ABSTRACT
This exalted eulogy honours Epicurus. It was written more than 200 hundred years after his death by the Roman poet Lucretius, one among many enthusiastic adherents. After Pythagoras (and Empedocles?) Epicurus is probably the only philosopher in the West who gained the honour of being worshipped-almost-as a god, the saviour who had freed mankind from fear and terror. He himself is not without responsibility for this image. He had not only a philosophy but a message and he liked to present himself as an autodidact: nobody had taught him anything; he himself had found the truth. Yet he was more than a self-appointed guru. In his school-Epicurus’ ‘garden’—he realized his own ideal of life, to live with his friends and students in restful peace and joy, unaffected by the noise of the world. His like-minded friends met him with devotion; he is praised for his mildness and unselfishness (cf. Diog. Laert. X 9 ff.), and preserved letters to his circle show both his charm and warmth (cf. 5 ff.). He has often been underrated as a philosopher; as a psychotherapist he surely cannot be overrated. Not everybody considered Epicurus a mild and wise father-figure and guardian of the truth. Lucretius’ contemporary, Cicero, evaluates him coolly as a philosopher: as a rule Epicurus, according to Cicero, follows Democritus, but when he tries to be independent he makes a fool of himself; his physics is queer and his ethics inconsistent, and he does not
understand logic (Cic. De fin. I 17 ff.). Apparently the Epicureans were never really accepted-they considered ‘pleasure’ as the goal in life and virtue as a means not as a goal, and therefore they were not socially acceptable. Internally the school was dominated by its founder even as late as the second century AD, when it faded. At times-especially in Italy in the first century BC-it had quite widespread influence. Some particular points were indeed developed further and refined, but while the other schools were constantly in a state of development from one generation to the next, the Epicurean truth had been laid down once and for all.
