Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos. At the age of
eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed
the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus. In 306 B.C., he opened a
school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been
called the "philosophers of the garden." His life was simple, chaste,
and temperate. Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has
come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for
the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by
Diogenes Laertius and others. Moreover, some fragments of his work on
Nature have been found at Herculaneum. The additional sources of our
knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca,
Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius. Our information from Epicurean
writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious
than what we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We
have no Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Inicretius; whereas
respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important
writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most
valuable evidence.
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