Epicurus and the Garden
Epicurus was born on the island of Samos in 341 BCE, to an Athenian family, and taught in Mytilene and Lampsacus before settling in Athens around 306 BCE. There he bought a house with a garden, and the community that gathered around him became known simply as the Garden. He died in 270 BCE. Ancient reports say that it admitted not only well-off men but also women and slaves, which was unusual for a philosophical school. Because those reports come from later and sometimes hostile writers, details should be held loosely.
Epicurus is said to have written a very large number of books, but almost all are lost. What survives are three letters preserved by Diogenes Laertius, two collections of short sayings, and fragments of scrolls found at Herculaneum, the town buried by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 CE. The Roman poet Lucretius, writing in the first century BCE, set out Epicurean physics in his Latin poem On the Nature of Things, which is our fullest continuous account.
Atoms and the absence of fear
Epicurus took over and modified the atomism of Democritus. The world consists of atoms moving in void; there is no design or purpose, and no soul that survives the death of the body, since the soul too is made of atoms that disperse. Lucretius reports that atoms can occasionally “swerve” from their straight paths, an idea meant to leave room for free action.
This physics served an ethical purpose. Epicurus believed that most human anxiety arises from two false beliefs: that the gods punish and reward us, and that death is something to be feared. His reply was that the gods, if they exist, live in untroubled bliss and take no interest in human affairs, and that “death is nothing to us”, since when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. Whatever one makes of the argument, it shows how closely he tied explanation of nature to peace of mind. He did not oppose worship as such, and Epicureans took part in public festivals as expressions of reverence for the gods’ excellence, not as attempts to win favours.
What Epicurean pleasure actually means
The word “epicurean” now suggests fine dining, but Epicurus meant something much plainer. He agreed with others that pleasure is the highest good, yet he defined it mainly as the absence of bodily pain (aponia) and mental disturbance (ataraxia). Once hunger, thirst and cold are relieved, he argued, further luxuries do not increase pleasure but only vary it.
He sorted desires into groups:
- Natural and necessary, such as food, shelter and friendship.
- Natural but unnecessary, such as lavish meals.
- Empty desires, such as for fame or limitless wealth, which can never be satisfied.
The wise person satisfies the first, enjoys the second in moderation, and drops the third. Simple fare, Epicurus said, makes one ready to enjoy an occasional feast. The contrast with the extravagant Greek symposium of the elite is deliberate. He considered friendship among the most important sources of security and is reported to have valued it above political success.
His advice to “live unnoticed” meant staying out of public life, which brought ambition, rivalry and risk. This put Epicureans at odds with the civic ideals of Athenian democracy and, later, with Roman ideas of public duty, and it earned them criticism from Stoics and others.
A later summary of the school’s teaching, preserved on a papyrus from Herculaneum, is known as the fourfold remedy: do not fear the gods, do not worry about death, what is good is easy to get, and what is terrible is easy to endure. The medical image, familiar from Greco-Roman medicine, is deliberate: philosophy is treated as a cure for anxiety. It condenses the aim well, although it was formulated after Epicurus’s own time.
The school after Epicurus
Epicureanism was more disciplined than many ancient schools. Members were expected to honour the founder’s teachings and to study his writings, and the community celebrated his birthday and a monthly gathering in his memory. The school spread around the Mediterranean and into Italy, where it appealed to some educated Romans. In the second century CE, Diogenes of Oinoanda had a long summary of the teachings carved on a wall in what is now Turkey, so that passers-by could read it.
Critics accused Epicureans of selfishness and impiety. Their reputation for hedonism was often a caricature, in part because it was easy to quote the phrase about pleasure without the definition behind it.
A short contrast with the Stoics
The Stoics, whose founder Zeno of Citium taught in Athens at about the same time as Epicurus, shared the goal of a settled mind but reached it by another route. For Stoics the cosmos is rationally ordered and providential, so the wise person accepts what happens and finds the good in virtue itself, not in pleasure. For Epicureans the universe has no plan, and the good life is secured by managing desires and sharing quiet company. Stoics encouraged taking part in public affairs where one could; Epicureans generally advised against it. Both held that fear and craving are errors of judgment that philosophy can correct, which is one reason they are so often paired.
Why Epicurus still reads well
Several of his ideas look surprisingly modern: a naturalistic account of the world, scepticism about an afterlife, and the view that happiness depends more on attitudes and friendships than on possessions. They are also open to challenge. Critics then and now ask whether withdrawing from public life is a responsible choice, and whether removing fear of death removes something important about how people value their lives. Those disagreements are part of why Epicurean thought has stayed in circulation for more than two thousand years.