## 1. Life


### 1.1 Early life




Philodemus was born in the Greek city of Gadara, now Umm Qais in Jordan, a fortified
city on a ridge overlooking the southern tip of the Sea of Tiberias, whose main claim to fame in antiquity were its intellectual sons:
besides Philodemus, the Cynic philosophers and poets Menippus, Meleager
and Oenomaus and the rhetors Theodorus and Apsines all hailed from
Gadara. Of Philodemus' life before he came to Italy, we know
little. Scholars generally infer from Cicero's evidence that he
was born around 110 BCE, and a rough indication of his birthdate is the
fact that his epigrams (see Section 2.1) were not included in
the 'Garland' edited, probably in the 90s BCE, by
his countryman Meleager, in which the latest poet to have his work
included was born around 120 BCE.


### 1.2 Alexandria, Athens, Sicily




Philodemus spent time in Alexandria, perhaps around 90-86 BCE, before
he went to Athens (*Index Academicorum*, *PHerc.* 1021
col. 34.3-5). His stay in the Egyptian capital, which had become
a center of intellectual production, is perhaps when Philodemus met
and became friendly with Antiochus of Ascalon as well as various other
philosophers, perhaps including Epicureans, who may have urged him to
move on to Athens to study with Zeno (on Philodemus' time in
Alexandria, see Fleischer 2016: 89-104, also Fleischer 2017b on
Academics working in Alexandria at this time; on Philodemus' account
of the history of the Academy, see Section 2.2.5.5).



During his sojourn in Athens, Philodemus became attached to Zeno of
Sidon, the head of the Athenian Garden. He became a lifelong devotee
of Zeno, an admirer of his work collecting and studying texts of the
first generation of Epicureans, as well as his mode of teaching, which
is reflected in Philodmus' treatise *On Frank Criticism*. He
published some books on the basis of Zeno's
lectures--e.g., *On Frank Criticism*
and *On Signs*-- and defended Zeno's views on, e.g., the
recognition of the technical character of panegyric or
'sophistic' rhetoric, which he insisted was the view of
the school's founders, as well.




The date of Philodemus' departure from Athens is unknown: he
may have been part of the mass exodus of intellectuals and others in
the wake of the Mithridatic Wars of 88-86 or of Rome's campaigns
in Asia of 74-65; perhaps he left Athens on the death of Zeno, to whom
he proclaims his devotion. One source has a certain Philodemus driven
from the Sicilian town of Himera when his teachings were thought to
have incurred divine wrath in the form of an epidemic (Aelian, in
*Suda*, s.vv. *Himeraiai*, *sukophantein*, and
*timontai*; cf. Sider 1997, 9-10). The reconstruction of the testimonium is somewhat difficult, and nothing says that it must have to do with our Philodemus. Still, it would not be unusual for an Epicurean to be accused of atheism, and new readings in Philodemus' *Index Academicorum* (cf. Fleischer 2017b) show that he did indeed spend time in Sicily.


### 1.3 Italy




In any event, Philodemus' arrival in Italy may not be placed
long after 70. For in the historical record, Philodemus is known to us
primarily as the Greek philosopher and poet associated with the Roman
senator L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (ca. 101-post 43, cos. 58) by
Cicero (*In Pisonem* 68-72, 74; the name is supplied by the commentator Asconius *ad* 68: 'He means Philodemus, who was at that time a most excellent Epicurean and whose poems are lubricious'; cf.
Sider 1997: T2, 228-30). Here, Cicero speaks of Philodemus, without
naming him, as Piso's constant companion since the Roman, as a
young man, sought his company, having heard this Epicurean advocate
pleasure as the goal of life. Cicero notes that Philodemus was a
gentleman when not in Piso's company and that he cultivated arts
for which Epicureans were not generally known, writing extremely
elegant and witty poetry, and indicates (*In Pis.* 70) that
Philodemus, eager to please, could not turn a deaf ear to Piso, a Roman
senator, despite the latter's tendency to ignore the fine
distinctions with which the doctrine of pleasure was hedged about. If
the accuracy of this polemical account may be relied upon, this would
mean that Piso, who was born around 101 BCE, would have been at least
30--the minimum age for entry into the Senate--at the time of
their meeting, though Cicero terms him 'young man'
(*adulescens*).




By 55 BCE, when Cicero attacked Piso, Philodemus could be firmly
associated with him. Philodemus addressed his book *On the Good King
according to Homer*, to a young relation of Piso's. He also
addressed the fourth book of his *Rhetoric* to C. Vibius Pansa
Caetronianus, who died fighting Antony at Forum Gallorum in April of
43. One reference to a Roman event, Antony's supplying of dwarfs
from Syria for gladiatorial games (*De Signis* col. ii.18),
perhaps implies a *terminus post quem* of 40 (Last 1922, 177-80;
*contra*, Sider 1997, 11). If he was born around 110, Philodemus
could have lived into the later 30s.


### 1.4 Naples, Herculaneum, and the Villa of the Papyri




Philodemus and Piso may have begun their association in Rome, where
the rising young politician will certainly have spent much time, or
else in Campania, well-known as a haunt of Epicureans, especially of
Siro, teacher of Vergil and Horace, and where Philodemus too seems to
have taught. Siro and Philodemus, whom Cicero calls 'excellent
men and very learned', are associated as living in Naples and
engaging in philosophical discussions (Cicero, *On Moral Ends*
2.119 [T1 Sider]). Several books of Philodemus' *On Vices*
address a coterie of poetically minded Romans, Vergil along with three
other associates of Maecenas and friends of Horace: L. Varius Rufus,
Plotius Tucca, P. Quintilius Varus (*PHerc.* 1082 col. xi, and a treatise on calumny in 
*PHerc.* Paris, 2; cf. Horace, *Satires* 1.5,
1.10 and Sider 1997: 19-23).




It is often assumed that Philodemus lived and worked, and perhaps
even gathered an Epicurean circle of friends, in the luxurious villa on
the edge of the Campanian seaside town of Herculaneum in the ruins of
which the papyri of his works were found, dubbed 'Villa of the
Papyri' (see Section 2.2.1). A nest of conjectures has
been woven on the basis of the presence of the papyri in the Villa,
especially of multiple copies of some of Philodemus' and
Epicurus' works, as well as of an apparent draft copy of one work (the *Index Academicorum*, a manuscript that may be in the format of the 'model book' made to determine the length of further copies (*On the Gods* III), a few manuscripts that appear to bear stylistic corrections by Philodemus himself, if not in his own hand (see Essler 2017), and copies of the works of other Epicureans (Demetrius of Laconia,
Colotes, Polystratus, Carneiscus, Metrodorus and Zeno of Sidon),
along with (at least) two books by the Stoic Chrysippus. There is also
a group of Latin papyri, apparently of non-philosophical character (a Latin poem on the battle of Actium in *PHerc.* 817 has long been known, and the historical work *From the beginning of the Civil Wars* by Seneca the Elder has recently been identified in *PHerc.* 1067),
except perhaps for a manuscript of Lucretius. (On the contents of the
library at Herculaneum, see Sider 2005 and Delattre 2006; on the
identification by K. Kleve of a possible manuscript of Lucretius, see
Delattre 2003.)



The conjecture that the Villa
belonged to the family of Piso is supported by the presence in the *tablinum* of a bust, popularly known as the 'Pseudo-Seneca' (MAAN 5616), which some scholars have identified as being of Philodemus' patron Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (consul in 58, d. ca. 42 BCE), and by the statue of Panathenaic Athena (MAAN 6007, from the square courtyard), a figure with whom Piso is associated by a statue base in Athens (on these statues see Mattusch 2005: 249-253, 147-151; on the Villa's owner 20-23, 357-358); a bronze bust found in Herculaneum (MAAN 5601) of a young man identified as that of Piso's son Lucius, consul in 15 BCE and also pontifex and prefect of the city of Rome until his death in 32 CE, is not clearly from the Villa; it is in any case clear that the family of the Pisones had a villa in the resort of Baiai on the other side of the Bay of Naples. (For discussion of theories of the Villa's ownership, see Capasso 2010b.)



It is often thought that, if the Villa belonged to Piso, it may also have been where Philodemus himself lived
and wrote, and that the book-rolls belonged to Philodemus' own
library, partly assembled in Athens before his arrival in Italy, and
then increased by his own writings, which were, perhaps, copied in a
scriptorium on the premises, as they were composed and, in some cases,
recopied later (cf. Cavallo 1983). That at least the philosophical papyri belonged to
Philodemus is plausible: but there are some reasons to doubt the
rest of this pleasing speculation.




First, it is possible that more of the papyri were copied in the
first century CE than has usually been thought, which would put them
outside the lifetime of Philodemus. Rather a large number of scribes
worked on the papyri, and there are indications that the copies we have
were only some among many copies of the same works. There is little
indication, too, that the papyri were actually copied in Herculaneum;
and we have little understanding of whatever book trade existed in
Campania in the first century BCE. While Naples was a prominent Greek
city and may well have supported a trade in Greek books, as it
certainly supported an Epicurean school led by Siro, Rome was now the
center of the world (cf. Sedley 2003) and a place where Philodemus
could have found many of the books he cited in his work.




Another set of difficulties concern Philodemus' connections
with Herculaneum. There is good cause to link Philodemus with Naples,
and the 'humble shack' to which he invites Piso for the
commemoration of Epicurus' birthday (see Section 2.1)
may have been there or somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps including
Herculaneum. Yet there is little or no ancient testimony associating
him with Herculaneum: what has been thought to be the single mention of the town in the papyri
themselves (*PHerc.* 312 col. 4 Gigante [T15 Sider]) is clear in associating Philodemus with Naples and with friendly philosophical discussion, but the toponym 'Herculaneum' is probably not to be read there, and in any event the text does not say that Philodemus lived there. Moreover, if Philodemus was likely dead by 30 BCE, about a
century would pass between that event and the eruption that buried the
villa and its library: why would the books have remained there during
that period?




By far the largest number of the books--probably all or nearly
all the philosophical texts--were stored on shelves in a small
room with no furniture for reading; some others were in one or two
small cabinets in the *tablinum*, off the square peristyle,
where books might be read; still others were in traveling boxes
(*capsae*) in several areas of the villa, e.g., at the near end
of the long peristyle. The philosophical library was perhaps one
isolated, specialized collection, acquired by a collector who also
acquired Philodemus' own library. It was perhaps left behind
because unused and unwanted, while other books were removed from the
villa before the final catastrophe. The presence of copies of Philodemus' works made after his death indicates a continuing interest in his philosophy, however. Recent excavation and investigation
are thought to show that the villa was built in one major construction effort,
and decorative elements there date it to around 40 BCE (see Guidobaldi
and Esposito 2010), in which case it could hardly have served as
Philodemus' home and workplace, and certainly not in 55 BCE, when
Cicero puts him in close association with Piso.


## 2. Writings


### 2.1 Poetry




Cicero says that Philodemus wrote very pleasant, elegant, clever
verse to Piso and, at Piso's urging, about him, mirroring the man
himself in perfect verse descriptions of his lusts, immoral acts,
banquets and adulteries. We do not have poetry of Philodemus'
which would confirm the latter description, but Philodemus is the
author of 30 or more elegant epigrams anthologized in the
'Garland' of Philip of Thessalonica in the first century
CE, which was in turn included in the 'Palatine Anthology'
(*AP*) of the tenth century, ensuring the poems'
survival.




Philodemus' epigrams are a varied lot. Most are mostly erotic
poems, some addressed to a certain 'Xanthippe', whose name
appears in various forms, and who he says marks the end, as does the
*coronis* in a book, of the crazed or manic phase of his life
(*AP* 11.41.7 = 4 Sider). The poems mention both Athens and
Naples. A couple of them speak of banqueting or eating in moderation,
one of which invites Piso to the feast in honor of Epicurus'
birthday, held on the twentieth of each month (*AP* 11.44 = 27
Sider):



> 
> 
> Tomorrow, dearest Piso, your cultured companion drags you  
> 
> To his humble shack at three o'clock  
> 
> To feed you your annual dinner on the Twentieth. If you'll miss  
> 
> Sow's udders and Bromius' Chian wine,  
> 
> Still you'll see your faithful companions and hear  
> 
> Things far more sweet than the Phaeacians' land.  
> 
> And if you ever turn your gaze on us too, Piso,  
> 
> We'll have a richer Twentieth, instead of a humble one.
> 




This invitation to an Epicurean dinner raises the possibility that
other epigrams of Philodemus might be viewed with an Epicurean eye, for
example, when they portray conversations in which friends point out to
the poet the need to avoid excessive grief at his own eventual death
(*AP* 9.570 = 3 Sider) or the recent death of his friends
(*AP* 9.412 = 29 Sider), though it is hard to think that all of
them could or should be so interpreted (cf. Sider 1997: 32-39).


### 2.2 Philosophical Works


#### 2.2.1 Discovery of the papyri: an exceptional legacy




Greek philosophical texts are usually known to us through the
medieval manuscript tradition, transmitted, in the best cases, by
manuscripts of the ninth or tenth centuries CE that were already, by
that date, the products of many generations of copies, and perhaps too
of a couple of scholarly editions. Fragments of ancient papyrus
manuscripts give punctual insights into the state of some of these
texts in earlier periods, from the late third century BCE to the sixth
century CE, and can thus be used to help gauge the accuracy of the
later manuscript tradition.




Before the mid-18th century, that Philodemus wrote
properly philosophical works could, beyond a reference to his
*Collection of the Philosophers* (D[iogenes] L[aertius] 10.3,
cf. 10.24, and see Section 2.2.5.5), only
be inferred from Cicero's reference to him as a 'very
learned' Epicurean, along with Siro (*On Moral Ends*
2.119). But in 1752 and 1754 a large trove of perhaps about 800 papyrus
bookrolls was excavated from an opulent villa in the town of
Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples. The eruption of Vesuvius that buried
the town and the villa in October of 79 CE was also responsible for the
preservation of these carbonized bookrolls, the first papyrus books to
become known in Europe. The discovery sent a thrill through learned
Europe, although the bookrolls' extreme fragility, which made
them practically impossible to unroll or separate into distinct layers
without inflicting grave damage--various early attempts resulted
only in the destruction of an unknown number of rolls--was deeply
frustrating.




Philodemus' philosophical works are exceptional in being known
to us entirely from papyri copied during his lifetime or, at the
latest, in the century after his death, which are, accordingly,
excellent *qua* records of what Philodemus actually wrote. Most
scribal errors in them were corrected at an early stage, and despite
the usual obstacles to be encountered in texts on papyrus, (such as the
absence of word-breaks and of a standard, comprehensive system of
punctuation, and the arrangement of text continuously, in columns,
rather than by chapters or sections), the result is a clean and
intelligible text--where it can be read. Sadly, there is much that
cannot be read (see Section 2.2.4).


#### 2.2.2 Unrolling the papyri




The 18th c. learned community was perhaps even more
dismayed when, in 1754-5, the last part of one of these books was
finally unrolled, by Padre Antonio Piaggio, and proved to be a work of
Philodemus' attacking the art of music. Instead of the lost books
of Livy or the plays of Aeschylus eagerly anticipated by scholars, the
library turned out to consist mostly of Epicurean treatises, Philodemus
being the author best represented amongst them, followed by Epicurus
himself.




The first curator of all the objects excavated in Herculaneum, the
Roman painter Camillo Paderni, had used the method of cutting
lengthwise through the rolls of papyrus and peeling off their exterior
portions (referred to as the 'bark' or *scorza*),
sometimes pulverizing the rolls' central, interior portions (now referred to as '*scorzatura totale*'),
sometimes leaving these untouched ('*scorzatura parziale*'). The exterior and interior portions
of a bookroll were handled differently. The exterior portions took the
form of a concave shell, representing all or part of the roll's
original height, comprising numerous papyrus layers with writing
visible on the topmost of these (that nearest the middle of the roll
and thus the end of the text). When this stretch of text had been
copied, the layer of papyrus on which it was written could be scraped
off--and thereby destroyed--to reveal the next layer
underneath (which would thus be nearer to the beginning, not the end,
of the text).




These surfaces or 'fragments' were necessarily
discontinuous, each covering no more than half the circumference of a
bookroll. Unmindful of how the fragments had come into being, the
Neapolitan editors presented them in reverse order, with the later ones
first. Moreover, since each piece of a roll had been assigned its own
'papyrus' number, the fact that a set of exterior
'fragments' and another set of interior columns had
originally formed one bookroll was often forgotten. The papyrus
numbered *PHerc.* 1427, for example, which ends with the title
*On Rhetoric* I, contains four partial columns and the final
seven columns, out of an original 237; but other parts of the same
bookroll were removed from its exterior, opened, catalogued, and
published, with little or no cognizance of their origin, as nine
separate "papyri" (*PHerc.* 232, 234, 250, 398,
426, 453, 1601, 1612, 1619), all of which when reassembled in
Nicolardi 2018 yield perhaps 30% of the original text.




It was the cores (*midolli*) of the bookrolls, containing the
final parts of texts, that were opened using the ingenious mechanism
invented by Piaggio yielding long portions of mostly continuous text,
albeit interrupted by gaps of varying size. Such textual continuity is
found usually only in the final portions of Philodemus' books,
some of which contain something like a peroration, others attacks on
rival positions, especially those of other Epicureans, or a kind of
mopping-up and delimitation of the book's subject-matter. In a
few, fortunate, cases, such as *PHerc.* 1004 from *On
Rhetoric*, this final portion may cover a large percentage of the
original roll's length; usually, however, they represent (much)
less than a third. The unrolling process was so painfully slow that in
the first phase of the history of the 'Workshop
(*Officina*) of the Papyri' (1754-98), only 18 papyri were
successfully unrolled. Political unrest closed the workshop between
1798 and 1801, and in 1802 a new phase of unrolling began under the
direction of an English cleric, John Hayter, whose work was financed by
the Prince of Wales, the later George IV. During the next five years,
over 200 rolls were unrolled, but little was published, due in part to
the slowness of the Neapolitan academics entrusted with the task.


#### 2.2.3 Early Publications and Modern Reading of the Papyri




These delays conspired with what many observers at the time
considered the uninspiring nature of the works preserved in the papyri
to dampen wider interest in and notice of them, despite their unique
status. This state-of-affairs persisted until the unification of Italy
(1861), when a new series of publications of facsimiles of the papyrus
texts, engravings of drawings (Italian: *disegni*) made soon
after the rolls were opened, appeared in quick succession (see the
Bibliographical Note, *infra*). Now the texts of Philodemus
finally became objects of sustained study by scholars interested in
Epicureanism.




Nonetheless, numerous editions of Philodemus' works,
especially early ones, are unreliable. Many were not based on a reading
of the papyri themselves, but rather on the *disegni*, which are
frequently wrong, and this led editors to be bolder about changing the
texts presented in these copies, filling in gaps, and interpreting the
results than they might have been had they read the papyri instead. In
many such cases, better reading of the papyrus has shown that the text
ran very differently indeed from the conjectures that have commonly
served as the basis of reconstructions of the views of Philodemus and
others. One common problem has been the mistaking of what turns out to
be a citation of an opponent for something Philodemus himself maintains
(and *vice versa*).




There are other serious obstacles to understanding, especially the
condition of the papyri themselves. The books were written on sheets of
papyrus pasted together into lengths of, say, 8-16 meters, which were
rolled up from right to left and therefore read from left to right,
beginning to end. The texts are arranged in parallel columns, at times
well over 200 of them, of 20-45 lines, each consisting of 16-40
letters; the numbers of lines and letters are fairly uniform in each
roll.




There are holes ('lacunae') of varying size; surfaces may
have been badly abraded in the process of unrolling; ink may have
faded, or even vanished altogether; glues used to hold the papyri
together and mount them have in some cases penetrated and darkened
them. Significant advances in reading the papyri have been made,
however, especially by the use of microscopes (first in 1970, then,
from 1995, with built-in illumination) and, from 2000, of digital
photographs taken mostly in the near-infrared region
('multi-spectral images'). The problems of continuity
posed by the way in which the papyri were opened and read have also
recently been addressed in a systematic way. Guglielmo Cavallo's study
(1983) of the scribal hands used in the papyri allowed the texts to be
grouped and dated, and it allowed the recognition that numerous pieces
had once belonged to the same roll. These technical and philological
advances, which have dramatically improved and extended our access to
Philodemus' thought, now require the re-edition of all texts of
Herculaneum papyri. There are also newer technical methods which may
soon change the situation again by providing three-dimensional images
of opened papyri or even reading still rolled-up pieces without
opening them.


#### 2.2.4 Reconstructing Philodemus' philosophical *oeuvre*


##### 2.2.4.1 Titles




In many texts we have lost the pages placed at the end of a roll, on
which a scribe would write the work's author and title (and
sometimes more information too, such as the number of columns or
standard lines the bookroll contained); nearly all the title-pages from
the beginnings of the rolls have been lost, as well. Many such orphaned
rolls have been assigned to Philodemus indirectly, on the basis of the
nature of the bookroll and of the hand in which it was copied, and of
the work's style and content. Scholars have also given titles to
some works based on their content and, in some cases, relying on
references to such titles in other works of Philodemus'. A
related difficulty is posed by the possibility that titles may have
taken various forms, as in the papyri of *On Vices*, where the
title-pages at the beginning of the rolls seem to have had a somewhat
fuller title, those at the ends of the rolls a shorter version. The
point is relevant because Philodemus' philosophical production
can of course be rightly described and evaluated only on the basis of
an accurate list of his writings. Most attributions of works to
Philodemus are generally accepted by scholars; conjectured titles,
however, should often be understood as *exempli gratia*.


##### 2.2.4.2 Individual books




Daniel Delattre's work (2007) on the pieces of papyrus now
securely attributed to *On Music* IV, Dirk Obbink's on the
first half of *On Piety* (1996), and Richard Janko's on
*On Poems* [I] showed how to 'reconstruct'
bookrolls, by identifying which items in the catalogue of papyri belong
to a given roll, working out their original locations within it, and
re-ordering the copies of their fragments.




The best reconstructions to date are thus able to give a clear
impression of the structure of a whole book, as with *On Music*
IV, *On Poems* I, *Rhetoric* II, and VIII. In these books
Philodemus summarises the work--often in the form of a number of
relatively short quotations--of one or more opponents: in *On
Music* IV, the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon; in *On Poems* I,
the literary theorist Crates of Mallos, along with others referred to
as 'critics' (*kritikoi*). Philodemus then goes back
over the quotations in order, refuting each of their positions, often
several times over.




An extreme example of this procedure occurs at the end of
*Rhetoric* VIII (cf. Blank 2007a). There the statement
attributed to Aristotle as a reason for his decision to teach rhetoric,
'It is shameful to be silent while allowing Isocrates to
speak', is dissected and rejected over the course of ten columns
with arguments such as a *reductio* (why not say that it is
shameful to sit idly while allowing Farmer Brown to till the soil?) or
an *ad hominem* (the practice of political rhetoric is itself
shameful, but then Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus not only
collected the laws of various places, but also wrote about such low
subjects as perfumery and metallurgy).


##### 2.2.4.3 Multivolume works and projects




Philodemus' philosophical projects, and the sweep of his
argumentation, are not, however, confined to the level of individual
books. Besides self-contained, single-volume
('*monobibloi*') works--*e.g.* *On
the Stoics*, *On the Good King according to Homer*--a
large number of books belong to multi-volume projects. Thus we have
only the fourth--probably final--books of *On Death*
and *On Music*; *On Signs* III; *On the Gods* I
and III; Books I, II, III, IV, VI, VIII, and perhaps also VII
of *On Rhetoric*. In no case can we be sure that we have the
entirety of any such project, though there are perhaps signs in some
bookrolls that they were meant to be the last in a series, as at the
end of *On Music* IV, while in other cases, the nature of the
treatment seems to bring the subject to a conclusion, as in *On
Death* IV.




For the most part it is unclear how all these works were organized.
In some cases (e.g., *On Poems* I-II and *On Rhetoric*
I-III), Philodemus has plotted the course of more than one book at
once, but we do not know if an overall plan was present from the
beginning, or if books at first composed separately were later added to
the set. The most complex problems arise with regard to the
multi-volume work *On Vices*, which is discussed below.
Understanding the organization of such works would give us a clearer
picture of Philodemus' methods and philosophical aims.


##### 2.2.4.4 Ethical works




A large percentage of Philodemus' known works deal with what
may be classed as ethical matters (see further, Section 2.2.5.3
below). Most of the ethical works of Philodemus are practical
in outlook, assuming rather than arguing for the tenets of Epicurean
ethical theory, on which they are always founded
(Section 2.2.5.1).


##### 2.2.4.4.1 On ethics as a whole




There are two Herculaneum treatises which treat the systematic basis
of ethics. One is a kind of introductory treatment of Epicurean ethics,
for which *On Choices and Avoidances* would be an appropriate
title and which was probably written by Philodemus, who mentions such a
work of his own (at *PHerc.* 1424.28.5; formerly called
*Ethica Comparetti* after its first editor). The other is *On
Epicurus*, a biographical, or rather hagiographical, work based
largely on citations of the founder's works (see further,
Section 2.2.5.5).


##### 2.2.4.4.2 On individual ethical topics




Philodemus composed at least two multi-volume works on explicitly
moral subjects. One was *On Vices*, or, as the titles of some of
its books indicate, *On Vices and their Opposing Virtues and Those
in whom and Concerning what things they occur*. Individual books of
this set seem to have borne individual titles, two of which are known:
*On Flattery* (*On Vices* Book 1: *PHerc.*
222+223+1082+1675 and perhaps a couple of other fragmentary pieces;
*PHerc.* 1457, dealing with vices similar to flattery, may have
been either a second book or the conclusion of the same book, carried
over onto a second roll, giving the treatise a structure like that of
Book 10) and *On Arrogance* (*On Vices* Book 10:
*PHerc.* 1008); two other books whose title indicated that they
belonged to the set, but whose individual titles are lost, dealt with
household management (*On Vices* Book 9: *PHerc.* 1424)
and greed (*PHerc.* 253). These four books are all written in
the same hand, and another by the same scribe, dealing with slander
(*PHerc. Paris.* 2), is also likely to have been part of the
overall work *On Vices*. Besides having been written by the same
scribe, evidently as part of a fairly uniform edition, at least three
of these books were addressed to the circle of Roman poets Plotius
Tucca, Varius, Virgil and Quintilius Varus (*PHerc.* 253 fr.
12.4; *On Flattery*, *PHerc.* 1082.11.3; *On
Slander*, *PHerc. Paris.* 2 fr. 279.10-11).




That Philodemus composed these books as part of a coherent series is
clear not only from the presence of both individual descriptive titles
and generic titles in the rolls of this edition, but also from the end
of *On Arrogance*: 'We shall end this treatise here, but
we shall add to it the treatment of the other vices which we think we
should discuss'. Still, in the course of these books, Philodemus
also refers to others, which may or may not have been part of the
series: *On Beauty* and *On Eros*, which contained
remarks intended to prevent people from falling prey to flattery (cited
at *PHerc.* 1457 fr. 23.8-10); *On Wealth* (mentioned at
*PHerc.* 1424.12.17-25; we have the first book in
*PHerc.* 163 and perhaps another book in *PHerc.* 209);
*On Wealth and Poverty* (perhaps contained in *PHerc.*
1570; or perhaps this is another name for *On Wealth*), *On
the Extravagant and Simple Lifestyles*, and *On Choices and
Avoidances* (cited in *PHerc.* 1424.28.5).




It is unclear exactly how this series as a whole justified the
descriptive title *On Vices and their Opposing Virtues and Those in whom and Concerning what
things they occur*. Not all its books are clearly centered on or
titled after 'vices'. Nor does the work appear to have
contained any books which were clearly written about
'virtues' opposite to the 'vices', such as a
book on friendship as an opposite to flattery; it has been speculated
that such might have been the relationship between the book about
household management and one which is perhaps about greed
(*philarguria*) and which survives in a number of fragmentary
pieces written in the hand of *On Vices* (*PHerc.* 253,
465, 896, 1090, 1613 and frs. 8-10 and 12 of 1077). Individual books,
however, may correspond in some way to the overall title. Thus, *On
Flattery* and *On Arrogance* analyze the vices of their
subtitles, contrast them with the attitude and practice of the
Epicurean philosopher (i.e., the virtues) and describe the
'character' type afflicted with the vice in question, as
well as those characters which are of the same genus or in some way
bound up with the main vice, with due attention to the particular
nature and danger of each character and the situations in which it is
found.




Key to understanding the ethics of managing an Epicurean community
is Philodemus' treatise (*PHerc.* 1471) dedicated to the
school's practice of frank criticism (*parrhesia*).
Its full title runs *Of the books On Characters and Modes of Life
written as epitomes from the lectures of Zeno, Book [ ?], which is On
Frank Criticism*, and testifies to the existence of a second series
of Philodemus' ethical works.




Another book with clear relevance to the conduct of the school and
the understanding of the sage's role in it is *On Anger*
(*PHerc.* 182). As reconstructed, the remains of this
book's final title page allow the possibility that it was part of
a larger work, and its subject, along with those of books *On
Madness* and others which could be called [*On Malicious
Joy* (or *On Jealousy*)], or [*On Dismeasure*], has
led some to propose that Philodemus wrote a series of books on the
passions. Certainly, the passions (*pathe*) are close to
the heart of Hellenistic ethical discussion and play an important role
in one's ability both to lead a good, happy life and one's
ability to profit from being in a community of philosophers.


#### 2.2.5 Philodemus' philosophy


##### 2.2.5.1 Philodemus' conception of philosophical discourse


##### 2.2.5.1.1 The 'great men'




Philodemus does not claim to be an original philosopher. He insists
that his views are based on the doctrines of Epicurus and of his first
generation of pupils--Metrodorus, Colotes, Polyaenus, Hermarchus
(cf. *PHerc.* 1005 III 8-17 and fr. 107.9 ff.), whose
works he cites constantly as proof of the correctness of his claims
about Epicurean doctrine and its proper interpretation, often in
opposition to the interpretations of other Epicureans contemporary
with or somewhat older than himself. The death of Hermarchus marks,
for Philodemus, the end of the authoritative generation of
Epicureans. To Hermarchus were bequeathed the books of
Epicurus--perhaps some of the very copies eventually owned by
Philodemus and found in the Villa--and he was the last of the
disciples to have participated in philosophical discussion with and,
thus, in the formation of the philosophy of the founder.


##### 2.2.5.1.2 Zeno of Sidon




Philodemus' authority for many of his claims about the content and
interpretation of Epicurean teaching is his own teacher, Zeno of
Sidon. In *Rhetoric* II, for example, Philodemus defends Zeno's
view that the first Epicureans denied forensic and political rhetoric
the status of 'arts' or 'expertises'
(*technai*), while conceding it to 'sophistic' or
panegyric rhetoric (cf. Blank 2001). Elsewhere, Philodemus gives an
extended defence of Zeno's running of the school, his conception of
the Epicurean wise man, his attitude toward and use of the founders'
texts, and his balanced understanding of Epicurus' hostility toward
the liberal arts, in opposition to some recent Epicureans, who are
criticized for their 'laziness regarding books' and who,
Zeno said, had only a superficial knowledge of the principal texts,
based on epitomes. The title of the book (*PHerc.* 1005/862 and
1485) in which this argument is conducted, and which was apparently
the first of a set, is only partially preserved, as *Pros tous
[...]*, which, to compound the difficulty, could mean either
that it is addressed 'to' certain persons whose identity
is now lost, or that it is written 'against' them. It has
been published under the titles *Against the [sophists]*
and *To the [companions in the school*
(*hetairous*)*]* (thus, *ad contubernales* in
Latin, and is now read as, for instance, *Against those [no good at
knowing the books]* (Puglia 2015) or *Against those [who claim
to know the books]* (Del Mastro 2014).




Some of Philodemus' books are described as based in whole or
part on the lectures of Zeno (*e.g. On Signs* III, *On Frank
Criticism*); the term *hupomnematikon*, which appears
in some end-titles, may indicate that, being similarly dependent on
lectures or seminars, they are in the style of a 'notebook'
or 'commentary' (*hypomnematikon*, cf. Blank
1997). Zeno's collection and interpretation of the
founders' texts is praised and defended by Philodemus in a number
of places, and he was clearly devoted to him, describing himself as
'Zeno's faithful suitor while he lived, and tireless singer
of his praises after his death, especially for all his virtues, in
addition to his possession (*ka[to]chais*) and inspiration
(*theophoriais*) by Epicurus' (*Pros tous
[...]* XIV 6-13). Zeno seems, in fact, to have been for
Philodemus a model second only to Epicurus himself of the wise man and
leader of an Epicurean community. It is to the running of an Epicurean
community, the role of the sage in it and the relations between its
members that much of Philodemus' work is devoted.




We do not know any of the other books from the same series of
summaries based on the lectures of Zeno, who was evidently the source
and model of Philodemus's ideas about how to run an Epicurean
school. They are often thought to have included *On
Conversation* (*PHerc.* 873, apparently Book 2, according to
the final title), and *On Gratitude* (*PHerc.* 1414)
because those topics also relate to conduct and relations among school
members; the titles of these two bookrolls, however, evidently lacked
any indication that they belonged to a larger work; the final title of
*PHerc.* 873 is in the same hand as the front and back titles
added to the uniform edition of the books of *On Vices* which
may indicate that the book belonged rather to that series.


##### 2.2.5.2 Canonics




Epicurus was perhaps the originator of the Hellenistic debates over
the nature and existence of a 'criterion of truth', which
allows us to separate true from doubtful or false beliefs. This debate,
conducted by both philosophers and medical writers, also concerned
methods of proof and sign-inference to extend knowledge beyond our
immediate perceptions (overview in Allen 2001).




The final portion of *On Signs* III is all we have of the
work, the full title of which was apparently *On Phenomena and
Sign-inferences* (*semeioseon*). It
comprises four sections (labeled here SSSS1-4, followed by
column and line numbers from DeLacy and DeLacy 1978) and reports the
ways in which three Epicureans responded to criticisms of their theory
of sign-inference. First is Philodemus' teacher, Zeno (SS1,
SS2); then Demetrius Laco (SS3, xxviii 13-xxix 19), whose
interest in proof is known from Sextus (*M* 8.348); and finally
another, unnamed, colleague (SS4, xxix 20-xxxviii 22). The authors
of the initial criticisms are unknown, but probably include the
Dionysius who is named as author of replies to the Epicurean rebuttals
of the first round of criticisms (SS1, vii 5-viii 21; Zeno's
replies occupy viii 21-ix 26), and he may be a Stoic or Peripatetic. On the other
hand, the method favored by the opponents, EM or the elimination mode
(*anaskeue*, which is not the same as contraposition, as
scholars used to think), is not positively attested as Stoic.




Both the EM and the Epicurean similarity mode (SM) of sign-inference
move to the non-evident from the evident. We do not know how the
opponents defined what is evident, but the SM starts from empirical
generalisations that have been, in their turn, built up from individual
observations, and, ultimately, from perceptions and feelings, these
being two of the standard Epicurean criteria. The experiences of others
(if reliable), accessed through research (*historia*), as well
as things proved earlier, may also furnish suitable starting-points for
the construction (*sunthesis*) of inferential transitions
(*metabaseis*) to the non-evident. All this empirical input is
most often referred to as 'things hereabouts' (*ta
par' hemin*), and it stands in opposition both to
perceptible things outside our experience, e.g., from living things
here to those in chilly 'Britain, if any' (SS1, v
35-6), and also to those that are in principle imperceptible, as from
moving things hereabouts to atoms moving in the void.




Epicurus himself had appealed to what is evident to provide positive
'attestation' (*epimarturesis*) of true
beliefs about perceptibles 'hereabouts', and
'contestation' (*antimarturesis*) of false
beliefs about theoretical items such as atoms, and about extremely
distant perceptible objects; always provided it is explanatorily
adequate, lack of evidence of any kind against a theoretical belief is
sufficient grounds for taking it to be true, (*Ep. Herodot.* 80,
*Ep. Pythocles* 86-88; each such belief will constitute a true
explanation of this type of phenomenon in one or other of the infinite
number of world-systems in the universe). In *On Signs*, in
contrast, what phenomena 'conflict' (*antipiptein*,
*makhesthai*) with, if they do, are empirical generalizations,
which are thereby falsified (e.g., SS1, xvii 28-xviii 16). Thus
while Epicurus argues that the non-existence of void is contested by
the phenomenon of movement, these Epicureans argue that nothing evident
contests the local generalization that moving things hereabouts all
move through empty spaces.




Such localized empirical generalizations are produced by the
Epicureans' method of 'applied reasoning'
(*epilogismos*), i.e., reasoning applied to experience:
similarities (*homoiotetes*) and differences among things
in our experience are collected and scrutinized so as to identify
properties belonging to all, or all observed, local members of some
kind or group without exception. These properties can then safely be
projected, by sign-inference, to all or any other members of the kind,
as, for example, it is inferred that mortality belongs to all human
beings everywhere (e.g., SS4, xxxiii 24-32)--a type of
sign-inference that the Epicureans claim is simply not captured by the
EM (e.g., SS1, xvii 8-11). While local generalizations are all
constructed by the detection of similarities, in the case of
imperceptibles property-projection will rather be by analogy (SS4,
xxxvii 24-xxxviii 8, the DeLacys' unfortunate translation of
*homoiotes* as 'analogy' notwithstanding):
atoms, e.g., are analogous, but not identical, to macroscopic bodies in
their property of solidity.



*Epilogismos* must be conducted with due diligence and
caution (e.g., SS3, xxix 1-4), but this seems an inadequate defense
against the possibility raised by their opponents that counter-examples
to generalizations--unique individuals or rare species--may
always exist undiscovered. More convincing is the response that, since
freaks and rarities were discovered empirically, to project the
existence of such things into unknown realms is simply to apply the SM
(e.g., SS3, xxviii 29-37). While this does not prove that the EM is
superfluous, it does raise another unsettled question, whether all
these Epicureans believe that there is only one mode of sign-inference,
the SM, or two (as suggested by Zeno in SS1, e.g., xii 2-31). It is
probably helpful to see this problem in light of a basic disagreement
that emerges in *On Signs* between the Epicureans and their
opponents: that the Epicureans are mainly concerned, not with arriving,
somehow or other, at true beliefs, but with how we can be certain that
our beliefs are true, experience being the only secure foundation for
any property-projection. Sign-inferences here and in other sources
often take the form of a conditional (*sunemmenon*), such
as: 'If there is smoke, there is fire', or a
para-conditional (*parasunemmenon*), such as 'Since
there is smoke, there is fire' (equivalent to a conditional plus
its antecedent), and the EM is built around a criterion of truth for
conditionals: the antecedent must be 'eliminated', or
negated, simply by the 'elimination' of the consequent
(SS1, xii 1-14). In the void/movement case, then, if movement is a
sign of void, elimination of void thereby eliminates movement, and the
inference seems to be valid by the EM.




But the author of SS4, at any rate, insists that it is only
because we have observed that moving things hereabouts, despite other
differences, all share the property of moving through empty spaces,
that we affirm that the same thing holds without exception in
non-evident places too (xxxv 36-xxxvi 7). The full form of this
sign-inference would therefore run: "Since moving things
hereabouts all move through empty space, all moving things move through
empty spaces; and since all moving things move through empty space, and
there are moving things, there is such a thing as empty space".
But if assurance (*diabebaiosis*) that the conclusion is
true is produced in *all* cases by experience of similar cases
(xxxvii 31-35), whether a sign is similar to what it signifies--as
with the revelation that all human beings are mortal by their being so
hereabouts--or it is not, as with movement's being a sign of
void (xxxi 1-7), then there will indeed be only one mode of
sign-inference, and the EM, which does not proceed in this way, will be
excluded.




A second major disagreement is that the Epicureans apparently
claimed that SM sign-inferences had a 'necessitating'
(*anankastikos*) character, which their opponents denied (e.g.,
SS1, iv 5-37; SS2, xxvi 25-6). There has been modern debate
over whether the Epicureans meant that the premisses of SM
sign-inferences necessitate their conclusions, as in deductive
arguments (Barnes 1988: 107-111), or that SM sign-inferences are
'cogent' and 'demand assent' and may be thought
of as inductive arguments, which antiquity called
*epagoge* and in which the premisses do not
necessitate the conclusions (Long 1988: 136-40).




Perhaps, however, the important point is rather that SM
sign-inference is concerned with the relation between an individual
object and its properties, a relation of *metaphysical*
necessity (e.g., SS1, viii 32-6; SS4, xxxiii 35, xxxv 22-9). It
is these necessary properties that *epilogismos* seeks to
identify (e.g., SS1, xvii 3-11; SS4, xxxv 4-31) and that
sign-inference should project: they help constitute the nature of a
thing (cf. SS1, xv 11-12; SS3, xxiv 6-8). When he rebuts the
opponents' objection that SM sign-inferences are not
necessitating, therefore, Zeno adduces the kind of property from which
a sign-inference should proceed. Thus whatever necessity an SM
sign-inference has comes from the metaphysical necessity of a
property-property pairing, which is expressed in a *qua* truth:
"For when we say that, since those hereabouts are such, those in
the unknown realm are also such, insofar as those hereabouts are such,
in this way we believe that something unknown is conjoined with them.
For example: since humans hereabouts, *qua* humans, are mortal,
then if there are humans anywhere, they too are mortal" (SS4,
xxxiii 24-32). Each of the four senses of '*qua*'
discussed in the next lines joins properties with the force of
necessity and is used in sign-inferences (xxxiii 24-29).




The Epicureans are epistemological realists who postulate that we
naturally form conceptions corresponding to types of object and
property in our experience. The metaphysical necessity of
property-property pairing explains why the best test of a conditional
or of a particular sign is that it is inconceivable that the antecedent
exists and the consequent does not (SS4, xxxiii 1-7), why someone
making a sign-inference on the basis of the evident "locks away
in inconceivability" the proposition that things hereabouts are
such, but things elsewhere are not such (SS1, xv 37-39).




As with *On Signs*, what remains of a badly damaged treatise
on the senses attributed to Philodemus (*PHerc.* 19/698, ed.
Monet 1996) takes the Epicurean theory of perception, with its
description of the atomic basis of the senses and their irrationality,
as a background against which to discuss developments of the theory due
to the confrontation with opponents, in this instance Stoics and
Aristotelians. Of special concern are: the unity of sensation (I-VIII)
and the 'common sense' (XX-XXVII) as opposed to the
particular objects of each sense (XXVIII-XXIX); and the rejection of
Stoic 'grasping' (*katalepsis*) once one
admits the Epicurean theory of 'affection'
(*pathos*), which includes both perceiving and perceiving that
one is perceiving (IX-XVII).


##### 2.2.5.3 Ethics


##### 2.2.5.3.1 The principles




Philodemus' ethical theory is very much that of Epicurus, with
its focus on the attainment of 'the congenital goal' of
pleasure and concomitant rejection of what does not lead to that goal
or even distracts from it. Probably, the systematic treatment of
Epicurean ethics put in the mouth of 'Torquatus' by Cicero
in *On Moral Ends* 1.29-72 reflects a position with which
Philodemus would have agreed and its source was perhaps Philodemus
himself or, more likely, Zeno (Tsouna 2001). It is the rational
calculation of pleasure which guides our correct moral choices, and the
calculus is stressed in both Torquatus' account (1.32-33) and
*[On Choices and Avoidances]* (IV 10-VI 21, etc., Indelli-Tsouna
1995; see Tsouna 2007: 13-31 for a fine overview of Philodemus'
ethical position).




We make moral errors, therefore, by failing to calculate pleasures
and pains correctly in making moral choices, which happens when we do
not keep in mind 'the most important things' (*ta
kuriotata*) or rules of Epicureanism. Philodemus thinks it
important not only to understand, but also to memorize the cardinal
tenets, which help us to measure our choices and avoidances by the
naturally given ends, not merely--as some Epicureans
held--because knowing the cardinal tenets lends tranquillity of
mind (*[On Choices and Avoidances]* XI 7-20). He also argues, in
*Pros tous [...]*, that easily memorized, abbreviated
formulations of the cardinal maxims are useful, and he gives us (IV
9-14) the pithiest formulation of Epicurean tenets, the 'Fourfold
Drug' (*tetrapharmakos logos*): 'god is not
fearsome, death not frightening, the good easily got, the bad easily
endured'. The reader is advised constantly to bear in mind these
four tenets, which are grounded by Philodemus in various places,
including in *[On Choices and Avoidances]*, where they are
called simply 'The Four'.




Understanding the cardinal tenets of Epicureanism and keeping them
in memory will help us deliberate, but deliberation may still be
inhibited by our desires, which must therefore be well understood by
us, together with their causes. Desires may arise in us and may affect
us in different ways, depending on our physical and mental constitution
and on our situation in life. In many cases, we fail to take into
account the sources of our desires when we make moral choices, not
recognizing, for example, that the desire for great wealth or
reputation is 'empty' or vain (*[On Choices and
Avoidances]* V-VI). We may also fail to perform the hedonic
calculus correctly due to a false assignment of value to goods,
considering reputation or wealth, for example, great goods which cause
us pain when we are denied them. Such failures will occur especially
when we suffer from vices of character and when we are in the grip of
the passions, and Philodemus gives profound treatments of both these
subjects.


##### 2.2.5.3.2 Types of character




The treatment of character-types (as in some of the books of *On
Vices*) is in part a continuation of Peripatetic treatises (such
descriptions are included, for example, in Aristotle's
*Ethics* and *Rhetoric*, the Aristotelian books on
*Virtues and Vices* and *Physiognomics*), and
Theophrastus' chapter on the obsequious man (*Characters*
5) is quoted *in extenso* in *On Flattery*, while a
letter *On the Relief of Arrogance* by Aristo (very probably the
third century Peripatetic scholarch from Ceos, despite renewed
arguments that he was rather Aristo of Chius, the Stoic) is summarized
in the final fourteen columns of *On Arrogance*. It appears that
Philodemus may have been preceded in his use of character sketches by
another Epicurean, perhaps a contemporary of Philodemus, Nicasicrates
of Rhodes, with whom he takes issue in various places.




There is little doubt that the vices treated by Philodemus were very
widespread in the late Roman Republic, and it is likely that his work
was in part meant to instruct those who had to live in that society
about the alternative provided by Epicureanism. Perhaps Philodemus also
intended to provide the poetically minded friends to whom the work was
addressed with instruction on how to manage their own relations with
others, including their patrons and members of their philosophically
oriented discussion groups, and with raw material, in the form of
character descriptions and analyses, for their poetry. Sider 1997: 21
notes that Horace, who was an associate of the four addressees of
*On Vices*, says (*Ars Poetica* 438-452) that, if one
read him one's verses, Quintilius (one of the four) would not
flatter, but offer honest criticism as a true friend would do, acting
like Aristarchus and not saying: 'Why should I offend my friend
over trifles?'. Such a connection between criticism and
friendship is not a standard topic of Hellenistic literary criticism,
but it is central to Philodemus' ethical works, where it appears
as the art of frank criticism.




Most of all, the subjects treated in these books serve the needs of
a philosophical community and its leader, who must deal with characters
such as the various kinds of flatterers or lovers of flattery or the
manifold arrogant types among its members, hangers-on and their
families, preventing them from harming the cohesion and mission of the
community, while warding off misunderstandings of the sage as arrogant
or sycophantic himself. Philosophy provides the cure for the vices, but
this cure is effected in the context of the Epicurean community, with
its physician/sage leader and the practice of frank criticism among all
its members.


##### 2.2.5.3.3 Discourse within the school



*On Frank Criticism* is a kind of manual of frankness, which
it treats as a technical expertise of how to criticize other members of
the Epicurean community. The expert practitioner of this art is the
Epicurean sage, the community's leader, who must look at the
errors in the behavior of his companions, including other sages and
even himself, diagnose the moral errors and circumstances which led to
that behavior, and know what therapy to apply. The poor, the rich, the
old, and women, among others, are all prone to particular
misconceptions and behaviors which hinder their progress in philosophy
and toward the happy life; they are also liable to react in particular
ways to therapy. Therefore the sage must know when to criticize mildly
or harshly or even give the impression of being angry. In addition, the
other members of the community must learn to criticize themselves and
one another, bringing complaints to one another and to the sage.



*On Conversation* deals with technical precepts about silence
and speaking, recognizing the power of silence, the importance of
contemplation, and the art of knowing when and to whom one should speak
or keep silent. What little we have of *On Gratitude* deals with
the gratitude which is properly given to one's teacher and the
relation between gratitude and friendship. This theme ties in with the
share of money one receives in gratitude from one's philosophical
companions in exchange for philosophical discourses, which Philodemus
in the treatise on household management from *On Vices* says is
the best source of income for a philosopher (*PHerc.*
1424.23.23; for the treatise on household management, see now Tsouna 2012).


##### 2.2.5.3.4 *On Anger* and *On Death* IV




Epicurus stresses that anger is not compatible with the blessed life
of the gods (*Ep. Herodot.* 77), who are neither won over by our
deserving deeds nor infected by anger (Lucretius 2.646-51); the latter
is one of the false opinions which harm our happiness by corrupting our
relation to the gods (Lucretius 6.68-79). Seneca cites Epicurus as
saying that "immoderate anger gives rise to madness"
(*Ep. Mor.* 18.12=fr. 484 Usener), and he explains, from his own
Stoic point of view, that it is not the gravity of the cause, but
rather the kind of soul it affects, that determines whether sparks grow
into the flame of anger; Philodemus would agree, at least as regards
uncontrollable rage.




Philodemus conceives of the passions as both affective, involving
the condition of both body and soul, and cognitive, requiring judgments
such as, in the case of anger, that someone has harmed one
intentionally and severely and that one is justified in one's
desire for revenge at that harm. Epicurus qualified the anger that
brings on madness as 'immoderate', leaving open the
possibility that there might be a 'moderate' anger which is
less harmful. Though he agrees with Epicurus that the gods, who should
be our ethical role models, are untouched by anger (*Piet.* 1147
ff. Obbink), it is, according to Philodemus, natural for us human
beings to feel anger and desire revenge at certain harms or slights.
However, it is harmful to us to feel an unnatural anger, one which is
incommensurate with the harm we actually suffered at someone's
hands.




This distinction between the natural 'bite' or pang of
anger and the destructive fury of unnatural anger is central to
Philodemus' understanding of anger. Some of us have a disposition
(*diathesis*) that is 'irascible' and are prone to
feel anger where others might not be so roused. Such a disposition is
the result of false opinions regarding the importance of being injured
or slighted, the effect these should have on our well-being, and the
desirability or even pleasurability of taking revenge.
'Empty' (*kene*) anger, Philodemus says, is an
evil: it arises from a wholly bad disposition and it has bad
consequences; on the other hand, 'natural' anger is not an
evil: it may indeed 'bite', but its bite is very brief
(37.46-38.11, ed. Indelli 1988). Whether or not it was original with
him, Philodemus' distinction between 'natural' and
'empty' anger is evidently based on Epicurus' basic
distinction of 'natural' and 'empty' desires,
the latter depending on empty beliefs (*KD* 29, 30). Natural
anger affects one who reasons correctly, based on correct beliefs about
goods, evils, and the natural goal; empty anger affects those who, due
to their false opinions on these matters, have an irascible disposition
and feel slights against them more vehemently and lastingly, desiring
what they believe will be a sweet revenge.




The philosopher is a physician of the soul, and Philodemus insists
that it is not impossible to escape the diseases of the soul, if we can
avoid 'false' or 'empty' belief about the type
and magnitude of evils (6.8 ff.). Where the preserved portion of the
treatise picks up (1.6 ff.), Philodemus is arguing against Timasagoras,
apparently an Epicurean who disagreed with Philodemus and Zeno on
various ethical questions. Timasagoras apparently argued that anger was
always and entirely bad, and that it forced itself on its victims as a
kind of necessity which one was powerless to fight or to treat in
others. He seems to have insisted that only rational argument could be
used, in an effort to alter false opinions before anger strikes,
discounting the usefulness of speeches harshly denouncing anger: the
evils of anger are so evident to all that it is
'nonsensical' to think that criticizing it does any good
(1.9-27). Further, Timasagoras thought that those in the throes of
anger are incapable of reasoning on the basis of observed facts about
their passions (*anepilogistous* 7.8-9).




Philodemus, for his part, agrees with Bion the Cynic and Chrysippus,
who relied on denunciations of anger, while criticizing them as
neglecting to do much more than this to treat it. Although physicians
tell their patients the truth about the gravity of their illness and
its consequences, the patients often do not fully grasp these
strictures and their danger--sometimes entirely, sometimes by
faulty reasoning--and thus neglect to avoid them, thinking them
not very serious. But when these evils are 'placed before their
eyes', patients are rendered ready to seek treatment (4.4 ff.; on
Philodemus' methods of treatment, see Tsouna 2009). Indeed, this
section of the text is followed by a lengthy catalogue (8.20-31.24),
perhaps borrowing from Bion's *On Anger* and
Chrysippus' *Therapeutic On Passions*, of the evils caused
by anger for those who experience it, those on whom the lash of
anger's revenge falls, and others, family, friends, and
society.




One place where anger has negative consequences is in Epicurean
communities, where it can obstruct students' progress in
philosophy and interfere with the practice of frank criticism which is
central to the interactions between members. If students are irascible,
they will not tolerate the kind of frank criticism meted out to them by
their companions and teachers (cf. 36.24-5): they will take it as a
slight and go into a rage. In fact, the teacher's use of harsh
reproof when he judges that the student's resistance requires
such an approach, may even give the mistaken impression that the
teacher himself is irascible and that the anger he expresses is
immoderate and harmful. The last part of Philodemus' treatise
(34.16 ff.) deals precisely with the question of whether the sage,
whose life is meant to emulate that of the blessed gods, is subject to
anger. While his critique of anger and its consequences has generally
assumed that these are bad, Philodemus here concentrates on the
distinction between natural and empty anger. Natural anger is
unavoidable and not harmful; it may even be helpful in certain
situations (37.20 ff.). Philodemus argues against Nicasicrates (37.5)
and other Epicureans that the sage is subject only to natural, and
never to empty anger. This is a consequence of the sage's correct
understanding of what is to be chosen or avoided and his ability to
reason correctly about the passions and their consequences.




Philodemus here distinguishes the two kinds of anger by different
terms, 'anger' (*orge*) for the mild and
natural kind, 'rage' (*thumos*) for the unnatural
and destructive kind. While it appears that his opponents pointed to
passages where the first generation of Epicureans spoke of the sage as
subject to *thumos*, Philodemus says that there are two
different naturally-acquired, and therefore criterial, preconceptions
(or 'anticipations', *prolepseis*), one more
general and one more precise (45.2). Thus, when Epicurus or Metrodorus
spoke of the *thumos* of the sage, they used the term according
to the broader conception and should be interpreted as saying that the
sage was subject to natural anger or *orge*. Very
difficult and controversial is the interpretation of the reasonings
applied to experience (*epilogismoi*, see Section 2.2.5.2) used
by his Epicurean opponents to show that the sage will
feel *thumos* and their rebuttal by Philodemus (cf. Delattre
2009).




Philodemus' approach to anger is especially close to his
treatment of the fear of death in *On Death* IV (*PHerc.*
1050, ed. Henry 2009). As the text becomes legible for us, Philodemus
is apparently arguing traditional Epicurean points to show why death is
not to be feared, including: we do not have reason to fear being dead
nor will we lack good things while we are dead, as we lack all
sensation, and all good and bad is found in sensation (1-2); we ought
not to worry, as does the Stoic Apollophanes, that the sundering of the
union of body and soul will necessarily be excruciating for us, since
the myriad pores in our skins provide an easy exit for the fine atoms
of the soul (7); and an early death is not bad, even if one has
achieved perfect happiness in life, as did Epicurus' student
Pythocles, since such a life is perfect at every point and would not be
improved by its extension (12-17).




From this point on, however, Philodemus' treatise takes a more
distinctive tack. As in *On Anger*, here too he is at pains to
recognize that we feel a 'natural bite' or pang in certain
circumstances. In this section of the book, Philodemus goes through a
number of things often alleged as causes of the reluctance or fear to
die. He begins with the idea that it is natural for one who was making
progress in philosophy to feel a stab of pain that he should die
before he could reach perfect happiness (17.32 ff.). Yet such a person
also enjoys certain consolations, such as the knowledge that his
example may convince others to make progress in philosophy; surely, he
will also feel joy in the goods philosophy has given him already. A
sage who has achieved perfect happiness will lose nothing by having it
cut short, while a fool would not gain anything from a longer life. In
the following paragraphs Philodemus continues this contrast between
those fears which cause a 'natural pang' and are viewed
with 'sympathy' (20.2-3) and those which are
rejected as 'irrational', looking at their justification
in the context of a good or a bad life. Thus, the fear that one's
enemies will gloat over one's death is vain (*mataion*, often
synonymous with 'empty') and inexcusable (20.4-5),
since neither the good man nor the bad will have any inkling of such
rejoicing once dead, as they will have no sensation, and the good
man's demise will hardly be the object of gloating from people of
sense, whose opinion he should alone respect. Similarly (21), it is
'insane' to gloat over and ridicule the dead, because if
they were bad, they are now free of their evil, and if good, they are
no worse off now. It is also vain to be pained at the thought of dying
leaving no children behind (22-4): one will be remembered by
friends, especially philosophical ones, one's name will be worn by
others in the course of future time, and one's children may not be as
worthwhile custodians of one's legacy as one's friends.




By contrast, leaving behind dependents who would now have no support
in the midst of life's catastrophes and would be in want of the
necessities of life does cause a 'very natural bite' and
stirs tears in the sensible man (25.1 ff.). But this pain will not be
'great', since such a man's dependents will feel good
about his life and accomplishments, as will he himself; he will plan
for the care of his dependents and appoint guardians for them. If one
is so foolish as not to do this, it is still foolish to worry about
others' misfortunes which would occur after one has left
one's own behind. The thought of dying in a foreign country,
especially if one leaves behind close relatives at home, causes a
'natural bite' even to thinking men. But this should be
only a 'prick', not a great pain (25.37 ff.). On the other
hand, Philodemus shows no sympathy with various other fears, such as
dying in one's bed rather than in battle, dying while in poor
physical condition, or having only a modest funeral. To this list is
added the fear of dying at sea: this is not worse than any other death,
and what happens to one's body is not worse at sea than
elsewhere. It is how one lives one's life that matters, not the
manner of one's death: if one dies at sea in a battle worthy of
memory by future generations, or in search of learning, or for
one's friends' sake, these are all worthwhile; but if one
has spent one's life at sea in search of mercantile profit, that
is pitiable (32.31 ff.). The same considerations apply to those
sentenced to death, whether deservedly or undeservedly (33.37 ff.), and
to those pained at the prospect of not being remembered after their
death (35.34 ff.).




It is this thought that the important thing is how one lives, rather
than that or how one dies, that dominates Philodemus' concluding
paragraphs (37.18 ff.). In contrast to Lucretius' brilliant
conclusion (3.894-1094), where an emotional funeral speaker's
points are dismissed by Epicurean argument, Philodemus has expressed
sympathy for those who have lived according to rational principles and
yet, being human, are affected by certain thoughts about death. His own
brilliant peroration concludes with praise of such a life. To be
snatched away by death as by something unexpected and strange is
stupid: "we all live in a city with no fortification against
death", which has many approaches to us. The sensible person,
having received what suffices for a happy life, will live "laid
out in a burial shroud" and ready to face death; the dronelike
person gives no thought to the mortality and evanescence of his
constitution. Even if a sensible person forgets his mortality for a
time, he can, when death approaches, quickly remember the condition of
his life and face death unperturbedly.


##### 2.2.5.3.5 The Epicurean evaluation of the liberal arts




In his treatment of the life of Epicureans and their communities,
Philodemus also addresses claims by disciplines in competition with
philosophy for the attention of students and the conduct of adult life.
Epicurus and his followers were well known in antiquity for their
rejection of the Greek cultural or musical education
(*paideia*)--generally thought to consist in the
'liberal arts', especially grammar (the study of language,
poetry, and prose), rhetoric, music--as an institution which at
best distracted one from philosophy, the only route to happiness, and
at worst instilled in the young false notions, such as those of the
gods of poetry, and bad patterns of thought or dispositions. Epicurus
addressed a young man who had just come to study philosophy with him
accordingly: "I call you blessed, Apelles, because you have set
out for philosophy undefiled by any *paideia*" (Athenaeus,
*Deipnosophistae* 13.588A = fr. 117 Usener 1887).



*Paideia* involved the learning of arts or technical
disciplines, *technai*, considered indispensable to leading a
life worthy of a free man. For Epicurus, philosophy was the only
discipline considered indispensable to a worthwhile life and only
insofar as the study of nature enabled philosophers to care for their
soul by casting out suffering on account of false assumptions about the
world and enabling them to enjoy undefiled pleasures (*Ep. Men.*
122, *KD* 12; Porphyry, *Ad Marcellam* 31 = fr. 221
Usener). Accordingly, we hear mostly about the hostility of Epicurus
and his direct pupils to other disciplines, for instance, that
Metrodorus said that one should freely admit not knowing "on
whose side Hector was" or any of Homer's verses (Plutarch,
*That it is Impossible to Live a Pleasant Life following
Epicurus* 1094D = Metrodorus, *On Poems* I, fr. 24
Korte), or that Epicurus is said to have prescribed that the sage
will not orate before festival gatherings (D.L. 10.120a = fr. 572
Usener). Yet in the same passage we hear that the sage will leave
writings behind (fr. 566 Usener) and will be the only one who can
converse correctly about music and poetry, though he will not devote
himself to composing poetry (fr. 568 Usener, where what is said about
writing poetry is, however, obscure and disputed: see, e.g., Asmis
1995: 22, 32 f. and Sider 1995: 35 f.).




It is possible that Epicurus explained his position on the
sage's relation to the 'liberal arts' and their
practice in a work such as *On Modes of Life*, but no such
explanations explicitly quoted from him have come down to us. Of
Philodemus, on the other hand, we have a large number of books in which
the philosopher's use or avoidance of certain aspects of
technical disciplines are made a central feature of the conduct of an
Epicurean life. These works include the fourth and apparently last book
*On Music* (*PHerc.* 1497), a number of books *On
Rhetoric* (the main pieces are: Book 1, *PHerc.* 1427; Book
2, *PHerc.* 1674 and 1672, two copies of the text, the former
beginning earlier and the latter continuing after the former ends; Book
3, *PHerc.* 1506 and 1426, two copies of the same text; Book 4,
*PHerc.* 1007/1673 and 1423, two copies of the same text,
partially overlapping); Book 6 (see Dorandi 2018), *PHerc.*
1669; *PHerc.* 1004, a lengthy book whose number is not clear,
but may be Book 7; Book 8, *PHerc.* 1015+832, one roll split
into top and bottom parts); and five books *On Poems* (Book 1,
cf. Janko 2000; Book 2, *PHerc.* 994+1676; Book
3, *PHerc.* 1087 and 1403; Book 4, *PHerc.* 207; Book
5, *PHerc.* 1425 and 1538, two copies of the same text).


##### 2.2.5.3.6 The uses and the dangers of expertises




Sextus Empiricus says that the Epicureans attacked the liberal arts
because they "contributed nothing to the perfection of
wisdom" (*M* 1.1). He incorporates Epicurean
critiques--for which he appears to have used Epicurean sources
including, perhaps, Zeno of Sidon and even Philodemus
himself--into his own attacks on the liberal arts. Sextus'
attacks routinely distinguish between highly technical, theoretically
oriented versions of the arts and lower, more practical versions:
'higher grammar' treats the nature of linguistic elements
and studies the interpretation and judgment of poetry and prose, while
'lower grammar' or 'grammatistic' deals with
the simple art of reading and writing (1.44-5); a technical art of
music is the science of melodies, tones, rhythms, etc., not the simple
experience of music (6.1-4). It is only the higher versions of the arts
that Sextus attacks, while the lower versions he considers
'useful for life'.




In his *On Household Management*, Philodemus says that many
arts have both non-technical and more technical forms. Thus, of baking
and cooking there is a non-technical skill, which anyone can learn as
useful for providing sustenance, and something like that is true also
of money-making; but there is also an empirical expertise (*empeiria
entechnos*) of each of these, practiced by those who bend all their
efforts to succeeding in them and, e.g., amassing and keeping as much
money as possible. The Epicurean should acquire only the former of
these, not the latter: he should, for example, be able to provide a
living for himself, his family, and his friends, but he should not
become expert at getting and keeping money and concentrate on that,
which would take him away from the pursuit of philosophy and require
him to place an unreasonable importance on wealth (xvi.25-39,
xvii.2-40). If one takes the point of view of the Epicurean sage,
focused on philosophy, one will keep money-making and all other arts in
their proper place, learning as much of them as is necessary to secure
the philosophical life and even adding incremental enjoyments to it,
while avoiding complex bodies of technical rules and the driven,
professional pursuit of any art.




Philodemus defines the common Greek conception of
*techne* as "a state or disposition arising from
observation of certain common and elementary things extending through
many particular cases, which grasps something and which accomplishes
something of such a sort that none of those who have not learnt it can
do in a similar way, whether fixedly and firmly or conjecturally"
(*Rhet.* 2a, *PHerc.* 1674.xxxviii.2-18 Longo). An
artisan or expert, therefore, must have general rules which he can
apply to particular cases in order to produce results with a better
rate of success than could otherwise be achieved. Yet any
*techne* worth an Epicurean's attention could have
only a small body of rules, even if another *techne*
dealing with similar subject matter had many rules.




The same distinction underpins Lucretius' account of the
history of culture. Early conceptions of value were reversed as humans
became more sophisticated; so, bronze was originally valued higher than
gold, as it was more useful, but gold came to be prized more highly
(5.1241 ff.). Men learned from the birds how to sing and please the
ear; they enjoyed themselves after their rustic picnics, pleasing their
bodies without much effort when they began to dance without a regulated
rhythm (*numerus*), which made them smile and laugh and helped
keep them awake. Now too, guards keep awake in this way, and they have
learned to respect regular rhythms, but they do not enjoy themselves
any more than did their primitive ancestors (5.1379 ff.). In general,
Lucretius says, human labor is vain and the development of the arts led
to misery and war (5.1430 ff.).




These Epicurean principles also determine Philodemus' attitude
to the arts. He thinks that a certain harmless enjoyment can be got
from arts such as music and poetry, so long as one acquires only a
simple knowledge of them, avoiding the complex technologies developed
by the professional practitioners of those arts. The complex rules, he
thinks, are useless and even counterproductive, being based on
arbitrary decrees (*themata*) laid down by the
professionals.




In the case of music, Philodemus argues that one ought not to
practice assiduously to become a proficient performer, distracting
oneself from the needful pursuit of philosophy, when the innocent
enjoyment which is all the benefit that can be got from music is
available to anyone who just listens to the performances available to
the public (*Mus.* 4, col. 151.8-239 Delattre = *PHerc.*
1497.37). The claims of music theorists such as Damon of Oia and
Diogenes of Babylon that music has a crucial role in soothing the
passions of adults and in forming the character of the young, he
dismisses: music as tone, melody, rhythm, affects only the irrational
ear, while any effect on character or behavior must come from the words
or poetry in songs, which is alone capable of affecting our reason
(e.g., 146.30-147.11 = *PHerc.* 1497.32-3; cf. Sextus,
*M* 6.19 ff.).




As for poetry, Philodemus thinks that, while there is no natural
criterion of good verse, there are 'conceptions'
(*ennoiai*, here, apparently the same as
*prolepseis*) of good and bad verse, which allow a
universal judgment (*koine krisis*) of poetry based on
criteria which exist, whether or not one recognizes them. Such poetry
does not require detailed analyses or rules, attention to which spoils
one's ability to judge according to the common conceptions, so
treatises on poetry should concentrate on giving general principles
which allow the expression of the preconceptions of the good poem
(*Poem*. 5, xxx.25-33 Mangoni). For poetry the aims should be to
imitate the diction which also teaches useful things and to have a
content which is between what wise and vulgar people would say
(*Poem*. 5, xxv.30-xxvi.20, cf. Janko 2000: 131 and n. 1). After
all, the sage will rather express what is crucially useful for life in
philosophical prose, while poetry will be a pleasant adjunct or
pastime. This will apply to both writing and reading, neither of which
should require much study or effort, if it is not to be destructive of
the philosophical life.




The best way for the Epicurean to earn a living is to share his
philosophical discourses with those who are able to understand them,
and from them to receive gifts of thanks and veneration, as Epicurus
did. These discourses should be "truthful, free of competition,
and, in brief, serene, since earning one's living by sophistic or
competitive speeches is no better than doing so by demagogic or
sycophantic ones" (*On Household Management* xxiii.22-36).
In his books on *Rhetoric*, Philodemus consistently attacks both
the art and the practice of political and forensic oratory: these do
not qualify as arts and their practice is destructive of happiness. He
insists that there can be no expert method or science of consistently
persuading crowds. There is, instead, the Epicurean
*techne* of 'frank criticism', which is
practiced between individuals in an Epicurean community.




Now, Philodemus thinks that, unlike political and forensic oratory,
'sophistic' is a true *techne*, recognized as
such by the early Epicureans (e.g., *Rhet.* 2a, *PHerc.*
1674 xxxvii.10-16 Longo [cf. Blank 2003: 73]), "an expertise of
composing discourses and making displays", but he does not think
that the Epicurean should give speeches at public assemblies or waste
his time in the schools of the sophists learning tricks that could only
engender distrust in juries or assemblies. The 'sophistic'
rhetoric he grants technical status has method enough to qualify it as
such, "but not much of it, just as poetics does not either"
(*Rhet*. 2b, *PHerc.* 1672 xxii.29-39 Longo): since there
is one naturally beautiful kind of discourse, one should ignore the
kind of discourse composed according to arbitrary *themata*
(*Rhet.* 4, *PHerc.* 1007/1673 vii.6-14, p. I 151
Sudhaus). Further, a good speech of praise, the goal of the sophistic
display speaker, must praise qualities that are truly praiseworthy and
actually possessed by the subject of praise, but knowledge of such
things is common property, not something learnt in the rhetorical
schools (xla.1-24, p. I 220-1 Sudhaus). Sophistic rhetoric, the only
kind worth considering a *techne*, should thus be added to
the arts that rely on the kind of understanding available to rational
persons in common, rather than on rules invented by its practitioners
(cf. Blank 1995 and 2009a).


##### 2.2.5.4 Theology




We have two books of Philodemus' work *On the Gods*. In
Book I Philodemus inveighs against the popular conception of divinity,
with its jealous, lascivious, capricious, punishing gods. In agreement
with Epicurus and Lucretius he argues that such false assumptions about
the gods, like the fear of death, make us miserable. Book III deals
with various questions about the gods, including their location,
aspects of their lives such as their mode of nourishment, respiration,
sleep, and the fact that they speak Greek. He argues against the Stoics
that, while the gods have foreknowledge of the future, omniscience, and
omnipotence, they remain absolutely aloof from human affairs, as any
interference in our world would spoil their perfectly carefree,
toil-free, happy lives.




In his book *On Piety*, Philodemus defends the Epicureans
against accusations of atheism, giving examples from the writings of
Epicurus and Metrodorus to prove their belief in the gods'
immortality and their encouragement of Epicureans to participate in the
ordinary cult observance of the gods. Epicureans have good reasons to
uphold belief in divinity, not only on civic grounds, but also because
a proper understanding of the gods gives us models of perfect happiness
that we can emulate. In promotion of the proper understanding of the
divine, Philodemus gives an extended critique of the distortions
promulgated in poetry and in other philosophers' works (on Philodemus' theology, see now Essler 2011).


##### 2.2.5.5 Biographical and other Historical Works




The only book of Philodemus cited in extant ancient literature is
his *Collection of the Philosophers*, the tenth book of which is
Diogenes Laertius' source (10.3) for the statement that
Epicurus' three brothers, Neocles, Chairedemos, and Aristoboulos,
did philosophy together with him (*sunephilosophoun*). The
Herculaneum library has given us fragmentary remains of a number of
works on the history of various schools, particularly one (called by
earlier editors the *Index Academicorum*) on the Platonic
Academy, from Plato to Aristos of Ascalon, and another on the Stoa,
from Zeno to Panaetius (the *Index Stoicorum*), and it is
possible that they, along with other, more fragmentary books, belonged
to the *Collection*. These books contain numerous historical and
biographical anecdotes along with chronological indications, many from
Apollodorus' *Chronicle*, and fit well alongside the genre
of philosophical histories sometimes referred to as
'Successions' (*diadochai*) of philosophers (see Arrighetti 2003).
Philodemus even refers to his own relations with some of the later
Academics, especially Antiochus of Ascalon (see Dorandi 1990b).




As we have seen (Section 2.2.5.3.3), the day-to-day conduct of an
Epicurean community was a central topic of his works. Accordingly,
special place in Philodemus' *oeuvre* is reserved for
works about the Epicurean school itself, dealing with the example set
by its founder and by certain of his students. The tenth book of
the *Collection*, which like Diogenes Laertius' own tenth
book apparently dealt with Epicurus, may well have been the
culmination of Philodemus' historical work and was only one of a
host of books about their own school written by Epicureans. Philodemus
too wrote other books on the school. In his two books *On
Epicurus* (*PHerc.* 1232 and 1289; see Section 2.2.4.4.1),
he outlined Epicurus' life and cited letters of Epicurus and his
friends to show the school's founder as a model of the
philosophical life. In another book, perhaps titled something
like *Courses (pragmateiai)* of *Epicurean Memoirs*
(*PHerc.* 1418, also 310 and perhaps others), Philodemus
portrays a number of early Epicureans by means of extracts of letters
of the school's founders (see Arrighetti 2003).


## 3. Influence




Epicureans were largely excluded from the philosophical project of
synthesizing Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic doctrines which came to
prominence beginning in Philodemus' own day. The Epicureans
themselves had a reputation for doctrinal orthodoxy and for attributing
any or all of their true statements to one or more of the
school's founders (cf. Numenius, *On the Academics'
betrayal of Plato*, fr. 24.22-36 = Eusebius, *Praeparatio
Evangelica* 14.5.3 and Seneca, *Letters to Lucilius*
33.2-4). A number of later Epicureans relied almost exclusively on the
earliest Epicurean texts, never mentioning those of later generations.
This is most famously the case for Philodemus' contemporary,
Lucretius, but also for the second century CE Epicurean Diogenes of
Oenoanda. The same tendency can be seen in other philosophers, as well:
Seneca cites sayings of Epicurus, on the grounds that the truth is
common property, while the Academic Plutarch attacks texts of the
first-generation Epicurean Colotes. Philodemus' own texts,
however, along with those of Demetrius of Laconia and Polystratus, show
that there was indeed a good deal of infighting among members of the
school, at least after its first generation, much of it centered on
differing interpretations of the founders' doctrines.




Diogenes Laertius 10.3's citation of Book 10 of the
*Collection of the Philosophers* is the only explicit mention
of a philosophical work of Philodemus among ancient authors. Close
correspondence between some of the last part of *On Piety* and
Cicero's *On the Nature of the Gods* 1.25-41 may indicate
that Cicero used Philodemus' book as a source, or that the two had a
common source, perhaps Zeno of Sidon. Cicero may also have used
contemporary Epicurean sources for the views put by Epicurean
surrogates in some of his other works: his character
'Cicero' mentions his (or Torquatus') friends Siro and
Philodemus as authorities to whom Torquatus could appeal for help
against the attack made on Epicurean ethics by 'Cicero'
(*On Moral Ends* 2.119). The approach to the liberal arts
signaled by Sextus Empiricus in *M* 1-6 as characteristic
of 'the Epicureans' is very similar to what we see in
Philodemus' works, as explained above (Section 2.2.5.3.5); Philodemus
and/or Zeno probably served as Sextus' sources for this material.


Once the philosophical works of Philodemus began to be edited and
to come to the attention of scholars in the later 19th century, his
influence begins to be seen, albeit sporadically. C. S. Peirce, who
was impressed by Epicurean philosophy, especially
the *clinamen* or 'swerve', studied
Philodemus' *On Methods of Inference* together with his
student Allan Marquand, whose Ph.D. thesis included the first English
translation of the book. It was apparently from Philodemus that Peirce
took the term 'semiosis' in his characerization of
semiotics as 'the doctrine of the essential nature and
fundamental varieties of semiosis' (cf. Fisch
[1971] 1986 and Deledalle 2001).


Recently, scholars of early Christianity have become interested in
the ways Epicureans held their school together, especially
Epicurus' use of letters, many of which explained points of
doctrine and served as epitomes of his major works. These scholars
have related Philodemus' remarks on the conduct of an Epicurean
school and the relations between more advanced and less experienced
members, especially in his book *On Frank Criticism*, to the
work of the Apostle Paul and his pastoral *Epistles* (cf. Glad
2004).