Vitae philosophorum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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