Philodemus
From Epicurus Wiki
Philodemus of Gadara [Φιλόδημος] c. 110 BCE - c. 40/35 BCE) was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon and Demetrius Laco, heads of the school in the Garden of Epicurus, outside Athens, before settling in Rome about 80 BCE.
He may have emigrated as a boy with his parents, for religious or financial reasons. The Judean Yannai forced Judaism on the Gadarians, and the city endured under varying regimes which taxed and tolled differently. He went to Italy via Sicily, perhaps brought with him some or most of the older philosophical books, or employed the antiquarian collection that Sulla, Memmius, and others had seized from Athens. We know From the Suda we know he was expelled from Himera because his religious views were thought to have caused an epidemic.
Philodemus was an innovative thinker in the area of aesthetics. He taught Virgil and was an influence on Horace's Ars Poetica.
He influenced Roman literature and philosophy from 70 to 40 through twenty books or so on aesthetics, namely his trilogy On Music, On Poems , and On Rhetoric (the latter dedicated to C. Vibius Pansa Caetronianus), On Diction and On Beauty (lost), and a work On Sensation. The Greek anthology contains thirty-four of his epigrams. Horace' s Ars Poetica (Ad Pisones) is likely addressed to their patron Piso; he cites also an epigram of Philodemus (Serm. I. 2. 121).
He was a friend of Piso, PHerc. 312 mentions Siro, and confirms Phld. spent time at Herculaneum; On the Good K'ing according to Homer is dedicated to Piso who was implicated in a profligacy by Cicero (In Pisonem, 29); Cic., however, praises Philodemus warmly for his philosophic views and for the elegans lascivia of his poems (cf. Pis. 68-72; Luc 106, Fam VI 11 2). Cicero also compliments Philodemus, along with Siro, as one of the "excellent and learned friends" of Torquatus. (De Finibus 2.119).
Archaeological excavations revealed an extensive library at Piso's Villa at Herculaneum, a significant part of which was formed by a library of Epicurean texts, some of which were present in more than one copy, suggesting the possibility that this section of Piso's library was Philodemus' own.
Of the recovered scrolls, thirty-six treatises are attributed to Philodemus. These works deal with music, rhetoric, ethics, signs, virtues and vices, the good king, and defend the Epicurean standpoint against the Stoics and the Peripatetics. The first fragments of Philodemus from Herculaneum were published in 1824 CE.
Ph. wrote and composed on ethics: On Marriage (lost); On Praise (lost) ; On Characters and Ways of Life; On Conversation Pherc 873; On Thankfulness PHerc1414; On Death (at least 4 books) PHerc 1050, 189, 1807; On Vices and Opposite Virtues (at least 10 books): (Flattery Pherc 222 1457,1675, 223, 1082, 1089, 1643 , Economy Pherc 1424 , Arrogance, Pherc 1008, Money Greed Pherc 115, 465, 896, 1613, 253, 1090, 1077 , Slander); On Passions (10 books): (Lunacy Pherc 57, Anger PHerc 1821, Excess PHerc 1017, Envy PHerc 1678)
On Philosophy: On Gods (at least 3 books) PHerc 126; On Gods activity PHerc 89, 152/157, 1049, 1100, 1577/1579, 1638 ; On Providence PHerc 1670; List of Philosophers (10 books); On Epicurus Pherc 1232, 1289; On Signs and Methods of Inference (at least 3 books) PHerc. 1065; On Rhetoric (10 books; the largest fragments as a whole). No book on Physics.
Quotations on: Cicero De Finibus 2.119 || Cicero In Pisonem 68-72,74 (Nisbet ed.) || Asconius' about Cic. In Pis. 68 || Horace Serm. 1.2.119 ff. || Philip KAP 4.2.8 f. || Strabo 16.2.29 || Diogenes Laertius 10.3 || Souda || Ambrose, Epist. 14 (63), 13. Zelzer (CSEL 82/83,241 f. = Epic. fr.385a Us. || Pseudo-Acron (commentary on Horace: "Philodemus, very distinguished Epicurean") || Egyptian papyrus' fragments, one century after his death too: e.g. P Oxy. 3724 cols. 4,25 and 5,29.
