LUCRETIUS AXD EPICURUS. 437 



And so this particular matter well illustrates the attitude of 

 Epicurus and his school to technical culture or towards the 

 cultivation of technical knowledge. Usener has collected the 

 passages: Epicurea, p. 170, sqq. Cf. particularly Diog. 10, 6 

 Tzatoziw^ OS Tzdcrai', fJ-oyAruz, (fs^rfs., zdxdzcov \j.pdfjLV>o^ and 

 Quintil. 12, 2, 24, *'fugere omnem disciplinam." But, we 

 are all told, there are doubts as to the genuineness of the letter 

 to Pythocles, so that Usener, while critically editing it with the 

 other two letters, brackets the title. This is due to a notice of 

 Philodemus in the Herculanean papyri, 2d collation, Tom. i, 

 fol. 152, with Usener's supplements, p. 34. 



'* 6-0^'' r^'a] V r.'v [a] [/a] ii^idv [es] v "cot; -£p\ tvjo)'^ 

 ^emroiJ.yi'^ xdi rob ~ep\ aperiby xri . . .'' 



The notice of Philodemus, who was a close contemporary of 

 Lucretius and intimate friend of Calpurnius Piso, really is, in the 

 first place, a prima facie proof that this piece of Epicurean writ- 

 ing existed in his day and had a place among the works of Epi- 

 curus. Further, the summaries must have (like the xij()iai do^ac) 

 enjoyed a much greater vogue than the bulky w^orks of Epi- 

 curus ; they were evidently studied and passed on from genera- 

 tion to generation in a school in which the ipse dixit of the 

 master was zealously maintained as the standard of true doc- 

 trine. It is natural, on the other hand, and most probable that 

 a man of real attainments and wide knowledge like Philodemus 

 had little love for this weakling among the intellectual progeny 

 of the son of Neocles, and would have been glad to have it 

 neglected or cast aside as a bastard. 



The genuine and profound indifference of Epicurus towards 

 this entire sphere of themes I need not emphasize again ; it is 

 unfair to demand (as Usener does) more apt arrangement and 

 fitness in the succession of themes — or what succession of 

 themes would Usener postulate ? The strongest argument for 

 the genuineness of this second-rate product of Epicurus, how- 

 ever, is afforded by the parallel of Lucretius' themes. 



He is not (as Epicurus did not) desiring to write an exhaus- 



Annals N. Y. Acad. Sci.,XI, January, 1899 — 29. 



