Epicurus

Ĕpĭcūrus, i, m., = Ἐπίκουρος,

• the famous Greek philosopher of Gargettus, in Attica, the author of the Epicurean philosophy, so called after him, which assumed pleasure to be the highest good, Cic. Fin. 1, 9, 29; 2, 2 sq.; id. Ac. 2 (Luc.), 42; id. Tusc. 1, 34; 2, 3, 8 et saep.—Deriv.,
• II Ĕpĭcūrēus, a, um, adj., of Epicurus, Epicurean: medicamenta doloris, i.e. pleasure, Cic. Fin. 2, 7 fin.: secta, Suet. Gram. 8.—More freq. subst.: Ĕpĭcūrēi, ōrum, m., the adherents of the Epicurean philosophy, Epicureans, Cic. Fin. 1, 7, 25; 2, 25, 81; id. Tusc. 1, 31, 77; Vulg. Act. 17, 18 et saep.—In sing., Quint. 6, 3, 78; Suet. Gram. 6.

Epicūrus, ī, m. (Ἐπίκουρος), ein berühmter griech. Philosoph aus dem attischen Demos Gargettus (dah. Gargettius zubenannt) gebürtig, aber zu Samos (342 v. Chr.) geboren, Stifter der nach ihm benannten epikurëischen Philosophie, die den Sinnengenuß als höchstes Gut annahm, Cic. de fin. 1, 29; de fat. 19; ep. 15, 16, 1. – Dav. Epicūrēus u. -īus, a, um (Ἐπικούρειος, dah. auch Epicūreios, on), epikurëisch, Patro, Cic.: secta, Suet.: medicamenta doloris, vom Vergnügen, Cic. – subst., a) Epicūrēa, ae, f. (sc. secta), die epikurëische Sekte (Schule), Porphyr. Hor. ep. 1, 1, 16. – b) Epicūrēī (Epicūrīī), ōrum, m., die Schüler-, Anhänger des Epikur, die Epikureer, Cic.: übtr. = Wollüstlinge, Sen.

Ĕpĭcūrus, (9) ī, m. (Ἐπίκουρος), Épicure [philosophe grec] : Cic. Fin. 1, 29 || -rēus (-īus), a, um, dʼÉpicure, Épicurien : Cic. Fin. 2, 22 || -rēī, ōrum, Épicuriens, de la secte dʼÉpicure : Cic. Fin. 2, 81.

epicurus, i. m.
古儒名圖快樂者。

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Epicu'rus

(Ἐπίκουρος), a celebrated Greek philosopher and the founder of a philosophical school called after him the Epicurean. He was a son of Neocles and Charestrata, and belonged to the Attic demos of Gargettus, whence he is sometimes simply called the Gargettian. (Cic. Fam. 15.16.) He was born, however, in the island of Samos, in B. C. 342, for his father was one of the Athenian cleruichi, who went to Samos and received lands there. Epicurus spent the first eighteen years of his life at Samos, and then repaired to Athens, in B. C. 323, where Xenocrates was then at the head of the academy, by whom Epicurus is said to have been instructed, though Epicurus himself denied it. (D. L. 10.13; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1.26.) He did not, however, stay at Athens long, for after the outbreak of the Lamian war lie went to Colophon, where his father was then residing, and engaged in teaching. Epicurus followed the example of his father: he collected pupils and is said to have instructed them in grammar, until gradually his attention was drawn towards philosophy. Epicurus himself asserted that lie had entered upon his philosophical studies at the early age of fourteen, while according to others it was not till five or six years later. Some said that he was led to the study of philosophy by his contempt of the rhetoricians and grammarians who were unable to explain to him the passage in Hesiod about Chaos; and others said that the first impulse was given to him by the works of Democritus, which fell into his hands by accident. It is at any rate undeniable that the atomistic doctrines of Democritus exercised a very great influence upon Epicurus, though he asserted that he was perfectly independent of all the philosophical schools of the time, and endeavoured to solve the great problems of life by independent thought and investigation. From Colophon Epicurus went to Mytilene and Lampsacus, in which places he was engaged for five years in teaching philosophy. In B. C. 306, when he had attained the age of 35, he again went to Athens. He there purchased for eighty minae a garden--the famous Κῆποι Ἐπικούρου--which apparently was situated in the heart of the city, and in which he established his philosophical school. Surrounded by numerous friends and pupils and by his three brothers, Neocles, Charidemus, and Aristobulus, who likewise devoted themselves to the study of philosophy, Epicurus spent the remainder of his life in his garden at Athens. His mode of living was simple, temperate, and cheerful, and the aspersions of comic poets and of later philosophers who were opposed to his philosophy and describe him as a person devoted to sensual pleasures, do not seem entitled to the least credit, although they have succeeded in rendering his name proverbial with posterity for a sensualist or debauchee. The accounts of his connexion with Leontium, Marmarium, and other well known hetaerae of the time, perhaps belong to the same kind of slander and calumny in which his enemies indulged. The life in Diogenes Laertius affords abundant proof that Epicurus was a man of simple, pure, and temperate habits, a kind-hearted friend, and even a patriotic citizen. He kept aloof from the political parties of the time, and took no part in public affairs. His maxim was λάθε Βιώσας, which was partly the result of his peculiar philosophy, and partly of the political condition of Athens, which drove men to seek in themselves happiness and consolation for the loss of political freedom. During the latter period of his life Epicurus was afflicted with severe sufferings, and for many years he was unable to walk. In the end his sufferings were increased by the formation of a stone in his bladder, which terminated fatally after a severe illness of a fortnight. He bore his sufferings with a truly philosophical patience, cheerfulness, and courage, and died at the age of 72, in Olymp. 127. 2, or B. C. 270. His will, which is preserved in Diogenes Laertius (10.16, &c.), shews the same mildness of character and the same kind disposition and attachment to his friends, which he had manifested throughout life. Among his many pupils Epicurus himself gave the preference to Metrodorus of Lampsacus, whom he used to call the philosopher, and whom he would have appointed to succeed him (D. L. 10.22, &c.); but Metrodorus died seven years before his master, and in his will Epicurus appointed Hermarchus of Mytilene his successor in the management of his school at Athens. Apollodorus, the Epicurean, wrote a life of Epicurus, of which Diogenes made great use in his account of Epicurus, but this is now lost, and our principal source of information respecting Epicurus is the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius, who however, as usual, only puts together what he finds in others; but at the same time he furnishes us some very important documents, such as his will, four letters and the κύριαι δόξαι, of which we shall speak below. With the account of Diogenes we have to compare the philosophical poem of Lucretius, and the remarks and criticisms which are scattered in the works of later Greek and Roman writers, nearly all of whom, however, wrote in a hostile spirit about Epicurus and his philosophy and must therefore be used with great caution. Among them we must mention Cicero in his philosophical treatises, especially the De Finibus, and the De Natura Deorum ; Seneca in his letter to Lucilius, and some treatises of Plutarch in his so-called Moralia. Works

Epicurus appears to have been one of the most prolific of all the ancient Greek writers. Diogenes Laertius (10.26), who calls him πολυγραφώτατος, states that he wrote about 300 volumes (κύλινδροι). His works, however, are said to have been full of repetitions and quotations of authorities. Works listed by Diogenes Laertius

A list of the best of his works is given by Diogenes (10.27, &c.), and among them we may mention the Περὶ φύσεως in 37 books, Περὶ ἀτόμων καὶ κενοῦ, Ἐπιτομὴ τῶν πρὸς φυσικούς, Πρὸς τοὺς Μεγαρικοὺς διαπορίαι, Κύριαι δόξαι, Περὶ τέλους, Περὶ κριτηρίου ἢ κανών, Χαιρέδημος ἢ περὶ Δεῶν, Περὶ βίων in three books, Περὶ τῆς ἐν τῆ ἀτόμω γωνίας, Περὶ εἱμαρμένης, Περὶ εἰδώλων, Περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ τῶν ἂλλων ἀρετῶν, and Ἐπιστολαί. Four surviving Epistles

Of his epistles four are preserved in Diogenes. (10.22, 35, &c., 84, &c., 122, &c.) The first is very brief and was addressed by Epicurus just before his death to Idomeneus. The three others are of far greater importance: the first of them is addressed to one Herodotus, and contains an outline of the Canon and the Physica; the second, addressed to Pythocles, contains his theory about meteors, and the third, which is addressed to Menoeceus, gives a concise view of his ethics, so that these three Epistles, the genuineness of which can scarcely be doubted, furnish us an outline of his whole philosophical system. An abridgement of them is preserved in Eudocia, p. 173, &c.

These letters, together with the above mentioned Κύριαι δόξαι, that is, forty-four propositions containing the substance of the ethical philosophy of Epicurus, which are likewise preserved in Diogenes, must be our principal guides in examining and judging of the Epicurean philosophy. Editions

The Epistles were edited separately by Nürnberger in his edition of the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius, Nürnberg., 1791, 8vo. The letters, to Herodotus and Pythocles were edited separately by J. G. Schneider under the title of Epicuri Physica et Metcorologica duabus Epistolis comprehensa, Leipzig, 1813, 8vo. Fragments

All the other works of Epicurus have perished, with the exception of a considerable number of fragments. Editions The Περὶ φύσεως from the Herculaneum Rolls

Some parts of the above-mentioned work, Περὶ φύσεως, especially of the second and eleventh books, which treat of the εἴδωλα, have been found among the rolls at Herculaneum, and are published in C. Corsini's Volumin. Herculan. vol. ii. Naples, 1809, from which they were reprinted separately by J. C. Orelli, Leipzig, 1818, 8vo. Fragments of the tenth book of the Περὶ φύσεως

Some fragments of the tenth book of the same work have been edited by J. Th. Kreissig in his Comment. de Sallust. Histor. Fragm. p. 237, &c. If we may judge of the style of Epicurus from these few remains, it must be owned that it is clear and animated, though it is not distinguished for any other peculiar merits. Philosophical System of Epicurus

With regard to the philosophical system of Epicurus, there is scarcely a philosopher in all antiquity who boasted so much as Epicurus of being independent of all his predecessors, and those who were believed to have been his teachers were treated by him with scorn and bitter hostility. He prided himself upon being an αὐτοδίδακτος, but even a superficial glance at his philosophy shews that he was not a little indebted to the Cyrenaics on the one hand and to Democritus on the other. As far as the ethical part of his philosophy is concerned thus much may be admitted, that, like other systems of the time, it arose from the peculiar circumstances in which the Greek states were placed. Thinking men were led to seek within them that which they could not find without. Political freedom had to a great extent disappeared, and philosophers endeavoured to establish an internal freedom based upon ethical principles, and to maintain it in spite of outward oppression, no less than to secure it against man's own passions and evil propensities. Perfect independence, self reliance, and contentment, therefore, were regarded as the highest good and as the qualities which alone could make men happy, and as human happiness was with Epicurus the ultimate end of all philosophy, it was necessary for him to make ethics the most essential part, and as it were the centre of his whole philosophy. He had little esteem for logic and dialectics, but as he could not altogether do without them, he prefixed to his ethics a canon, or an introduction to ascertain the criterium which was to guide him in his search after truth and in distinguishing good from evil. His criteria themselves were derived from sensuous perception combined with thought and reflection. We obtain our knowledge and form our conceptions of things, according to him, through εἴδωλα, i. e. images of things which are reflected from them, and pass through our senses into our minds. Such a theory is destructive of all absolute truth, and a mere momentary impression upon our senses or feelings is substituted for it. His ethical theory was based upon the dogma of the Cyrenaics, that pleasure constitutes the highest happiness, and must consequently be the end of all human exertions. Epicurus, however, developed and ennobled this theory in a manner which constitutes the peculiarity and real merit of his philosophy, and which gained for him so many friends and admirers both in antiquity and in modern times. Pleasure with him was not a mere momentary and transitory sensation, but he conceived it as something lasting and imperishable, consisting in pure and noble mental enjoyments, that is, in ἀταραξία and ἀπονία, or the freedom from pain and from all influences which disturb the peace of our mind, and thereby our happiness, which is the result of it. The summum bonum, according to him, consisted in this peace of mind; and the great problem of his ethics, therefore, was to shew how it was to be attained, and ethics was not only the principal branch of philosophy, but philosophy itself, and the value and importance of all other kinds of knowledge were estimated by the proportion in which they contributed towards that great object of human life, or in which they were connected with ethics. His peace of mind was based upon Φρόνησις, which he described as the beginning of everything good, as the origin of all virtues, and which he himself therefore occasionally treated as the highest good itself.

In the physical part of his philosophy, he followed the atomistic doctrines of Democritus and Diagoras. His views are well known from Lucretius's poem De Rerum Natura. It would, however, appear that sometimes he misunderstood the views of his predecessors, and distorted them by introducing things which were quite foreign to them; sometimes he appears even in contradiction with himself. The deficiencies are most striking in his views concerning the gods, which drew upon him the charge of atheism. His gods, like everything else, consisted of atoms, and our notions of them are based upon the εἴδωλα which are reflected from them and pass into our minds. They were and always had been in the enjoyment of perfect happiness, which had not been disturbed by the laborious business of creating the world; and as the government of the world would interfere with their happiness, he conceived the gods as exercising no influence whatever upon the world or man. Followers of Epicurus

The number of pupils of Epicurus who propagated his doctrines, was extremely great; but his philosophy received no further development at their hands, except perhaps that in subsequent times his lofty notion of pleasure and happiness was reduced to that of material and sensual pleasure. His immediate disciples adopted and followed his doctrines with the most scrupulous conscientiousness: they were attached and devoted to their nester in a manner which has rarely been equalled either in ancient or modern times: their esteem, love, and veneration for him almost bordered upon worship; they are said to have committed his works to memory; they had his portrait engraved upon rings and drinking vessels, and celebrated his birthday every year. Athens honoured him with bronze statues. But notwithstanding the extraordinary devotion of his pupils and friends, whose number, says Diogenes, exceeded that of the population of whole towns, there is no philosopher in antiquity who has been so violently attacked, and whose ethical doctrines have been so much mistaken and misunderstood, as Epicurus. The cause of this singular phaenomenon was partly a superficial knowledge of his philosophy, of which Cicero, for example, is guilty to a very great extent, and partly also the conduct of men who called themselves Epicureans, and, taking advantage of the facility with which his ethical theory was made the handmaid of a sensual and debauched life, gave themselves up to the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. At Rome, and during the time of Roman ascendancy in the ancient world, the philosophy of Epicurus never took any firm root; and it is then and there that, owing to the paramount influence of the Stoic philosophy, we meet with the bitterest antagonists of Epicurus. The disputes for and against his philosophy, however, are not confined to antiquity; they were renewed at the time of the revival of letters, and are continued to the present day. Further Information

The number of works that have been written upon Epicurus and his philosophy is prodigious (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 584, &c.); we pass over the many histories of Greek philosophy, and mention only the most important works of which Epicurus is the special subject. Peter Gassendi, de Vita et Moribus Epicuri comentarius libris octo constans, Lugdun. 1647, and Hag. Comit. 1656, 4to.; Gassendi, Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri, Hag. Comit. 1659, 4to., London, 1668, 12mo., Amsterdam, 1684; J. Rondel, La Vie d'Epicure, Paris, 1679, 12mo., La Haye, 1686, 12mno.; a Latin translation of this work appeared at Amsterdam, 1693, 12mo., and an English one by Digby, London, 1712, 8vo.; Batteux, La Morale d'Epicure, Paris, 1758, 8vo.; Bremer, Versuch einer Apologie des Epicur, Berlin, 1776, 8vo.; Warnekros, Apologie und Leben Epicurs, Greifswald, 1795, 8vo.; and especially Steinhart in Ersch u. Gruber, Allgem. Encyclop. vol. xxxv. p. 459, &c.

Diogenes Laertius (10.26) mentions three other persons of the name of Epicurus, and Menage on that passage points out three more; but all of them are persons concerning whom nothing is known. [L.S]

Epicūrus

(Ἐπίκουρος). A celebrated philosopher, born in the year B.C. 341, in the island of Samos, whither his father had gone from Athens, in the year B.C. 352, among 2000 colonists then sent out by the Athenians. Yet he was an Athenian by right, belonging to the deme Gargettus and to the tribe Aegeïs. His father Neocles is said to have been a school-master, and his mother Chaeristrata to have practised arts of magic, in which it was afterwards made a charge against Epicurus that, when he was young, he assisted her (Diog. Laert.x. 4). Having passed his early years in Samos and Teos, he went to Athens at the age of eighteen. He had begun to study philosophy when only fourteen, from a desire, which the teachers to whom he had applied had failed to satisfy, of understanding Hesiod's description of chaos. In Samos he is said to have received lessons from Pamphilus, a follower of Plato (Cic. N. D. i. 26). On the occasion of this his first visit to Athens, Epicurus stayed there for a very short time. He left it in consequence of the measures taken by Perdiccas after the death of Alexander the Great, and went to Colophon to join his father. In B.C. 310, he went to Mitylené, where he set up a school. Staying only one year at this latter place, he next proceeded to Lampsacus, where he taught for four years. He returned to Athens in the year B.C. 306, and now founded the school which ever after was named from him the Epicurean. He purchased a garden (Κῆποι Ἐπικούρου) for eighty minae (about $1450), wherein he might live with his disciples and deliver his lectures, and henceforth remained in Athens, with the exception only of two or three visits to his friends in Asia Minor, until his death, from stone in the bladder, B.C. 270. He was in his seventy-second year when he died, and he had then been settled in Athens as a teacher for thirty-six years.

Epicurus is said by Diogenes Laertius (x. 9) to have had so many pupils that even whole cities could not contain them. Hearers came to him from distant places; and while men often deserted other schools to join that of Epicurus, there were only two instances, at most, of Epicurus being deserted for any other teacher. Epicurus and his pupils lived together in the garden of which we have spoken, in a state of friendship, which, as it is usually represented, could not be surpassed—abstaining from putting their property together and enjoying it in common for the quaint yet significant reason that such a plan implied mutual distrust. The friendship subsisting between Epicurus and his pupils is commemorated by Cicero (De Fin. i. 20). In this garden, too, they lived in the most frugal and decorous manner, though it was the delight of the enemies of Epicurus to represent it differently, and though Timocrates, who had once been his pupil and had abandoned him, spread such gossip as that Epicurus used to vomit twice a day after a surfeit and that harlots were inmates of the garden. (See Leontium.) An inscription over the gate of the garden told him who might be disposed to enter that barleycakes and water would be the fare provided for him (Plin. Ep. 31); and such was the chastity of Epicurus that one of his principal opponents, Chrysippus, endeavoured to account for it, so as to deny him any merit, by saying that he was without passions ( Serm. 117). Epicurus remained unmarried, in order that he might be able to prosecute philosophy without interruption. His most attached friends and pupils were Hermachus of Mitylené, whom he appointed by will to succeed him as master of the school; Metrodorus, who wrote several books in defence of his system; and Polyaenus. Epicurus's three brothers, Neocles, Chaeredemus, and Aristobulus, also followed his philosophy, as also one of his servants, Mys, whom at his death he made free. Besides the garden in Athens, from which the followers of Epicurus, in succeeding time, came to be named “the philosophers of the garden” (Juv. Sat. xiii. 122; xiv. 319), Epicurus possessed a house in Melité, a village near Athens, to which he used often to retire with his friends. On his death he left this house, together with the garden, to Hermachus, as head of the school, to be left by him again to whosoever might be his successor. See education.

In physics Epicurus trod pretty closely in the footsteps of Democritus; so much so, indeed, that he was accused of taking his atomic cosmology from that philosopher without acknowledgment. He made very few, and these unimportant, alterations. According to Epicurus, as also to Democritus and Leucippus before him, the universe consists of two parts, matter (σῶμα) and space, or vacuum (τὸ κενόν), in which matter exists and moves; and all matter, of every kind and form, is reducible to certain indivisible particles or atoms (ἄτομοι), which are eternal. These atoms, moving, according to a natural tendency, straight downward, and also obliquely, have thereby come to form the different bodies which are found in the world, and which differ in kind and shape, according as the atoms are differently placed in respect to one another. It is clear that, in this system, a creator is dispensed with; and indeed Epicurus, here again following Democritus, set about to prove, in an a priori way, that this creator could not exist, inasmuch as nothing could arise out of nothing, any more than it could utterly perish and becoming nothing. The atoms have existed always, and always will exist; and all the various physical phenomena are brought about, from time to time, by their various motions. The soul itself is made of a finer and more subtle kind of atoms, which, when the body dies and decays, separate and are dissipated. The various processes of sense are explained on the principles of materialism. From the surfaces of all objects continually flow thin, filmy images of things (εἴδωλα), which, by impact on the organism, cause the phenomena of vision, hearing, etc.

It remains to speak of the Epicurean system of ethics. Setting out with the two facts that man is susceptible of pleasure and pain and that he seeks the one and avoids the other, Epicurus declared that it is a man's duty to endeavour to increase to the utmost his pleasures and diminish to the utmost his pains—choosing that which tends to pleasure rather than that which tends to pain, and that which tends to a greater pleasure or to a lesser pain rather than that which tends respectively to a lesser pleasure or a greater pain. He used the terms pleasure and pain in the most comprehensive way, as including pleasure and pain of both mind and body; and esteemed the pleasures and pains of the mind as incomparably greater than those of the body. The highest pleasure, then, is peace of mind (ἀταραξία, ἀπονία), and this comes from φρόνησις or the ability to decide what line of conduct will best secure true happiness. Death, he says, is not to be feared, for “where we are, death is not; and where death is, we are not.”

The period at which Epicurus opened his school was peculiarly favourable. In place of the simplicity of the Socratic doctrine, nothing now remained but the subtlety and affectation of Stoicism, the unnatural severity of the Cynics, or the debasing doctrine of indulgence taught and practised by the followers of Aristippus. The luxurious refinement which now prevailed in Athens, while it rendered every rigid scheme of philosophy, as well as all grossness of manners, unpopular, inclined the younger citizens to listen to a preceptor who smoothed the stern and wrinkled brow of philosophy, and, under the notion of conducting his followers to enjoyment in the bower of tranquillity, led them unawares into the path of moderation and virtue. Hence the popularity of his school. It cannot be denied, however, that from the time when this philosopher appeared to the present day, an uninterrupted course of censure has fallen upon his memory; so that the name of his sect has almost become a proverbial expression for everything corrupt in principle and infamous in character. The charges brought against Epicurus are that he superseded all religious principles by dismissing the gods from the care of the world; that if he acknowledged their existence, it was only in conformity to popular prejudice, since, according to his system, nothing exists in nature but material atoms; that he showed great insolence and vanity in the disrespect with which he treated the memory of former philosophers and the characters and persons of his contemporaries; and that both he and his disciples were addicted to the grossest sensuality.

With respect to the first charge, it certainly admits of no refutation. The doctrine of Epicurus concerning nature militated directly against the agency of a Supreme Being in the formation and government of the world, and his misconceptions with respect to mechanical motion and the nature of divine happiness led him to divest the Deity of some of his primary attributes. It is not true, however, that he entirely denied the existence of superior powers. Cicero charges him with inconsistency in having written books concerning piety and the reverence due to the gods, and in maintaining that the gods ought to be worshipped, while he asserted that they had no concern in human affairs. That there was an inconsistency in this is obvious. But Epicurus professed that the universal prevalence of the ideas of gods was sufficient to prove that they existed; and, thinking it necessary to derive these ideas, like all other ideas, from sensations, he imagined that the gods were beings of human form and made known to men by the customary emanations. He believed that these gods were eternal and supremely happy, living in the intermundane spaces (μετακόσμια) in a state of quiet, and meddling not with the affairs of the world. He contended that they were to be worshipped on account of the excellence of their nature, and not because they could do men either good or harm (Cic. N. D. i. 41; Sen. Ben. iv. 19).

The Epicurean school was carried on, after Hermachus, by Polystratus and many others, concerning whom nothing is known; and the doctrines which Epicurus had taught underwent few modifications. When introduced among the Romans, these doctrines, though very much opposed at first, were yet adopted by many distinguished men, as Lucretius, Atticus, and Horace. Under the emperors, Pliny the Younger and Lucian of Samosata were noted Epicureans. See Lucretius.

Our chief sources of information respecting the doctrines of Epicurus are the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius and the poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura. Information is also furnished by the writings of Cicero, especially the De Finibus and the De Natura Deorum; by those of Seneca, and by the treatise of Plutarch, “Against Colotes.” Epicurus, according to Diogenes Laertius, was a more voluminous writer than any other philosopher, having written as many as 300 volumes, in all of which he is said to have studiously avoided making quotations. All that now remains of his works are the letters contained in the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius and parts of two books of his treatise on Nature (Περὶ Φύσεως), which were discovered at Herculaneum. The last were published at Leipzig in 1818, being edited by Orelli; further fragments will be found in the sixth volume of the Hercul. Voll. Collectio Altera, of which the first part appeared at Naples in 1866. A critical edition of the first two letters was given by Schneider (Leipzig, 1813). See Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus (Iserlohn, 1866); Trezza, Epicuro e l'Epicureismo (Florence, 1877); Zeller, Philosophy of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics (Eng. trans. 1880); Wallace, Epicureanism (1880); monographs >by Gizycki (Halle, 1879) and Kreibig (Vienna, 1885); Susemihl, i. 87 foll., and the article Philosophia.