Chapter 4 is an in-depth study of Seneca’s handling of Epicurean material throughout his philosophical writings. It is primarily because of his interest in Epicurus that Seneca in the past was sometimes labeled an “eclectic” philosopher. In reality, he is implacably hostile to the philosophical doctrines of Epicureanism, from atomism and the idleness of the gods to the pleasure principle and the utilitarian basis of friendship and justice. In the Letters on Ethics, however, he signals receptivity to some of Epicurus’s therapeutic strategies, where he finds them psychologically plausible. These strategies include the use of maxims in teaching and certain arguments against the fear of death and of bodily pain. Seneca is able to adapt these to his own purposes without sacrificing his own Stoic principles.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to a reading of the drama by Georg Büchner entitled Danton’s Death. The work concerns the trial and execution of the French revolutionary Georges Danton and his comrades. By choosing the French Revolution as his background, Büchner sets the stage for a questioning of the meaning of human existence. The reader knows from the start that most of the main characters in the piece will end up on the guillotine. It is a cruel and inhuman world, where love and friendship play little role. The threat of death is everywhere, and suicide is a frequent theme. Danton represents a voice of nihilism. He despairs of the lack of meaning of human existence and even meets his death with a kind of indifference or even relief. He claims that since we will all die sooner or later, it does not really matter when it happens. The immediate situation of the prisoners awaiting their execution can be regarded as a metaphor for human life in general. Once we are born, we are all destined for death. There is no sign of redemption, reconciliation, or a peace in an afterlife. Death and life are equally meaningless. The world is a cruel and inhuman place, where we suffer merely to survive.

This chapter claims that Atticus offers a fruitful case study of Epicureanism in the late Republic and can thereby contribute to broader questions of philosophical allegiance in the ancient world. There has, of course, been valuable discussion of philosophical allegiance in recent years. A reconsideration of Atticus’ Epicureanism will fruitfully extend these debates precisely because he is a not a perfect fit for any of these categories. He was not a professional philosopher; in any case, it is dangerous to assume that the thunderings of Lucretius or Philodemus on the Epicurean wise man map reliably onto the complexities of life, especially in the case of Atticus.

In this chapter, I examine to what extent Epicurus’ message was still relevant as such in the late Roman Republic and to what extent it had to be adapted to the new ideological and political circumstances. An analysis of books 1 and 2 of Cicero’s On Ends shows that Cicero had perfectly appropriated the Greek philosophical tradition and that he basically thought along the lines of the age-old school discussions. A typically Roman context seems to have had only limited influence on his argument: his conception of virtue, for instance, or his stress on the importance of the brilliant achievements of famous ancestors, though illustrated with many Roman examples, are borrowed from traditional Greek arguments. His attack on Torquatus’ inconsistency between words and deeds is clever and convincing, but rests on a theoretical construct. All in all, the Epicureans of Cicero’s day saw no major problems in adapting their philosophical convictions to the complex world of the Roman Republic.

This chapter reexamines the question of Caesar’s putative Epicureanism. While there is no reason to believe that Caesar was a committed Epicurean, there exist tantalizing pieces of evidence that he may have adopted for himself a version of the tenet that “death is nothing to us.” These include his observation, in his speech about the convicted Catilinarians (as reported by Sallust), that death is not a punishment but the endpoint of all experience, and his late-in-life statement (versions of which are found in Cicero’s Pro Marcello and in Suetonius) that he had “lived enough.” The chapter concludes by considering the criteria scholars typically employ for gauging philosophical affiliation in antiquity, arguing for a broadening of definitions and for considering even a some-time Epicurean as Caesar as part of the history of Epicureanism.

Catullus’ collection contains several clear echoes of the work of two contemporary Epicurean poets, Lucretius and Philodemus. Indeed, several of the neoteric poet’s central themes (the attractions of otium and disengagement from public life; patronage by members of the high elite and its pitfalls; dissatisfaction with the mos maiorum) bring him potentially into close alignment with Epicurean ideals. In this chapter, however, I argue that, on closer consideration, Catullus’ intertextual engagement with his two contemporaries points rather to a self-consciously antagonistic stance towards Epicurean ethics. Catullus’ attack on ‘Socration’ in Poem 47, combined with parodic echoes of Philodemus’ epigrams in Poems 13 and 43, bears comparison with Cicero’s deployment of anti-Epicurean clichés in the In Pisonem; similarly, Philodemean and Lucretian echoes underline a striking divergence both from Epicurean ideals of friendship and from the rejection of romantic love explicit in Lucretius and arguably implicit in Philodemus’ Xanthippe cycle.

This chapter examines Cicero’s Pro Marcello of 46 bce, a speech of thanksgiving to Julius Caesar for pardoning his civil-war for M. Claudius Marcellus. I argue that Cicero cleverly uses philosophical arguments to, as it were, entrap Caesar into working towards the restoration of the Republic. Philosophical wisdom is a leitmotif of the speech, and Caesar in particular is called sapiens or associated with sapientia nine times. The basic argument that underlies Pro Marcello, without ever being made explicit, is the following syllogism: The wise man will act virtuously. Caesar is a wise man. Therefore, Caesar will act virtuously. In defining what acting virtuously would mean for his addressee, Cicero argues vigorously against Caesar’s own statement that he had already ‘lived enough for either nature or glory’ (satis diu uel naturae uixi uel gloriae, 25), painting the dictator as an Epicurean whose wrong ideas about both virtue and glory the orator seeks to combat.

In the chapter I argue that we should set aside the Quellenforschung arguments of Lefèvre and Brunt and Atkins and others and look at what Cicero is up to in book 3, where he aims to fill in a gap left by Panaetius and not followed up by Posidonius. My analysis focuses in particular on Cicero’s redeployment of the Ring of Gyges thought experiment to undercut the Epicurean reliance on Kuria Doxa (KD) 5 to bolster their ‘moral’ hedonism; and the critical role, or so I argue, of the correspondence with Cassius (which cites KD 5 in Fam 15.19) in the development of Cicero’s argument (with additional reference to Fin. 1-2, where KD 5 also takes a critical role). In addition to making the case for the importance of the correspondence as ‘work in progress’, I argue that Cicero’s engagement with Posidonius, Panaetius et al. represents a mature, confident Cicero philosophus, ready to make a targeted contribution to Stoic ethics, with none of the dissimulatio doctrinae of the works of the 50s.

At the beginning of the debate over free will, freedom is nowhere to be found. In the Hellenistic period, the question of human autonomy is not one of freedom (eleutheria) but instead, given the nature of the universe, what is “up to us” (eph’emin) and thus left to our choice (prohairesis). It is Cicero and the Epicurean poet Lucretius who first turn the debate into one specifically over man’s freedom from fate. But Cicero’s idea of the will’s libertas – its opportunity to conquer vice and win honor – is very different from that of Lucretius in De rerum natura, a text Cicero read and may even have edited. De fato, one of the last in his corpus, returns to the question of a libera voluntas explicitly to refute the Epicurean doctrine of the swerve (clinamen) and their abandonment of civic duty. For Cicero, free will is the locus of public virtue, the justification of “praise and honors,” and the power to strengthen ourselves against natural vice. Cicero’s letters reveal, in turn, that this technical treatise on fate has decidedly political stakes for the Roman Republic.

Chapter 1 starts by tracing the archaeology of carpe diem. Rather than speculating about the origin of a motif that is already attested in Akkadian and Egyptian sources, this chapter looks at the Greeks’ own discourse of the past and how they constructed the origins of the motif. The focus of the chapter is the hedonistic epitaph of the legendary last king of Assyria, Sardanapallus. Greeks were fascinated with this foreign carpe diem text which seemed to precede their own history. In fact, however, it was by misunderstanding this foreign monument that they recreated its text; lurking behind Sardanapallus’ Assyrian orgy are Greek banquets and the present tense of performative Greek lyric. The chapter shows that the Sardanapallus epitaph allows for fascinating insights into Greek ways of reading epigrams. As the chapter discusses the reception of the Sardanapallus epitaph in authors such as Callimachus, Crates, Chrysippus, Alexis, and Rabirius, it shows how one of Epicurus’ detractors forges a false link between Epicurus and carpe diem, when he changes one word of the epitaph.

The Romans adaptation of Greek philosophy was illustrated by the Stoics and Epicureans. The Stoics held that humanity is determined by the fates of nature, while the Epicureans believed that happiness came from seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Plato was revived by Plotinus and dominated Roman philosophy during the early years of Christianity. Both the missionary zeal of early Christians and the tranquility of Roman administration rapidly spread Christianity. The teachings of Jesus were bolstered by defenders, who gave Christianity form and content. St. Augustine successfully reinterpreted Platonic thought within Christian theology, and the consequent influence on psychology continued well beyond. With the fall of the Western empire, intellectual life came to a virtual halt, and only the monastic movement preserved remnants of Greek and Roman civilization. The papacy assumed a leading role in spiritual direction and civil administration. The power shift to the East saw the Byzantine Empire assume a distinctive Greek character. The rise of Islam threatened the survival of Christianity in the Middle East and in North Africa. But, at the same time, much of the Greek heritage of scholarship was preserved and extended in the great academic centers of medieval Islam.

In this chapter, I examine to what extent Epicurus’ message was still relevant as such in the late Roman Republic and to what extent it had to be adapted to the new ideological and political circumstances. An analysis of books 1 and 2 of Cicero’s On Ends shows that Cicero had perfectly appropriated the Greek philosophical tradition and that he basically thought along the lines of the age-old school discussions. A typically Roman context seems to have had only limited influence on his argument: his conception of virtue, for instance, or his stress on the importance of the brilliant achievements of famous ancestors, though illustrated with many Roman examples, are borrowed from traditional Greek arguments. His attack on Torquatus’ inconsistency between words and deeds is clever and convincing, but rests on a theoretical construct. All in all, the Epicureans of Cicero’s day saw no major problems in adapting their philosophical convictions to the complex world of the Roman Republic.

Catullus’ collection contains several clear echoes of the work of two contemporary Epicurean poets, Lucretius and Philodemus. Indeed, several of the neoteric poet’s central themes (the attractions of otium and disengagement from public life; patronage by members of the high elite and its pitfalls; dissatisfaction with the mos maiorum) bring him potentially into close alignment with Epicurean ideals. In this chapter, however, I argue that, on closer consideration, Catullus’ intertextual engagement with his two contemporaries points rather to a self-consciously antagonistic stance towards Epicurean ethics. Catullus’ attack on ‘Socration’ in Poem 47, combined with parodic echoes of Philodemus’ epigrams in Poems 13 and 43, bears comparison with Cicero’s deployment of anti-Epicurean clichés in the In Pisonem; similarly, Philodemean and Lucretian echoes underline a striking divergence both from Epicurean ideals of friendship and from the rejection of romantic love explicit in Lucretius and arguably implicit in Philodemus’ Xanthippe cycle.

This chapter claims that Atticus offers a fruitful case study of Epicureanism in the late Republic and can thereby contribute to broader questions of philosophical allegiance in the ancient world. There has, of course, been valuable discussion of philosophical allegiance in recent years. A reconsideration of Atticus’ Epicureanism will fruitfully extend these debates precisely because he is a not a perfect fit for any of these categories. He was not a professional philosopher; in any case, it is dangerous to assume that the thunderings of Lucretius or Philodemus on the Epicurean wise man map reliably onto the complexities of life, especially in the case of Atticus.

This chapter reexamines the question of Caesar’s putative Epicureanism. While there is no reason to believe that Caesar was a committed Epicurean, there exist tantalizing pieces of evidence that he may have adopted for himself a version of the tenet that “death is nothing to us.” These include his observation, in his speech about the convicted Catilinarians (as reported by Sallust), that death is not a punishment but the endpoint of all experience, and his late-in-life statement (versions of which are found in Cicero’s Pro Marcello and in Suetonius) that he had “lived enough.” The chapter concludes by considering the criteria scholars typically employ for gauging philosophical affiliation in antiquity, arguing for a broadening of definitions and for considering even a some-time Epicurean as Caesar as part of the history of Epicureanism.

For ancient authors, hope tends to be a dangerous thing. It can set us up for practical as well as moral failure. Elpis, the Greek word we translate as hope, is typically an attitude or emotion that is desiderative and goal-oriented, but it can also denote neutral expectation of evils as well as goods. The first author to treat elpis as an unqualified good, given a very specific object of desire (eternal life in Christ), is St. Paul, the earliest writer in the New Testament. Before him, good hopes – including eschatological hopes expressed in other ancient mystery religions – had to be designated as such to be distinguished from bad hopes, which preponderate in Greek literature. But the ancients recognize good hope, foremost in the competitive strife that defines public life. Hope could be seen as a necessary motive, linked to confidence and courage. The ancient world, especially in Jerusalem and Rome, knew also hope in a future ruler, a hope more soteriological than political. Whatever hopes might be expressed for the city-state or empire, the philosophical schools of antiquity developed the case against personal hope and passionate agitation.

In the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, Socrates deploys a variety of arguments to soothe Axiochus’ fear of death. One of these is the ‘symmetry argument’ that tries to demonstrate that the state we will be in post mortem is no more harmful than the state we were in before birth. This argument is often associated with Epicureanism and with their commitment to the mortality of the soul, and it is therefore sometimes thought that Socrates’ use of it here is inconsistent with his commitment in the dialogue to the claim that each of us is in fact an immortal soul. This is also sometimes thought to show that the dialogue as a whole is clumsily constructed. I show how Socrates may deploy a symmetry argument and remain consistent with his other commitments.