Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco—Roman World

Abstract

Abstract AT the risk of over-generalization, I shall be claiming in this paper that in the Greco-Roman world, especially during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, what gives philosophical movements their cohesion and identity is less a disinterested common quest for the truth than a virtually religious commitment to the authority of a founder figure. More specifically, I shall try to illustrate how this kind of loyalty can look when put into practice, using the earliest datable instance known to me, from the writings of the first-century BC Epicurean Philodemus. I accept that there may be individual professed school-adherents who break this pattern. But the pattern itself must be appreciated before the nature of any such exceptions can be understood.