Category:Roman Personages

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Gaius Vestorius, banker and chemical multinational industrialist (Alexandria delocalization) [Vitr. De arch. VII 11.1: "caeruli temperationes (bluish pigment) Vestorius Puteolis instituit faciundum"] of Pozzuoli (Naples). Epicurean friend of Atticus and of Aulus Manlius Torquatus [Fam. VI, 11], confidential partner of Cicero (56 - 44 B.C.: from exile's end to death) [Att. IV 14.1: Vestorius noster, our secret partner]. Senatorial order persons weren't allowed to be involved in business (conflict of interest: only estate ownership). Epicurean equites (well-off persons) had no class support, ... or don't wished to be senators, they don't needed showy pomp (pocket money to clients/voters, public buildings and circus games financing) and saved money, paying in advance (with margins) the yield of taxation they collected through 'publicans' in the Provinces (real hidden powers which pulled the strings of politics): roll my log and I'll roll yours; know-how in return of roads, aqueducts, army, contracts. Others used with men of straw, often their freedmen. Titus Pomponius Caecilius Atticus inherited 7,500,000 sesterces by his uncle Caecilius, and multiplied them as a banker in financial transactions and individual speculative operations [Cic. Att. I, 6, 1; C. Nep. Atticus 14.2]. Cicero went back from Cilicia pro-consulate with more than 2,000,000 and invested in estates through a friend of a friend (and relative), the above-named Gaius, little inclined to rhetoric [latinus attikismos, Att. XIII 50.2.] but good calculating man (arithmeticis satis exercitatum), and fair mate ("in me liberalis") [Att. XIII 50.2; IV 6.3 (May 56)]; known from experience "As a trustee I might not find a person more industrious, more obliging, more loyal than Vestorius" [Att. XIII, 45, 2 (Aug. 45)]. If Epicurean friendship may be both utilitarian and liberal/emotional, Epicureanism of this trio was primarily businesslike. Roman Epicurean schools taught to take easy non-necessary things and to hold strong nerves (mens sana in corpore sano; Atticus jogged daily, Martial, Epigr. VII. 32); perhaps rich business Epicurean gentlemen felt the stress not unduly. We know not much about inner experiences of these Epicurean 'characters'; glooms and bad choices of Cicero are but well-known: Pompey, Brutus, Dolabella, Philippics, second young wife; “I'm disgusted of all [...] I also bebiôtai (I have lived) […] You quote Epicurus and venture to say me politeyesthai (don't be in politics) [...] later I'll go boating and dining with Vestorius" [Cic. Att. XIV 20, 21; May 11th 44 B.C.E.: he was beginning speaking 'Epicureish' ...]; hence Atticus' rescues, who is revealed much more balanced through rescues in his estate in Epirus and financial supports. Marcus aspired and sometime showed off, Titus worked in the background (làthe biôsas). Conventionally: his daughter Pomponia Caecilia Attica and her money married Augustus' statesman Marcus Agrippa, and his grand-daughter Agrippina married emperor Tiberius; but also he got dedications of works not at only by Cicero (Laelius, Cato Maior), but also by Varro (De vita populi Romani) and by Cornelius Nepos. Of Vestoria gens (genus) the tracks are lost, but several Cicero' s letters shall speak of them quite a bit.

Volumnius Eutrapelus. (Cic. Fam. 7,32; 9,26; Att. 15,8,1; Phil. 13,3; Cluent. 198; Nep. Att. 10,2; 12,4). Epicurean, Roman of equestrian order, praefectus fabrum of Antonius, friend of Cassius and Atticus [Nep. Att. 9,4]. "Cicero S.(alutem) D.(icit)Volumnio, [...] might I disentangle myself off of occupations, as in my fancies [...] I'll cut Forum and Curia dead and pass the 'dolce vita' with you and our friends. Your Cassius, my Dolabella, or rather both ours, who are fond of our same studying and amiable conversation". [Fam. VII, 33. from Cilicia]
In a convivium at V.'s house, his freed-woman Volumnia - as an actress - was present and reclining to dine, whereas married women were simply sitting [Ad. Att. 5.1; 46 B.C.E].
Horace reports that, when V. wanted to free himself from a cliens, he presented him with a stylish toga: "The guy, big-headed, with airy-fairy plan, will sleep at daylight [...] and ends up gladiator... or carter-greengrocer". [Ep. I, 18; on freeloader' s career]

Asclepiàdes of Bithynia (124 - 40 BCE av.). A portrait of him has been found in Capitol. Since 91 in Rome, he was the head of a first atomistic private school of medicine in Rome (Schola medicorum). According to Galen he was an Epicurean: atoms, mortality of soul, no mantic dreams, influence and possibly acquaintance with Zeno of Sydon's psychotherapic methodology, and Phaedrus' in Italy. He studied in Alexandria, where Erophilus (anti-teleologist) and Erasistratus (zenith of career in 258 BC) had been active, performing dissections and vivisection of sensory and motor nerves. A . treated according to material nature's organization, rejecting teleological patterns, re-establishing organic whole for acute diseases without intentional shamanism, with massages, exercises, hydrotherapy, diet, ... wine as a sedative, surgery [Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXVI, 7, 3] and the chronical ones through kindness and attention: “Where there is love of human, there is also love of the art”; he introduced emetics, enemas, bloodletting, acupuncture for dropsy, pharingotomy; he found microbes in polluted water may cause disease. For A.. body is constituted by corpuscle/molecules (ogkoi ) spaced out by poroi, which may be disintegrated up to particles by some trauma. Apperception has a major role in the knowledge, and speech therapy in order to re-establishes mental equilibrium. “Nature not only helps but also harms” [in Caelius, Diseases 1.109: no providence]. A fragment of Epicurean psychotherapy (Epikoyros meant helper) taught for instance: “When to opinion of a big evil is added another opinion too, that it's necessary, it's right , it's our duty to grieve for a misfortune, then it causes the storm of depression. Agamemnon tore his hair out, as if baldness helped to simplify his problems. All these scenes are made by assumption they are due.”[Tusc. Disp.]. He established old persons' intelligence seems better but is actually worses [Sextus, A.M. VII 323]. If soul is bodily it's subject to wear... Some Alexandrine scientific researches (nervous and circulatory systems), recognizable in Lucretius' physiology, not found in Perì Physeos' fragments so far, have suggested a Lucretius' discipleship at A.' school. By his followers, e.g. Themison and Antonius Musa and the Methodist school, he remained a legendary figure : he took credit of the resurrection of a dead ... [according to Pliny the Elder. Possibly a case of catalepsy].