EP'ICU'RUS (Lat., from Gk.'Erfrcoupor, Epi kouros) (c.342-270 me.). An illustrious Greek philosopher. He was born probably in the island of Samos, in December, 342, or January, 34], B.C., six or seven years after the death of Plato. His father, Neoeles, is said to have been a schoolmaster, and his mother, Chzerestrate, to have practiced arts of magic. In his boyhood he heard Pamphilus and .Nausiphanes lecture on philosophy, bug, did not elaim to be a pupil of either. At tire age of eighteen Epicurus repaired to Athens to present himself before the members of his demos and to be duly confirmed as an Athenian citizen. His stay at Athens on this occasion was not long; when he rejoined his father's family, however, it was not sit Samos. hut at Colophon, whither Neoeles had repaired upon being dispossessed of his home at Samos. In his thirtieth year Epieurus was settled at Mitylene, and there he first won recognition as a philosopher; at Lamp4acus two or three years later he became the head of a school. But Athens was the place where philosophers could expect to get their best hearing, and thither Epicurus returned about 306 BA:. here he bought a garden which Ins used as the seat of Isis school. From this circumstance his followers were called the 'philosophers of the garden.' Although women as well as men frequented the garden, and although among these women were ninny of the hetteru: (q.v.) . it appeared that the life of the brotherhood was conti nent, popular scandal to the contrary not withstanding. The calumnies which the Stoics circulated concerning the school are undeserving of notice. The success of Epieurus as a teacher
was signal; great numbers fioeked to his school from all parts of Greece and from Asia Minor, most of whom became warmly attached to their master as well as to his doctrines, for Epicurus seems to have been characterized not less by amiability and benevolence than by force of intellect. Ile died 270 B.C., in the 72d year of his age.
Epieurus was a most voluminous writer. Ac cording to Diogenes Laertius he left 300 volumes. Among others he had written 37 books on natural philosophy; a treatise on atoms and the void; one on love ; one on choices and avoidances; another on the chief good; four essays on lives; one on sight; one on touch; another on images; another on justice and the other virtues, etc. Almost all these works are lost; the only writings of Epicurus that have come down to us are three letters, and a number of detached sentences or sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, in his life of the philosopher. Outside of these the principal sources of our knowledge of the doc trines of Epicurus are Cicero, Seneca, and, above all, Lucretius, whose great poem, De Rerun) Nature, contains substantially the Epicurean philosophy. To these must be added a large number of papyri found at Hereulaneum about the middle of the eighteenth century. These con tain fragments from Epicurus and many writings of Epicureans, especially of Philodemus. But unfortunately the manuscripts are in a deplor able condition. See EPICUREANISM.