component atoms. This process is not only inevitable, but
harmless, for the simple reason that after death there is no
“us” to suffer harm.
Although the sect numbered not a few prominent Romans
among its adherents, it never attained the success of
Stoicism, and was regarded with genial contempt by most
outsiders. The quietism endorsed by the Epicureans was
obviously difficult to reconcile with an active public life—
an important Roman value—and the Epicurean equation of
the good with pleasure was bound to raise eyebrows among
conservative Romans. “Eat, drink and be merry” was
popularly supposed to be the Epicureans’ motto, though
Epicurus himself had been quite explicit in identifying
pleasure with intellectual contemplation rather than the
vulgar enjoyment of food and sex. Though a minority view,
Epicureanism was, nonetheless, the only potential rival to
Stoicism in offering a systematic cosmology, as Marcus
acknowledges on a number of occasions by the stark
dichotomy “Providence or atoms” (4.3, 10.6, 11.18, 12.14).
Marcus normally seems to view Epicureanism with
disapproval (as we would expect). In Meditations 6.10 he
contrasts the Epicurean universe, founded on “mixture,
interaction, dispersal” with the components of the Stoic
system: “unity, order, design”—clearly to the advantage of
the latter. Should we not be ashamed to fear death, he asks in
another entry, when “even” the Epicureans disdain it?