1: Epicureanism
The ancient biography
of Epicurus
The Life of Epicurus: Diogenes Laertius
10.1-16 (selections)
[1-1]- Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chairestrate, was an Athenian citizen
of the deme Gargettus and of the clan Philaidae, according to Metrodorus
in his On Noble Birth. It is said, especially by Heracleides in his summary
of Sotion, that he was raised on Samos after the Athenians sent colonists
there; that at eighteen years of age he went to Athens, when Xenocrates
was in [charge of] the Academy and Aristotle was spending time in
Chalcis; that he went to join his father in Colophon when Alexander of
Macedon had died and Perdiccas expelled the Athenians [from Samos]; - that he spent some time there and gathered students around him, then
returned to Athens again in the archonship of Anaxicrates [307-306 B.c.];
and that up to a certain time he philosophized in conjunction with the
others, but later developed the system which bears his name and taught
his own distinctive views.
He himself says that he began to practice philosophy when he was
fourteen years old. Apollodorus the Epicurean says, in book one of his Life
ofEpicurus, that he turned to philosophy because he was contemptuous of
the school-teachers for not being able to interpret for him the [lines
about] chaos in Hesiod. Hermippus says that he had been a grammar
teacher, but then came across Democritus' treatises and threw himself
headlong into philosophy .... 9 .... There is abundant evidence of the
fellow's unsurpassed kindness to all men: his country honoured him with
bronze statues; his friends were so numerous that they could not be
counted by entire cities; all his followers were transfixed by the siren-
song of his teachings, except Metrodorus of Stratonicea, who went over
to Carneades, overburdened perhaps by his unsurpassed acts of goodness;
though nearly all the others have died out, his succession has always
persisted, one student following another in a numberless sequence of
leaders; 10. and [there is] his gratitude to his parents, kindness to his
brothers, and gentleness to his servants, as is clear both from the
3