72 /-30 to /-34
Short Fragments and
Testimonia from Known Works
From On Nature
See 1-29, 1114a and 1112ef above.
Sextus M 9.333 (75 U) [1-30]
Epicurus was in the habit of calling the nature of bodies and of the
void [the] universe and [the] totality indifferently. For at one point he
says, "The nature of the universe is bodies and void."
Vatican Scholiast on Dionysius Thrax,
Grammatici Graeci 1.3, p. 116.7-12
(Hilgard) (92 U)
[1-31]And although Epicurus always made use of general outlines [of the
senses of words], he showed that definitions are more worthy of respect
by using definitions instead of general outlines in the treatise on physics;
for he used definitions when he divided the totality into the atomic and
the void, saying that "the atomic is a solid body which has no share of
void included in it;
to touch.
From books 12 and 13 of On Nature
(Arrighetti 27 and 28, 84, 87, 88 U =
Philodemus On Piety)
[1-32]And in book 12 of the On Nature he says that the first men got
conceptions of indestructible natures ....
As in book 12 he also criticizes Prodicus and Diagoras and Critias and
others, saying that they are madmen and lunatics, and he compares them
to bacchic revellers ....
In book 13 [he mentions] the congeniality which god feels for some
and the alienation [for others].
From book 32. An unknown author.
Arrighetti 32.
[1-33]In book 32 he offers a brief and summary definition of what was
explained at great length elsewhere: "For," he says, "the soul could be
said to be a certain nature."