Epicurus & Metrodorus - bust in Louvre

Epicurus - Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, R.D. Hicks, Ed.- D. L. 10.1

Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was as citizen of Athens of the deme Gargettus, and, as Metrodorus says in his book On Noble Birth, of the family of the Philaidae. He is said by Heraclides1 in his Epitome of Sotion, as well as by other authorities, to have been brought up at Samos after the Athenians had sent settlers there and to have come to Athens at the age of eighteen, at the time when Xenocrates was lecturing at the Academy and Aristotle in Chalcis. Upon the death of Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion of the Athenian settlers from Samos by Perdiccas,2 Epicurus left Athens to join his father in Colophon. [2] For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates.3 And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards put forward independent views by the foundation of the school called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his Life of Epicurus, says that he turned to philosophy in disgust at the schoolmasters who could not tell him the meaning of "chaos" in Hesiod.4 According to Hermippus, however, he started as a schoolmaster, but on coming across the works of Democritus turned eagerly to philosophy. [3] Hence the point of Timon's allusion5 in the lines :

Again there is the latest and most shameless of the physicists, the schoolmaster's son6 from Samos, himself the most uneducated of mortals.

Ἐπίκουρος- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Ἐπίκουρος Νεοκλέους καὶ Χαιρεστράτης, Ἀθηναῖος, τῶν δήμων Γαργήττιος, γένους τοῦ τῶν Φιλαϊδῶν, ὥς φησι Μητρόδωρος ἐν τῷ Περὶ εὐγενείας. τοῦτόν φασιν ἄλλοι τε καὶ Ἡρακλείδης ἐν τῇ Σωτίωνος ἐπιτομῇ κληρουχησάντων Ἀθηναίων τὴν Σάμον ἐκεῖθι τραφῆναι: ὀκτωκαιδεκέτη δ᾽ ἐλθεῖν εἰς Ἀθήνας, Ξενοκράτους μὲν ἐν Ἀκαδημείᾳ, Ἀριστοτέλους δ᾽ ἐν Χαλκίδι διατρίβοντος. τελευτήσαντος δὲ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Μακεδόνος καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐκπεσόντων ὑπὸ Περδίκκου μετελθεῖν εἰς Κολοφῶνα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα: 2 [2] χρόνον δέ τινα διατρίψαντα αὐτόθι καὶ μαθητὰς ἀθροίσαντα πάλιν ἐπανελθεῖν εἰς Ἀθήνας ἐπὶ Ἀναξικράτους: καὶ μέχρι μέν τινος κατ᾽ ἐπιμιξίαν τοῖς ἄλλοις φιλοσοφεῖν, ἔπειτα ἰδίᾳ ἀπο τὴν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ κληθεῖσαν αἵρεσιν συστήσαντα. ἐφάψασθαι δὲ φιλοσοφίας αὐτός φησιν ἔτη γεγονὼς τετταρεσκαίδεκα. Ἀπολλό- δωρος δ᾽ ὁ Ἐπικούρειος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ τοῦ Ἐπικούρου βίου φησὶν ἐλθεῖν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν καταγνόντα τῶν γραμματιστῶν, ἐπειδὴ μὴ ἐδυνή- θησαν ἑρμηνεῦσαι αὐτῷ τὰ περὶ τοῦ παρ᾽ Ἡσιόδῳ χάους. φησὶ δ᾽ Ἕρμιππος γραμματοδιδάσκαλον αὐτὸν γεγενῆσθαι, ἔπειτα μέντοι περιτυχόντα τοῖς Δημοκρίτου βιβλίοις ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν ᾆξαι: 3 [3] διὸ καὶ τὸν Τίμωνα φάσκειν περὶ αὐτοῦ:

ὕστατος αὖ φυσικῶν καὶ κύντατος, ἐκ Σάμου ἐλθὼν γραμμαδιδασκαλίδης, ἀναγωγότατος ζωόντων.

 

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Épicure - 450px-Epicurus_Louvre

Hermes-type bust (pillar with the top as a sculpted head) of Epicurus leaned with his back against his disciple Metrodorus of Lampsacus (the younger) (note : the legend at the bottom of the hermes is mixed with the Metrodorus side). Pentelic marble, Roman artwork, Imperial Era (2nd-half of the 2nd century ?). Found in Rome, Italy.

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► GREEK: Ἃ δὲ Μητρόδωρος ἐν τῷ περὶ Φιλοσοφίας ἐξορχούμενος πολιτείαν γέγραφεν, οὐκ ᾤμην δεῖν παρεῖναι· λέγει δέ, ὅτι

« Τῶν σοφῶν τινες ὑπὸ δαψιλείας τύφου οὕτως καλῶς ἐνεῖδον τὸ ἔργον αὐτῆς, ὥστ´ οἴχονται φερόμενοι πρὸς τὰς αὐτὰς Λυκούργῳ καὶ Σόλωνι ἐπιθυμίας κατὰ τοὺς περὶ βίων λόγους καὶ ἀρετῆς ».

Τῦφος οὖν ἦν καὶ δαψίλεια τύφου τὸ ἐλευθέρας εἶναι τὰς Ἀθήνας τήν τε Σπάρτην εὐνομεῖσθαι καὶ τοὺς νέους μὴ θρασύνεσθαι, μηδ´ ἐξ ἑταιρῶν παιδοποιεῖσθαι μηδὲ πλοῦτον καὶ τρυφὴν καὶ ἀσέλγειαν ἄρχειν ἀλλὰ νόμον καὶ δικαιοσύνην ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν· αὗται γὰρ ἦσαν ἐπιθυμίαι Σόλωνος 〈καὶ Λυκούργου〉. Καὶ λοιδορῶν ὁ Μητρόδωρος ἐπιλέγει τοῖς εἰρημένοις

« Διὸ καὶ καλῶς ἔχει τὸν ἐλεύθερον ὡς ἀληθῶς γέλωτα γελάσαι ἐπί τε δὴ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς Λυκούργοις τούτοις καὶ Σόλωσιν ».

► FRENCH: « Mais je ne crois pas devoir omettre ici ce que Métrodore a écrit dans son traité sur la Philosophie, où il abjure la politique. Il y dit en propres termes :

« Il y a des sages qui, par un excès d'arrogance et de vanité, se sont tellement passionnés pour l'administration des affaires publiques, qu'ils ont donné des préceptes de sagesse et de vertu, et qu'ils ont eu la même ambition que Lycurgue et Solon. »

C'était donc un excès de vanité que de délivrer Athènes des factions qui la divisaient (26) de donner à Sparte de bonnes lois, d'enseigner aux jeunes gens à modérer la fougue de leurs passions, et à ne pas se livrer à des courtisanes , de proscrire des villes les richesses, le luxe et l'intempérance, pour y faire régner les lois et la justice ; 274 car c'était là le désir de Solon. Métrodore, d'un ton de raillerie, ajoute encore :

« Un homme libre peut donc avec raison se moquer de tous les hommes en général, même des Lycurgue et des Solon. »

PLUTARQUE OEUVRES MORALES. TOME V : CONTRE L'ÉPICURIEN COLOTES. - ΠΡΟΣ ΚΩΛΩΤΗΝ Traduction française : D. RICHARD, Paris 1844

► ENGLISH: And Metrodorus' frivolous dismissal of the state in his work On Philosophy should not, I believe, be allowed to pass unnoticed. “Certain sages,” he says, “in their prodigality of conceit, have been so well able to detect the function of the state that in their discourse about ways of life and about virtue they go flying off after the same desires as Lycurgus and Solon.”

It was therefore an excess of vanity that deliver Athens factions which divided (26) to give Sparta good laws, to teach young people to moderate the fury of their passions, and not to engage in courtesans, ban cities wealth, luxury and intemperance, to make laws and rule of justice, 274 because this was the desire of Solon. Metrodorus, in a tone of sarcasm, adds:

“It is therefore fitting to burst into laughter of one truly free at all [other] men and more particularly at these Lycurguses and Solons.” (Adversus Colotem, Plutarch @epikurus.net)

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(en grec Ἐπίκουρος) est un philosophe grec, né à Samos fin -342 ou début -341, mort en -270. Il est le fondateur, en 306 av. J.-C., de l'épicurisme, l'une des plus importantes écoles philosophiques de l'Antiquité. En physique, il soutient que tout ce qui est se compose d'atomes indivisibles. Les atomes se meuvent aléatoirement dans le vide et peuvent se combiner pour former des agrégats de matière. L'âme en particulier serait un de ces agrégats d'atomes, et non une entité spirituelle, notamment d'après son disciple Lucrèce. En éthique, le philosophe grec défend l'idée que le souverain bien est le plaisir, défini essentiellement comme « absence de douleur ». En logique ou épistémologie, Épicure considère que la sensation est à l'origine de toute connaissance et annonce ainsi l'empirisme.

 

 

CLINAMEN=PAREGKLISIS

Dans la physique épicurienne, le clinamen est un écart, une déviation (littéralement une déclinaison) spontanée des atomes par rapport à leur chute verticale dans le vide, qui permet aux atomes de s'entrechoquer. Cette déviation est spatialement et temporellement indéterminée et aléatoire, elle permet d'expliquer l'existence des corps et la liberté humaine dans un cadre matérialiste. Bien que cette théorie ne se retrouve que dans le De rerum natura de l'épicurien latin Lucrèce, elle est attribuée à Épicure lui-même, son œuvre ayant été en grande partie perdue depuis l'antiquité romaine.

 

 

- Rapport à la 'Pataphysique et à l'OuLiPo [modifier]

Ces écarts qui paraissent des accidents de parcours, des épiphénomènes, rapprochent le clinamen de la « science du particulier, quoi qu'on dise qu'il n'y a de science que du général », qu'est la 'Pataphysique.

Dans les Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien, roman à clefs, bible des Pataphysiciens, Alfred Jarry parle précisément de l'éjaculation de « la bête imprévue Clinamen » (livre VI, chapitre XXXIV intitulé justement « Clinamen »). O. Votka, pataphysicien, écrit qu'Épicure « a saisi qu'au centre de toute pensée comme de toute réalité (qui n'est jamais pour quiconque qu'une pensée de réalité), il y a une aberrance infinitésimale, une inflexion indispensable, qui cependant oriente et désoriente tout. Le clinamen est donc bien autre chose qu'un hasard ou qu'une chance comme on le dit souvent. C'est une notion dérisoire qu'Épicure a mis au principe... »

Et l'oulipien Paul Braffort commente : « Ce texte ouvre une polémique (…) sur la relation possible du clinamen avec les relations d’incertitude de la Physique quantique. Mais pour Perec le clinamen intervient surtout comme « mode d’emploi complémentaire » à la mise en œuvre des contraintes oulipiennes ».

Perec définit ainsi le clinamen : « Nous avons un mot pour la liberté, qui s'appelle le clinamen, qui est la variation que l'on fait subir à une contrainte... [Par exemple], dans l'un des chapitres de La vie mode d'emploi, il fallait qu'il soit question de linoleum, il fallait que sur le sol il y ait du linoleum, et ça m'embêtait qu'il y ait du linoleum. Alors j'ai appelé un personnage Lino – comme Lino Ventura. Je lui ai donné comme prénom Lino et ça a rempli pour moi la case Linoleum. Le fait de tricher par rapport à une règle ? Là, je vais être tout à fait prétentieux : il y a une phrase de Paul Klee que j'aime énormément et qui est : Le génie, c'est l'erreur dans le système

 

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Now Neoptolemus, called the Glossographer, a notable man, was from Parium; and Charon the historian and Adeimantus and Anaximenes the rhetorician and Metrodorus the comrade of Epicurus were from Lampsacus; and Epicurus himself was in a sense a Lampsacenian, having lived in Lampsacus and having been on intimate terms with the ablest men of that city, Idomeneus and Leonteus and their followers. It was from here that Agrippa transported the Fallen Lion, a work of Lysippus; { καὶ Μητρόδωρος ὁ τοῦ Ἐπικούρου ἑταῖρος: καὶ αὐτὸς δ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος τρόπον τινὰ Λαμψακηνὸς ὑπῆρξε, διατρίψας ἐν Λαμψάκῳ καὶ φίλοις χρησάμενος τοῖς ἀρίστοις τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ, τοῖς περὶ Ἰδομενέα καὶ Λεοντέα. ἐντεῦθεν δὲ μετήνεγκεν Ἀγρίππας τὸν πεπτωκότα λέοντα, Λυσίππου ἔργον }. and he dedicated it in the sacred precinct between the Lake and the Euripus.[20]

After Lampsacus come Abydus and the intervening places of which the poet, who comprises with them the territory of Lampsacus and part of the territory of Parium (for these two cities were not yet in existence in the Trojan times), speaks as follows: “And those who dwelt about Percote and Practius, and held Sestus and Abydus and goodly Arisbe—these in turn were led by Asius, the son of Hyrtacus, . . . who was brought by his sorrel horses from Arisbe, from the River Sellëeis.

”In speaking thus, the poet seems to set forth Arisbe, whence he says Asius came, as the royal residence of Asius:“who was brought by his horses from Arisbe, from the River Sellëeis.

”But these places are so obscure that even investigators do not agree about them, except that they are in the neighborhood of Abydus and Lampsacus and Parium, and that the old Percote, the site, underwent a change of name. [21]

Of the rivers, the Sellëeis flows near Arisbe, as the poet says, if it be true that Asius came both from Arisbe and from the Sellëeis River. The River Practius is indeed in existence, but no city of that name is to be found, as some have wrongly thought. This river also flows between Abydus and Lampsacus. Accordingly, the words,“and dwelt about Practius, ”should be interpreted as applying to a river, as should also those other words,“and those who dwelt beside the goodly Cephisus River,” and “those who had their famed estates about the Parthenius River.”

Strabon, 13,20

 

Appian, Mithridatic Wars, Chapter 5

B.C. 87 While Mithridates was thus occupied the following events took place in Greece: Archelaus, sailing thither with abundant supplies and a large fleet, possessed himself by force and violence of Delos and other strongholds which had revolted from the Athenians. He slew 20,000 men in these places, most of whom were Italians, and turned the strongholds over to the Athenians. In this way, and by boasting about Mithridates and extravagantly praising him, he brought the Athenians into alliance with him. Archelaus sent them the sacred treasure of Delos by the hands of Aristion, an Athenian citizen, attended by 2000 soldiers to guard the money. These soldiers Aristion made use of to make himself master of the country, putting to death immediately some of those who favored the Romans and sending others to Mithridates. And these things he did although he professed to be a philosopher of the school of Epicurus. Nor was it only in Athens that men played the part of tyrants as did he and before him Critias and his fellow-philosophers. But in Italy, too, some of the Pythagoreans and those known as the Seven Wise Men in other parts of the Grecian world, who undertook to manage public affairs, governed more cruelly, and made themselves greater tyrants than ordinary despots; whence arose doubt and suspicion concerning other philosophers, whether their discourses about wisdom proceeded from a love of virtue or as a comfort in their poverty and idleness. We see many of these now, obscure and poverty-stricken, wearing the garb of philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from envy of the possessors of the same. Those whom they speak ill of have much better reason for despising them. These things the reader should consider as spoken against the philosopher Aristion, who is the cause of this digression.

 

 

Demosthenes, Erotic Essay, 61 47

2 Writings that urged young men to study philosophy formed a distinct literary genre among the ancients under the name “protreptics.” The Epistle to Menoeceus of Epicurus is an extant example.

Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.

Sokrates Nietzsche (Duell der Protreptiker)

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