230
Like Pythagoras, Epicurus was born on the Greek island of Samos. At eighteen
he went to Athens for a year, then joined his father in Colophon, the city where
Xenophanes had been born. He studied the writings of Democritus and eventually
set up his own school on the island of Lesbos. From there he moved to the
Hellespont and, finally, to Athens in 307 B.C. As he moved from place to place,
many of his students followed him. In Athens he established a community known
as the “Garden,” where he spent the rest of his life teaching and writing.
Epicurus’s community welcomed people of all classes and of both sexes. The
school required no fee from students, accepting what each individual was able
and willing to pay. Epicurus himself was almost worshiped by his disciples, and
members of his group had to swear an oath: “I will be faithful to Epicurus in
accordance with whom I have made it my choice to live.”* Among the later fol-
lowers of Epicurus’s thought, the Roman poet Lucretius (98–55 B.C.) considered
him to be a god. Yet Epicurus was not overbearing or authoritarian. According to
all accounts, he was kind and generous, treating his followers as friends, not sub-
ordinates. While dying in agony from a urinary obstruction, Epicurus wrote a let-
ter that illustrates his gracious spirit. The extant portion includes these words to
his friend Idomeneus: “I have a bulwark against all this pain from the joy in my
soul at the memory of our conversations together.”**
Epicurus wrote over three hundred volumes, but all that has survived are some
fragments, three complete letters, and a short treatise summarizing his views.
These surviving works provide an understanding of Epicurus’s physics and ethicsEPICURUS
341–270 B.C.
***Ibid.From Introduction To Greek Philosophy by J.V. Luce (C) 1992. Reprinted by kind permission
of Thames & Hudson Ltd., London.