Philodemus on the Therapy of Vice

Abstract

Abstract Philodemus of Gadara (c.I I0-<7-40 Be), the Greek Epicurean philosopher, migrated to Italy at a relatively early age, placed himself under the patronage of the Roman patrician Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, and founded a flourishing Epicurean community at Herculaneum. He is a near contemporary of Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace and, although the nature and extent of his influence on each of these authors is a matter of ongoing discussion, there is significant evidence that he was known to most of them, both in person and through his writings. Fragments of his works, which survive in the charred papyri of the so-called Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, show him to be an intellectual of impressive range and talent. His elegant epigrams circulated from Italy to Roman Egypt, while his prose compositions targeted sma11er and varying audiences. Their subjects include poetics and literary theory, literary criticism, aesthetics, rhetoric, poetic theology, and philosophy of religion, as well as logic, epistemology, philosophical psychology, and ethics. In all these domains, Philodemus has much to contribute to the discussions of the ancients, as well as to our own.