Eudaimonia in Epicurean Philosophy

What Does Eudaimonia Mean in Epicurean Philosophy?

The Greek word eudaimonia — conventionally translated as “happiness,” “flourishing,” or “the good life” — is the master term in Epicurean ethics for what every human being ultimately seeks. It names the goal toward which all Epicurean practice, philosophy, and friendship are directed.

Understanding eudaimonia correctly is essential because Epicurean philosophy makes a claim that sounds simple but is philosophically precise: eudaimonia is the happy life, and the happy life is a life of pleasure (hēdonē). These are not two different things. Pleasure is not a means to happiness, as if happiness were some further state located beyond pleasure. Pleasure is what happiness consists in, once its nature and limits are properly understood through Epicurean philosophy. As Epicurus states in the Letter to Menoeceus (§128): “Pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life.”

Eudaimonia as a Property of a Whole Life

One of the most important contributions David Sedley makes in his 2017 essay “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness” is clarifying what kind of thing eudaimonia is. It is not a momentary state. It is not the feeling you have at any given instant. Eudaimonia is a property of a complete life, taken as a whole. Sedley states this directly: “Eudaimonia, happiness, is a property of a whole life, not of some portion of it.”

This matters enormously for understanding Epicurus. It is easy to misread him as an advocate of moment-to-moment pleasure-seeking, as if his ethics were simply “chase the next pleasure.” The Cyrenaic school — founded on the teachings associated with Aristippus — came close to that position, and Epicurus developed his own philosophy in deliberate opposition to it. For the Cyrenaics, individual pleasure is the telos (end), and eudaimonia is merely the accumulated sum of individual pleasures, each enjoyed separately as it occurs. They held that pleasure is “unitemporal” — it can only be experienced at the moment of its occurrence. On this view, happiness has no value beyond the individual episodes that compose it.

Epicurus rejected this position fundamentally. For Epicurus, eudaimonia is achievable because the mind has the capacity to enjoy one’s entire life from any temporal vantage point. The memory of past pleasures, and the confident anticipation of pleasures still to come — including, above all, confidence in a serene and fearless death — allow a person to enjoy their life as a structured, complete whole. Sedley describes this as the distinctively Epicurean answer to the hedonist’s problem: “For Epicurus, it [happiness as a whole-life property] is made possible by the mind’s capacity to enjoy one’s whole life from any temporal viewpoint: to relive past pleasures and enjoy future ones in anticipation, importantly including confidence in a serene closure.”

This is why Epicurus opens the Letter to Menoeceus not with a discussion of pleasure, but with a discussion of eudaimonia — and why he insists that it is available at every stage of life.

The Correct Definition of Eudaimonia in Epicurean Terms

Epicurean eudaimonia is best understood through three interconnected claims:

First: Eudaimonia is the proper name for the goal of life — what every human being is really seeking, whether they know it or not. In this, Epicurus agrees with Aristotle and with the general Greek philosophical tradition. Happiness is not in dispute as the goal; what is disputed is what it consists in.

Second: Eudaimonia consists in pleasure — specifically, in the removal of bodily pain (aponia) and the liberation of the mind from fear and anxiety. But these are not two separate goals placed alongside each other. They are both descriptions of a single pleasurable condition. The person who is free from pain and free from fear is the person who is living happily.

Third: Eudaimonia is a property of a complete life, not of any moment taken in isolation. This means that happiness is something to be built, maintained, and enjoyed across time — through the accumulation of genuine memories, through philosophical practice, through friendship, and through the cultivation of the disposition that faces death without fear. Whoever possesses this disposition, Epicurus argues in Principal Doctrine 21, already possesses the conditions for a complete life, regardless of when death comes.

The famous deathbed letter of Epicurus to Idomeneus illustrates all three of these points at once. Writing in physical agony from kidney disease and dysentery, Epicurus describes that final day as “the blessed day which is my life” — not this particular day, but the whole of his life, understood as a single day with its own proper conclusion. The joy of that day, he says, arose from the memory of past philosophical conversations with friends. He was not claiming that the present moment was pleasant. He was claiming that his life — enjoyed whole, from the vantage point of its close — was happy.

Why Eudaimonia Requires Philosophy

Eudaimonia in the Epicurean sense is not accidentally acquired. It requires Epicurean philosophy specifically. This is because the obstacles to eudaimonia are cognitive errors: false beliefs about the gods, about death, about what we truly need, and about the nature of pleasure itself. These false beliefs produce fear and desire of the wrong kinds, which block happiness. Philosophy removes those obstacles.

Sedley notes that Epicurus “insists that it is Epicurean philosophy alone that can deliver happiness” — not because Epicurus was promoting a sectarian brand, but because only a philosophy that correctly identifies what pleasure is, what we genuinely need, and what death actually is can free a person from the fears and compulsive desires that prevent happiness. The study of nature (physiologia) is not an academic exercise for Epicurus; it is medicine for the soul, and its outcome is eudaimonia.

Primary Texts: Key Passages Using Eudaimonia Explicitly

What follows are the key passages from the primary sources in which the word eudaimonia (or its verbal form eudaimonein, meaning “to be happy” or “to flourish”) appears explicitly.

Letter to Menoeceus §122 (Diogenes Laertius 10.122)

This is the opening paragraph of the letter — the primary Epicurean locus for eudaimonia — and it contains the word twice. The translation below follows Sedley’s rendering closely:

Let no one either delay philosophizing when young, or weary of philosophizing when old. For no one is under-age or over-age for health of the soul. To say either that the time is not yet ripe for philosophizing, or that the time for philosophizing has gone by, is like saying that the time for happiness (eudaimonia) either has not arrived or is no more. So both young and old must philosophize — someone young so that as he ages he can be made young by his goods, through his thankfulness for things past, someone old so that he can be at once young and aged, through his fearlessness towards things future. Therefore we must rehearse the things which produce happiness (eudaimonian), seeing that when happiness is present we have everything, while when it is absent the one aim of our actions is to have it.

Note the structure of the argument. Philosophizing at any age is justified precisely because eudaimonia is available at any age, from any temporal vantage point. The young person builds a treasury of past goods to remember gratefully; the old person secures fearlessness toward what lies ahead. The whole of life, from either end, can be the site of eudaimonia.

Letter to Pythocles §116 (Diogenes Laertius 10.116)

This passage, from the letter dealing primarily with celestial phenomena, contains a definition of the divine nature in terms of eudaimonia that serves as the model for human happiness:

God is a living being who possesses complete happiness (pantele eudaimonian kektemenon) and immortality, having no trouble himself and causing none to any other, so that he is not affected by anger or favor — for all such things exist only in the weak.

This definition is philosophically crucial. The divine nature possesses complete (pantele) eudaimonia — Epicurus’s own technical term for a happiness that lacks nothing and requires nothing beyond itself. This is the positive model against which Epicurean human happiness is measured: not an unreachable divine perfection, but the very condition that Epicurean philosophy makes available to any human being who correctly understands nature and their own needs.

Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fragment 32 (Smith edition), Column II–III

Diogenes of Oinoanda (2nd century AD) erected a large philosophical inscription in Lycia for the benefit of passersby, to communicate the Epicurean path to happiness. In Fragment 32, at the opening of his ethical argument, he announces his subject explicitly using the verbal form of eudaimonia:

[Our subject is] what happiness (to eudaimonein) is and what is the ultimate object that our nature desires — and it is answered by identifying pleasure as the telos.

(Text from Smith’s 1993 critical edition, Fr. 32 II.3–III.1; translation following Sedley’s rendering in his footnote 1. For the full reconstructed column text, Smith’s edition is required.)

The significance of this passage is that Diogenes — writing several centuries after Epicurus — frames his entire ethical inscription around eudaimonia as the master question, and immediately identifies pleasure as the answer. This confirms that the identification of eudaimonia with pleasure was maintained as the central Epicurean commitment throughout the history of the school.

Philodemus of Gadara, On Death (De morte), Col. 38.14–19 (PHerc. 1050)

Philodemus (c. 110–40 BC) is the Epicurean philosopher whose works survive in the carbonized papyri from Herculaneum. In On Death, he writes:

Someone with good sense, once he has attained the whole of what suffices for a happy life (pros eudaimona bion), from that point on walks around as one laid out for burial, and reaps the benefit of that single day as if it were an eternity.

(Text from Henry’s 2009 critical edition; cited and translated in Sedley’s 2017 essay, footnote 32.)

This is a remarkable passage. The phrase “what suffices for a happy life” (pros eudaimona bion) refers to the Epicurean conditions for happiness: the removal of pain, the freedom from fear, and the pleasures — above all the kinetic pleasures of friendship and philosophical conversation — that give a life its texture and variety. Once a person has attained these conditions, Philodemus argues, even a single additional day of life has infinite value, because it is lived as an already-complete life. This directly echoes Epicurus’s own argument in Principal Doctrine 19 that “infinite time and finite time have equal pleasure, if one measures its limits by reasoning.”

The passage also contains an important philosophical implication: eudaimonia is not something accumulated indefinitely over an ever-longer life. It is something achieved — and once achieved, every subsequent day is lived as the fullness of a complete life, not as an installment toward some future goal.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 10 — Biographical Section

Editorial note: The explicit use of εὐδαιμονία in DL’s own biographical prose (§§1–28, before the letters begin) requires verification against the Greek text of the standard critical edition (Long, OCT; or Hicks, Loeb). DL does use the term in his introductory remarks at §§119–121 framing the Letter to Menoeceus, where he characterizes the letter as addressing “those things that relate to happiness (eudaimonia) and the good life.” The biographical sections of §§1–28, where DL reports Epicurus’s character and life in his own voice, use makarios (blessed) and related vocabulary in describing Epicurus’s contentment and the nature of his influence — consistent with the pattern in which makarios and eudaimonia function as near-synonyms throughout Epicurean literature. Readers needing a specific quoted passage from §§1–28 with εὐδαιμονία should consult the Greek text directly.

Summary

Eudaimonia in Epicurean philosophy is not a vague synonym for feeling good. It is a precise philosophical concept: the condition of a person whose life, taken as a complete whole, is characterized by pleasure — by freedom from bodily pain and from mental fear, and by the active enjoyment of genuine goods, above all friendship and philosophical understanding. It is available at any age. It requires no extraordinary fortune. And it is delivered, Epicurus insists, by philosophy alone — the philosophy that teaches us what we genuinely need, what we have nothing to fear, and how to enjoy the life we already have.

The passages quoted above — from Epicurus himself, from Philodemus, and from Diogenes of Oinoanda — show that this commitment to eudaimonia as the explicit goal, defined as pleasurable life, was consistent across the entire history of the Epicurean school.

Primary sources: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (DL 10.122); Letter to Pythocles (DL 10.116); Philodemus, De morte 38.14–19 (Henry ed., 2009); Diogenes of Oinoanda Fr. 32 (Smith ed., 1993). Secondary source: David Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness,” in Seaford, Wilkins, and Wright (eds.), Selfhood and the Soul (Oxford, 2017), pp. 89–106.

Appendix: References to Eudaimonia in Epicurean Literature and Testimonia

What follows is a preliminary list of passages where eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) or a directly related concept appears in Epicurean literature and testimonia. Because Latin Epicurean texts use equivalent terms (beata vita, felicitas, beatum) rather than the Greek word itself, and because Epicurus himself sometimes uses the near-synonym μακάριος (blessed) where context makes eudaimonia the clear intended referent, both explicit and conceptually equivalent occurrences are noted, with the distinction maintained throughout.

1. Epicurus – Letters, Doctrines, and Sayings

Letter to Menoeceus

Sections: §§122–132 (Diogenes Laertius 10 numbering)
Greek: εὐδαιμονία appears explicitly and repeatedly.
Key passages:
- §122: Epicurus states that philosophy aims at the happy and blessed life (εὐδαίμονα καὶ μακάριον βίον).
- §128: Pleasure is identified as the beginning and end of the blessed life (μακαρίως ζῆν).
- §131–132: Phronesis (practical wisdom) is called greater than philosophy itself, because it is the source of all the virtues and of the happy life.
This letter is the primary Epicurean locus for eudaimonia in direct philosophical argument.

Letter to Herodotus

Sections: §§37–83 (DL 10 numbering)
Language: Greek.
Eudaimonia is not the letter’s central theme (which is physics and epistemology), but the closing section (§§81–82) makes clear that correct natural philosophy removes the fears that obstruct happiness. The happiness rationale for doing physics is implied throughout.

Letter to Pythocles

Sections: §§84–116 (DL 10 numbering)
Language: Greek.
Primarily meteorology and celestial phenomena. The connection to eudaimonia is indirect: liberation from superstitious dread of celestial events is a condition of the happy life. Explicit use of the term is minimal, but see §116 for the definition of divine eudaimonia as the positive model for human happiness (quoted in the main article above).

Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι Δόξαι)

References by DL 10 section numbers (the standard):

PD 1 (DL 10.139): The blessed (μακάριον) and immortal being has no troubles itself and causes none to others. Though eudaimonia is not the word used, the makarios divine model of happiness is foundational.
PD 3 (DL 10.140): The limit of the magnitude of pleasures is the removal of all pain — directly defines the upper boundary of the happy life.
PD 4 (DL 10.140): Pain does not continuously last in the body; extreme pain is brief, moderate pain does not overtop bodily pleasure — key to understanding achievable happiness.
PD 5 (DL 10.140): “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly, and impossible to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.” — The conjunction of virtue and pleasure as conditions of the happy life.
PD 17 (DL 10.144): The just man is the least troubled; the unjust, most troubled — happiness and justice linked.
PD 19 (DL 10.145): Infinite time and finite time contain equal pleasure if the limits of pleasure are measured by reason.
PD 27 (DL 10.148): Wisdom produces friendship as the greatest of the goods contributing to the happy life (εὐδαίμονα βίον in some manuscript traditions).

Note: εὐδαιμονία appears explicitly in some manuscript traditions of the Doctrines and in ancient scholia; in others, the makarios/makariotēs vocabulary predominates. The two terms function as virtual synonyms in Epicurean usage.

Vatican Sayings (Sententiae Vaticanae)

The Vatican manuscript (Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1950) preserves these sayings. Saying numbers follow the standard edition (Usener; revised by Arrighetti). Sayings using εὐδαιμονία explicitly or treating the happy life as their direct subject:

VS 14: Treats time as the horizon within which we must secure happiness; some editors read a form of εὐδαιμονεῖν in the Greek.
VS 25: The poverty of one governed by nature is great wealth; but the wealth demanded by empty opinion is infinite poverty.
VS 27: “Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness (μακαριώτατον) of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.” — Uses makarios vocabulary rather than eudaimonia directly, but the argument is identical.
VS 33: Treats the voice of the flesh and the limits of pleasure and pain.
VS 41: Philosophical practice, laughter, and household management are to be pursued simultaneously without ceasing to proclaim true philosophy — the integration of life and doctrine as the condition of happiness.
VS 44: The wise man, when he has accommodated himself to necessities, understands better how to give than to receive — conditions of the happy life through self-sufficiency.
VS 45: The study of nature (physiologia) does not make men boastful but self-sufficient and proud of their own goods, not those of circumstance.
VS 52: “Friendship dances around the world bidding us all to rouse ourselves to give thanks.” — Friendship as a constituent of the happy life.
VS 63: A limit exists in simple living; failure to observe it is as bad as extravagance.
VS 77 (sometimes numbered 78): “The greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.” — Autarkeia as a direct component of eudaimonia.

Usener Fragments (Epicurea, 1887)

Usener’s collection of fragments not included in the three letters or the canonical doctrines. Several explicitly treat eudaimonia:

Usener fr. 67–68: On the self-sufficiency of the wise man and his happiness independent of external fortune.
Usener fr. 507: Explicit use of εὐδαιμονία in discussing the relation between pleasure and the happy life.
Usener fr. 548: On the nature of the highest good; connects hēdonē (pleasure) and eudaimonia directly.
Usener fr. 221 (= Porphyry, To Marcella 31): Epicurus connects the god’s makarios nature with the model for human happiness.

References are by Usener fragment number; cross-references to the transmitting source (Athenaeus, Porphyry, Stobaeus, etc.) are essential for textual access.

Lost Works with Evident Eudaimonia Content

Diogenes Laertius (10.27–28) preserves a list of Epicurus’s works. Among those whose titles indicate direct treatment of the happy life:

On the Goal (Περὶ τέλους): A work specifically on the telos, which in Epicurean terms is the happy life (eudaimonia). Fragments survive through secondary sources.
On Lives (Περὶ βίων): Discussion of ways of life and which achieve happiness.
On Choices and Avoidances (Περὶ αἱρέσεων καὶ φυγῶν): Directly relevant to the calculus of pleasure and pain as the basis of happiness.

2. Diogenes Laertius – Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 10

Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD) is the primary transmitter of Epicurus’s three letters and the Principal Doctrines, but his own framing of Epicurus’s philosophy also uses eudaimonia terminology.

Book 10, §§1–16: DL’s opening biographical and doctrinal summary of Epicurus uses eudaimonia and makarios vocabulary in characterizing the Epicurean philosophy.
Book 10, §§119–135: Contains the Letter to Menoeceus (primary locus of eudaimonia).
Book 10, §§136–154: Contains the Principal Doctrines with the makarios/eudaimonia passages noted above.

Standard references: DL 10.122–132 (Menoeceus); DL 10.139–154 (Doctrines). Editions: Long (OCT); Hicks (Loeb).

3. Metrodorus of Lampsacus

Metrodorus (330–277 BC) was Epicurus’s closest associate and co-founder of the school. His fragments, collected by Körte (1890) and partially reconstructed, include explicit treatments of eudaimonia:

On Wealth (Περὶ πλούτου): Argues that wealth is not a condition of eudaimonia; happiness depends on pleasure, not property.
On Pleasure (Περὶ ἡδονῆς): Directly connects bodily pleasure and eudaimonia.
Fragment preserved in Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi 1089d–e: Metrodorus explicitly connects the happy life with the goods of the body as its necessary foundation — a passage important for understanding the Epicurean position.

References are to Körte fragment numbers (e.g., Körte fr. 14, fr. 21) or to the transmitting source.

4. Lucretius – De Rerum Natura

Language: Latin (no direct use of eudaimonia)
Latin equivalents used: beata vita (blessed/happy life), felicitas, iucunde (pleasantly)
Lucretius’s entire project is predicated on Epicurean eudaimonia: the poem aims to liberate readers from the fears (of death, the gods, and pain) that block the happy life.

Relevant passages by book and line:

Book 1, lines 62–79: Epicurus praised as the first man to confront superstition and liberate humanity — the foundation of his gift of happiness to the human race.
Book 2, lines 1–61: The famous proem (Suave, mari magno…), illustrating tranquility of mind as the goal of life. The pure and calm life (vitam puram) is the Lucretian equivalent of eudaimonia.
Book 3, lines 1–30: Praise of Epicurus as discoverer of the way to the beata vita; Lucretius addresses Epicurus directly as the one who gave us the principles of a good life.
Book 3, lines 830–1094: The extended argument against fear of death — the removal of which is the primary condition of happiness in Epicurean ethics. Climaxes with Epicurus’s own words paraphrased.
Book 5, lines 1–54: Second extended praise of Epicurus as a god (deus ille fuit) for founding philosophy and teaching the path to the happy life.
Book 5, lines 1117–1240: Critique of political ambition, the striving for power, and competition — all of which obstruct happiness. The passage argues that simplicity (vita simplex) and nature’s true limits are sufficient for a happy life.
Book 6, lines 1–42: The proem crediting Athens and Epicurus with the gift of philosophy and a happy life (vitam suavem). Lucretius describes Epicurus as discovering not only the art of life but its crown — the beata vita.

5. Philodemus of Gadara

Philodemus (c. 110–40 BC) was a major Epicurean philosopher whose works survive in carbonized papyri from Herculaneum (Herculaneum Papyri, PHerc.). Because these are papyrological texts, references use column (col.) and fragment numbers rather than continuous line numbers.

On Ends (Περὶ τελῶν, PHerc. 1251, 1005, and others): Explicit use of εὐδαιμονία in defining the telos as pleasure. The work directly defends the Epicurean identification of the happy life with pleasure against rival schools.
On Choices and Avoidances (Περὶ αἱρέσεων καὶ φυγῶν, PHerc. 1251): Treats eudaimonia in the context of the practical calculus of pleasure and pain.
On Death (Περὶ θανάτου, PHerc. 1050): Contains the explicit eudaimona bion passage quoted in the main article above (Col. 38.14–19). Also Col. 36.29 treats the blessedness of the life of the person who has attained Epicurean goods.
On Frank Criticism (Περὶ παρρησίας, PHerc. 1471): The practice of frank speech (parrēsia) in the philosophical community is treated as a condition of genuine friendship and hence of eudaimonia. The term or its equivalent appears in surviving columns.
On Anger (Περὶ ὀργῆς, PHerc. 182): Treats anger as an obstacle to the happy life; eudaimonia or the happy/blessed life appears in the surviving columns.
On Vices and Virtues (Περὶ κακιῶν, PHerc. 1008 and others): Vice is discussed as the negation of the good life; happiness as the positive standard.
On Wealth (Περὶ οἰκονομίας / On Household Management, PHerc. 1424): Discusses the conditions — especially wealth’s limited role — in a happy Epicurean life.
On Music (Περὶ μουσικῆς, Book 4, PHerc. 1497/1583): The ethical evaluation of music as contributing to or detracting from happiness; eudaimonia terminology in surviving sections.
On the Good King According to Homer (Περὶ τοῦ καθ’ Ὅμηρον ἀγαθοῦ βασιλέως, PHerc. 1507): The happy life of the good ruler treated through Homeric examples.

Critical editions: Olivieri (1914); Indelli-Tsouna (1995); Tsouna (2007); Henry (2009); various Cronache Ercolanesi articles.

6. Diogenes of Oinoanda

Diogenes of Oinoanda (2nd century AD) commissioned a large Epicurean inscription on a stoa wall in Lycia. Fragments survive and are numbered by Martin Ferguson Smith’s standard critical edition (1993; 2003 supplement). The fragments relevant to eudaimonia include:

Fragment 3 (Smith): The ethical proem to the inscription, explaining that Diogenes erected it for the benefit of future generations; the goal of helping humanity achieve happiness (eudaimonia) is the stated motivation.
Fragment 25 (Smith): Explicit discussion of eudaimonia and its basis in pleasure.
Fragment 28 (Smith): On the relation of pleasure to the happy life.
Fragments 32–36 (Smith): Definitions of the goal of life; pleasure as the foundation of happiness; discussions of false and true paths to eudaimonia. Fragment 32 is quoted in the main article above.

References: Fragment number + column (e.g., Fr. 3, col. II.1–10). Smith (1993) is the required reference for any precise citation.

7. Cicero – Epicurean Speakers and Doxography

Though Cicero was personally hostile to Epicurean ethics, he is one of the most important transmitters of Epicurean philosophical arguments. In De Finibus and De Natura Deorum, Epicurean spokesmen present the philosophy in their own voice. The Latin equivalent of eudaimonia throughout is beatum / beata vita / beatitudo.

(a) Torquatus – De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Book I

Book I, §§17–54 (the full Epicurean positive presentation by Torquatus):
- §§17–26: The method and defense of pleasure as the good.
- §§29–42: The central argument identifying beata vita with pleasure — the Latin presentation of the eudaimonia = pleasure equation.
- §§43–54: The role of virtue, friendship, and wisdom as means to the happy life (not ends in themselves).

(b) Velleius – De Natura Deorum, Book I

Book I, §§18–56:
- §§18–24: Velleius introduces Epicurean theology.
- §§43–56: The blessed (beata) nature of the Epicurean gods — their happiness as the model for human eudaimonia, since the gods’ complete pleasure, freedom from toil, and self-sufficiency define the ideal of the happy life.
The Epicurean god functions as the positive exemplar (paradeigma) of eudaimonia in Epicurean theology.

(c) Tusculan Disputations, Book 3

Book 3 (On Grief, De Aegritudine Pellanda): Cicero reports and engages with Epicurean arguments on emotional distress as an obstruction to happiness. §§41–47 present Epicurean positions on the management of distress as a condition of beata vita.

(d) Tusculan Disputations, Book 5

Book 5, §§87–96: Directly debates whether virtue alone suffices for the happy life — Cicero presents the Epicurean position that pleasure (not virtue alone) is necessary and sufficient. Key locus for the Epicurean beata vita argument in Latin.

8. Other Epicurean Testimonia

Porphyry – To Marcella (Ad Marcellam)

Porphyry (3rd century AD), though a Neoplatonist, quotes Epicurus extensively in this letter. The Epicurean quotations relevant to eudaimonia include:

Sections 27–31: Quotations from Epicurus on the conditions of happiness; the famous “four remedies” (tetrapharmakos) framework is related here; the happy life’s conditions are stated in Epicurean terms.
Section 31 (= Usener fr. 221): The model of divine happiness (makarios) as attainable by the wise human.

Athenaeus – Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus (2nd–3rd century AD) quotes Epicurus on pleasure and the happy life in several places:

Book 7, 278c–d: Quotes Epicurus connecting pleasure and eudaimonia.
Book 12, 546d–547a: Extended quotation from Epicurus on pleasure as the beginning and end of the happy life — one of the most explicit sources outside DL. Greek εὐδαιμονία likely appears in the original Epicurean text quoted.

Sextus Empiricus – Against the Ethicists (Adversus Mathematicos XI)

Sections XI.63–67: Reports Epicurean ethical doctrine, using εὐδαιμονία in summarizing the Epicurean position that pleasure is the criterion of the good life.
Sections XI.96–109: Additional doxographical report of Epicurean ethics, relevant to the telos argument.

Plutarch

Plutarch (1st–2nd century AD) is polemically anti-Epicurean but quotes Epicurean texts extensively:

Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum (That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible; Moralia 1086c–1107c): The primary Plutarchan polemic. Contains numerous quotations of Epicurean texts, including explicit uses of eudaimonia from Epicurus and Metrodorus. Key sections:
- 1088d–1089f: Metrodorus and Epicurus on the bodily basis of happiness.
- 1091a–c: Epicurean pleasure as the substance of eudaimonia.
- 1098b–1099c: Friendship, memory, and the happy life.
Adversus Colotem (Against Colotes; Moralia 1107c–1127e): The defense of other schools against the Epicurean Colotes. Contains Epicurean quotations using eudaimonia vocabulary in the course of reporting their positions.
De Latenter Vivendo (On Living in Obscurity; Moralia 1128a–1130e): Short essay engaging the Epicurean lathē biōsas (“live unnoticed”) maxim as a teaching about the happy life.

Clement of Alexandria – Stromata (Miscellanies)

Clement (2nd–3rd century AD) quotes Epicurus in ethical contexts:

Stromata Book 2, Chapter 21 (§§130–131): Quotes Epicurus directly on pleasure and eudaimonia, reporting the Epicurean doctrine that pleasure (hēdonē) is the beginning and end of the blessed life.
Stromata Book 6: Additional quotations in the context of philosophical comparisons.

Stobaeus – Anthology (Eclogae)

John of Stobi (5th century AD) preserves numerous philosophical fragments, including Epicurean material:

Book 2, ch. 8 (Wachsmuth ed.): Doxographical report on Epicurean ethics; uses eudaimonia in summarizing the Epicurean telos.
Book 3, various sections: Further Epicurean fragments on the happy life, including material from Metrodorus and Hermarchus.

Hermarchus

Hermarchus of Mytilene (c. 325–250 BC) was Epicurus’s successor as head of the school. Fragments preserved primarily in Porphyry’s On Abstinence:

Porphyry, De Abstinentia I.7–12: Fragments of Hermarchus on justice, self-preservation, and the happy life. Eudaimonia appears in the context of arguing that justice contributes to happiness.

Summary Table – Core Occurrences

Author	Work	Section	Language	Term Used	Reference Type
Epicurus	Letter to Menoeceus	DL 10.122–132	Greek	εὐδαιμονία (explicit)	Continuous sections
Epicurus	Letter to Pythocles	DL 10.116	Greek	εὐδαιμονία (explicit)	Section number
Epicurus	Principal Doctrines	DL 10.139–154	Greek	εὐδαιμονία / μακάριος	Section numbers
Epicurus	Vatican Sayings	VS 14, 25, 27, 33, 41, 45, 52, 77	Greek	εὐδαιμονία / μακάριος	Saying numbers
Epicurus	Usener Fragments	Usener fr. 67–68, 507, 548	Greek	εὐδαιμονία (explicit)	Fragment numbers
Epicurus	On the Goal	(via Athenaeus, Stobaeus)	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Fragment + source
Metrodorus	On Wealth; On Pleasure	Körte frr. 14, 21	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Fragment numbers
Metrodorus	(via Plutarch)	Non posse 1089d–e	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Moralia section
Hermarchus	(via Porphyry)	De Abs. I.7–12	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Section numbers
Diogenes Laertius	Lives, Book 10	DL 10.1–16; 119–154	Greek	εὐδαιμονία / μακάριος	Section numbers
Lucretius	De Rerum Natura	1.62–79; 2.1–61; 3.1–30; 3.830–1094; 5.1–54; 5.1117–1240; 6.1–42	Latin	beata vita, felicitas	Line numbers
Philodemus	On Ends	PHerc. 1251, 1005	Greek	εὐδαιμονία (explicit)	Column + fragment
Philodemus	On Death	PHerc. 1050, col. 38.14–19	Greek	εὐδαίμονα βίον (explicit)	Column + line
Philodemus	On Anger	PHerc. 182	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Column + fragment
Philodemus	On Frank Criticism	PHerc. 1471	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Column + fragment
Philodemus	On Vices	PHerc. 1008	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Column + fragment
Diogenes of Oinoanda	Inscription	Fr. 3, 25, 28, 32–36 (Smith)	Greek	εὐδαιμονία (explicit)	Fragment + column
Cicero / Torquatus	De Finibus I	§§17–54	Latin	beata vita, beatum	Section numbers
Cicero / Velleius	De Natura Deorum I	§§18–56	Latin	beata vita, beatum	Section numbers
Cicero	Tusculan Disputations III	§§41–47	Latin	beata vita	Section numbers
Cicero	Tusculan Disputations V	§§87–96	Latin	beata vita	Section numbers
Porphyry	To Marcella	§§27–31	Greek	εὐδαιμονία / μακάριος	Section numbers
Athenaeus	Deipnosophistae	7.278c–d; 12.546d–547a	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Stephanus pagination
Sextus Empiricus	Adv. Math. XI	§§63–67; 96–109	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Section numbers
Plutarch	Non posse suaviter vivi	Moralia 1086c–1107c	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Moralia sections
Plutarch	Adversus Colotem	Moralia 1107c–1127e	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Moralia sections
Clement of Alexandria	Stromata	Book 2, §§130–131	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Section numbers
Stobaeus	Anthology	Book 2, ch. 8 (Wachsmuth)	Greek	εὐδαιμονία	Edition section

Note on Precision: For Philodemus and Diogenes of Oinoanda, line-level precision depends on the critical edition used (Cronache Ercolanesi for Philodemus; Martin Ferguson Smith for Oinoanda) and the state of papyrological reconstruction. Fragment and column references in those editions are the correct citation form.

Previous
Epicurean Response To Idealism Next
Not A Bunker But A Camp - On Engagement With Society