how we see or how we think we know not. And we say in conversation that a certain thing appears white, but we are not positive that it really is white. As to our `We determine nothing' and the like, § 74. we use the expressions in an undogmatic sense, for they are not like the assertion that the world is spherical. Indeed the latter statement is not certain, but the others are mere admissions. Thus in saying `We determine nothing,' we are not determining even that."
Again, the dogmatic philosophers maintain that the Sceptics do away with life itself, in that they reject all that life consists in. The others say this is false, for they do not deny that we see; they only say that they do not know how we see. "We admit the apparent fact," say they, "without admitting that it really is what it appears to be."
We also perceive that fire burns; as to whether it is its nature to burn, we suspend our judgement.
We see that a man moves, and that he perishes; how it happens we do not know. We merely object to accepting the unknown substance behind phenomena. When we say a picture has projections, we are describing what is apparent; but if we say that it has no projections, we are then speaking, not of what is apparent, but of something else. This is what makes Timon say in his Python that he has not gone outside what is customary. And again in the Conceits he says Fr. 69 D.: But the apparent is omnipotent wherever it goes ; and in his work On the Senses, "I do not lay it down that honey is sweet, but I admit that it appears to be so."
Aenesidemus too in the first book of his Pyrrhonean Discourses says that Pyrrho determines nothing dogmatically, because of the possibility of contradiction, but guides himself by apparent facts. Aenesidemus says the same in his works Against Wisdom and On Inquiry. Furthermore Zeuxis, the friend of Aenesidemus, in his work On Two-sided Arguments, Antiochus of Laodicea, and Apellas in his Agrippa all hold to phenomena alone. Therefore the apparent is the Sceptic's criterion, as indeed Aenesidemus says; and so does Epicurus. Democritus, however, denied that any apparent fact could be a criterion, indeed he denied the very existence of the apparent.
Against this criterion of appearances the dogmatic philosophers urge that, when the same appearances produce in us different impressions, e.g. a round or square tower, the Sceptic, unless he gives the preference to one or other, will be unable to take any course; if on the other hand, say they, he follows either view, he is then no longer allowing equal value to all apparent facts. The Sceptics reply that, when different impressions are produced, they must both be said to appear i.e. the one has as much right to be called an appearance as the other.; for things which are apparent are so called because they appear. The end to be realized they hold to be suspension of judgement, which brings with it tranquillity like its shadow: so Timon and Aenesidemus declare.
For in matters which are for us to decide we shall neither choose this nor shrink from that; and things which are not for us to decide but happen of necessity, such as hunger, thirst and pain, we cannot escape, *ta\ d' o(/sa peri\ h(ma=s ou)k e)/stin, a)lla\ kat' a)na/gkh n, ou) duna/me qa feu/gei n. This is explained by Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 29 o)xlei=s qai/ famen ( sc.
to\n skeptik o\n) u(po\ tw=n kat- hnagka sme/nwn: "For we admit that we feel cold, that we are thirsty," etc. for they are not to be removed by force of reason. And when the dogmatists argue that he may thus live in such a frame of mind that he would not shrink from killing and eating his own father if ordered to do so, the Sceptic replies that he will be able so to live as to suspend his judgement in cases where it is a question of arriving at the truth, but not in matters of life and the taking of precautions. Accordingly we may choose a thing or shrink from a thing by habit and may observe rules and customs. According to some authorities the end proposed by the Sceptics is insensibility; according to others, gentleness. i.e. a calm, the opposite of an excitable, temperament: cf. Plato, Lys 211 e pra)/|ws e)/xw.
Chapter 12. TIMON (c.
320-2 30 B.C.)
Timon, says our *(o par' h(mw=n. Reiske took this to mean "my po/lews. Hence Usener inferred that Nicias of Nicaea was the author here used by D. L.; but nothing that we know of this Nicias tends to confirm such a conjecture. In favour of the translation adopted by most scholars it may be urged that Strabo calls the Stoics oi h(me/ter oi, just as Cicero calls the Academics "nostri." Even if we accept this meaning, "a Sceptic like myself," a further subtlety arises. Is D.
L. here speaking in his own person or has he merely transcribed o( par' h(mw=n from a monograph of a Sceptic? Something may be urged on either side; for reasons given in Introd. p. xiii, the former conjecture seems somewhat more probable. Apollonides of Nicaea in the first book of his commentaries On the Silli, which he dedicated to Tiberius Caesar, was the son of Timarchus and a native of Phlius.
Losing his parents when young, he became a stage-dancer, but later took a dislike to that pursuit and went abroad to Megara to stay with Stilpo; then after some time he returned home and married. After that he went to Pyrrho at Elis with his wife, and lived there until his children were born; the elder of these he called Xanthus, taught him medicine, and made him his heir.
This son was a man of high repute, as we learn from Sotion in his eleventh book. Timon, however, found himself without means of support and sailed to the Hellespont and Propontis. Living now at Chalcedon as a sophist, he increased his reputation still further and, having made his fortune, went to Athens, where he lived until his death, except for a short period which he spent at Thebes. He was known to King Antigonus and to Ptolemy Philadelphus, as his own iambics Possibly the proem of the Silli. testify.
He was, according to Antigonus, fond of wine, and in the time that he could spare from philosophy he used to write poems. These included epics, tragedies, satyric dramas, thirty comedies and sixty tragedies, besides silli (lampoons) and obscene poems.
There are also reputed works of his extending to twenty thousand verses which are mentioned by Antigonus of Carystus, who also wrote his life. There are three silli in which, from his point of view as a Sceptic, he abuses every one and lampoons the dogmatic philosophers, using the form of parody. In the first he speaks in the first person throughout, the second and third are in the form of dialogues; for he represents himself as questioning Xenophanes of Colophon about each philosopher in turn, while Xenophanes answers him; in the second he speaks of the more ancient philosophers, in the third of the later, which is why some have entitled it the Epilogue.
The first deals with the same subjects, except that the poem is a monologue. It begins as follows Fr. 1 D.: Ye sophists, ye inquisitives, come! follow!
He died at the age of nearly ninety, so we learn from Antigonus and from Sotion in his eleventh book. I have heard that he had only one eye; indeed he used to call himself a Cyclops. There was another Timon, the misanthrope. Diels regards the passage from kai\ e)/ph, § 110, down to *ti/mwn o( misa/nq rwpos, § 112, as an insertion, disturbing the symmetry of the materials derived from Antigonus of Carystus.
Now this philosopher, according to Antigonus, was very fond of gardens and preferred to mind his own affairs. At all events there is a story that Hieronymus the Peripatetic said of him, "Just as with the Scythians those who are in flight shoot as well as those who pursue, so, among philosophers, some catch their disciples by pursuing them, some by fleeing from them, as for instance Timon."
He was quick to perceive anything and to turn up his nose in scorn; he was fond of writing and at all times good at sketching plots for poets and collaborating in dramas. He used to give the dramatists Alexander and Homer materials for their tragedies. i.e.
he collaborated with these two tragic poets, Alexander the Aetolian and Homer of Byzantinum, partly by furnishing them with plots, partly by handing over scenes from unpublished plays of his own, or other similar material. When disturbed by maidservants and dogs, he would stop writing, his earnest desire being to maintain tranquillity. Aratus is said to have asked him how he could obtain a trustworthy text of Homer, to which he replied, "You can, if you get hold of the ancient copies, and not the corrected copies of our day." He used to let his own poems lie about, sometimes half eaten away.
Hence, when he came to read parts of them to Zopyrus the orator, he would turn over the pages and recite whatever came handy; then, when he was half through, he would discover the piece which he had been looking for in vain, so careless was he. Similar carelessness is recorded of Lamartine. Furthermore, he was so easy-going that he would readily go without his dinner. They say that once, when he saw Arcesilaus passing through the "knaves-market," he said, "What business have you to come here, where we are all free men?" He was constantly in the habit of quoting, to those who would admit the evidence of the senses when confirmed by the judgement of the mind, the line-- Birds of a feather flock together. Usually explained, after Diogenianus, of two notorious thieves, Attagas the Thessalian and Numenius the Corinthian. There may, however, be a sly hit at Pyrrho's disciple Numenius ( supra, § 102). Or merely the birds partridge and woodcock may be meant, not any Mr. Partridge and Mr.
Woodcock.
Jesting in this fashion was habitual with him. When a man marvelled at everything, he said, "Why do you not marvel that we three have but four eyes between us?" for in fact he himself had only one eye, as also had his disciple Dioscurides, while the man whom he addressed was normal.
Asked once by Arcesilaus why he had come there from Thebes, he replied, "Why, to laugh when I have you all in full view!" Yet, while attacking Arcesilaus in his Silli, he has praised him in his work entitled the Funeral Banquet of Arcesilaus.
According to Menodotus he left no successor, but his school lapsed until Ptolemy of Cyrene re-established it.
Hippobotus and Sotion, however, say that he had as pupils Dioscurides of Cyprus, Nicolochus of Rhodes, Euphranor of Seleucia, and Praÿlus of the Troad. This is probably the same person as is referred to by Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. 56, where the text reads *pau=los o( *laku/do u gnw/rim os. His heroic end was also extolled (Clement says) by Timotheus of Pergamum. See Wilamowitz, Phil. Unters. iv. p. 107.
The latter, as we learn from the history of Phylarchus, was a man of such unflinching courage that, although unjustly accused, he patiently suffered a traitor's death, without so much as deigning to speak one word to his fellow-citizens.
Euphranor had as pupil Eubulus of Alexandria; Eubulus taught Ptolemy, and he again Sarpedon and Heraclides; Heraclides again taught Aenesidemus of Cnossus, the compiler of eight books of Pyrrhonean discourses; the latter was the instructor of Zeuxippus his fellow-citizen, he of Zeuxis of the angular foot ( gwnio/po us, Cruickshank), he again of Antiochus of Laodicea on the Lycus, who had as pupils Menodotus of Nicomedia, an empiric physician, and Theiodas of Laodicea; Menodotus was the instructor of Herodotus of Tarsus, son of Arieus, and Herodotus taught Sextus Empiricus, who wrote ten books on Scepticism, and other fine works.
Sextus taught Saturninus called Cythenas, Possibly kudaqh naieu/s, i.e. a member of the well-known Attic deme, into which even Italians with such names as Saturninus might penetrate under the cosmopolitan empire of the Severi. another empiricist.
BOOK X Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was as citizen of Athens of the deme Gargettus, and, as Metrodorus says in his book On Noble Birth, of the family of the Philaidae. He is said by Heraclides i.e. Heraclides Lembos ( F.H.G. iii. p. 70). in his Epitome of Sotion, as well as by other authorities, to have been brought up at Samos after the Athenians had sent settlers there and to have come to Athens at the age of eighteen, at the time when Xenocrates was lecturing at the Academy and Aristotle in Chalcis. Upon the death of Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion of the Athenian settlers from Samos by Perdiccas, Diod.
Sic. xviii. 18. 9. Epicurus left Athens to join his father in Colophon.
For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates. 307-306 b.c. And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards put forward independent views by the foundation of the school called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his Life of Epicurus, says that he turned to philosophy in disgust at the schoolmasters who could not tell him the meaning of "chaos" in Hesiod. Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. x. 18, where the story is well told. According to Hermippus, however, he started as a schoolmaster, but on coming across the works of Democritus turned eagerly to philosophy.
Hence the point of Timon's allusion Fr. 51 D. in the lines: Again there is the latest and most shameless of the physicists, the schoolmaster's son The meaning is: "a schoolmaster like his father before him." Cf. Dem. De w| prosedr eu/wn. From Aristophanes, Acharn. 595-7, it seems that patronymics were used of persons engaged in hereditary occupations. from Samos, himself the most uneducated of mortals.
At his instigation his three brothers, Neocles, Chaeredemus, and Aristobulus, joined in his studies, according to Philodemus the Epicurean in the tenth book of his comprehensive work On Philosophers; furthermore his slave named Mys, as stated by Myronianus in his Historical Parallels. Diotimus One Diotimus who calumniated Epicurus and was answered by the Epicurean Zeno is mentioned by Athenaeus, xiii. 611 b, as having been put to death. the Stoic, who is hostile to him, has assailed him with bitter slanders, adducing fifty scandalous letters as written by Epicurus; and so too did the author who ascribed to Epicurus the epistles commonly attributed to Chrysippus.
They are followed by Posidonius the Stoic and his school, and Nicolaus and Sotion in the twelfth book of his work entitled Dioclean Refutations, consisting of twenty-four books; also by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. They allege that he used to go round with his mother to cottages and read charms, and assist his father in his school for a pitiful fee Compare again Dem. De cor. § 258.; further, that one of his brothers was a pander and lived with Leontion the courtesan; that he put forward as his own the doctrines of Democritus about atoms and of Aristippus about pleasure; that he was not a genuine Athenian citizen, a charge brought by Timocrates and by Herodotus in a book On the Training of Epicurus as a Cadet; that he basely flattered Mithras, Mithras was a Syrian. Cf. Plut. Contra Epic. 1097 b; Adv.
Col. 1126 e. the minister of Lysimachus, bestowing on him in his letters Apollo's titles of Healer and Lord.
Furthermore that he extolled Idomeneus, Herodotus, and Timocrates, who had published his esoteric doctrines, and flattered them for that very reason. Also that in his letters he wrote to Leontion, "O Lord Apollo, my dear little Leontion, with what tumultuous applause we were inspired as we read your letter." Then again to Themista, the wife of Leonteus: "I am quite ready, if you do not come to see me, to spin thrice on my own axis and be propelled to any place that you, including Themista, agree upon"; and to the beautiful Pythocles he writes: "I will sit down and await thy divine advent, my heart's desire." And, as Theodorus says in the fourth book of his work, Against Epicurus, in another letter to Themista he thinks he preaches to her. A perplexing passage. (1) As paraine tikh/ is for the Stoics that branch of ethics which makes personal application of moral principles, the mss. may be right. (2) By changing au)th=| to au)th/n, a little more sting is given to this tame remark: "he thinks that she preaches." (3)If this is one of the fifty scandalous letters alluded to in § 3, Froben's au)th\n perai/ne in, which Bignone and Apelt adopt, may be right. (4) If emend we must, a rude remark is quite as probable as a compliment, cf. § 8. Hence nomi/ze i au)th\n parakin ei=n, "he deems her mad," if she says or thinks so-and-so, would be in the master's blunt manner, and Themista (to use the language of Phaedrus, 249 d) nouqet ei=tai w(s parakin ou=sa.
It is added that he corresponded with many courtesans, and especially with Leontion, of whom Metrodorus also was enamoured. It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he writes in these terms Cf. Athen. xii.
546 e, who cites the concluding words more fully thus: kai\ ta\s dia\ morfh=s kat' o)/yin h(dei/as kinh/se is: also vii. 280 a and, for a shorter version than that of D. L., vii. 278 f. Cf. also Cic. Tusc. Disp. iii. 41. The last words have been taken to refer especially to the pleasures afforded by music and again by painting and the plastic arts. But perhaps Epicurus is merely citing typical examples of intense pleasures under the heads of the four senses: (i.) taste; (ii.) touch; (iii.) hearing; (iv.) seeing.
The omission of pleasant odours is curious; cf. Plato, Phil. 51 e qei=on ge/nos h(donw=n.: "I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form." And in his letter to Pythocles: "Hoist all sail, my dear boy, and steer clear of all culture." Epictetus calls him preacher of effeminacy and showers abuse on him.
Again there was Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, who was his disciple and then left the school. He in the book entitled Merriment asserts that Epicurus vomited twice a day from over-indulgence, and goes on to say that he himself had much ado to escape from those notorious midnight philosophizings and the confraternity with all its secrets; further, that Epicurus's acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with life even smaller; that his bodily health was pitiful, Cf. Aelian, Fr. 39 ( De Epicuro eiusque discipulis ). According to him the three brothers of Epicurus were all victims of disease. Plutarch ( Non posse suaviter, etc., 1097 e) mentions the dropsy. However much his ailments were exaggerated by his enemies, they do not seem to have hindered him from literary work. so much so that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair; and that he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene. Also that among other courtesans who consorted with him and Metrodorus were Mammarion and Hedia and Erotion and Nikidion. He alleges too that in his thirtyseven books On Nature Epicurus uses much repetition and writes largely in sheer opposition to others, especially to Nausiphanes, and here are his own words: "Nay, let them go hang: for, when labouring with an idea, he too had the sophist's off-hand boast-fulness like many another servile soul"; besides, he himself in his letters says of Nausiphanes: "This so maddened him that he abused me and called me pedagogue."
Epicurus used to call this Nausiphanes jelly-fish, Cf. Sext.
Emp. Adv. math. i. 3 nu=n u bi/on a)lla/ tinos pleu/mon os; Hesychius, s.v.; whence it appears that obtuseness and insensibility, not weakness or pliability, were the qualities imputed by this term. an illiterate, a fraud, and a trollop; Plato's school he called "the toadies of Dionysius," their master himself the "golden" Plato, An ironical compliment, probably on Plato's style: cf. xruso/s tomos. It is not likely that Plato was ever regarded as a Midas or a golden simpleton, for which latter meaning Lucian, Pro lapsu in sal. i. e)gw\ o( xrusou= s, is cited by Bignone.
and Aristotle a profligate, who after devouring his patrimony took to soldiering and selling drugs; Protagoras a pack-carrier and the scribe of Democritus and village schoolmaster; Heraclitus a muddler In the same ironical sense in which Plato speaks of the Heracliteans who preached flux as tou\s in flux."; Democritus Lerocritus (the nonsense-monger); and Antidorus Sannidorus (fawning gift-bearer); the Cynics foes of Greece; the Dialecticians despoilers; and Pyrrho an ignorant boor.
But these people are stark mad. For our philosopher has abundance of witnesses to attest his unsurpassed goodwill to all men--his native land, which honoured him with statues in bronze; his friends, so many in number that they could hardly be counted by whole cities, and indeed all who knew him, held fast as they were by the siren-charms of his doctrine, save Metrodorus This man (not to be confounded with the more famous Metrodorus of Lampsacus, cf. § 22) must belong to the second century b.c., if he was a contemporary of Carneades ( c. 215-130 b.c.). of Stratonicea, who went over to Carneades, being perhaps burdened by his master's excessive goodness; the School itself which, while nearly all the others have died out, continues for ever without interruption through numberless reigns of one scholarch after another So Aristocles; cf. Euseb.
Praep. Ev. xiv. 21. 1, and Numenius, ib. xiv. 5. 3. The indications of time are so vague that this defence of Epicurus might be ascribed to D. L. himself.
If, however, we compare the list of calum-niators of Epicurus cited in §§ 3, 4, we see that none of them is later than the Augustan age. To the same date belongs a passage in the article of Suidas on id'. As Usener has shown ( Epicurea, 373), the interval of 227 years is reckoned from 270 to 44 b.c.; his gratitude to his parents, his generosity to his brothers, his gentleness to his servants, as evidenced by the terms of his will and by the fact that they were members of the School, the most eminent of them being the aforesaid Mys; and in general, his benevolence to all mankind. His piety towards the gods and his affection for his country no words can describe. He carried deference to others to such excess that he did not even enter public life. He spent all his life in Greece, notwithstanding the calamities which had befallen her in that age In the siege of Athens he is said to have maintained his disciples, counting out to each his ration of beans (Plut. Demetr. 34).; when he did once or twice take a trip to Ionia, it was to visit his friends there. Cf. Epist. 32 (Fr. 176 Usener). This celebrated letter to a child was written from Lampsacus on such a journey. Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived with him in his garden. This is stated by Apollodorus, who also says that he purchased the garden for eighty minae; and to the same effect Diocles in the third book of his Epitome speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life; at all events they were content with half a pint of thin wine and were, for the rest, thoroughgoing water-drinkers. He further says that Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held in common, as required by the maxim of Pythagoras about the goods of friends; such a practice in his opinion implied mistrust, and without confidence there is no friendship. In his correspondence he himself mentions that he was content with plain bread and water. And again: "Send me a little pot of cheese, that, when I like, I may fare sumptuously." Such was the man who laid down that pleasure was the end of life. And here is the epigram Anth. Plan. iv.
43. in which Athenaeus eulogizes him: Ye toil, O men, for paltry things and incessantly begin strife and war for gain; but nature's wealth extends to a moderate bound, whereas vain judgements have a limitless range. This message Neocles' wise son heard from the Muses or from the sacred tripod at Delphi. Cf. Petronius, Sat.
132.
And, as we go on, we shall know this better from his doctrines and his sayings.
Among the early philosophers, says Diocles, his favourite was Anaxagoras, although he occasionally disagreed with him, and Archelaus the teacher of Socrates. Diocles adds that he used to train his friends in committing his treatises to memory. Cf. infra, §§ 36, 83.
Apollodorus in his Chronology tells us that our philosopher was a pupil of Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes If this Praxiphanes was the pupil of Theophrastus, considerations of age would make it highly improbable that he could have taught Epicurus; cf. Usener, Fr.
123.; but in his letter to Eurylochus, Epicurus himself denies it and says that he was self-taught. Both Epicurus and Hermarchus deny the very existence of Leucippus the philosopher, though by some and by Apollodorus the Epicurean he is said to have been the teacher of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that Epicurus also attended the lectures of Xenocrates.
The terms he used for things were the ordinary terms, and Aristophanes the grammarian credits him with a very characteristic style. He was so lucid a writer that in the work On Rhetoric he makes clearness the sole requisite.
And in his correspondence he replaces the usual greeting, "I wish you joy," by wishes for welfare and right living, "May you do well," and "Live well."
Ariston This is no doubt the Academic philosopher, Ariston of Alexandria, pupil of Antiochus, criticized by Philodemus in his Rhetoric, V.H. 2 iii. 168. says in his Life of Epicurus that he derived his work entitled The Canon from the Tripod of Nausiphanes, adding that Epicurus had been a pupil of this man as well as of the Platonist Pamphilus Cf. Suidas, s.v.; Cic. N.D. i. 72. in Samos. Further, that he began to study philosophy when he was twelve years old, and started his own school at thirty-two.
He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes, 341 b.c. on the seventh day of the month Gamelion, The eighth month of the Attic civil year. Thus he would be born about February, 341 b.c. Plato died 347 b.c. in the seventh year after the death of Plato.
When he was thirty-two he founded a school of philosophy, first in Mitylene and Lampsacus, and then five years later removed to Athens, where he died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad, 271-270 b.c. in the archonship of Pytharatus, at the age of seventy-two; and Hermarchus the son of Agemortus, a Mitylenaean, took over the School. Epicurus died of renal calculus after an illness which lasted a fortnight: so Hermarchus tells us in his letters. Hermippus relates that he entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed wine, which he swallowed, and then, having bidden his friends remember his doctrines, breathed his last.
Here is something of my own about him Anth. Pal. vii. 106.: Farewell, my friends; the truths I taught hold fast: Thus Epicurus spake, and breathed his last.
He sat in a warm bath and neat wine quaff'd, And straightway found chill death in that same draught.
Such was the life of the sage and such his end.
His last will was as follows: "On this wise I give and bequeath all my property to Amynomachus, son of Philocrates of Bate and Timocrates, son of Demetrius of Potamus, to each severally according to the items of the deed of gift laid up in the Metroön, on condition that they shall place the garden and all that pertains to it at the disposal of Hermarchus, son of Agemortus, of Mitylene, and the members of his society, and those whom Hermarchus may leave as his successors, to live and study in. Cf. v. 52 supra. And I entrust to my School in perpetuity the task of aiding Amynomachus and Timocrates and their heirs to preserve to the best of their power the common life in the garden in whatever way is best, and that these also (the heirs of the trustees) may help to maintain the garden in the same way as those to whom our successors in the School may bequeath it. And let Amynomachus and Timocrates permit Hermarchus and his fellow-members to live in the house in Melite for the lifetime of Hermarchus.
"And from the revenues made over by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates let them to the best of their power in consultation with Hermarchus make separate provision (1) for the funeral offerings to my father, mother, and brothers, and (2) for the customary celebration of my birthday on the tenth day of Gamelion in each year, and for the meeting of all my School held every month on the twentieth day to commemorate Metrodorus and myself according to the rules now in force. That this custom lasted in the school for centuries is proved by the testimony of Cicero ( De fin. ii. 101) and Pliny ( H.N. xxxv. 5), as well as by the epigram of Philodemus ( Anth. Pal. xi. 44). Cf. Athen. vii. 298 d; supra, vi. 101. Let them also join in celebrating the day in Poseideon which commemorates my brothers, and likewise the day in Metageitnion which commemorates Polyaenus, as I have done hitherto.
"And let Amynomachus and Timocrates take care of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, so long as they study and live with Hermarchus. Let them likewise provide for the maintenance of Metrodorus's daughter, Possibly Danaë: cf. Athen. xiii. 593 c. so long as she is well-ordered and obedient to Hermarchus; and, when she comes of age, give her in marriage to a husband selected by Hermarchus from among the members of the School; and out of the revenues accruing to me let Amynomachus and Timocrates in consultation with Hermarchus give to them as much as they think proper for their maintenance year by year.
"Let them make Hermarchus trustee of the funds That funds were raised by friends of Epicurus and placed at his disposal is certain from the letter to Idomeneus: Plut. Adv. Col. 18, 1117 been a recipient of this bounty. How like Auguste Comte!
along with themselves, in order that everything may be done in concert with him, who has grown old with me in philosophy and is left at the head of the School. And when the girl comes of age, let Amynomachus and Timocrates pay her dowry, taking from the property as much as circumstances allow, subject to the approval of Hermarchus. Let them provide for Nicanor as I have hitherto done, so that none of those members of the school who have rendered service to me in private life and have shown me kindness in every way and have chosen to grow old with me in the School should, so far as my means go, lack the necessaries of life.
"All my books to be given to Hermarchus.
"And if anything should happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus grow up, Amynomachus and Timocrates shall give from the funds bequeathed by me, so far as possible, enough for their several needs, as long as they are well ordered. And let them provide for the rest according to my arrangements; that everything may be carried out, so far as it lies in their power. Of my slaves I manumit Mys, Nicias, Lycon, and I also give Phaedrium her liberty."
And when near his end he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus: "On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could augment them; but over against them all I set gladness of mind at the remembrance of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your life-long attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus."
Such were the terms of his will.
Among his disciples, of whom there were many, the following were eminent: Metrodorus, Metrodorus (330-277 b.c.) was the master's beloved disciple; but the encomium preserved by Seneca ( Ep. 52.
3) is certainly discriminating: "Epicurus says: 'quosdam indigere ope aliena, non ituros si nemo praecesserit, sed bene secuturos: ex his Metrodorum ait esse.'" the son of Athenaeus (or of Timocrates) and of Sande, a citizen of Lampsacus, who from his first acquaintance with Epicurus never left him except once for six months spent on a visit to his native place, from which he returned to him again.
His goodness was proved in all ways, as Epicurus testifies in the introductions Epicurus seems to have prefixed dedications or other short notices to the separate books of his larger works. Thus book xxviii. of his great work On Nature was dedicated to Hermarchus, and this has come down to us in Vol. Herc. Coll. Alt. vi. fr. 45 sqq. to his works and in the third book of the Timocrates. Such he was: he gave his sister Batis to Idomeneus to wife, and himself took Leontion the Athenian courtesan as his concubine. He showed dauntless courage in meeting troubles and death, as Epicurus declares in the first book of his memoir. He died, we learn, seven years before Epicurus in his fiftythird year, and Epicurus himself in his will already cited clearly speaks of him as departed, and enjoins upon his executors to make provision for Metrodorus's children. The above-mentioned Timocrates This second mention of Timocrates (see § 6) may have been a marginal note, not very suitably placed, intended to distinguish the renegade Timocrates from his namesake, one of Epicurus' executors (§ 18). also, the brother of Metrodorus and a giddy fellow, was another of his pupils.
Metrodorus wrote the following works: Against the Physicians, in three books.
Of Sensations.