248 Harry M. Huhhell, Ph.D., 



mainly by Philodemus, at best an authority of the second rank. 

 In fact it has been acutely conjectured by Comparetti^ because 

 several copies were found of the same works of Philodemus that 

 this was Philodemus' own library, and by another ingenious bit 

 of reasoning Comparetti concludes that the villa in which the 

 library was found belonged to the Piso family. We know that 

 Philodemus was for many years a member of the household of 

 L. Calpurnius Piso cos. 58 B. C, and it may well be that at his 

 decease his library passed into the possession of the Pisos.* 



It is to his connection with Piso that we owe most of our 

 knowledge of Philodemus. He was a native of Gadara, had 

 studied with the Epicurean Zeno at Athens, had been expelled 

 from Himera, for what cause we do not know,^ and settled at 

 Rome where he became the client of Piso. From this point our 

 knowledge of him is derived from Cicero. In the attack on 

 Piso Cicero mentions an Epicurean who lived on terms of inti- 

 macy with Piso, and describes in no complimentary terms his 

 activities in commemorating the grosser side of the revels in the 

 Pisonian circle." Cicero mentions no name, but Asconius iden- 



^ La villa de' Pisoni e la sua biblioteca in Pompei e la regione sotterrata 

 di Vesuvio nell' anno LXXIX (Naples, 1879) p. 159 fif. also in Comparetti 

 e de Petra, La villa Ercolanese dei Pisoni, Turin, 1883. 



* Certainty cannot be obtained, and Mommsen (Archae. Zeit., XXXVIII 

 (1880), p. 32) has argued strongly that the villa cannot have belonged to 

 Piso. Comparetti replied in La Bibliotheque de Philodeme, in Alelanges 

 Chatelain, 1910, p. 118 ff. 



^ Evidence of his expulsion is given in a fragment of Aelian quoted by 

 Suidas s. v. nixCivTai. Another notice (s. v. (rvKocpavreiv and '1/j.epala) may 

 also be from Aelian and is commonly printed with the other notice in 

 editions of Aelian, e. g. fr. 40 Hercher. If it refers to Philodemus, it 

 appears that epidemics and famines at Himera were supposed to have 

 been caused by his contemptuous remarks about the gods ; his expulsion 

 followed. 



"In Pisonem 28, 68; Dicet aliquis : unde haec tibi nota sunt? Non 

 mehercules contumeliae causa describam quemquam, praesertim ingenio- 

 sum hominem atque eruditum, cui generi esse ego iratus, ne si cupiam 

 quidem, possum. Est quidam Graecus qui cum isto vivit, homo, ut vere 

 dicam-sic enim cognovi-humanus, sed tamdiu, quam diu cum aliis est aut 

 ipse secum. Is cum istum adolescentem iam tum hac dis irata fronte 

 vidisset, non fastidivit eius amicitiam, cum esset praesertim appetitus : 

 dedit se in consuetudinem, sic ut prorsus una viveret nee fere unquam ab 

 eo discederet. Non apud indoctos, sed, ut arbitror in hominum eruditis- 



