EPICURUS

EPICURUS. Epicurus, a Greek philosopher (341–270 b.c.e.), has involuntarily given his name to the fastidious pursuit of pleasure. Born on the Greek island of Samos, Epicurus lived and taught mainly in Athens, where he was a precise contemporary of the playwright Menander. The Epicurean school of philosophy, which he founded, centered on his house and garden in Athens. He and his pupils, who included slaves and women, followed a secluded and austere lifestyle there.

Epicurus taught that the gods have no effect on human affairs, that the universe was created by the random swerve of an atom, and that pleasure is the goal of a happy life. His definition of pleasure is, however, a rather negative one, the removal of disturbance and pain. Since pain is caused by unsatisfied desire, one must reduce one's desires to the minimum. The unavoidable demands of instinct must be satisfied; philosophical study is the best way to conquer all desires beyond that point.

Epicurus is not an ideal choice as a spiritual patron of gastronomes or hedonists. Yet he invited this view of his philosophy with such pronouncements as, "The beginning and root of all good is to make the stomach happy: wisdom and learning are founded on that" (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists [Professors at dinner], 546 ff.). The belief that Epicurus favored sensual pleasures can be traced to his contemporaries, and to their understandable misinterpretation of his own words.

See also Greece, Ancient .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A few short writings by Epicurus survive. See Eugene Michael O'Connor, trans., The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993), and Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, trans., The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1994). His beliefs are eloquently explained in a Latin poem by Lucretius, Lucretius on the Nature of the Universe, translated by Ronald Latham, with an introduction by John Godwin (London: Penguin, 1994; first published 1951). The papyrus rolls found at Herculaneum in the eighteenth century had come from the working library of an Epicurean teacher of the first century b.c.e. and include some of Epicurus's works. For the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus, quoted above, see vol. 5, pp. 477–481, of C. B. Gulick's translation (London: Heinemann, 1933; New York: Putnam, 1933).

Andrew Dalby