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THE HUMANISTIC AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

OF PIERRE GASSENDI

BOOK TEN OF DIOGENES LAERTIUS

ON THE LIFE, MANNERS, AND TEACHINGS OF EPICURUS,

WITH A NEW INTERPRETATION AND NOTES.

E P I C V R V S.

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Epicurus was the son of Neocles and Chaerestrata. He was an Athenian by birth, from the district of Gargettus, and belonged to the family of the Philaidae, as Metrodorus states in his book On Nobility original Latin: "de Nobilitate". Others, including Heraclides in his Abridgment of Sotion, report that he was raised on the island of Samos after the Athenians had divided the land there by lot. At eighteen years of age, he came to Athens, at a time when Xenocrates was teaching in the Academy and Aristotle was staying in Chalcis. After the death of Alexander the Macedonian Alexander the Great and the displacement of the Athenians under Perdiccas, Epicurus went to join his father in Colophon. After staying there for some time and gathering disciples, he returned again to Athens during the archonship of Anaxicrates. For a while, he practiced philosophy alongside other groups, but later he established the sect named after himself.

He himself says that he began to apply himself to philosophy when he was fourteen years old. However, Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his Life of Epicurus, relates that he turned to philosophy because he grew to look down on the grammarians teachers of literature and language, since they were not able to ex-

Epicurus was the son of Neocles and Chaerestrata. He was an Athenian by birth, from the town of Gargettus, and was of the Philaid lineage, as Metrodorus recounts in his book On Nobility. Others, among whom is Heraclides in his Abridgment of Sotion, report that when the Athenians divided the Samian territory by lot, he was educated there. At eighteen years old, he came to Athens, while Xenocrates was staying in the Academy and Aristotle in Chalcis. After the death of Alexander the Macedonian and the ruin of the Athenians under Perdiccas, he withdrew to his father at Colophon. When he had stayed there for some time and had also gathered disciples, he returned again to Athens during the year Anaxicrate was Archon the chief magistrate of Athens. He practiced philosophy in a mixed fashion with others for some time, and afterwards instituted the Sect called by his own name.

He himself reports that he began to give his labor to philosophy at fourteen years of age. But Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book on the life of Epicurus, records that he came to philosophy having despised the grammarians, because-

Gassendi’s Miscellaneous Works.