ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates some key ideas and images relating to violence in Epicurean ethics and political philosophy. It seeks to move beyond earlier grand narratives of an alleged Hellenistic decline of reason and the interiorisation of philosophy, and put the accent on social relations in Epicurean philosophy in the context of violence broadly conceived. An Epicurean view of violence acknowledges diverse physical and material violence: military threats, and threats to status, power, and wealth. It also includes emotional and psychological violence, as well as systemic violence embedded in social orders. The chapter investigates both how key concepts and images in Epicurean ethics and political philosophy, especially ἀταραξία and ἀσϕάλεια, and accounts of political involvement, justice, the development of human society, socially destructive passions, and friendship could offer a framework for perceiving violence even as they were themselves simultaneously shaped by the diverse violences of the Hellenistic world.
