“The gods are not to be feared; death cannot be felt; the good can be won; all that we dread can be conquered.” -- Epicurus

Epicurus (341-270) was born on the island of Samos in Ionia. At 19, he went to Athens to study at the Academy. It seemed, though, that he liked the philosophy of Democritus better. The school he founded was particularly egalitarian, accepting women and slaves. Epicurus, it is said, wrote 300 books. Sadly, only fragments survive.

Epicurus had little patience with religion, which he considered a form of ignorance. He was particularly eager to help people lose their fear of the gods. He did, however, also say that the gods existed, although they lived far away in space somewhere and had little or nothing to do with people on earth. Atheism, you see, was still illegal in Athens!

One of the most persistent issues concerning belief in God is the problem of evil. Epicurus's argument still holds up:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus felt that it was useless to argue over metaphysics, that there was no such thing as a soul that lived after death, that we arrived at our present condition by means of evolution, and that we had the quality of free will.

We can see an almost “modern” materialism and empiricism here: All things -- including minds -- are made of atoms and follow natural laws. All knowledge comes from the senses. Thoughts and memories are nothing but weak sensations....

Virtue for Epicurus was a means to an end. That end is happiness. It is good to feel pleasure and to avoid pain, but one needs to apply reason to life. Sometimes pain is necessary in order to gain happiness. Other times, pleasure leads to more suffering than it is worth.

And there are levels of pain and pleasure, smaller and greater happinesses. Friendship, for example, is rated one of the highest pleasures. “A sage loves his friends as he loves himself,” he said, and “It is better to give than to receive.” And “It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly; nor to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.” He reminds me of Benjamin Franklin!

Society is seen as necessary: It protects one from injustices. He foreshadows utilitarianism by suggesting that a society should be arranged to provide the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

The ultimate happiness, though, is peace, and he borrows Pyrrho’s word for tranquility -- ataraxia. His motto was “lathe biosas” -- live unobtrusively. He may be considered the first true humanist, as witnessed by this quote: "Philosophy is an activity that uses reasoning and rigorous argument to promote human flourishing."

The best summary of epicureanism is the epic poem On the Nature of Things by Roman Lucretius (95-52).

Note the practical similarities between stoicism and epicureanism, despite their theoretical differences! Both were popular in the Roman era, stoicism in Rome’s early, more vigorous years and continuing among the rank and file of Roman citizenry, and epicureanism (even hedonism) behind closed doors, especially at the highest levels of the empire.

Alexander the Great introduced what is called the Hellenistic* period of history: His empire brought Greek ideas, art, language, habits to “the world,” as far east as India and south as Egypt. But, with his death at the age of 33, his empire began to come apart, his generals dividing it amongst themselves and incompletely conquered nations reasserting their independence. And a new people stood in the wings to take over dominance of the Mediterranean: The Romans.

And yet the influence of the Greeks would outlast the empire of Alexander, its collapse, and even the Romans. But for now, the world had become a different place, a place of large powers maneuvering among themselves, centralized authorities just like those of Asia, huge trading and marketing conglomerates tightly tied to those authorities. Not quite the place for individualistic thinking and observation.

* Hellas is Greek for Greece, and the Hellenes are the Greeks. Greece and Greek are Roman names.

© Copyright 2000 by C. George Boeree