EPICTETUS 



2362 



EPICURUS 



This does not mean that every-day matters 

 cannot be introduced, but that they must be 

 subordinate to the central lofty theme. With 

 conditions so hard to meet, it must be an am- 

 bitious poet who attempts an epic. Not all 

 who have made the attempt have been suc- 

 cessful, but almost every great language of the 

 world has one outstanding epic ; only the Greek 

 has more than one. In Greek there are the 

 Iliad and the Odyssey; in Latin there is the 

 Aeneid; in Italian, Dante's Divine Comedy; in 

 German, the Nibelungenlied; in Spanish, the 

 Poem of the Cid; in French, the Chanson de 

 Roland; in English, Paradise Lost, and in Fin- 

 nish, the Kalevala. 



These epics group themselves naturally into 

 two classes the national, or folk, epic, and the 

 literary epic. The process whereby an epic of 

 the former class came into existence is most in- 

 teresting. No poet ever declared, "I shall write 

 a great poem about the .national hero;" no one 

 man composed all the ringing verses ; but grad- 

 ually, year by year and perhaps century by 

 century, songs grew up about some favorite 

 hero until there was a great cycle. One singer 

 added new narrative, another polished rough 

 places in the old, and so, with unnumbered 

 authors, the national epic reached its comple- 

 tion. Critics believe that the Iliad was so writ- 

 ten, and perhaps the Odyssey; certainly the 

 Cid and Roland poems and the Nibelungenlied 

 were so composed. But the Aeneid, the Divine 

 Comedy and Paradise Lost are different, for 

 each is the work of one man, and is con- 

 sciously modeled on the other type of epic. 



If -the term epic be used less rigidly, as it 

 sometimes is, many other poems may be in- 

 cluded under it. Thus Hiawatha may stand 

 as the American epic, while Pope's Rape of the 

 Lock takes rank as a mock epic. C.W.K. 



Related Subjects. The reader will find refer- 

 ence to the following articles in these volumes 

 interesting and profitable. 

 Aeneid Nibelungenlied 



Iliad Odyssey 



Literature Paradise Lost 



EPICTETUS, epikte'tus, from the Greek, 

 meaning The Acquired, was a Stoic philoso- 

 pher, born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, Greece. 

 In his youth he was the slave of Nero's freed- 

 man Epaphroditus. He afterwards lived and 

 taught at Rome until banished by the Em- 

 peror Domitian in A. D. 90. His teachings, 

 which are known only through the notes pre- 

 served by his pupil Arrian, more nearly ap- 

 proach the spirit of Christianity than any 



other ancient philosophy. They include the 

 love of good and hatred of evil, obedience to 

 the dictates of conscience and a perfect trust 

 in a wise and merciful Providence. See STOI- 

 CISM. 



EPICURUS, epiku'rus (342-270 B.C.), illus- 

 trious Greek philosopher and founder of the 

 Epicurean school, was born on the island of 

 Samos. He settled in Athens, and in 307 B. c. 

 established a school of philosophy in a garden 

 which he purchased and laid out for this pur- 

 pose. Because of this incident, his followers 

 were known as the "philosophers of the gar- 

 den." He is said to have written extensively, 

 although only three of his letters, a few frag- 

 ments, and a number of sayings have come 

 down to us. The principal sources of our 

 knowledge of Epicurus are Cicero, Plutarch 

 and Lucretius. He was a successful teacher, 

 and his pupils, who came in great numbers 

 from all parts of Greece, Rome and Asia 

 Minor, were devoted to their master as well 

 as to his doctrines. 



Epicureanism, a system of philosophy in 

 vogue the latter part of the fourth century 

 B. c. Although Epicurus, the founder, laid 

 down the doctrine that pleasure is the chief 

 good, the life that he and his friends led was 

 one of greatest temperance and simplicity. 

 In psychology, Epicurus was a materialist, 

 holding that the soul is a bodily substance com- 

 posed of intangible particles scattered through 

 the whole body. "Business, and cares, and 

 anger, and benevolence," he argues, "are not 

 accordant with happiness, but arise from weak- 

 ness, and fear, and dependence upon others." 



According to Epicurus, the sources and tests 

 of all moral truth are the feelings pleasure 

 and pain. We delight in one and avoid the 

 other. "When we say that pleasure is the end 

 of life, we do not mean the pleasure of the 

 debauchee, but freedom of the body from pain 

 and the soul from anxiety." The philosopher 

 rested justice on the same basis as temper- 

 ance. Denying any abstract and eternal right 

 and wrong, he believed injustice to be an 

 evil, because it exposed the individual to dis- 

 comfort from his fellowmen. The duties of 

 friendship and good fellowship he based upon 

 the same theories of security to the individual. 



Believing that the dissolution of the body 

 involves that of the soul, Epicurus argued that 

 the most terrible of all evils, death, is nothing 

 to us, "since when we are, death is not ; and 

 when death is, we are not. It is nothing then 

 to the dead or the living; for to the latter it 



