueri (V, 1203).
27. The muse of the fair voice 6o ci aki , Theogony, 68, 79, and the association of the
Muse's name with KaXisr v owvi v in Plato's Phaedrus, 259 d (quoted in note 28
below). In Lucretius, callida seems to recognize both the elements of fairness and decep-

tiveness that bring his reader to the end of his poem.
This theme of human piety is an important part of the proem to Book VI
inevitably, for Lucretius' argument now comes to center on one of the greatest
sources of fear and one of the grounds for human belief in the terrible gods of an
angry heaven. But the beliefs men hold concerning the gods cannot affect the
gods as they are: they can only affect the believer's peace of mind:
VI, 73 quia tute tibi placida cum pace quietos
constitues magnos irarum uoluere fluctus
nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis.
It was the purpose of Epicurean physiology to dispel or purge these fears (cf. VI,
24: ueridicis igitur purgauit pectora dictis, of Epicurus). It is only once Lu-
cretius' reader has quieted his fears concerning the gods that he will be able to
receive in peace their likenesses:
VI, 76 nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur
in mentis hominum diuinae nuntia formae,
suscipere haec animi tranquilla pace ualebis.
This peace was once the object of Lucretius' prayer to Venus (tranquilla pace, I,
31). As the De Rerum Natura nears its end, Lucretius' reader can, by himself-
tute tibi-achieve a state no goddess or Muse can grant. But it is a state a
goddess or a Muse can introduce him to. The poem has moved a long way from
its beginning when Lucretius invoked Venus. As it began, gods and men seem
united in a common pleasure: hominum diuumque uoluptas, alma Venus (I, 1-2).
As it nears its close, gods and men are separated: Calliope can give the gods
uoluptas, but men she can only afford requies.
This distinction, which few of Lucretius' readers have been moved to com-
ment on, seems a part of Epicurean piety.28 True uoluptas is beyond the reach of
28. Consider the commentary of Leo Strauss, (1975), p. 134, on the eclipse of Venus
by Calliope. The reader who wants to discover the difference between uoluptas and
requies and in part the difference between gods and men can find no help in either the
commentaries of Ernout-Robin or Bailey. The note in Emrnout-Robin, III, 199 is: hominum
S.. uoluptas: I, 1; Bailey gives the same lemma in his commentary, and offers a comment
on the difference between Lucretius' first and last invocation to a Muse: The difference
between the two invocations is seen that here the expression is purely conventional, there
it has also an esoteric meaning, III, p. 1567. Yet nowhere either in Greek or Roman

literature was there ever such an invocation to Calliope-callida Musa. It is usually said
men. Lucretius' clever Muse, who can give men only rest, points him and his
reader to the grim spectacle with which the De Rerum Natura ends. Whether she
can give him the peace that can make it possible for him to regard the devastation
of human achievement which he encounters at the end of the poem is the final
problem of the poem itself. Gods live without disturbance; they are remote from
human affairs and are indifferent to men. They can truly be called quietos. It is a
part of true piety to describe them as they are. Men cannot live their lives summa
cum pace. The most they can hope for is to free their minds and souls from
trouble and achieve peace. Their highest state of piety, and happiness, requires
an earlier state of turmoil. The human soul must first be disturbed to find its
peace: placata mente.
Requies is a word which takes on a clear and distinctive range of associations
in Lucretius. As it is associated with Calliope in the proem to Book VI, it brings
Hesiod to mind for a moment and the gift of his Muses: Xojigoovtv E K
ov
gutavad e Lpgrlpdov (Theogony, 55). But in Lucretius requies (or quies) and
the verb requiescere apply to three things: On the most fundamental level, quies
is denied to matter (II, 95).29 Quies also describes the gods and their tran-
quillity.30 But for men, sleep and death are the states which represent ultimate
rest.31
At the end of the poem, Calliope, Lucretius' clever Muse and the goddess
who gives men rest (hominum requies), brings Lucretius' reader to a scene
which offers men no relief. Of the plague that devastated Athens, Lucretius says:
nec requies erat ulla mali (VI, 1178). This last stage of the De Rerum Natura
of her that she is the muse of i topia in the wider Greek sense; so Bailey, and Hender-
son, (1970), p. 740. Calliope is also the Muse of philosophers like Empedocles and
Lucretius: cf. Phaedrus, 259 d: ti 8 peoPvciara KaXt 1tn K ai i pte' O1pavia totig
av ptXocoGig 8tayovtLa - cct xat 'avLdvra iLv xeivwv gov 10 1v &yyo oty (oi
rdvLctycE), at' st? lxra v MovoAv xipi Te ovpavbv xai Xyovg ou at o{k ou g
i ai
dvOpwnivovg 1iav KctyKQ x TrlV v v.
29. I, 135; 463; 992; II, 95; 227; 310; VI, 933. On the most fundamental level, bodies
are in perpetual motion and only the void can be called "quiet," II, 238.
30. II, 18-24; V, 168; VI, 73.
31. Of sleep: III, 910; 920; V, 454; 463; 484; 907; 990-991; of the sleep of death:
III, 1038; of death: leti secura quies, II, 211; III, 939. Lucretius cannot give his reader
true uoluptas or absolute quies; his Muse can only offer requies-the peace that comes

after a period of struggle and turmoil. Requies is the state that lies at the end of the
De Rerum Natura as it lies at the end of the Aeneid, which ends, like Lucretius' poem,
with an act of violence. Beyond is Rome: is locus urbis erit, requies ea certa laborum,
III, 393.
has been carefully prepared for. Lucretius has brought his reader to the point
from which he can contemplate the highest pinnacle of human civilization
and its destruction. It is Athens that is praised in the beginning of Book VI.
Athens seems to represent the high point, the summum cacumen, reached at
the end of Book V (V, 1457). The first line of book VI points to its end;
mortalibus aegris is echoed in aegris of VI, 1152.32 The theme of a world in
flux permeates the sixth book,33 and surfaces in Lucretius' treatment of the
magnet which is one example of the aestus of matter in motion (VI, 921-935);
it is treated for a last time in Lucretius' description of the mortifer aestus
which comes at the end of the poem (cf. VI, 1138). Underlying both Lucretius'
account of the magnet and description of the plague is a vision of a world in
constant and perpetual motion: nec mora nec requies interdatur ulla fluendi, VI,
931.
The end of the De Rerum Natura comes as the final test of Lucretius' reader.
As the argument of the poem develops, so does Lucretius' reader. In the early
stages of the poem this reader can be represented as a child who must be
deceived in order to be cured of the anxieties that disturb his life (I, 935-950; IV,
1-25). But he is also given the independence that Epicurus' physiology was
designed to make possible for its student. Both Epicurus and Lucretius seem to
have written to give their readers an independence and security in the most
critical moments of their lives: Iva c ap' FxaK o og tiv Kcxatpov v toig xuptco-
a totS po0~0iv a roat S vvcat-in the language of ad Her, 35, 5. And
Lucretius, even before he has turned to the representation of his reader as a child,
envisages an independence for him that can take him well beyond the doctrine of
the poem itself. Once he is on the right track, Lucretius' reader will be able to
penetrate the invisible workings of nature:
32. This and other links which span the beginning and end of Book VI are set out by
Martin Ferguson Smith in his note to VI, 1 in the new Loeb Lucretius, (1975), p. 492-493.
33. The theme is, of course, fundamental to the argument of the De Rerum Natura: cf
note 29 above and I, 271-328. The theme reemerges in Book VI when the human heart is
compared to a restless vessel which can never be filled, 60; cf. 34; 74. As for the outer
world, the theme is announced in VI, 29-30, which prepares for the description of
currents of disease in VI, 1095-1096. The theme enters Lucretius' long treatment of
thunder and lightning, where the word aestus in VI, 144 prepares for the treatment of the
magnet: VI, 921-935; 942-958; 1003; 1049; 1051-1056; 1059. The aestus of matter in

motion, for good and ill, brings back to the poem the theme of disease (cf. quidue mali,
VI, 29): morbida uisque simul, cum extrinsecus insinuatur, VI, 955. The plague which
devastated Athens, the mortifer aestus of VI, 1148, is the final statement of this overarch-
ing theme.
I, 407 sic alid ex alio per te tute ipse uidere
talibus in rebus poteris caecasque latebras
insinuare omnis et uerum protrahere inde.
It is such a reader that Lucretius contemplates at the end of the first book of the
De Rerum Natura:
I, 1114 Haec sic pernosces parua perductus opella;
namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca
nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai
peruideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus.
When he has come to the last stretch of his argument, Lucretius addresses a
reader who has become responsible for his own peace of mind: faced with a
choice between a belief in the angry and violent gods of Roman religion and the
tranquil gods of Epicurean theology, Lucretius' reader must choose between
turmoil and peace. Per te tibi (VI, 70) and tute tibi (VI, 73) reflect Lucretius'
expectation that the effect of his teaching is to give his reader the ability to help
himself. One test of the effectiveness of Lucretius' teaching comes when his
reader is able to look back on the Venus that first attracted him to the De Rerum
Natura and to realize that neither she nor any god can grant him favors; and that
she is only one of the faces of a larger natura who, or which, is responsible for
both generation and destruction (cf. I, 54-61). He comes to realize too that she
has her origins in human passion, just as the gods of Roman religion have their
origin in human fear. This is the fate of the goddess who attracts every reader to
the poem: it uer et Venus (V, 737).
What Lucretius' reader is left to contemplate at the end of the poem is
the grim features of a power which is destructive as well as creative. And when
he arrives at the finish line Lucretius' clever Muse has marked out for him, he
can see nothing peaceful or quiet. Only the spectacle of the living fighting
among themselves rather than give up their dead in the collapse of custom and
religion:
multo cum sanguine saepe
rixantes potius quam corpora desererentur.
The De Rerum Natura does not end with requies. It does not end in a contradic-

tion. Its end is the last and greatest test of the reader who would master its
teaching. For the piety the poem makes possible is the ability to contemplate
everything and anything with a mind that has found its peace:
placata posse omnia mente tueri.
There is a certain pleasure in this.34
34. Man has to choose between peace of mind deriving from a pleasing delusion and
peace of mind deriving from the unpleasing truth. Philosophy which, anticipating the
collapse of the walls of the world, breaks through the walls of the world, abandons the
attachment to the world; this abandonment is most painful. Poetry on the other hand is,
like religion, rooted in that attachment, but unlike religion, it can be put to the service of
detachment. Because poetry is rooted in the prephilosophic attachment, because it en-
hances and deepens that attachment, the philosophic poet is the perfect mediator between
attachment to the world and the attachment to detachment from the world. The joy or
pleasure which Lucretius 'poem arouses is therefore austere, reminding of the pleasure of

the work of Thucydides, Leo Strauss in "Notes on Lucretius," (1968), p. 85.
An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor
Mimetic Metaphor
The word metaphor is itself a metaphor. The notion implicit in the metaphor
wtaoopa is that words, like things, have their proper places. There is a statue of
Sappho in the main square of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Attached to a
building behind her is a large sign: MYTIAHNAIKH META4OPA-Transfer
Company of Mytilene. It is under this sign that I would like to place my
presentation of Lucretian metaphor, for this sign vividly reminds us, as foreign
visitors to Mytilene, of the ground on which our concept of metaphor stands.
The adjective pwrawoptKo6; derives from -etwaopa and was first applied to a
poet and not language by Aristotle in his dialogue On Poets (D.L. 8.57-58 = fr.
70 Rose). The epithet remained with Empedocles for a very long time, but in
1565 it was transferred from Empedocles to Lucretius by Obertus Gifanius in the
Life included in Lefevre's edition of the De rerum natura.1 And not long ago
Hugh Sykes Davies claimed that Lucretian metaphor is something unique in
European literature and, at the same time, "almost imperceptible to modemrn
taste."2 1 would like to explore what makes Lucretian metaphor unique and at the
same time to identify a feature that makes some of Lucretius' metaphors-and
similes-powerful vehicles for the atomistic philosophy of the De rerum nat-
ura. This feature has gone virtually unperceived.
What is initially most striking about Lucretian metaphor appears in his invo-
cation to Venus at the beginning of the De rerum natura. Here there is a profu-
sion of metaphors that endow the world of nature with human attributes. The
earth is described as an artisan (daedala) offering her varied flowers to Venus (I
7-8; cf. 134); the seas laugh (rident, I 8); the prevailing west wind of spring is
Reprinted from G. Giannantoni and M. Gigante, eds., Epicureismo greco e romano: Atti
del congresso Internazionale Napoli, 19-26 Maggio 1993 (Naples, 1996), 2:779-793.
1. Gifanio [1686].
2. Davies [1931] pp. 11-42 (especially 31-32).

161
"released" from its winter enclosure (I 11); birds have homes in the trees (I 18);
and Venus' creatures possess an appeal that is distinctively human (laetum,
amabile, I 23). This is a lovely scene that invites a Botticelli, but can it be seen as
a significant expression of Lucretius' Epicurean philosophy?
If such language were confined to the invocation to Venus in the proem these
metaphors could be viewed as the deceptive fagade through which we are
induced to enter the portal to the more somber argument of the poem. But such
language is not confined to the poetry of the proem. The earth (both terra and
tellus) is later described as a mother,3 and it has a lap (gremium).4 Earth gives
birth to and cares for her creatures, as if she were a human mother.5 She
embraces the bones of the dead (I 135 and IV 734) and she (tellus) is described
as effeta (II 1150; cf. VI 843). What is disconcerting about these metaphors has
nothing to do with Lucretius' poetry; but it has everything to do with his
philosophy. His metaphors are contradicted by the very philosophy he is ex-
pounding. According to his own argument against the Greek (and Roman)
conception of the earth as the Magna Mater of cult and poetry, "the earth, in
truth, is forever without sensation" (terra quidem vero caret omni tempore sensu,
II 652). These metaphors are, rather, mimetic. They represent the Greek and
Roman religious and poetic conceptions with which Lucretius begins and which
he comes to engage in his De rerum natura.6 And they contribute to the philoso-
phy of the De rerum natura in that they are the signs of Lucretius' recognition
that his cultivated Roman reader needed to be attracted to the philosophy he
professes.
Lucretian Criticism
Lucretius reveals that he is well aware of the metonymic and metaphoric sins
against his true philosophy when they are committed by others, especially by
those who endow the earth with a religious personality it does not possess. In the
3. I 193, 251, II 993.
4. I 193 and II 375.
5. Terra: V 805, 816, 882; Tellus: V 234, 837, 917, 926, and 942.
6. To cite only one example of Lucretius' mimesis of the Greek metonomy of the
earth as a human mother-these Lucretian metaphors derive (mediated perhaps through
Pacuvius) from the rhesis of Euripides' Chrysippus; cf. T. G. F. fr. 839 Nauck2 and

Alfonsi [1968].
An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor / 163
invocation to Venus it is true, he seems to accept the metonymy of Venus for
voluptas and the Roman (and Greek) tendency to personify and divinize the
forces of the natural world. But he vigorously opposes these tendencies in the
"palinode" which concludes his evocation of the cult of the Magna Mater
(described in II 600-660). In this "palinode" Lucretius returns the religious and
metaphoric respresentation of the earth as the Magna Mater to its proper
ground-the earth "that in truth is forever lacking in sensation." Terra is its
proprium vocamen (II 657). A proper use of language would reduce the Magna
Mater to earth, Neptune to the sea, Ceres to grains and fruits, and Bacchus to
wine (II 655-660). And Lucretius speaks with precision when he uses the term
abuti. Abuti is the term which (with abusio) served as the Latin equivalent for
catachresis (II.655-657):7
hic siquis mare Neptunum Ceremque vocare
constituet fruges et Bacchi nomine abuti
mavult quam laticis proprium proferre vocamen....
Elsewhere in the poem he displays a fastidiousness and both marks metaphorical
language by qualifiers such as quasi and justifies the propriety of his own
philosophical vocabulary as well as the propriety of Latin.8 He also criticizes the
metaphor which describes the soul as a harmony pervading the body and not a
part of the body in language that describes catachresis: redde harmoniai /
nomen, ad organicos alto delatum Heliconi (III 131-132). All this attention to
the appropriate use of language makes Lucretius' own catachresis difficult to
understand.
7. The term is usually employed in contrast to a literal and "proper" use of language,
as it is by Lucretius in the passage cited; cf. Cicero, de fat, 24; rhet. Her. 4, 45; and Quintil.
VIII 6, 35. The same contrast is sharply drawn in Philod. de poem. V, XV 4-15 Jensen
[Filodemo: Quinto Libro della Poetica XVIII 5-15 (Naples 1993) Mangoni]; cf. Epic. de
nat. XVIII (cfr. Epicuro2 [31] 14.8-12 Arr.). There is in fact no Epicurean prohibition
against the use of metaphor, even in philosophic writing. In his Rhetoric, Philodemus
speaks of the proper and philosophical use of metaphor, I 175, 15-18 and 180, 8-15
Sudhaus.
8. Quasi: II 152 (for air waves); III 440, 555, and 936 for the "vessel" of the body
containing the soul; ut par est and merito for the term eventa, I 458 and 481. He notes the
propriety of the Latin word perire for perishing (that is, passing through) iure pereunt, II
1139; cfr the qualification quasi limus and ut faex in V 495-597 and the analogical

comparison of earth to the lees of wine in Metrodorus of Chios, 57 A 20 D.-K.
Ciceronian Criticism
There is an anecdote in Girolamo Borgia's life of Lucretius attached to the
Venetian edition of 1495 that gives us what might be (but probably is not) the
only explicit ancient response to the metaphors of the De rerum natura. Accord-
ing to this life, Lucretius read his poem to Cicero, who admonished him to
observe a sense of propriety in his use of metaphors (admonitus ut in transla-
tionibus servaret verecundiam).9 Borgia cites two passages that gave Cicero
offense: coeli cavernas and neptunni lacunas. We find caeli cavernas twice in
the poem (IV 171 and VI 252), but Neptuni lacunas seems to have been edited
out.10 In the phrase caeli cavernas, the hollow vault of the heavens is described
in terms of a terrestrial cave and in Neptuni cavernas the deep depressions of the
sea are described as if they are hollows on land. But what is perhaps more
striking than the "impropriety" is the analogical metaphor involving three terms:
depressions are to the sea (cf. salsas lacunas), as hollows to the earth, and the
celestial vault to the heavens.11
Such was the offense given to Cicero and such was the offense Cicero gave
himself in his own poetry. No reader ancient or modemrn can come away from the
De rerum natura without some sense of wonder and then puzzlement over
another form of impropriety-the apparent conflict between Lucretius' poetic
medium and his philosophical message. The implications of a number of striking
metaphors seem to be contradicted by the very argument Lucretius is laying out.
These metaphors tend to collect in significant and dense groupings, and they
have the effect both of fusing the clearly articulated masses of the world, which
Lucretius describes by the Empedoclean metaphor maxima mundi /... membra
(V 243-244, 380-381) and of confusing the senses to each of which Lucretius
assigns its distinct object (IV 489-490, 522-523). And, what is more discon-
certing still, he treats the atoms moving invisibly through the void as if they
possessed human attributes and were engaged in the blind collisions of human
9. First printed by Masson [1895] pp. 220-237 (esp. pp. 223-224).
10. The closest Lucretius comes to the metaphor, if not the metonymy, is salsas
lacunas in III 1031 and V 794. Cicero himself is guilty of a very similar impropriety in
cons. fr. 2.5 and Arat. 497 (252). Landolfi [1992] has given a full history of the metaphor
caeli cavernas.
11. In these metaphors the descriptive genitives caeli and Neptuni mark the meta-
phoric extension, as does aquae in the expression aquae [. . . ] lacunas in VI 552. For the

analogical metaphor, see the term in Aristot. poet. 21.1457 b 9 and rhet. II 20.1393 a
22.1394 a 18, with the reflections of Ricoeur [1975] pp. 9-43, the study of Levin [1982],
and note 14 below.
warfare, although he argues at length that they possess none of the "secondary
qualities" of the sensible world (II 749-864).
Confusion
One example of the apparent confusion of the distinct realms of earth, water, air,
and fire is the language which confuses air and water in book I (271-297). In his
demonstration that invisible bodies exist, Lucretius speaks of air as if it were
water, which is something visible, precisely because the invisible but powerful
substance of air behaves like water: nec rationefluunt alia. . . (I 280). Inter-
estingly, there is also a clear element of what Paul Friedlainder called Lucretius'
"atomology" in the very language he uses to describe the motion of air and water
and, it would seem, fire.12 He first speaks of tree shattering gusts of wind
buffeting mountain tops (silvifragis vexat flabris, I 275) and then of gusts of
wind as resembling a mighty river (I 290-291):
290 sic igitur debent venti quoqueflamina ferri
quae veluti validum [ ... ] flumen....
As the same letters of the Latin alphabet transform themselves from one element
to another in different combinations, Lucretius' language itself illustrates the
fundamental similarities between the motion of water, fire, and air.
Lucretius confuses the elements of water and air, because the visible is not
fundamentally different from the invisible. He also confuses the distinct objects
of the senses. He claims that each sense is distinct and perceives its proper object
(sorsum cuique potestas / divisast ..., IV 489-490; sensus. . . quisque suam
rem / sentiat, IV 522-523). But he goes on to speak of sound as impressing its
seal upon words (obsignansformam verbis, IV 567) and the "image" of a word
(IV 571). I would suggest that in these cases Lucretius should not be found guilty
of catachresis. What he is bringing home by these confused and synaesthetic
metaphors is the unity of the phenomena that can move as water, fire, or air, and
the similarity of the effluences projected from all solid bodies as they are per-
ceived by sight and by hearing.
12. Friedlainder [1941]. A complex reticulation of "atomologies" seems to connect
flabra, flamina, flumen, fluere, fluctus, flare, flamma, and fulgura; cfr. 1275, 280, 282,289,

291, 725 and 900 and Raumer [1893] pp. 26-28.
Contamination
Another type of metaphor that seems to contradict the explicit atomic theory of
the De rerum natura might be described, with apologies to critics of Roman
comedy, as contamination. My term is suggested by Lucretius, who warns his
reader not to taint (contingere) the insensible and insentient with the qualities of
the sensuous world: proinde colore cave contingas semina rerum (II 755). He
had used the verb before in the striking simile by which he presents himself as a
doctor coating the rim of a cup of bitter medicine with sweet honey (contingunt
mellis dulciflavoque liquore, I 938) and again as he warned against tainting the
mind with the foul color of religion (dum [. .. ] / religione animum turpi
contingereparcat, II 659-660). In both cases, there is a great gap separating the
overlay of honey and the underlying truth of Lucretius' philosophy and the
poetry of Greek (and Roman) cult and the mute and indifferent earth. Lucretius
seems caught in a contradiction. Atoms can share in none of the surface qualities
that in their mutability define human life. Yet he speaks of his atoms as corpora
caeca and denies them the quies that is in Latin appropriate to the rest of animals
and sleep and death.13 He associates them in concilia, even as he separates them
in eternal warfare (II 573-574); and even as he abstracts from atoms the qual-
ities of the visible and sensible world-color, smell, taste, sound-he endows
atoms with the very qualities of human existence: they are "despoiled of color"
(spoliata colore, II 842), "sterile of sound and starved of flavor" (sonitu sterilia
et suco ieiunia, II 845). In contaminating with human attributes the invisible and
morally neutral processes of atoms moving within the void Lucretius seems to
be offering his readers a vision of the ethical character of human life lived
without his Epicurean ratio. And he seems to be offering us an ethical choice: we
can either be moved by the chaotic turmoil of the matter that makes up our souls
or we can control these motions and lead the life of philosophy-ut nil impediat
dignam dis degere vitam (III 322).
13. Quies: II 95-96; contrast III 211. Caecum can mean both blind and invisible in
Latin. In Aen. V 164 a submerged shoal is described caeca saxa. In Lucretius, both the
atoms and wind are caeca (I 328; III 269). But atoms are also caught up in battles and
driven by "blind" blows, just as humans are driven by their "blind" passions: O miseras
hominum mentes, opectora caeca, II 14. The mock battles of 1140-45 and a Democritean
metaphor prepare for the battle of blind man's bluff of II 112-120; cf. D.-K. 68 A 37 (II

93, 23-32).
Translatio
I turn finally to what in the metaphorical language of the poem is most striking
and of greatest interest for the philosophy of the poem and a feature of Lucretius'
philosophical style that can be properly described as unique. Lucretius was not
born a speaker of Greek. Indeed, his sense of the distance between Latin and the
highly developed language of Greek physiology leads him to apologize for the
poverty of his native language (patrii sermonis egestas, I 832, III 260). But this
poverty is wealth in disguise, for metaphors that were faint in Greek Lucretius
returned to life as he saw them afresh. He also developed the analogies implicit
in Greek metaphors into similes that offer visible models for the invisible pro-
cesses of the atomic world. It is in his "metaphore vive" that Lucretius justifies
not the condemnation of the plain, denotative philosopher, but the praise of
Aristotle, who saw metaphor as the vehicle for exposing analogical connections
and relating fields that are seen as separate (Poetics 22.1459 a 6).14 I give four
examples.15
The term arotxeiov is already a metaphor as it is extended to a letter of the
Greek alphabet (elementum in Latin), but it is extended even further to describe
the elemental masses of the natural world. Lucretius read the term yotgiov as
a letter and this vivid reading provided him a model to illustrate to his reader
how the shifting patterns of atoms of different shapes moving within void
produce the enormous variety of the sensuous world. The model Lucretius offers
for the nature of the world is the De rerum natura itself, which he invites his
reader to observe at work as a limited set of letters and the sounds they represent
combine to make a world of words (I 823-824):
quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
multa elementa vides multis communia verbis ... 16
Another example of a Greek metaphor revived as a simile in the De rerum
natura is the expression ixvevatc0 toi Si6 ov which Epicurus and Philodemus
14. Black [1965] pp. 25-47 has given a virtual indictment as well as a virtual defense
of Lucretian metaphor. The Greek background for such comparisons is laid out in G. E. R.
Lloyd [1966] Chapter 4 and [1987] Chapter 4. Schiesaro [1990] has produced the most
thorough-going study of the analogical metaphor in Lucretius.
15. Others figure in the Appendix to this essay.

16. Cf. I 907-912, and the Appendix, s.v. atotyxeov.
use for the process of inference from the visible to the invisible.17 The metaphor
of the trace (i vocgvestigium) Lucretius expands into an explicit simile by which
he compares hunting dogs finding a trace (cum semel institerunt vestigia certa
viai) to his reader's hunt for the "hidden (or invisible) hiding places of the
world" (caecas latebras), which in this case is the existence of the void (vacuum
in rebus, I 404-407).
Two final examples show how Lucretius developed the analogical potential
of two Greek metaphors. One can be termed synchronic; the other diachronic.18
In his lengthy interpretation of dreams, Diogenes of Oenoanda speaks of sleep as
a state in which "the organs of sense are, as it were, paralyzed and quenched"
(t6v aoOrT tpiov avtiWOv oiov Oi apaeXOov evov Kat l Qe[w, 0)v).19
Diogenes' qualification "as it were" marks his awareness of the metaphor. I think
it is obvious from Lucretius' own treatment of sleep that he was aware of the
metaphor Diogenes evoked more than two centuries later of sleep as a state
produced when the "fire" of sensation is flickering and dormant, cinere ut multa
latet obrutus ignis (IV 926). And Lucretius' own atomologies which connect
sensus and accendere (as in accensi sensus, II 943) point to his appreciation of
an analogical scheme in which burning fire is to sensation and consciousness as
fire dissipated and dormant is to sleep and unconsciousness (IV 925-928).
Last is the simile and vivid illustration Lucretius offers in our experience of
the world as it now is for how in the formation of the world fire rose from the
earth to the circumference of the heavens as a kind of radiant and prismatic
exhalation (V 457-464). In Epicurean epistemology, cosmogony like astron-
omy belongs to the class of objects which are described as "unclear" (66rla);
we can attain no near view of them to confirm our impressions.20 But Lucretius
detects a present (or diachronic) analogy for the phenomenon of aether drawing
up subtle bits of fire in the formation of the world (IV 460-464):
460 non alia longe ratione ac saepe videmus
aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
17. Epic. ep. Pyth. 92.2; cf. Philod. de sign. XXI 20 De Lacey, where the De Laceys
read Philippson's [Kar' ]xvog [to d81']-kov as [axt' ]xvog [to ]dvov. The metaphor
survives, however; cf. XXIX 2.
18. In the terms employed by Schiesaro [1990].
19. Appendix, s.v. 61ifvvapit. For this analogical comparison see my report on New

Fragment 5, Clay [1990] pp. 2487-2488.
20. These distinctions are well discussed by Schiesaro [1990] pp. 971-101.
exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
ipsa ut interdum tellus fumare videtur.
The comparison linking cosmogony with the present reflects Lucretius' vivid
awareness of the metaphoric life present in the Greek technical term ava0vgi-
awt. This he captures in his striking comparison and the verbs exhalant (IV
463) and fumare (IV 464) are the signs of its presence.21
Other examples can be produced for the process of translation and vivifica-
tion by which the metaphors of Greek physiology come alive in the Latin of
Lucretius' De rerum natura, but these samples are enough to illustrate Lu-
cretius' awareness of the models implicit in Greek metaphor and his exploitation
of these models in his own physiology: satis haec vestigia parva sagaci.
Lucretian metaphor is, then, unique in European literature. When put to the
work of illuminating his philosophy, it can wear the face of catachresis as it
confounds and confuses the realities language has segregated into distinct
categories. In contaminating the atomic with the human, Lucretius' metaphors
serve an ethical end, for they hold up the invisible conflict of blind bodies
moving blindly in space and engaging in battle as an image against which the
tranquility of Epicurean philosophy is the alternative. In bringing back to life the
models implicit in the metaphors of Greek physiology Lucretius deserves the
title gEptaopt c6o, "for to handle metaphors properly is to observe likenesses"
and is, in fact, the mark of the philosopher.22
21. The term avaOtgiatc; appears as a noun only in the doxographies of the Pre-
socratics: Anaximand. 12 A 11 D.-K.; Heraclit. 22 A 1 D.-K. (I 141.33); Parm. 28 A 37
D.-K.; Emped. 31 A 49 D.-K.; dvat0ugto6at occurs in Heraclit. 22 A 14 D.-K. and B 12;
Emped. 31 A 49 D.-K.; and Leucip. 67 A 24 D.-K. The term avrgietyv describes the
exhalations of Anaximand. 12 A 11 D.-K.; Parm. A 37 D.-K.; Emped. 31 A 81, Anaxag.
59 A 42 and 90 D.-K., and Diog. Apoll. 64 A 17 D.-K.

22. Poet. 22.1459 a 7.
APPENDIX
Greek Metaphor
1 a'vcaitgiaot;
Lucretian Simile or Model
The exhalation carrying fiery matter up-
ward in cosmogony, cf. note 21 above.
The sublimation of aether in cosmogony
ideo per rara foramina terrae
partibus erumpens primus se sustulit aether
ignifer et multos secum levis abstulit ignis,
non alia longe ratione ac saepe videmus,
aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
ipsaque ut interdum tellusfumare videtur.
5.457-464
On the production of a mirror image
non convertitur incolumis [imago], sed recta retrorsum
sic eliditur, ut siquis, prius arida quam sit
cretea persona, allidat pilaeve trabive,
atque ea continuo rectam si fronte figuram
servet et elisam retro sese exprimat ipsa ....
4. 295-299; cf. obsignansformam verbis, 4.567
2 Avanoaopayi oat
The eidola stamp a "seal impression" on
the eyes and mind; cf. Epicurus, ad Hdt.
49.2; cf. PHerc. 19/698 Col. XXVIA
Monet: [6] vypag tou I [vi; b6icLa
and the metaphor Kt Qyiov in Plato,

Tht. 191C.
3 Kavtv
Epicurus' Rule or Logic D.L. 10.30
The rule ofjudgment
denique ut in fabrica, si pravast regula prima,
normaque si fallax rectis regionibus exit,
et libella aliqua si ex parti claudicat hilum,
omnia mendose fieri atque obstipa necesse est,
prava, cubantia, prona, supina atque absona tecta,
iam ruere ut quae dam videntur velle, ruantque
prodita iudiciis fallacibus omnia primis,
sic igitur ratio tibi rerum prava necessest
falsaque sit, falsis quaecumque ab sensibus ortast.
4.513-521
4 tivetvt; [toi aSfkov]
Tracking/investigation into the un-
known; cf. Epicurus, ad Pyth. 96.2;
Philodemus, Methods XXI 20, XXIX 2
De Lacy
The tracking of the invisible
namque canes ut montivagae persaepe ferarum
naribus inveniunt intectas fronde quietes,
cum semel institerunt vestigia certa viai,
sic alid ex alio per te tute ipse videre
talibus in rebus poteris caecasque latebras
insinuare omnis et verum protrahere inde.
1.404-409
5 7apwtacipogat
On the atoms of the soul set in motion
The soul is scattered through the body
like seed; Epicurus, ad Hdt. 63.2-4:
f ov 6 i ag'a not iTcopirp vnap'
0 ov o Odpotola aperanap evov...
namque papaveris aura potest suspensa levisque
cogere ut ab summo tibi diffluat altus acervus....

3.196-197 (in its context)
6 IEptxa itpE cogat
Epicurus, On Nature [34] 28.1-2
Arrighetti [1973]= Long and Sedley
[1987] 20C23: n7Eptxod[co] yap 6
"otovitog 6yog Ipin-eat ....
Cf. Burnyeat [1976] and [1978]
7 ae"vvut
Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 10 IV 8-11
Smith [1993]
Av ai lO p
dvow oiov napa-
OE&U1voVKa I KAe .aEvy. ...
The self-refuting argument of the sceptic
denique nihil sciri si quis putat, id quoque nescit
an sciri possit, quoniam nihil scire fatetur.
hunc igitur contra mittam contendere causam,
qui capite ipse sua in statuit vestigia ipse.
4.469-472
The kindling of consciousness
quippe ubi nulla latens animai pars remaneret
in membris, cincere ut multa latet obrutus ignis,
unde reconflari sensus per membra repente
posset, ut ex igni caeco consurgere flamma.
4.925-928
8 6t~y6cw/t6 catuy~ov
The outer integument of the body con-
taining the atoms that compose the soul;
Epicurus, adHdt. 64.2; 65.3; 66.3; cf.
43.8. Cf. Plato Grg. 493C and S. El. 1118
for 6yyog as 6tiyov.
9 ototxeov
Letters of the alphabet/elements of
matter
Cf. Diels [1899], Burkert [1959], and
Snyder [1980]
The body is the vessel containing the soul

quippe etenim corpus, quod vas quasi constitit eius...
3.440; cf. 434, 555, 793, and 936.
The elementum paradigm
Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
multa elementa vides multis communia verbis....
1.823-824; cf. 1. 907-914,2.688-699, and 1012-1021.
10 5Nv/xuthdv
The eidola are cauls or outer chitons cast
off by solid bodies; cf. Epicuro [23]
19.1-3 Arrighetti [1973]; Diogenes of
Oenoanda, fr. 10 V 3 and 6919 Smith
[1993].
The visible cauls and tunica cast off by bodies
Principio quoniam mittunt in rebus apertis
corpora res multae, partim diffusa solute,
robora ceu fumum mittunt ignesque vaporem,
et partim contexta magis condensaque, ut olim
cum teretes ponunt tunicas aestate cicadae,
et vituli cum membranas de corpore summo
nascentes mittunt, et item cum lubrica serpens
exuit in spinis vestem. ...

4.54-61
10
Lucretius' Gigantomachy
Cicero's Displeasure with Lucretius
Gaius Velleius speaks for the Epicureans in Cicero's De Natura Deorum (of 45
B.C.). But Velleius might not be the object of Quintus Lucilius Balbus' indigna-
tion when it comes Balbus' turn to present the Stoic conception of the gods.
Balbus is particularly exercized by the Epicurean view that the world is the
product of chance and formed out of the ballistics of infinite matter moving "at
random" through infinite void. To his mind the absurdity of this view of the
world equals the absurdity of the supposition that the twenty-one letters of the
Latin alphabet could be shaken up in a dice box and spell out the eighteen books
of Ennius' Annales as they tumble out. He doubts that chance could even
compose a single verse (N.D. 2.37.93). He frets too about how atoms, which
have none of the sensuous qualities of our world could form a world or a portico,
temple, house, or city. He then produces the positive argument that will now
occupy us. This comes from Aristotle's dialogue On Philosophy.1 I quote the
quotation of Balbus and give it in translation to put us at "three removes from the
king" and Cicero's source in the Greek of Aristotle (N.D. 2.37.94-2.38.96). But
let us first listen to Balbus as he characterizes the Epicurean conception of how a
world-or this world-is formed. I stress some of his emphatic words.
(94) Isti autem quem ad modum adseverant ex corpusculis non colore non
qualitate aliqua (quam itot6yra Graeci vocant) non sensu praeditis sed
This essay appeared in a shorter form in Lucretius and His Intellectual Background, ed. K.
A. Algra, M. H. Koenen, and P. H. Schrijvers (Amsterdam, Oxford, New York, Tokyo,
1997), 187-92. Fuller references to the works mentioned in the notes can be found in the
bibliography.
1. Cicero is much occupied by this dialogue in his De Natura Deorum. He refers to it
in 1.13.33, 1.38.107, 2.15.42-2.16.44, 2.20.51, and here (2.37.95-96 = Aristotle On
Philosophy, fr. 13 Ross). Bywater argued convincingly that this citation from Aristotle in
Cicero is much more extensive than has been supposed ("Aristotle's Dialogue on Philoso-
phy," JPhil 7 [1877]: 82-85).

174
Lucretius' Gigantomachy / 175
concurrentibus temere atque casu mundum esse perfectum, vel innu-
merabiles potius in omni punctu temporis alios nasci alios interire: quodsi
mundum efficere potest concursus atomorum, cur porticum cur templum cur
domum cur urbem non potest, quae sunt minus operosa et multo quidem
faciliora. Certe ita temere de mundo effutiunt ut mihi numquam hunc admi-
rabilem caeli ornatum (qui locus est proximus) suspexisse videantur.
[These intelligent philosophers manage to assert that the world is formed out
of miniscule bodies that possess no color, no quality-what the Greeks term
noto6trg;-at all, no sensation, but that run together at random and by chance;
or better, that countless worlds are born while others perish in any single
instant. But if, indeed, a concourse of atoms can produce a world, why not a
portico, why not a temple, why not a house, why not a city? These structures
require less labor and are easier to produce. Surely, they talk such utter
random nonsense about the world that I would say they have never lifted their
eyes up to this beautiful creation-the heavens, which are our next topic.]
There is little in what Velleius has said to provoke this indignant characteriza-
tion of Epicurean cosmogony. Velleius barely touches on cosmology in his
review of theologies, and when he does, he merely uses the term concursus
fortuitus to describe the production of a world (1.20.54). Cotta uses a similar
phrase (concursione fortuita), when he lectures Velleius on the absurdity of
atomist cosmogony (1.24.66). Neither man has anything to say about the fact
that the atoms out of which the world (or a world) is produced lack in such
qualities as color or sensation; nor do they suggest that a work of apparent
design, like Ennius' Annales, can result from a random shaking out of atoms.
Cicero's real displeasure seems, rather, to center on Lucretius and the long
argument in book 2 of the De Rerum Natura, in which he strips the atoms of
color and sensation (in that order); suggests that the world is produced out of the
"concourse, motion, order, position, and shapes of atoms (concursus, motus,
ordo, positura, andfigurae, 2.1021); offers the elementa, or letters, out of which
the words of the De Rerum Natura are composed as the paradigm of the creation
of the world; and finally arrives at the spectacle and wonder of the heavens, to
convey the wonder of the Epicurean doctrine that the world will one day perish.2
2. Lucretius deals with color in 2.730-864 and with sensation in 2.865-990, where
the noun sensus is repeated fifteen times and the phrase praedita sensu (922) is echoed by
Balbus (sensu praeditis). It is important to recognize that under Lucretius' treatment of

color lies Epicurus' argument denying any quality to the atoms save shape, weight, and
magnitude (Ad Hdt. 54-55); cf. my display in Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca and Lon-
As for the word suspexisse, Lucretius uses that verb to introduce the shocking
thought that this world will perish (2.1039, quoted later in this essay) and then in
his antiteleological argument of book 5: Nam cum suspicimus magna caelestia
mundi I templa (1204-5). This argument has Aristotle's formulation of the
teleological argument of On Philosophy as its target, just as Cicero had Lucretius
as his target. Balbus continues:
Praeclare ergo Aristoteles, (95) "Si essent," inquit, "qui sub terra semper
habitavissent bonis et inlustribus domiciliis, quae essent ornata signis atque
picturis instructaque rebus his omnibus quibus abundant i qui beati putantur,
nec tamen exissent umquam supra terram, accipissent autem fama et audi-
tione esse quoddam numen et vim deorum, deinde aliquo tempore patefactis
terrae faucibus ex illis abditis sedibus evadere in haec loca quae nos in-
colimus atque exire potuissent; cum repente terram et maria caelumque vidis-
sent, nubium magnitudinem ventorumque vim cognovissent aspexissentque
solem eiusque cum magnitudinem pulchritudinemque tum etiam efficientiam
cognovissent, quod is diem efficeret toto caelo luce diffusa, cum autem terras
nox opacasset, tumrn caelum totum cernerent astris distinctum et omatum
lunaeque luminum varietatem tum crescentis tum senescentis eorumque om-
nium ortus et occasus atque in omni aeternitate ratos inmutabiliosque
cursus-quae cum viderent, profecto et esse deos et haec tanta opera deorum
esse arbitrantur."
[Aristotle puts the matter brilliantly. "Imagine," he says, "that there were
people who had lived forever under the earth in excellent and noble dwell-
ings, which were made more beautiful by statues and paintings and provided
with every luxury that those who conceive themselves to be blessed possess
in abundance. Yet they had never left these dwellings to go out onto the earth.
They had discovered only by rumor and hearsay that some divinity and divine
power exists. Then, at a given moment, the earth gaped open and they aban-
doned their hidden dwelling places and could go out into these places we
dwell in. Then, they caught sight of the earth, the seas, and the heavens and
came to know the great expanse of the clouds and the strength of the winds.
And they beheld the sight of the sun, recognized its magnitude and beauty
and, in time, its power: that it could produce with its penetrating light the day
don, 1983), 274-75. Lucretius goes on to use the adverb temere in the passage that de-
scribes the formation of a world at the end of book 2 (1060). At 2.1013-16 he redeploys

the elementum paradigm, by which the shifting of the letters of his own poem as they form
words illustrates how a limited set of atomic shapes can create the diversity of the world.
over the expanse of the sky. Then, when night had cast its shadow over the
earth, they could discern all the heavens with their brilliant pattern of stars
and the alternations in the phases of the moon, now waxing and now waning.
They could make out the risings and settings of all these heavenly bodies and
their sanctioned movements immutable for all eternity. When they beheld this
spectacle, assuredly they concluded that the gods exist and that all these
things are the works of the gods."]
Lucretius' claim, we recall, made at the start of the argument of the De Rerum
Natura is that whatever arises on this earth comes into being "without the work
of the gods" (opera sine divum, 1.158).
This passage in Cicero's De Natura Deorum should be familiar to us as
readers of Plato's Republic and its allegory of the cave (7.514A-517A) and-
surprisingly-as readers of the end of book 2 of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.
Like Plato's Socrates, the speaker in Aristotle's dialogue invites us to imagine a
subterranean civilization. The inhabitants of his cave are content with the man-
made beauty of their own world beneath the earth. Rumors of divinity have
reached them, but they have never emerged into the light of day to see the sun
and the heavens at night and the fixed and immutable courses of the heavenly
bodies moving in omni aeternitate. Such manifest signs of order afford Aris-
totle's cave dwellers with their first conception of divinity.
Balbus-or shall we say Cicero?-goes on to give a domestic illustration of
this transcendental meditation drawn from the cloud cover produced by an
eruption of Mt. Aetna and the amazement that came with the epiphany of the sun
after two days of darkness. His motive for adducing this illustration is to bring
home the truth that familiarity breeds not contempt but indifference. He then
proclaims the glory of the heavens and their constellations (unforgettably ren-
dered on the globe of the Atlas of the Naples Museum) by citing verses from
Aratus of Soli's Phaenomena in the translation of Cicero of Arpinum, but not
before he reflects at some length on the coarsening effect of familiarity that robs
us of our sense of wonder before the heavens.3
(96) Atque haec quidem ille. Nos autem tenebras cogitemus tantas quantae
quondam eruptione Aetnaeorum ignium finitimas regiones obscuravisse di-
cuntur, ut per biduum nemo hominem homo agnosceret. cum autem tertio die
3. N.D. 2.38.96. Such reflections might have been a part of Aristotle's argument in
On Philosophy, but they are also evidence for Cicero's knowledge of Lucretius' poem.

The theme that familiarity breeds indifference to the marvelous is taken up in Pliny N.H.
7.6 and Seneca N.Q. 7.1-4.
sol inluxisset tumrn ut revixisse sibi viderentur; quodsi hoc idem ex aeternis
tenebris contigeret ut subito lucem aspiceremus, quaenam species caeli vid-
eretur? Sed adsiduitate cotidiana et consuetudine oculorum adsuescunt animi,
neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum quas semper vident,
proinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnitudo debeat ad adquirendas
causas excitare.
[This much is Aristotle. We Italians might well think of the report of how the
neighboring territories were darkened once during an eruption of Mt. Aetna.
For a period of two days one human could not recognize another. But on the
third day, when the sun broke out, people thought that they had come back to
life. Yet how would the face of the heavens appear to us if, after an everlasting
period of darkness, we were suddenly to see the light? By daily custom and
habit the eyes of the soul neither wonder at nor seek the causes of the things
they see constantly before them, as if the sheer newness of the thing, rather
than its grandeur, should stir us to seek its causes.]
Plato first and then Aristotle, Lucretius, and Cicero speak of the numbing
effect of familiarity. The opposite of familiarity (consuetudo) is wonder
(novitas). For Aristotle especially, wonder was the beginning of philosophy,4 as
it was implicitly for Plato. As we shall see, Lucretius' purpose for invoking this
familiarity that breeds indifference is not to support an argument from design but
to demonstrate the perishability not of any world in an infinite universe but of
this world. Lucretius recalls this passage from Aristotle's On Philosophy at three
distinct stages of the argument of his De Rerum Natura. All bear hard on the
mortality of this world. The first stage comes at the end of book 2 (1023-47), the
second in the preliminaries to book 5 (91-103 and 110-21), and the last in
Lucretius' final appeal to the wonder of the heavens in his genealogy of religion
in book 5 (1204-17).
I think it is likely that Lucretius and not the bad company of Velleius' fellow
Epicureans is the object of Cicero's indignation in this passage from the De
Natura Deorum. Cicero mentions Lucretius by name only once, in his tantaliz-
ing letter to his brother Quintus of 54 B.C. (Ad Q. Fr 2.9.3). It has occasionally
been appreciated that Cicero recognized the presence of Lucretius in his own
dialogues but, by a "loi du silence," does not name him.5 The passage Cicero has
4. Notoriously in Met. 1.2.982b11-19, which goes back to Plato, Theaetetus 155 D.
5. This is the argument of J.-M. Andre ("Ciceron et Lucrece: Loi du silence et

allusions pol6miques," in Melanges de philosophie, de literature, et d'histoire offerts da
in mind comes from the end of book 2 of the De Rerum Natura (2.1023-48).
Here Lucretius has approached once again6 and with great obliqueness an argu-
ment for the mortality of this world. In his grand style, he announces to his
reader that a new theme is approaching the reader's ears and looming before the
reader's startled eyes. To comfort his reader as the reader is suddenly confronted
by the radical novelty of his subject, Lucretius employs an illustration long
familiar from Plato and Aristotle. But he puts it to a very different purpose. His
argument for the mortality of the world confronts his reader like the sudden
epiphany of the heavens as they first appeared to humans. Such is the wonder
(novitas, 2.1040) of his new theme; but habit will dull all sense of wonder before
this new argument, just as it has bred indifference to the wonders of the heavens
(2.1023-47).
Nunc animum nobis adhibe veram ad rationem.
nam tibi vementer nova res molitur ad auris
1025 accidere et nova se species ostendere rerum.
sed neque tam facilis res ulla est quin ea primum
difficilis magis ad credendum constet, itemque
nil adeo magnum neque tam mirabile quicquam
quod non paulatim minuant mirarier omnes.
1030 principio caeli clarum purumque colorem,
quaeque in se cohibet, palantia sidera passim,
lunamque et solis praeclara luce nitorem;
omnia quae nunc si primum mortalibus essent,
ex improviso si sint obiecta repente,
1035 quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici
aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes?
nil, ut opinor: ita haec species miranda fuissent.
quam tibi iam nemo, fessus satiate videndi,
suspicere in caeli dignatur lucida templa!
Pierre Boyance [Rome, 1974] 21-38) for passages in the De Finibus, a dialogue contem-
porary with the De Natura Deorum. The extreme of skepticism is that of W. A. Merrill
("Cicero's Knowledge of Lucretius' Poem" UCPCP 2 [1911]: 35-42), who, after can-
vassing "concordances" between Cicero and Lucretius, concludes, "I doubt very much
whether Cicero ever read the poem" (42).
6. As he had in considering the results of hypotheses contrary to the fact of his own

argument for an infinite universe (1.1009-20) and the untenable conception of a stable
earth in the middle of the universe (1.1052-1113).
1040 desine quapropter novitate exterritus ipsa
expuere ex animo rationem, sed magis acri
iudicio perpende et, si tibi vera videntur,
dede manus, aut, si falsum est, accingere contra.
quaerit enim rationem animus, cum summa loci sit
1045 infinita foris haec extra moenia mundi,
quid sit ibi porro quo prospicere usque velit mens
atque animi iactus liber quo pervolet ipse.
[Pay attention now to our true account.
For an absolutely novel matter approaches your hearing,
and a new spectacle opens itself before your eyes.
Yet nothing is so easy and familiar that it was not once
Difficult to believe. Just as nothing
is so great or so marvelous
that its wonder does not gradually fade in men's minds.
Now, first imagine that the heaven in all its clarity
and purity of color and all it holds within it
the stars traveling over its great expanse,
the moon and the sun's surpassing brilliance and light
all of this, if it was new to mortals
and without warning confronted them suddenly,
for the first time. What could be declared more wonderful,
or what before it would have challenged more
the belief of the peoples of the earth? In my belief nothing.
Such then would have been the wonder of this vision.
But now no one, jaded with the familiar sight,
deigns to lift his eyes to the bright reaches of the heavens!
Refrain then from being terrified by sheer novelty
and rejecting reasoning from your mind.
Rather weigh the matter with discernment.
If it seems right, yield to it; if wrong, attack it.
The mind demands understanding. Since space
is infinite outside the walls of the world, it asks:
What lies out there beyond, which the eyes of the mind
can see so far as you will look and so far

as the free course of the mind reaches in its flight.]
This passage is startling. Lucretius' perversion of the teleologist's argument
from design makes Aristotle the unwitting spokesman for the Epicurean convic-
tion that "the world is destructible, like an animal, like a plant" [06apt6v, 6it
Ka yEVrljT6v, g lpov ('g S~v6v] (DG 331a4). In his attack on the Epicurean
position and his illustration of the argument of design from Aristotle's On
Philosophy, Cicero is remarkably attentive to the context of Lucretius' argument
in book 2 of the De Rerum Natura (2.37.93-38.96). Lucretius had just demon-
strated that atoms share none of the sensuous qualities of this world (2.730-
1022). Balbus notes this view with scorn (N.D. 2.37.93). Balbus also recalls the
language by which Lucretius describes the formation of a world or, in the model
he discovers in his own poem, of how a world of elements (meaning the letters of
the Latin alphabet) can form words and a world of meaning. This model (stated
in 2.1013-16) provokes Balbus' remarks about the Annales of Ennius. Chance
could not produce even a single verse of Ennius' Annales: quod nescio an ne in
uno quidem versu possit tantum valere fortuna (2.37.93). Then, the reflections
Cicero offers on how familiarity breeds indifference to the splendor of the
heavens match the reflections of Lucretius, although Cicero puts these to an
Aristotelian end.
Lucretius' Intellectual Background: Aristotle's On Philosophy
Three other passages in book 5 of Lucretius seem to recognize this noble passage
from Aristotle's On Philosophy (5.91-103, 110-21, and 1204-17). Before re-
viewing them briefly, I should recognize a difficulty in the path of my analysis of
this Aristotelian text that stands in Lucretius' intellectual background. Cicero's
displeasure with Lucretius is a proposition that might be accepted with some
positivistic complaints. But Lucretius' use of the early Aristotle of the dialogue
On Philosophy is more wonderful still, and it raises once again the question of
Lucretius' sources. These sources are very much a part of Lucretius' intellectual
background. Acute investigations into Lucretius' arguments against the eternity
of this world have forged a chain of dependency-of Theophrastus on Aristotle,
of Epicurus on Theophrastus, and of Lucretius on Epicurus. This chain of
dependency resembles the chain of inspiration Socrates describes in Plato's Ion.
Like Socrates' festival crowd in relation to the rhapsode's Muses, Lucretius is
seen as standing at three removes from the source that inspired his arguments

against the eternity of the world. This concatenation of dependency is now
associated with Ettore Bignone and his L'Aristotle perduto e la formazione
filosofica di Epicuro (1936). For Bignone, clearly, Lucretius depended on Epi-
curus for his knowledge of the "primo Aristotele," or the Platonizing Aristotle of
the early On Philosophy.7
Bignone was quite alert-and justifiably so-to the reflection (or refraction)
of the early Aristotle in Lucretius.8 His study and others like it illustrate what I
think of as the problem of transparency in the interpretation of Lucretius' poem.
In our eagerness to recover the early Aristotle, the Physical Opinions of The-
ophrastus, and books 10-12 of Epicurus' On Nature, we are tempted to treat
Lucretius as if he were a transparent medium and to look through his De Rerum
Natura to glimpse the distant figures just visible in its background. I will focus
on a single figure in the background of Lucretius' poem, Aristotle of On Philoso-
phy, to return our attention to the foreground of Lucretius' poem. The passages
in which Lucretius seems to evoke the original of the passage cited by Balbus in
Cicero's De Natura Deorum look very different in the context of the De Rerum
Natura than they do as texts excerpted as testimonia for the lost Aristotle.9
To see these passages more distinctly in their Lucretian context, we must
return to Aristotle. The point of Aristotle's imagined cave dwellers and their
7. Bignone's understanding is clear from the two chapters he devotes to Aristotle's
On Philosophy in L'Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro (Florence,
1936), 2.1-102. In the next chapter, he acknowledges the importance for Epicurus of
Theophrastus' staging of the debate over the eternity of the world (2.103-87). A better
appreciation of this relation between Epicurus and Theophrastus is assured by the studies
of J. B. McDiarmid ("Theophrastus on the Eternity of the World," TAPA 71 [1942]: 239-
47) and David Sedley ("Theophrastus and Epicurean Physics" [forthcoming in the collec-
tion of papers from the Eighth International Theophrastus Conference, Leiden, 1993]).
The best characterization of Aristotle's On Philosophy remains that of Werner Jaeger in
Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, trans. R. Robinson (Oxford,
1934; 2d ed., 1948), 124-66 (originally published as Aristoteles: Grundlegung einer
Geschichte seiner Entwicklung [Berlin, 1923]). More recent is M. Untersteiner's study of
the dialogue, Aristotele: Della Filosofia (Rome, 1963), which does not lead him into the
byways taken here.
8. In L'Aristotele perduto, 2.35-102, Bignone reviews most of the Lucretian texts I
refer to in this essay but does not examine Lucretius' polemical strategy in evoking the
argument of the teleologist. All of these texts are associated by H. Reiche in a web of

sometimes extraneous associations ("Myth and Magic in Cosmological Polemics: Plato,
Aristotle, Lucretius," RhM 114 [1971]: 296-329).
9. The procedure is familiar from Diels' Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879; reprint,
1965) where passages from Philodemus and Cicero are set out in parallel columns (529-
49). For Cicero of the Tusculanae and N.D. and Aristotle, compare the columns in
Bignone, L'Aristotele perduto, 1:203-7.
discovery of the world of the heavens depends for its effect on its studied
contrast with Plato's allegory of the cave. Aristotle is more generous than was
Plato to the dwellers in his subterranean city. Their houses are elegant and
contain paintings and statues rather than the shadows of puppets; some rumor of
divinity has penetrated to them. In the Republic, Socrates was primarily inter-
ested in the cave as an illustration of our "lack of education" (7.514A). In On
Philosophy, Aristotle is attempting to suggest how the spectacle of the heavens
and their regular movements leads-or once led-to a conception of the divine.
Lucretius does not speak of a cave, but his argument for the numbing effect of
habit is the functional equivalent. Francis Bacon brings this out when, in his The
Advancement ofLearning, he invokes "that feigned supposition Plato maketh of
the cave," arguing that "certainly if a child were continued in a grot or cave
under the earth until maturity of age, and came suddenly abroad, he would have
strange and absurd imaginations."'1 Our sense of the wonder of the heavens can
become dulled by the force of habit. It is the numbing habit of the cave in both
Plato and Aristotle that makes possible the wonder at the first sight of the
heavens, and wonder, for both Aristotle and Lucretius, is the stimulus to philoso-
phy.11 Aristotle's illustration clearly derives from Plato, but Aristotle develops it
by introducing other analogies. The general form of argument can be described
as that of "traces on the Rhodian shore."12 Aristotle positions a viewer on top of
Mt. Ida. Below him he can view the order of the Greek army as it advances. Such
an ordered force (kosmos) suggests to the mind its commanders, known in
Homer as KcouGl'topEg Xatv. A spectator from on shore would form the same
conclusion about a ship moving smartly under sail; so too would a stranger as he
or she first enters a great city.13
10. Francis Bacon, ed. Brian Vickers (Oxford, 1996), 228.
11. As we have seen, Cicero's reflections on the force of habit are similar to Lu-
cretius'. Wonder is also clearly present in Lucretius, in 2.1035 (mirabile); it explains the
mind's need for understanding (see 1044). In book 5 the mortality of the world is termed a
res nova miraque menti (97); and in the last passage that evokes Aristotle On Philosophy
fr. 13, the wonder the heavens inspire in early humans prompts inquiry into the nature and
mortality of the universe and into the gods (1204-17).
12. Describing the anecdotes told of Aristippus in Vitruvius De Arch. 6.1 and of Plato
in Cicero Rep. 1.17.29. The theme is given an exhaustive study in C. J. Glacken, Traces
on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the

End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962).
13. I have argued that in the proem to book 2 of the De Rerum Natura, Lucretius has
in mind this illustration (which we have from Sextus; see fr. 12b Ross), and I have
suggested the motives for Cicero's displeasure with Lucretius, in Lucretius and Epicurus,
243-44.
Lucretius' Gigantomachy
There is another passage from Aristotle's On Philosophy that Lucretius seems to
glance at with a polemical and satirical eye. It is Aristotle's protest (preserved in
Philo) against the "shocking impiety" of those who argue that the world had an
origin and is perishable. These thinkers treat the visible gods-that is, the sun,
the moon, the fixed stars, and the planets-as if they were the products of human
hands. Once, Aristotle quipped, he had feared for the security of his own house
against the threat of winds, violent storms, the passage of time, and neglect; but
now a greater fear hangs over his head-that inspired by those who by their
arguments (tw X6yp) would destroy the entire universe.14
In book 5 of his De Rerum Natura, Lucretius has moved his powerful siege
works up against the moenia mundi in a last sustained assault. As does the
Epicurean Velleius in Cicero's De Natura Deorum, Lucretius describes the
world as a work of human hands and as destructible because it has been con-
structed.15 He asks Memmius to contemplate the threefold world of Roman
experience and makes a prophecy (5.92-103):
Principio maria ac terras caelumque tuere;
quorum naturam triplicem, tria corpora, Memmi,
tris species tam dissimilis, tria talia texta,
95 una dies dabit exitio, multosque per annos
sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi.
nec me animi fallit quam res nova miraque menti
accidat exitium caeli terraeque futurum,
et quam difficile id mihi sit pervincere dictis;
100 ut fit ubi insolitam rem apportes auribus ante
nec tamen hanc possis oculorum subdere visu
nec iacere indu manus, via qua munita fidei
proxima fert humanum in pectus templaque mentis.
14. Aristotle On Philosophy fr. 18 Ross. Bignone had already made this connection
clear in L'Aristotele perduto, 2:74-83. The connection between Aristotle's it~v t6v
itaxv'tra i6 tov rti X6yq Ka9atpo)vv and Lucretius' ratione sua disturbent moenia
mundi (5.119) is especially striking.
15. Velleius in N.D. 1.8.19, speaking against the world as the handiwork of Plato's
demiurge of the Timaeus. The conception of the world as a well-ordered city surfaces in
Aristotle On Philosophy fr. 13 Ross (cf. Philo Leg. Alleg. 3.32.97-99 and De Praem. et

Poen. 7.41-43).
[First, turn your eyes to the seas, heaven, and the earth.
Memmius, these things, this world threefold, these three bodies,
these three vistas so unlike, these three great fabrics,
a single day will bring to their destruction,
and the great mass and machinery of the world,
held up for many years, will cascade in ruins.
I am not unmindful of how new and amazing a thing
it is that confronts the mind with the prospect
of the end of heaven and earth,
or the difficulty of my task to convince you with mere words.
This is the common reaction when you introduce to hearing
a thing that was before unheard of.
You cannot subdue it to the range of your eye's vision
or lay your hands on it-that path that leads quickest,
as it is smoothed by conviction, to the human heart
and places of the mind.]16
Lucretius recognizes the religious scruples that would strongly oppose his
argument against the eternity of the world and the divine masses that make it up,
Caelum, Neptunus, and Tellus (or Terra). He is aware that his argument might
strike his reader as an impious assault on heaven, like that of the Giants who had
to pay for their terrible crime of marking what is immortal with mortal speech
(ritu esse par Gigantum, 5.117); and, like Aristotle of On Philosophy, he speaks
of the philosophical piety requisite for treating such a theme (5.110-21).17 The
conceit of a philosophical Gigantomachy can be traced from Aristotle (where it
is only implicit) back to Plato and the passage in the Sophist that describes the
16. Here Lucretius perverts the language Empedocles chose to convey the difficulty
of a mortal arriving at a conception of divinity; Lucretius uses this language to express his
own difficulty in persuading his reader (call him Memmius) that his world and its
seemingly divine and eternal constituents is perishable. Cf. Empedocles Diels-Kranz
31B133 (Clement Strom. 5.140): tb ydp 'cot Oriov, 6 'AxpayavvTiv6g lo3at ncotrllig,
o15 ix tY c7c6a68 V am o6Q oi; Ktxiov
igiaot fxep&d %xx3eiv, i1irrp 'rn iyiart1
1c;tOoi ; &v~pwicoptotv & attai6; ri; peva itix-rnt.
17. Cf. Aristotle On Philosophy fr. 14 Ross (= Seneca Q.N. 7.30 and Plutarch De
Tranquill. 477C). Such piety had also been enjoined by Empedocles (Diels-Kranz 31B4

and Diels-Kranz 31B 131, from the Katharmoi).
Titan struggle between the partisans of movement and flux and the Olympian
preservers of stability and the unshakable foundation of the heavens.18
Lucretius recognizes the brave new world of Aristotle's On Philosophy one
last time in the De Rerum Natura. He has now reached in his history of human
civilization the promised account of the genealogy of religion (5.1204-17).19
And for a last time he lifts his reader's eyes to the heavens and the pure sky with
its fixed and pulsating stars. But he now speaks of us at present, not of primitive
people far in the past: Nam cum suspicimus magni caelestia mundi I templa
super stellisque micantibus aetherafixum (5.1204-5). In doing so, he reminds
us pointedly of the language he had first used in book 2 and of his comment on
the indifference bred by our gross familiarity with the splendor of the heavens:
nemo fessus satiate videndi I suspicere in caeli dignatur lucida templa (2.1038-
39). In book 5, Lucretius is describing early humankind, but he makes the
anxieties inspired by the heavens contemporary. The spectacle of the heavens
creates a sense of wonder that verges on anxiety. It inspires reflections that are
neither Aristotelian nor Platonic. The thought of the course of the sun and moon
does not instill in the mind a conception of the divine or a conception of the
heavens as the handiwork of a designing god or gods. Rather it prompts anxiety
at the thought of the enormous power of the gods, and in the absence of philoso-
phy, the question of whether this world had a beginning and will have an end is
left unresolved: temptat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas (5.1211). The one
point on which Aristotle and Lucretius seem to agree is that our sense of wonder
at the sight of the heavens leads to philosophy.
18. Sophist 246A and 248C2. Bignone (L'Aristotele perduto, 2.79-81) notes some of
the uses of this conceit (by Plato in the Sophist and Laws 3.701C; by Plutarch in De Facie
12.926D and Adv. Col. 1119B = fr. 558 Usener). Add Boethius Consolation of Philosophy
3, prose 12.69.
19. The promise is made in 5.73-75. A number of the testimonies for Aristotle's On
Philosophy reflect his explanation of how humans arrived at a conception of the divine;

see frs. 12a and b Ross especially.
Chapter 3
OENOANDA
We should pursue our search as follows. Imagine that someone asked us
to read an inscription with small letters from a distance, and our eyes
were not very good. And then someone noticed that the same inscription
existed somewhere else, with larger letters and in a larger format. This
would come, I think, as a godsend, if we could first read this larger
inscription and then examine the smaller to see if they agree.

-Socrates in Plato Republic 2.368D


"
110
. -J
ct
ct
bA
'I
/I f
,. , f 1 i
4 ,I I 1 f /
1 . .r n r
l j"
2000-)r
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I-
"
"'00'
I/-I>
/ -'I-, U
-I7
Elbis Daa
'2604
/^
_i
i -,
.. i l
_)1
Gok bel /-2O~

Erer
f= 1; Dumlu
-~Girdev G~Iiu
Toee,
1 I/
\-
SModern road
wwkm
Lake
10
Fig. 2. The Qenoanda area

0q
O0
~0
c0
III
Fr. 52
The Old Age Treatise
31.5-35 cm
Epicurus' Letter to
Mother, frs. 52-53
37-41 cm
Fr. 49
NFF 3, 24 (to Hermarchus)
NF 110 (to Dositheus)
Frs. 50, 51
46-50 cm
scored margin
II
NF 52
45-49 cm
Fr. 23
Introduction
The Physics Treatise
Fr. 14
Sententiae Variae,
Diogenes' Epistolary
58-62 cm
The Ethics Treatise
fr. 15 NF 107 fr. 16
(to Antipater)
NFF 10, 7, 8
NF 58 (to Dionysius)
62 cm

Fig. 4. The inscribed course of the stoa wall of Diogenes of Oenoanda; total height 2.37m. (Drawing by author and Dee Pendelton.)

J
L
M
N
T q ~n
Fig. 5. Plan of main buildings of Oenoanda. (Drawing by J. J. Coulton, the Genoanda Survey.)
KL
so
100
200m,.
Grid '- ,
j N
TIIEAT
ill"
[n00
2w0
7j> A
IS40O fragments
1J~4J/ 'afrants
I fragment
KK

Fig. 6. Diogenes fragment distribution (1975). (Drawing by J. J. Coulton.)

Fig. 7. Diogenes of Oenoanda
fr. 41 Chilton and New
Fragment 23 (Photograph by
author.)

11
Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of
Oenoanda, New Fragment 7
Of the eighteen new fragments of Diogenes which Martin Ferguson Smith has
discovered in Oenoanda, the most difficult and perhaps the most interesting is
New Fragment 7.1 Two of its three columns are very nearly complete (see fig. 3)
but its argument is hard to make out. Smith first thought that the subject of the
stone was cosmogony and the role of chance in the formation of a world. He was
brought to this interpretation by the word 'tv4navov in col. ii line 12 and two
letters of col. iii line 7, which he restored as Ci[iKo)v] 'whirls'. Both the 6ivr and
the descriptive term xtg navoet8ilc (or StcoetSilc) played a role in the cos-
mogony and cosmology of early atomism, and
6 avti6[atov and tvxr, the
subjects of the end of the new fragment, figure as the critical terms of Aristotle's
discussion of the cosmogony of Democritus.2 But what makes this story unclear
Reprinted from GRBS 14 (1973): 49-59. I return to the text and fuller context of this
block in essays 12 and 15 and in my report "The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of
Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-1983," ANRWII.36.4 (1990): 2543-45. New Frag-
ment 7 appears as fragment 73 in A. Casanova, I frammenti di Diogene di Enoanda
(Florence, 1984), and as fragment 72 in Smith, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Epicurean
Inscription La Scuola di Epicuro, Supplement 1 (Naples, 1992). A brief summary of the
discussion of this fragment since I published the hypothesis of this essay can be found in
Smith's commentary, 518-20. In his supplement The Philosophical Inscription of
Diogenes of Oinoanda, Ergainzungsbainde zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 20 (Vienna, 1996),
Smith gives a slightly revised text and a drawing of the inscription in the style of
Heberdey and Kalinka. I suggest a new supplement for column 2, line 7, in essay 12.
1. AJA 75 (1971) 365-69. The new text presented in this essay differs in important
respects from the text published in 1971. This study owes a great deal to Mr. Smith;
indeed, my text and commentary are the result of our collaboration, and I have recorded a
number of his suggestions in the commentary to our new text. I also owe thanks to Mr.
Smith for his generous help and encouragement and for the photograph reproduced as
figure 3.
2. The essential passage from Aristotle's discussion of ri5ri and t6 wt6gvaov as
physical causes in his Physics is presented, with additional details from Simplicius'
commentary, in Diels-Kranz Vorsokr6 68 A67-69.

189
is, as Smith saw,3 the lack of a discoverable masculine singular subject for the
verbs from col. ii line 1 to col. iii line 8. (The text of the new fragment is
reproduced below with some important revisions.) The identification of the
att6v of col. ii line 2 must have been clear from col. i, but only the edge of this
column has been preserved to a depth of six letters at most.
The discovery of the precise subject that underwent the violent and seemingly
painful events narrated in columns ii and iii is essential to an understanding of
the new fragment, and Smith is quite fair in admitting that without it the whole
fragment remains obscure. What is it that is being gulped down and belched up
again, lacerated, skinned and nearly completely flayed?
The translation I offer here reveals sufficiently the character of the events
described in New fr. 7 (cols. ii and iii) and, with the help of Plutarch, makes
possible the identification of the subject of the inscription. Indeed, the masculine
singular subject of the bulk of the new narrative is identical with the victim who
suffered the violent events so forcefully described, and the identification of this
victim explains one of the oddest features of the language of the inscription
the exuberant and poetical style, which led Smith to suspect that Diogenes was
closely following not Epicurus but Democritus.
Translation
... of the rocks, from which it did not yet wash him in (to dry land), but the
sea gulped him down and belched him back up again. It was then that he was
lacerated, as you would expect, and he swallowed down a great mouthful (of
salt water); he was badly skinned when he crashed upon the sea-eaten rocks.
But gradually he succeeded in swimming though to open water, and just then
he was borne along on the waves4 to the festival drum (?) and, flayed almost
to an inch, he barely escaped with his life. Now he spent the next day in this
state upon a high promontory and the following night and the next day until
nightfall, exhausted by hunger and his injuries."
"We now understand that events which lay beyond our control are bene-
fits despite appearances-the very doctrine he commends to you as reason-
able. For your herald who brought you to safety has died; for afterwards
chance . . ."
3. Smith, op. cit. (supra n. 1) 367.
4. Another interpretation of this obscure passage is given in the commentary to these

lines [and still another, which I find more convincing, in essay 12].
Sailing to Lampsacus / 191
There are a fair number of accounts in Greek of the experience of being ship-
wrecked.5 None I know is so dramatically told and so circumstantial as that of
the new fragment from Oenoanda except one: Odysseus' account of being
washed up on the island of Scherie (Od. 5.367-463). Indeed, the victim of this
shipwreck seems to have suffered what Odysseus would have suffered were it
not for Athena (426-27):
iv0a x' at6 I5tvoic 6p56p0, c6v 6' 6ct ' dpdaOl,
....fi...
And it is Odysseus' description of Charybdis which is recalled in the language of
New fr. 7, which has the sea sucking its victim in and belching him up again (Od.
12.235-38): Avcapoof}cat i 06acca xaKO iSatx tatyv.
If Epicurus' moral doctrines had not struck Plutarch as so stridently in con-
flict with the events of his life, the masculine singular subject of the narrative in
Diogenes would remain unknown-one of the many anonymous victims of a
shipwreck. But thanks to a device familiar from Epicurus, Colotes, and Plu-
tarch's anti-Epicurean dialogues, we learn the events of Epicurus' life which
Plutarch saw as contradicting his moral doctrines.6 For the purposes of solving
the riddle posed by New fr. 7 Epicurus' 2tdOrl are more important than the
doctrines they are made to refute, but these doctrines too are critical for a full
understanding of the new inscription.
In his dialogue against Epicurus' conception of the pleasant life (Non posse
suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum), Plutarch seizes on Epicurus' assertion of the
possibility of a confident and steadfast expectation in life (i ,2tcga itcbv cxa
3ei3atov, 1090A). This Plutarch saw as refuted by the unforeseen events of
Epicurus' own life. One of these was the experience at sea which nearly cost
Epicurus his life. Unfortunately Plutarch's MSS have garbled the term which
described more precisely the nature of this mishap, and for the moment a part of
the text is left between daggers (1090E):
5. Most of the literary descriptions are listed in RE 2 (1923) 412 s.v. "Schifbruch."
6. Epicurus' formulation of this principle is: o x icoviai cot oic Xo6yotc ai
rcpatc ax XovOot, KA XXV. He puts it to effective use against those who refer the
cause of all events to "necessity" in the Ilep~t (D4cc: Epicuro, ed. G. Arrighetti (Torino
1960) 31.28.6-17 [= Epicuro2 34 and A. A. Long and D. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philoso-
phers (Cambridge 1987) 20C]; Sententia Vaticana (SV) 40. Phillip De Lacy's discussion
of the importance of rdOrl in Epicurean polemic, "Colotes' First Criticism of

Democritus," in Isonomia: Studien zur Gleichheitsvorstellung im griechischen Denken
(Berlin 1964) 67-69, points up the inadequacy of Bignone's characterization of Plu-
tarch's argument as ad hominem (cf. RivFC 44 [1916] 281).
6 ,0v 6 6tgoc KfXia
cttcv tg6tryrac Kai K xTpov6o v aSt&iac, iTt 6A
kot otc a 0po)V Kai tOcAccav Ap43pQyKriV 0' acc 'EiKovpoc 6Xiyov
e5~ce KatanoOivatvcL ctev eic Aad{yIaKov, 4c yp6aet, ti av 2yot ttc;
Until May of 1970 and Smith's visit to the site of ancient Oenoanda, this was
the only report of the shipwreck Epicurus barely survived on one of his trips to
Lampsacus. Oddly it receives little notice in modemrn accounts of Epicurus' life
and Wanderjahre.7 Epicurus' travels did not come to an end with his establish-
ment in Athens in the summer of 306. Despite the turmoil created throughout the
Aegean by the struggles of the &6aoxot, Epicurus managed to make some trips
to Asia to visit his friends (Diog. Laert. 10.10). It is his solicitude for the
communities of friends established in Asia, Egypt and on the Hellespont that
invites comparison with the voyages of St Paul. Indeed, Epicurus had such deep
roots in Lampsacus that Strabo could call him tp6itov ttv
Aca1a]JyKV6V
(13.1.19). But Plutarch gives only one sure detail of the disaster which befell
Epicurus as he was sailing to Lampsacus: he was sucked down by the sea.
Plutarch's word is KctwanoOfvat, which clearly corresponds to avapoficat in
Diogenes (col. ii line 3).
Beyond this, the text of Plutarch's MSS is corrupt, and the real story of what
happened is disguised by the unintelligible O6Xkaccav A3payKiv of X and the
equally impossible F3_p6ayK v of a. In the Loeb text of the dialogue De Lacy and
Einarson have emended the text to read O a6accrc a tv 4' iVc, which is
attractive in its sense; but it is difficult to imagine how prtyuotv could have been
corrupted into EiP3payKdiv.8 More compelling is the second of two emendations
7. E. Bignone is the only scholar to give Epicurus' shipwreck on his way to Lampsa-
cus a place in the account of Epicurus' life. In his long and operatic recreation of the
formation of Epicurus' moral thought (L'Aristotele perduto et la formazione filosofica di
Epicuro II [Florence 1936] 143-48), he rightly saw, as had Usener, that the notice in
Plutarch must derive from one of Epicurus' letters, but he insists that all the details of
Plutarch [Moralia] 1090E figure in Epicurus' bitter letter to the philosophers in Mytilene
(frs. 111-14 Us.). In his attempt to assemble the fragmentary details into a coherent
portrait of Epicurus' early life, Bignone identifies the ypa il mentioned by Philodemus in
his Hupi 'Eitto5pov, fr. 6 col. ii, with this long letter (p. 117). According to Bignone,
Epicurus wrote to the philosophers in Mytilene to inveigh against his rivals for having
forced him to undertake this "disastrosa navigazione." The occasion of Epicurus' wreck
at sea would then be his move from Mytilene to Lampsacus. But there is not the slightest

hint of the context imagined by Bignone to be discovered in New fr. 7.
8. Another consideration that speaks against the emendation is that it would seem
from the context of New fr. 7 that Epicurus was caught in the backwash of a wave that had
broken against the rocks and not an iunutoc, which usually describes a more gradual
recession of the sea (cf. Hdt. 2.11, 7.198, 8.129).
suggested by Bignone;9 his O6aaccav iptyp v is attractive since it comes
closer to the MSS readings than apcortyv and can find support where he did not
think to look for it, in the poetic description (Od. 5.411-12) of another wreck at
sea which Epicurus seems to have taken as his model:
xocOEv v y&p tdyot o ec, %g 86 x0a
p[P pev p60tov . ..
Plutarch might have recognized this model, since he quotes Odyssey 5.410
precisely when he returns to the theme of shipwrecks in 1103E.
Clearly Epicurus survived to describe his shipwreck, but it is not clear from
Plutarch what form this description took. He says no more than tc ypdet. But
later on in this tract Plutarch's spokesman Aristodemus lets drop that he had
recently in hand a collection of Epicurus' letters (vay oc yap Karad trv tcic
citorco&c tfl ov a-ro, 1101B). The possibility that Plutarch knew of Epi-
curus' near scrape with death from one of his letters seems good.10 He seems to
return to this letter at the close of an essay dominated by language taken from the
sea. Near the end of the essay Aristodemus turns Epicurus' conception of death
as a dissolution (t6 tavO v avatcOrtie, KA II) against him and evokes in
vivid terms the dissolution or 'shipwreck' that awaits every good Epicurean at
death. His Greek is worth reproducing (1103E) for the light it throws on the new
fragment of Diogenes: KaiTot vtc jv EKnectv ictidtrc 8taiO,~icrc iFR'
Ex2ii8oc 6oxitai ttvoc t yiS 7 pocov TO6 caga Ka' 8tavrjd6gEvoc, "ifc 8&
'o rcv tocooiac-and here he quotes a line from Odysseus' account of his
own shipwreck (Od. 5.410)-ipatatc oU ic 4aivEO' abc to%,toio 6pa E.
What would seem to secure this as a reference to Epicurus' account of his
own shipwreck is Plutarch's method of refutation. In Aristodemus' imagined
dialogue with his Epicurean puppet, the Epicurean conception of death and pain
is reduced to the merest recitation of the main articles of Epicurus' catechism.
Following the recitation of Epicurus' Kiptat A6xat I and II comes the doctrine
the Epicurean expresses in the following language (1103E):"11 "I tell you to eat
and be merry-6t vil Aia Etgaogvc t6 vaudytov yyc city o Yv p 6 6p nvoc
9. In op. cit. (supra n. 7) 145 n. 1, which is superior to his earlier emendation
Od accav ai 3payxlv 6' isc in op. cit. (supra n. 6) 281.
10. Usener recognized this in presenting Plutarch's account of Epicurus' shipwreck in
his collection of the fragments from the letters, fr. 189.
11. Other versions of this doctrine are given in Arrighetti's note to SV 4. In Plut.

1103C-D the adverbs o68dmo and t"axy reveal a partial recognition of what is involved in
the doctrine; cf. Bignone, op. cit. (supra n. 6) 266; and Diog. Oen. fr. 42 (Chilton) [= fr.
105 Smith].
6 iLn X%._P 0vd c vvay~jt av6to." This seems another version of KA IV: oi
Xpovi E to cyov cvve(Oc ev T caxcpi, a x a TO 6 v iaxpov t6iv Ea tirov
xp6vov tdpect. The point of this entire polemic goes deeper into the flesh of
Epicurean doctrine than might seem. Aristodemus makes his case against three
of four moral doctrines known to Epicureans as Epicurus' me paodpgaxoc, not
only by showing that they fail to satisfy the belief of the pious in divine provi-
dence and personal immortality, but by suggesting that they are contradicted by
the life of the master himself.
This too is the point of the earlier stage of Plutarch's argument against the
Epicureans, who can see only one haven and refuge in adversity-dissolution
and the loss of all sensation. Plutarch presents the Epicurean position in terms of
the following example. Again the point of the example seems to be discoverable
from Epicurus' life, and once again the language of Plutarch and Diogenes
seems to reflect some common source. The entire passage (1103D) deserves
quotation: citep F tc Ev eLOdyet xa Et tvt Oappvvov etcr6; Mxyot grl
ttvb T iv vav tv KEet pvtrLv1 giyrE ovc Atoco 6povc ar5oic g aicOat
... oSbv e 6g oc &ivat S tvbv 6 aX' dcov oiS x0 KaranoO6cec6at tiv
vav i
c6 'Ci c 6t dcCrlc if cvCpt4Ti1cEc0at tXa@ inpbc i-tpac exnecocaCv.
If Plutarch's language seems to reflect and distort the language of Diogenes
New fr. 7, it is because both derive from a letter (or letters) Epicurus wrote to a
friend (or friends) abroad-possibly a letter to those of his friends who were
eagerly awaiting his arrival in Lampsacus. In so far as it can be pieced together
from Plutarch and Diogenes, this letter contained Epicurus' epic account of his
narrow escape from death. The exuberance of its language is reminiscent of the
enthusiasm and exaggeration which often mark his private letters.12 Bignone's
emendation Fptj3pvaxiv seems to recover Epicurus' epithet for the sea that swal-
lowed him down and belched him back, like Charybdis herself, and would be
consistent with the style of the letter and its range of allusion. Epicurus has good
reason for his exuberance in his incomparable jubilation in looking back in
safety on the great evil he had barely escaped. According to Plutarch this feeling
of joy and relief constituted Epicurus' conception of the nature of the good, and
he quotes Epicurus' very words to display the calculation involved: to ya&p
toov, 4civ, dvvnrpp3X1lTov yflOoc t6 n1ap' ati6 7 [vTvov g~c a axOv
(1091B).
12. An enthusiasm which offended Plutarch, 1097C-D (= Epicurus fr. 91 Arrighetti

[= Epicuro2 99]). Consider too Epicurus' language to Pythocles (fr. 81 Arr. [= Epicuro2
88]); to his mother (fr. 65.29-40 Arr. [= Epicuro2 72.29-40 and fr. 125.III.9-IV.10
Smith]); to Themista (fr. 44 Arr. [= Epicuro2 51]); Idomeneus (frs. 45, 47 Arr. [= Epicuro2
52, 54]); Leonteus (fr. 64 Arr. [= Epicuro2 71]).
It seems possible that this language too derives from Epicurus' description of
his wreck at sea and his reflections in safety on land on the pleasure that comes
from the memory of such sudden and unforeseen events. The paradoxical benefit
of one such event was certainly illustrated by b wi6poatov. . . F_ y notov of
New fr. 7, col. iii line 10, but the text breaks offjust after the second explanatory
particle of line 14. This leaves the development of the reflection begun towards
the end of col. iii to be completed in the columns which connect New frs. 7 and
8.13 From Plutarch's dialogue as well as from other sources it is clear enough
that one of the ways chance can be viewed as a hidden blessing in the lives of
men is that, if it does not bring death, it brings the benefit of the secure memory
of an evil that has been survived. The key to Epicurus' thought which Aris-
todemus did not find (or did not care to state) lies in the tense of the verbs which
convey the emotional logic of Epicurus' reflections as these are reproduced by
Plutarch (1091B): ins ypivov; and 6rt roito cu t[43rpcEv r atv yevva(Oat.
Epicurus' calculation is that apparent evils can survive as goods, since it is the
tension between the past and present that produces joy. It is the contrast between
the turmoil and insecurity experienced in the past which suggests to the re-
flective mind the sentiment of gratitude and calm at having escaped an evil and
being now secure. This is the pleasure produced by the contrast (t6 inap' abrto
niquyjLvov gtya KQK6v) between past turmoil and present security.14 In the
case of Epicurus, this seems to have been the connection between his life and his
moral doctrines. His conception of taapatia has its roots in his life, and these
13. Smith supposes that no more than a column or two separates New frs. 7 and 8, op.
cit. (supra n. 1) 369. Since New fr. 7 is not cosmologonical it should not be associated
with the letter to Antipater as Smith thought, 366. [In essay 12 in this book and in "The
Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-1983,"
ANRW 11 36.4 (1990) 2513-2514, I argue that this letter of Epicurus was cited by
Diogenes in one of his own letters addressed to fellow Epicureans concerning an accident
that befell an acquaintance by the name of Nikeratos.]
14. In this sense, Seneca's quotation of Virgil'sforsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit
is an appropriate illustration of the Epicurean doctrine, Ep. 78.15; cf. fr. 434 Us.; ad Hdt.
82.1; SV40 [and SV 17] for indications of the importance of the perfect tense in Epicurus'
moral calculus. The importance of the quiet of the sea as it has become calm as a model or
image of dtapctiac is well stated by Nietzsche in his portrait of Epicurus and "das Glick
eines Auges, vor dem das Meer des Daseins stille geworden ist," Die frdhliche Wiss-

enschaft 44 (Werke in drei Banden, ed. K. Schlechta, II [Munich 1966] 68). Diogenes
New fr. 7 reveals the personal experience that gave Epicurus' doctrine its roots in his life;
cf. GRBS 13 (1972) 59-66 [essay 2 in this book], which can be read as a companion to
this article.
roots were strengthened by the disaster which overwhelmed him as he sailed to
Lampsacus a herald and a savior.
The Text
col. i
col. ii
]Eczvav
[?Xov -15 -
]zpo
]Qtoc
]trjv
t QXp)T O CqJc v, t-
po4fcat i OdXacca a
KaQ KWjEV. 6vOrJ &h-
fp6oct ipuccov XiOowc.
6UF-VE .6' oiv Ka Ka-
'La gtKpov E LW&p
10 Ev ok 6if xpoy[otc] a---
KvJgatO)V 1E17C7EEtc
[to t]i 17cavov EQpta-
[ov], c
6yw . y-
&LpgLVOC axp~t43o)c
Col. iii
dXo; Eic ovv tfjc [6Kpac]
CKOIC1XXC EKIc% to6 [ fc &l-]'Et vi p vov Cc
Kai tflv Tuoivca[v vu]-
5 Kra' Kai ?Caty iv [4pav]
Eoc EcTCpac, int6 t[oi5
X*-tgOv) Ka tOWLA{K~OV]
6aTavcgtvoc. ETC[lctagE]-
Oa 6' ij6r1 t6 o tog[atov]
10 Ei yL 2t9Ol)Vv 62tp 4i5oy-]
o []v] ig*iv EvXoyE1 [tat]j.
tOvflKE yap {t~poc]
Kfl)v 6c 6hcwocE[v ivgac].

Llta yap t~v s [
Commentary
Col. I. Very little can be recovered from the right edge of the column. x]etpatc
in line 3 is significant, and Smith suggests that at the point Epicurus' ship might
be described as going on the rocks. He also suggests that t]iv 6i[(ov] in line 6
might refer to the other passengers and that ] e in line 9 might be a part of either
Ecwca or c0ento.
Col. II 2-4. Smith compared Aesop's description of Charybdis as Aristotle
reports it in Mete. 356b10-16. The comparison is just, since the verbs ava-
poofWcat and pfat appear to be Epicurus' version of the epic description of the
rhythmic swallowing and eruptions of Charybdis, Od. 12.235-37:
EtrpoOt 6 i b a Xapvi4tc
6etv6v avEppof36rce 6adccrc a4txop6v i0&8p,
i tot 6o'TF_ cete....
p1fcat has the sense of utiv in Hipp. Epid. 4.24. Plutarch's version of ava-
po4faat is aantofvat; 1090A, 1103D.
4-6. civepi3r : a verb commonly used in ancient descriptions of shipwrecks
(Thuc. 4.77, Dem. 18.194, Diod. 13.16) and easily applicable to their pas-
sengers. For the painful details of being dashed onto rocks (Xitp6ct rtEs-
ptxtc yv XOotc) cf. Od. 5.426-27; AP 5.223 (which illustrates the sense of the
verb aiv0); Musaeus, Hero and Leander 339; and Acts 27.41 for the sense of
cEptECEiv: cEptnec6v-rg cS beig 6onov 6tO62,accov.
6. KcaJv. One of the most bitter experiences of a shipwreck; cf. Od. 4.511,
5.455-56; cf. Hero and Leander 327-28.
8. Smith first printed 5tuvio. He has since reexamined his photographs and
squeeze of the inscription and writes: "I am sure that the letter, though it could be
E, could be X, although it is imperfectly preserved and must have its sublinear
dot. Moreover, is not the imperfect tense more appropriate here, describing the
swimmer's gradual progress (xaQ r6 Etxnp6v)?" The voice of the compound
6tvri~ of the new fragment is attested elsewhere only in Hephaistion (19.3
Consbruch) as a variant of Callim. fr. 399 (Pfeiffer). The possibility of the active
is well illustrated by vif nXtape in Od. 5.439 as against napavi ogat in 5.417.
Plutarch's 8tavrlj6gEvog (1103E) here again appears to be a reflection of Epi-
curus' original language.
10-13. The most obscure part of the new inscription. At line 10 Smith

suggests either d[nt6 "tv]or .[' t6uv] as a restoration and would translate "cast
[from] the waves onto the festival drum." [t6 t]vpitavov 9ptai[ov] is puzzling.
One possibility that suggests itself is that 'Festival Drum' is the name given
some promontory on the Hellespont. Another is consistent with Smith's first
suggestion that the word tigntavov refers to the earth (AJA 75 [1971] 368). He
now writes: "As I see it, the reference to the earth as the Tvgnavov Eoptciov is
doubly appropriate in the present passage, because (a) the description is poetical
(and so in harmony with the style of the rest of the passage) and (b) the com-
parison of the earth to a tambourine had been made by at least one earlier
atomist. (No doubt Diogenes has taken tigncvov, and probably hoprcaiov as
well, from Epicurus.) And would we not expect a clear reference to Epicurus'
being cast ashore? cf. Plutarch: 'n' XniS oc 6~itai tvoc wc yi npos iov t6
cga (1103E)." [In essay 12 I suggest that the "tambourine" is in fact the plank
that brought Epicurus to safety and suggest that [ccr[ilp]t[ov] was the word
Epicurus used to describe it.]
Col. III 2-3. Smith first restored [)]. He now suggests [8tf]ye.
6-8. Three new readings clear up the sense of these lines: (1) line 6 Smith
corrects A..o9yogEvog by b .ythgvoc, CQ 22 (1972) 162; (2) on a reexamina-
tion of his squeeze Smith reports that "there is no doubt that instead of MINOT
the reading is AEIMOY"; (3) for ,X[iKocv] in line 7, read ,[KC4v].
8. v. The vacant space in the line indicates the break from Diogenes' indirect
report of Epicurus' wreck at sea as he sailed to Lampsacus to a reflection on the
lesson to be drawn from such instances of to6 a6gatov and asTxi. It would
seem that this reflection was based on Epicurus' letter: 6ep v2,oy [tat]. The
last ydp (line 14) explains the nexus of thought, but the column ends and even
Smith's suggestion 'E[nixoupoc] is unsure, if attractive. Diogenes' reference to
'you' and 'your' (lines 11-13) is probably original with Epicurus' letter, but,
like a good Epicurean, Diogenes has applied Epicurus' reflections to the case of
his audience in Oenoanda. His letter to Antipater on Infinite Worlds begins in
imitation of the letter to Pythocles (fr. 15 [Chilton], col i [= fr. 62 Smith]; cf. ad
Pyth. 84), and he quotes Epicurus' letter to his mother (frs. 52-53 [Chilton] [=
frs. 125-26 Smith]), apparently for his own purposes. It is significant that in
New fr. 8 Diogenes incorporates KA XVI into his discussion of ts5xT (col. ii,
lines 9-13); but he does not reproduce it in the fuller version known from
Diogenes Laertius.
10-11. For Smith's E[vxtai]o[v] I would read E[i)oy]o[v], and compare

P.Herc. 176 (ed. A. Vogliano, "Nuove lettere di Epicuro e dei sui scolari") col.
xxvii. 10 and ad Men. 135.1, eD5oyi0toc c tlEiv.
13. i t[iEpoc] Kifpv . Possibly this description originates with Epicurus
himself and characterizes his relation with his friends abroad; cf. Sententia
Vaticana 52: H Xtia nrptyop e t K oio4gtVV rKlpTltto)ca 8 1 nct cv 1giv
Tei peo at -' tv gaxaptct6v. For the full resonances of the terms ifpv and
cwti p, cf. J.-A. Festugiere, Epicure et ses dieux2 (Paris 1968) 57 n. 1 and 63 n. 1.
[It is also possible that this language derives from Diogenes himself and that he
turns to apply the case of Epicurus to Nikeratos, as I argue in essay 12. The term
cociip is also applied to Epicurus in PHerc. 346 col. b 4 (Vogliano p. 80); it
figures as one of the testimonia (5) in Francesca Longo Auricchio's "La scuola di

Epicuro," CErc. 8 (1978) 24 and 32-33.]
12
The Means to Epicurus' Salvation:
The "Crux" at Diogenes of
Oenoanda, NF 7 II 12
From two ends of the Roman empire come inscriptions erected by philosophers:
the one a dedication inscribed on the base of an altar erected in Cordoba to
Artemis by Arrian;1 the other an inscription whose length and complexity still
defy the limits of conjecture, displayed in three registers along the wall (or
possibly the walls) of a stoa which once stood in the mountain city of Oenoanda
in northern Lycia. Arrian, in imitating Xenophon in his piety to Artemis, shows
Reprinted from Studi in onore di Adelmo Barigazzi, Sileno 10 (1984): 169-175. The texts
of Diogenes that are the focus of this essay are New Fragments 7 and 10. These are
fragments 73 and 71 in A. Casanova, I frammenti di Diogene d'Enoanda (Florence,
1984), and fragments 72 and 70 in M. F. Smith, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Epicurean
Inscription, La Scuola di Epicuro Supplement 1 (Naples, 1993); Smith takes the frag-
ments to be from a letter of Diogenes addressed to Dionysios (and Karos?). My manner of
speaking of Diogenes as "another Epicurus" reflects Cicero's description of Metrodorus
as "virtually another Epicurus" (Fin. 2.28.92, the implications of which are explored in
essay 9) and is given its particular point by G. N. Hoffman's observation that in choosing
the verb intcovpeiv to describe his mission, Diogenes is recalling the name and mission
of Epicurus (in Hoffman's comment on fragment 2.V.7 Chilton [= fragment 3 Casanova
and Smith], in Diogenes of Oenoanda: A Commentary [(Ph.D. diss., University of Min-
nesota, 1976], 166). I have tried to lay out the elements of Diogenes' studied imitation of
Epicurus in "The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries,
1969-1983," ANRW II.36.4 (1990): 2526-2532. The role Diogenes assumed as the
Epicurus to Lycia and to the readership of his stoa is the argument of Pamela Gordon in
Epicurus in Lycia: The Second-Century World of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Ann Arbor,
1996).
1. SEG 26 (1976-1977) no. 1215, pp. 278-279. For an interpretation of this new
discovery and a bibliography of the numerous attempts to read its four elegiac lines, cf. J.
H. Oliver, Arrian in Two Roles, "Studies in Attic Epigraphy History and Topography
presented to Eugene Vanderpool," "Hesperia Supplement XIX," Princeton 1982, 122-
129 (to be reprinted [as chapter 6] in The Civic Tradition and Roman Athens, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1983).

200
The Means to Epicurus' Salvation / 201
himself as still more deserving of his title "another Xenophon."2 Diogenes of
Oenoanda, too, conceived of himself as "another Epicurus." He states as much in
the preface to the works which make up his great philosophical inscription when
he says that, in displaying on the wall of his stoa "the medications which bring
salvation" (- ti fIg ootirpicag 2tpo6E[ivat 46pta]xa, fr. 2 V 14-VI 2 Chilton [
fr. 3 Casanova and Smith]), his intention is to "come to the aid" of suffering
mankind. His word, Rtovpiv (fr. 2 V 7 [= fr. 3.V.7 Casanova and Smith]), is
eloquent.
Diogenes' sustained imitation of Epicurus extends to his own pragmateiai or
what can be called the acts of the epistle. Diogenes followed Epicurus in this
apostolic activity and he displayed a selection of his own letters below the course
of the stoa wall which bore his own selection from Epicurus' letters (cfr. Figure
4). Epicurus' letter to his mother and Diogenes' letter to Antipater on the infinite
universe have long been known, but a new fragment from Diogenes' letter to
Antipater illustrates his deliberate imitation of Epicurus and his letter to Pytho-
cles.3 The new discoveries at Oenoanda have brought to light fragments of still
more letters-of both Epicurus and Diogenes.4
2. The model for Arrian's altar in Cordoba was, of course, the altar Xenophon
dedicated to Artemis in Scillus, Anabasis 5, 3, 9; cfr. the inscription on the stele described
in 5, 3, 13. The "new" or the "other" Xenophon is well described by Ph. Stadter, Flavius
Arrianus: The new Xenophon, "GRBS" 8, 1967, 155-161, and illustrated by the other
face of a double herm of the National Museum in Athens (Glypta no. 538); cfr. J. H.
Oliver, Herm at Athens with Portraits of Xenophon and Arrian, "AJA" 76, 1972, 327-
329.
3. As M. Ferguson Smith makes clear in his commentary to NF 107 [now fr. 63], a
fragment from Diogenes' letter to Antipater which has its direct continuation in fr. 16
Chilton, Eight New Fragments ofDiogenes of Oenoanda, "AS" 29, 1979, 70-74; and as I
suggest in my comments on NF 7 III 8, Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda
New Fragment 7, "GRBS" 14, 1973, 58 [essay 11 in this book].
4. Of Epicurus, we have his letters to Dositheus and Pyrson on the death of Hege-
sianax, NF 110 [now fr. 128] (in M. Ferguson Smith, Eight New Fragments ofDiogenes of
Oenoanda, 79-81) and the letters preserved in NFF 3 [now fr. 130] ("AJA" 74, 1970, 60-
61) and 24 [now 127] (first published by Smith in Thirteen New Fragments ofDiogenes of
Oenoanda, Ergiinzungsbinde zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris, Nr. 6, Vienna 1974, 31-34 and
republished, with improved text, in "AJP" 99, 1978, 329-331). I will suggest in my report

on the new fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda, to appear as part of Aufstieg und
Niedergang der romischen Welt, Part II, vol. 36 [1990, pp. 2542-43], that the letter
preserved in NF 24 might have been addressed to Hermarchus, whose early devotion to
the schools of rhetoric is well known; cfr. DL 10, 24 (fr. 1 in Krohn, Der Epikureer
Hermarchos, Berlin 1921 [fr. 1 in Longo Auricchio, Ermarco: Frammenti, La Scuola di
Epicuro, Nr. 6, Naples 1988]. And as I shall suggest in this study of the text of NF 7,
By far the most impressive of these new discoveries is a block bearing the text
of Diogenes' close paraphrase of a letter in which Epicurus describes a ship-
wreck he survived on his way to Lampsacus. It is fitting that I should return to
the text and context of this letter as a tribute to Professor Adelmo Barigazzi.5 I
offer elsewhere an argument that New Fragment 7 belongs to the course of the
stoa wall which carried Diogenes' letters to Antipater and Dionysios and that
this new fragment was quoted by Diogenes in a letter he wrote to a group of
Epicureans-perhaps in Rhodes. The sequence which preserves this new letter
and the letter within a letter is, with missing blocks to each side of NF 7, NFF 10,
7, 8.6 Diogenes' sustained imitation of Epicurus provides the larger context for
these new texts: he writes to a group of fellow Epicureans just as Epicurus had
written to his associates in Lampsacus to give an account of his encounter with
death and his reflection on those events which lie beyond human control and
calculation. In the case of Diogenes, some calamity whose victim was an associ-
ate by the name of Nikeratos prompts the philosopher in Oenoanda to call his
associates to account for not really being in possession of their Epicurean
philosophy.
This is the text of NF 10. What Diogenes' fellows seem to have forgotten is
the bedrock truth that all choice and avoidance must be based on a rational
Diogenes is paraphrasing from a letter of Epicurus in his own epistle to associates who are
possibly to be located in Rhodes; cfr. my original study of NF 7 (note 3, above [essay 11 in
this book]) which confirmed Usener's conjecture that a letter from Epicurus to his associ-
ates was the source of the notice in Plutarch on Epicurus' shipwreck (his Epicurea, fr.
189; Plutarch, Non posse 6. 1090E). As for Diogenes' own epistolary, which seems to
have occupied the same course of the inscription as his maxims (cfr. Figure 4), we now
have in NF 107 the continuation of fr. 15 [now fr. 63] (with possibly a column missing;
cfr. Smith's publication of the stone, note 3, above). NFF 10, 7 and 8 belong to this same
course, and as I shall argue in my report on the new discoveries from Oenoanda (V. 2
[ANRW, part II, vol. 36, 1990, 2545-48]), NF 9 might belong to the letter to Antipater as
well. We also have a fragment from a hitherto unattested letter to one Dionysios (the
Dionysios of fr. 5111 9-10?), NF 58 [now fr. 128], published by Smith in Fifty-Five New
Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda, "AS" 28, 1978, 53-54.
5. The first of Professor Barigazzi's important contributions to the new discoveries
from Oenoanda was on NF 7, Una nuova lettera di Epicuro in Diogene di Enoanda?,
"Prometheus" 1, 1975, 99-116. His subsequent discussions of the new fragments pub-

lished by M. Ferguson Smith are a lasting contribution to our understanding of this
remarkable philosophical inscription; cfr. "Prometheus" 3, 1977, 1-20; 97-111; "Prome-
theus" 4, 1978, 1-17; and the review of Thirteen New Fragments (note 4, above) in
"RFIC" 104, 1976, 460-462.
6. I anticipate conclusions which I offer in my report on The Philosophical Inscrip-
tion of Oenoanda: New Discoveries (1969-1977[-1983]) (note 4, above).
calculation of the pleasure or pain choice entails (NF 10 I 5-II 1). The case in
point is the decision of the group (addressed in the plural as we shall see) to send
Nikeratos to Oenoanda-a choice which entailed, in fact, a painful experience
for all involved. I give the text of Diogenes' letter, with a different punctuation
and reading of the first sentence of Col. II than that of its first editor:
Col. II
v Et be t1 iVrjG0E, ti
a0v'rEg, O gaKcdptot,
cpo;g totaurjv cpnj-
4 o a tpavty 0' 1g 6r-
p6 jv ti NE Krlpa&tp
a8dOrl yuyovEv, 6oXgp6
6' f iiv &6t a-6; rno-
8 p6; it s &; ivoi; v Li y6p
no*tea oSo v av-
EvKpatmi; s lvl , tLcpt 6
'v yvd rpv "tfi;u v-
12 Op6tov togfj tpo;
lcti~pa Q IOUTtOV --
Col. III
"But if you really remember (this doctrine), my blessed friends, what got
into you to set upon the kind of action which has proved such a painful
experience for Nikeratos and painful to us too on account of the
misfortunes which befell him? For if you claim that you have mastered
this doctrine, when it came to the decision of whether to send this man to
us or not..."
The question which is lost in our text of Col. III is likely to have concluded: why
did you embark on an action whose consequences you knew might prove
painful?
We do not know what calamity befell Nikeratos. If he was sent from Rhodes
over to Oenoanda, perhaps he too was the victim of a shipwreck. Whatever
happened to him on his way to Oenoanda, it is the decision of the people who
sent him to Diogenes which prompts our philosopher to produce the example of
Epicurus' shipwreck on his way to rejoin his close friends in Lampsacus (NF 7 I

1-III 8) and then to apply Epicurus' reflections on the proper attitude towards
events which are beyond human control (,cb aor6gatov) to the case at hand (III
9) and to quote his reflections on t"cr (NF 8, and especially III 7-13 where
Diogenes quotes Epicurus' Master Doctrine XVI): see n. 6.
This letter of Diogenes provides the frame for the letter Epicurus wrote to
friends in Lampsacus. Its vivid and Odyssean account of the shipwreck itself is
now quite familiar and the text of NF 7 has been often studied since it was first
published in 1971. But one detail of this text still resists interpretation. The
context of the difficult text at Col. II, line 12, is this: Diogenes has described
Epicurus as managing to hold onto one of the rocks, "from which the sea could
no longer draw him down and dash him back again. He was lacerated, as
you might expect, and he took down a great mouthful of seawater. He was
badly skinned when he crashed onto the sea eaten rocks. But then he managed to
swim gradually out to open water. And it was at this moment that he was carried
along by the waves to . . . ?" To what we do not know. The text continues: "He
barely reached safety, flayed almost to an inch" (II 1-III 1)7. Where did the
waves carry Epicurus and what was the means to his salvation (cfr. ah60r ,
II 13)?
The text is difficult to recover. The block bearing the text ofNF 7 lies deep in
a pit on the slope of a hill S.E. of the "Esplanade" and "Great Wall" (Area Ml of
7. Reproducing the text and very nearly the translation I gave in 1973 (note 3, above,
pp. 50 and 56 [see essay 11 in this book]). The text read:
Col. II
7tc'tp6V, d' i1c ovK-
t' ai6v uanv v ava-
po4fcoott Oakcca Kfal
4 ipfat dktv. avve'pi ri
Jhiv ov, OXY cp cio,
xai dxacV. &v0i d2-
fp6t tLcpuna ythv Xiot.
8 8tqvie 8' ovv xaf Ka-
t6 at cp6v cig ;8op.
Ev og Xp6y[otg] a---
12 ['o t]i.pircavov 9p'ta.i-
[ov]. a60T Oyyp6t; i78c-
8appevog axpttg
6) o;.

Col. III
the Oenoanda Survey).8 With the help of a photograph and a squeeze,9 one can
still make out: [.] Q TTMHIANON .ZTT [..]. A line of 16 letters. There is space
for two letters at the beginning of line 13. The stone is badly damaged at the
bottom of Col. II and the dotted letters are possibilities, among others. Smith,
with better opportunities to study the text, read [t6 t]6ginavov doptai[ov]-a
festival drum or tambourine and asked "What is the 'tambourine'?"'1 I made
nothing of this line when I published the text of NF 7 in 1973; my commentary
on the line is the record of an impasse.11 An understanding of this lost detail
from Epicurus' account of his shipwreck depends on an answer to the question
of its first editor and, indeed, of every reader. What is this tympanon? Once
known, it might cast new light on the adjective that follows. Now tympanon is, in
fact, a drum. This is the first meaning for the word given by LSJ-"a kettle-
drum." But before it was a drum, a tympanon was a plank -a cavi g,-meaning
II in LSJ. the "name of some instrument of torture or execution"-glossed at
Aristophanes, Plutus 476: 1: Xac E' o.; F'iuutavt ov.
The meaning of this gloss did not become clear until an ancient cemetery was
opened up in the region of ancient Phaleron about 200 m. up Syngrou Avenue
from the sea. From the grisly photographs of the excavation which revealed a
common tomb containing the skeletons of some 17 victims of ano uguiavtag6g,
one can easily reconstruct the method of their execution.12
The person to be executed was stripped naked and fixed by both arms, legs,
and by the mouth or jaw to a plank of wood (tympanon). He was then raised to an
upright position and left to die of exposure. This discovery immediately shed its
8. Cfr. A. S. Hall, The Oenoanda Survey.: 1974-1976, "AS" 26, 1976, Figure 2
(opposite p. 192) [= Figure 4 in this book.]
9. The best published photograph of the stone is that which M. Ferguson Smith
kindly provided for my publication of the inscription (note 3, above). I have also worked
from a squeeze of the stone I made in 1975. [See Figure 3 in this book and Plate VIII,
Figure 12, in The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries
(1969-1983) (note 4, above). M. Ferguson Smith shows a photograph of his squeeze of
the block in The Philosophical Inscription ofDiogenes of Oinoanda, Erganzungsbande zu
den Tituli Asiae Minoris, Nr. 20, Vienna 1996, Figure 103.]
10. "AJA 75," 1971,368.
11. Note 3, above, pp. 57-58 [in this book, essay 11, pp. 197-98]. Smith's quotation
of the passage in which Plutarch seems to return to Epicurus' shipwreck in Non posse 23.

1103E (xaitot vthg v recrKi6v jt5la X 8takOeirl itx' 2tri8o; 6 tai tvo; d;
yi 1porodhv "T crpax Ka. 8tav76jpevog;...) is clearly relevant to our passage and its
solution.
12. In the report of S. Pelekides, Excavations at Phaleron, "Deltion" 2, 1916, 49-64
(for oi at&p6E8ot) and Figures 57 (p. 53) and 58 (p. 54).
lurid light on texts which had never been understood before.13 Not only do the
details of Mnesilochos' captivity become vividly clear (in Aristophanes' Thes-
mophor. 929-946), but we are given a new prospect of the prisoners in Socrates'
allegory of the cave in Republic 7, 514 A-B. And a detail from Aristotle's
Constitution of the Athenians finds its explanation. This is the case of an Athe-
nian by the name of Lysimachos who was saved from peremptory execution by
the timely intervention of Eumelides of Alopece who blocked the sentence of the
Council as unconstitutional (45.1). Because of this, Lysimachos won not only
his life but a name: 6 &cn6 to t tin dvov, "The man saved from the plank."14
It now appears that another Athenian, Epicurus of Gargettos, was saved by a
plank (tympanon) and it seems probable, and I would say certain, that he called
the plank which was the means to his salvation a'rt [ijp]t[ov]. The adjective fits
not only the very slight traces which remain on the surface of line 12; it describes
in a strikingly appropriate way the means to Epicurus' safety. What would have
been for Lysimachos an instrument of death was for Epicurus the means to his
survival. So, Diogenes goes on to relate that Epicurus was saved ( to1 II 13)
and, leaving the text of Epicurus' letter to his friends in Lampsacus, he reminds
his own friends that the herald who brought you salvation has died (S; &i-
mce[v 3g;g], III 13) an event over which the philosopher ultimately has no
control.
13. For K. Keramopoullos' application of the archaeological evidence to literary texts
(0O a&otoit avat6" lhyoff ,p'cLxatoXoytxt ci; siiv iGtopiav toi totvtuoi 8Itwaoo
KaU tiv Xoyaoypgaiav, Athens 1923). I rely on Louis Gernet, Sur l'execution capital: A
propos d'un ouvrage recent, "REG" 37, 1924, 261-293 (in Anthropologie de la Grece
antique, Paris 1968, 302-329). And I thank Jenny Strauss Clay for reminding me of
Gernet.
14. The gap between lexicography and archaeology is most apparent in H. Rackham's
translation of this passage for the "Loeb Classical Library" (Aristotle, XX [London and
Cambridge 1921] 127). Rackham translates "the man from the drum stick" and com-
ments: "i.e. the man who escaped bastinado." [The theme of the shipwreck is common in
the Palatine Anthology; relevant to the means to Epicurus' salvation are the poems which
describe a shield as the means to both protection on land and safety at sea: AP 9.40.4:

n;i5g, ' crperig vi dicvov civi8og; cfr. 9.100.]
13
Philippson's "Basilica" and Diogenes'
Stoa (Diogenes of Oenoanda, Fr. 51)
In 1931 a major basilica was constructed in the Lycian mountain city of Oe-
noanda. The material out of which it was constructed was a small and fragmen-
tary block of limestone (H. 0.405m; W. 0.76m; D. 0.46m) now known as
Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 51 (Chilton). It was found by Heberdey and Kalinka
in a foundation course North of what the French had called "the Great Wall."
The stone was rediscovered by Martin Ferguson Smith in 1972, and it is now
sure that the first line of its first column will never yield more than six letters:
BAXIAI.1 These are the materials out of which Philippson erected his basilica.
So scant is the information to be recovered from this column that in his 1907
edition of the fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda, William did not even print
the text in a column (fr. 65).
It was not until Philippson published his article on Diogenes of Oenoanda in
Supplementband V to Pauly-Wissowa that an attempt was made to deal with the
Reprinted from AJP 99 (1978): 120-23. The text of Chilton fragment 51 is fragment 129
in A. Casanova, Iframmenti di Diogene d'Enoanda (Florence, 1984), and fragment 122
in M. F. Smith, Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription, La Scuola di Epicuro
Supplement 1 (Naples, 1993); see also Smith, The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes
of Oinoanda, Ergainzungsbande zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 20 (Vienna, 1996), 181-83
and fig. 151, showing Smith's squeeze of the stone. I take up the problems of the location
and date of Diogenes' stoa in the epilogue to essay 15; figs. 5 and 6 give the relevant plans
of the Oenoanda Survey. Here I suggest that the foundations of Diogenes' stoa might lie
under the "Great Wall" of area IM of the Oenoanda Survey. The identification of Karos in
column 2, lines 8-9, if he is to be identified with Titus Lucretius Camrus, has a crucial
bearing on the date of the inscription, and I return to this acquaintance of Diogenes and
the controversy he has sparked in the epilogue to essay 15.
1. BCH 21 (1897) 372-73. The foundation is probably that which defines the "Es-
planade" to the East; it runs through Areas IM, IN, and kN of the Oenoanda Survey (cf.
the plan published by Alan Hall, "The Oenoanda Survey: 1974-76," in Anatolian Studies
26 [1976] opposite 192 [in this book, see fig. 5]). New measurements for this stone are
given by Smith in Thirteen New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Vienna 1974) 28
and a photograph in Table 5.

207
text of column I, although quite a stir had been created by the "discovery" of
Lucretius in column II (lines 8-9).2 Philippson's discovery of a basilica in
Oenoanda as the building which housed Diogenes' stoa has had a longer life than
Heberdey and Kalinka's wonderful discovery of Lucretius in Oenoanda [or so it
once seemed], but it too is one of the phantoms this philosopher's stone has
produced.
It was the product of somewhat less conviction than the alchemy that made
the Karos of column II into Lucretius ("womit wohl nur der Epikureer T. Lu-
cretius Carus gemeint sein kann"), for Philippson, who was an expert in Epi-
curean prose composition, was cautious about his restorations to what he took to
be the beginning of the Physics Treatise: "col. I stelle ich versuchsweise so
her":3
Col. I
ev tif] pactXt-
xfT roixov i roi]gaav
-vc
v ftl] t yEyp6-
0at t6 ptX]iov...
This is the text printed by Grilli in 1960 (Diogenis Oenoandensis Fragmenta,
no. 83) and Chilton in 1967 (Diogenis Oenoandensis Fragmenta, no. 51).
Despite his evident misgivings about Philippson's restorations, Chilton trans-
lates: " . . . (have prepared a wall in the basilica on which you will have the
treatise written . . . )."4 Philippson's hypothesis and tentative text have two
consequences which would be remarkable if they were taken seriously: the first
bears on the location of Diogenes' stoa; the second on the character of the
Physics Treatise-a treatise Philippson thought was introduced by this letter
Diogenes wrote to friends whose care had helped the philosopher recover from
some illness and to whom he wished good health in his turn (Appo68xO*Rd tv,
col. III. 8). This is an odd beginning for a Physics Treatise, especially when
contrasted with the title which announces the Ethics Treatise (fr. 23). As for the
position of Diogenes' stoa, Chilton is oddly attracted by the notion that this stoa
2. The enthusiastic identification of 'co Oav aiov Kdpov with Lucretius (cf. BCH
21 (1897) 442-43) was soberly shown to be impossible by Korte in RhMus. 53 (1898)
160-65. [The claim has been revived, with more enthusiasm, by Luciano Canfora in
"Diogene di Enoanda e Lucrezio," RFil. 120 (1992) 39-66 and more briefly in his Vita di
Lucrezio (Palermo 1993) 67-68.]
3. RE Supplementband V (1931) col. 157. Philippson's hypothesis is that Diogenes

wrote to Menneas to ask him to have his Physics Treatise inscribed on the wall of the
basilica-"zu der die Halle gehort haben mtisste."
4. Diogenes of Oenoanda, The Fragments (Oxford 1971) 19.
Philippson's "Basilica" and Diogenes' Stoa / 209
"flanked a basilica,"5 but he (rightly) attributes this fragment to Diogenes'
epistolary and not to the Physics Treatise. Grilli took the "book" to refer to
Diogenes' Treatise on Old Age. He seems to have been more taken than was
Philippson himself by the restoration of pactXtor in line 1, although he thought
that the basilica was Diogenes' stoa itself and not a larger building one of whose
inner walls was covered by Diogenes' philosophical inscription.6
The architectural problems of placing Diogenes' stoa in a basilica are insur-
mountable. In describing buildings the substantive p3a~cttKi (tod), can, of
course, refer to a stoa.7 But Diogenes speaks of himself as making use of a stoa
and not a basilica when he speaks of his design of making public and permanent
his own presentation of the help (poi0itatzra) to be gotten from the gospel
according to Epicurus ("by making use of this colonnade"-tif
oa ra i3
Kaiaxpitaodgvog, fr. 2 col. V. 12 [= fr. 3 in Casanova and Smith]), and in Greek
there exists no reference to a stoa existing within a basilica, although a basilica
can be described as a "stoa."8
The problem of discovering a reference to a "basilica" in Diogenes fr. 51 is
architectural only in part; it also has its bearing on the distinctive dialect of
Epicurean philosophy. Of the fair number of Greek words which can be made
out of basili-, one is of great interest as a possible description of the core
doctrines of Epicurean ethical philosophy. This is 3pac tktxv, the name for
various remedies or "sovereigns." It is used by Galen to describe a remedy
known as the 1 t txcpaappca og. In treating earaches caused by inflammation,
Galen prescribes as the most effective means of relief a mixture of oil of spike-
nard and a small quantity of pact)tx6v-gta
~ pavJttd o LpcttXto ) Ka-
Xovitvov capLadKou" Cpo6ayopeVEiat 8e otO KQatt sepaQdplaov.9 This is
the alternative to Philippson's 'basilica'. But what Diogenes put upon the wall of
5. In his Introduction see (note 4 above) xxi. The suggestion Chilton attributes to
Philippson and which he considers "not inherently unlikely" does not square with his
translation of Philippson's text ("have prepared a wall in the basilica") nor with Philipp-
son's suggestion (see the language quoted in note 3).
6. Diogenis Oenoandensis Fragmenta (Milan 1960) 110: pactQ tiK eadem est de
qua fr. 2, col. V, 12 (ctro@ 'a tr).
7. As it does in Strabo 5.3.8; on the entire question of the relation of the stoa and
basilica, cf. J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976)
180-183, and 2, n. 3.

8. Cf. Coulton (note 7 above) 181, n. 8. There is an instance, from Delos (and ca. 110
B.C.) of the portico of a colonnaded court described as a stoa, ID 1774.
9. Opera (ed. Kuhn, 1826) 12.601; cf. the plaster described as a basilikon 13.184;
and an eye salve 12.782. Puschmann gathers other references in his Alexander of Tralles,
Opera I (1878) 484, n. 1.
his stoa was not a compound of wax, suet, resin, and pitch (as we know the
ingredients of the EtepaQdpgaKov from an illustration in Chrysippus),1o but a
compound of four "sovereign" or "master" remedies known to Epicureans as1
ttcrpacLdppaxog. This compound was made up of the first four of Epicurus'
Kptat A6at, and it was something the Epicurean kept constantly before his
mind's eye as a remedy to any threats to his peace of mind. We know of this
striking Epicurean metaphor only from a fragment of Philodemus' treatise
Against the Sophists (a conjectural but likely title);1" the transfer of the term
tEtpaoadpg aKov from a medicine to the group of four sovereign doctrines which
the Epicurean could wear as a kind of amulet against the maladies of the soul
comes as no surprise for the student of the philosopher who began his letters not
with the word ;aipety but iytaivty. Diogenes ended the letter preserved in fr.
51 with a wish for the health of his attentive friends-ippco6 EndXity. He
placed the tetpaOdpgc1cog or iaot xK6v he speaks of in this letter on the frieze
of Epicurus' Kptat A6dat which stretched beneath and supported the columns
of his Ethical Treatise,12 and it fits well and securely into the wall of a stoa which
offered to those who stopped to read its message the remedies which bring
salvation (x6 rti otrjpia; [ 6pga]Kt).13
10. In Von Arnim, SVF IIp. 154, 2-5.
11. Ed. F. Sbordone, Philodemi adversus (Sophistas) (Naples 1947) 86-87 = Pap.
Herc. 1005 col. IV. [Sbordone returns to this fourfold remedy, fills out its career in
Epicurean philosophy, and plausibly suggests the philosophical import of the number
four, in "Il quadrifarmaco epicureo," CErc 13 (1983) 117-20.]
12. KA I comes beneath fr. 24, at the beginning of the Ethics Treatise; then KA II
comes under fr. 25; KA III under fr. 28; and KA IV under fr. 38.
13. The restoration of fr. 2, col. VI.1 belongs to Gomperz, and the medical term
seems to fit perfectly into the introduction to the works inscribed on the wall (or walls) of
Diogenes' stoa, especially in view of the language in which he describes man's spiritual
condition as a kind of plague (fr. 2. col. IV. 3-13, and evidently at the very beginning of
the exordium; cf. ;g 7poicna in line 4 [fr. 3 in Casanova and Smith]). And it seems
perfectly in keeping with the language of Epicurus himself, for which see the elegant

formulation of Festugibre, Epicure et ses dieux2 (Paris 1968) 56, n. 7.
14
An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.
-Scrooge to Marley's ghost
Freud began his Interpretation of Dreams with a look backwards from Vienna to
classical antiquity and a short survey, which he gradually and imperceptibly
Reprinted from AJP 101 (1980): 342-65. Diogenes' discussion of dreams should be
placed in the larger context of both ancient dream interpretation and his own age. For the
second project, see essay 15. Pamela Gordon, in Epicurus in Lycia: The Second-Century
World of Diogenes of Oinoanda (Ann Arbor, 1996), chapter 3, has now argued that the
"Letter to Mother," whose paternity has caused great dispute, is part of the pseudo-
epigraphic literature of the second century A.D. I am not convinced by her argument, but I
am most grateful for her effort to place Diogenes noster in context. For the context of
ancient dream interpretation, there is now the useful collection of Dario del Como, De Re
Oneirocritica Scriptorum Reliquiae (Milan, 1969), and the presentations of the Epicurean
physiology and status of dream experience in two works by Elizabeth Asmis, Epicurus'
Scientific Method (Ithaca and London, 1984) and "Lucretius' Explanation of Moving
Dream Figures at 4.768-76," AJP 103 (1981): 138-45. I return to the text and syntax of
the six blocks that constitute Diogenes' explanation of dream visions in "The Philosophi-
cal Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-1983," ANRWII.36.4
(1990): 2482-90, and I adopt there (p. 2499 and n. 113) the supplement of Adelmo
Barigazzi for a passage from the Ethics Treatise in NF 12.5-14. I am also grateful to
Professor Wolfgang Haase for advice on this difficult text. I am no longer so firmly
attached to the syntax I suggested for the four blocks of the Physics Treatise, nor am I
ready to abandon it. Both Casanova and Smith present these blocks in a different order:
Casanova fragment 10 = NF 5 + NF 6 + Ch. 7 (HK 52) + NF 1; Smith fragment 9 = NF 5 +
6; Smith fragment 10 = HK 52 (Ch. 7) + NF 1. There is no question about the relation of
HK 52 and NF 1 or about the order of the two blocks from the Ethics Treatise: NFF 13/12
= Casanova fragment 35 and Smith fragment 43. Epicurus' "Letter to Mother" (Chilton
fragments 52 and 53) is fragments 123 and 124 Casanova and 125 and 126 Smith.

211
lengthened in later editions of this book, of how dreams were regarded by the
Greeks and "the people of classical antiquity" (he does not mention the Ro-
mans). The survey of ancient interpretations of dreams which Freud offered was
based on B. Btichsenschiltz's Traum und Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin
1868), a work which was then old and is now very aged. He saw the outlines of
the ancient conception of dreams clearly and rendered them clearly: "They took
it as axiomatic that dreams were connected with the world of superhuman beings
in whom they believed and that they were revelations from gods and daemons.
There could be no question, moreover, that for the dreamer dreams had an
important purpose, which was as a rule to foretell the future."1 This view did not
actually hold for all Greeks or Romans who reflected upon dreams, but it is fair
enough for all but two ancient attitudes towards dreams--the medical which
was unique in conceiving that dreams could have a source within the dreamer
and the Epicurean, which granted them the external source almost all ancients
considered obvious, but which explained them as the impressions made by films
flowing off all solid bodies. But these were different from our waking visual
impressions in the fact that our waking mind cannot in sleep control the impres-
sions which come to it by an appeal to our sleeping senses.2
These two attitudes excepted, Freud's characterization is accurate of an atti-
tude towards dreams which made bedfellows of Socrates (cf. Crito 44A2-B5)
and Aelius Aristides (cf. Sacred Tales I 78). The attitude that dreams were
significant, if only their language was understood, was a kind of koine, and it led
to a class of professional interpreters who provide a method of symbolic inter-
pretation which we miss in ancient literary criticism.3
The "Acheron" Freud stirred up from its depths has had a deep impact on our
conception of classical antiquity, but, so far as I know, there has been no attempt
1. The Interpretation of Dreams, The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of
Sigmund Freud, IV (London 1953) 2, trans. James Strachey [first published as Traum-
deutung in 1900].
2. The Epicurean interpretation of dreams is taken up in the second and third parts of
this paper. The medical view first surfaces in the pseudo-Hippocratic, Regimen IV 86-
93, and continues in Herophilos of Alexandria (cf. Diels, Doxographi Graeci [Berlin
1879] p. 416.9-22, and Wellmann, "Ober Tratime," Archivffar Geschichte der Medizin 16
[1924] 72 for the correct reading of the term describing Herophilos' "constitutional"
dream). [The few notices are collected and analyzed by Heinrich von Staden, Herophilus:

The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria (Cambridge 1989) 306-9 T 226a-d.] The
remains of Galen's Diagnosis through Dreams are in Kihn VI (1821) 832-35.
3. The best example being Artemidorus of Daldis, ed. R. A. Pack, Artemidori
Oneirocriticon Libri V (Leipzig 1963) and translated by J.-A. Festugibre, Artemidore: La
clef des songes (Paris 1975).
An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams / 213
to fill in the general outline of ancient interpretations of dreams and remake
Bichsenschiltz after Freud, although there have been attempts to study the
dreams in Homer, Herodotus, and Greek tragedy.4 The materials for a study of
dreams in classical antiquity are not abundant, and none of our "analysands" are
still dreaming. But a quick survey of the material out of which a comprehensive
study of the interpretation of dreams in antiquity can be written reveals a striking
feature which cannot be accidental: this is the abundance of documents on
dreams and their interpretation which comes from the Greek East and Egypt in
the second century A.D.-a century which seems, by contrast to what comes
before and after, to have been an age of dreams. It was the age of Artemidorus of
Daldis who wrote an Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica, along with trea-
tises on palmistry and augury) and Aelius Aristides. In the first we have a record
(from Book V of the Oneirocritica) of some 95 actual dreams which Ar-
temidorus collected as he plied his trade at the religious festivals of Greece, Asia
Minor, and Egypt. And in the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides, we have a log,
kept with hypochondriac religion, of some 130 dreams of Aelius himself.5 To
4. The most impressive and clinically skilled of these being George Devereux,
Dreams in Greek Tragedy: An Ethno-Psycho-Analytical Study (Berkeley and Los Angeles
1976).
5. Aelii Aristidis Quae Supersunt Omnia, ed. Keil II (the only volume published,
[Berlin 1958] 376-467; translated by C. A. Behr, Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales,
Amsterdam 1968). Behr's chapter on the interpretation of dreams in antiquity, 171-95, is
the most extensive and best documented treatment of this topic since Bichsenschiultz'
Traum und Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin 1868)-written 100 years earlier. J.-A.
Festugiere has a vivid and sympathetic account of Aristides and his relation to Asclepius
in his fine Personal Religion among the Greeks (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1960) 85-
104. There is inscriptional evidence for earlier divinely inspired dreams received at
various Asclepeia in the Greek world, especially from Epidaurus and about the time of
Epicurus' birth; cf. E. J. and L. Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of
the Testimonia, II (Baltimore 1945) T. 423. (Interestingly enough, one of the testimonies
for Asclepius and his healing power comes from Aelian's indignant account of one
Euphronius, a wretched Epicurean, who became ill and turned to human doctors rather
than the divine Asclepius. "When he was already tottering on the brink of death, his
friends brought him to the temple of Asclepius. And as he fell asleep one of the priests
seemed to say to him that there was one road to safety for the man, and only one remedy

for the evils upon him, namely, if he burned the books of Epicurus, moistened the ashes of
the impious, unholy, and effeminate books with melted wax and, spreading the plaster all
over his stomach and chest, bound bandages all around them," T. 399.) In the context of
Epicurean impiety and the cult of Asclepius, it is worth keeping in mind the physical
setting of Asclepeia in places like Pergamum and Epidaurus; in their waking moments,
the afflicted had images of the god constantly before them.
these can be added from this same century and from Egypt still another collec-
tion of dreams from the katochoi of the temple of Apis at Memphis.6
This is the stuff an interpretation of dreams is made of. But as rich as the
second century is in the documentation of personal dreams and as important as
incubation was to the actual sufferer as well as to the "malade imaginaire," we
have little of another kind of interpretation of dreams. From the time of
Democritus at least, there had been in Greece a philosophical interest in the
phenomenon of dreams, and the pseudo-Hippocratic On Regimen IV was an
attempt to use the events of dreams as symptoms revealing a patient's inner state.
Neither speculative tradition is well represented in the second century A.D.
Galen wrote a treatise On Dreams which survives only in a reference in his
commentary to the first book of the Hippocratic Epidemics and two fragments.7
And he shows the admirably diverse tendencies of his age. His medical career he
owed to the god Asclepius and a protreptic dream sent to his father who had
incubated in the Asclepeion at Pergamon-the same spa where Aelius Aristides
spent so many happy nights; and when he had become a doctor, he himself was
helped by a dream from Asclepius.8 In what he says about dreams and their
usefulness to the diagnosis of disease, he is clearly the descendant of the school
of thought which produced Regimen IV and continued in the theories of Hero-
philus of Alexandria. But there was in this century no real philosophical specula-
tion on dream experience until 1885 when a block was discovered in the rubble
of the mountain city of Oenoanda in northern Lycia which was inscribed and
soon seen to be a part of a huge philosophical inscription of an Epicurean now
known as Diogenes of Oenoanda. This single block was one of 88 fragments
from this inscription discovered in the last century; it came from a course on the
long back wall of a stoa on which Diogenes displayed his treatise on Epicurean
physics.
This block (HK 52) had the look of a papyrus unrolled along what must have
been the second inscribed course of the stoa wall.9 It preserved two columns of
text and a part of a third which gave an Epicurean account and criticism of a
6. U. Wilken, Urkunden der Ptolemaerzeit I (1927) 348-74.
7. Cf. note 2 above and CMG 5.10.1, Wenkebach, p. 108.
8. The references are to be found in Wesley D. Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition
(Ithaca 1979) 62-63.
9. HK refers to the edition of Heberdey and Kalinka, "Die philosophische Inschrift

von Oenoanda," BCH 21 (1897) 395-96. The block, which is nearly complete, has not
been rediscovered. For the rest of this paper, I cite C. W. Chilton's edition of the Diogenes
fragments discovered in the last century, Diogenis Oenoandensis Fragmenta (Leipzig
1967) [as well as the editions of Casanova (1984) and Smith (1993)].
Stoic view of the status of dreams. It would have added little to the materials out
of which a new account of ancient interpretations of dreams can be written, were
it not for the discoveries Martin Ferguson Smith made on the site of ancient
Oenoanda in 1969 and 1970. These discoveries and Diogenes' new interpreta-
tion of dreams are the subject of this essay.
II: The Explanation of Diogenes' Physics Treatise: Chilton fr. 7,
NFF 1, 5/6
Thanks to Smith's discoveries in Oenoanda during his second and third visits to
this remote site, we have five new blocks which preserve two separate accounts
of Diogenes' interpretation of dreams. The first he discovered in 1969. This is
NF 1. It was a good beginning, for it was the continuation, as Smith saw, of
Diogenes' discussion of Stoic and Democritean interpretations of dream visions
in Chilton fr. 7. In May of 1970, came the discovery of two adjoining blocks
from the same discussion of dreams and two other blocks from the Ethics
Treatise which give a r6sum6 of the argument that stood above them and which
Smith later saw joined (as NFF 13/12) to give two beautifully preserved columns
of text. We have, then, six blocks which were once a part of the long back wall of
Diogenes' stoa and which preserve some thirteen or fourteen columns of a late
Epicurean interpretation of dreams, or, as Diogenes' calls it, his X6yot 7gtpt
ev[vrnviov] (NF 13 10-11). From the Physics Treatise alone we have 2.40 m of a
coherent discussion of dream visions which adds significantly to our knowledge
and appreciation of Epicurean, Stoic, and Democritean theories of what we
perceive when we dream. The blocks from the Physics Treatise are Chilton fr. 7,
NFF 1, 5/6.10
10. In the Appendix to this essay I have given a text and, where possible, a translation
of the four fragments from the Physics Treatise and the relevant new fragments from the
Ethics Treatise. Chilton fr. 7 [HK 52] was discovered in 1885, and thanks to Smith's dis-
covery of Cousin's squeeze of the stone, we have an improved reading for col II 2, BCH
101 (1977) 378. NF 1 was first published by Smith in his "Fragments of Diogenes of
Oenoanda: Discovered and Rediscovered," AJA 74 (1970) 56-58. My text incorporates
the improved readings Smith was able to obtain with the aid of a squeeze, CQ 22 (1972)
161-62 and a suggestion of Chilton who reproduced the texts of NFF 1-4 in his Diogenes
of Oenoanda: The Fragments (Oxford 1971). The text of NFF 13/12 is based on Smith's
new edition of these fragments which he includes in his Thirteen New Fragments ofDiog-
enes of Oenoanda, Erganzungsbainde zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris Nr. 6 (Osterreichische

Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkscriften, 117
Band, [Vienna 1974] 45-47). The texts of Chilton fr. 7 and NFF 1, 5/6, 13/12 have been
The immediate question these new discoveries pose is, of course, how the
four blocks from the Physics Treatise should be related in the syntax of their
argument. NFF 5/6 join, but how they relate to Chilton fr. 7 and NF 1, and how
Chilton fr. 7 and NF 1 relate to one another, remains a question. The answer to
this question depends in part on the texts themselves; it also depends on what we
know of Diogenes' method of exposition. If NFF 5/6 come before Chilton fr. 7
and NF 1 (which must be related in this order), we have Diogenes' positive
statement of the Epicurean interpretation of dream visions first and then his
refutation of the rival and diametrically opposed views of the Stoics and
Democritus. Smith thought that NFF 5/6 should come before Chilton fr. 7 and
NF 1 for what appears to be a compelling reason: "It is obvious that he must have
proved the existence of 'idols' and expounded the Epicurean theory before
refuting rival theories of dreams."" But in the new account of this argument
from the Ethics Treatise (NFF 13/12) Diogenes takes up the "errors" of the
Stoics first and then gives his own view of the question at hand before turning to
Democritus. As revealing and as precious as this short r6sum6 of the longer
discussion of dream visions in the Physics Treatise is, it does not replicate the
order of topics we find in Chilton fr. 7 and NF 1, for in it the Epicurean via media
intervenes between the high road of Democritus and the low road of the Stoics.
By rare coincidence, in the case of Chilton fr. 7, NFF 1, 5/6, the ordo essendi
proves to be our ordo cognoscendi. Indeed, I believe that the four blocks might
prove to join to form a continuous group and text for the four fragments. But to
turn from considerations of continuity of text and argument to the larger question
of argumentation: we know from Diogenes' treatment of rival elementary theo-
ries (Chilton fr. 5 I 8-10) that polemic provides the way to a positive statement
of Epicurean doctrine (npo[Sta ]v iagvo t rag t i[pov] 86a;). And in his
discussion of the source of happiness, Diogenes treats the errors of the Stoics
before he reveals his own Epicurean truth (Chilton fr. 27 I 2 and 28 II). Now in
the case of his discussion of the status of dreams, it would seem that Diogenes'
method is to deal first with the rival theories of the Stoics and Democritus
(Chilton fr. 7 and NF 1) and then to set forth his own interpretation (NFF 5/6).
This syntax for the four blocks giving the interpretation of dreams in the Physics
rigorously studied and newly edited by Andre Laks and Claire Millot in Etudes sur
l 'Epicurisme antique (Cahiers de Philologie I [Lille 1976], 341-57) and I owe them a great
deal. Adelmo Barigazzi has also given a new edition, with many supplements, of NFF 1,

5/6, and 13/12 in Prometheus 3 (1977) 1-13, 18-20. (Graziano Arrighetti has some
observations on the text of NFF 1 and 13/12 in his "Il nuovo Diogene di Enoanda," Atene e
Roma, NS 23 [1978] 161-72.)
11. AJA 75 (1971) 359.
Treatise (Chilton fr. 7, NFF 1, 5/6) might now be confirmed by the striking
carryover in sense and language between the last column of Chilton fr. 7 and the
first column of NF 1 (illustrated in the Appendix to this essay);12 it is also
confirmed by the last line of NF 1 where Diogenes has come to the end of his
treatment of the Stoic and Democritean positions: "These (philosophers), the
Stoics and Democritus, have then gone astray (from the truth) in opposite direc-
tions. For the Stoics take from dream visions a power they actually possess,
whereas Democritus bestows upon them a power they do not in fact pos-
sess . . ." A vacat marks a new movement of thought. "Now the true nature of
dreams . . . "The first letters of the first line ofNF 5 should almost certainly be
restored from NF 1 III 14: ~8 atq t6ov evi[nviov].
In the unique case of Diogenes' interpretation of dreams we might have four
consecutive blocks from the Physics Treatise and another two from the Ethics
Treatise below it which give us a long stretch of argument and its summary and
more consecutive text than any other argument in the complex inscription
Diogenes had inscribed as an advertisement of the gospel of Epicurus. It remains
to recover it and place it in a context in the history of Greek philosophical
concern for determining the mechanism and status of dream visions; and this
itself involves a still larger context which inevitably brings with it questions of
theology. When seen as a whole, or at least a significant part of a whole,
Diogenes' argument appears to run as follows: like Freud in his Interpretation of
Dreams, Diogenes' began with a survey; but the survey is polemical, not histor-
ical. In Chilton fr. 7 we have a part of Diogenes' refutation of the Stoic and
Democritean views of dream visions, designed to prepare the way for Diogenes'
statement of Epicurean truth. The position of the Stoics, which is addressed first,
is characterized by a single phrase: "The visions we behold in sleep are not, as
the Stoics claim, 'empty and illusory representations of the mind"' (ev&
[]xt[a]ypa gaa ti g 8ta xvoiaq, I 4-6). Just where Diogenes found this view
is a puzzle. Chrysippus wrote a well known book On Dreams, but the ancient
reports of its contents make it most unlikely that Chrysippus, whose intention
was to illustrate the workings of divine providence through prophetic dreams,
would have described dreams as "empty" or "illusory representations of the
mind," if, indeed, he thought of them as a significant means of contact between
12. If the sigma of Chilton fr. 7 III 13 proves to be a phi we have a line of 17 letters
which is about right for the columns of the Physics Treatise. The only remaining problems

to joining Chilton fr. 7 with NF 1 is to integrate the 0o at the end of NF 1 I 9 with the
beginning of line 10 of Chilton fr. 7 III 10 (ir;yffg), and joining xact to iv otv o6iat,
Chilton fr. 7 III 14. [The text should read iv rnvoviat[g], as in fr. 10. III.14 Smith].
gods and men.13 It would seem rather that Diogenes had another context in mind
which included the general question of the status of our knowledge and sense
experience and a doctrine, which in all probability went back to Chrysippus,
which divides visual sensations into four categories of experience, one of which
he termed the av'tr6aga.14 The term which Diogenes clearly took objection to
was aeva, illusory, or, in Epicurean terms, void. In his objection to this concep-
tion of dream experience as being empty or "void," Diogenes is following
Epicurus closely, although it is most unlikely that he is following Epicurus'
criticism of this Stoic doctrine. If dreams are empty, in the Epicurean sense of
void, they are immaterial and can have no effect on the mind. By Epicurus'
fundamental definition, "the void can neither act nor be acted upon."'15 This
axiom is a part of the armature of Epicurus' physics and it is fundamental to his
psychology. And it is this understanding of the void which is at the root of
Diogenes' question to the Stoics who call dream visions "empty, illusory paint-
ings of the mind": "How is the void, if it does not even exist, capable of being
created as a kind of painting?" (Chilton fr. 7 II 9-11). Diogenes' question is a
complicated one for it seems to fold up into a single objection the Stoic denial
that there is void within our world and the Epicurean conception of the void as
that which can neither act nor be acted upon.
The term oxtaczypawigarca (which is reflected in Diogenes "hapax" ava-
oypaoe io6 t, Chilton fr. 711 10) has a long history in Greek philosophy. Most
notably, both Plato and Aristotle use it metaphorically for an illusion of the eye
or mind. And by coincidence, Aristotle classes cxtaypai taca with dreams in
his entry on yEi5og in Metaphysics A.16 It is sure that Diogenes' language
13. Cicero speaks of Chrysippus' "Liber somnium," De Div. II.6.134. Its contents can
be conjectured from SVF II 1196-1206.
14. Aetius IV 12.1 (Diels, Doxographi Graeci, p. 402.17-33) and Diocles of Magne-
sia (DL VII 50) who reproduces Chrysippus' definition (from Book II of his De Anima) of
a 0dvtaat as a 8666t; oax yivec cxat6ato; io nvoxg (SVF II 55 [= 39A in Long and
Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge 1987)]); cf. the later report of
Nemesius (SVF II 54) quoted in part in note 15 below.
15. 6 x v6v ote 1rotnotffat oviE tcOciv 8&vcvrat, ad Hdt. 67.6-7. Bodies on the
other hand, are capable of causing movement in other bodies, and so the hallucinations of
madmen and our dreams must be "real" in the sense that they are the response to
something: 'rd ' 'riv atvotvov Ovr6dcc acaa K 'r var' 6vap d?,ifOi, xtveii ydp, DL

X 32; cf. ad Hdt. 51.1-6. What Diogenes seems to object to in the Stoic conception of the
status of dream experience is the term "empty" or "void" as we can find it, for example, in
Chrysippus' definition of an apparition: 6v-r ca & rtyEv 4' 8'KoeOu6 t ca tcax a v
Oavtatx bv taxcevov cGvoo6v, SVF II 55.
16. 1024b23; cf. Porphyry, adv. Christianos 23 Harnack (of dreams).
reflects this metaphor; and it is just possible that he has its literal meaning in
mind when he goes on to speak in NF 1 of awakening and getting a proper
distance from which to confront the dream vision which has terrified the sleeper.
Dreams cannot be viewed in their proper perspective when the soul is awake, but
the senses asleep. In sleep, the mind cannot resort to the senses to determine the
true nature of the appearance which inspires fear. Just so, the eye cannot
distinguish the points of different colors which seem to fuse into a solid and
uniform color at a distance.17
Diogenes' attack on Democritus follows his attack upon the Stoics. Appar-
ently, what he finds objectionable in Democritus' view of dreams is his exag-
geration of the power the Epicurean is willing to grant them. For Democritus,
dreams were capable of sensation, reasoning, and could even chat with the
dreamer in his sleep (NF 1 II 12-14). Smith saw that Diogenes' version of this
doctrine is closely related to the account of Democritus' theory of dreams we
find in Plutarch, who has one of the participants in his Table Talks (Favorinus in
Quaestiones Conviviales VIII, 10) appeal to Democritus' ancient theory of
dreams to explain why dreams are so confused in autumn.18 As Favorinus
presents the Democritean theory of dreams, he takes the trouble to note that
Epicurus was in essential agreement with Democritus on the fundamental point
that the perception of dream visions depends on the eF8&o)a or film-like images
which are constantly flowing from the surface of all solid bodies and which
reproduce themselves as dream visions when they penetrate through the "pores"
of the sleeper.19 At this point, Epicurus and Democritus part company, for
Epicurus could not follow Democritus in the belief that these images were
capable of transmitting the psychic states of the bodies from which they emanate
and, "just as animate beings, can communicate and report the thoughts and
calculations and impulses of those who emit them to those who receive them."20
It is precisely this remarkable feature of Democritus' conception of dreams
which Diogenes takes exception to, and his characterization of this doctrine
17. The "pointillistic" technique of creating a fusion of separate dots of color when
a painting is seen from a distance and its use as a metaphor in Greek philosophy are
well described by Eva Keuls in her Plato and Greek Painting (Columbia Studies in
the Classical Tradition 5, [Leiden 1978]) 76-81. The effect of this technique is ren-
dered, unwittingly perhaps, by Lucretius, II 315-22. If this is Diogenes' meaning, then
8tavttdg EOa has a parallel in Thucydides IV 128.5.

18. DK68A77.
19. Fycata iaaochax t& a o tc& a 6 t6v t6pw civ t& wi a ca ta Kxa T otr iv &;
icat& 5tvov 6et ; iavanp6Igva, DK 68 A 77 (II p. 103.22-24).
20.( airep 6 Vua p v ia t 8ta yyX2i v tOiaoiSD ooIvot; tap1 33 v -31t)v-
tow cvta 6a; cai 5 caoytoi; iai 6pjd;, DK 68 A 77 (II p. 103.30-31).
(which is not entirely accurate) in NF 1 and the two new fragments from the
Ethics Treatise (NFF 13/12) provides a new witness for a doctrine which had
been known only from Plutarch.
What Diogenes' account of the Democritean doctrine does not register is the
essential qualification we find in Plutarch-6klEp egylva, "just as animate
beings." This leaves us with an account of Democritus' theory of dreams which
is even stronger than Democritus would have wanted and even harder for the
Epicurean to follow: "but it is not the case, to go back, that, if they are not void,
they possess sensation and the power to reason and can actually chat with us"
(NF 1 II 10-14). Democritus' interpretation of dreams has a larger context
which emerges in part in NF 12; it is a part of his theology and his explanation of
the origin of men's conceptions of the gods. But as far as this doctrine is noticed
in NF 1, it is clear that the point and tactic of Diogenes' refutation of two
extreme theories of dream visions-the Stoic and Democritean-is to establish
his Epicurean truth in the mean position, or via media, between two extremes.
His own Epicurean doctrine he expounds in NFF 5/6. Actually, the positive
Epicurean interpretation of dreams begins with the last words of NF 1: i1 8
aGt 6 ov vi[cviLov ... (III 14). It is likely that the exposition begun here
continues directly into NFF 5/6-an association I have illustrated in the Appen-
dix to this essay.
If NFF 5/6 follow directly after NF 1, we have lost four lines in which
Diogenes explained dream visions as E5o6o x-or the films which are constantly
flowing off from solid bodies. His first proof for the existence of such tenuous
images and their flow from solid bodies is the image of ourselves we see
reflected in a mirror. Lucretius appeals to this same example in his treatment of
the mechanism of vision and "simulacra."21 In the exposition which follows in
Diogenes (NF 5 II 9-14), we have a brief explanation of the cause of all vision
for which there are parallel accounts elsewhere. Diogenes' problem, of course, is
to account for the visions we see in sleep-a problem addressed by Aristotle in
his treatise On Dreams (cf. 558b9-10) and by Epicurus in his Letter to Mother
(Chilton frs. 52-53) where we find Diogenes' word for such apparitions (xa-
gccar, Chilton fr. 52 III 2-3). Diogenes' account of how the mind receives and
misapprehends dream visions comes as an important addition to our knowledge
of Epicurean psychology. The explanation he offers for how it is that we see
when we are asleep (and our eyes are closed) is that what we see when we are

awake is "taken over" by the mind within and that following the impacts of the
first images we receive when awake passages are opened up (evidently from the
21. IV 98-109; 150-58; 164-65.
eyes to the mind within). As a result of these passages or "pores," in sleep "the
mind (or soul) is capable of receiving images similar to those it first saw, even
when the objects it first saw are no longer present" (NF 5 III 6-14).
This passage helps fill the gap in the first surviving column of Epicurus'
Letter to Mother which has caused great difficulties. In this letter, Epicurus
seems to be trying to reason with his mother about the anxious dreams she has
been having about him in his absence. He assures her that the appearances of
those who are absent are precisely like the appearances of those who are present:
"for being not tangible, but intelligible, they have in themselves the same
capacity towards those present (that is, to those who experience them) as when
they arose, when their subjects were present also."22 This is not an easy sen-
tence, either in Greek or in English. What the new discussion of this same
problem in Diogenes of Oenoanda supplies is the explanation of why the Oav-
tacitat or dream apparitions of people who are distant from the sleeper are to be
equated with the apparitions of people who are at hand: they have originally
created passages from the eye to the soul within and these are capable of
conducting the same or similar appearances to the waking soul of the sleeper.
And it becomes clear from the sequel that our dreams are created by the constant
flow of images and impressions which impinge upon the soul from without (IV
5-6).
For both Diogenes and Epicurus, dream appearances are not perceived by the
senses. Epicurus tells his mother that dream visions are not capable of touching
or being touched (anrtai); rather, they are registered by the mind (8tavortai,
Chilton fr. 52 II 3-4). Diogenes describes them as having "a fine consistency
and a consistency which escapes our sense of sight" (Chilton fr. 7 II 11-14).
Epicurean dreams are in fact remarkably like our perception of the gods as
Lucretius describes it:
V 148 tenuis enim natura deum longeque remota
sensibus nostris animi vix mente videtur;
150 quae quoniam manuum tactum suffugit et ictum,
tactile nil nobis quod sit contingere debet.
This similarity is not likely to be accidental, and, as we shall see, it is ultimately
explained by the fact that for Democritus, as for Epicurus, the question of the
22. After Chilton's translation and text of fr. 52 II 3-10. Diano prints &tavori'(tlxc)ai
for &LtavorLai, inspired, it would seem by Cicero's letter to Cassius, ad Fam. XV 16.1,

Epicuri Ethica et Epistulae (reprint Florence 1974) 68. Cicero's letter is relevant to the
problem Epicurus is addressing here, but not to Diogenes' text.
status of our dream experience is inextricably bound up with theology. And not
surprisingly, we find this connection in the new interpretation of dreams from
Oenoanda. Unfortunately, it emerges in the last and partial column of text of NF
6 where it seems certain that Diogenes is stating that "the true nature of dreams is
(by no means) that they are sent by the gods" (II 6-8).
Parallels between Diogenes and Lucretius do not stop with the parallel be-
tween Lucretius' description of our experience of the gods and Diogenes'
description of the experience of dreams. They continue in a metaphor which
reveals a model for the phenomenon of sleep. According to Diogenes, when we
are asleep we receive a constant flow of images and impressions, but the soul
cannot use the basic criterion of sense perception (a Orint;) to distinguish
between the images it receives, for the senses are, as it were, "paralyzed and
extinguished" (IV 9-12). That is, the sleeper cannot tell whether or not his
dreams actually come from the bodies which surround him. Diogenes speaks of
the soul as still "waking" (y]pryopovoa); so does Lucretius (mens animi vigilat,
IV 758), who adds:
IV 762 hoc ideo fieri cogit natura, quod omnes
corporis offecti sensus per membra quiescunt
nec possunt falsum veris convincere rebus.
But even more strikingly, Lucretius develops the metaphor to be discovered in
Diogenes' description of sleep (tov ai6Or-rrpiv ndvxtv oiove npaXEXle1ag-
vo v cal E3o & ivo v, NF 5 IV 8-11) into a simile in his own account of the
mechanism of sleep. A part of Lucretius' two-fold explanation of sleep is that
some of our soul atoms are dispersed and expelled from the body, but some
remain within:
IV 925 quippe ubi nulla latens animai pars remaneret
in membris, cinere ut multa latet obrutus ignis
unde reconflari sensus per membra repente
posset, ut ex igni caeco consurgere flamma?
The coincidence between Diogenes' Greek and Lucretius' Latin points ulti-

mately to an Epicurean theory of both sleep and life and a theory which looked
for a model for consciousness and life in the relation between combustible
matter and fire-lignum and ignis.23
III: The New Fragments of the Ethics Treatise: NFF 13/12
Two new and adjacent columns from the Ethics Treatise help solidify these gains
in our knowledge of a major argument from Diogenes' Physics Treatise and an
ancient controversy over the source and status of dreams. NFF 13/12 preserve
two columns in which Diogenes gives a brief and valuable r6sum6 of his X6yot
eVpt evi[tvio v] (NF 13 10-11) and adds something which allows us to gain a
better appreciation of his criticism of Democritus and of Democritus' own
conception of dreams. The argument preserved in two new columns from the
Ethics Treatise opens with a return to the error of the Stoics who deny that
dreams are corporeal (cf. NF 1111 6-12). Diogenes then gives a brief character-
ization of the mechanism of vision for which there is a close parallel in Alex-
ander of Aphrodisias (which comes close to filling the gap between NFF 1 and
5).24 But the images Diogenes is here concerned with are not, like the images
which explain how we see a world of objects outside ourselves, objects of our
senses. In the second column of this new text (NF 12), Diogenes goes on to
compare the subliminal nature of dream visions with Democritus' notorious
statement concerning the atomic reality which underlies appearances ('rffi &
ov5& b 8eV" v pv610 ydap fi Xa, 6ta).25 The exact wording of the compari-
son, which is somewhat paradoxical for an Epicurean, is partly obliterated, and
Smith restores: hg [{hoot]a v~ t Al6 Kp[ttog r pi] a6ky0v, icnth[yov
eKo]8opflE' va ai [kOfi] oia i6v, Omp[ia 6]vta, and translates: "So these
images by no means have perception as Democritus supposes with regard to
atoms, pronouncing solidly made and true such things as exist only through
23. The connection between lignum and ignis in Lucretius is not a matter of sound,
but an example of atomic theory, as Paul Friedliander abundantly demonstrated in his
"Pattern of Sound and Atomic Theory in Lucretius," AJP 62 (1941) 16-34. The connec-
tion between these two words is first established by Lucretius in I 897-914 and it
continues into II 865-85 and III 323-36. This model for the relation between inanimate
matter and life, or the body and soul, seems to make its appearance in Diogenes, fr. 38 I 1-
7. [The model the Greek metaphor of3dvvvut provided for Lucretius is presented with still
other examples of Greek metaphors transformed into philosophical models in essay 9 in
this book.]
24. 319 Us. Alexander's example of the image one can always see in the pupil of the

eye is parallel to Diogenes' mirrors.
25. DK68 B 117;cf. B 125, 6 and7.
contemplation."26 This understanding of this difficult statement is obviously
helped by Diogenes' earlier statement that, according to Democritus, dream
visions actually possess sensation (NF 111 12). But by this interpretation, there is
no apparent connection between the perception of i80ma (whether the verb
aiyOavetat is taken as a middle or a passive) and Democritus' description of
atoms as being knowable only through contemplation. Another way of interpret-
ing Diogenes' thought is to take the main verb as passive and to see in the
adverbial phrase which follows a comparison illustrating the subliminal charac-
ter of our perception of dream visions by turning to Democritus' description of
atoms as being knowable only through contemplation. [The word which
described Democritus' conception of the subliminal reality of the atoms and
void, ooirgva, remains a difficulty. From Smith's photograph of NF 12 it
would seem that only three letters should fill the space where the surface has
been broken away before AOMHMENA. Adelmo Barigazzi has suggested the
attractive supplement [at' ] at6iocv *intX[Xtto v] I [axo]6ogrj vca Ki [] I
[tav]oia g6v Oeop[rc a] I []v'ra. This solution is superior to both Smith's and
my own, since Diogenes' language now qualifies eidola and not the atoms.]27
Once Diogenes has made this comparison, he returns to Democritus' concep-
tion of dream visions and the contrary emotions they are capable of exciting in
the sleeper (NF 12 5-14): "(If these images) have the shape of the kind of things
our body takes joy in, they bring very great joy to the soul. But if they have the
shape of the kind of things our body finds alien, they often fill the entire man
with a kind of agitation and fear and (provoke) a leaping of the heart ... "
Smith did not find anything in Democritus which would secure this new testi-
mony to a Democritean theory of dreams. But dreams are only a part of what
interested Democritus in his theory of dream experience and a passage from
Sextus Empiricus helps reestablish the original context in which Democritus set
out his interpretation of dreams. In Sextus, we find a report that Democritus
thought that there were two kinds of ei6&.a or images which came into contact
with men: beneficent and malefic. "The images he (Democritus) prays to en-
counter are the propitious ones. These images are great, of more than human
size, and they are difficult to destroy, but not indestructible. When they are
observed and when they speak, they predict the future for men."28 This is the
doctrine Diogenes has in mind in NF 13, and this new text adds to our apprecia-
26. Smith, Thirteen New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda (note 10 above) 46.

27. [Barigazzi, "Nuova luce su Democrito da Diogene d'Enoanda,"Emerita 49
(1981) 13-15, reproduced as the text of Casanova, fr. 35 II 2-5. This is essentially the text
of fr. 43. II.1-5 Smith.]
28. DK 68 B 166.
tion of Democritus' doctrine the important feature of the emotional response the
dreamer has to such encounters. And more importantly, this fragment makes it
clear that the Democritean passage Sextus noticed in his review of thought
concerning the gods comes from a discussion of dreams. Of the two kinds of
divine images men encounter in sleep, the beneficent (the ayaOonotd) provoke
joy and jubilation in the sleeper (cf. NF 1 II 5; NF 12 7-8); the malefic (Kca-
Konotd), agitation and fear. The new fragments also show that Democritus'
explanation of dream visions was originally a part of his explanation of the
origin of a belief in the gods-a common connection of themes in ancient
philosophy.29
This entire group of six fragments from two courses of the wall of Diogenes'
stoa brings an important addition to our knowledge of two ancient, philosophical
interpretations of dream experience-Democritus' and Epicurus'. Democritus'
theory of dream visions, divination, and the origins of a belief in the gods was
fragmented in later reports and Diogenes' inscription, as fragmentary as it is
itself, allows us to piece together the later and partial reports in Plutarch and
Sextus. It seems certain that the diverse reports of Diogenes, Plutarch and Sextus
go back to Democritus' treatise On Images or On Providence (I*Ept Ei8&6 ov f
icp'i tpovotag).30 The new fragments also help determine the precise point
where Epicurus parted company with Democritus and in a new Epicurea they
should be gathered as testimony for Epicurus' On Images (HIIp't *~6ci6ov)
which is now only a bare title in Usener (p. 99).31 As for Diogenes' brief
characterization of the Stoic view, we do not learn much. The conception of
dreams which he took exception to (xva GKuaypao1)LQtia tifg 8avoiax,
Chilton fr. 7 I 4-6) probably belongs to Chrysippus. In all probability it did not
derive from his book On Dreams, but a discussion of four classes of visual
perceptions: 4avtacia, Qavraaga, doaga, xav'aor6v.32 The presence of the
Stoics in this account not only enlarges it and provides one extreme to help
29. The connection of these topics in Tertullian, Aetius and Galen is set out by P. H.
Schrijvers in his "La pens6e d'Epicure et de Lucrece sur le sommeil," Cahiers de Phi-
lologie I (Lille 1976) 234.
30. DL IX 47 (DK II p. 91.9-10). Other passages relevant to an appreciation of the
importance of these e/i&la to Democritus' theology are properly brought together by D.
McGibbon in his "The Religious Thought of Democritus," Hermes 93 (1965) 390-97.
31. DL X 28; Epicurus also wrote a treatise itnep 4avrcai, but this is not as likely to

have concerned the problem of dreams as the treatise on e80a. Chilton fr. 7, NFF 1, 5/6
and 13/12 should be included in a new Epicurea and they should show that the problem of
sleep and dreams (De somno et somniis in Usener, frs. 325-28) connects with the problem
of divination (fr. 395 in Usener).
32. Cf. note 14 above.
define the Epicurean via media, it makes it impossible to take the details of the
Epicurean interpretation directly back to Epicurus and makes it likely that
Diogenes' interpretation of dreams, like so much else in his inscription, is his
own.
APPENDIX: TEXT AND TRANSLATION OF CHILTON FR. 7, NFF I, 5/6,
13/I2
Chilton fr. 7
I roc... t VO ..............
............ TO ........... "UaG.
KQOFA6O[vtco]v av{t6c-v].
xeva gIv o iv [o].t[a]-
5 ypa4llgara rl 8ta-
voia oUK a t 'CU 4)aw-
a'ra, g atotv oi
I'miolKt. Kxai ya~p Et CV Ov-
to) tat h yo ctv
10 iK-vQ (Exovtai gvv
6(o~atitxiiv 0vt X-
% bE ax p~o xai ov-
x v ~6t'Cuolov t ati-
II [Kt(p]rivcIalKcLK1J, [i V]
[?, y&]OGa Kai XEICia 6via.
Ft 8F'-OhtO) KEVQ (0)S013-
5 S'6'kXo; ovta Op -
'tlKTlV A)U1tV, O0 5r" Kai
[a2X]Xov fpovXovtal
,ylv fj] to 2tp6orov,
n(1; ot6v 'LE 'Co KEVOV
10 &v4(ypaQ-[i]5Oal
gev EXEC
i T4a6a-
'La Trqv 65IVKpUlv icxn
E-KtEOE1JyrnXV 'tl jOl4JE-
I 4-8 cf. Chrysippus, SVF II 55 II 1-3, 11-14 cf. ad Hdt. 46-47 II 9-11 cf. ad
Hdt. 67.6-7 and DL X 32
I 3 a0c6v86[vto]v ca[~4rv] Us. II 2 oNp[a]rticK Smith, BCH 101 (1977) 378

Translation (I 3-14):. . . when we (ourselves) are asleep. Now dream visions
are not, as the Stoics claim, "empty, illusory paintings of the mind." And
if, indeed, they speak of them as "empty" (or void) in the sense that they pos-
sess a corporeal nature but a nature which is extremely fine and not per-
ceptible to the senses, they are using (II 1-14) language badly, since
(these dream visions) ought to be called rather corporeal, even though they
are fine. This, rather than the first sense (of "empty") seems to be the mean-
ing they have in mind. How is the void, if it does not even exist, capable of
being created as a kind of painting? Now the dream visions we are speaking
of do have a fine consistency and a consistency which escapes our sense of
sight...
Chilton fr. 7
NF 1
III [coq]. a...................
VOW1EV......................
Kc~tQ..OE...................
5 apiapxai ..................
5KL1NOatO.....................
KtvovO..................
ltO .VV....................
1Ocz; 2toX................
bag T1V.X.P................
as-.cr6c4] 'rtvoq .............
tEL~a *K 01)(y................
*v rnwoix ic~i] .............
... .. . . .. . .. . o.
5......................XEOF-va
.. . .. . . .. . .. . palv.t
.. . . .. . . .. . . toi*~i0o-
10.....................oKo1v
... . . . . . . . .o1; b 'ti
NF 1 12 Chilton fr. 7 13 6ixxvvrrdgc~a 'ic to-3 06fio1), if the two partial columns
join; cf. Barigazzi, Prometheus 3 (1977) 12. Chilton fr. 7 III 14 F'v vouaxi, Smith,
BCH 101 (1977) 378 [*-'v iuvovxaic4t;], fr. 10.111.14 Smith]
Translation (111 4, 5, 6, 10, NF 11I 12-Chilton fr. 7 111 13, 14): . .. adjusting
(a participial form of Katap~i6cw? Cf. ad Hdt. 49. 10) . .. things . .. moving
... a blow ... (when) we awake (and get a distance on) some object of
fear... . Now in the act of intercourse ...
NF 1
II [ i&Xkov ..................
... v ... txco14ILV
iuxp; of &~v coil t6 ga-
5 t'v &n' aX1t(OV L1vopo-
Ott KxE1O ojV. 01)-
it(1)cog0 xai ovaWt
10 ioaa15 l po6aE[t]tv 91)

J11jV 1tyV, Li E tt1
Kxa oytygov xi t -rj
6va titpo6aczX i ~c4iv],
II th 15iio ta~36vtAi g[o]-
Kputo;. v [&a4i.lxczvoy yap Xs-
E1XQS V oity of t (01KL-
'c6 to Evcvtiov * ic2avi -
Orjoav of 'L Xto)Ko[i] K[axV] Ail-
g6Kpvro;. of &v yap IX-
10 lKOt Kxat li F, ,Xo1( 61va-
ty tv v tntQwfl(O t-
poivv-rczv Aidg6'Kpv'toc 6
Kai flV 01UK XOlXYtxa[pi]-
KLtat. V T' & b 1XII t OV FVl-
II 2-4 cf. Lucretius IV 1030-1036 II 7-10 cf. DL X 32 II 11-III 2, 12-13 cf. NF
13 1-NF 12 1-14; Democritus DK 68 A 77
II 1-7 Smith, CQ 22 (1972) 161 II 8 gtv Smith, CQ 22 (1972) 162 II 7-8 oixovv
Chilton 1971 ovxoiv Smith A III 1-2 Smith, CQ 22 (1972) 162
Translation (II 2-14): . . . rather. . . (even if) we produce an ejaculation (in
sleep) just as (we would) in a waking state, it makes no sense (to object) that
the joy we derive from these (dream visions) has no real object because we
are sleeping. He (Epicurus) does not call these (images) "void" in as much as
they possess the considerable power (I have just described). But it is not the
case, to go back, that, if they are not void, they possess sensation and the
power to reason and can actually chat with us, (III 1-14) as Democritus
supposes. There is no way membranes, which are as fine as these and do not
have the depth of a solid body, could possess these (capabilities). These
(thinkers), therefore, have strayed from the truth in opposite directions: the
Stoics take from dream appearances a power they actually possess, whereas
Democritus bestows upon them a power they do not in fact possess.
Now the true nature of dreams...
NF 5
I [tvitcv ?] ................
IC..........................
TEqO .......... ............
5 7to [ ]a tg o[............. 6 ]
xat p6catca [0i60t; &Xf]-
OEi g apxolxotv Ka Ud
xrToltTpa gaptopjGEt
got. oi 8 yap repel t
10 & r gt T[6] Eib8o2ov rpoo-
opEtat ev toi ;Cato-
itpotg;. oaK Ov ev KEit-
.i v' &v ,yiv-o
I 6-14 cf. Lucretius IV 98-109; 150-5
Lucretius IV 749-76
II
......................
...............Epov. ax7E-

5 Xev[X]Et yap Kai tiro viv
a&t6potav 6th TO EKao-
tov t v gophtov Eig tiv
Kat' E1iJOv ZpaV pEP-
Oat. v t oiv adr t6 v rtpa-
10 yatov p ovrta 8&o-
Xa, wev7iciova fi~g6v
ta; 6xoietv, to tE 6opavy
58 II 9-14 cf. NF 13 2-8; ad Hdt. 49;
58 II 9-14 cf. NF 13 2-8; ad Hdt. 49;
I 1 cf. NF 1 III 14 I 10-11 tpooopeitrat Bollack; tpoooge iat Smith;
Jtpooog9t(oJ)tat Barigazzi II 14-III 2 eio[t6vta t6v voiv toti tavoeit0at. t yp
tag] ... Barigazzi, Prometheus 3 (1977) 2.
Translation (I 5-14): That apparitions too are (real substances) is a fact to
which mirrors will bear me their witness. For the image which is seen (?) in
mirrors will not refute my claim in any way. (For if there were not a constant
flow of images from bodies) we would not maintain ourselves (that is, our
appearances in mirrors) nor would there be (a new image every time we make
a movement?). . . (II 4-13) This (phenomenon) establishes this effluence by
the fact that each of the parts (flowing out from solid bodies) are borne to the
place directly in front of them. The images, therefore, which flow from things
are the cause of our seeing objects (external to us) when they make their
impact on our organs of sight...
NF 5
III .
Ev[tw] .... yo ... i
ivrc6 t6ov O~gF-O)V f3Xci?-
5 Eva Iri ~uxra I;paLXa-
fav~mXt. &La tQ;To)V
74ThtOv VittO) 1i Et-
(O?,V 7cOpOirt1atQ
i tgv vOt0ci ~t
10 ('
c at
tapovtuwv
E-t t6wv 2tpcygatow 6 to
itp65tov &i sv, ta6 o
aQrt; tp(0it;b nj 6ux-
voja 6*xO[ffly4a a ia c
IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Io.o.o................
6oIv toio 2.ep[t a16(v]
Ka KaOEv86vtcv ........
5 p1i yap iluiv 6go iog.
is eTho)Xa [KaV] tvot.
ti oiv; otE cE O-
.8oev, v TCv aio-
Ory pi ov tavcov oi-
10 oveN capaX gevov
[icaO ']pevov, []va[t]

ix4a y]pr~opoi5x x[ciV]
III 6-14 cf. Epicurus, Letter to Mother Chilton fr. 52 II 1-3; Epicuro2 Arrighetti
[34] 26.6-15 IV 9-13 cf. Lucretius IV 925-28 IV 13 cf. Lucretius IV 758;
[Hippocrates] Acut. Regimen IV 86
IV 3 tep[i atisv] Laks and Millot; nrrp[ i fgv] Smith IV 13-V 1 x[a
ytvixKEt oV O vagvj ] Smith
Translation (III 3-14): The soul receives in turn the objects seen by the
organs of sight. And following upon the impacts made by the initial images,
our body creates pores in such a manner that, even when the objects it first
saw are no longer present, objects similar (to these first impressions) are
received by the mind. . . (IV 3-14). . . concerning these (images). . . even
when we are asleep. For in our experience there is a flow of images and
impressions which in constant (both in waking and in sleep). What now?
When we are asleep and our sense organs are, as it were, paralyzed and
extinguished (in) sleep, our soul and mind within are (still) awake (and
cannot distinguish?) ..
NF 6
I [ .. 'to]6] itvrroa i tiflv
latQthcflTV a1t(OV t]v
6v-ra 6ioXcL 6y6Exo-
5 FWVTi, a'vO~vxtov itE-
pi TO )t(OV KQxaj W~fEi Xaj -
a, V*t 66~av 0')S fl KQ-
't6 -rivv ampEgvtav fri-
(Tv 6v-cov ax f-oeov
10 of yap EXsvxot xf; -S 0
ij KcI0EX)6ovxi1X 'r-
'tE. 3oaV 6E OvtOt taL Q-
0rj'tipta. v 6 yap Kc)v(
[-rifjg 6XrlOEia;] KC tTo
II Kpujtp[tov Ei6tv raia].
iup&t[a....................
G~ov 2X,[yov ................
5 hv rc6[tcx...............
pow tv i5&gdic 086F]-
10 Xovr64v.................
10mov rO[.........................
tv~ [.........................
6 GoFnS4t....................
yap avr[....................
I 5-13 cf. ad Hdt. 51 I12-II11 cf. DL X 31 11 2-3 (itp6; t[caiie. .] tievci ef.
tpocgevov, ad Hdt. 38.8; DL X 34; KD XXIV 11 6-9 cf. SV 24
Translation: (I 1-14): .. . the occurrence and the (true) state (of these im-
ages) at that time, as it (the soul) receives the images that come to it, (and)
about these it adopts an opinion which cannot be confirmed (by the senses)
and is false in the sense that it interprets these images as realities in the same
category as solid bodies. For the means to verifying opinions are then asleep.
Now these were the sense organs. For (these are) the rule and criterion (of

truth).
(11 6-8) The true nature (of dreams) is that they are (in no way) sent by the
gods.
NF 13
(OS 6oKoiU~tv ol X-[onKofl
[ic 6]v t 7rX avc 18v[o v " c o][[ at K( v b& ai X E a]
[pKco]v ib~dxow -rti[ov tie]
5 [6] ooopxov tov5[-ot;]
[E,;] a6ii - o6pa-roI; &
NF 12
[?Xa ] [36v~t AriKp [vro;]
[dxo]6o~ulkEva iat [-rfi]-
[b a o o a v1 OF,5 []vxt . 'r o toi v [&v]
Exva gopofv tpcy 46-row]
[K]ai i5cs w; rna5uv [cap]-
[X]*E't, KI 0hS ; i [tct]
[ir]p6 ta'vrg Sfi9[co ~a 'i ]
10 [y]pc ji o" ikpip , v[u]-
[7viov] ,yo cVKaO[ca]-
[po]v. v is& oiv &)24&[a]
[t]avtia a9 vstia[t]
[p]ev ovbaa~p , m [' o]-
ofl1 4i 61xBXip*:, Kat[sAv]
q4paiv~t Rdkta TatV [yrv]-
ZJjv" &v & tootov [or]
10 i 0I t aotptoi[tat],
Oopi3ox ttvb; toXX[&]
6% i 6 ap cO iov do[v]
o?,.ov avOpwirov a t t[6]
RJfl~qa tlg ap8[a[c,]
NF 13 1-2 cf. NF 13 3-8 cf. NF 5 II 9-14; ad Hdt. 49-51; Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Chilton fr. 7 I 1-II 11 Us. 319 9-12 cf. Chilton fr. 7, NFF 1, 5/6 NF 13
14-NF 12 5 1-cf. Democritus, DK 68 B 117; B 6 and B 7 NF 12 5-14 cf.
Democritus DK 68 B 166
NF 13 3-4 Ex[ec6apxv] scripsi; cf. Athenaeus, XII 590 F (Mdcapxov xtv vtov);
x[ertat] Smith; AX[ogdvov] Bollack; KcatdX[t] Barigazzi 10-11 tcp't v[iviwmv]
scripsi (AJP 97 [1976] 309); icp' v[rtce mv] Smith NF 13 3 Ko]8opirtva Smith;
[NF 12 1-5 Barigazzi (1981) 13-15]
Translation (NF 12 1-14): (Dreams do not come from "empty, illusory
paintings of the mind"), as the Stoics suppose in their great error, but from
corporeal images which conform closely (to bodies) and impressions which
are of a shape similar to the visible things we see before us constantly which
are produced by their flow as well, as I have already explained before this in
my treatise where I give a full explanation of (dreams). Now these images are
not in the least perceptible, (NF 12 1-14) as Democritus thinks to be the case
of atoms, [since they are constructed of atoms which are extremely fine and
are only perceptible to the mind].
Now if these images have the shape of the kind of things our body takes joy
in, they bring very great joy to the soul. But if they have the shape of the kind

of things our body finds alien, they often fill the entire man (body and soul)
with a kind of agitation and fear and (provoke) a leaping of the heart ....
15
A Lost Epicurean Community
Oiv6ava" ir62g ANxicag.
-Stephanus of Byzantium
I. Survival
The Epicureans were a long-lived philosophical community and they might have
lived longer than Epicurean philosophy itself.1 But because of the apparent lack
of change and innovation in their thinking, and because relatively few docu-
ments of their thinking-and living-have come down to us since the first
generation of the Epicurean school in Athens, the conservative history of the
Epicurean movement has been difficult reading and even more difficult writing.
Reprinted from Tradition and Innovation in Epicureanism, GRBS 30, no. 2 (1989): 313-
35. The question of metempsychosis is of great concern to Diogenes. Angelo Casanova
has made an important contribution to our recovery of the text and context of this question
in "La critica di Diogene d'Enoanda alla metempsicosi empedoclea," Sileno 10 (1984):
119-30. I return to the question of the location and date of Diogenes' stoa and inscription
in the epilogue to this essay. Figures 5-7 illustrate the primary context of the five essays
on Diogenes of Oenoanda in this book.
I should like to thank Martin Ferguson Smith for reading this essay and making helpful
comments, as he did when I wrote my first piece on the philosophical inscription of
Diogenes of Oenoanda.
1. The following will be cited in short form: A. Casanova, Iframmenti de Diogene
d'Enoanda (Florence 1984); C. W. Chilton, Diogenes Oenoandensis Fragmenta (Leipzig
1967); Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments (Oxford 1971); G. Arrighetti, Epicuro,
Opere2 (Turin 1973); M. F. Smith, "Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda Discovered and
Rediscovered," AJA 74 (1970) 51-62; "New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda," AJA
75 (1971) 357-89; Thirteen New Fragments ofDiogenes of Oenoanda (= Denkschr Wien
177 [1974]); "More New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda," in J. Bollack and A.
Laks, ed., Etudes sur l'Epicurisme antique (= Cahiers de Philologie 1 [Lille 1976] 278-
318); "Fifty-five New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda," AnatSt 29 (1978) 39-92;
"Eight New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda," AnatSt 29 (1979) 69-89; "Diogenes
of Oenoanda, New Fragments 122-24," AnatSt 34 (1984) 43-57; H. Usener, Epicurea
(Leipzig 1887).

232
A Lost Epicurean Community / 233
The longevity of this school already seemed remarkable to an historian of
philosophy in the age of Augustus, who could record that the school was already
227 years old at the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.2 Thus,
reckoning backwards, we understand that the school was dated not from the year
of its founding when Epicurus returned to Athens in 306 B.C., but from the year
of his death and the beginning of the succession (diadoche) of his school from
head to head when Hermarchus became scholarch in 270 B.C.
Diogenes Laertius (10.9f), writing in the third century, speaks of the school
as surviving to his day, "without interruption, with one Epicurean (yv1ptgog)
succeeding another in the headship of the school, when almost all the other
schools had ceased to exist." This is of course an exceedingly narrow view of the
history of the Epicurean movement, since it focuses exclusively on Athens and
the diadoche of the school there. Diogenes (10.25f) gives an almost biblical list
of the successors: Polystratus, who succeeded Hermarchus, Dionysius, who
succeeded Polystratus, Basileides, who succeeded Dionysius, and Apollodorus,
the "tyrant of the garden"; but there were other Epicurean "notables" (2, 6-
ytgot): the Ptolemies, "black" and "white," from Alexandria, Zeno of Sidon,
Demetrius of Laconia, Diogenes of Tarsus, Orion, and "others to whom the
genuine Epicureans give the name 'sophists.' "3
The omissions in this list are notable: Diogenes says nothing of Carneiscus,
Philonides, Phaedrus of Athens, Diogenianus, or the Celsus to whom Lucian
dedicated his Alexander He has no word for the Epicureans to the west who
"took Italy by storm" (totam Italiam occupaverunt), or Philodemus or Siro or
Lucretius.4 And he seems unaware of the existence of the Epicurean who was
Diogenes' namesake, Diogenes of Oenoanda. At the end of his biography of
2. His chronology is preserved in Suda s.v. "Epicurus," the text of which may be
found in Usener p. 373.
3. F. Sbordone, in his edition of Philodemus' Adversus [Sophistas] (Naples 1947)
xiif, connects Diogenes' Epicurean "sophists" with the rhetoricians who antagonized
Philodemus; but Diogenes might have had in mind a figure like Timocrates, who assumed
the ambiguous role of both rhetorician and philosopher; cf. n. 53 infra. [A convenient
review of all these figures-and some of those I go on to name-can now be found in
Michael Erler's article on the Epicurean school, "Epikur-Die Schule Epikurs
Lukrez," in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike, 4.1
(Basel, 1994), 297-301.]

4. That the Epicureans "took Italy by storm" is the exaggerated description of
Cicero, Tusc. 4.3.7. The number and importance of the Romans who professed Epicure-
anism over four centuries can be gathered from C. J. Castner, Prosopography of the
Roman Epicureans from the Second Century B.C. to the Second Century A.D. (-
Stud.z.kl.Phil. 34 [Frankfurt a.M. 1988]); cf. n. 10 infra.
Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius (6.81) lists five notable men by the name
of Diogenes; our Diogenes is not one of them.5 But then we know of no one who
had heard of Diogenes of Oenoanda until a century ago when his name was
discovered on an inscribed block in the mountain city of Oenoanda in Lycia:
AIOFENO[.6 And then it became apparent that Diogenes of Oenoanda was well
known to a large group of fellow Epicureans or "friends" (i2,ot), who were
equally unknown to Diogenes Laertius and to posterity.
With Diogenes of Oenoanda we come to the last chapter of the history of
Epicureanism in antiquity, and, despite the fragmentary character of our evi-
dence, it is a chapter that can still be written. After Diogenes, whose date
remains a problem, we have only the meager and unedifying record of hostility
to Epicurus and Epicureanism in pagan, Christian, and Jewish sources.7
The beginnings of the history of Epicureanism as a community-even before
it had developed into a philosophy-reach back to Epicurus' activities in
Lampsacus and they can be taken back as far as Epicurus' early years as a
teacher in Mytilene.8 Epicurus' school-if that is the name for it-continued, as
we have seen, until the time of Diogenes Laertius; and we have a very partial
record of those who served as its head (ityejgiv ov 6g tXo oo~vtov, D.L.
10.20) until the age of Hadrian, when we know that Heliodorus was able to
succeed Popillius Theotimus, although he was a peregrinus and not a Roman
citizen, just as nearly four centuries before Hermarchus of Mytilene succeeded
Epicurus, although he was not an Athenian citizen (IG II21099.1-3 with SEG III
226). In 178 the Emperor Marcus Aurelius renewed the imperial and phil-
hellenic interest in the Epicurean school in Athens. This at least is a plausible
inference from Aurelius Victor's few words on the emperor's visit to Athens
before his campaign against the Marcomanni, when a crowd of philosophers
representing the sects of Athens pressed him to decide on the difficult and
recondite matters that most concerned them. Ardua acperoculta: these might not
5. He was destined to figure as "Diogenes" 47a in RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 153-70 (R.
Philippson).
6. Fr. 54 Chilton (1971) = fr. 1 Casanova [= fr. 28.1 Smith], first published by G.
Cousin, "Inscriptions d'Oenoanda," BCH 16 (1892) 1-70.
7. For a brief statement of the sequence see H. Temporini, Die Frauen am Hofe
Trajans: ein Beitrag zur Stellung der Augustae im Principat (Berlin 1978) 166; a thor-
ough history of the anti-Epicureanism in Christian writings may be found in W. Schmid,

"Epikur," RAC 5 (1961) 744-803 (= Ausgewihlte philologische Schriften [Berlin 1984]
228-52).
8. The best account of the very sparse evidence for Epicurus' early years is still A.
Momigliano, "Su alcuni dati della vita de Epicuro," RivFil 13 (1935) 302-16.
have been matters of philosophical doctrine but questions of the legal standing
of the schools in Athens and their headships and property.9
Beyond Athens, we know of the spread of Epicureanism throughout Italy in
the second century B.C.,10 and to the east there are traces of its taking root in
Syria.1' In Egypt, a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus reveals an interest in Epicurean
theology, as does a letter requesting Epicurean books.12 Philodemus gives us
evidence for the presence of Epicureans in Rhodes, as does Diogenes of Oe-
noanda.13 They are spotted in Rhodiapolis in southern Lycia, and as far north as
Amastris on the south coast of the Black Sea, where we meet Tiberius Claudius
Lepidus-the Epicurean who opposed the influence of Alexander of Abonou-
teichos and at the same time served as the high priest of the imperial cult.14 And
we finally discover Lucian in Amastris at the head of an indignant crowd of
philosophers protesting to the imperial legatus the attempt Alexander had made
on Lucian's life. The date of this visit is ca. 165.15
9. Caes. 16.9. J. H. Oliver saw in this phrase a legal and sectarian rather than a
philosophical problem: "Marcus Aurelius and the Philosophical Schools of Athens," AJP
102 (1981) 213-25 (= The Civic Tradition and Roman Athens [Baltimore 1983] 85-96).
10. The testimonia for individuals are presented in Castner (supra n. 10.4), but the
movement-if it was that-as a whole still needs its history: an initial contribution in
Momigliano, review of B. Farrington, Science and Politics in the Ancient World, in JRS
31 (1941) 149-57; E. Paratore mainly treats Lucretius in L'epicureismo e la sua diffusa
nel mondo latino (Rome 1960) and "La problematica sull'epicureismo a Roma," ANRW
1.4 (Berlin 1973) 116-204.
11. Documented by W. Cr6nert, "Die Epikureer in Syrien," OJh 10 (1907) 145-52.
12. P Oxy. II 215, edited with a full commentary by H. Diels, "Ein epikureisches
Fragment tiber GOtterverehrung," SBBerl (1916) 886-909 (= Kleine Schriften zur
Geschichte der antiken Philosophie [Darmstadt 1969] 288-311); and D. Obbink, "P Oxy.
215 Epicurean Religious 0ecpia," in Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Pa-
pirologia II (Naples 1984) 607-19. Epicurus' attempt to attract followers from Egypt is
already attested in Plutarch's Live Unknown (Mor 1129A), which Usener took to be
evidence for a letter "To the Friends in Egypt," frr. 106f Us. The letter requesting
Epicurean books comes from Egypt and in the view of its editor might come from the
second half of the second century: J. G. Keenan, "A Papyrus Letter about Epicurean
Philosophy Books," GettyMusJ 5 (1977) 91-94.
13. Rhetorica I cols. LII. 11-17, LIII. 1-6 Sudhaus; Diogenes frr. 15f Chilton = frr.

63f Casanova ([= fr. 62.11.0 Smith; cf. fr. 122 Smith] the letter of Antipater). There is also
the inscription honoring the Epicurean Eucratides of Rhodes, IG XIV 674 (IGR 1466); cf.
M. N. Tod, "Sidelights on Greek Philosophers," JHS 77 (1957) 136 n. 72.
14. From Rhodiapolis comes the inscription honoring the physician and philosopher
Heraclitus-if not an Epicurean at least connected with the Epicureans of Athens: TAM
III 910 (IGR III 733).
15. For the date of Lucian's visit to Abonouteichos, as well as the cultural context of
But we cannot date the philosophical inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda.
This monumental advertisement for the healing power of Epicurean philosophy
provides us with new evidence for the Epicurean community in Oenoanda and
Diogenes' associates in Rhodes, Athens, Chalcis on Euboea, and Thebes in
Boeotia; the names of Diogenes and his fellow Epicureans were all equally
unknown when the first inscribed blocks from the wall of Diogenes' stoa came to
light. Heberdey and Kalinka, who published the 88 fragments of the inscription
discovered in the nineteenth century, put it at the end of the second century.16
The evidence to go on is slight: the epigraphic features of the inscription, its
language and style, the prosopography of Oenoanda, the contemporaries named
by Diogenes have all been interrogated.
Martin Ferguson Smith, whose work on the site of Oenoanda has led to the
discovery of 124 new blocks and fragments from Diogenes' inscription, sug-
gested a Hadrianic date for the monument on the basis of its letter forms, which
closely resemble those of an inscription from Kemerasi at the foot of Oenoanda,
bearing a letter from Hadrian that can be dated to 125 and the record of a new
religious festival established by the Council of Oenoanda on 25 July 124.17 He
has also detected what might be a reference to the plague of 165/6 in NF 54,
where Diogenes refers to the "destruction of certain tribes and plagues that have
[occurred] in our generation."'18
An even later date has been the more common suggestion. It depends on the
prosopography of Oenoanda and its fundamental document, the funerary in-
scription of Licinnia Flavilla. If our Diogenes is the Flavianus Diogenes of this
monument, he and his inscription can be dated to "about A.D. 200" (by the
estimate of Chilton [1971] xx). Alan Hall, who has made the latest attempt to
the oracle at Abonouteichos, see C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge
[Mass.] 1986) 133-48 [and my own treatment of the episode in "Lucian of Samosata:
Four Philosophical Lives" ANRWII.35.6. (Berlin 1992) 2438-3445, especially my argu-
ment for a date for Diogenes' inscription in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (3443)]. Since
Lucian speaks of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius as 06;, he must have written this
memoire after 180: Alex. 48; Jones 168.
16. "Die philosophische Inschrift von Oinoanda," BCH 21 (1897) 442f.
17. "Oenoanda: The Epicurean Inscription," in Proceedings of the Xth International
Congress of Classical Archaeology II (Ankara 1978) 846f. The inscription from the
ancient settlement at the foot of the mountain site of Oenoanda is now published by M.

Worrle, Stadt und Feste im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien (= Vestigia 10 [1988]), who
approves Smith's suggestion (72 n. 131). See also Smith, inActes du colloque sur la Lycie
antique (Paris 1980) 73-87, who suggests that the Atoyvrlg stpg ro M6rog men-
tioned in the Hadrianic inscription is our Diogenes.
18. Smith (1978) 50f.
discover Diogenes in the civic inscriptions of Oenoanda, offers two possible
identifications and two possible dates. If Flavianus Diogenes was responsible for
the inscription, Hall would put the date of his inscription "between A.D. 200 and
230"; but if Diogenes, son of Marcus (bis), otherwise Sosicus, is our Diogenes,
this identification would allow for a date in the early Severan period.19
The third possibility is that Diogenes is known only from his inscription.
Nevertheless, Diogenes might have inadvertently given us an approximate date
for himself and his inscription. And Smith's discovery in 1970 of a series of
fragments that prove to come from Diogenes' epistolary provides us with an-
other clue. In NF 10 we find Diogenes lecturing a group of his fellow Epi-
cureans; in col. I.6f he recalls the ethical doctrine he had expounded to someone
whose name is not complete, but its first four letters are clearly ABEI (Smith
[1971] 373-75 = fr. 71 Casanova [= fr. 70.I.6 Smith]). Smith suggested Abeir-
kios, and George Hoffman followed with the better suggestion of Avitianus.20
Avitus is clearly also a possibility and the Avitus who was consul in 209 has been
proposed as a candidate for the honor of being lectured to by Diogenes
(Casanova 74). What brought Avitus and Diogenes together we do not know.
My candidate is another Avitus who is better known to the Epicureans of
Amastris; he was also well known to Apuleius.21 This Avitus, L. Hedius Rufus
Lollianus Avitus, was the Roman legate to Bithynia and Pontus in 165, when
Lucian descended on Abonouteichos to expose the fraud of Alexander and his
bogus oracle. It was to Avitus that Lucian (Alex. 57) protested the attempt that
Alexander had made on his life as he was traveling from Abonouteichos to
Amastris by sea. Safe in Amastris, Lucian gathered supporters in the large
Epicurean community there to endorse him in his complaints to the legate. But
Lucian and his supporters could have no influence over Avitus, since Alexander
had powerful Roman protection in the person of Alexander's aged son-in-law,
the consular P. Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus. Avitus convinced Lucian to let the
matter go. This civilized and eloquent Roman obviously had contacts among the
Epicureans of Amastris and he provides a possible date for Diogenes of Oe-
noanda, just as Lucian provides us with a cultural context in his Alexander Like
19. "Who was Diogenes of Oenoanda?" JHS 99 (1979) 160-64.
20. Diogenes of Oenoanda: A Commentary (diss. Univ. of Minnesota 1976) 289f.
Hoffman thinks the name Avitus is too short to fill the space available, but a possible
supplement to line 7 is [ . . . poa]ectp:cxagev; cf. rpo&,sxoa ; 10.x.14; tpoaogtXwo,

74.3; and npo]ao~[oves, 120 1.1 Casanova; as well as the title of the Sententiae Vat-
icanae, Hpoocvrat; 'Extriopov.
21. Apul. Apol. 24, 94 (vir bonus, dicendiperitus), 95f; D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia
Minor II (Princeton 1950) 1533; PIR2 H 40.
the Epicurean Celsus, who wrote a treatise against the magicians,22 and Lucian,
who attempted to expose the fraud of Alexander, Diogenes of Oenoanda waged
from the mountain fastness of Oenoanda his own war against the superstitions of
his age: the base popular conceptions of the gods, oracles, dreams, and the
philosophers' belief in the transmigration of the soul.
II. Diogenes paene alter Epicurus
Diogenes' conception of himself and his r61e in making public the healing word
of Epicurus is fully expressed in the introduction he provides for his inscription
as a whole. He sees humankind afflicted with a kind of spiritual plague (cxa6a-
ntEp Ev otg)) and is moved to come to their aid.23 A single verb captures his
conception of himself, tncoipsiv: "It is just to help those who come after us;
for these too belong to us, even if they have not yet been born. And it is an act of
humanity to come to the aid ( tKovpeiv) of the strangers who visit our city as
well."24
Clearly Epicurus' name was meaningful to Diogenes;25 he was the helper
who came to succor struggling mankind. In his "helps" to those who would stop
in the shelter of his stoa to read his inscription, where they would find displayed
on its wall "remedies that bring salvation,"26 Diogenes was consciously imitat-
ing Epicurus; and he can be described in the language Cicero chose to describe
one of Epicurus' oldest and closest associates, Metrodorus of Lampsacus: paene
alter Epicurus.27 His choice of the means to his philanthropy is the intelligent
22. Alex. 21. He cannot, I think, be the pagan opponent of Origen's Contra Celsum,
but rather the Celsus known from Lucian and Galen. For arguments in either direction see
H. Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge 1953) XXV, and R. J. Hoffman,
Celsus: On the True Doctrine (Oxford 1987) 30-33.
23. Fr. 2 IV.4-13 Chilton = fr. 3 Casanova [= fr. 3.IV.5 Smith]. Marcello Gigante
provides a context for Diogenes' conception of philosophy as therapy in "Philosophia
medicans in Filodemo," CronErcol 5 (1975) 53-61.
24. Fr. 2 V.7 Chilton = fr. 3 Casanova [= fr. 2.V.7 Smith]. Diogenes' philanthropy had
its origin and model in that of Epicurus: D.L. 10.10; cf. fr. 49 Chilton = fr. 121 Casanova
[= fr. 119.III.1-4 Smith]. Hoffman's comments (supra n. 20: 165f) on the word i-tt-
KoupEiv in Diogenes' introduction are valuable for placing the word in its context.
25. As Hoffman seems to have been the first to notice (supra n. 20: 166).
26. t& ri; autopia; it poOeI0[vat [dpga]xa, in Gomperz's much admired supple-
ment [fr. 3.V. 14-VI.2 Smith].

27. Fin. 2.28, 92. I give a justification of this characterization in "Individual and
Community in the First Generation of the Epicurean School," in E1"'trlotg: Studi...
Marcello Gigante I (Naples 1983) 255-79 [essay 4 in this book].
response of a wealthy and prominent Epicurean to Epicurus' injunction gtl
noXt-cU*o0at-"Keep away from political life." "In taking this course and not
becoming involved in political life I make these statements as if I were actually
present."28 Diogenes' term oi rto[Xst]xmu6gavog reflects his respect for Epi-
curus' wisdom, but it has a very distinct and contemporary application in Lycia
where inscriptions commemorated the philanthropy of the unphilosophical
Opramoas, who was "active in the political life" of his own city (Rhodiapolis)
and the cities of Lycia (ioXtTe 6 Evog 8& Kat iv taig KatQ AAKicav n6"ot
rc'atg).29 In offering an eloquent and sometimes prolix stoa to his native city
Diogenes was more philanthropic than Opramoas, who could only offer a bath
building.30 And he was true to Epicurus.
The very philological problems that have invested Diogenes' inscription
attest to the difficulties of distinguishing Epicurus from the Epicureans who
were his followers. Does the Letter to Mother which Diogenes displayed on the
wall of his stoa belong to Diogenes or to Epicurus? (It belongs to Epicurus.) Do
the maxims displayed on the lowest inscribed course of this inscription belong to
Epicurus, to a "very competent Ionian disciple," or do they belong to Diogenes?
(They belong to Diogenes.)31 Does the text of the last of the new fragments to be
discovered in this century (NF 124) belong to Epicurus or to Diogenes? (The
answer to this question is still in doubt: cf. Smith [1984] 52-55.) These doubts
are a tribute to Epicurus. What is remarkable is the fact that at the end of the
legible history of Epicureanism-some four and a half centuries after Epicurus'
death-these questions of attribution still arise.
28. Fr 2 1.3-7 Chilton = fr. 3 Casanova [= fr. 3.1.4 Smith]; cf. D.L. 10.119 and its
echoes collected in fr. 8 Us.
29. Particularly the inscription carved on the walls of his heroon at Rhodiapolis: IGR
III 739.XVIII.48 and XX.50 (TAM 11.3 905). The key term rtotxiuv6gEvog occurs in an
honorary inscription (on a statue base) from the Letoon in Xanthos, published by A.
Balland, Fouilles de Xanthos VII (Paris 1986) no. 66. The interpretation of this term is
still not certain, despite the discussions of Ballard (177-80) and J. A. O. Larsen, Symb-
Oslo 33 (1957) 5-26. Whether Opramoas was made a citizen of the cities listed in the
inscriptions honoring his charities to the cities of Lycia, or was only active in the civic
affairs of these cities-or acted in his official capacity as a Lysiarch-his activity was not
that of the Epicurean Diogenes.
30. IGR III739.XIX.28. Diogenes helps us with this contrast: fr. 11 III.11 Chilton = fr.

3 Casanova [= fr. 2.III.11 Smith]. The baths of "the self-advertising Antonine plutocrat
Opramoas of Rhodiapolis" are now plausibly located among the buildings of Oenoanda
by J. J. Coulton, "The Buildings of Oenoanda," PCPS N.S. 29 (1983) 10.
31. Chilton (1971) 97. The word "turn to stone" (,tOonotlag ev) in NF 81 [= fr.
116.10 Smith] (Smith [1978] 69-71) would seem to decide the question unexpectedly in
Diogenes' favor.
Diogenes' stoa did not stand long on the southern border of the "Esplanade"
of his native city. It was soon dismantled, and the fine ashlar blocks of its wall
and its very foundations were used to build a shortened defensive wall protecting
the city to the north. The stoa wall has been reconstructed in so many ways that
one can say of it quot editores tot parietes. I have offered [Figure 4] one possible
reconstruction of the wall and the inscription it carried.
The inscribed wall articulates clearly into three registers. And Diogenes' plan
for the display of the texts that make up his ypaol reflects his relation to
Epicurus. The lowest inscribed course (above the orthostate blocks) carries
Diogenes' Ethical Treatise and continues with his Maxims and Epistolary. This
entire course seems to belong to Diogenes himself, but it is underwritten by
Epicurus. His Ethical Treatise is evolved, as if it were a papyrus, in columns
fourteen lines deep. Running below them in somewhat larger letters is a nearly
continuous taenia carrying Epicurus' Kvptat A6 at and a few ethical sayings of
Epicurus that are known to us only from Diogenes' inscription. In the case of the
Ethical Treatise one can properly speak of Epicurus as underwriting Diogenes.
In some clear cases at least, Epicurus' maxims actually support Diogenes' own
argument above, as is the case in NF 21, where a new but not unfamiliar maxim,
[icav 14]ov oi5 6vctVr tc V0IKnT V [icOtw60ut imcp rio i j3X6ttt~V gS&
PXntr*0at], supports Diogenes' prophecy of a golden age ofjustice, "when the
world will be filled with justice and neighborly love," above it (NF 211.6-8 [=
Smith (1974) 21-25] = fr. 57 Casanova [= fr. 56.I.6-8 Smith]). As Smith noted
when he published the new fragment, "the maxim relates to the Epicurean
conception of justice, and the passage above describes how justice will pre-
vail throughout the world when all mankind has been converted to the true
philosophy."32
Following the Ethical Treatise comes a series of maxims generously and
handsomely inscribed in large letters, which are now recognized as the work of
Diogenes. They are, indeed, the record of his own attempt to provide his readers
with a version of the K5ptat A6cat of Epicurus-Epicurean wisdom to master
and meditate. And there is on this same course [I of Figure 4] a display of the
letters of Diogenes of Oenoanda. The best known of Diogenes' letters is his
letter to Antipater, and, in both its subject (the Epicurean theory of an infinite
universe and the infinite worlds forming and dispersing within it) and in the
32. Smith (1974) 25. Chilton (1971: 66) also noticed the occasional and intended

connection between the arguments of Diogenes above and Epicurus below.
attitude Diogenes adopts to his correspondent, Diogenes is clearly imitating
Epicurus and his Letter to Pythocles. Both recognize the zeal of the pupil and the
newcomer to Epicurean philosophy, and both answer his request for further
instruction in one of the most abstruse aspects of Epicurean philosophy.33 But
Diogenes' letter is also a dialogue and a record for Antipater of the conversation
he had in Rhodes with his fellow Epicurean, Theodoridas of Lindos. In adopting
the combined philosophical form of letter and dialogue Diogenes is also imitat-
ing Epicurus' Symposium, which is a dialogue between Epicurus and Poly-
aenus.34 Epicurus' Symposium begins with Polyaenus' question to Epicurus:
"Do you deny, Epicurus, the heating properties of wine?"; the dialogue within
Diogenes' letter begins with Theodoridas' question to Diogenes: "Diogenes,
that the doctrine Epicurus has established concerning the infinity of worlds is
true . . . " (fr. 16 III. 10-IV.1 Chilton = fr. 64 IV. 10-V1 Casanova [= fr.
63.IV.11-V.1 Smith]).
The new investigations at Oenoanda initiated by Smith in 1968 have led to
the discovery of two new letters from Diogenes' epistolary: a letter to Dionysius
of Rhodes (NF 58), who was already known (fr. 51 Chilton),35 and a long letter
Diogenes addressed to his associates in Rhodes concerning an Epicurean by the
name of Niceratus. Here Diogenes adduces the authority of a letter of Epicurus,
who had written to his followers in Lampsacus, to describe his narrow escape
from shipwreck (NF 7, a block preceded by NF 10 and followed by Diogenes'
own reflections on Epicurus' reflections in NF 8).36 Diogenes addresses his
friends as gaxacptot, just as Epicurus once addressed Pythocles as gLaxapt
33. Ep. adPyth. 84 (Otoqpovo)gev6g ; .... ept cigig 8tl 6 e ; a i0 io; 1 ij tr-
pa; tepi, ~eav6v xovSifg) is answered by Diogenes' recognition of Antipater's serious
concern for Epicurean philosophy ([anoui g] rgeia, fr. 16 1.3 Chilton = fr. 129
Casanova [= fr. 62 1.3-5 Smith; Smith supplements e5voiag in line 3]). And like Epi-
curus, Diogenes is addressing a newcomer to his philosophy.
34. [21] Arrighetti = Plut. Adv. Col. 1109E. The unusual combination of a letter
introducing a dialogue is as old as Aristotle's Protrepticus, with what must have been its
prefatory letter to Themison of Cyprus: Arist. fr. 50 Rose.
35. Published in Smith (1978) 53f = fr. 69 Casanova [= fr. 68 Smith].
36. Smith (1971) 365-71, 373ff. I give my version of the syntax and argument of
these three fragments in "The Means to Epicurus' Salvation: The 'Crux' at Diogenes of
Oenoanda, NF 711 12," Sileno 10 (1984) 169-75 [essay 12 in this book] (= Studi in onore

di Adelmo Barigazzi). Casanova's sequence differs: 10 (fr. 71), 8 (fr. 72), 7 (fr. 73). [So
does that of Smith's final publication in Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscrip-
tion (La Scuola di Epicuro, Suppl. 1 [Naples, 1993]). Smith prints NF 10 (fr. 70), NF 8 (fr.
71), and NF 7 (fr. 72).]
([89] Ar.). As we have seen, Diogenes reminds his friends in Rhodes of the
doctrine he had once expounded to Avitus (I.6f) and expresses his displea-
sure at his friends' decision to send Niceratus "to us" (itp6g ipag II.12f).
We cannot be sure if Diogenes is using the personal pronoun as did Epicurus
in his Letter to Mother or if he had also in mind a group of Epicureans in
Oenoanda.37 But it is likely that his use of the first person plural reflects Epi-
curus' own practice of writing letters first to an individual and then to a group of
friends associated with the individual, xotv Kxa iaifi. Such was the practice of
St. Paul.38
The importance of the letter as a means to maintaining a community of
attitudes and actions for Epicureans established in small communities in cities
throughout the Greek world is reflected in the very title of Philodemus' Ipay-
gaticat, the acts of the epistle. And it is manifest in Diogenes' decision to
display his own epistolary under the letters of Epicurus which he displays in the
upper register of his inscription [III B of Figure 4].
Another sign of Diogenes' studied imitation of Epicurus is his decision to
have his own last will and testament inscribed on the wall of his stoa (fr. 50
Chilton, course C [= fr. 117 Smith]). It begins: "These are the instructions that I,
Diogenes, give my relatives, familiars, and friends":
Atoyevrij to-t; rvyTvEn
xai oixKeiot; Kai 0iotS t-
86 dvtiXogat.
In making this very public record of his last will and testament Diogenes was
imitating Epicurus. Epicurus' own last will and testament (D.L. 10.16-21) is
one of the most important documents of his philosophical career, if philosophy is
understood-as he understood it in his will-as a common and principled way
of life. He preserved his will in the Metroon or Public Records Office of Athens
and thereby made it as public and secure as the psephismata and other public
documents of Athens.39 It is a pity that only the first block on which Diogenes'
37. Cf. fr. 52 III.3, 6; IV.3, 7-10 Chilton = fr. 122 Casanova [= fr. 125 Smith], and
Smith's remarks on NF 24 in (1974) 34f.
38. Clearly from [59] 3f Ar. (Epicurus' letter to Idomeneus) and Ep. ad Pyth. 85,
Epicurus expects that his letters will be circulated and that Pythocles will have his own
copy of the letter to Herodotus. The importance of letters in the mission and expansion of
Christianity is well documented in A. von Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des

Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten4 I (Leipzig 1924) 382-86.
39. As I argue in "Epicurus in the Archives of Athens," in Studies in Attic Epigraphy,
History, and Topography Presented to Eugene Vanderpool (= Hesperia Suppl. 19 [Prince-
ton 1982]) 17-26 [essay 3 in this book].
will was inscribed has survived, for its sequel would preserve evidence for the
Epicurean community in Oenoanda, whose survival Diogenes, in his own ex-
treme old age, wanted to insure by his last act as an Epicurean philosopher. The
word "friends" in line 2 is striking. By Oikot; Diogenes means his fellow
Epicureans. Strictly comparable is the language of Pompeia Plotina in her letter
to the Epicurean community in Athens: Hom)riva e tEi a'cl iit toig qtIotq
xaipEtV.40
III. Diogenes in Context
As he concludes his biographical memoire on Alexander of Abonouteichos,
Lucian turns to his friend and companion Celsus, and presents the document to
him as an act of revenge on behalf of Epicurus, "a holy man in the true sense of
this word, and a natural oracle of the divine, a man who has come to know with
the aid of truth what is good, and one who has handed the heritage of this
discovery down to posterity, and become the liberator of those who were his
associates" (Alex. 61). Diogenes employs similar language to describe Epicurus
to his fellow Epicureans in Rhodes, calling him "the herald who saved you" (NF
7 III.12f [see Smith (1971) 365-71] = fr. 73 Casanova [= fr. 72.III.12-14
Smith]). The conception of Epicurus as a savior is of course not unique to
Diogenes; we find it in Pompeia Plotina's letter to the Epicureans of Athens, and
elsewhere among Epicureans both Greek and Roman.41 But the term K~fpOv is
neither common nor orthodox. Epicurus had, it seems, used the verb rp tTTE tV
in his enthusiastic description of friendship "dancing about all of the inhabited
world, heralding the call to us all: Awake to proclaim blessedness!"42 Diogenes
speaks of "salvation" when he states his motives for displaying on the wall of his
stoa the gospel of Epicurean philosophy. The philosopher as a aomip is not a
commonplace in the philosophical literature of the second century. And Diog-
enes' description of Epicurus as a herald (xifpgv) is even less common. Both
terms, "savior" and "herald," remind us rather of the language of the New
40. IG II2 1099.16. The best case for the committed Epicureanism of this letter is
made by Temporini (supra n.7) 162-67.
41. IG II2 1099.35. The beginning of the concept of Epicurus as aourp is P Hercul.
346 (fr. 3 IV.b.7) in M. Capasso, Trattato etico epicureo (PHerc. 346) (Naples 1982); cf.
VII.24 and IV.24-28 with Capasso's note. Significantly, Diogenes uses the term aw-n-
ptov in NF 101.7 Casanova [= fr. 116.7 Smith] (Smith [1978] 69-71). [In essay 121I argue
that the adjective described the plank that brought Epicurus, "your herald," to safety in fr.

72.II.12 Smith.]
42. SV 52: i tXicLa eptoprEt " lv oixoEvlv K1-qportoa ST ' Itv l tiv y i-
po0at ti t6v gcaapto6v.
Testament. The language of I Timothy 2.7 combines the terms "herald" and
"apostle," and "savior" is the word for Christ in II Timothy 1.10.43 The KipvYta
of the New Testament is of course the coming of Christ as the Messiah and
savior.
But, as Epictetus said of a herald from the pagan world, the words for the self-
proclaimed hierophant, herald, and torchbearer of a new philosophy are the same
(czi g0ova ai an cai) as those of the mysteries of Eleusis, but in Eleusis they have
a different spiritual meaning.44 So too in Oenoanda. In the Greek context, the
herald was a public official who made proclamations at the Olympic games or
the Eleusinian mysteries or negotiated the barriers between city and city. Alex-
ander of Abonouteichos had his own herald to make the proclamation of the
opening of his mysteries (Alex. 46), and in a new fragment of Diogenes' inscrip-
tion it seems that Epicurus invited Hermarchus to enter the mysteries of his own
philosophy (NF 24 [see Smith (1974) 31-35] = fr. 124 Casanova [= fr. 127
Smith]). We do not know exactly when Christianity reached Oenoanda, but its
way was well prepared by Diogenes.
Neither Epicurus nor Diogenes were heralds of the state or the religion of the
state. They proclaimed the salvation of their philosophy as private individuals,
whose mission it was to attract others from the primacy of the ties of their cities
to the alternative communities of "friends"-[Eig] 6 rvve 06v iluov, as Epi-
curus put it in a letter.45 It is true that Diogenes speaks of himself as Oivoav8eig
and of Oenoanda as his native city; and in his introduction he makes the primacy
of his concern for his fellow citizens clear to all.46 But he also proclaims himself
43. Cf. the description of Paul in II Timothy 1.11 and I Clement 5.6. The pagan
praeparatio evangelica for the announcement of Christ as savior is well described by A.
D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background (New York 1964) 35-
46, and "Soter and Euergetes," Essays on Religion and the Ancient World II (Oxford
1972) 720-35.
44. Epict. Diss. 3.21.13f; cf. his description of the cynic philosopher in 1.13.3,
3.22.69.
45. To Hermarchus, NF 24 : oi.cat ti[; ni;] 6 0veX6v itov [ ......]naOeig
*ia68o;, 1.1-3 = fr. 124 Casanova [= fr. 127 Smith]. I would supplement line 2 by
[6goto]na0nig on the strength of Metrodorus of Lampsacus' appeal to his brother Timo-
crates: notitocroev ti tcLo viin ixaoig, a6vov o5 cxxta&v-rg ti;g 6ootonaOctiatx Q aicct
airx LayEviEg roi xctci f3iov ni;g ta 'ExtnKopou th;g XSa6tog 06 avta 6pyta (fr. 38

KOrte = Plut. Adv. Col. 1117B). This fraternal appeal was rejected by Timocrates, who
betrays the representation of Epicurus' philosophy as a mystery when he says that he
barely managed to escape from "those nocturnal sessions and that mystic confraternity"
(D.L. 10.6).
46. Thus, it is the extension of his healing message to the strangers who would visit
as a citizen of the world, as had Democritus long before him: "Throughout the
entire enclosure of this our world all the earth is a single country and the world a
single dwelling."47
Diogenes' intellectual world seems a large one: of the Presocratics he names
Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, and Heraclitus; he
engages Pythagoras and Empedocles (son of Acragas!) and their theories of
metempsychosis (which he terms g p3eoatg); the triad of ancient atheists ap-
pear in his inscription (Diagoras, Theodorus, and Protagoras); he engages
Aristippus and his conception of pleasure and mentions Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle (the Heraclitean!); Democritus is an important figure in his polemics,
as are the Stoics in general (though he never names an individual Stoic). And as
one would expect, the name of Epicurus appears often on the wall of his stoa.
But the horizons of his knowledge of philosophy are narrow. He knew Epi-
curus directly and well and was in possession of many of his writings; even his
occasional and inadvertent misquotations from Epicurus' ethical sayings would
seem to indicate that he knew some of Epicurus' 86cat by heart. All of the other
philosophers he names and sometimes addresses in a dialogue (which is a
tandem soliloquy) are rivals to his own philosophy and mistaken; these he seems
to know from the doxography and not from their writings.
To the Epicurean, philosophy was also a common way of life, and in this
sense of the word the horizons of Diogenes' philosophy were more generous.
Before his inscription came to light, he himself was completely unknown; of all
the contemporaries he names in his epistolary perhaps only one, L. Hedius Rufus
Lollianus Avitus (cos. A.D. 144), was known. Diogenes' inscription has now
given us the names of Epicureans active in Rhodes and in mainland Greece:
Antipater (of Athens); Theodoridas of Lindos; and Menneas, Camrus, Dionysius,
and Niceratus of Rhodes. In addressing Antipater Diogenes calls Theodoridas
"our companion" (etaipog i g6tv, fr. 16 I.12 Chilton = fr. 6411 .12 Casanova [= fr.
63. II.11 Smith]); and in addressing Menneas, he speaks of "our" Dionysius
(Atovvxiiov to ie Etpov, fr. 51 II.9fChilton = fr. 129 Casanova [= fr. 122 II.9-
his stoa in Oenoanda that characterizes his "philanthropy"; cf. fr. 2 V.5 Chilton = fr. 3
Casanova [= fr. 3.V.5 Smith] and fr. 49.2 Chilton = fr. 121.3 Casanova [= fr. 119.III.3
Smith]. The pride of being a citizen of Oenoanda is eloquently expressed by C. Julius
Demosthenes (Worrle [supra n.17] 4) who speaks of the love he had for his sweetest
country from his earliest years: [ad6] np0itrg i tciaSg tiv yXou t6aqv gov n atpi a

ntFlrpcdg (line 8). Diogenes speaks of Oenoanda simply as his nrpig: fr. 15 II.14
Chilton = fr. 63 Casanova [= fr. 62.II.14 Smith].
47. Fr. 25 1.6-11 Chilton = fr. 30 Casanova [= fr. 30.II.3-11 Smith]. Cf. Democritus
68B247 D.-K.
10 Smith]). In this same letter he speaks of a woman with whom he stayed in
Rhodes and her contribution to his recovery; and the supervision of "the amaz-
ing Carus."
The formula of his conclusion to this letter is Epicurean, for it was Epicurus'
habit to wish his correspondents health. But the plural Appo8 ndkty is also a
sign that Diogenes' Letter to Menneas was meant for a larger group and that it is
a response to a letter that concluded EppoGo.48 Fragments of still another letter
reveal that a diet of curdled milk was responsible for rebuilding Diogenes'
health, and we know from his last will and testament that he was suffering from a
stomach disorder.49
The concerns of these letters to the Epicureans in Rhodes seem personal,
provincial, and far removed from the kind of large philosophical concerns that
occupied Epicurus in the three major letters reproduced in Diogenes Laertius
(Book 10) or the pastoral concerns of the letters of the Christians who were
Diogenes' contemporaries. But perhaps what was most important to Diogenes
and his friends was the disposition that bound one Epicurean to another-the
8td0tg he commends in Menneas who was concerned for the health of his
fellow philosopher (fr. 51 11.6 Chilton = fr. 129 Casanova [= fr. 122 II.6 Smith]).
Like the early Christians, the Epicureans recognized one another as "friends,"
although the Epicureans were perhaps unique in their devotion to friendship.50
The attitude of concern and even zeal for the physical and spiritual well-being of
the Epicurean and the pleasures of friendship is dramatically expressed in a new
block from Diogenes' Letter to Antipater (NF 107 = fr. 63 Casanova, which
follows fr. 15 Chilton and joins fr. 16 Chilton [= fr. 63 Smith]). In response to
Antipater's progress and his enthusiasm for Epicurean philosophy ([~oov8]ifg,
1.4), Diogenes is especially eager to meet Antipater himself "and the other
friends in Athens, and in Chalcis and Thebes once again, thinking that you all
share my feeling" (II.1-8). In the new block from this letter Diogenes writes: "I
will try to join you, since the winter weather has now subsided, sailing first either
48. For qytaivetv as a salutation of Epicurus' letters, cf. [40] Ar. and my remarks on
fr. 51 Chilton in AJP 99 (1978) 120-23.
49. For the diet of curdled milk, NF 23 (Smith [1974] 26-31) = fr. 128 Casanova [= fr.
121 II.3, 5 Smith]; in his last will and testament (which is his imitation of Epicurus' letter
to Idomeneus: [52] Ar.) Diogenes speaks of suffering from a severe stomach disorder
(Kap&taKv idtOog): fr. 50.7 Chilton = fr. 136 Casanova [= fr. 117.7 Smith].

50. A comparison with the early Christians seems inevitable, but "friends" as a
designation of fellow-Christians is relatively rare in Christian writings; cf. Hamrnack (supra
n. 38). D. K. O'Connor's contribution to Tradition (165-86) is a valuable assessment of
the ethical theory and the praxis of Epicurean friendship.
to Athens or to Chalcis and Boeotia, since my appetite has been whetted as never
before by the prospect of a trip by sea" (fr. 64 1.2-13 Casanova = NF 107 [see
Smith (1979) 70-74] [= fr. 63. I.1-6 Smith]).
The "you" of this translation is, as one might expect, second person plural.
The enthusiasm of the Epicurean for friendship radiates from Diogenes' episto-
lary and reminds us of the enthusiasm and warmth of the letters of Epicurus who
was Diogenes' inspiration. Diogenes' eagerness to join Antipater and his fellow
Epicureans in mainland Greece matches the spirit if not the language of the letter
Epicurus wrote to Themista in Lampsacus, telling her that if she and Leonteus
could not come to him, he would join them "on a three-wheeled cart" (ptxvc-
Xtirog) wherever they say.51
In Acts of the Apostles, Christ tells his apostles that they will be his witnesses
"unto the uttermost part of the earth" ( cog a toov tflg yifg, 1.8). From the point
of view of the historian of philosophy, Oenoanda must seem one of the ends of
the earth, as would Amastris on the Black Sea. If it is in fact possible to date
Diogenes' inscription by a reference to Avitus, who was legatus of Bithynia and
Pontus in 165 and who heard Lucian's complaints against Alexander of
Abonouteichos, Diogenes and Lucian are very rough contemporaries. Diogenes
provides us with all the information we possess concerning the lost Epicurean
community of Oenoanda, just as Lucian gives us all we know about the contem-
porary Epicureans of Amastris in his Alexander In his indignation at being
baited by the Epicureans, Alexander could protest that the Pontus was "filled
with atheists [Epicureans] and Christians" (Alex. 25). We know the name of one
of these, Tiberius Claudius Lepidus, who was one of Alexander's most deter-
mined enemies and at the same time a friend of one of Alexander's most devoted
admirers, Sacerdos of Tieion (Alex. 43).52 Lucian makes the difficult journey to
Abonouteichos in order to expose the fraud of Alexander and his oracle and acts
the part of the Epicurean, addressing the known Epicurean Celsus as 6 iataps
(23). He was preceded by an anonymous Epicurean with the same purpose, who
caused such outrage that he was nearly murdered by the crowd of Alexander's
votaries; Alexander's command to his followers was "either be polluted your-
selves and be called 'Epicureans' or put the man to death" (43). Still other
51. As the phrase is sometimes rendered; in his Loeb translation of Diogenes Laertius,
R. D. Hicks renders the adjective "to spin thrice on my own axis." For a less enthusiastic
interpretation, cf. Usener's Glossarium Epicureum, edd. M. Gigante and W. Schmid

(Rome 1977) 677.
52. The only other evidence for Lepidus comes from two honorary inscriptions, one
for Lepidus and the other for his daughter: CIG III 4149f; cf. PIR2 C 910.
nameless but committed Epicureans, the followers of Timocrates, join Lucian in
his indignant embassy to Avitus (57), as we have seen.53
Since Louis Robert's masterly essay on "Lucien en son temps," it is impos-
sible to dismiss the details of Lucian's Alexander as the product of Lucian's
satiric imagination.54 The conflict between Alexander and his followers at
Abonouteichos and his Epicurean and Christian adversaries reveals the religious
and philosophic tensions of Diogenes' age and places him in the cultural context
in which he is most comfortable. The allies of both parties to the war (for this is
Lucian's metaphor) are of great interest: joining the Epicureans in their deter-
mined opposition to Alexander and his solemn farce (tpayqpoia, Alex. 60 and 5)
are the Christians of Amastris and Pontus.55 When Alexander established the
three-day mysteries of his oracle, the serpent Glycon/Asclepius, he had his
herald (xfufp) cry out to the assembled crowd: Ei t; 60'og Sif Xptitav6g if
'Eto6petog i fet KtWaKoriog trov 6pyOi0v, 4 Vyeo'r. And Alexander, march-
ing at the head of the procession, would cry: "Out with the Christians," and the
crowd of initiates would respond with the antiphonal "Out with the Epi-
cureans."56 Perhaps the most dramatic scene in Alexander's war with the Epi-
cureans was the public display he staged of burning the Kyriai Doxai on a pyre
of fig wood in the middle of the public square of Abonouteichos (Alex. 47). The
Epicureans, and their spiritual ancestor Democritus, were the only philosophers
to join in the conflict over Alexander's oracle at Abonouteichos; with the Plato-
nists, the Pythagoreans, and the Stoics there was profound peace-in Paphla-
gonia at least (Alex. 25). But in Oenoanda Diogenes waged his own war with the
three philosophical sects that were well disposed to Alexander.
Diogenes' philosophical inscription is often considered as something unique
in the ancient world, and indeed it is.57 But still other inscriptions provide
53. For Timocrates of Heraclea on the Pontus see Philostratus' short digression in his
life of Polemon, VS 46.24-47 Kayser and Jones (supra n. 15) 73 n. 33, 93 n. 20.
54. A travers l'Asie Mineure: Poetes etprosateurs, monnaies grecques, voyageurs et
geographie (= BEFAR 239 [Paris 1980] 393-421), followed to good effect by Jones
(supra n. 15) in his chapter on Alexander of Abonouteichos.
55. For Christians at Amastris and in Pontus see Harnack (supra n. 38) II 754f.
56. Alex. 38. The tp6pprnt; of Alexander and his herald is in imitation of the
proclamation of the mysteries at Eleusis, for which see M. P. Nilsson, GGR I2 667, esp. n.
1 for Origen c. Cels. 3.59.

57. R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven 1981) 11 and n. 49,
offers as a parallel the portico in Phlius, where one could see in the third century and even
in the age of Hippolytus of Rome "an outline of all the doctrines expounded." But the text
of Hippolytus hardly justifies this comparison, for titles rather than an inscription seem to
have caught the eye: cf. Hippol. Haer. 5.20.5 Marcovich. Certainly the Empedoclean
evidence for the cultural context in which Diogenes was moved to erect his stoa
in Oenoanda, with its display of the healing word of Epicurean philosophy.
Numerous inscriptions advertise the stupendous benefactions of Opramoas of
Rhodiapolis to the cities of his native Lycia.58 Diogenes' stoa with its philosoph-
ical inscription is clearly the wealthy philosopher's answer to Opramoas' baths.
But two other inscriptions from Diogenes' age and the reign of Marcus Aurelius
are eloquent witnesses to the conflict in which he was engaged. One no longer
survives, but Lucian saw it and made a copy of it in the house of Sacerdos at
Tieion. It was fixed on a wall in gold letters and records a dialogue between
Sacerdos and the divine serpent Glycon (Alex. 43):
(Sacerdos) Tell me, lord Glycon, who are you?
(Glycon)
I am the new Asclepius.
(Sacerdos) Is there another Asclepius besides that Asclepius we know?
What do you mean?
(Glycon)
This is not permitted for you to hear.
Sacerdos receives the same evasive response when he questions the oracle
about the truth of the oracles of his father Apollo. And when he asks "And I,
what will I be after my present life?" Glycon gives the oracle:
A camel, and then a horse, and then a wise man
and a prophet no less than Alexander.
The inscription ends with a hexameter warning of the new Asclepius to Sacerdos
against continuing his friendship with Lepidus of Amastris: R n1tEi0ov AnEti&p,
etni of 0vypbg oftog 6tl6i. This is a truly xptxov nog. But it belongs to a
genre of theosophic oracles represented by the inscription of a Clarian oracle
above the arch of a doorway to a tower of Oenoanda's wall to the south.59
The second inscription might be later than the inscription of Sacerdos in
Tieion, but its source is again the oracle of Abonouteichos. It comes from a
doctrines illustrated on the wall of this "portico" (nara ) are relevant to Diogenes and
his mission.
58. The other great inscription is of course the heroon of Opramoas in Rhodiapolis:
IGR III 739. Among Opramoas' many benefactions was the bath building he donated to
Oenoanda (supra n. 30).
59. Cf. L. Robert, "Un oracle grav6 Oenoanda," CRAI (1971) 597-619; A Hall,

"The Klarian Oracle at Oenoanda," ZPE 32 (1978) 263-68.
marble socle from Antioch and bears the letters FEAHNAFIEPTKEI, the end of
an hexameter oracle Alexander composed to protect his clients from the plague
that had moved from the east with the armies of Lucius Verus.60 Lucian says that
he could see it inscribed on doorposts everywhere (Ka t ovo v 8i&eiv t6 rog
itavtaxo, Alex. 36). Its full text is (oifog a etpo xo oiKSXotgo veeXiv
atEpheKt. These are significant but little known manifestations of the religious
culture to which Diogenes responds by displaying on a stoa wall in Oenoanda a
manifesto of the philosophical culture of Epicureanism. The oracle of Alexander
at Abonouteichos is part of a larger world, and the religious culture of this larger
world helps explain Diogenes' vivid interest in statues, oracles, and dreams
and the doctrine of Plato, Pythagoras, and Empedocles maintaining the belief in
the transmigration of souls.
Like Lucian, whose sympathy with Epicureanism was genuine, Diogenes
was a part of the subculture of the second century. This culture distanced itself
and defined itself against the dominant civic, religious, and philosophical culture
of its age. Like Lucian, and like the equally militant Oenomaus of Gadara,61
Diogenes of Oenoanda was highly skeptical of oracles; and like the Epicurean
Diogenianus, who might have been his contemporary, Diogenes was hostile to
the belief in fate (sigappi tv) implicit in a belief in oracles, and in this he
confronts the Stoic Chrysippus as well as popular religious beliefs. In NF 19 we
find his characterization of the language of oracles as "ambiguity and tricky
obliqueness" and his warning against those who rely on them-like the Spartans
who suffered a humiliating defeat when they relied on their confident interpreta-
tion of an oracle from Delphi and attacked Tegea.62 Diogenes was also skeptical
of the prophetic powers of dreams, and a large section of both his Physics
Treatise and his Ethics Treatise is devoted to a controversy over interpretation of
60. See J. F. Gilliam, "The Plague under Marcus Aurelius," AJP 82 (1961) 225-51;
for the inscription from Antioch: P. Perdrizet, "Une inscription d'Antioche qui reproduit
un oracle d'Alexandre d'Abonouteichos," CRAI (1903) 62-66.
61. His Exposure of Frauds is employed by Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 5.18.6-22; for
the context of this work see Jones' chapter on "Gods and Oracles" (supra n. 15).
[Oenomaus is now presented in text, commentary, and the study of Jirgen Hammerstaedt,
Die Orakelkritik des Kynikers Oenomaus (Beitrage zur klassischen Philologie 118
[Frankfurt am Main, 1988]) and "Der Kyniker Oenomaus von Gadara," ANRW II. 36.4
(1990) 2834-65.] Both Oenomaus and Diogenes (NF 19 [= fr. 17 Casanova; fr. 23

Smith]) concentrate on the fatal ambiguity of oracles.
62. Hdt. 1.66, Xpo Ko3t6rXqil X ato vot. Another deceptive oracle to the Lace-
daemonians is produced as a fraud by Oenomaus in Eus. Praep. Evang. 5.25.2 (cf. Hdt.
7.220, if Eusebius' authority here is still Oenomaus).
dreams. In response to Democritus' theory of dreams, he asserts: "The nature of
dreams is that they are in no way sent by the gods."63
One of the last fragments to be discovered in this century (NF 122) comes
from Diogenes' Physics Treatise and it addresses the contradictory interpreta-
tions given one and the same dream by "experts" in the interpretation of dreams.
Here Diogenes cites the case of a runner who was about to compete in the
Olympic games and dreamed that he was an eagle pursuing other birds. The
dreamer consults an expert in the interpretation of dreams and then Antiphon,
and receives two contradictory readings. We know from Cicero's discussion of
this passage in Antiphon's Oneirokritika (Div. 2.70, 144) that the expert's inter-
pretation was victory (the eagle is the swiftest bird in flight) but that he was
contradicted by Antiphon (in his pursuit of other birds the eagle is always last).
And we know from the very fact that Antiphon cites this dream that the runner
who dreamed that he was an eagle was not victorious.64 On the upper register of
Diogenes' inscription [see Figure 4] the reader could find still another interpreta-
tion of dreams-that of Epicurus in a letter he wrote to his anxious mother who
was worried by her ominous dreams of him. He responds to his mother's anx-
ieties by sending her a letter expounding the mechanism of vision and dream
visions and he assures her: "Do not be disturbed by these dreams. The visions
you have of us should not be considered as bad omens" (fr. 52 III.1-3 Chilton =
fr. 122 Casanova [= fr. 125. II.10-III.3 Smith]).
T. G. Glover was right to set Diogenes' long and militantly philosophical
inscription against the inscription Marcus Julius Apellas set up in the temple
precinct in Epidaurus as a pious record of all the good advice the god had given
him in dreams. Such as: "As I prolonged my stay in the temple, the god told me
to use dill with olive oil for my headaches."65 Glover could have drawn on other
notables from the second century to make his point: Aelius Aristides' Sacred
63. NF 6 11.6-8 (Smith [1971] 360) = fr. 10 VI.6-8 Casanova [= fr. 10.V.14 Smith].
For discussion of the new fragments from both the Physics and Ethics Treatises, see my
"An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams," AJP 101 (1980) 342-65 [essay 14 in this
book].
64. NF 122 [= fr. 24 Smith] (Smith [1984] 44-49). This new fragment should figure
as Antiphon 87B 80A D.-K.
65. The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire (London 1909) 221, citing
IG IV.12 126. Glover's conclusion (220) on Diogenes is worth recalling: "Altogether the

inscription is as singular a monument of antiquity as we are likely to find. What the
fellow-citizens of Diogenes might have thought of it, we do not know. Perhaps they might
have preferred the bath or other commonplace gift of the ordinary rich man. It is a pity
that Lucian did not see his colonnade."
Tales (from the sanctuary of Asclepius at Pergamum) and Artemidorus of
Daldis' Oneirokritika are both impressive records of the contemporary interest
in dreams and their interpretation.66
Sacerdos of Tieion is also part of the religious and philosophical culture
to which Diogenes was opposed. Sacerdos' curiosity concerning his future lives
reveals a belief in metempsychosis that we find dramatically in the spiritual
grandfather of Alexander of Abonouteichos, Apollonius of Tyana.67 Among
Alexander's votaries there was a solemn religious dispute over the prophet: did
he possess the soul of Pythagoras or one like it? To which they received the
suitably serpentine response (Alex. 40). Alexander's credulous son-in-law,
Rutilianus, asked Glycon, the "new Asclepius," whose soul he had received and
his response was piped into the mouth of Glycon himself (34):
First you were the son of Peleus, and then Menander,
Next the man you are now, and afterwards a sunbeam.
The fate of the soul was of great interest to Diogenes and he devotes long
sections of his Ethics Treatise to the question of the fear of death and the theory
of metempsychosis. He is severe in his criticism of Pythagoras, and mentions
Plato and the Stoics-with all of whom Alexander was at peace-and at one
point in his discussion of what he calls eIkrn3atc he turns to address Empedo-
cles: "But if, somehow, souls cannot subsist without bodies, why in the world do
you trouble yourself and these souls even more by dragging them and forcing
them to move from one animal to another?" (fr. 34 1.6-14 Chilton = fr. 43 III.6-
14 Casanova [= fr. 42 III.6-14 Smith]). Diogenes' quarrels as an Epicurean
philosopher are with philosophers, but some of the religious beliefs of his
antagonists from another age are the prevalent beliefs of his own age and
contemporaries like Sacerdos of Tieion, Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus, Marcus
Julius Apellas, and the anonymous votaries of Tomis (Constanza), who had a
shrine in which they displayed a magnificent marble statue of Glycon, the "new
Asclepius."68
66. For Diogenes' rivals in the interpretation of dreams, cf. Dario del Corno, "I sogni
e la loro interpretazione nell'eta dell'impero," ANRW II.16.2 (1978) 1605-18.
67. E. L. Bowie has given a good account of the relation between Apollonius of Tyana
and Pythagoras in his "Apollonius of Tyana: Tradition and Reality," ANR WII.16.2 (1978)
1671ff, 1691f.
68. Reproduced as Figures 7-8 in Robert (supra n. 54) 398 and as the cover of

MacMullen's Paganism (supra n. 57). The visitor to Athens can find a tiny bronze Glycon
in case 50 of the Agora Museum; cf. Robert, CRAI (1981) 513-35.
Epilogue 1997
A word-but not the last word-on the location and dating of the inscription
displayed in Diogenes' stoa. The location is not as flexible as its date. It has been
located in the area of the agora to the south of the city (Area nM of the Oenoanda
Survey; see Figure 5) and in the area of what the French archaeologists called the
"Esplanade." Its dates have swung from the first century B.C. and the age of
Lucretius to the third century B.C. It used to be that a date in round numbers of ca.
200 A.D. was generally accepted. Martin Ferguson Smith has now written a clear
history of the attempts to identify and date our Diogenes and locate the site of his
stoa in Oenoanda (Diogenes of Oinoanda.: The Epicurean Inscription [Naples,
1993], 35-48 and 55-56) and more briefly in the facsimile edition (The Philo-
sophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, Ergainzungsbainde zu den Tituli
Asiae Minoris 20 [Vienna, 1996], 17-19). He has the considerable advantage of
his unrivaled knowledge of the site and J. J. Coulton's important studies of the
buildings and urban history of Oenoanda, which have now extended to its water
supply and aqueduct (with E. C. Stenton in "Oinoanda: The Water Supply and
Aqueduct," AS 36 [1986]: 15-59) and its agora (in "Oinoanda: The Agora," AS
36 [1986]: 61-90).
First, consider the site of Diogenes' stoa. It is abundantly clear from the
pattern of the distribution of the fragments from the wall of Diogenes' stoa that
the "epicenter" from which they radiate is the area of the Great Wall (built in the
third quarter of the third century) and the South Portico. I have occasionally
followed Smith's suggestion in stating that the site of Diogenes' stoa (whose
foundations extend for perhaps as much as eighty meters) was to the south of the
"Esplanade" (Smith 1992, 46; 1996, 19). Perhaps this is the case. As Smith says,
"It is unlikely that the problem of the exact location of Diogenes' stoa can be
conclusively solved without excavation" (1992, 56).
But I have long suspected, on the basis of the pattern in the scatter of
Diogenes fragments, that the foundation of Diogenes' stoa is the foundation of
the Great Wall that defines the "Esplanade" to the West (Area klM of the
Oenoanda Survey; see Figure 5). I first ventured this Mycroftian hypothesis in
my review of Smith's 1974 Thirteen New Fragments (AJP 97 [1976]: 307). Two
summers spent on the site have strengthened my interest in testing this hypoth-
esis. As Oenoanda was forced to secure and shorten its defensive walls to the
north, which were insignificant (and are now incorporated into a later wall of the

third century A.D. or dispersed), the foundation of Diogenes' stoa, once enclosed
by the city walls, presented an attractive northern limit to the city's defenses to
the west of the Esplanade. In this hypothesis, Alan Hall and I are in agreement
(see Hall, "The Oenoanda Survey: 1974-1976," AS 26 [1976]: 194-96).
The philosophical inscription was treated with respect. Its ashlar blocks were
removed and used as the inner facing of the new wall, with the inscribed face of
the wall blocks set inward. The pattern of the loss of Diogenes fragments shows
a rate of loss significantly higher for the smaller blocks of the upper courses (the
three courses of the Old Age Treatise) than for the blocks of the Physics Treatise
and the Ethics Treatise. This suggests that the wall was reassembled from course
to course and that, in a tertiary use of the blocks, the higher courses were the first
to go and were dispersed as they were used in other later buildings. I make some
of these observations in greater detail in "The Philosophical Inscription of
Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries, 1969-1983," ANRW II.36.4 (1990)
2465-78.
What is the date of Diogenes and his inscription? It has migrated from the age
of Lucretius to the third century A.D. Prompted by George Hoffmann's restoration
of Avi[tianus ("APet[ at fr. 70.I.6 Smith), I suggest in the preceding essay, "A Lost
Epicurean Community," a date within the career of the better-known L. Hedius
Rufus Lollianus Avitus and the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Earlier, I had been
content to review the range of suggestions made by others. Smith, who has been
much occupied with Luciano Canfora's hypothesis that Diogenes was in fact a
contemporary of Lucretius, does not take this possibility into consideration, but
on the basis of the similarity of lettering between the Diogenes inscription and the
inscription of C. Iulius Demosthenes (for which we have the precise dates of 25
July 124 and 29 August 124), he gives the Diogenes inscription a Hadrianic date
and is tempted to identify as Diogenes noster the Diogenes mentioned as an
ambassador in that inscription (1993, 35-48). Indeed, he suggests that Diogenes
employed the mason who cut the Demosthenes inscription (41).
One difficulty in accepting this argument arises from the very similiarities
Smith adduces between the letter forms of the Demosthenes inscription, which
are uniform, and those of the Diogenes inscription, which are not. The contrast
between the letter forms of Chilton fr. 41 (= fr. 112 Smith) and NF 23 (= fr. 121
Smith) clearly shows two different masons' hands at work (as I point out in "The
Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes" (1990, 2471-72; see Figure 7 in this
book). Luciano Canfora makes this same objection to the foundation to Smith's
Hadrianic dating in "Diogene di Enoanda e Lucrezio," RFlC 120 (1992): 65-66.
In his review of Smith's edition of the fragments, Michael Erler considers my
suggestion that the inscription can be dated by the mention of Avitus as "the

most plausible candidate" (CR 45 [1995]: 23). I would simply put Avitus back
into contention as a candidate for attaching the Diogenes' inscription to an
approximate date.
In the summer of 1997, the Turkish authorities granted to the Fethiye Mu-
seum and the British Institute of Archaeology a permit to conduct limited ex-
cavations in the area of the "Esplanade" in Oenoanda. Mr. Ibrahim Malko9 of the
Fethiye Museum has been appointed as Director of the excavation and Dr.
Martin Ferguson Smith as Scientific Director. Work on the site had to be delayed
until October 31-November 9, 1997. Smith reports (in a letter of December 4,
1997) that a trench at the southern border of the "Esplanade" "revealed part of
the wall of the so-called south stoa and a parallel line of reused blocks just under
6 meters to the north." Here (area Mk of the Oenoanda Survey, Figure 5) eight
blocks of the Diogenes inscription had been incorporated into a stylobate for
statute bases bearing inscriptions: one comes from the Ethics Treatise, two from
the Old Age Treatise, three from Diogenes' Maxims, and two from the Physics
Treatise. Two other inscriptions were discovered elsewhere. This year's yield of
ten new inscriptions brings the total of known fragments to 223. When Smith
first visited the site in 1968, only 88 were known. There is now the fair prospect

that some of the questions posed in this essay might find their answers.

Bibliography
Texts and Commentaries
Epicurus and Epicureans
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Passages Cited
Aelian
T 423 in Edelstein, Asclepius: 213n. 5
Aristotle
Constitution of the Athenians 45.1: 206
On Dreams 558b9-10: 220
Metaphysics 4.1014b: 13
On Memory 245a: 9
On Philosophy (ed. Ross)
fr. 13:174-77
fr. 18: 184
Physics 2.1.193B12: 124
Poetics 22.1459 a 6:167
Athenaeus
Deipnosophistai 7.298D: 90
Baton
PCG IV T 4: 113
Celsus
De Medicina 3.21: 65
Cicero
De Divinatione 2.70.144: 251
De Finibus
2.21.67: 35n. 11
2.31.101: 69n. 48, 89-90
5.1.3: 67-68, 92
De Natura Deorum
1.25.72: 15n. 46
1.44.123: 77n. 3
2.37.94-38.96: 174-76
Ad Quintumfratrem
2.9.3: 122, 178
Tusculans 5.9.27: 59
Damoxenos (Comicus)
PCG V fr. 2: 87, 98n. 25
Democritus (ed. Diels-Kranz)
A77: 219

B 119: 33-34
B 166: 224
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of the Philosophers
6.101: 89
9.41: 42
10.2: 41
10.9: 223
10.10: 192
10.13: 36
10.14:73
10.16: 29, 48n. 26
10.18, 69, 70, 73, 78, 88-90
10.24: 65
10.25: 233
10.26: 28
10.32: 218n. 15
10.33: 21
10.120a: 86
10.121b: 86
Diogenes of Oenoanda (ed. Chilton 1967
and Smith 1993)
fr. 2 II 7-III 5 Chilton (2 Smith): 59
fr. 25 II.6-11 Chilton (30.II.3-11
Smith): 245
fr. 34 (42 Smith): 252
fr. 41 Chilton (112 Smith): 31
fr. 51 Chilton (122 Smith), essay 13
frs. 52-53 Chilton (125 Smith): 220-
21, 251
NF 1, 5/6, Chilton fr. 7 (9-10 Smith):
274 / Passages Cited
Diogenes of Oenoanda (continued)
NF 21 (56 Smith): 240
NF 24 (127 Smith): 61, 102n. 37,
20 1n. 4, 244
NF 81 (116 Smith): 239n. 31
NF 107.II.1-8 (63 Smith): 246-47
NF 110 (128 Smith): 61n. 21
NF 122 (24 Smith): 251
Empedocles (ed. Diels-Kranz)
B 3:154-55
B21: 127
B71:126
B113: 150
B 131:150,155
B 133: 150, 185n. 16
Epictetus
Discourses 1.9.37: 31
Epicurus (Epicuro2 Arrighetti)
Kyriai Doxai
1: 29, 130, 132
4:193-94
16:26,33,34
17: 28, essay 2
23:26
33:39
34:39
Last will and testament (D. L. 17-21):
48, essay 5
Letter to Herodotus
35: 158
46-47:13
67: 218n. 15
82:31
83: 31
to Idomeneus, [52]: 88

Letter to Mother, 220-21
Letter to Pythocles, 84:3
On Nature
[29]26.7-10: 20
[31]20.26-21.2: 6-7
[34]28.6-17: 24-25
[34]31.12-20: 25
to Pythocles, [89]: 143
Sententiae Vaticanae
9: 28, 33
10:148
31:14,65n.37
32:70n.52,96,101
40:25
41:27
47: 58
48: 140
51: 57-58
52:199, 243
68: 33
75:35
Symposium: 241
Galen
Opera 12.601 Kuhn: 209
Heliodorus
Aethiopica 1.16.5: 93
Herodotus
Histories 2.44.5: 87
Homer
Odyssey
411-12:193
426-27:191
12
Passages Cited / 275
OGIS no. 229: 48n. 27
SEG
3 no. 236, 234
26 no. 1215, 200n. 1
Lucian of Samosata
Alexander of Abonouteichos
25:247
34: 252
36:250
38:248
43:247,249
46:244
On Mourning 9: 98n. 25
Lucretius
1-148: essay 7
75-77:142
117-19: 143
271-97: 165
407-9:159
732-34:149
736-38: 149
823-24: 167
921-30:142
931-50: 144-45
1114-17: 141, 159
3-4: 27
7-10:15
655-57:183
1023-48:179-81
26-28:140
43-47:153
55-57:141
73-78:156

92-95: 153
97-103: 150
Metrodorus (ed. Kdrte)
fr. 5:55-56
fr. 38: 244n. 45
fr. 38:62
fr. 46:65
fr. 52:60
New Testament
Acts
1.8: 247
14.15: 62n. 25
27.41: 197
1 Timothy 2.7: 244
Papyri
PBerol. 16369: 60
PHerc.
176, 44-45
fr. 5.XVII.1-7 (Vogliano): 91, 96
fr. 5.XXVII.5-19 (Vogliano): 90-
91
346, fr. 13.18-24 (Capasso): 101n.
34
1027:66
1041:65
1232, fr. 8, col. 1: 80-88, 97
1471:116
1251 (Schmid), col. 22.2-3: 87,
100n. 33
POxy. 215: 60, 235n. 12
Philodemus of Gadara
"Academicorum Historia": 114-16
XII.10-18: 116
XIV.41-45: 115-16
276 / Passages Cited
Philodemus of Gadara (continued)
Va-Vb: 113
XXb.1-5: 114
XXIb.10-13: 118
fr. 45.1-11: 119
"Ordering of the Philosophers": 105-9
On Piety (ed. Obbink)
col. 29, lines 812-19: 91
col. 31, lines 879-89: 83, 88
"Stoicorum Historia": 111-14
On the Stoics, XXII.5-10: 111
Plato
Phaedrus 259D: 157n. 28
Republic
463B: 59n. 15
464D: 62n. 25
1097E: 65, 72, 92
1101B: 193-94
1103A: 64
1103D-E: 193-94,205n. 11
Quaestiones conviviales 8.10: 219-
20
Live unknown 1129A: 68, 92
Proclus
In Primum Euclidis Elmentorum Li-
brum Commentarii 73.25-74.9: 15-
16
Seneca
Apocolocyntosis 8: 29
Epistulae Morales
6.6: 64
7.11: 6
18.9: 42
25.4-5: 67
25.6: 97n. 23

33.4: 62
52.3: 63
82.11: 56
89.11: 25
Solon (ed. West)
fr. 12: 28, 35
fr. 37.7-8: 37
Sousarion (ed. West)
2.147-48: 28, 33
Strabo
Geography 13.1.19: 192
514A-517A: 177
Pliny
Naturalis Historia 35.5: 89
Plutarch
Lives
Solon 3: 28
Moralia
Quomodo adulator 55C: 113
Marriage Counsels 141C: 88
Non Posse
1089C: 92
1089D: 56
1090A-E: 191, 194-95
General Index
Adela, 16, 17, 18, 152n. 23, 168
Aelian, 213n. 5
Aeneas Tacticus, 14
Aeschines Socraticus, 119
Agathoboulos. See Aristoboulos
Agathocles of Tyre, 116
Alciphron, 34n. 8
Alexander of Abonouteichos, 27, 237,
247-50
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 223
Alexander of Macedon, 119
Alfonsi, L., 162n. 6
Amynomachos, 48, 70, 93
Anathymiasis, 168-69
Anaxagoras, 128
Andre, J.-M., 178n. 5
Angeli, A., 79n. 8
Annas, Julia, 32
Antigonus Gonatas, 112, 113, 114
Antigonus of Carystus, 115
Antipater of Athens, 245
Antiphon, 251
Apellas. See Julius
Apellikon of Teos, 45, 50
Aphrodite, 127
Apollodorus of Athens, 49, 109, 117
Apollodorus Epicureus, 91, 109
Apollonius of Ptolemais, 110
Apollonius of Tyana, 252
Aratus of Soli, 177
Arcesilaus, 113
Aristides, Aelius, 213, 251
Aristoboulos, 64, 78, 94, 95n. 17
AristonofChios, 110, 112
Aristotle, 40, 50, 75

definition of stoicheion, 13
On Philosophy, essay 10
Arrian, 200
Arrighetti, G., 4, 22n. 40, 58, 96n. 20,
108, 216n. 10
Artemidorus of Daldis, 213, 252
Asmis, Elizabeth, 106n. 3, 107n. 4,
211
"Atomologies," 125n. 12, 165n. 12,
223n. 23
Atticus. See Pomponius
Aurelius, Marcus, 234
Avitus. See Hedius
Bachius, Nicolaus, 28n. 56, 36n. 12
Bacon, Francis, 183
Bailey, Cyril, 9n. 14, 16n. 28, 121, 122n.
1, 135, 136, 152,156n.28
Balbus, Quintus Lucilius, 174-75
Barigazzi, Adelmo, 99n. 27, 202, 216n.
10, 224
Barwick, K., 134n. 31
Batis, 65
Baton, 112
Bemrnays, Jacob, 153
Bignone, Ettore, 84, 85, 88, 182, 186n.
18, 191n. 6, 192n. 7, 193n. 11
Binder, G., 45n. 17
Birthday as day of cult, 69-70, 96-97
Black, Max 167n. 14
Boegehold, A. L., 40
Bollack, Jean, 10, 140n. 1, 150n. 20
Bollack, Mayotte, 10
Borgia, Girolamo, 164
Bourriot, F., 70n. 50
278 / General Index
Burneyat, Myles, 25n. 47
Bywater, Ingram, 174
Calliope, 138-39
Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus Lucius, 93,
99
Canfora, Luciano, 50n. 34, 208n. 2,
254
Capasso, Mario, 79n. 8, 87, 99n. 27,
242n. 41
Carneades, 110
Carus (Karos), 208, 246
Casanova, Angelo, 102n. 37, 211, 237
Castner, C. J., 77n. 3, 233n. 4
Catius, 122
Cavallo, Guglielmo, 40
Celsus, 66, 237
Chadwick, H., 238n. 22
Chaeredemus, 78, 94, 95n. 17
Charmadas, 116
Chemrniss, Harold, 55
Chilton, C. W., 58, 208, 221n. 22
Christianity, 244, 246
Christians on the Pontus, 248
Chrysippus, 210, 217-18, 225
Cicero, 55-56, 59, 78, 122, 133, 135,
136n. 39, 163, 164, 221n. 22, 251
Clarian oracle at Oenoanda, 249
Clarke, M. L., 24n. 46, 74n. 67, 99
Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Lepidus),
235, 247, 249
Cleanthes, 112-13, 118, 125n. 13
Cod. Palat. gr 129, 32n. 3, 65n. 37
Colaizzo, M., 79n. 8
Comparetti, Domenico, 105, 107, 109
Conon, 86

Coulton, J. J., 209nn. 7-8, 239n. 30, 253
Cousin, Georges, 58
Cr6nert, W., 235n. 11
Curtius, C., 47n. 23
Cynics, 110, 111
Daux, Georges, 71n. 56
Davies, H. S., 161
De Lacy, Phillip, 19n. 36, 68n. 45, 191n.
6, 192
Del Como, Dario, 211
Democritus, 24, 26, 33-34, 42
on dreams, 217, 219-20, 223-25
On Images or On Providence, 225
Deneken, F., 76n. 2
Devereux, George, 213n. 4
De Witt, N. W., 8n. 13, 10n. 25, 50n. 33,
64, 66-67, 71, 98
Diano, Carlo, 11n. 16, 27n. 52, 221n.
22
Diels, Hermann, 30n. 60, 60, 82
Diller, Hans, 137n. 40
Diogenes of Oenoanda
on consciousness, 222
date, 236-37, 254
on Democritus' theory of dream vi-
sions, 219-20, 223-26
on dreams, essay 14, 250
imitation of Epicurus, 58-60, 201-2,
238-43
last will and testament, 242
Letter to Antipater, 240-41, 246-47
letter to friends in Rhodes (?) essay 12
Letter to Mother displayed, 58
Lucretius' (Camrus) mentioned? 208,
General Index / 279
Dontas, G., 100
Dorandi, Tiziano, 40, 51, 106, 107n. 4,
108, 109, 111n. 19, 114n. 29, 115n.
30, 117n. 34
Dring, Klaus, 67n. 42
Dositheos, 201n. 4
Duening, H. H., 57
Edelstein, Ludwig, 129
Edmonds, J. M., 36
Edmunds, Lowell, 36n. 13
Egnatius, 122
Ehrenberg, V., 127n. 19
Eichler, F., 74n. 67
Eikades, 71-72, 82, 87, 93, 97
Einarson, Benedict, 68n. 45, 192
Elementum. See Stoicheion/elementum
Eliot, T. S., 146
Empedocles
conception of genesis, 124n. 10, 125-
26, 126n. 15
invocations to Muses, 153-55
prophecy, 149-50
theology, 150
Ennius, 122, 130, 181
Epicureans
at Amastris on the Pontus, 237, 248
attribution of Epicurean wisdom, 30,
55-62
commemorative cups and images, 67-
68, 78, 92, 98n. 25
common meals, 91-92, 98
communities in Black Sea, Egypt,
Italy, Syria, Rhodes, 235
on consciousness, 222-23
leaders of the school, 63, 115

memorial pamphlets, 99
memorization of their doctrine, 24,
27-31, 33, 245
as philoi, 242-43, 246
spread of movement, 235
statues, 100
successions of leaders, 232-33
Epicurus
association with Lampsakos, 41
birthday, 73
career, 40-41
catalogue of writings dated by Athe-
nian archon year, 51-54
citations of poetry, 28, essay 2
concept of justice, 35-39
concept of philosophy, 69, 69n. 47,
112, 242
concept of physiologia, 129-37
cults of, 68-74, essay 5
garden, 74, 99
Gnomologium Vaticanum (see
Epicurus, Sententiae Vaticanae)
on images (eidola), 225
on justice, essay 2
Kanon, 16-22
as keryx, 199, 206, 243-44
Kyriai Doxai, 22-31
on language, 16-22
last will and testament (DL 10.16-21),
48, 68-70
letters
to Anaxarchos, 42
to Idomeneus, 80
to Leontion, 42
280 / General Index
Epicurus (continued)
writings dated by Athenian archon
years, 4n. 3, 7, essay 3
Epikteta of Thera, 76n. 2, 96n. 18, 100n.
31
Erler, Michael, 107n. 4, 233n. 3, 254
Emrnout, Alfred, 133n. 30, 134
Euclid, 8, 15
Eucleides of Megara, 110
Eucratides of Rhodes, 235n. 13
Euphronius Epicureus, 213n. 5
Euripides, 128, 162n. 6
Favorinus of Arles, 49
Ferguson, W. S., 71, 86, 98n. 24, 100n.
30
Festugibre, J.-A., 70n. 51, 71n. 55, 199,
210n. 13
Fisher, I., 123n. 7
Flavianus Diogenes, 236-37
Fraser, P. M., 102n. 37
Freud, Sigmund, 211, 217
Friedlander, Paul, 125n. 12, 165n. 12,
223n. 23
Frisher, Bernard, 67n. 43, 95n. 15
Furley, D. J., 17n. 29, 23n. 43, 121
Gaiser, 115n. 31, 117n. 34
Gale, Monica, 138
Galen, 122n. 5, 214
Gargiulo, Tristiano, 108n. 9
Gifanius, Obertus, 161
Gigante, Marcello, 32, 40, 61n. 22, 65n.
37, 71n. 55, 106n. 1, 107
Gilliam, J. F., 250n. 60
Giussani, Carlo, 9n. 14
Glacken, C. J., 183n. 12

Glad, C. E., 108n. 9
Glover, T. G., 251
Glucker, John, 73n. 62
Glycon/Asclepius, 248, 249, 252
Gomperz, Theodor, 42, 107, 210
Gordon, Pamela, 200, 211
Griffin, Miriam, 111 n. 18
Grilli, Alberto, 32, 209
Hadrian, 236
Hadzsits, G. D., 77n. 3
Hagnon of Tarsus, 117
Hall, A. S., 236, 249n. 59, 253
Hammerstaedt, Juirgen, 250n. 61
Hamrnack, A. von, 242n. 38
Heath, Thomas, 15n. 27
Heberdey, R., 207, 236
Hedeia, 94
Hedius (L. Hedius Rufus Lollianus
Avitus), 234, 235, 237, 242, 245,
254
Hegesianax. See Pyrson of Colophon
Heidegger, Martin, 138
Heidel, W. A., 125n. 14
Helicon, 138, 143
Heliodorus, Aethiopica, 74
Heliodorus Epicureus, 234
Henderson, A. A. R., 150n. 20
Herculaneum, Villa dei Papiri, 42, 64,
67
Hermarchus of Mytilene, 61, 63, 63n. 28,
93, 233, 234
Herodotus Epicureus, 118
Herophilus of Alexandria, 212n. 2, 214
Hesiod, 143
General Index / 281
Karneiskos, Philistas, 64, 66, 87,
99n. 27
Keenan, J. G., 235n. 12
Kenney, E. J., 140n. 1, 150n. 20
Keramopoullos, K., 206n. 12
Keuls, Eva, 219n. 17
Kleon, 3
Kleve, Knut, 136n. 35
Koenen, Ludwig, 45n. 17
Kolotes, 86
K5rte, Alfred, 30n. 60, 56, 56n. 4, 66,
208n. 2
Kranz, Walther, 125n. 13
Kreuger, David, 111n. 18
Kyrios, 13-14
Lachmann, Karl, 146n. 13
Lactantius, 57
Laks, Andre, 69n. 48
Landolfi, L., 164n. 10
Larson, J. A. O., 239n. 29
Laum, B., 77n. 3
Leontion, 94
Lepidus. See Claudius
Levin, S. R., 164n. 11
L6vy, Carlos, 121
Licinnia Flavilla, 236
Liebich, W., 41
Lisenborghs, L., 45n. 17
Lloyd, G. E. R., 167n. 14
Longo Auricchio, Francesca, 63, 108n. 9
Lord, Carnes, 50n. 34
Lucian of Samosata, Alexander of
Abonouteichos, 247-50
Lucretius
his "apology," 142-44

"atomologies," 165, 168
catachresis, 163-65
and Empedocles, 149-51, 153-55
invocations
to Calliope, 152
to Venus, essay 7
metaphor, 161-73
originality, essay 7
"palinode" (2.255-258), 163
perishability of this world, 149-51
plague in Athens, 157-60
polemic with Aristotle of On Philoso-
phy, essay 10
proem, essay 7
prophecy, 149-51
quies, 166
his reader, 158-60
relation to Epicurus, 26-27, 139-41
Venus, 125, 127-28, 138-39, 146,
156, 159
Lynch, J. P., 50n. 34, 73n. 62
MacMullen, Ramsay, 248n. 57
Malherbe, Abraham, 75
Mangoni, Cecilia, 106n. 3
Martina, A., 35n. 11
Masaracchia, Agostino, 35n. 11, 36n. 12
McDiarmid, J. B., 182n. 10
McGibbon, D., 225n. 30
Megarians, 6
Mekler, Siegfried, 107
Menippus, 89, 93
Menneas, 246
Meritt, B. D., 40, 86, 98n. 25
Merrill, W. A., 179n. 5
282 / General Index
Murray, Gilbert, 141 n. 5
Muses, 75, 96n. 18
Natorp, Paul,126n. 36
Natura/de rerum natura, essay 7
Neokles, 95n. 17
New Testament, 243-44
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 36-37, 195n. 14
Nikeratos, 202-3, 241, 246
Nilsson, M. P., 74n. 67
Nock, A. D., 71n. 53, 98n. 25
Nussbaum, Martha, 3, 32
Obbink, Dirk, 75, 83, 100n. 30, 235n. 12
O'Connor, D. K., 246n. 5
Oenomaus of Gadara, 250
Ogilvie, R. M., 57
Oliver, J. H., 200, 234n. 9
Olivieri, A., 119n. 37
Opramoas of Rhodiapolis, 239, 249
gift of a bath building to Oenoanda,
239n. 30
Orgeones of Attica, 71, 85-86, 98n. 25
Ovid, 122
Pacuvius, 128, 162n. 6
Page, D. L., 106n. 1
Panaetius of Rhodes, 110, 112, 113, 114
Paratore, E., 235n. 10
Pelekides, S., 205
Pellicer, Andre, 121, 122n. 7
Pembroke, S. G., 79n. 8
Perdrizet, P., 250n. 60
Periodeia, 14
Perseus, 112, 114
Pfister, F., 71n. 53, 96n. 21
Phaedrus, 77n. 3, 100
Philippson, Robert, 39n. 20, 119n. 37,

207-8
Philistas. See Kamrneiskos
Philodemus of Gadara, 41, 44
"Academicorum Historia," 114-16
On Epicurus, 70, 79-88
epigram, 75, 89-90
On Frank Criticism (Hpi it ppot.i-
ag), 65, 66, 106, 116-20
on metaphor, 163n. 7
"Ordering of the Philosophers," 49,
105-9
Pragmateiai, 6, 41, 64, 108
"Stoicorum Historia," 111-14
On the Stoics, 110-11
Philonides of Thebes, 112
Philoxenus, 119
Phrynichus, 85
Physis, essay 7
Pieria, 138, 143
Piso. See Calpumrnius Piso Caesoninus
Lucius
Pizzani, U., 122n. 2, 136n. 38
Plato, 110, 114-15, 118, 119
Pliny the Elder, 78
Plotina, Pompeia, 243
Plutarch, 35, 68, 77, 99, 219
Poland, F., 78n. 8
Polemon, 115-16
Polyaenus of Lampsakos, 61, 70, 71,
76n. 2, 82, 90, 94, 96
Pomponius (Titus Pomponius Atticus), 94
Popillius Theotimus, 234
Porphyry, 83
Porter, James, 112n. 20
General Index / 283
Rudhardt, Jean, 87
Rusten, J. S., 99n. 28
Rutilianus. See Mummius
Sacerdos of Tieion, 247, 249, 252
Sallmann, K., 123n. 6, 124n. 11
Sallustius, 122
Samuel, A. E., 50
Sandbach, F. H., 122n. 2
Saufeius, Appius, 77n. 3
Sbordone, Francesco, 44n. 14, 210On. 11,
233n. 3
Schiesaro, Alessandro, 167n. 14, 168nn.
18, 20
Schmid, Wolfgang, 4n. 2, 5n. 7, 20n. 37,
30n. 61, 84, 116n. 32, 233n. 7
Schmidt, Wilhelm, 70n. 49, 73, 96n. 21
Schrijvers, P. H., 140n. 1, 144n. 9, 146n.
12, 225n. 29
Sedley, David, 3, 6n. 9, 42n. 7, 46, 47,
117n. 33, 119n. 30, 121, 182n. 10
Segal, Charles, 14n. 25, 38n. 19
Sextus Empiricus, 224-25
Sider, David, 75, 106n. 3
Simplicius, 14
Skutsch, F., 122n. 6
Smith, M. F., 58, 61, 61n. 21, 121,
158n. 32, essay 11 passim, 207, 211,
215, 224, 236, 237, 240, 241, 253-
55
Snyder, J. M., 125n. 12
Solmsen, F., 126n. 17, 128n. 22
Solon, 28, essay 2
Sositheus, 112
Sousarion, 28, 33
St. Augustine, 135n. 35

St. Paul, 62n. 25, 242
Stadter, Philip, 201
Steckel, H. 4n. 3, 7n. 11
Stilpon, 49
Stoicheioma, stoicheiomata, 12, 13
Stoicheion/elementum, 12-13, 67
Stoicheiosis, 8-11
Stoics on dreams, 217-18, 223
Stokes, J. L., 30n. 62
Strabo, 50
Strauss, Leo, 135n. 32, 156n. 28, 160n. 34
Tamrn, W. W., 112
Temporini, Hildegard, 234n. 7
Tepedino Guerra, Adele, 75, 82, 84, 85
Tetrapharmakos, 11, 209-11
Theodoridas of Lindos, 241, 245
Theophrastus, 50
Theoria, 82, 86
Thiasos/thiasiotai, 71, 78n. 8
Thibron, 110
ThOnges-Stringaris, R. N., 72n. 61, 96n.
19
Thyo (as opposed to enagizo), 98n. 25
Timarchus, 62
Timokrates of Athens, 48, 70, 93
Timokrates of Heraklea, 248
Timokrates of Lampsacus, 114, 119
Tod, M. N., 235n. 13
Tomis (Constanza), 252
Traglia, Antonio, 133n. 30
Traversa, A., 109
Tympanon/apotympanismos, 205
Untersteiner, Mario, 182n. 10
Usener, Hermann, 19n. 35, 32-33, 40,
284 / General Index
Wotke, Karl, 32-33
WOrrle, M., 236n. 17
Xenokrates, 116
Xenophon, 200
Zanker, Paul, 75
Zeno of Alexandria, 117
Zeno of Citium, 110-14
Zeno of Sidon, 67, 108, 115, 117, 118,
120
Ziebarth, E. 78n. 8
Zopyros, 65

Zuntz, Gunther, 83

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Paradosis and Survival

Generated on 2014-05-30 15:15 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015041998249

Generated on 2014-05-30 15:15 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015041998249

Paradosis and Survival

Three Chapters in the History of

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

Copyright by the University of Michigan 1998

All rights reserved

Published in the United States of America by

The University of Michigan Press

Manufactured in the United States of America

@ Printed on acid-free paper

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise,

without the written permission of the publisher.

The photograph of Diogenes New Fragment 7 is courtesy of Martin Ferguson Smith;

are courtesy of the Oenoanda Survey of the British Institute of Archaeology at

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Paradosis and survival : three chapters in the history of

Epicurean philosophy / Diskin Clay.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-472-10896-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Epicureans (Greek philosophy) 2. Epicurus. I. Title.

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Generated on 2014-05-30 15:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015041998249

Tol; Oil ot;,

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chapters in the history of Epicurean philosophy. The philosophy of Epicurus

represents a potent revival of pre-Socratic philosophy in an age of teleology and

theology dramatically initiated by Plato's Timaeus and followed by Aristotle's

in the philosophical communities Epicurus attracted to himself in Mytilene and

Lampsakos on the Hellespont years before he established himself in Athens in

Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, a philosophical poem on origins and ends and

Epicurean philosophy in antiquity and the philosophical inscription of Diogenes

hundred years of varied landscapes and very difficult terrain.

My engagement with Epicurean philosophy did not begin with Epicurus or

Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. My dissertation at the University of Washington

(1967) was a study of Lucretius' translation of Greek philosophy. My first

publication in this field appeared in 1970 (essay 7 in this collection). This

reading of the proem to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and the subject of my

pre-Socratics. In my treatment of Lucretius, I tend to ignore, because Lucretius

Generated on 2014-05-30 15:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015041998249

seems to have ignored, the developments in Hellenistic philosophy after the

Lucretius, which was known to Cicero in 54 B.C. The activities in Campania of

Epicureans who were the contemporaries of Lucretius are represented by a

mitted to converting his contemporaries to Epicurean philosophy, but who,

unlike Lucretius, addressed his writings to those of his contemporaries who

could read his formidable Greek.

As we reach the final columns of Philodemus' histories of the Academic and

Stoic philosophers, we encounter the names of his friends, acquaintances, and

contemporaries: he speaks, for example, of Menekrates of Mytilene (a student of

Antiochus of Ascalon) as resident in Sicily "until recently" and of his students as

"our acquaintances" (PHere. 1021.24.8-11 and 35.5-8, discussed in essay 6).

standing of the poem (or poems) of Empedocles.

The exploration of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura undertaken in both my

face-to-face with what I have come to regard as the problem of "transparency."

Readers of Lucretius are in a more comfortable position than readers of Epi-