History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [142]
In the year 311 he founded his school, which was first in Mitylene, then in Lampsacus, and, from 307 onwards, in Athens where he died in 270–1 B.C.
After the hard years of his youth, his life in Athens was placid, and was only troubled by his ill health. He had a house and a garden (apparently separate from the house), and it was in the garden that he taught. His three brothers, and some others had been members of his school from the first, but in Athens his community was increased, not only by philosophic disciples, but by friends and their children, slaves and hetaerae. These last were made an occasion of scandal by his enemies, but apparently quite unjustly. He had a very exceptional capacity for purely human friendship, and wrote pleasant letters to the young children of members of the community. He did not practise that dignity and reserve in the expression of the emotions that was expected of ancient philosophers; his letters are amazingly natural and unaffected.
The life of the community was very simple, partly on principle, and partly (no doubt) for lack of money. Their food and drink was mainly bread and water, which Epicurus found quite satisfying. 'I am thrilled with pleasure in the body,' he says, 'when I live on bread and water, and I spit on luxurious
pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them.' The community depended financially, at least in part, on voluntary contributions. 'Send me some preserved cheese,' he writes, 'that when I like, I may have a feast.' To another friend: 'Send us offerings for the sustenance of our holy body on behalf of yourself and your children.' And again: 'The only contribution I require is that which—ordered the disciples to send me, even if they be among the Hyperboreans. I wish to receive from each of you two hundred and twenty drachmae4 a year and no more.'
Epicurus suffered all his life from bad health, but learnt to endure it with great fortitude. It was he, not a Stoic, who first maintained that a man could be happy on the rack. Two letters written, one a few days before his death, the other on the day of his death, show that he had some right to this opinion. The first says: 'Seven days before writing this the stoppage became complete and I suffered pains such as bring men to their last day. If anything happens to me, do you look after the children of Metrodorus for four or five years, but do not spend any more on them than you now spend on me.' The second says: 'On this truly happy day of my life, as I am at the point of death, I write this to you. The diseases in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their usual severity: but against all this is the joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you. Do you, as I might expect from your devotion from boyhood to me and to philosophy, take good care of the children of Metrodorus.' Metrodorus, who had been one of his first disciples, was dead; Epicurus provided for his children in his will.
Although Epicurus was gentle and kindly towards most people, a different side of his character appeared in his relations to philosophers, especially those to whom he might be considered indebted. 'I suppose,' he says, 'that these grumblers will believe me to be a disciple of The Mollusc (Nausiphanes) and to have listened to his teaching in company with a few bibulous youths. For indeed the fellow was a bad man and his habits such as could never lead to wisdom.'5 He never acknowledged the extent of his indebtedness to Democritus, and as for Leucippus, he asserted that there was