The security of the Polis and the vain fears and desires

We do not know the precise context of the passage from Colotes (see T4 above) extracted by Plutarch who, as Kechagia notes,²⁶ seems to use it to complete his presentation of Epicurean philosophy, after referring to and opposing logic and physics (thus going beyond the traditional Hellenistic division of philosophy and subjecting the ethical-political part of Colotes' approaches to criticism).

Plutarch may also have been focused on rejecting the limitations imposed upon the meaning of the polis in the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition, as Colotes does not exalt security, tranquillity and the release from disturbances as achievements leading to other higher ends belonging to the polis, such as living well [ ευ ζην]. This is a view especially underlined by Aristotelian political theory and opposed precisely to the ethical minimization of the polis that represented, for Aristotle, the approach of Lycophron; according to Aristotle, this thinker turns the community of the polis into a mere alliance and makes the law a pact and a reciprocal guarantee of what is right (Pol. 1280b5-12).

Consequently, one might ask whether the achievements of the polis which Colotes praises constitute, for him, the desirable status of human life or, rather, a necessary condition for other modes full of security, tranquillity and liberation from disturbances.

For the Epicureans, the security of political groupings represents a human achievement in terms of satisfying natural desires and reducing the fear of aggression and violent death. Lucretius, as we have shown above, frames the establishment of pacts and justice with his explanation of the emergence, extinction and survival of animal species, developed in On the Nature of Things Book 5. Certain capacities such as strength, cunning and agility, in his opinion, protected and preserved other species from extinction (RN 5.857-859). The establishment and observance of pacts, made without the intervention of the gods, saved the human species from extinction (RN 5.1026-1027). Hermarchus also stresses that if people had not gathered together to carry out their common existence, they would not have survived (Abst. 1.10 1).

When Colotes praises laws, cities and magistracies, he has in mind, as evidenced by his reference to the primitive bestial life, the evolutionist perspective witnessed by the verses of Lucretius and the fragment of Hermarchus. The Principal Doctrines do not deny this view: PD 7 presents security as the good of nature [τo της φυσεως αγαθoν] and as an end according to what is naturally congenial [κατα τo της φυσεως οlκεtον], which establishes an interesting consistency between nature (understood as our nature)²⁸ and the purpose of pacts, justice and laws.

The Epicurean analyses of the negative consequences of an irrational fear of death constitute one of their most significant contributions to philosophy. However, they also considered the fear of violent death³⁰ from a prudential perspective which, as Aristotle observes in his study of fear, leads to the recognition that fear makes human beings deliberate in view of their salvation (Rh. 1383a5-8). Polystratus stresses that humans, unlike irrational animals, can take precautions in anticipation of suffering ailments [ευλαβεtσθαι πρo του παθεtν] and thereby provide beneficial or useful things (τα συμφεροντα πορiζεσθαt; Contempt 3.5-11). In fact, the strengthening of the satisfaction of natural desires and the reduction of the fear of the threat of violent death are, in both Lucretius and Hermarchus, factors that explain the Epicurean genealogy of the first human groupings and the pacts of justice. The security of the political community is a useful instrument to mitigate the fear of violent death, and, according to the Epicureans, the fear of violent death itself seems to have contributed to the creation of such a community. The polis can generate security, and, as we have previously argued, such security is a necessary condition for actual political organizations.

There are, however, fears that neutralize and undermine the usefulness of the security that political communities provide. These are, in the Epicurean view, fears based on false beliefs about death and the gods. Such fears give rise to unnatural and unnecessary desires, the main characteristic of which is to be unlimited and impossible to satisfy. The most representative examples are greed and ambition.³¹ Both, as we have indicated, are considered by Thucydides and Aristotle to be the main causes of civil war.

The preserved Epicurean literature makes it possible to reconstruct some approaches of Epicureanism towards the genealogy of false beliefs that give rise to irrational fears of gods and death and their connection to greed and ambition for power. Hermarchus points out that, in the past, to induce ordinary people to not commit murder, some shrewd legislators instilled, in addition to the fear of punishment, an irrational fear [ετερον φoβον αλογον] of being impure because of the crime (Abst.

Hermarchus' statement recalls the fragment of the sophist Critias (or Euripides),³² in which he maintains that the ancient lawmakers invented the gods so that no one would commit injustice in secret for fear of divine punishment (Sextus Empiricus, M 9.54). Gigante has detected echoes of the fragment of Critias in Lucretius.³³ According to Philodemus (On piety 519-541, ed. Obbink), Epicurus in O n Nature 12 described as madmen those who, like Prodicus, Diagoras and Critias, denied the existence of the gods and generated confusion. Epicurus pointed out that they eliminate what is commonly accepted and even suggest (like Critias) that belief in the gods is due to a deception early in the history of culture. Philodemus (On piety 2145-2174, ed. Obbink) seems to distinguish two stages in the shaping of irrational beliefs about gods: at first, fear of the gods serves to ensure the preservation or safety of state, but ultimately it is not successful and, in time, lies about the gods become dissociated from the purpose of community security and become simply inconsistent and irrational claims.³⁴ Also, one of the inscriptions of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Hammerstaedt and Smith fr. 167, and Smith fr. 126) insists on the ineffectiveness of fear of the gods in promoting justice.³⁵ Plutarch, naturally, objects to these Epicurean theories; in his view, the ancestral faith in the gods, which includes hopes and fears, is the foundation of the city and, because of that, belief in the gods is the first and most important disposition of the laws (Col. 1125E-F; Pleasant Life 1104B, Us. 534; 1105B).

The thesis of Critias and, in general, the language, myths, literature³⁶ and ideas of the philosophers about the gods seem to have been of special interest to the Epicureans due to the doctrinal contrast that they establish between the preconception [πρoληψις] of the gods and the common or popular suppositions about them. What the many say about the gods is not based on preconceptions, but on false suppositions (υποληψεις ψευδεις; Epicurus, LM 123-124). Epicurus argues that to live well, certain practices should be carried out. First, following the general conception of what god is, one must believe that it is an indestructible and blessed living being [ ζωον αφθαρτον καi μακαριον ], thus avoiding ascribing anything foreign to its characteristics (i.e. blessedness and indestructibility). This is a significant argument that Epicurus provides to remove the fear of god; what follows is the well-known Epicurean view that death is nothing to us (the chief reason being that good and bad consist in perception, and given that death is the privation of perception, when one is dead, perception is gone, so death is nothing to us). These are two good examples of how two significant fears can be removed; they are chiefly fears that usually torment people in their inner mental states and, as is clear, the procedures described to eliminate them are highly dependent on a rational exercise that the agent can perform.

The fear of death evokes a sense of insecurity that prompts people to break the law and destroy the pacts that allow them to live without harming one another nor being harmed. This is, in fact, what Lucretius has in mind when arguing that ‘avarice and blind lust for status, which drive wretched people to encroach beyond the boundaries of right and sometimes... to strive night and day with prodigious effort to scale the summit of wealth these sores of life are nourished in no small degree by dread of death’. He adds that ‘the ignominy of humble position and the sting of penury are considered to be incompatible with a life of enjoyment and security’ (RN 3.60-71).

For Lucretius, the reason for the belief in such incompatibility is that poverty and anonymity are perceived as anticipations of death (R N 3.67; see also Porphyry, Us. 478). To avoid death, human beings therefore seek wealth and fame at any price. As Fowler notes, men desire life because they fear death, and reify life as wealth and power.³⁷ The purpose is as vain as greed and ambition. Both are desires, whose object is undefined and impossible to satisfy, as is the object of the irrational fear of death that gives rise to them. From this perspective, the security that is sought through wealth and power is spurious: it cannot escape death, nor does it free those who pursue it from suspicion and the irrational fear of death. Epicurean physiology, on the other hand, teaches its adherents how to face death and dispels such suspicions and irrational fears.

However, wealth and power can provide security regarding the satisfaction of natural desires and ‘the danger of violent death' (see PD 6, 7, and 14). As we mentioned above, Epicurus states that if those who aspired to fame gained security, then they achieved the good of nature [τo της φυσεως αγαθoν] and an end according to what is naturally congenial [κατα τo της φυσεως οlκεtον]. The formulation of PD 7 is careful, and suggests that the quest for power and fame is an uncertain, though not impossible, way to achieve security. It is easy to imagine the reasons that the Epicureans might give: the search for and preservation of wealth and power gives rise to envy, violence, restlessness and anguish. Often, far from being a cause of security, it means greater risk and insecurity for human beings, and can even lead to death.

Lucretius, as we indicated above, insists on the damaging effect that the search for security through wealth and power has for contractual security. His assessment evidences a relationship that is worth highlighting. For the most part, interpreters rightly contrast the partial security obtained through wealth and power with the total security of an Epicurean life based on physiology. However, the polis' security is not a result of the pursuit of wealth or power, nor of the practice of Epicurean study of nature. The activity of the avaricious, as Epicurus points out, presupposes the security of the polis and can, of course, be conducted justly or unjustly.³⁸ For the Epicurean, even the just activity of the greedy turns out to be shameful. However, even Epicurean life, like that of the greedy, presupposes the security of the polis. It is precisely in this sense that a passage of Stobaeus (Us. 530) may be interpreted; it points out that the laws are established for the sake of the wise [χαριν των σοφων], not so that they will not commit injustice, but so that they will not suffer it.³⁹

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