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Diogenes Epikourios: keep taking the tablets*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

James Warren
Affiliation:
Magdalene College, Cambridge

Extract

The Epicurean inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda is an intriguing monument. Here and in what follows, I stress its monumentality and physical form, not only because this is what ensures its uniqueness as a source for Epicurean philosophy, but also because it has not always been given due attention by those commentators who have chosen to write about Diogenes and his inscription. For example, in her recent monograph on Diogenes, Pamela Gordon hardly mentions the archaeological context of the find, nor does she seem to consider the fact of its inscription on a wall at least four metres high and up to eighty metres long to be immediately relevant to her discussion of Diogenes' ‘inimitable voice’.

Type
Shorter Contributions
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2000

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References

1 There are brief remarks in her Epilogue: Gordon, P., Epicurus in Lycia: The Second-Century World of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Ann Arbor 1996) 128–9Google Scholar.

2 It is something of a topos in discussions of Diogenes to lament this situation. See Casanova, A., ‘Qualche riflessione sui frammenti dell'iscrizione di Diogene d'Enoanda’, in Burkert, W., Marciano, L. Gemelli, Matellli, E., Orelli, L. (eds.), Fragmentsammlungen philosophischer Texte / Le raccolte dei frammenti di filosofici antichi Aporemata 3 (Göttingen 1998) 262–72,Google Scholar at 270. Some excavation was begun in 1997; see Smith, M.F., ‘Excavations at Oinoanda 1997: the new Epicurean text’, AS 48 (1998) 125–70Google Scholar.

3 This situation should now be improved by the publication of Smith, M.F., Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Philosophical Inscription (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris NR 20, Vienna 1996),Google Scholar which collects all the material information about the fragments and includes drawings and find spots.

4 Cf. DL 10.120: [τόν σοϕὸν] καὶ συγγάμματα καταλείψειν Smith, M.F., ‘The chisel and the muse: Diogenes of Oinoanda and Lucretius’, in Algra, K.A., Koenen, M.H., Schrijvers, P.H. (eds.), Lucretius and his Intellectual Background (Amsterdam 1997) 6778,Google Scholar at 73.

5 References are to the edition of Smith, M.F., Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription (Naples 1993)Google Scholar. Translations are based on those found there.

6 Frischer, B., The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley 1982)Google Scholar.

7 fr. 117 he has some kind of stomach complaint. Cf. frr. 120–1, Smith (n.3) 547 for the diagnosis.

8 Grilli, A., ‘ΔΙ ΑΘΕΣΙΣ’, in ΣΣϒΗΤΗΣΙΣ: studi sull'epicureismo greco e romano offerti a M. Gigante (Naples 1983) 1 93109Google Scholar at 99 on εὐσύγκριτοι: ‘Orbene, gli εὐσύγκριτοι di Diogene non sono saggi, ma sono persone cui non è inutile venire in soccorso (βοηθεῖν), perché la loro composizione atomica consente loro di recepire i buoni ammaestramenti e di arrivare a una migliore διάθεσις.' Cf. fr. 2.II.14; Chilton, C.W, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments (Oxford 1971) 29;Google Scholar Smith (n.5) 436.

9 frr. 117 ff. read very much like the opening to a will. D. Clay, ‘Individual and community in the first generation of the Epicurean school’, in ΣΣϒΗΣΙΣ (n.8) 1 255–79 at 259, and id., ‘A lost Epicurean community’, GRBS 30 (1989) 313–35 at 325. Smith (n.5) 546 is less convinced. For Epicurus’ will: DL 10.16–21; Cic. fin. 2.101–3. On Diogenes’ imitation of Epicurus: Clay, ‘Individual and community’, 259–64; Gordon (n.l) chh. 3–4.

10 Diogenes himself offers some evidence to support this view: fr. 33.VIII. 1–4 suggests that present pleasure can be enjoyed on the basis that one will be remembered fondly after one's death.

11 Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire (Princeton 1994) 137Google Scholar.

12 Otherwise used in Greek of this period to mean ‘to turn to stone’, of, for example, Medusa: Luc. D. Mar. 14.3; Im. 1. Cf. Alex. Aphrod. Prob. 1.109.8. Smith ‘Chisel and muse’ (n.4) 78.

13 Smith (n.5) 143 thinks this is ‘a humorous acknowledgement as well as a serious defence of the epigraphic colossus which his missionary zeal has created’.

14 Compare Philodemus de morte 28.37–29.18, who also refers to people ‘dying in herds’. He goes on to note that it would be bizarre if it were more glorious to die among rows of corpses during a plague (and here he refers to Thucydides' treatment of the deaths of Themistocles and Pericles) than to die as did Metrodorus and Epicurus, or in the heat of battle. This reference confirms that the Campanian Epicureans were reading Thucydides — something suggested by Lucretius' use and manipulation of Thucydides' treatment of the Athenian plague of 430 BCE in DRN 6. See Commager, H.S. jr., ‘Lucretius' interpretation of the plague’, HSCP 62 (1957) 105–18Google Scholar.

15 See Philodemus, Peri Parrhesias (PHerc 1471); De Witt, N., ‘Organisation and procedure in Epicurean groups’, CP 31 (1936) 205–11,Google Scholar and the text with translation by Konstan, D. et al. , Philodemus on Frank Criticism (Albany 1998)Google Scholar.

16 3.VI.1, 2.

17 ὲν δὲ (τῶι) αὺτῶι χωρίον τέ ἐστι καλούμενον Βᾶσσαι καὶ ὁ ναὸς τοῦ' Α πόλλωνος τοῦ 'Επι κουρίου, … τὸ δὲ ὄνομα ἐ γένετο τῶι ' Απόλλωνι ἐ πικουρῆσαντι ἐπὶ νόσωι λοιώδει, καθότι καὶ παρὰ 'Αθηναίοις ἐπωνυμίαν ἔλαβεν 'Αλεξίκακος ἀ ποτρέψας καὶ τούτοις τὴν νόσον.

18 It is now considered doubtful that Bassai had such a direct connection to the plague of 430. Thucydides denies that the plague ever got this far south (2.54.5). Cooper, F.A., The Temple of Apollo at Bassai: A Preliminary Study (New York 1978) 1028,Google Scholar suggests that Pausanias' story comes from the identification as Phigalians of a number of Arkadian mercenaries stationed in Athens during the plague of 430. The war god Apollo already worshipped at the site was then associated with these mercenaries, and' Επικούριος denotes Apollo the Mercenary (ἐπίκουρος) rather than Apollo the Healer.

19 Smith (n.3) 439 notes that the verb ἐπικουρεῖν ‘is probably chosen to emphasise that the aid is to be the philosophy of’ ἐπικουρεῖν, but does not refer this passage to the plague of DRN 6. Clay, ‘Individual and community’ (n.9) 260; id. ‘A lost Epicurean community’ (n.9) 319. Cf. Pl. Rep. 5.463b1: ‘the rulers in “our” city are called σωτῆρας καὶ ἐπικούρους' Symp. 189d1. Diogenes also uses a σωτηρία and related terms: 3, 116.. Epicurus is a κῆρυξ at fr. 72.III.13: Clay, ‘A lost Epicurean community’(n.9) 325–6: a ‘herald of personal salvation’. Cf. Democritus B288.

20 Diogenes looks forward to a Utopia of Epicurean sages in fr. 56, although 56.I.1–2 suggests that some people are unable to attain the required state. See Plutarch, Tranq. 465F and compare with the εὐσύγριτοι of fr. 3. Above n.8.

21 DL 10.22. Diogenes includes what looks like a work of his own on Old Age (frr. 137–79 in Smith's edition). Old Age per se is no better or worse than youth. See SV 17.

22 Arist. Rhet. 2.1400a34, SIG 38.38, CIG 3028.

23 Cf. Luc. DRN 3.307–22.

24 For this dating, see Smith (n.5) 35–48. This was criticized by Canfora, L., ‘Diogene di Enoanda e Lucrezio’, RIFC 120 (1992) 3966,Google Scholar who prefers to make Diogenes a contemporary of Lucretius. See Smith's, response in ‘Did Diogenes of Oinoanda know Lucretius? A reply to Professor Canfora’, RIFC 121 (1993) 478–92,Google Scholar in his latest text of the inscription (n.3) 17, and ‘Chisel and muse’ (n.4) 68–71. Smith's dating is implicitly accepted by Gordon (n.1).

25 IGR iii.739, TAM ii.3.905. Cagnat, R., Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes (Paris 1906) 3.298,Google Scholar lists the various donations made by Opramoas recorded on his mausoleum. Cf. Coulton, J.J., ‘The buildings of Oinoanda’, PCPS 29 (1983) 120,Google Scholar 10; Clay, ‘A lost Epicurean community’ (n.9) 320, 331; Smith (n.5) 52–3.

26 Sisyphus in Luc. DRN 3.995–1002 is meant to represent the futile toil of political ambition. See Fowler, D.P., ‘Lucretius and polities’, in Griffin, M. and Barnes, J. (eds.), Philosophia Togata I (Oxford 1989) 120–50Google Scholar.

27 A third enormous inscription from Oinoanda is the near-contemporary genealogical inscription on the mausoleum of the Licinnii. See † Hall, A.S., Hilner, N.P. and Coulton, J.J., ‘The mausoleum of Licinna Flavilla and Flavianus Diogenes of Oinoanda: epigraphy and architecture’, AS 46 (1996) 111–44Google Scholar.

28 See Wörrle, M., Stadt und Fest im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien: Studien zu einer agonistischen Stiftung aus Oenoanda (Munich 1988)Google Scholar for text and detailed commentary which sets the inscription within the political and agonistic context of second-century Oinoanda. There is an English translation and discussion in Mitchell, S., ‘Festivals, games, and civic life in Roman Asia Minor’, JRS 80 (1990) 183–93Google Scholar. Also see the documents collected in Hall, A. and Milner, M., ‘Education and athletics. Documents illustrating the festivals of Oenoanda’, in French, D. (ed.), Studies in the History and Topography of Lycia and Pisidia in Memoriam A.S. Hall (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monograph 19, Oxford 1994) 747Google Scholar.

29 Smith (n.5) 39–18.

30 Smith (n.5) 47.

31 Hall, A., ‘The Klarian oracle at Oenoanda’, ZPE 32 (1978) 263–8Google Scholar.

32 Clay, ‘A lost Epicurean community’ (n.9) 332.

33 Victor, U., Lukian von Samosota; Alexandros oder der Lügenprophet (Leiden 1997),CrossRefGoogle Scholar seems equally prepared to look at it as a work of contemporary history. Cf. Clay, D., ‘Lucian of Samosata: four philosophical lives’, ANRW 2.36.5 (1992) 3406–50, 3438–48,Google Scholar although he recognizes that the personae of Lucian the narrator and the addressee Celsus (who appears to be an Epicurean: Alex. 61) are literary constructs to some degree. Bracht-Branham, R., Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions (Cambridge, Mass. 1989) 181210,CrossRefGoogle Scholar has a more nuanced approach to the work, avoiding an over-emphasis on historicity, but insisting that the work must still be placed within a socio-cultural as well as literary context in order to capture its satirical force.

34 There was a huge ‘dice oracle’ inscription in nearby Termessos at roughly the same period (TAM iii. 1.34, cf. ii.3.1222), and perhaps similar examples in Oinoanda. These inscriptions share the monumentality of Diogenes' inscription. Cf. Nolle, J., ‘Südkleinasiatische Losorakel in der römischen Kaiserzeit’, AW 18.3 (1987) 41–9Google Scholar.

35 Gordon (n.1) 109–15.

36 Cf. Hdt. 1.66 for the oracle and subsequent disastrous Spartan invasion of Tegea.

37 frr. 9–10, 52–4. Morel, P.-M., Démocrite et la recherche des causes (Paris 1996) 295305Google Scholar.

38 Reynolds, J., review of Chilton (n.8) in The Antiquaries Journal 54 (1974) 106–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.