PART III.. The Epicureans.

THE EPICUREANS.

CHAPTER XV.

EPICURUS AND THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL.

Epicurus, the son of the Athenian Neocles, was born in Samos in the year 342 or 341 B.C. His early education appears to have been neglected; and his knowledge of previous philosophic systems was very superficial, even at the time when he first came forward as an independent teacher. Still he can hardly have been so entirely self-taught as he wished to appear at a later period in life. The names, at least, of the individuals are on record who instructed him in the systems of Democritus and Plato; and although it is by no means an ascertained fact that he subsequently attended the lectures of Xenocrates, on the occasion of a visit to Athens, no doubt can be felt that he was acquainted with the writings of previous philosophers, from whom he borrowed important parts of his system and more particularly with those of Democritus.

After having been engaged as a teacher in several Schools in Asia Minor, he repaired to Athens about the year 306 B.C., and there founded a School of his own. The meeting-place of this School was the founder’s garden, and its centre of attraction was the founder himself, around whom a circle of friends gathered, knit together by a common set of principles, by a common affection for a master whom they almost worshipped, and by a common enjoyment of cultivated society. Opponents charged the Epicureans with gross impropriety, because they admitted not only women, but women of loose morality, to this circle of philosophic culture; but in the then state of Greek society, such conduct does not appear extraordinary. Here Epicurus laboured for six and thirty years, during which he succeeded in impressing a stamp on his School which is now seen definite and unchanged after the lapse of centuries. In the year 270 B.C. he succumbed to disease, the pains and troubles of which he bore with great fortitude. Out of the multitude of his writings only a few have come down to us, and these are for the most part unimportant ones. On the whole, these fragments bear out the unfavourable opinions which opponents have expressed with regard to his style.

Among the numerous scholars of Epicurus the best known are Metrodorus and Polyænus, both of whom died before their master; Hermarchus, upon whom the presidency of the School devolved after the death of Epicurus; and Colotes, against whom Plutarch, four hundred years later, wrote a treatise. Many others are also known, at least by name. The garden which Epicurus in his will left to the School continued after his death to be the external rallying-point for his followers. Hermarchus was succeeded by Polystratus, with whom Hippoclides is also mentioned as joint-president. Hermarchus and Hippoclides were succeeded by Dionysius, and Dionysius again by Basilides. Protarchus of Bargylium, and his pupil, Demetrius the Laconian, appear to belong to the second century before Christ; but the time in which these philosophers flourished cannot be established with certainty; and the same remark applies to several others whose names are on record.

Before the middle of the second century B.C. Epicureanism is said to have obtained a footing in Rome. It is certain that it existed there not long afterwards. C. Amafinius is mentioned as the first who paved the way for the spread of Epicurean doctrines by discussing them in Latin; and it is stated that these doctrines soon found many supporters, attracted partly by their merits, but more often by the simplicity and the ease with which they could be understood.

Towards the close of the second century Apollodorus, one of the most voluminous writers on philosophy, taught at Athens. His pupil, Zeno of Sidon, the most important among the Epicureans of that age, laboured for a long time successfully, both orally and in writing. About the same time Phædrus is heard of in Rome and Athens, and at a little later period Philodemus, and Syro or Sciro in Rome, and Patro, the successor of Phædrus, in Athens. The number of Epicureans at Rome, known to us chiefly from Cicero’s writings, is not small. No one of them has obtained a higher repute than T. Lucretius Carus. His poem, carefully reproducing the Epicurean notions on natural science, is one of the most valuable sources for the knowledge of their system. Contemporary with Lucretius was the celebrated physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, who resided at Rome, but to judge by the views on nature attributed to him, he was no genuine Epicurean, although connected with the Epicurean School.

In the following century several supporters of the practical philosophy of the Epicureans are known to us, but no one apparently approaching Zeno or Phædrus in scientific importance. Rehabilitated under the Antonines by the establishment of a public chair in Athens, the Epicurean School outlived most other systems, and continued to exist as late as the fourth century after Christ.