ABSTRACT
Epicurus was born in 341 BC on the island of Samos. His father was an Athenian, however, so he had the rights of Athenian citizenship. He eventually moved to Athens and established there in 307/6 a school, called the "Garden" because it met in the garden of his home. This "school," the beginning of Epicureanism as a philosophy, seems to have been a philosophical community based on Epicurean principles; both women and slaves were among its members. Epicurus lived, wrote and taught there until his death in 271. He is said to have written over 300 scrolls, an extraordinary number; of these, only a tiny portion survives. The Latin poet Lucretius did translate one of Epicurus' works into the epic poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) but unfortunately for our purposes, this work contains little information about Epicurus' ethics. Apart from Epicurus' surviving works, we must rely for information about his views on statements of them by his critics, which is always a risky matter.
