EPICURUS

Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who developed the ethics of simple pleasure, friendship, and retirement. He founded schools of philosophy that survived directly from the 4th century BCE until the 4th century CE.Epicurus was born of Athenian parents who had gone to Samos as military settlers. According to his own report, Epicurus began his study of philosophy at the age of 14. He was for three years (327–324) a student in the Ionian city of Teos, where his teacher was Nausiphanes, a disciple of the naturalistic philosopher Democritus. It may have been from this source that Epicurus’ atomistic theory came, which he used not as a means of studying physics but as the basis for a philosophical system that ultimately sought ethical ends.

At the age of 18, Epicurus went to Athens to perform the two years of military training required for Athenian citizenship. One year later Epicurus rejoined his parents at Colophon, where they had gone as exiles when, at the close of the Lamian War, Athens lost Samos to the Macedonians. For the next 10 years it seems probable that Epicurus travelled and studied. At the age of 32, he began to teach, first at Mytilene and subsequently at Lampsacus, a period that lasted from 311/310 to 307/306.Apart from his two years in Athens, Epicurus spent the first 35 years of his life in Asia. His Asiatic ties, which he continued to cultivate intensely all his life (including two or three actual journeys to Asia Minor), seem to have been reflected mainly in his choice of words and style and, more significantly, in the ecumenical scope of his philosophy.

THE SCHOOLS AT ATHENS AND ELSEWHERE 

When Epicurus and his followers came to Athens in 306, he bought a house and, in the garden, established a school, which came to be known as Ho Kepos (The Garden). What Epicurus brought to Athens was more a way of life than a school or a community. Unlike both of the famous schools, it admitted women, and even one of Epicurus’ slaves, named Mouse. It taught the avoidance of political activity and of public life.Quite different from the usual connotations borne by the term epicurean today, life in the house and garden was simple. There was no communal property, as was the case in Pythagorean schools. Epicurus wrote clearly but in no highly organized way. There was much correspondence with students in Athens and at other schools, some letters being concerned with doctrinal matters but many seeming to be merely social and friendly.

On the day in his 72nd year that Epicurus died painfully of prostatitis, he dictated an affectionate and touching letter to Idomeneus—probably intended, in fact, for all of his friends in Lampsacus—which displayed the spirit in which he had remained true to his philosophy of repose and serenity even in the throes of pain. Epicurus’ will left the house, garden, and some funds to trustees of the school. His slaves were freed, and provision was made that the daughter of Metrodorus should be wed to someone in the Athenian school, with the approval of Hermarchus.