ABSTRACT
Like Pythagoras, Epicurus was born on the Greek island of Samos. At eighteen, he went to Athens for a year, then joined his father in Colophon, the city where Xenophanes had been born. He studied the writings of Democritus and eventually set up his own school on the island of Lesbos. From there, he moved to the Hellespont and, finally, to Athens in 307 b.c. As he moved from place to place, many of his students followed him. In Athens, he established a community known as the “Garden,” where he spent the rest of his life teaching and writing.
