Episode 002 - The Achievement of Epicurus
Date: 01/25/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1364-episode-two-the-achievement-of-epicurus/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Episode 002 focuses on the famous “Achievement of Epicurus” passage from On the Nature of Things, Book One, in which Lucretius describes Epicurus as the man who had the courage to oppose the power of religion and, by traveling the universe in mind and spirit, returned with knowledge of what can and cannot exist. The panel reads the passage from the 1743 Daniel Brown translation and compares it with Munro, Bailey, Martin Ferguson Smith, Stallings, and Copley.
Key discussion points include: whether Lucretius’s word religio is better translated as “religion” or “superstition” (most modern translations use “superstition” — the panel finds both reasonable but notes “superstition” risks being a cop-out for modern readers who exempt their own religion from the critique); the significance of the Latin terminus (boundary stone) and its role as a marker for the inviolable bounds of nature; and the phrase “his conquest makes us equal to the gods” — interpreted not as literal ascent but as attaining the blissful, fear-free state that Epicurus attributed to the gods. Charles draws a parallel with Julien Offray de La Mettrie, who was expelled from the French army for his irreligious philosophy in 1748 — seventeen centuries after Lucretius. The episode closes with Julie citing Philodemus’s account of Metrodorus’s view that health, wealth, and friendship are worth active effort.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius:
Welcome to Episode 2 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who lived in the age of Julius Caesar and wrote On the Nature of Things, the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. I’m your host Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we’ll walk you line by line through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers, and everyone here is a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Canadian Professor Norman DeWitt.
Before we get started with today’s episode, let me remind you of our three ground rules. First, the opinions stated on this podcast are those of the people making them. Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it — not to tell you what we think Epicurus might have said, or should have said, in our own opinions. Second, in this podcast we won’t be talking about modern political issues. How you apply Epicurus in your own life is entirely up to you. Over at the EpicureanFriends.com web forum, we apply this approach by following a set of ground rules we call, not Neo-Epicurean, but Epicurean. Epicurean philosophy is not a religion. It’s not Stoicism. It’s not Humanism. It’s not Libertarianism. It’s not Atheism or Marxism. It’s unique in the history of Western civilization. And as we explore Lucretius’ poem, you’ll quickly see how that’s the case. Third, please be willing to re-examine whatever you think you already know.
Epicurus will show us that Epicurus was not focused on fine food and wine, like some people say, but neither did he teach that we should live like a hermit on bread and water, as other people say. Epicurus taught that feeling — pleasure and pain — is what nature gave us to live by, and not God, idealism, or virtue ethics. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there’s no life after death, and any happiness we’ll ever have comes in this life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion.
As we get started today, remember that the homepage of this podcast is LucretiusToday.com, and there you can find a free copy of the version of the poem from which we’re reading, and links to where you can discuss the poem between episodes at EpicureanFriends.com. Now let me introduce you tonight to our panelists for this episode. We have with us tonight Martin from Germany and Julie, Elaine, and Charles from the United States.
This is the second episode, and we are continuing in the very early stages of the poem. Last week, in the first episode, we discussed the opening hymn to Venus, and the calling upon Venus to bring peace to Rome so that he could write the poem.
Elaine:
Right, and also to read the whole thing and give it a chance before you make up your mind.
Cassius:
So we are still in the opening phase — each of the six books has a prelude where he’s not really getting into the details of the atoms and the physics yet, but he’s introducing some aspect of the bigger picture, and in general referring to Epicurus as well. And this section tonight is going to be where he really dives into talking about Epicurus. Anybody have anything about where we are in the book that we should say before we get started?
Elaine:
I did want to thank you. I assume you retyped the Daniel Brown version? Because Martin read from that last time, and he read through all those long S’s — and I would have had a hard time.
Cassius:
Elaine, I have retyped the Daniel Brown version, I have retyped the Munro version, and I have retyped the Bailey version.
Elaine:
Right. The whole thing from beginning to end?
Cassius:
Over the last several years. You know, you can scan it a little bit, and scanning a PDF works to a certain degree, and I’ve tried to do that as the base, but it makes so many errors — you basically have to go through line by line and correct it. And so the Bailey and the Munro versions were relatively easy to do that with because they’re good printed copies. But you’re right, Elaine — the Daniel Brown version: I’m sure that there’s a name for that style of S.
Elaine:
It’s called a long S. It looks like an F.
Cassius:
Right. Well, I think there might be some other technical name, too — it seems like I’ve heard of one. But it makes it very difficult to read. Now I have gotten used to it — I continue to look back at the PDF version because I like to look at the actual printed version to be sure that I’m reading the original — and you do get used to it over time. But it looks like an F as opposed to an S. And you know, let’s talk about that for a minute too — I’m gathering that the Latin version in the 1743 edition is the same way. But correct me if I’m wrong — I don’t think that there’s much punctuation or capitalization in the original Latin text at all, so every translator is coming up with his own paragraph and sentence divisions to some degree.
Elaine:
Well, I’m looking at the Latin — unless somebody has added punctuation in it, there is punctuation, but it may have been added into the Latin also. Right, Charles — do you know about that?
Charles:
I’ve noticed it. Yeah, I know that when you go to the Latin Library dot com, which has original Latin text — or the Scriptorium, there are other places — and I think that when you look at those there’s really very little punctuation of any kind.
Martin:
In all capitals. Yes, exactly. When I see the originals in museums in Cologne, it’s all in capital letters and very little punctuation, but that might be that these are more headings and not full text, which is typically what I see there.
Cassius:
Right. I’m looking at the Latin Library dot com right now under Lucretius — I’m glad you’re still with us, Martin — and it’s not in all caps here, it’s in lowercase, but there are very few commas, a few periods, and a few capital letters, but just about everything else has very little punctuation. You can tell, based on manuscripts from the 15th century or late 1400s, there’s some addition of colons, but as far as the translations that I’ve looked at, I would say the most that’s changed is probably the Stallings edition. Stallings uses a comma like every eight words. Well, you know, Charles, that’s kind of what I found myself doing — when I retyped the 1743 edition, he obviously is putting capital letters in the middle of sentences as a means of emphasis. And it’s obvious that he is using his own format, formatting to try to emphasize things. But I found myself trying to read it and pace it to make sense.
Elaine:
Who are you talking about now that’s using the capitals?
Cassius:
The 1743 edition.
Elaine:
Oh, the 1743. Okay, yeah. And, you know, I’m not so sure that Munro and even Bailey, to some extent, don’t do the same thing.
Cassius:
The 1743 edition in particular — virtually every sentence has one or two words capitalized in the middle of it, and they’re not proper names. It’s not really clear why he chose to capitalize particular words the way he did. I presume it’s a matter of emphasis for him. But the point that just hits home to me when we discuss this is that there’s so much latitude in the way these translators have put things together. It seems to me when I read what the words are in Latin that many times it is just the same thing being repeated over and over and over, almost as a means of emphasizing something itself. Like for example, my eyes are falling right now on the end of one of the paragraphs that says “drives every creature on with eager heat, in seas, in mountains, in swiftest floods, in leafy forests, and in verdant plains.” He does that many, many times — he uses a list of things together, and so commas probably are the appropriate thing to use there. But pacing it when you speak is going to be critical to make sense of it.
Elaine:
Right. And boy, we try to tease so much meaning out of every word and every phrasing. And that is really, really dangerous, I think. So anyway, we were talking about that because of just the fact that I have retyped it so that we could reread it. But it just in every case makes sense to compare several translations together to make sure that they’re basically the same, and if anyone deviates from it, then we need to figure out why — but they all should generally mean the same thing.
Cassius:
Julie, do you mind reading the first paragraph there for us?
Julie:
Let me pull it up. Don’t know if I’ll do this as well as Martin did, but all right.
[Reading from Daniel Brown’s 1743 translation:]
Indeed, mankind in wretched bondage held, like groveling on the ground, galled with the yoke of what is called religion, sky — this tyrant chewed her head, and with grim looks hung over us poor mortals here below — until a man of Greece, with steady eyes, dared look her in the face and first opposed her power. Not the fame of God, nor his raw, kept back, nor threatening tumults of the sky, but still the more they roused the active virtue of his aspiring soul. As he pressed forward first to break through nature’s scanty bounds, his mind’s quick force prevailed, and so he passed by far the flaming limits of this world. And wandering with his comprehensive soul over all the mighty space, from thence returned triumphant, told us what things may have a being and what cannot, and how a finite power is fixed to each — a bound it cannot break. And so religion, which we feared before, by him subdued, we tread upon it in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the gods.
Charles:
I’d like to make a point that towards the last few sentences, those number of semicolons — I can only imagine that in the original text those might correspond to the words that are capitalized.
Cassius:
Right. And this transcript that we just read from — I did not capitalize it the same way that he did — but it probably does make sense that these are the words that are very substantive at that particular location. So should we just go sentence by sentence and comment on each one?
Elaine:
Sure.
Cassius:
Okay. So the Daniel Brown version says that we’re in the yoke of “what is called religion.” Munro says this also, and Bailey. But Stallings translated it as “superstition” — “crushed beneath the weight of superstition.” So that’s not the literal translation — the literal translation would be “religion.” But I kind of like that extra emphasis, that it’s a little bit more of a dig at religion than just the word, because that really is what it is. Elaine, what page is the Stallings version on?
Elaine:
Stallings — page five. Okay, thank you. You have that one too. I’ve forgotten.
Cassius:
Let’s see. Also, Martin Ferguson Smith translates it as “superstition.” That’s interesting. Elaine, that has struck me sometimes as being a little bit the opposite of what you said a moment ago in terms of emphasis. Sometimes it strikes me as being a little bit of a cop-out — rather than calling all religion bondage, some people like to say “well, other religions are bondage, but my religion is not.”
Elaine:
Yeah, I was about to ask. The other translation had capitalized the R in “superstition” like a proper noun.
Cassius:
It did. So, all right — so there was really only one major religion, or maybe group of religions. Was he disputing more than one religion? I mean, there was the prevailing religion, the different gods and goddesses.
Charles:
Well, the Roman pantheon was pretty much stolen from Greece.
Cassius:
Right. So I don’t think he was talking about other competing religions — or if he was, he meant supernatural religions. He wouldn’t have wanted to have criticized material gods as a religion. If we had somebody who was really a linguist to talk with us about — I know one of the commentators I’ve read, in discussing this, talked about where the word religio comes from. And if I’m remembering correctly, somebody says religio means “things that bind.” So to some extent, the Latin form of that could be a more generic term for a system of thought based on something supernatural.
Elaine:
I was just going to say — I think it’s the Loeb edition. Do you want me to read that? What they have to say?
Cassius:
Sure.
Elaine:
It says: “This — or false religion, not religion, is the meaning of religio — the Epicureans were opposed not to religion but to the traditional religion that taught that the gods govern the world. That Lucretius regarded religio as synonymous with superstitio is implied by superstitio in line 65. The connection of superstition with the celestial regions stated in line 64 is emphasized by the fact that the letters of religio are contained in…” Oh boy. Somebody who speaks Latin needs to read this instead of me. I actually think, Cassius, that it’s an important distinction to make between a naturalistic set of practices — I guess that would be a religion consistent with reality — versus a superstitious religion. Probably the word “superstition” carries more of the right sense for us now. Modern people would understand that better.
Cassius:
I think you’re convincing me that you’re right. Although the cop-out that I’m talking about could possibly be there in some circumstances — I would agree that’s probably not the direction that Lucretius was coming from. But certainly today we have many people who are the most religious type in their own lives, but who are happy to brand other beliefs as superstition while they themselves have no problem calling their own religion something absolutely true.
Charles:
I think the problem stems less from the types of religion found during Lucretius’ time. It says here that the etymology for religio is “obligation, bond, and reverence,” but it stems from the Latin word religere, which means to bind. And I think that’s kind of what he was trying to point at — that humans were put under pressure and were weighted by this obligation, this set of beliefs, whether it’s superstitious or naturalistic. So, as we continue the sentence, he’s emphasizing that what Epicurus did — and he doesn’t call him by name, he just calls him “a man of Greece” — that he stood up and looked religion in the face and opposed its power. That seems to me to be a pretty affirmative, active thing. He’s not just simply dismissing it and looking away. He’s basically leading a revolution against it.
And the concluding sentence of the first paragraph is: “And so religion, which we feared before, by him subdued, we tread upon it in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the gods.” It’s turning that submissiveness around — it’s turning the negative inside out.
Cassius:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be more closely tied to the etymology of the word religio — to get rid of that binding, that bondage. So — well, we kind of skipped a little bit, but since you brought up that last sentence, we can always go back. We had some conversation before about this: the 1743 translation says “his conquest makes us equal to the gods.” That is not a literal translation. The other versions actually translate it more literally. I’ll read Stallings — “Therefore, it is the turn of superstition to lie prone, trod underfoot. By his victory, we reached the heavens.” And the Smith version says, “So now the situation is reversed. Superstition is flung down and trampled underfoot. We are raised to heaven by victory.” And then the Latin has caelum, the sky. So it’s not literal to say “makes us equal to the gods,” but it might capture the sense of it better.
Martin:
My thought — if you go back, Lucretius has already told us what, in his view or Epicurus’ view, the gods really are: blissful beings. So by trampling religion and superstition, this makes us blissful beings. So maybe it doesn’t have to be just imaginary gods being referred to here, but actually what Epicurus imagined as real gods.
Cassius:
Yeah, I can agree with that.
Charles:
Yeah, because it’s very reminiscent of the first Principal Doctrine and Vatican Saying 33. And it’s not saying that he’s teaching us to build airplanes or rocket ships so we can fly up into the sky. It’s obviously an allusion to what the sky means — which is where the gods live.
Cassius:
Right. And so we have skipped to the end of the paragraph, but let’s stay in the middle of it. Do you have more to add there, Elaine?
Elaine:
Well, I do want to just point out the courage that was required then. You can imagine how striking that would be. It’s not as unusual today to dispute superstitious religion, but it’s still — depending on the area of the country you’re in — it’s still risky. It still takes courage. We have not had somebody run for national office in the U.S. in any kind of a competitive way who’s an open atheist, who openly disavows the supernatural.
Martin:
A little scary.
Charles:
I hate to keep bringing up La Mettrie in every single conversation as of late, but I’m beginning to notice a lot of parallels between him and Lucretius — both poets. When he published Man a Machine he was cast out of the war effort during the War of Austrian Succession and was kicked out of his position administrating hospitals because the clergy in the regiment he was serving in said that somebody who was irreligious would not be fit to practice medicine for the French Guard. He had to flee to Holland.
Cassius:
Charles, for somebody who’s listening, identify that person you’re talking about again.
Charles:
Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Who lived —
Cassius:
Who lived when?
Charles:
1709 to 1751. And you know, still today — I heard of an administrator of a medical school who would tell medical students that they could not practice medicine if they didn’t believe in God. So it’s still around. But what I was going to say — even more courage is required to proclaim that pleasure is the goal. There are more atheists now, people who disavow supernatural religion. But even among them — the atheists — you’ll hardly ever find anybody who’s willing to say pleasure is their goal of life.
Cassius:
Very true. And Lucretius just started out doing exactly those two things. He’s talked about pleasure as controlling everything in the world and being the motivating force. And now he’s attacking religion as Epicurus’ potentially greatest achievement. So on that theme, we can continue with the next sentence — Elaine, you want to read the next sentence?
Elaine:
[Reading from the 1743 translation:]
Him, not the fame of gods nor thunders roar kept back, nor threatening tumults of the sky, but still the more they roused the active virtue of his aspiring soul, as he pressed forward first to break through nature’s scanty bounds.
Cassius:
On that particular one — there is a reference to him breaking through nature’s “scanty bounds.” Munro says “to burst the fast bars of nature’s portals,” and Bailey says “to burst the close-set bolts upon the doors of nature.” Let’s talk for a minute about what could he be talking about there, in terms of close-set bolts upon the doors of nature. Who put those there? Is that purely just a poetic allusion, or is it some kind of a reference to an obstacle that we need to identify?
Elaine:
So this is how I imagined it when I read that. I thought about the early anatomists — who were the first to have the courage to cross the boundary of the skin of cadavers, to dissect them and find out what was under there. Because it was prohibited — they had to sneak around and get corpses out of graveyards, because it was considered something you just didn’t probe. It was risky. It wasn’t for humans to look at. And so it’s sort of a mental barrier, and it’s also a social barrier — to question what is the nature of things, what’s beneath the surface appearance, what’s really going on here. If there are not supernatural gods, what’s really happening? And Epicurus wasn’t afraid — he had the courage to penetrate through, to explore what the nature of things is. Julie and Charles, comment on that?
Julie:
I guess I kind of took it as — the bolts and bars are kind of an “off limits” notice from religion. Maybe kind of like: “this is a forbidden area, you’re not allowed to go here.” That’s how I took it.
Charles:
Yes, I would echo that, because as I read through these things and try to assemble in my mind how the different phrases fit together, I continue to see repetition. So here I wonder if we cannot just equate the end of that sentence to the beginning. In other words, maybe “nature’s scanty bounds” is really an echo of how he started the sentence — with “fame of gods,” “thunder’s roar,” “threatening tumults of the sky.” Maybe those are part of what he’s referring to: what separates us from nature is the threats of religion.
Cassius:
Yeah, yeah. This could just be another example where we press too hard. I did look at the other translations and they don’t all have that here. Let’s look at Munro: “Him, neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven” — and Bailey: “Him, neither the stories of the gods nor thunderbolts” — and Stallings: “Neither the myths of gods nor lightning bolts.” Okay, yeah. I was reading too far into the 1743 translation. But still, the point stands that these forces of nature, and the explanations behind them, have been hidden — until Lucretius mentions Epicurus pressing forward to break through the bounds.
Elaine:
Right. And I do want to add — there’s more than just the religious gate. You can’t just walk up and guess everything that he figured out in a flash. You do have to do some observation and exploration. It’s not all intuitive.
Cassius:
Right. And certainly science today — we can look at things under huge magnification. Not everything that you can see on the surface tells you the whole story. You have to dig for it. You have to work a little bit. So that’s another kind of courage — it absolutely takes effort. And Lucretius says that over and over: that you have to study nature in order to understand these things. It just doesn’t come to you dropped out of heaven into your lap. Virgil quoted: “Happy was he who knew the nature and causes of things.” That’s the famous line from the Georgics.
Julie:
Right. Okay. I want to make a point based on what Charles brought up — so a point on the translation. I have the Frank O. Copley version. And I want to read two different versions to you. So the Copley says: “Not all God’s glory, his lightning, heaven’s rumble and rage could stop him.” The Martin Ferguson Smith one, on the other hand, says: “This man — neither the reputation of the gods, nor thunderbolts, nor heaven’s menacing rumbles could daunt.” Now I think there’s an important difference in those two translations. Because the first one — where it says the gods are sending their lightning bolts to try and stop him — that implies the gods are actively interfering. But according to Epicurus, the gods don’t care about what humans do. So I like the Martin Ferguson Smith translation much better, because it says “the reputation of the gods” — it doesn’t suggest the gods are doing anything to prevent him. It’s more of a man’s take on things.
Cassius:
Well, let’s see — the Brown says “not the fame of gods,” and then Stallings says “neither the myths of gods.” And the Latin is fama, so that’s pretty clear. And I do think that’s what Lucretius is saying — he wasn’t saying it was really the gods. It was what was thought about them.
Julie:
Yeah, I agree that your point is correct, Cassius. And it’s a combination of two things: there’s the thunder going on, which is purely natural, but then there’s this fama issue, which is a human-generated thing. It’s not just that it’s difficult to penetrate because of the nature of it — it’s that there’s active suppression by the forces of religion to intimidate you from ever investigating.
Cassius:
So we go to the next sentence. Charles, you want to read the third sentence?
Charles:
[Reading from the 1743 translation:]
His mind’s quick force prevailed, and so he passed by far the flaming limits of this world, and wandered with his comprehensive soul over all the mighty space. From thence returned triumphant, told us what things may have a being and what cannot, and how a finite power is fixed to each — a bound it cannot break.
Cassius:
So there are at least two parts there. The first part is talking about Epicurus and his study and his exploring of the universe. And then the second part talks about the limits and bounds and things that he concluded as a result of it. Should we talk about the first part first — the wandering with his mind? He obviously didn’t have a rocket ship. He didn’t go anywhere physically. I really like — the 1743 is the only one that translated it like this — “the comprehensive soul.” It really gets at something. That’s a perfect description of Epicurus. The Bailey version is pretty good too — “the lively force of his mind won its way.” Whereas the Munro version says “the living force of his soul gained the day” — I don’t quite like the Munro version as much. Smith says “his mind’s might and vigor prevailed.” Stallings says “vital force of his intelligence prevailed.” Those are more vigorous than “comprehensive soul,” but I do like thinking of him as a comprehensive soul.
Elaine, are you gathering “comprehending” as the meaning, or “comprehensive” as in wide scope?
Elaine:
Wide — that he just — oh my gosh, you know, I’m constantly realizing new things that he had figured out that weren’t actually proven yet by any kind of formal study. His mind just went everywhere. He was truly comprehensive. And then his philosophy was comprehensive in that it was a structure that really had room for all areas of knowledge in it. So is it maybe what Lucretius is trying to convey here — that Epicurus’ philosophy was just very wide-ranging, out into the universe, into the issues of eternity and boundlessness? Not just something concerned with day-to-day ethics, but attempting to get the biggest picture possible, to fit everything together.
Cassius:
Yes, yeah. Is it Julie that has the Loeb edition as well?
Julie:
I don’t have one yet.
Cassius:
Okay. Elaine, I’d like to hear that one if you don’t mind.
Elaine:
All right. It says: “Therefore, the lively power of his mind prevailed, and forth he marched far beyond the flaming walls of the world.” So: “lively power” — very similar to Bailey, which is not far from Munro.
Cassius:
So maybe the emphasis is on his being active. The Latin is ergo vivida vis animi pervicit — so vivida and animi are the words, both meaning liveliness or life and spirit.
Charles:
Does vis mean strength as well?
Cassius:
I believe it does. And even Stallings uses “vital force.” So the majority of translations do imply a sort of movement forward. Munro says “in mind and spirit, the immeasurable universe.” And Bailey says “beyond the walls of the world, and in mind and spirit, traverse the boundless whole” — those are the words corresponding to “comprehensive soul.” The Latin is mente animoque — mind and spirit — and the que at the end is just “and,” so it’s animo, the soul or spirit. That’s something we’ll come back to in detail in the second book when he discusses the relationship between soul, spirit, and mind. But why don’t we move to the second part of the sentence — the issue of bounds and finite power and limits.
There’s obviously a lot of talk in Epicurus about limits and bounds in the Principal Doctrines and some of the letters — the Letter to Herodotus as well as maybe the Letter to Menoeceus — talk about limits. And here “finite power” and “what can and cannot be” seem to be the emphasis. So what — why is that important to everything?
Elaine:
I’ll go ahead and jump in and say that certainly one of the very strong keys of Epicurus is that he is talking about how — in place of the gods as the driving, organizing, controlling force of the universe — there’s something else. And he’s going to start talking about atoms soon. But the limits and bounds and the things that control the universe — which are not gods — is what Epicurus has discovered and come back to explain to us.
Julie:
Yeah. I mean, he’s mentioning that very briefly here, but it’s a key part of the physics, and from that, the ethics. If he did not have a system for explaining how the universe works, he would have nothing.
Cassius:
He has to come up with a substitute — an explanation for what really does control the universe if the gods don’t. Which we tend to gloss over today and just go straight for the ethics, because we think that the ethics part is important, which it certainly is. But for someone who is really starting at the foundation, somebody who is concerned about how the world works, is concerned about the threats of religion, is concerned that he’s going to be sent to hell when he dies — he’s got to have some kind of confidence in an explanation for what does control the world if it’s not, in fact, these ghosts that the priests are talking about.
Charles:
And a key part of the ethics is how we behave and respond to the fear of death and our actions from it. And I’ve been looking over a lot of scholarly articles lately, and almost every single one on Epicurus exclusively quotes or cites the Letter to Menoeceus, and they lack the bigger picture. I was asked the other day about — I don’t want to get too far into it — but basically I explained the Epicurean position on death and how it’s explained because there’s no other possible answer within this very materialist universe. And I think that’s kind of what needs to be conveyed. Like you said, we kind of forget about the physics and focus too much on the ethics.
Cassius:
But if you don’t have your physics, right — your ethics is based on nothing. And if you think that your life is a warm-up to eternity in heaven, then you don’t have any sense of urgency to use your time as productively as you can, because you think you’ve got all the time in the world. But if you know firmly and with confidence that you’re not going to live forever — if you know you’ve got to use your time as best as you possibly can now — that to me is a major difference in emphasis that you would have as an Epicurean.
Elaine:
Yeah, so we talked a little bit before, you and I, Cassius, about the “boundary stone” issue. Because the 1743 does not say “boundary stone” — it says “a bound it cannot break.” And the others have “boundary stone.” The Latin does have terminus, which is “boundary stone.” So I looked it up to see if there’s anything else about the use of that word. And I found something really interesting. This is just in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “Terminus — Latin boundary stone. Originally, in a Roman cult, a boundary stone or post fixed in the ground during a ceremony of sacrifice and anointment. Anyone who removed a boundary stone was accursed and might be slain. A fine was instituted for the death penalty. From this sacred object evolved the god Terminus.” So I’m sure that Lucretius was aware of that. And I think he was — by choosing that word — maybe emphasizing this boundary stone of nature. How deep-set it was, that it couldn’t be overcome.
Cassius:
I agree that we’re not just talking about some casual observation of physics. Basically, we’re talking about the atom here — the principle on which everything has its powers defined is the properties of the atoms. And these properties of the atoms are really not just something of insignificance to us. They are ultimately cosmically important. Which kind of reminds me of where St. Paul talks about accusing people of being “slaves of the weak and beggarly elements” — that phrase from the New Testament — those people really did consider these atoms to be an important concept. That nature is what’s setting these boundary marks and the guardrails of life.
Julie?
Julie:
I don’t have a whole lot to add. I do want to call out, though, that the whole setting up of the physics — the conversation we were having — in addition to setting up an explanation, it also helps remove fear. Because it’s observable, understandable, predictable. It takes out some of that uncertainty of “oh, all the gods might just be in a bad mood and kill you or something.” Yeah. That’s the only thing I really wanted to add. Understanding it — we’re turning it over, right? We’re victorious. Or being scared at the sight of rain because it might never end. Sometimes I have that feeling still, but I don’t think it’s because of a god.
Cassius:
Yeah. Julie, when you said what you said about things being predictable — to some extent repeatable, and so forth — we’ll have to come back to that thought later on when we talk about the swerve as well, because some people will talk about the swerve as being such a primary issue. And it is, because it allows for free will. But whatever the swerve does, it does not prevent the universe from being basically predictable, repetitive, and something we can understand. They work together at the same time — they’re not self-contradictory.
Charles:
I would like to point out Vatican Saying number ten, which perfectly mirrors and adds onto what Julie just said: “Remember that you are mortal and have a limited time to live and have devoted yourself to discussions on nature for all time and eternity, and have seen things that are now and are to come and have been.”
Cassius:
Excellent observation — to relate those two. Thank you.
Elaine:
I was just going to say it’s amazing how much you can get out of just that one short paragraph. The first few sentences are an hour long.
Cassius:
Right. This particular paragraph is one of the most — I think, well-known, rightly deserved to be — when people talk about the poem, this is one of the passages that is really clearly focused on Epicurus, clearly intended to be a summary of the big picture, and sets the whole philosophy in context. And in the context of an opposition to religion as religion is commonly understood. This one is really just key to the whole poem. And then it’s followed by another paragraph that is very well known as well. Now — so we’ve got to decide whether we’re going to even tackle the next paragraph tonight or not, because we’ve been going almost an hour as it is.
Elaine:
Yeah. Yeah. The paragraph as a whole — the big view of it is of a vigorous overthrowing of ideas that humans have oppressed themselves with.
Cassius:
Yes. Vigorous, aggressive, courageous, exploring — all sorts of active words, which are not the type words that you see people always associating with Epicurus. They want to talk about him living in his cave on bread and water, minimally existing and not worrying about anything, just floating through life in absence of pain — as if that’s the goal of life. But somebody whose goal of life was to feel no pain is not going to do the things that are described in this paragraph.
Elaine:
Mm-hmm. You can certainly explain “feeling no pain” and when you put it together with pain and pleasure and go into the details of philosophy — but the practical meaning and application of how he actually lived is entirely different, it seems to me, than the perception that a lot of people have of him.
Cassius:
I agree. He’s a revolutionary leader. He wasn’t a military leader or political leader. He didn’t need to go into the Forum or the Agora —
Charles:
The Market Square. Yeah, it means like “market” or “public square.”
Cassius:
Yeah, yeah. He didn’t charge over to the Stoics or the Platonists or people like that. But he was a revolutionary figure — writing letters, communicating with people, organizing a school, which is apparently what the Garden was, much more so than just some kind of a commune.
Elaine:
Yes, not a commune, not a hermit’s cave — not a monastery where you walk around looking at the ground draped in sackcloth and ashes.
Cassius:
That’s exactly the opposite. It’s a school. It’s a think tank. It’s a college devoting its time to writing essays, writing things that are argumentative, intended to teach people.
Elaine:
And studying nature.
Cassius:
Right. Because this — so this is another thing that I’ve thought of: sometimes we talk about what he wrote as if he just decided it, and that it was done and it was dogma. But there was a process to get to even what was dogma, and it was probably pretty exciting.
Elaine:
Right. And y’all, I’m going to need to go — I have a friend that has just come in.
Cassius:
Okay. We’ll look forward to next time. Thanks, Elaine.
Charles:
I just want to say that part of what I’ve been doing regarding philosophy over the past two months is countering that — you know, “pleasure is the absence of pain,” “absence of pain is the goal of life,” “Epicurus is bread and water only.” Like that sort of idea. I’ve been wanting to counter that for a while.
Cassius:
Right. Now, the “bread and water alone” part, I think, is absolutely clearly wrong. He made a statement about it that is clearly intended to be a logical reduction to the extreme — it’s a statement that all you really need is bread and water, and then you can compete with the gods for happiness. Which means if you’re alive. But he never suggests that he’s living on bread and water all the time, and it would be ridiculous to conclude that. Now, the first part of what you said — about the absence of pain and so forth — each of those phrases, if properly understood, can be put together into sentences and paragraphs that are in fact true. It’s just that the understanding that we have for them needs to be consistent with the rest of the philosophy, which is why Lucretius and things like this are so important. Because if you start off reading Lucretius and you get firmly in your mind a view of Epicurus like we’ve been discussing tonight, there’s no way that such a person is going to be living on bread and water, running away from the slightest pain. He’s constructing a logical argument for why pleasure — which he’s already identified at the beginning of the book — is the goal of life, and that’s pleasure as animals and everybody else understands it to be, and not a word that basically inverts the meaning and turns it on its head.
Charles:
Yeah. I mean, even if we look at the same source that says “bread and water” — Diogenes Laertius — we know that Epicurus had more than one house and he had slaves.
Cassius:
Exactly. He had income coming in that he divided among his people so that they could have a celebration on the Twentieth. He had people apparently sending him money from numerous different places. He was sending money to his parents. He had patrons and financiers and his own slaves that acted as copyists and secretaries. And even in the Letter to Menoeceus, he makes very clear that we are not living minimally just for the sake of living minimally. We’re doing that so that when we have little, we won’t be upset by it.
Charles:
Exactly. And also that when we do approach luxury, we enjoy it even more. There’s no running away from luxury. It’s just that we don’t base our life on luxury, because most of us in most situations are not always going to have luxury available to us. But we’re trying to be happy all the time.
And that mirrors what I mentioned on that one thread about Metrodorus.
Cassius:
Which part, Charles?
Charles:
About preferring wealth or extreme modesty — when it happens upon you, you find yourself there.
Cassius:
Right, right. And of course there’s the Vatican Saying — I get the number wrong, is it 63 or 73? — the one that says being too frugal is just as imprudent as being too devoted to luxury. Luxury in and of itself is worthless unless it brings pleasure. Simplicity in and of itself is worthless unless it brings pleasure. Pleasure is always the goal. Julie?
Julie:
Yeah. I had a lot of thoughts going through my head as y’all were talking. Let me try and remember my bigger points. One — what you were saying about some of the quotes: I think Epicurean philosophy more than other philosophies is at something of a disadvantage because we don’t have a lot of writings that made it through to us. And so a lot of these are one-off quotes. Right — and they could be taken completely out of context, and we can’t really put that together. But I think even sometimes people will take something out of one of the existing letters and misread it too.
Charles:
Oh my God, yeah. Like the Letter to Menoeceus.
Julie:
The other thing that came to my mind with Charles’s point on what Metrodorus said about wealth — I know we’re a little bit shaky on Philodemus, but in his On Property Management, he says that Metrodorus said that there are three things that are worth the extra effort rather than just taking whatever you get. And the three things were health, wealth, and friendship. And I just kind of think that’s neat. And obviously, in keeping with the philosophy, there are limits to each of those. So when we say wealth is worth the effort, we don’t mean “so much so that you never have enough” — but as opposed to living a very austere life, you know, it is worth effort to have a little bit of luxury. But of course, there are limits, right?
Charles:
Yeah, and Metrodorus even wrote a book about wealth itself.
Cassius:
That’s right, Charles. He did. But before we go any further, let’s bring this episode to a close and come back for more in Episode 3. Thanks again to everyone for listening to the Lucretius Today podcast. Join us at LucretiusToday.com and discuss this podcast at EpicureanFriends.com.