Notes

Introduction

Strauss 1952: 111-12.

See Ludwig 1998: 401-54; Paganini 2020: 963-79.

Nussbaum 1994: 503.

Chapter 1

1 Inwood and Gerson translate 'καθ^, 6πηλlκους...

2 On the use of the terms συμβεβηκ6τα and συμπτωματα in Epicurus and Lucretius' coining of coniuncta, see Sedley 1988: 303-16.

3 Alberti 1995: 181-3.

4 According to Morel 2000: 403-4, there is no reason to radically dissociate the analysis of human communities from the physical explanation of bodily aggregates [συστροφαl]. He argues that while human communities do not constitute bodies themselves, they must nevertheless receive properties whose status is analogous or identical to that of bodily properties.

5 The disagreements between Alberti's and Morel's interpretations evince this difficulty, as while Alberti identifies what is just with eventa of individuals (their actions), Morel assimilates what is just with coniuncta of human groupings that are subject to a pact.

6 See Philippson 1909: 490-1 and Adorno 1980: 155-6. Scholars disagree on the identity of the adversaries against whom Polystratus addresses his arguments. Philippson 1909: 496-9 denies that it was the Pyrrhonians because, he claims, even though they questioned the existence of natural moral values, they nevertheless proclaimed themselves to be following custom [συνηθεια] and the land norms; therefore, he suggested that the likely target was the Cynics. For Striker 1996: 130-1, Polystratus seems to be debating mainly the Sceptics, who, like the Cynics, also truly fought their master. Indelli 1978: 82, the most recent edition of the papyrus containing Polystratus' treatise, argues that it seems to be the Cynics, Stoics and Megarians who are confronted.

7 On the simplification of the list of categories in Hellenistic philosophies, see Kramer 1971: 75-107. On the Epicurean reformulation of the categories, see Kramer 1971: 84, Adorno 1980: 157-60, and Warren 2002: 142-9. In the preserved sections of Polystratus' treatise, the ‘translation' of the category of the relative [πρoς τι] to the vocabulary of Epicurean ontology is not explicitly tackled. Alberti 1995: 181-3 holds that all eventa are relatives. Warren 2002: 148, argues that Polystratus did not raise the issue of the position of these properties and, moreover, that he did not need to do so, because the argument is purely dialectical, and metaphysics is not the main subject of the treatise.

8 This is one of the central approaches of the sceptical tropes collected by Sextus Empiricus (Kramer 1971: 96-107).

9 To some extent, this evokes Aristotle's EN 1096a26, in which an example of the meaning of the good in the category of relation [πρoς τι] is τo χρησιμον. Polystratus xxv 18-19 points out that the relative predicates do not occupy the same space [χωρα] as things said in virtue of a particular nature [κατα την iδiαν φυσιν λεγoμενα]. Interestingly, this metaphorical use of the term χωρα is also found in PD 37 in reference to what is just and useful: ‘Of things considered to be just, that which is confirmed to be useful in the necessities of mutual associations has its existence in the domain of the just [εχει τo εν του δικαiου χωρa εiναι], whether it is the same for everyone or not'.

10 The passage provides a reminder of the contrast between preconceptions [προληψεις] and false suppositions [υποληψεις ψευδεlς] concerning the gods (LM 124, 1), as Epicurus also contrasts the preconception of the just with empty assertions [φωναiς κενouς] about the just (PD 37).

Sedley 1988: 305-7; Alesse 2011: 200-11.

Alesse 2011: 209-10.

Kahn 1981: 95.

Kahn 1981: 96.

Some interpreters, such as Solmsen 1936: 209-10, held that Plato's elaboration combined the theories of the Presocratics and the Sophists. More recently, Sedley 2013: 346-7 and Betegh 2016: 25-32 have suggested Archelaus; the few preserved testimonies indicate that Archelaus distanced himself from the function that his master Anaxagoras ascribed to the intelligence [νους] and developed a mechanistic physics that was extended in explanations about the origin of living beings, communities, techniques and laws. Tate 1936: 53-4 had previously suggested Archelaus.

See Sedley 2004: 119-23.

The texts by Lucretius and Diogenes of Oenoanda highlight the rejection of the figure of a divine or human legislator or inventor of language. For a compilation of passages and comments, see Levine 2003: 170-81. The idea of a legislator of language is surely inspired by Plato (see Cratylus 388d-390a, where it is established that the name-making artisan should be a legislator; on this cf. Sedley 2004: 66-74). Plato argues that, in addition to favorable conditions and his own art, the legislator needs divine support (see Laws 708d-709d).

See Brunschwig 1994: 25-32, 37-8 and Levine 2003: 172-4.

In the PD (33; 36-38) he asserts that justice arises from pacts, but, as already indicated, also emphasizes that what is just (understood as what is useful for the pact based on the principle of ‘neither harming nor being harmed') depends on the specific circumstances of each people and territory. Philippson 1910: 298-9, held that the Epicureans had defended the idea of natural law in the supposed parallelism existing between the origin and development of language and that of justice and laws. Muller 1972: 93-9 presents the most detailed critique of Philippsons thesis. For Goldschmidt 1977: 167, the genesis of right begins where the formation of language ends (see chapter 3).

Kahn 1981: 94.

Dierauer 1977: 28-30 attributes a fundamental role to Archelaus in shaping this topic. Campbell 2003: 193, 339-40, has compiled several mentions of the primitive ‘bestial life' [θηριmδης βiος] in Graeco-Latin literature. The contexts are very different (tragedy, medicine, philosophy, architecture, oratory, history), although the contrast between primitive bestial life and civilized life seems to have been highlighted especially in rationalist treatments of prehistory to emphasize that, while primitive people were not divinely endowed with technology (Plato, Prot. 321c-e), they gradually acquired it by their effort. 'There are, however, theological versions of this lack, where it is derived from the resentment of the gods or is seen as a deliberate spur of the gods to stimulate human inventiveness. Lovejoy and Boas 1935 offers a helpful compilation of ancient texts devoted to the figure of primitive man.

22 Erler 2008: 49-52, 2002 and 2020: 28.

23 On the differences between the history based on written testimonies and the rational reconstruction of prehistory, see Manuwald 1980: 6-7, 12-13. Taking these differences as his starting point, Manuwald emphasizes that Lucretius does not properly speak of ‘history of culture' [Kulturgeschichte] but, rather, of ‘theory of the origin of culture' [Kulturentstehungslehre]. On the diachronic analogies of Lucretius' prehistoric reconstruction see Schiesaro 1990: 91-139. Brunschwig 1994: 22, 35, stresses that the stages of the so-called rationalist ‘archaeologies' of prehistory reveal the authors' understanding of the essence of the phenomenon whose genealogy they consider (for example, language or justice).

24 As Manuwald 1980: 56 n. 212 emphasizes, mollescere in RN 5.1014 combines the literal meaning ‘to weaken' with the positive translational meaning ‘to become sweet, friendly'. Manuwald suggests that the most appropriate translation would be ‘humanization' [Humanisierung].

25 On the topic of man as an unarmed animal, see Dierauer 1977: 48-52.

26 See Holmes 2013: 180-91. The usefulness of children as help and security in the old age of their parents and relatives (Lucretius, RN 4.1256) and for the preservation of the homeland is a recurrent theme in ancient literature.

27 As it is known, in Aristotle, one can find the classic expositions of such an idea (see Nagle 2006: 177-200). Aristotle observes that the origins and sources of friendship [φιλiα] are given in the family (EE 1242b1). He says of children the same as he indicates of friends: A friend is like ‘another himself' (EN 1161b27-28, 1166a31-32). The φιλiα toward the children consequently prolongs that of the parents toward themselves.

28 Holmes 2013: 180-91.

29 Verlinsky 2005: 86-90 has highlighted the remarkable resemblance of this Lucretian text to a passage by the ethnographer Agatharchides, where he refers to the insensitivity and impassivity of the ichthyophagoses when their wives and children are beheaded before them. Agatharchides stresses that the ichthyophagoses manifest neither anger nor pity. Agatharchides blames their extreme insensitivity on using only inarticulate sounds and gestures (cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 3.18 4-6). For Verlinsky, the comparison of this observation by Agatharchides, which is accompanied by other references to Epicurean approaches, with Lucretius' verses would show that for the Epicureans the first cause of the articulation of language would be the development of emotions favored by the mollescere of the primitive man.

30 For Mitsis 1988: 105-6 and Armstrong 1997: 327 n. 8, the word amicitiem in RN 5.1019 cannot be translated into ‘friendship’ because the content of the agreement establishing amicities is none other than that of the contract of justice - that is, not to harm or be harmed - which does not seem to be a sufficient basis for friendship. Yet, neither Nussbaum 1994: 266 n. 33 nor Konstan 2008: 90-2 find convincing arguments to deny affective implications of friendship in the term amicities, such as it is used by Lucretius. It is precisely Lucretius who presents them, along with compassion for the weak, as an innovation in the history of humanity that, together with the recognition of what is useful, makes possible and founds the first pacts of human groups.

31 These interpretations are reviewed in Goldschmidt 1977: 75-6 and Konstan 2008: 89-90. For Schrijvers 1999: 102-7, the use of the verb commendari in RN 5.1021, as well as the Lucretian theory of the origin of language, show that Lucretius appropriated the Stoic theory of familiarization [οiκεiωσις] and conflated it with the Epicurean idea of the pact and the mollire resulting from voluptas. Schrijvers omits the reference to the central function of piety and compassion in the origin of justice, clearly stated in the verse imbecillorum esse aequum miserier omnis (RN 5.1023). The Stoics, as is well known, condemn piety and compassion (on this detail, see Aoiz et al. 2014: 153). Campbell 2003: 277-8, 281 takes the use of the verb commendari in RN 5.1021 to be consistent with the Epicurean approaches with which Lucretius operates. In our opinion, Algra 1997 convincingly showed that, in these verses, Lucretius reflected approaches equivalent to the Stoic theory of οiκεiωσις, which were inspired, like this one, by the convictions of the Greek tradition about the formation of communities and the different degrees of friendship and interpersonal relationships. In the postscript to his well-known paper, ‘Pleasure and social utility: the virtues of being Epicurean’, Long 2006: 199-201 agreed with Algra’s approach. Vander Waerdt 1988 and Besnier 2001: 138-43 dealt with the presence of the term οiκεiωσις in the Hermarchus extract transmitted by Porphyry (Abst. 1.7, 1) from very different perspectives. Both of them emphasize their secondary contribution to the explanation of the origin of justice and the laws of Hermarchus; however, while Vander Waerdt insists that it represents a reformulation of Stoic approaches, Besnier suggests that it should be framed in Democritus’ reflections on recognition among animals of the same species. Regarding Lucretius’ relation to evolutionist and rationalist accounts, Campbell 2003: 1-8 compares Lucretius’ view with Empedocles, Plato’s Timaeus, and Darwin. He concludes that Lucretius can be considered an anti-evolutionist in modern terminology, as he insists on the fixation of species, and also as an evolutionist, as he accounts for the clear difference between the human race and animals with an evolutionary process. Konstan 2017 has shown how the recognition of the evolutionary process of the human race, which Lucretius expressed through the verb mollescere, differentiated the Epicureans from the Stoics. For the latter, human nature had always remained the same.

Πασα φιλiα δι' εαυτην αrρετη∙ aρχην δε ειληφεν aπo της ωφελε(ας. In the manuscript it is written as αρετη. Usener 1888: 183, proposed the correction αiρετη. More recently, Essler 2012: 147 proposed aρεστη, a verbal adjective frequently employed by Philodemus.

Usener 1888: 183. For Brown 2002 :79, the reading proposed by Usener requires to attribute the SV 23 not to Epicurus but to more recent Epicureans (to whom Cicero refers in Fin. 2.82).

H φιλiα περιχορευει την οiκουμενην κηρυττουσα δη πaσιν ημiν εγεiρεσθαι επi τoν μακαρισμoν. Armstrong, 2011:105-9 has convincingly drawn attention to the rather metaphorical sense of this and other passages in Epicureanism that also use the language of the mystical cults.

See Mitsis 1988: 127-8 and Annas 1993: 240-1.

See O'Connor 1989: 173-7, O'Keefe 2001, and Nemeth 2017: 181-3.

See Gill 2002, 12-18, Algra 2003: 272-3, 291, Long 2006: 201, Gray 2015: 37-41. Konstan 2000: 7 has shown that even Callicles admits a concern for others ( Gorg. 486b6-7, 492c2). Convincingly, Essler 2012 has focused on showing that the egoism-altruism disjunction is not appropriate for tackling Epicurean considerations on friendship.

Gill 2002: 334-55; Algra 2003: 270-3.

Aristotle, EN 1166a7-8, a27-29 and Konstan 2000: 14 n. 22.

Some (such as Barigazzi 1983: 84-7), maintain that PD 39 and 40 refer to the life of the Epicurean communities. For Philippson 1910: 304-5, they indicate stages of the development of history of the right and society. Others argue that, as in the case of VS 61, the frame of reference would be interpersonal relations in general, which would not necessarily rule out Philippsons interpretation.

Hirzel 1877: 170-2 claims that the theory of the Epicurean timidiores represents an adaptation of Epicureanism to Roman culture, whose authors were Philodemus and Siro. For Tsouna 2001: 161-4, the three theories of friendship expounded by Cicero do not compete with each other; instead, they complement one another. Cicero could have been inspired by Philodemus, Zeno of Sidon, or a source common to them all (Tsouna 2007: 14-15). On this issue see also Mitsis 2019: 112.

Goldschmidt 1977: 71 n. 3, proposes to translate συστροφouς by Trequentations'. See also the use of the expression συντροφiα καi συνηθεια regarding the first gatherings of men in Polybius' Histories (6.5.9-10).

Mitsis 1988: 107-9.

Mitsis, like Cole 1990: 139 n. 29, considers it unlikely that Epicurus subscribed to the considerations on friendship that Cicero attributed to the Epicureans. Mitsis 2019 reconsiders his earlier interpretation of Cicero's testimony.

See Cole 1990: 22, 83-4, 87-90, 131-3, 171.

Aubenque 2014: 106-52.

47 Roskam 2007b: 35-6 and 2007a, 36-41. Lactantius Div. Inst. 3.17, 2-7 offers a caricature of this qualification of the Epicurean philosophy by pointing out that Epicurus, to please everyone, enunciated principles that are adapted to the character of each one and that generated, in him, varied and opposing customs that made him debate with himself in an immense internal struggle.

48 Fish 2011: 96-101.

49 Through a keen analysis of Lucretius' comparison of certain politicians with Sisyphus (RN 3.995-1003), Fish 2011 provides an illustrative example of a traditional misinterpretation of Epicureanism that relegates the flexibility of its prudential approach to the choice of ways of life.

50 In Rhetoric 5, col. xx 25-36, Philodemus employs a similar contrast by pointing out that while most people and Epicurean philosophers consider the same thing to be just, good and honourable, the latter achieve an επιλογιστικως grasp of these realities, while the formers understanding is given παθητικως and thus often forgotten. Muller 1983: 192-5 maintains that the two levels of preconception of the just correspond to the two moments distinguished by Hermarchus in grasping what is useful for human groups. The lower or simpler degree of the preconception of the just would be the result of the irrational memory of what is useful (αλογος μνημη του συμφεροντος; Abst. 1.10, 4); the higher degree would be reached through the ‘comparative appreciation' of the useful (επιλογισμoν του χρησiμου, Abst. 1.8, 2). Of course, the preconception of the just mentioned in PD 37-38 presupposes this (on which see chapter 3).

Chapter 2

1 Hamilton 2013: 7. The Latin noun securitas seems to have been coined by Cicero out of the pre-existent adjective securus. The prefix se- denotes separation or negation, such as the privative α in aταραξiα or aσφaλεια. For Cicero, according to Hamilton 2013: 51, securitas removes a cura that is negative and psychological, an oppressive source of anxiety, and denotes a mental state of calm. In Fin 5.23, Cicero uses securitas as a synonym for ευθυμiα. Later, the term denotes an idea of military or government protection; that is, it approaches the sense of ασφαλεια (on this, see Hamilton 2013: 58-9).

2 On the history of theses analogies see Brock 2013: 79-112. For discussion of the ship analogy in Plato cf. Gastaldi 2003: 187-216 and Schofield 2006: 27-30; 53-5. Plato provides a fresh version of the analogy in the Stat. 296e-297b; see also Laws 758a-b, 906d-e, and especially 961e-962a, where the idea of the 'salvation' or ‘preservation' (961e4: σωζουσιν; 962a1: σωτηρiα) of the ship is associated with that of the helmsman and the sailors (in the analogy these are, respectively, the ruler and

the ruled).

3 Fear also plays a central role regarding security in the internal and external politics of the Greek city, as it works as a principle of so-called ‘negative associations’. These are associations that are the result of a common interest moved by a common concern, such as the ‘common fear’ [o κοινoς φoβος] that can exist even among enemies who, for the sake of their self-preservation, decide to join with each other (see Pol. 1304b23-24). Such common fear guarantees to a certain degree the cohesion of the community as well as compliance with laws and strategy in international relations. Evrigenis 2008: 22-46 has analysed the political function of fear in Thucydides and Aristotle. See also Piepenbrink 2017.

4 The terms στασις (‘civil war’) and ασφαλεια (‘security’) in Archaic Greece have been dealt with by van Wees 2007. For the lexicon and theme of security in the political discourses of classical Athens, see Piepenbrink 2016.

5 Aristotle clearly seems to have this passage in mind when stating that warfare [η πολεμικη] will be somehow a natural part of property acquisition, as it should be used both against wild beasts and against those people who are unwilling to be ruled (see Pol. 1256b23-25).

6 On this point, see Miller 1995: 35-6. In Pol. 1315a31-35 Aristotle argues that given that a polis is composed of two parts (the poor and the rich), it is best to suppose that both of them are preserved due to the government, and such a government prevents either from being injured by the other. In 1321a5-12, he states that in some cities, where the country turns out to be suitable for cavalry, there are natural conditions for the establishment of a ‘powerful oligarchy?’ and, in fact, the preservation (or ‘security’: σωτηρiα) of the inhabitants depends on this kind of power, i.e. ‘horse power’ (and, of course, the horse breeding is the privilege of those who have significant means). Elsewhere, Aristotle refers to the dispute over whether access to the sea is beneficial or harmful to a well-ruled city. For it is argued that, for example, the overpopulation of a multitude of traders (who use the sea for their activities involving importing and exporting merchandise) is contrary to being well governed. But if these problems are avoided, he claims, it is better for a city to have access to the sea, both for the sake of security and for ensuring a ready supply of necessary things (Pol. 1327a19: πρoς ασφαλειαν καi πρoς ευπορiαν των aναγκαiων).

7 Cohen 2000: 28.

8 Cohen 2000: 31.

9 Rashed 2002: 44-5.

10 In De Romilly’s judgement 1971: 112-14, 140-3, both the Anonymous Iamblichus (100, 5) and the figure of Meidias himself in Demosthenes’ Against Meidias describe a profile similar to that of Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias. Sancho’s 2011 study of the accusations from ασεβεια and υβρις in Against Meidias coincides with De Romilly’s assessment.

11 Cf. Cohen 2005: 175,206.

12 Goldschmidt 1977: 33.

13 See also Aristotle Rh. 1402b10-12; EN 1113b30-33.

14 Goldschmidt 1977: 51-7 held that Hermarchus departed from the position of Epicurus who, based on the recognition of current practices and customs, accepted the existence of legal relationships between human beings and domesticated animals. In Goldschmidt’s opinion, the position of Epicurus reappears in Lucretius (RN 2.1092; 5.860-874) under the ‘quasi-contract’ represented by the legal figure of the tutela of domesticated animals. Goldschmidt’s interpretation has not found a following among other interpreters.

15 Goldschmidt 1977: 70.

16 This is even clearer in the case of Aristotle, as he explicitly states that ethics is a sort of ‘appendix’ to politics. In fact, politics is taken to be the most architectonic science (EN 1094a26-27), as it is the science that ‘prescribes (διατασσει) which of the sciences need to exist in cities and which ones each group in cities should learn and up to what point’ (Aristotle, EN 1094a28-b2).

17 Roskam 2007b: 79.

18 Hermarchus states that it is also happening now (καi νυν συμβαlνον; Abs. 1.7 4), as it had done in the origins, that some understand the advantages of abstaining from crime and abstain, while others do so out of fear of the threats of the law. This is the only reason, Hermarchus reiterates (Abs. 1.8 3), that even today ordinary people abstain from committing harmful actions in private and in public. The p resent domesticated state of men (την καθεστωσαν ημερoτητα; Abs. 1.9 5), says Hermarchus, is due to the measures that legislators originally established to tame the irrational movement of appetite. The first legislators thus introduced legislation which is still in force today (τας ετι μενουσας καi νυν κατa τε εθνη πoλεις; Abs. I 11 1) and which has advantages for our daily life, such as the laws which regulate current behaviour with wild and domestic animals (1.11 4-6). As we do not live in the same place, Hermarchus emphasizes (1.12 4), these laws are different. The license that we now have to kill animals derives, according to Hermarchus (1.12 5-6), from the fact that it is not possible for us to establish agreements with them.

19 Interestingly, the three expressions (ασφαλεια, ησυχiα, θορυβων) that Colotes uses to refer to the benefits derived from the establishment of laws and magistracies belong to the standard descriptive lexicon of the Epicurean way of life.

20 Konstan 2008: 117 sees in αφοβiα one of the factors that promote the violation of the prevailing solidarity before the necessary implementation of laws and sanctions. In our opinion, Hermarchus, on the contrary, gives αφοβiα a totally positive sense (as is also the case in the Anonymous Iamblichus and Demosthenes’ Against Meidias). In fact, Hermarchus does not attribute αφοβiα to the disappearance of the threat of wild animals but to the fulfillment of the laws that authorize their death because of the security of the community.

21 See Neck 1964: 46-74, 82-4. To be sure, these considerations can be taken as part of the epic form and didactic character of Lucretius' poem. However, they can also be considered as an implicit argument for proving that, given that the whole of reality is in permanent change, human beings must be especially attentive if they want to constitute and preserve a real political order: Without security regarding other animals and persons there can be no political community. Lucretius' intention (in these and other similar passages) can also be read in the sense that, if indeed many things disappear and others reappear (in the everlasting process to which the whole of nature is subject), and if the human world is not exempt from that kind of process, the human effort to constitute and preserve true political communities is particularly demanding. Humans are not only subject, like the rest of living creatures, to change and eventual destruction; the fact of being in possession of a rational capacity (which places us above the rest of the living species) obliges us to make sensible plans to preserve our political communities. PD 37 and 38 show the permanent need to adapt the laws to the preconception of what is just due to the emergence of new circumstances or the verification of the inefficiency and uselessness of what was previously regarded to be just (see chapter 3, section 2).

22 Gardner 2020: 79-112.

23 Erler 2020: 118-20.

24 G. Muller 1977: 218. Sedley 2004: 165.

25 Diogenes Laertius (6.13) reports that, according to Diocles, Antisthenes stated that prudence is the surest fortress, for it neither crumbles nor gives in to betrayal [ Τειχος aσφαλεστατον φρoνησιν μητε γαρ καταρρεlν μητε προδiδοσθαι].

26 Kechagia 2011: 157-60.

27 As observed by Long 2006: 180, 186, the pre-social individuals that Lucretius conceives of in RN 5. 924-1010 could not have practised an Epicurean way of life, as they lacked the minimum conditions of subsistence and security. Epicurus takes it for granted that humans have reached a level of civilization and technical sophistication more than sufficient to satisfy the external conditions of happiness.

28 On this inflection of the term φυσις in Epicureanism, already present, for example, in Antiphon see Pasquali 1970: 24-5; Manuwald 1972: 85-7; Brunschwig 1994: 45-8; Pendrick 2002: 319-20.

29 Campbell 2003: 10-12 rightly observes that the terms ‘primitivism' and ‘progressivism' proposed by Lovejoy and Boas 1935: 1-22 do not accurately describe the views of any ancient anthropologist, and more often obfuscate rather than illuminate ancient theories. In the case of Lucretius, this is especially evident.

30 One of the inscriptions of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Smith 1993: Frag. 35) reads: As a matter of fact this fear is sometimes clear, sometimes not clear [ατρανης] - clear when we avoid something manifestly [εκ φανερου] harmful like fire through fear that we shall meet death by it, not clear when, while the mind is occupied with something else, it (fear) has insinuated itself into our nature and [lurks]...' (transl. Smith 1993: 385). In Warren's view (2004: 11-12), Diogenes' distinction is not Epicurean because it contradicts the thesis ‘death is nothing to us' on which the possibility of eliminating the wholly irrational fear of death is based. Nevertheless, in RN 5.970-1010, Lucretius also suggests a distinction close to that of Diogenes. Austin 2012 argues against Warren that the fear of violent death is, for Epicurus, ineliminable and sometimes even advantageous. For Austin, the desire for security from violent death at the hand of others is natural and necessary and there is no way to remove it. Armstrong 2004: 40-3 has highlighted that, in On death, Philodemus refers to ‘the most natural sting' [τo φυσικωτατον δηγμα] that is experienced in the face of death. Armstrong establishes a parallel between the references of Philodemus to ‘natural rage' [φυσικη oργη] and the ‘natural stings' [φυσικα δηγματα] before death, which even the wise would suffer. In both cases, a distinction analogous to that of Diogenes of Oenoanda seems to be suggested. For Philodemus' analysis of φυσικη oργη, see also Armstrong 2011. According to Konstan 2008: 75-6, 146-9, obsessive love should also be included in the typology of unlimited desires.

See Sedley 2013: 331,337-41.

Gigante: 1957: 97-8.

See Obbink 1995: 198-9.

According to Piergiacomi 2016, Diogenes has the final myth of Plato's Gorgias in mind. Obbink 1995: 206-9, has shown that, while the Epicureans' rejection of the myth is unequivocal, they nevertheless gave their approval to several pious hymns to the god. On Epicureans and prayer, see Piergiacomi 2013; Erler 2020: 88-99.

Fowler 2002: 80.

SV 43: ‘It is impious to love money [φιλαργυρεiν] unjustly, and shameful to do so justly; for it is indecent to be sordidly stingy even when one acts justly'.

On the difficulties of the expression χαριν των σοφων, see Goldschmidt 1977: 97 n. 1, and Besnier 2001: 133 n. 11.

Warren 2018: 218.

The comparison with Zeus is especially significant in a text that refers to hope [ελπiζειν] of human beings, since, as is known, Greek literature emphasizes that for mortals, unlike the gods, the future is ‘opaque' [αδηλον] and hopes are often empty (see Semonides 1.1-10). Barigazzi 1983: 73-4 underlined the importance of the confident disposition towards the future [ελπiς] in Epicurus' views on security, an aspect of his thinking, which, as can be seen in the recent work of Kazantzidis and Spatharas 2018: 23, frequently goes unnoticed by interpreters. On the complex semantics of ελπiς, see Cairns 2016.

Warren 2018 has shown how widespread this claim by Epicurus was in antiquity and how his adversaries used it to refute him, which seems to have moved Demetrius of Laconia to submit the fragment to his famous philological expertise.

43 Warren 2014: 204-7; Warren 2018: 220-1.

44 Plutarch (Pleasant life 1009E) does not fail to observe that it is an unreliable and unsafe foundation for living pleasantly. See also Origen, Against Celsus 3.80,23-27.

45 Some interpreters have pointed out that the consideration of the past and the future would differentiate the Epicurean hedonism from the Cyrenean theory of pleasure which is ‘uni-temporal’ [μον6χρονος], as proposed by Tsouna 1998: 15-16, to translate this adjective (see also Mitsis 1988: 50-8: Warren 2014: 189-96, 201-3). For Cyrenaics, in Tsouna’s opinion, pleasure has no prospective or retrospective value due to its kinetic nature. In his monograph on the Cyrenaics, Lampe 2015: 56-99 has questioned whether the anti-eudaimonism that several contemporary interpreters deduced from the supposed ‘presentism’ of Cyrenaics can be categorically maintained. The relegation of personal identity, the radical subjectivism or the ‘a-prudentialism’ on which they base this interpretation do not resist a careful analysis of the testimonies on the Cyrenaics. In fact, such testimonies allow us to glimpse their connection to the prudential tradition and their similarities with the approaches of Hellenistic ethics, especially the Stoic one (on the relevance of abiding to the present, see Goldschmidt 1953: 168-86).

46 Gigante 1993 has collected and analysed the relevant texts concerning the relationship between Cynicism and Epicureanism. Regarding the debate on begging, penury and heritage, see Muller 1972: 24-8; Asmis 2004: 148-9; Balch 2004: 192-6; Tsouna 2012: xxv-xxxiii. Woolf 2009 rightly emphasizes that Epicureans do not pursue luxury, but neither do they exhort themselves to avoid their enjoyment

(see LM 131 and the ingenious appropriation that Plutarch (Us. 490) makes of this passage). Rider 2019: 10-14 has also convincingly argued against the ascetic image of Epicurean life. On the alleged Epicurean ‘exercises’ of frugality, see Avotins 1977.

47 On this point, see Garcia 1991: 207-13.

48 See also Tsouna 2012:100-1.

49 In On Property Management, Philodemus uses the expressions ‘measure of wealth’ [πλουτου μετρον] (col. xii 18-19) and ‘natural wealth’ [φυσικoς πλουτος] (col. xiv 19). See Tsouna 2012: xxvi-xxvii.

50 Yona’s 2018 article on Horace (Satires 1.1) offers an interesting sample of this closeness. Yona refers to the ‘quasi-Aristotelian doctrine of a measure of wealth’ of the Epicureans and maintains that, although traditionally these verses of Horace have been related to the Aristotelian doctrine of the middle-term, they seem rather to reflect the reception and application of the approaches that his contemporary Philodemus developed in On Property Management.

51 This, indeed, implies the disposition of the property of the Epicurean for the sake of friends (see Philodemus, On Property Management xxiv 19-xxv 23).

52 This is a very condensed way of saying that ‘pains which produce great distress are short in duration, and those which last for a long time in the flesh cause only mild distress' (Epicurus, VS 4).

53 See also the parallel passage in Cicero, Fin. 1.68; when he states that ‘there is no eternal or even long-lasting bad thing ( aut sempiternum aut diuturnum timeret malum) to fear', it is clear that he is reading Epicurus' PD 28 [μηθεν o⅛i>νιον εiναι δεινoν μηδε πολυχρoνιον].

54 Armstrong 2011: 126-8; 2016: 184-91. Armstrong 2011: 105-8 has convincingly analysed the language of mystery and initiation present in various statements by Epicurus about friendship (see VS 52 and 78).

55 For the Stoic city as a community of friends (or of ‘wise people'), see Stobaeus, Ecl.

2.108, 5-28, ed. Wachsmuth (which stresses the view that friendship is admitted only among the wise; this is so because only among them is there concord, which is ‘the knowledge of common goods'). The Stoic point is that true friendship cannot exist without trust and psychological stability. Unlike the Stoic view, the Epicurean notion of friendship emphasizes the issue of utility, but, like the Stoics, Epicurus states that there must be confidence among friends, and that such confidence is so strong that the Epicurean wise person will have ‘the same feelings for his friend as for himself' (sapiens erit affectus erga amicum, quo in se ipsum; Cicero, Fin. 1.68, reporting Epicurus' view). According to Epicurus, when there is a lack of confidence, friendship has been destroyed ( VS 56-57). But the somehow radical Stoic stance that ‘all those who are not virtuous are hateful, enemies, slaves, and strangers to each other' (DL 7.32-34; SVF 1.226; LS 67B) is not shared by the Epicureans. If this is so, though Epicurus and the Epicureans sometimes seem to be thinking primarily of the ‘community of Epicurean friends', it is not impossible that they were also suggesting that their ‘political model' was capable of being applied to the polis at large.

56 De Sanctis 2012.

57 Roskam 2007b: 139-44.

58 Erler 2020: 48-58. Arenson 2019: 132-3, following to some extent Merlan, focuses on the fact that Epicurus is counteracting his bodily pains rather than his mental ones, with his joy. She is right in pointing out that it is not the case that Epicurus no longer feels bodily pain thanks to his joy of mind. What is not so clear, though, is Arenson's view that, even having been unable to counteract his bodily pain (in fact, Epicurus still feels pain even recalling the past conversations with Idomeneus), Epicurus has lost absence of pain [απονiα], but maintains his imperturbability [αταραξiα]. The word aπονiα means more than the painless condition of one's body. It can also mean the absence of psychological pain; that is why freedom from anxiety (or tranquillity: αταραξiα) and the absence of pain are stable or ‘katastematic' pleasures (DL 10. 36), while joy and delight are regarded as kinetic pleasures in action. Epicurus' joy of soul in recollecting the past discussions with Idomeneus and the other Epicurean friends does not remove his physical pain but is helpful in neutralizing and likely moderating it. This issue could even be seen from the perspective of physics and the theory of causation: since in every causal relationship what causes and what is caused must be of a bodily nature.

59 In Fin 2.96, Cicero refers again to the Letter to Idomeneus, which, according to him, was addressed to Hermarchus. Cicero understands the word ‘conversations, ‘discussions' [διαλογισμοi] as the theories and discoveries (scripta et inventa) of Epicurus (see also Us. 191) and accuses him of being inconsistent. Most contemporary translators give διαλογισμοi the meaning of ‘conversations' or ‘discussions'. Arrighetti 1973, however, opts for ‘ragionamenti philosophic!, probably from the use of διαλογισμoς in LP 84, and from διαλογiσματα in LP 85 and LH 68. Cooper's 1999: 502 reading of διαλογισμοi also takes them as ‘philosophical discussions'. Our interpretation of the Letter to Idomeneus concurs with the translations by Cicero, Arrighetti, and Cooper.

60 As Cooper 1999: 502 has pointed out, the pleasure of the exercise of philosophy, like the pleasure of its memory, is both physical and intellectual. See also Giovacchini 2007: 31-3. For Giovacchini 2007: 4, the ‘reminiscence affective' (Salem 1989: 44-52) operates as an ability to refind the balance [σταθμoς] of pleasures and pains, rationally rewarding the ‘balance of the flesh' [τo ευσταθες σαρκoς κατaστημα].

61 See the seminal work by De Witt 1937 and the subsequent works by Gorler 1997, Milanese 2003, and Rider 2019. On the meaning of the term ‘gratitude' [χαρις] in Aristotle and Epicurus and of grata, ingrata, and ingratum in several passages of Lucretius RN 3, see, respectively, Konstan 2006: 157-68 and Rider 2019: 6-8.

62 Curiously, VS 75 points out that Solon's well-known dictum (‘a man should not be called happy while he lives, but only when he has already reached his end'; cf. Aristotle, EE 1219b6-7), which he synthesizes in the expression ‘look to the end of a long life', is ungrateful for past goods [εiς τα παρφχηκoτα aγαθa aχaριστος].

63 Grilli has proposed an analysis of the disposition [διαθεσις] and stability [ευσταθεια] of the Epicurean sage from the consideration of the movement of atoms (see Grilli 1983 and 1994). For Grilli 1994: 243, in the expression ‘the stable condition of the flesh' [τo γαρ ευσταθες σαρκoς κατaστημα] of the passage we have just cited above On the end, the adjective ευσταθες (‘stable') refers to the stability of atomic movements in the flesh. Grilli also suggests that Epicurus received from Democritus the term ευσταθεια. On the difficulties of an atomistic interpretation of the term ευσταθεια in Democritus, see Warren 2002: 58-72.

Chapter 3

1 The Ciceronian testimony is now widely accepted, and the lexicography seems to corroborate it, since no mention of prolepsis is recorded prior to Epicurus. We also owe to Cicero the most extended proposals of translation ( anticipatio; praenotio ); indeed, he is also responsible for the innatist interpretation of the term.

The word ‘naturalistic’ can be ambiguous in so far as it can refer either to a ‘political naturalism' (i.e. the theory that political communities exist ‘by nature, in the sense that it is in human nature to generate such communities) or to a naturalistic (or physicalistic) conception of reality. To be sure, the Epicureans were physicalists and thus ‘naturalists’ in their conception of reality, but in advocating a contractual political model they were not ‘naturalists’.

See Long 1999: 623.

For an updated discussion of the issue of preconception in Epicurus and the Epicureans, see Tsouna 2016.

The passage is printed by Masi 2006: 94-5, who also provides a brief discussion of the preconception of responsibility (124-5). For the Epicurus passage see also Long and Sedley 1987: 20C, 2-4.

See Epicurus, On Nature 28, fr, 12 col. III, 9-14, and the comments by Manuwald 1972: 87-102, and Sedley 1973: 19-23, 59-60.

On this, see Asmis 2004: 159 and more recently Tsouna 2012: xxv-xxvii (especially xxvii). The fact that natural wealth is one (among other things) that we naturally seek in order to satisfy natural desires and thus feel pleasure indicates that wealth cannot be completely removed from life, as the Cynics recommend. In VS 25 Epicurus states that wealth can be taken to be a great poverty if limits are not set for it, which implies, we think, that wealth, within its limits, is something necessary (this view is present in Philodemus' idea that wealth ‘does not bring profitless difficulties - αλυσιτελεiς δυσχερεiας - through itself, but rather through the wickedness of those who use it’; παρa τη[ν] των χρωμενων κακiαν; transl. Tsouna 2012. Additionally, the Epicurean interest is always focused on removing the disturbance of the soul, as suggested by Epicurus himself in VS 81.

And let alone from the iusnaturalistic approach, as Phillippson argued (see his 1910: 292-5).

Epicurus, LH 45; 73-74. Lucretius, RN 4.823-857 ; 5.156-234, 837-877 etpassim. Dodds 1959: 268. Some commentators are used to substituting the Sophist Antiphon’s periphrasis τα της φυσεως (Pendrick 2002: fr. 44a 1, 22-3) with nouns such as ‘precepts’ or ‘norms’. However, as Pendrick wisely suggests, that is not necessary as long as such periphrasis is nothing more than an expression equivalent to φυσις (Pendrick 2002; 323-4).

On this detail see Clay 2001: 28; 34-5.

Erler 2012: 45-55 has underlined another example of this procedure: the striking Epicurean reformulation of the Platonic wording of the Timaeus contained in the expression ‘firm contemplation’ [απλανης θεωρiα], coined by Epicurus (LM 128). On this issue see below chapter 6, section 3.

14 Gomez-Lobo 2017: 60-1 has conveniently suggested that Callicles' maxim ‘that the stronger rule the weaker' might have been inspired by Thucydides’ famous Melian Dialogue. He notes that both texts assign a special place to the terms ‘law’ [νoμος] and ‘nature’ [ φυσις], and above all, in both passages, one can find a theory of power which is supposed to justify certain forms of domination.

15 On this point see chapter 2, section 2.

16 The crucial role played by the issue of ‘suspicion’ [υποψiα] as responsible for fear (of the gods; of death; of being caught committing an injustice) surely cannot be overemphasized. In PD 11, our suspicions about heavenly phenomena and about death trouble us (which is why the study of nature - φυσιολογiα - is required). Further, in PD 34 our suspicion that we may be discovered committing an injustice is what explains why injustice is not a bad thing in its own right (see also PD 13). This, as suggested by Clay 2001: 39, explains why injustice directly harms the individual, not society, and it harms the individual because injustice makes one's soul turbulent. Epicurus' idea seems to be that injustice cannot harm society because society, thanks to the pact, can neutralize the person who has committed a crime.

The issue of suspicion is also helpful for understanding in what sense a psychological state can produce an emotional state ( negative in this case), and why it is decisive to build our beliefs not upon false suppositions (‘the opinions of the many') but upon preconceptions (cf. Epicurus, LM 123-124). Furthermore, as Erler 1994 notes, the motions of celestial bodies are not due to the gods but to atomic motions, so ‘the gods preserve blessedness without complaint'. Science of nature (φυσιολογiα), while investigating and explaining the causes of phenomena, contributes to leading people to blessedness (cf. Epicurus, LH 78).

17 Strauss 1952: 111; Goldschmidt 1977: 26.

18 Angelli 2013: 29-30.

19 We follow Dorandi's text (2013), preferring the reading εχει τo εν του δικαiου χωρa εiναr, instead of εχει την του δικαiου χωραν ∣εινα.ι∣ (Marcovich 1999), and εχειν του δικαiου χωραν ει (Arrighetti 1973). On this interesting metaphorical use of the term χωρα cf. chapter 1, section 2.

20 The noun evidentia was created by Cicero (Acad. 2.17) to render what ‘the Greeks - Cicero recalls - call εναργεια'. The Greeks to which he refers are, in fact, the Hellenistic philosophers, whose controversies and terminology he discusses in detail in this work. Cicero coined numerous Latin words to translate this terminology through the ‘tracing procedure'. It is not the case of the term evidentia, which Cicero creates from the verb video; in fact, the noun εναργεια does not stem from any Greek word similar to video, but from the adjective εναργης, which in turn derives from the adjective αργoς, ‘bright', ‘resplendent', ‘fast'.

21 Huby 1989: 107-22 has gathered and analysed the main testimonies in this regard. She argues that, from Clement's testimony (Strom. 2.4, 119, 20, 32, ed. Fruchtel; she

also cites other passages, cf. 1989: 120-1, n. 3), one should conclude that Theophrastus understood πiστις as ‘conviction’ or ‘certainty’ (Huby 1989: 115). We fail to understand how Huby thinks that πiστις must mean ‘conviction’ or ‘certainty’. There is no doubt that ‘conviction’ is a reasonable interpretation of πiστις, but why ‘certainty’? Maybe Huby is thinking about the use the word sometimes has (for instance, in some of Aristotle’s passages), where the term means (or seems to mean) ‘certainty’ insofar as it is a real ‘proof’ of something (cf. Aristotle, Physics 254a35). Evidence, εναργεια, and apprehension of the first principles are clearly linked in the epistemology of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ptolemy and Galen. The first two also highlight, as a factor of such correlation, the way of awareness that both the philosophers of late antiquity (Ps. Philoponus, In Arist. De anima 586, 21-23; Simplicius, In Arist. De an. 299, 35) and of Byzantium (Michael Psellos, Opusculum 13, 71, 6-7, ed. O’Meara) called ‘awareness’ [συναiσθησις]. Several philosophers of late antiquity made use of the link between εναργεια, and συναiσθησις and seem to have seen a compelling argument against the views of the sceptics.

22 Indeed, Aristotle never supports this view; it probably belongs to Theophrastus or the other Peripatetics (on this see Huby 1989: 108-11).

23 In Hellenism ‘evidence’ [ εναργεια] is initially discussed within the philosophical controversies that take place regarding the establishment of a criterion of truth for the knowledge of the world and the attainment of a happy life. Later, it will also interest those who were dedicated to history, rhetoric and poetics. The evidence that specifically interests historians, orators or critics is the artificial one, that is, the evidence raised through discussion techniques in readers and listeners about facts and objects that these do not have before them (see Zangara 2007 and Otto 2009).

24 Cf. Dumont 1982: 281-3; Bakker 2016: 14-17.

25 Sextus explains this by providing the following example: ‘when Plato is approaching from a long way away [μακρoθεν], I conjecture and hold the opinion [εiκαζω μεν καi δοξaζω], given the distance, that it is Plato, but when he comes near there is an additional confirmation [προσεμαρτυρηθη] that it is Plato, now that the distance has been shortened, and there is confirmation in favour of it through the evidence itself’ (transl. R. Bett, slightly modified). Both the example and the idea remind us of Plato’s view that our judgements depend on memory and perception. Often a person seeing something from a distance, Plato claims, does not see it very clearly and wishes to decide what she is seeing. This person might wonder what it is that appears to be standing by the rock under a tree. This account of what a person might say to him- or herself after observing such an appearance seems plausible. The person might next make a guess, such as ‘that is a man’, but may mistakenly suppose that what she sees is a sculpture (Plato, Phl. 38c-d; see also Resp. 602c7-8, where Plato explicitly argues that the same object, viewed from nearby, does not appear the same size as when viewed from a distance). Nonetheless, what is interesting here is that opinion depends on perception and memory; for Epicurus, both perception and memory (in fact, an Epicurean preconception is a sort of memory) are criteria, and thereby they are prior to opinion. Perception and appearance are always true (in the sense that they are ‘real’): when one sees something from a distance, there is a something one sees, i.e. there is a certain thing in front of oneself ‘that appears to be standing by the rock under the tree’. That is why what appears to madmen and to people in dreams are true, for they produce effects; by contrast, what is ‘unreal’ never does (cf. DL 10.31 = Us. 36). But the position that ‘this something is a man or a sculpture’ is the result of one’s conjecture or opinion, which can be false.

26 DL 10.34 (Us. 260); Plutarch, Col. 1121A-C (Us. 252); Sextus Empiricus, M 7.208, Us. 247); this is probably a response to the Sceptics who argue that a square tower that appears round from a distance shows that one should not draw conclusions from the senses (see DL 9.107). By contrast, the Epicureans are willing to state that if something is confirmed (by new perceptual evidence), or is not counter-witnessed, it is true; but if it is not confirmed by evidence, or is counter-witnessed, it is false. Therefore, perceptual evidence can be checked on closer inspection in a new moment of perceptual experience.

27 As translated by Asmis, who preserves the notion of ‘ counter-testimony contained in ctvπμαρτυρεlται.

28 Epicurus claims that it is the phenomena themselves which suggest that there are several different explanations. Thus, if one view is accepted and the other is rejected, even being equally in agreement with what appears (‘the phenomena’: τα φαινoμενα), it is obvious that one has abandoned any science of nature (φυσιολογηματα) and has fallen into a mythical explanation. For discussion cf. Asmis 1984: 321-36, and Bakker 2016: 14-21.

29 Sedley 1973: 66-8.

30 Sedley 1973: 67. Sedley underlines that in On Nature 28, 13, 7, the fullest surviving passage on επιλογισμoς, this is expanded into the bold principle that the truth of any opinion must stand or fall on the advantageousness or otherwise of the behaviour to which it can be seen to lead, Sedley 1973: 28. Sedley collects a remarkable amount of Epicurean and doxographic passages in which επιλογισμoς is used with the sense indicated in the domain of praxis (Sedley 1973: 28-30).

31 On the Athenian legal framework and oratory practices regarding the validation of laws cf. Goldschmidt 1977: 208-23.

32 Asmis 1984: 50.

33 In his pioneering 1902 work, Falchi already noted that ‘ usefulness is the substance and content of what is just and right, such as the contract is its formal element, the means by which the useful is recognised and affirmed’ (Falchi 1902: 53; italics and translation are ours). What is interesting in his remark is the stress he places upon the essential function of what is useful for determining what is just and right. We do not agree with him, though, regarding his view that the right, which is a ‘signal’ (συμβολον; PD 31) of the useful, is the right of nature understood as the right that must be made fully ‘uniform with natural laws’ (Falchi 1902, 54). The expression ‘natural laws’ is potentially misleading as it can suggest an iusnaturalistic reading that we reject. We do not share the stance that positive law is outside of the Epicurean ethical-legal speculation; it is true that there is never a single positive law in Epicurus or a discussion about current or past constitutions, but this does not necessarily mean that Epicurus did not contemplate applying his political model (based on ‘the just of nature’) to actual political organizations.

34 The issue regarding circumstances is especially important in accounting for the sense in which, as we suggest, justice is a ‘modality of usefulness’.

35 In this section we are drawing on Boeri 2013: 192-4.

36 As observed by Vigo 2006: 399-403, this is precisely an aspect of Aristotle’s reflection that the later Aristotelian tradition was unable to recognize. Duke 2020: 17-39, 85-108, has stressed that Aristotle derives the rationality of law not merely from intellect [νους] but also from prudence [φρoνησrς]; the ‘common advantage’ [τo κοrνη συμφερον] is the proximate telos of law and serves as a criterion for assessing the correctness of constitutions and laws. The common advantage is normative reason, identifiable with political justice.

37 See De Romilly 1971: 203-25; Goldschmidt 1977: 195-7, 221-2.

38 Goldschmidt 1977: 193-5.

39 In Goldschmidt’s opinion such redefinition is expressed by the verb μεταπiπτεrν in PD 37 (see Goldschmidt 1977: 200).

40 Goldschmidt 1977: 205.

41 Atherton 2005: 132 n. 55 takes επrλογrσμoς to mean ‘ empirical reasoning’ (our italics), but in addition to the fact that the expression ‘ empirical reasoning’ may sound strange, there is nothing in the context that should lead us to think that such επrλογrσμoς has an empirical character. The word rather seems to mean an examination, a calculation or ‘weighting’ of what is useful (or ‘more useful’) or, as Schofield puts it, ‘our everyday procedures of assessment and appraisal’ (1996: 222). Seen from this viewpoint, Hermarchus’ επrλογrσμoς is not different from Epicurus’ ‘sober calculation’.

42 Muller 1983: 192-5.

43 The most detailed explanation of the origin of language is found in Lucretius (RN 5.1028-1090), who forcefully argues that nature has prompted human beings to utter ‘the various sounds of speech’ [ uarios linguae sonitus], and that it was utility that coined the names of things (this echoes Epicurus, LH 75; see also Diogenes of Oenoanda, Frag. 12, ii, 11-v 14). The constraint of nature is concretized, according to Epicurus, in each case in a specific ‘environment’. This causes similar natural reactions in the human groups that live in the same region and gives rise to their particular linguistic code. Epicurus thus reverses the traditional arguments about the diversity of languages in order to defend the conventional character of language (see Brunschwig 1994: 25-32, 37-8 and Levine 2003: 172-4).

Verlinsky 2005: 77-83, has convincingly objected to this view and has proposed a reading both of the expression ου συνορωμενα πρaγματα ( LH 76) and Hermarchus' excerpt that does not agree with Muller's proposal (and does not require putting forward a third stage of language development). Konstan 2008: 96 also objects to Goldschmidt's interpretation.

Cf. Jurss 1991:84.

Goldschmidt 1977: 166-70.

Isocrates' passage is so remarkable that we think that it should be fully cited: ‘For in the other powers which we possess, [...] we are in no respect superior to other living creatures; nay, we are inferior to many in swiftness and in strength and in other resources; but, because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other and to make clear to each other whatever we desire, not only have we escaped the life of wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking, there is no institution devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to establish. For this it is which has laid down laws concerning things just and unjust, and things honourable and base; and if it were not for these ordinances we should not be able to live with one another' (Antidosis 253-254. transl. G. Norlin). See Levine 2003: 9-11, 140-5.

Vlastos 1946: 52-3; Brunschwig 1994: 32-8.

Philippson 1910: 298-9.

Muller 1972: 93-9, has presented the most detailed critique of Philippsons thesis, although he later modified his position in this regard (1983). For Goldschmidt 1977: 167, the genesis of right begins at the end of the formation of language.

Lucretius, who in turn seems to be inspired by Epicurus' treatise On Nature 12, testifies to this approach; see RN 5.1028-1045. See also Verlinsky 2005.

That is, if we kept the reading υποτεταγμενα, even though, as Dorandi 2013 has underlined, the reading of the MSS. is επιτεταγμενον (υποτεταγμενα being a correction by Suda, accepted by Gassendi 1649: 141).

Asmis 1984: 39-47.

Hirzel 1877: 117-26. Mourelatos 2003 and 2006: 66-76, and Jaulin 2007.

Jurss 1977: 225. Galen takes such υπογραφαi and υποτυπωσεις to be ‘conceptual definitions' (εννοηματικοi δροι; De differentia pulsum IV, Vol. 8, 716 12, 741 12, 743 13). Kotzia-Panteli 2000: 45-6, 49-50.

Sextus Empiricus, M 9.25-6 (Us. 353).

Denyer 2001: 124.

According to Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.15, 67, 1; Us. 226), Plato thinks that some barbarians are philosophers, as well. Unlike Plato, Clement adds, Epicurus supposes that only the Greeks [ μoνους ''Eλληνας] are able to practice philosophy. Asmis 2001: 209, n. 2 suggests that this general position is the same as for the institution of justice: just as not every race of human beings was able to form social compacts so as to develop a system of justice (Epicurus PD 32), so not every race of humans is capable of philosophy.

59 For Socrates, the true ‘treasure’ or true wealth is virtue (Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.2, 9). See also the Platonic prescription regarding how unnecessary it is for the perfect guardians of his city to have the gold and silver coming from men if they already have the gold and silver coming from the gods (Resp. 416e-417a). Philodemus' remark against the impracticability of Socrates’ suggestion can be read as a critique to the Stoics, who, very ‘Socratically, also state that the true wealth is virtue and the true poverty vice (in addition to the fact that they take wealth to be an ‘indifferent’, insofar as it does not benefit any more than it harms. Cf. Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.101, 14-20; Cicero, Paradoxa Stoicorum 5. See also Musonius Rufus, Frag. 34, ed. Hense).

Chapter 4

1 Cf. Green 1990: 52-64; Price 1986: 315-38; Hammond 1993: 12-23; Lane 2011: 29; Chamoux 2002: 165-213; Roskam 2007b: 64-5.

2 Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 12.547A (Us. 512). But, of course, Plutarch avoids recalling that Epicurus also rejects the pleasures of extravagance, due to the difficulties which follow from them (Stobaeus, Anthology 3.17.33, Us. 181; we return to this point later).

3 Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 12.546E-F (Us. 67).

4 Levy 1992: 489-90.

5 One of the most comprehensive books dealing with Cicero’s objections to Epicurus is Maso 2008. Although Maso accepts that Cicero’s anti-Epicureanism is certainly not in dispute, he persuasively suggests that an effort to better clarify Cicero’s positions in some specific points must be made (especially those stances implying some philosophical perspective; cf. Maso 2008: 31-2).

6 It is worth noting that Cicero (in a very Platonic way) maintains that he wishes to find the truth, not to persuade anyone as an adversary (Fin. 1.13: non... adversarium aliquem convincere).

7 Cicero reiterates that he is not denying that Epicurus was a good person (‘companionable and humane’; bonum virum et comem et humanum... tpse bonus vir fuit).

8 Maslowski 1974; Shearin 2012: 34-5. More recently, Verde, endorsing Maso’s suggestion (Maso 2008: 31-63 and 301-16), considers the idea that Cicero’s view on Epicureanism was a moderate anti-Epicureanism as ‘fundamentally acceptable’ (Verde 2016: 336). It is true that Cicero's knowledge of Epicureanism was outstanding, but the view that his anti-Epicureanism was ‘moderate' is harder to accept. Cicero was aware of the sophistication of Epicurean hedonism, which reveals the refined knowledge he had of Epicurus. But precisely because of this, it is difficult to understand why he permanently refers to the Epicureans as animals and pigs (see Hanchey 2022: 44). In fact, in Against Piso 20 he takes Piso to be ‘a barbarian Epicurus', and in order to stress that Piso is a bad Epicurean Cicero states that ‘our Epicurus' (i.e. Piso) ‘did not come out from the schools but from a pigsty' (Against Piso 37). In other words, Cicero presents the link between Epicureanism and animality (see Hanchey 2022: 44-5) as a clumsy understanding of this philosophy. This is a trope he returns to repeatedly. With this in mind, Cicero's anti-Epicureanism does not look very moderate. The Epicureans, though, were clever enough to turn the insult ‘pigs' into the appropriate description of the state of tranquillity that is the final end. Warren, drawing on Sedley (1976: 127-8), suggests that the negative propaganda associated with the Epicureans stems from Timocrates (Warren 2002: 134).

9 Although, as it is sometimes acknowledged by scholars, Cicero usually chooses the ‘rhetorical mode’, he is interested in the general question of the proper form for philosophical discourse (Inwood 1990: 147). Moreover, since rhetoric in Cicero's view is the faculty of speech which can convince people, he surely thought that the rhetorical style was relevant in philosophical debate. In fact, rhetoric in the Ciceronian approach has the virtue of making the unfamiliar seem plausible (Inwood 1990: 148). Some valuable remarks in this sense can be found too in Maso 2008: 34-5. On Cicero's intellectual development and formation (where both philosophy and rhetoric were relevant) see again Maso 2008: 43-63; the presence of Epicureanism as well as Cicero's qualms about Epicurus' tenets are specially discussed at 55-63. Maso (2008: 59) also notes that the Epicurean compendium of indications (of an almost ‘catechetical’ nature), easy to apply at the practical level, may have been somewhat rigid and hence left no room for rhetoric, which for Cicero was renowned in philosophical discussion.

10 ‘What is blessed and indestructible has no troubles itself, nor does it give trouble to anyone else' (transl. Inwood and Gerson). Cicero's translation reads: Quod beatum et inmortale est, id nec habet nec exhibit cuiquam negotium.

11 Steel 2005: 12,19,49.

12 Certainly, Cicero does not confer much originality to Epicurus, whom he takes to be a ‘mere pupil of Democritus', at least in physics (Fin. 4.13).

13 Annas 2013: 212-13.

14 Levy 1992: 489-90.

15 Duke 2020: 17-39; 85-108.

16 Wood 1991: 128.

17 Wood 1991: 129-30.

18 Cicero notes that the cause of this gathering is not so much the weakness of the individual as a certain social spirit which nature has implanted in man, since the human race - genus hoc - is not made up of solitary individuals.

19 See also Epicurus' LM 125 and especially PD 2, which corresponds to the literal quotation of the passage Gellius attributes to Plutarch's reference (τo γαρ διαλυθεν τo δ' aναισθητουν ουδεν πρoς ημaς).

20 To Cicero's ND 1.18, the Epicurean Velleius objects as ‘no groundless and fanciful beliefs' [ non futilis Commenticiasque sententias] the view that there is a fabricator and builder of the world (‘like the god from Plato's Timaeus’, or ‘that old woman, the πρoνοια of the Stoics'). According to Hippolytus (Refutation of all Heresies, 1.22.3; Us. 359), Epicurus rejected providence and defended chance as the factor that determined the way the cosmos is. However, in LM 134-135 Epicurus argues that the sage does not think that anything good or bad with respect to living blessedly is given by chance [εκ ταυτης, i.e. τυχη]) to human beings. Anyway, he grants that chance provides the ‘starting points of great good and bad things' [αρχας μεντοι μεγaλων aγαθων η κακων]. At this point the argument is not without problems since Epicurus states that it is better to be unlucky in a rational way [ευλογiστως ατυχεlν] than lucky in an irrational way [αλογiστως ευτυχειν]. His reason for arguing thus is that ‘it is better for a good decision not to turn out right in action than for a bad decision to turn out right because of chance'. The issue of absence of providence or any planning in the cosmos has been largely discussed in the literature. Asmis argues that Epicurus introduced the swerve to explain how there can be goal-directed action in a ‘mechanical' universe. According to her, ‘Epicurus removed teleology from the ordering of the physical universe, but he recognized

it in the voluntary motion of animals. To prevent an animal's goal-directed striving from being a mechanical response, he posited a swerving motion at the beginning of each act of striving' (Asmis 1990: 288). Interesting and suggestive as this approach is, it has the difficulty that the animal kingdom is also part of the cosmos and thereby part of the physical universe. Levy provides a detailed discussion of how the Academics cast doubts on the role of providence in the cosmos (Levy 1992: 219), noting that the view that providence is incompatible with divine nature (inasmuch as it supposes a lack, a weakness) is also found in Lucretius (Levy 1992: 564-5 and Lucretius RN 5.165-167). Of course, this is an idea already present in Epicurus PD 1, where he argues that one cannot ascribe to what is blessed and indestructible [μακαριον καi aφθαρτον] any trouble or feelings of anger or gratitude, since what is such resides in the domain of weakness [εν ασθενεl γaρ πaν τo τοιουτον]. More recently, Essler 2011: 133-7 offers an interesting contrast between Stoic providentialism and the Epicurean denial of providence (making especial use of Philodemus, who in a very Epicurean way posits ‘the gods' complete lack of interest in matters alien to their own divine nature'; Essler 2011: 135).

21 In the case of Plutarch, see his On Superstition 164F, where he refers to Epicurus' view that atoms and void are the principles of the universe; Plutarch takes this tenet to be false and argues that it leads to a denial of providence and hence to atheism (see 167A-168A, and Oracles in Decline 420B3 where he explicitly refers to the Epicureans - who describe providence as a ‘myth' - and ironically adds: ‘If there is any place for laughter in philosophy, we should laugh at their dumb, blind, lifeless “idols” - τα ε'iδωλα -'; 420B6-8, transl. D. Russell).

22 Unfortunately, the text is corrupted again in these crucial lines: ου γαρ οiμαi τιν' ερεlν, δτι ↑ μετa τουτων ως προερρηθη συνεπεσε κατa τυχην.

23 On this see Sedley 2004: 76.

24 A view that is objected to by Lactantius in De ira dei chap. 4. Lactantius' argument is that, when suggesting that it is inconsistent for God to injure and to inflict harm (since this derives from the emotion of anger), Epicurus also took beneficence away from God, since if God has anger He must also have kindness. If Epicurus is right, Lactantius contends, God is an inactive being, quod non in his view. According to the textual evidence, Epicurus' gods are not inactive entities; the core of the Epicurean argument is (as it had been for Plato; see Resp. 365d-e; 388e-389b; 608d) that the gods, if they really are gods, cannot have human attributes (such as anger, kindness, gentleness, gratitude, etc.) and hence they

do not care for human beings (more discussion on this can be found in Erler 2020: 24-5). Underlying these details is the debate regarding the nature of the Epicurean gods, whether they exist with ‘real atomic existence’, or whether they are just psychological projections of our mind. This last view was already argued by Cicero, who puts in Velleius' mouth the view that, according to the Epicureans, there is a kind of image of the gods [species ut quaedam sit deorum] which has nothing solid or dense about it (an Epicurean god is not a body: corpus illud non est, sed simile corporis), and therefore Epicurean gods are not a real thing [ non rem], but semblances of real things [similitudines... rerum; on this intricate and debated topic cf. Konstan 2008: 115, n. 51].

25 More wisely, Roskam has suggested that ‘Plutarch's importance as a source for Epicurean philosophy presupposes not merely a thorough familiarity with the Epicurean view, but also a careful analysis of the works and philosophy of Plutarch'. However, he recognizes that Plutarch's texts and his ‘massive erudition' confronts us with a difficult dilemma: either we can pay attention to all elements in his works (to achieve an overview of Plutarch's use of Epicurean philosophy) or we can fix our attention on one specific domain of Epicurean philosophy. Roskam considers the second alternative as better, since it can lead us to more detailed conclusions and eventually new insights (see Roskam 2006/7: 69-70). Whatever the case may be, even for those who regard Plutarch's discussions of Epicureanism as unavoidably valuable, his works and assessments of Epicureanism must be taken cautiously.

26 Indeed, it is not certain that Aristotle supported a providential account of the cosmos or even that the world has been made or produced ‘providentially’. Although the word πρoνοια is recorded several times in the Corpus Aristotelicum, it usually appears as an adverbial expression, (such as εκ προνοiας), meaning ‘aforethought’, ‘intentionally, ‘on purpose’ (see Aristotle, EN 1135b25; Pol. 1300b25- 26; Rh. 1375a7). It is true that in EN 1141a27-28 Aristotle refers to a capacity he calls δυναμις προνοητικη, but what he means in context is that even some lower animals somewhat are φρoνιμα insofar as they have a power of foresight regarding their own life. In On Heaven 291a24-25 Aristotle uses the expression προνοουσης της φυσεως, but this is within an analogical conclusion where he states that what happens with a mass of air or fire, motion, and the cause of noise is as though ‘nature had foreseen’ the result. In other words, πρoνοια for Aristotle is not a cosmic power, which intelligently foresees what will happen according to a plan.

27 See Lucretius’ arguments described above.

28 For this view in the Epicurean scholarship, see Brandt 1891: 230, (quoted by Maslowski 1974a: 187, n. 1) and, more recently Roskam 2007: 30. If one retains doubts regarding this topic, one should look at Div. Inst. 3.17, 2-31, where the major ones of ‘Epicurus’ errors’ are summarized. However, as Schmid 1984: 154 has indicated, even though Lactantius devotes more time and space to anti-Epicurean controversy in his writings than the rest of Patristic literature (including his Greek counterparts), and despite its ‘undeniable weaknesses’, that was a common concern amongst Patristic writers. Schmid helpfully notes that Lactantius reaches a ‘considerable degree of intensity’ due to his excellent knowledge of Lucretius. Lactantius’ work not only contains Lucretian elements but very often quotes them directly (see Div. Inst. 1.16, 3; 1.21, 48; 2.11, 1, where Lucretius is cited verbatim).

29 Maslowski 1974a: 188.

30 A crucial ingredient (both of ancient ethics and of philosophy as an ‘art of life’) consists of providing tools for the sake of ‘living well’, where living well means having developed all the best capacities a human being has as such, i.e. his excellences or virtues [αρεταi]. Such an art of life turns out to be philosophy itself, a kind of knowledge and hence a technical skill [τεχνη] we require to achieve happiness insofar as such an ‘art’ provides us with sound arguments and reasons to plan one’s life and take correct decisions (on this point see Nussbaum 1994: 5-6; 14-15; 50-1). Thus, an essential project of a rational being must be to clarify what a good life really is and what the correct manner of living is. Plato explicitly refers to this last issue in two well-known passages of his dialogues (Gorg. 500c3-4; Resp. 352d6).

31 See also Div. Inst. 3.16, 16, where he clearly declares ‘true wisdom’ [ uera sapientia] to be the revealed truth contained in ‘the sacred letters of truth’ [s acras ueritatis litteras]. The truth, Lactantius states, was there all the time, but it was unknown to the Greek philosophers who thus darkened it by debate. That is why philosophy is false wisdom and must be abandoned (Div. Inst. 3.30,1-10).

32 Although Lactantius is mostly respectful of Plato, he also qualifies some of his theories as ‘crazy’ ( ego plane contenderim numquam quidquam in rebus humanis dictum esse delirius; Div. Inst. 3.19, 18). At 3.20, 15 he refers to Socrates as a buffoon [o hominem scurram] for having invoked the dog and the goose in his oaths and thence, if he intended to mock religion, he was silly, but if he meant it seriously, he was a lunatic, since he was taking an animal as god. All these assertions against the Greek philosophers can be read as a rejection of any pagan thinker insofar as such a thinker does not follow the ‘true wisdom’.

33 On this point, see Schmid 1984: 146-7, who suggests that ‘the general tone’ of Lactantius' controversy with Epicureanism leaves no doubt that genuine Epicurean belief was still widespread in the first decades of the fourth century ad. Thus, when Lactantius says that ‘in his anxiety to please everyone, Epicurus goes to a bitterer war with himself than the world does with itself’, this is a significant example of a recurrent conception according to which the Epicurean position provided a true model of thought containing the essence of the homo carnalis (Schmid 1984: 145-6; for St Augustine’s discussion of the Epicurean pleasure as a carnal one, see Schmid 1984: 168-170).

34 See, for instance, Bowen and Garnsey 2003: 199, n. 46.

35 Long and Sedley 1987: vol. 1, 13.

36 Lactantius' objections to the Epicurean denial of providentialism are contained in Div. Ins. 3.17,18-27.

37 Green 1990: 623. Reinhardt 2005: 174 talks about the irrationalism exhibited by Cicero when dealing with Epicurus and pleasure and shows how it is reflected even in theoretical contexts such as the approach to atomism. In Lledo’s view 1995: 26, Latin writers performed one of the most surprising feats of intellectual manipulation in history with the thoughts of Epicurus.

38 According to Usener, the absence of these slogans in the Principal Doctrines proves that the compilation of those maxims was the work of an Epicurean so little versed in the doctrine that he left them out (Usener 1887: XLIV).

39 It is not trivial to note that, although the two stable pleasures are the absence of pain and imperturbability, the word απονlα (‘absence of pain’) does not appear even once in the preserved texts of Epicurus himself. The place generally cited to exemplify the stable pleasures is the one just quoted (DL 10.136 = Us. 2). Arrighetti (1973, ad locum) cites this passage as part of the Deperditorum Iibrorum reliquiae. The lines in question would have been included in the treatise ΠΕΡΙ ΑΙΡΕΣΕΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΦΥΓΩΝ, but those lines - o δ' ^,Eπlκουρος εν τω Περi αiρεσεων ουτω λεγει∙ η μεν γaρ aταραξlα καi aπονlα καταστηματικαl εiσιν ηδοναl - are taken from DL 10.136. The Greek source is still DL 10, so there seems to be a sort of ‘hermeneutical circle’.

Both Lucretius (RN2.16-19: Nonne videre... naturam latrare, nisi utqui corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur isundu sensu cura semota metuque?) and Cicero (Fin. 2.32: Epicurus semper hoc utitur,... ea voluptas, quae in motu sit,..., non illa stabilis, in qua tantum inest nihil dolere) refer to the katastematic pleasures. But they are part of the indirect tradition and they capture the idea of what απονiα and aταραξiα are (they do not coin a term for these pleasures). On απονiα see also Plutarch, Pleasant Life 1089D (Us. 68), and the way in which he tries to ridicule Epicurus. 'This issue has been an object of dispute among Epicurean scholars; see Warren 2014: 97, n. 37.

40 Wolfsdorf, 2013: 147.

41 Plato offers several reasons for dismissing outright pleasure as the best candidate for the ultimate human good (Phl. 53d-54d), but he also underlines the fact that there are some mental pleasures without which human life is not a real human life (21a-c). When Plato states that there is no greater charlatan or impostor [αλαζονiστατον] than pleasure he must be thinking of sensual pleasure; as is clear in the context, sensual pleasures are ‘impostors' (or rather ‘the greatest impostors') because they possess a seductive character that can eventually cause harm to the one who acts following them. At Phl. 31c Socrates says that both pain and pleasure occur according to nature in the ‘common kind'. This statement seems to contradict the thesis that pleasure belongs to the kind of the unlimited (31a7-10), but it is not necessary to understand it in this way. The kind of mixing (or ‘common', as Plato prefers to call it) makes it possible that pleasure - which by nature belongs to the domain of the unlimited, i.e. ‘the more', ‘the less', and so on - has a certain quantity and thereby can be incorporated as a plausible ingredient of mixed life (on this point see Lisi 1995: 79).

42 See also Aulus Gellius, Noc. Att. 2.9, 4, who witnesses that Epicurus wrote that ‘The pinnacle of pleasure is the removal of everything that pains'; this is, of course, stable pleasure, αταραξiα and aπονiα.

43 Wolfsdorf, 2013: 284 provides an updated bibliography on this point. Bonelli 1979: 19-44, emphatically exposes and defends Cicero's arguments aimed at highlighting the inconsistencies of the Epicurean theory of pleasure. Boulogne 2003 151-82 presents those of Plutarch. The studies of Hossenfelder 1986, Striker 1996: 196-208, and Stokes 1995 contain more consistent philosophical approaches.

44 Stokes 1995: 170.

45 Boulogne 2003: 144, 152-3, 166, 170, 181, 195, 197. Lactantius (Div. Inst. 3.35-43) explicitly recognizes this interpretative procedure and offers an interesting example of its use in apologetics.

46 Plutarch, Live Unnoticed 1128A-B; 1130A. On Curiosity 520A-C. Eroticus 751A-752A; 758C-D. Oracles in Decline 429C-F. On the portrait of the ‘ancients' in Plutarch cf. Kechagia 2011: 25-8. Among the anti-Epicurean treatises of Plutarch, that titled Live Unnoticed is the one that exhibits the greatest carelessness and disinterest in developing a philosophical approach to Epicureanism; for this reason, it is interesting to note the guideline that follows the treatise. Plutarch, as Goldschmidt 1977: 113 pointed out, practically limits himself to opposing Epicureanism with a kind of Homeric chant composed of all the exploits of national glories (we return to this below). A similar procedure can be seen in Cicero; in Fin. 2.114, he invokes ‘the ancients' and, based on them, argues against pleasure as a supreme good (see also ND 3.28; 34).

47 Long 1993: 141.

48 The current literature on the political activity of Academics and Peripatetics contradicts the image provided by Plutarch. Speusippus, Xenocrates and Polemon seem to have led quiet lives in the company of their disciples and to have been personally involved in politics only exceptionally. On this detail, see Scholz 1998: 186-204. It is significant that Plutarch omits Arcesilaus when referring to the Academy. Diogenes Laertius underlines his detachment from politics (DL 4.39).

49 Scholz 1998: 11-71.

50 Scholz 1998: 47-9.

51 Roskam 2007b: 3-5, has called attention to the two competing traditions around the political participation of the seven sages and the Presocratics in general. Obviously, Cicero and Plutarch follow one and omit the other. As Jaeger 1934: 426-61 showed, both traditions actually went back to Academic and Peripatetic discussions focused on the ideals of the active and contemplative life and, in his opinion, the clearly political characterization of the first sages was the work of Dicaearchus.

52 Levy 2012: 65.

53 Campos Darocca (1999) has convincingly emphasized that the interpretation of the figure of Dicaearchus as a defender (against Theophrastus) of the pre-eminence of the vita activa does not do justice to his position in the contest between vita activa and vita contemplativa; Campos Darocca 1999: 56-9; 64-6. This is so since his apology for the way of life of the first sages and of Pythagoras and Socrates is not to be understood as a vindication of the vita activa, specifically - as Cicero would have it - of the exercise of politics, but as an appeal to a way of life prior to the professionalization of philosophy and politics that gives rise to the vita activa-vita contemplativa disjunction. Moreover, it represents for Dicaearchus a degradation whose incipient ‘archaeological' historiography is willing to highlight. Thus, Campos Darocca suggests that Dicaearchus is closer to the rigour of Antisthenes and the proposals of Cynics, Stoics and Epicureans regarding the concordance between word and action than to a supposed defence of the supremacy of the exercise of politics. Scholz's comments 1998: 206-11 on Dicaearchus agree with Campos Daroccas interpretation.

54 Cicero saw the Epicureans as his greatest opponents and did not cease to criticize them, although he also praised them repeatedly through the pseudo-encomium that Levy 2001 called Teloge paradoxal’. When Cicero deals with Epicurean hedonism, it becomes particularly clear that philosophically he may be associated to the sceptical academy, but his real life, his ethical convictions and his philosophical interests and judgments are constantly influenced by his Roman identity as an orator, statesman and consistent pillar of the mos maiorum (on this point see Powell 1995: 22, 31. Levy 2012: 72-4).

55 However, as we point out above, Cicero was aware of the sophistication of Epicurean hedonism, and thus knew positively that it could not be identified with crude hedonism.

56 Roskam 2013: 5.

57 As Roskam (2013: 6) has pointed out, the subject of these first-person plural verbs is ambiguous, because it is not clear whether Plutarch refers to the philosophers following Heraclitus, Socrates or Plato, or to people in general. If it is the former, the Epicureans could easily argue that nothing would prevent other individuals, not followers of such philosophers, from attacking them. If it is a question of the latter, one could equally argue that not only the Epicureans, but also Plato and Aristotle, were far from arguing that philosophical theories or beliefs alone were sufficient for all individuals to behave rationally. In reply to this, of course, the Platonists could insist that it is preferable to suffer injustice than to impose it, which, however, would not avoid having to recognize the existence of a state of collective brutality. As Goldschmidt 1977: 34-5 suggested, the Epicureans’ insistence on security provided by contractual justice might also represent an implicit critique of the figure of the Stoic sage, who neither causes nor suffers any harm. The latter, the Epicureans would argue, is in any case not due to the hyperbolic faculties and sublime qualities of the sage, but simply to the existence of positive law.

58 The persistence of this anti-Epicurean topic in contemporary interpreters is striking. Konstan 2008: 29-37, though, has made a masterful analysis of an emblematic case of it: the reading of the prologue of Lucretius, On the Nature of Th ings 2. Most interpreters see these verses (RN 2.1-13) as proof of the cruel selfishness of the Epicureans. Konstan has stressed that a careful philological approach to the text was enough to look at the traditional resources that Lucretius used to dissipate this interpretation.

59 This is Inwood’s implicit suggestion when he states that Cicero’s critique of Epicurus is helpful for bringing into focus several key problems in Epicureanism (see Inwood 1990: 145).

Chapter 5

1 Cf. Pendrick 2002: 160-3,323-4.

2 See Goldschmidt 1977: 95-6; De Romilly 1968: 33-57.

3 On this point see Long and Sedley 1987: vol 1, 146.

4 The Stoic Chrysippus maintains that armies are useless; Zeno rejects judicial institutions and says that money is not necessary for exchange (DL 7.33). The Stoics, like the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope, also defend anthropophagy. All this counts like ‘behaving like a Cynic', but apparently being a Cynic can also mean being a beggar, which is why Diogenes reports that the Epicurean sage will not be a beggar (DL 10.120).

5 Seneca ( On Marriage Frag. 45 [ed. Haase], in Jerome, Against Jovinianus, 1.48; Us. 19) suggests that the Epicurean sage usually avoids marrying because ‘marriage entails many drawbacks' [multa incommoda]. Maybe those rare circumstances in which the sage need only marry are related to issues such as honours, bodily health, and other things which the Stoics call ‘indifferent' (Seneca states), but for Epicurus and the Epicureans such things become good and bad according to use, so wives stand on the ‘boundary of good and bad things' [ in bonorum malorumque confinio]. Additionally, Seneca says, it can be a serious matter to ponder whether he is going to marry a good or a bad woman.

6 The Stoic conception that a person is truly just when obeying the law that exists by nature, along with Stoic cosmopolitanism, has its origin in the Cynics (for the Stoic view see DL 7.128; Cicero, Leg. 1.44; Clement, Strom. 4.26; SVF 3.327); for Cynic cosmopolitanism see DL 6.38, 72 and 98, and the commentaries by Schofield 1999: 141-5. The idea of cosmopolitanism can also be read in the framework of the theory of ‘familiarization' ( οiκεiωσις): as the animal develops, it extends its care not only to itself but to its offspring and close members of its species. In the case of human beings, the situation is much more sophisticated since, to the fact that the initial selfish interest of the living being is extended to an interest in its offspring and close relatives, one must add a rationality which allows a human to recognize another as a member of the same species (on this distinction of οiκεiωσις, see Aoiz and Deniz 2014: 25-35). For a Stoic, this explanation also plays a decisive role in the political domain, since the recognition of another person as a member of one's species makes possible, at least ex hypothesi, not only cosmopolitanism (all humans are members of the same order, that is, of the same κoσμος), but also the natural equality among all human beings. In Stoicism, this detail constitutes a powerful argument in favor of cosmopolitanism: as far as we can see, this is what both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (probably drawing on Epictetus) had in mind when they stated that they belong to the cosmos (or that ‘they are part of a whole which is governed by nature') and not to a specific polis (Epictetus, Diss. 1.9, 1-2; Marcus Aurelius, 10.1, 10.6 et passim).

7 See Pap. Herc. 1020 (SVF 2.131), with Gorler's discussion (1977: 85-6); cf. also Cicero, Acad. 2.57; Sextus Empiricus, M 7.151-157 (SVF 1.67-69; 2.90; LS 41C;).

On this important point, see also Epictetus, Diss. 1.4, 28-29; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.9, 73.2-75.1 (BS 22.17).

For this detail cf. Long 2013: 219.

The view that the Stoic sage is a very uncommon person is also present in Seneca, Ep. 42, 1. See also Sextus Empiricus, M 7.433. The extraordinary skills of the Stoic sage are described in Stobaeus, Ec/. 2.100, 2: 112, 1-5.

The editors debate between the reading of the hapax επικατηγoρημα of the MSS. and Estiennes conjecture εστι κατηγoρημα. Westman and Pohlenz Teubner edition of Plutarch’s Adversus Colotem (1959) and that of Einarson and De Lacy 1967: 312-13, favour the former, as does Goldschmidt 1977:119-21, Besnier 2001: 136 n. 17, and Seel 1996: 343. Usener followed Estienne’s proposal; it was also accepted by Arrighetti 1973: 166, 573. επικατηγoρημα is usually taken to mean ‘predicate’, although it can also mean ‘accusation’ (see Vander Waerdt 1987: 407 n. 18). Boulogne 2003:195.

We fail to understand why Morel (2000: 395) is so sure that the words ‘I will do it, but I do not wish to admit it’ belong to Epicurus. Morel states that ‘Epicurus’ response is at least enigmatic’, but in the context, it is pretty clear that Plutarch, without argument, ascribes these words to Epicurus. Further, Morel himself recognizes that this answer ‘seems hardly compatible’ with PD 34 since it is hard to imagine that the wise person would choose a situation that would make him live in fear (Morel 2000: 396). This being so, the most reasonable way out is to recognize that the answer at stake is what Plutarch maliciously attributes to Epicurus.

In the next section of this chapter, we will examine Cicero’s and Plutarch’s interpretations of the above-mentioned texts.

Philippson 1910: 302-3.

Einarson and De Lacy 1967: 312-13; Goldschmidt 1977: 119; Konstan 2008: 124. Cosenza 1996: 368 n. 17 objects to Goldschmidt that the distinction between just laws and unjust laws is neither obvious nor trivial and could be relevant to the problem contained in the passage, since the transgression of unjust laws also triggers the fear and anguish of being discovered and punished by the criminal power associated with them. In Besnier’s view it would be a case of the wise intervening in politics to change them.

On the possible meaning of these puzzlements (απορiαι) in Epicurus cf. Seel 1996: 342-3.

Seel 1996: 367.

Besnier 2001: 136 n. 17, finds in T1 a typical casuistic question concerning the conflict between two duties and considers that Epicureans were devoid of rhetorical resources to face it.

Cf. Pembroke 1971: 128-9.

Strauss 1952: 158-63.

Roskam 2007b: 57 suggests that perhaps Epicurus would give the same kind of response that he offers in the analysed passage from the Puzzles to the ‘imaginary’ question of whether the sage will accept unsolicited honours.

Seel 1996: 345-6, notes that we have no testimony that Epicurus dealt with the case where the wise person must commit injustice to save the life of a friend but draws attention to the testimony of Aulus Gelius who reminds that Stilpon, the legendary king of Sparta and one of the seven wise men, was faced with such a dilemma. Aulus Gelius also emphasizes that the question an pro utilitatibus amicorum delinquendum aliquando (‘one must commit crime sometimes for the sake of the usefulness of the friends’; Noc. Att. 1.3) occupied many philosophers, among which were Theophrastus and Cicero. Seel does not rule out that Epicurus was also one of them, Cf. Seel 1996: 345 n. 15.

It is, for example, as Seel 1996: 359-60 points out, a transgression of the law that, in his judgement, Cicero himself accepts ( On Friendship 17.61).

VanderWaerdt 1987: 416-18.

For the idea that becoming a Stoic wise person is a very hard undertaking, see Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1048E and our discussion of this topic in section 3 below. By contrast, the Stoic sage can predict the future since, at least theoretically, he is able to know the whole causal sequence, order and concatenation of world events (see Cicero, On divination 1.127-129, witnessing a Stoic view).

‘Socrates’, Glaucon says, ‘do not think that it is I who speak, but those who praise injustice rather than justice’ (Plato, Resp. 361e1-3; our translation). Later, Adeimantus says that he will take up the point of view which he believes to be that of Glaucon: to praise justice and censure injustice (362e-363a).

This Platonic stance, mutatis mutandis, reappears in Epicurus’ view that ‘injustice is not a bad thing in its own right, but because of the fear produced by the suspicion that one will not escape the notice of those assigned to punish such actions’ (PD 35). Of course, this ‘highest good’ is the same as ‘pleasure’, but obviously such a pleasure cannot coincide with pleasure in the sense of an unlimited sensual pleasure (as Cicero, Plutarch, Lanctantius, and even Epictetus wrongly state), but with the static pleasures of absence of pain [απονiα] and imperturbability (αταραξiα; DL 10.136; Us. 2). Epicurean happiness is the absence of physical pain [αλγεiν κατa σωμα] and mental disturbance (ταραττεσθαι κατa ψυχην; Epicurus, LM 131-132. See also PD 3). In fact, this is merely self-sufficiency, a crucial attribute of the Epicurean sage. Thus, ‘nothing is as necessary as knowing well what is not necessary, and self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all’ (Porphyry, To Marcella 28; Us. 476). See also Porphyry, To Marcella 28, Us. 479, stressing the view that people (i.e. people who are not wise, ‘the many’: πολλοi) mistakenly attain wealth believing that they will find an escape from their ‘bad things’, surely their states of anguish.

Kahn 1981: 95.

33 According to Plato himself, this means ‘becoming just and pious with wisdom' (φρoνησις; Tht. 176b); the question of becoming godlike is a recurrent theme in Plato (see, for example, Resp. 383c; 500c-d; 613a-b. Tim. 90a. Laws 716c-d). For discussion, see Sedley 1997, and Erler 2002: 163-7.

34 It would seem to be another example of Teloge paradoxal' (see Levy 2001), which Cicero frequently addresses to the Epicureans. To recognize the Epicureans as ‘good people' does not correspond to moral praise, but to the strategy of presenting them as living in contradiction of the theses they defend and as proof that in human beings there is disinterested probity which is innate (such probity being neither provoked by pleasures nor attracted by rewards; cf. Cicero, Fin. 2. 99). To sum up, the life of the Epicureans, Cicero thinks, denies their philosophy, and confirms the innate recognition of the intrinsic value of virtues (see Levy 2001).

35 According to Macrobius' and Proclus' testimonies, Colotes criticized the use of the myth of Er at the final section of Resp. 10 (see Kechagia 2011: 53-71 and Corti 2014: 90-3). Woolf 2013: 807 n. 24, observes that one may trace this dialectic into the very different world of Ambroses De officiis. Ambrose recounts the tale of Gyges (3.32); dismisses it as a fable which ‘lacks the force of truth' (vim non habet veritatis, 3.36), agreeing to that extent with the grounds given by Ciceros opponents for not taking it seriously; but cites Biblical narratives to show (as he sees it) that there are real-world examples of resistance to expediency on a par with refusal to use the ring unjustly (33-5).

36 In Roskam's opinion (2012: 26-7), Cicero would be referring to the epigones of Epicurus. Roskam attributes to them an ‘ossified' and intransigent position, far from the living thought of Epicurus, which prevents them from recognizing that it is Epicurus himself who in the Puzzles raises the aporia and underlines the difficulty of offering a categorical response.

37 Torquatus observes that, by removing the necklace of an enormous enemy Gaul, his homonymous ancestor achieved glory and esteem, which are the firmest safeguards for a life without fear. By punishing his son with death, he also managed to contain the army in the midst of a very serious war, and through fear of punishment he was providing for the security of his fellow citizens and, of course, for his own (Fin. 1.35).

38 That the objection affects Cicero is proven by the fact that he accepts (Fin. 2.61) that perhaps Torquatus performed the mentioned feat in Fin. 1 for his own utility, although Cicero also stresses that this account turns out to be unacceptable in the case of his colleague Publius Decius, who threw himself against enemy troops knowing that this would mean his death. Curiously, one of the arguments that Plutarch addresses against the Epicureans (in Pleasant Life 1098A-1100D) is that the pleasures experienced by the great men of action when performing their feats surpass the pleasures exalted by them.

39 The background of the story of Gyges' ring is Glaucon's specific contractual model, in which advantage [πλεονεξiα] is the essential motivation of human nature (Plato, Resp. 359c3-5). Cicero underlines this link between advantage and Contractualism in On Laws 3.13. In fact, as Woolf 2013: 802, points out, Cicero's Gyges is presented more overtly than Plato's as a ruthless evildoer whom we should not want to be like.

40 Erler 2012: 45-55 sees in the expression a reformulation (of Epicurean imprint) of the Platonic approach to the ‘becoming like god' (6μοiωσις θεω; cf. Tim. 90c., where the adjective απλανης is also used). ‘Theory',‘contemplation' [θεωρiα] is an expression that in Plato is especially related to the intelligible domain. Epicurus takes up again the connotation of empirical knowledge that the term θεωρiα possessed and adds to it the adjective απλανης, which for Plato is often anchored in the intelligible world. The anti-Platonic result of the reformulation is clear: the Epicurean απλανης θεωρiα is aimed at the happiness of man as a mortal being on earth, where he lives as a god on earth.

41 Perhaps in this case too Epicurus was inspired by Plato, who argues that practical wisdom or prudence [φρoνησις] is like a sober [νηφαντικη] source of pleasure (cf. Phl. 61c6 and Boeri, 2010: 365). We have developed this point in some detail in chapter 3.

42 Cicero also formulates the issue in Fin. 2.28, pointing out that Epicurus often approves of pleasure in the common meaning of the term, which puts him in a compromised situation insofar as this ‘commits him to the view that no deed is foul enough to consider refraining from so long as it is done for the sake of pleasure and no one is watching [ut hominum conscientia remota]’.

43 Interestingly, Konstan 2008: 53-5 suggests that the Epicurean doctrine that fear or, more properly, anxiety is the cause of unlimited desires marks a notable difference from Plato's and Aristotle's approaches to immoderate passions such as greed or ambition.

44 Most interpreters refer to exceptional circumstances in which the satisfaction of the natural desires of the sage or of a friend (which would seem to constitute performing ‘honourably’) would involve breaking the law. There are, however, also very different hypotheses, such as the one put forward by Roskam, who argues that it cannot be ruled out that, if Epicurus were sure of not being discovered, he would put the harmful apostate Timocrates to death (Roskam 2012: 37-9).

45 Cf. Austin 1965: 40.

46 Or to put it more precisely in terms of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism: ‘The creed

which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as

ends; and that all desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain' (Stuart Mill 2015: chapter II, 121). The last part of this passage from Mill sounds somewhat Epicurean in character. However, see what we argue below toward the end of this section and in note 51.

47 Epicurus' piety to the gods is recalled in different passages (DL 10.10; Cicero, ND 1.45, 56). The view that a god is self-sufficient (so it has no need of human beings or of giving trouble to them) is incorporated by Philodemus into his discussion of piety and justice. See, for example, Philodemus, On Piety col. lxxviii, 2263-2265 (ed. Obbink) where he argues that piety and justice are virtually the same thing and two faces of the same coin. You cannot be a just person, Philodemus suggests, without being pious, or pious without being just (see also On Piety Col. xl, 1139-1150).

48 As noted by Obbink 1996: 310, the gods came to be thought of as subject to disturbance, insofar as the fear of death was mistakenly attributed to gods (cf. Philodemus, On Piety col. ix, 280-281, ed. Obbink).

49 As Armstrong 2011:115, rightly claims.

50 Epicurean justice only works within the domain of ‘mutual associations' (PD 36 to 38).

51 Although as indicated above (note 46), some similarities between Epicurean hedonism and Mill's utilitarian hedonism may be noted, one should be very cautious. Mill coined the term ‘utilitarianism' to refer to his view that a right action is that which an agent performs for ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number' (the so-called ‘the greatest happiness principle'; Stuart Mill 2015: chap. I-II). But as lucidly explained by Long (2020: 1473), ‘the greatest happiness principle' does not clarify what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure (happiness being pleasure and the absence of pain, and unhappiness pain and the privation of pleasure). This being so, Mill presents himself as an unqualified psychological hedonist. More importantly, Mill's suggestion that there are ‘higher pleasures' (such pleasures being the psychological ones) that are superior to sensual ones is not in line with what Epicurus states. Indeed, as pointed out by Long, the distinction itself between higher and lower pleasures cannot be attributed to Epicurus, since mental pleasures and pains are greater than bodily pleasures and pains, ‘but not intrinsically or ethically better or worse respectively'; Long 2020: 1476-7.

52 Cf. VS 43 as well as the use of γενναlος (‘noble man') regarding the Epicurean sage in VS 78. On the use of ‘honourably’, ‘nobly' (καλως) in Epicurus, see Robitzsch 2019: 6-7, who does not consider the illuminating remarks by Long 2006: 190-2.

53 On the difficulties of expression χαριν των σοφων, cf. Goldschmidt 1977: 97 n.1, and Besnier 2001: 133 n. 11.

54 See also Porphyry, Letter to Marcella 27; Porphyry, surely evoking Epicurus, clarifies that those laws are ‘written laws' [εγγραφοι νoμοι]; therefore, the laws that rule over the wise are formal, positive laws, such as those belonging to an existing polis. Seneca complains that the limits that law of nature ordains for us are as trivial as ‘not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold' (Ep. 4, 10; transl. Graver and Long), and ironically concludes that ‘nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand'.

Of course, Seneca must be thinking of the Stoic law of nature; but the law of nature that the Epicurean sage has internalized is one that requires its adherent to satisfy the necessary desires (hunger, thirst, etc.), and to do so in the way that the law of the political community in which he lives allows (we provide a discussion of the Epicurean ‘justice of nature' in chapter 3).

De Sanctis 2016: 87.

De Sanctis 2016: 71-7,83.

Erler 2002: 177-80.

This is so because, for excellent or virtuous people, sharing conversations with those who are like them produces an ‘ineffable pleasure' (αφατος ηδονη; Philodemus, On the gods col. xiv, 4-6, ed. Diels).

See Glad 1995: 162-3; Armstrong 2011:125-7 and 2016: 190-3; Essler 2013: 97; Nemeth 2017: 178-81.

Armstrong 2016: 190. Obbink 1996: 566.

Obbink 1996: 583.

Cf. DL 9.112 and Dorandi 1999: 6, 47.

Chapter 6

Philippson, in his pioneering 1910 paper on Epicurus' philosophy of right, highlights the ignorance existing in his time of Epicurus' political reflection and exemplifies it with appreciations taken from von Arnim, (see Philippson 1910: 289). A few years before Philippsons 1910 paper, the Italian jurist A. Falchi had published, in 1902, the book Il pensiero giuridico d’Epicuro. Almost three centuries earlier, Gassendi had devoted several pages to the Epicurean debates on justice, the right and law, that he reworked to incorporate such discussions into his philosophy (see Paganini 2020). In the seventeenth century Epicureanism appears in the background of the personal dialogue between Gassendi and Hobbes and their mutual influence in the years of the making of the Leviathan. However, Gassendi's appropriation of Epicureanism's political philosophy was not well known either in his time or the following centuries, as is proved by the fact that he is mentioned by neither Falchi nor Philippson. Grimal 1969: 151-2.

On the recipients of LM cf. De Sanctis 2012: 107-9. Erbi 2015: 79-80, develops a thorough analysis of the fragments of Epicurus' letters sent to Idomeneus and Mithras, as well as of other Epicurean testimonies related to both politicians. Interestingly, as De Sanctis 2009: 110 has pointed out, in the Vita Philonidis (PHerc. 1044) the concept of utility is repeatedly linked to the activity and personality of the Epicurean Philonides of Laodicea.

Epictetus Diss. 2.20, 6-20. As is relatively obvious, Epictetus is accusing Epicurus and the Epicureans of committing a sort of performative contradiction, which, in our view, helps to show that, according to Epictetus, the Epicureans did carry out political activities and lived within the framework of political organizations. Epictetus caricatures Epicurus, among other reasons, because he does not take into consideration the sophistication of Epicurean hedonism.

Gilbert 2015: 4.

See Schofield 2021: 229-42.

Schofield 2021: 232-8. See also Gorler 1995 and Levy 2001: 71.

Schofield 2021: 235-6.

Aalders 1982: 5-12.

For Seneca, see Ep. 59, 12; De ira 3.17.2. See also Eicke 1909: 69.

Connor 1968: 146; Pownall 2003: 175.

Tutrone 2018: 352-62.

As Fish 2011: 76-81 has shown, Lucretius' comparison of politicians with Sisyphus (3.995-1002) does not correspond to the widespread ‘existentialist' interpretation. Lucretius does not intend his comparison to show the vanity and futility of all politics, but rather refers specifically to politicians who again and again fail in their quest for power.

Roskam 2007b: 55.

On the difficulties of this passage cf. Roskam 2007b: 52-4.

Fish 2011: 91-9.

As pointed out above, Cicero refers jointly (in Leg. 1. 39) to the Epicureans and the Academy of Carneades and Arcesilaus while justifying their silencing.

The ‘inspector' was an officer, generally of senatorial rank, who was responsible for investigating and reforming the administration of the provinces; he could also have powers to intervene in the free cities.

As Scholz 2004 points out, a very significant change of perception took place during the third century, when philosophy was accepted as a part of higher education.

On this see Indelli 2014.

Usener 1887: 13.

Erler 2020: 88-90.

Clay 2001: x; 4, n.3, and especially 42-3.

On this point, see Erbi 2015.

For details on this point, see Leiwo and Remes 1999: 161-6. cf. also the seminal works by Bruns 1882, and Dareste 1882.

Warren 2004: 190-1.

Warren 2004: 191.

Sickinger 1999: 133-4.

Aminomachus is mentioned in an Athenian inscription reproducing a decree of the Mesogeioi, which suggests that he was a prominent citizen with whom Epicurus was connected (on this see Haake 2007: 146-8).

The house of Melite is mentioned in Cicero's correspondence. Patro, successor to Phaedrus as the head of the Garden, turned to Atticus to intervene against a decree of the Athenian Areopagus allowing C. Memmius, the patron of Lucretius, to build on the ruins of the house of Epicurus, presumably the house at Melite. Atticus asked Cicero to intervene and Cicero, as we read in Fam. XIII. 1, wrote to Memmius.

As Armstrong 2006: 296-7 has shown, Warren's considerations regarding Epicurus' inconsistency in making a will involve assumptions about altruism and Epicurean friendship and hedonism that several texts of Philodemus deny.

Tsouna 2007: 283-5. Armstrong 2006: 296-7.

Clay 2001: 69.

Benferhat 2005: 44-7.

On this point, see Roskam 2020: 390.

Cf. De Sanctis 2009: 108.

Koch 2005: 262-6; Haake 2007: 148-59. Assante (2011/12: 47; see also 50) interestingly notes that from the inscriptions and the papyrus, we learn that Philonides ‘belonged to a prestigious family, that must have had some political clout due to his diplomatic activity'. She also underlines that Philonides came into contact with the king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his grandson Demetrius I Soter (king from 162 to 150) during his maturity.

Cf. Campos and Lopez 2010: 28-33.

As remarked by Clay 2001: 65.

De Sanctis 2016: 84-5.

Raubitschek 1949: 96-103; Koch 2005: 262-6 and 2009; Haake 2007: 159-66, 175-6 and 2017: 148-59.

Koch 2009.

Oliver 1938; Raubitschek 1949; Follet 1994; Smith 1996; Haake 2007, 2008, 2016, 2017; Koch 2005, and Van Bremen 2005.

On this see Haake 2007: 261-4.

Arrayas 2016: 86.

Cf. Benferhat 2005: 55; Haake 2007: 190-4.

Haake 2008:156.

Ferrary 1988: 477-86; Ballesteros 2005; Benferhat 2005: 51-4. According to Anglade (2021: 199-202), Aristion was really an Epicurean and tyrant of Athens. The Epicurean scholar Zeno of Sidon also collaborated with him. Phaedrus, on the other hand, was pro-Roman.

Haake 2007: 280.

Haake 2008: 157-8.

Smith 1996: 129-30. See also Haake 2008: 158.

Smith 1996: 129; Koch 2005: 261-2; Haake 2008: 159.

Haake 2008: 156-7.

Haake 2016: 292.

Dorandi 2005: 31.

Hammerstaedt and Smith 2018: 63.

See also Armstrong’s comments in 2011: 124-5.

Roskam 2007b: 143-4.

Erler 2020: 71-3.

We use the transcriptions and commentaries by Oliver 1938, Temporini 1978, Follet 1994, Dorandi 2000 and Van Bremen 2005.

Follet 1994: 171.

On Amafinius and his anonymous aemuli, see Gilbert 2015: 41-68; Anglade 2021: 166-78.

Farrington 1939: 192.

Momigliano 1941: 149-51.

Castner 1988; Benferhat 2005; Gilbert 2015; Valachova 2018; Volk 2021; Roskam 2022.

See Volk 2022: 81-6.

Griffin 1989: 32-4.

The list, even in the most conservative versions, is not small. See Gilbert’s version (2015): Titus Albucius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Fadius Gallus, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, Gaius Memmius Caesoninus, Gaius Velleius, Gaius Vibius Pansa, Caetronianus Lucius Papirius, Paetus Titus Pomponius Atticus, Lucius Saufeius Gaius, Trebatius Testa.

Gilbert 2015: 134-45 has carefully analysed the anti-Epicurean arguments of this letter in order to show their continuation in Cicero’s philosophical works. Such continuation also reflects the continuity of the omission of central Epicurean arguments that Cicero’s anti-Epicurean arguments entail (as Erler 1992 rightly has emphasized). On the letter to Trebatius of April 53, see Erler 1992: 310-22; Griffin 1995: 332-4; Benferhat 2005: 274-81 and 2010. For Vesperini 2011: 166, Trebatius' adherence to Epicureanism lacks seriousness and is merely frivolous.

Benferhat 2005: 277.

On this, see Bremer 1896: 398.

See Benferheat 2005: 98-100.

Valachova 2018: 169-70.

White 2010: 3-29.

Benferhat 2005: 98; Gilbert 2015: 4-5 and 2022.

See the detailed account of Bianay 2014: 65-136.

Benferhat 2005: 98.

See Griffin 1995: 342-6; Benferhat 2005: 261-5; Armstrong 2011: 111-14; Gilbert 2015: 221-43; Valachova 2018: 112-31.

Sedley 1997: 41. Sedley 1997: 46-7.

According to Momigliano (1941: 151-4), Farrington wrongly argued that the Roman Epicureans were inclined towards the Republic, since there were also Epicureans who opted for the monarchy. Anglade (2015: 766-8; 2021: 423-7) proposes a distinction between Latin and a Greek Epicureanism in Rome. The former, represented by authors such as Amafinius, his Epicurean aemuli and Lucretius, would be linked to the Populares; the latter, represented by figures such as Albucius, Atticus, L. Saufeius, Cassius and the circle of Philodemus, to the Optimates.

Grimal 1966. See also Anglade 2015: 741-5.

See Haake 2003: 89,119-21.

Roskam 2007a 23-7; 2007b: 105-7.

Roskam 2007b: 106.

Fish 2011: 103-4; 2018: 154-5.

See On Rhetoric 2, col. xxxivb 34-39 and 3, col. xiva 19-col xvia 8 (ed. Hammerstaedt).

Armstrong 2011: 112.

Neither equity nor indulgence had a positive valuation in Stoic ethics; on this, see Erskine 2000: 73-4; Asmis 1991: 39; De Sanctis 2008: 175. On the ‘legalism’ of Diogenes of Babylon see Erskine 2000:154-6.Inwood and Gerson translate ‘êàѲ’ 6πηλiκους... τoπους' ‘in whatever places’, but 6πηλiκος refers to indeterminacy of size (see Gassendi: ‘ cuiusque... regionis amplitudine’; Gassendi 1649: 158). The propositions contained in PD 33 seem to reflect a polemical intention against Plato’s idea of justice. This is how Philippson understood the issue (1910: 293.); he claims that Epicurus intends to underline that justice, which Plato had considered to be a virtue of individuals, is not a property of man himself but concerns relations among people. Bignone (1920: 66-67), as well as Bailey (1926: 369), Muller (1972: 90-92), and Goldschmidt (1977: 72-73, 80-83), also insist on the anti-Platonism of PD 33. They do note, however, that Epicurus established an opposition between the Platonic idea of justice - something existing in its own right, everlasting and immutable - and the pacts concretized in each instance under specific geographical and historical conditions on which justice would be founded.