This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the main issues raised by the Charmides and debated in the secondary literature. In addition to an interpretative summary of the dialogue, it discusses the historical context, contends that the main characters are systematically ambiguous, surveys the rival interpretations of the dialogue’s subject and strategies, and explores its intertextual dimensions. Importantly, it outlines the interpretation that will be defended in the following chapters, which pivots on a distinction between two rival conceptions of self-knowledge at play in the dialogue, one attributable to Socrates and consisting in finding the limits of human knowledge, the other advanced by Critias and transcending those limits. The latter is Critias’ conception of the ‘science of science’, which, the commentary contends, is the sole direct object of refutation occupying the second part of the dialogue.

The chapter addresses the second horn of the puzzle articulated by Socrates, i.e. whether, assuming that a ‘science of science’ is possible, it is beneficial for us. The Argument from Benefit suggests a negative answer to that question and conducts a devastating attack against Critias’ conception of temperance as a science only of science itself. Even though the Argument from Benefit raises conceptual and psychological issues, its main focus is ethical and political. In particular, Critias’ ideal of the rule of the ‘science of science’ is suggestive of an incongruous society run by technocrats rather than statesmen, under the guidance of a science revolving solely around itself and oblivious to the common good. Socrates’ critique is particularly relevant in light of contemporary populist tendencies away from politics and towards a technocratic and managerial model of governance.

This chapter as well as the next lie at the heart of the interpretation defended in this monograph. Chapter 10 focuses on the Argument from Relatives, which addresses the first horn of the puzzle raised by Socrates, namely whether a ‘science of science’ is possible. While this argument is commonly believed to deliberately undermine its own point, on the account offered in this chapter the Argument from Relatives is both dialectically effective and philosophically legitimate. Notably, it makes a perfectly plausible philosophical point, namely that strict reflexivity is a phenomenon both psychologically implausible and conceptually problematic. The commentary takes on board recent advances in the interpretation of Platonic relativity and shows Plato venturing into the domains of epistemology, metaphysics, and logic.

The topic of this chapter is Charmides’ final attempt to define temperance: temperance is ‘doing one’s own’. Dramatically, this is a turning point in the dialogue, since, after Charmides is refuted, he withdraws from the forefront of the action and is replaced by Critias, who will undertake to defend the definition anew. Philosophically, the twofold discussion of temperance as ‘doing one’s own’ links the first part of the search, in which Socrates and Charmides aim to discover whether there is temperance in Charmides’ soul, to the second part, in which Socrates and Critias explore the relation between temperance and self-knowledge. In addition to reconstructing and assessing the refutation of Charmides by Socrates, this chapter also includes a discussion of the sociopolitical context in which ‘doing one’s own’ was considered a virtue.

In this chapter, I examine to what extent Epicurus’ message was still relevant as such in the late Roman Republic and to what extent it had to be adapted to the new ideological and political circumstances. An analysis of books 1 and 2 of Cicero’s On Ends shows that Cicero had perfectly appropriated the Greek philosophical tradition and that he basically thought along the lines of the age-old school discussions. A typically Roman context seems to have had only limited influence on his argument: his conception of virtue, for instance, or his stress on the importance of the brilliant achievements of famous ancestors, though illustrated with many Roman examples, are borrowed from traditional Greek arguments. His attack on Torquatus’ inconsistency between words and deeds is clever and convincing, but rests on a theoretical construct. All in all, the Epicureans of Cicero’s day saw no major problems in adapting their philosophical convictions to the complex world of the Roman Republic.

Catullus’ collection contains several clear echoes of the work of two contemporary Epicurean poets, Lucretius and Philodemus. Indeed, several of the neoteric poet’s central themes (the attractions of otium and disengagement from public life; patronage by members of the high elite and its pitfalls; dissatisfaction with the mos maiorum) bring him potentially into close alignment with Epicurean ideals. In this chapter, however, I argue that, on closer consideration, Catullus’ intertextual engagement with his two contemporaries points rather to a self-consciously antagonistic stance towards Epicurean ethics. Catullus’ attack on ‘Socration’ in Poem 47, combined with parodic echoes of Philodemus’ epigrams in Poems 13 and 43, bears comparison with Cicero’s deployment of anti-Epicurean clichés in the In Pisonem; similarly, Philodemean and Lucretian echoes underline a striking divergence both from Epicurean ideals of friendship and from the rejection of romantic love explicit in Lucretius and arguably implicit in Philodemus’ Xanthippe cycle.

Though Cicero offers his most explicit, detailed critiques of Epicureanism in De Finibus and De Natura Deorum, his anti-Epicureanism consistently works itself into a wide swath of his theoretical writings over the last 13 years of his life. Therein Cicero consistently uses a rhetorical strategy whereby he avoids naming the Epicureans outright. Instead he employs a series of shorthand descriptions to attack the Epicureans for what he understands to be their basic tenets. In employing this tactic Cicero both slights the Epicureans by leaving them unnamed and reduces their philosophy to a set of behaviors that he thinks best encapsulate their beliefs. They fail by believing the soul to be mortal, by prioritizing an animal-like desire for pleasure over ratio and oratio, and by using quasi-commercial calculations to make ethical decisions. In each of these ways they fail most of all in Cicero’s eyes by representing a threat to the social fabric of the republic.

This paper offers a provocative re-reading of the passage about the sizes of the sun, moon, and stars late in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (5.564-613). Attention to not only details of argumentation but also shades of meaning and contorted syntax shows a more complex, ambiguous presentation than generally acknowledged. This paper suggests that Lucretius' narrator—rather than merely parroting wrong, ridiculed doctrines—pulls student-readers into the process of inquiry. It becomes the didactic audience’s task to receive data from sense-perception and use lessons learned earlier in the poem in making correct judgments based upon that data. In Epicurean and Lucretian accounts of reality, the senses themselves are infallible; so the Lucretius-ego’s assertion that the sun as big as perceived by our senses must also be infallible. But our interpretation of what that assertion entails about the sun’s actual size is a matter of judgment, and thus fallible and uncertain indeed.

This paper reexamines the intertextual connection between Lucretius and Ennius from a multi-medial angle. Ennius’ tragedies were regularly revived in the late Republic, and selections from his epic Annals appear to have been recited in public contexts as well. These performances seem to have stood in a relationship of reciprocal influence with wall paintings, as stagings inspired painters, and their artwork influenced actors in turn. Accordingly, Lucretius treats Ennius’ works as particularly influential expressions of a harmful philosophy that threatens Epicurean ataraxia in a variety of contexts. Analyzing familiar points of contact between the two authors in Book One of On the Nature of Things and highlighting a number of as-yet undiscussed allusions, I argue that Lucretius equips his readers with the tools to challenge Ennius in all three of the relevant media, be it on the page, on the stage, or in images.

This chapter claims that Atticus offers a fruitful case study of Epicureanism in the late Republic and can thereby contribute to broader questions of philosophical allegiance in the ancient world. There has, of course, been valuable discussion of philosophical allegiance in recent years. A reconsideration of Atticus’ Epicureanism will fruitfully extend these debates precisely because he is a not a perfect fit for any of these categories. He was not a professional philosopher; in any case, it is dangerous to assume that the thunderings of Lucretius or Philodemus on the Epicurean wise man map reliably onto the complexities of life, especially in the case of Atticus.

Focusing on the revelation of Epicurean thanatology in the third book of On the Nature of Things, this essay argues that the most vehement strains of Lucretius’ diatribe against the fear of death are a polemic against kitsch. It explicates the pervasively frank, anti-kitsch stance of Epicureanism and explores how Lucretius combats kitsch, even as kitsch was enthusiastically circulated in other Roman contexts in the form of Epicurean objects and clichés. In the vignettes of the departed father and the maudlin drinkers in DRN 3, Lucretius draws our attention to the way that kitsch (the image of the stereotypically sweet children, the trite lamentation, the pseudo-philosophy, the falseness) occludes reality. The denunciation of kitsch is fundamental to Epicurean teaching: to deny that our metaphorical city has penetrable walls and to bemoan the eventuality of one’s own death is to refuse the nature of things.

This chapter reexamines the question of Caesar’s putative Epicureanism. While there is no reason to believe that Caesar was a committed Epicurean, there exist tantalizing pieces of evidence that he may have adopted for himself a version of the tenet that “death is nothing to us.” These include his observation, in his speech about the convicted Catilinarians (as reported by Sallust), that death is not a punishment but the endpoint of all experience, and his late-in-life statement (versions of which are found in Cicero’s Pro Marcello and in Suetonius) that he had “lived enough.” The chapter concludes by considering the criteria scholars typically employ for gauging philosophical affiliation in antiquity, arguing for a broadening of definitions and for considering even a some-time Epicurean as Caesar as part of the history of Epicureanism.

This chapter examines Nature's ultimatum at On the Nature of Things 3.931-962 as a contribution to the much-discussed problem of “deprivation”. This is the problem that death may be bad after all, despite the elimination of sensation, because it deprives us of the opportunity to complete projects that are worthwhile. As I try to show, Lucretius personifies Nature in order to have her argue, in her own words, for a message that Lucretius develops throughout his entire poem: this is the necessity of accepting the natural conditions of our existence. Nature underscores this necessity with the harshness of her words. At the same time, she shows that the conditions themselves are not harsh. Instead, she has provided us with ample opportunity to achieve happiness within a finite lifetime. In sum, she does not deprive us; for she has made it possible for us to flourish fully within the limits she has placed on us.