Epicurus (, " ally, comrade "; 341 BC – 270 BC ) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.

Epicurus emphasized friendship as an important ingredient of happiness, and the school resembled in many ways a community of friends living together.

After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus ; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era ( such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes and Ercolano ).

After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus ; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era ( such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Ercolano ).

The school of Epicurus, called " The Garden ," was based in Epicurus ' home and garden.

Epicurus emphasized friendship as an important ingredient of happiness, and the school seems to have been a moderately ascetic community which rejected the political limelight of Athenian philosophy.

* 307 Epicurus founds his philosophic school in Athens.

After the time of the younger Aristippus, the school broke up into different factions, represented by Anniceris, Hegesias, and Theodorus, who all developed rival interpretations of Cyrenaic doctrines, many of which were responses to the new system of hedonistic philosophy laid down by Epicurus.

* The Garden ( a school of philosophy founded by Epicurus c. 306 BCE )

Together with his brother Timocrates of Lampsacus he joined the school Epicurus had set up in their home town.

His friendship with Epicurus started after the latter's escape from Mytilene in 307 or 306 BC when he opened a philosophical school at Lampsacus associating himself with other citizens of the town, like Pythocles, Colotes, and Idomeneus.

With these fellow citizens he moved to Athens, where they founded a school of philosophy with Epicurus as head, or hegemon, while Polyaenus, Hermarchus and Metrodorus were kathegemones.

He was the disciple and successor of Epicurus as head of the school.

Hermarchus was a son of Agemarchus, a poor man of Mytilene ( in insular Greece ), and was at first brought up as a rhetorician, but afterwards became a faithful disciple of Epicurus, who left to him his garden, and appointed him his successor as the head of his school, about 270 BC.

Entering the University of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a dissertation De distinctione mentis a corpore ( on the difference of the mind from the body ), in which he attacked the doctrines of Epicurus, Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza.

Marx's doctoral thesis concerned the atomism of Epicurus and Democritus, which ( along with stoicism ) is considered the foundation of materialist philosophy.

Epicurus is a key figure in the development of science and the scientific method because of his insistence that nothing should be believed, except that which was tested through direct observation and logical deduction.

The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three letters, which are to be found in book X of Diogenes Laertius ' Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines, reported as well in Diogenes ' book X, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library.

Cudworth criticizes two main forms of materialistic atheism, the atomic, adopted by Democritus, Epicurus and Hobbes ; and the hylozoic, attributed to Strato of Lampsacus, which explains everything by the supposition of an inward self-organizing life in matter.

Forms of hedonism were put forward by Aristippus and Epicurus ; Aristotle argued that eudaimonia is the highest human good and Augustine wrote that " all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness.

Several of these Herculaneum papyri which are unrolled and deciphered were found to contain a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the school's enduring popularity.

Epicurus rejected any possibility of an afterlife, while still contending that one need not fear death: " Death is nothing to us ; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.

Following the lead of Aristotle, Epicurus also refers to impressions in the form of mental images which are projected on the mind.

Book 10, which discusses Epicurus, is of high quality, and contains three long letters, written by Epicurus, which explain Epicurean doctrines.

On this matter, gives evidence that Machiavelli may have seen himself as having learned something from Democritus, Epicurus and classical materialism, which was however not associated with political realism, or even any interest in politics.

Epicurus ’ basic doctrine is that a life of virtue is the life which generates the most amount of pleasure, and it is for this reason that we ought to be virtuous.

The Syntagma philosophicum sub-divides, according to the usual fashion of the Epicureans, into logic ( which, with Gassendi as with Epicurus, is truly canonic ), physics and ethics.

460 – 370 BC ) and Epicurus ( 341 – 270 BC ); from which academic speculation proposes is the derivation of the logical architecture of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, because exchange value, the " syllogisms " ( C-M-C ' and M-C-M ') for simple commodity circulation, and the circulation of value as capital, derive from the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle.

It appears from Cicero that he possessed an estate on which were the ruins of Epicurus ' house, and that he had determined to build on the site a house for himself.

To some extent these philosophers were all trying to meet the challenge laid down by Epicureanism, and the success of Epicurus was in developing a system of philosophy which would prove to be more comprehensive and sophisticated than its rivals.

Epicurus maintained that the unhappiness and degradation of humankind arose largely from the dread which they entertained of the power of the gods, from terror of their wrath, which was supposed to be displayed by the misfortunes inflicted in this life, and by the everlasting tortures which were the lot of the guilty in a future state, or where these feelings were not strongly developed, from a vague dread of gloom and misery after death.

Democritus ' atomist philosophy was later adopted by Epicurus ( 341 – 270 BCE ).

To Epicurus the summum bonum, or greatest good, was prudence, exercised through moderation and caution.

Epicurus reasoned if there was an afterlife and immortality, the fear of death was irrational.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia — peace and freedom from fear — and aponia — the absence of pain — and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends.

In 311 / 310 BC Epicurus taught in Mytilene but caused strife and was forced to leave.

Although Epicurus has been commonly misunderstood to advocate the rampant pursuit of pleasure, he was actually after the absence of pain ( both physical and mental, i. e., suffering )-a state of satiation and tranquility that was free of the fear of death and the retribution of the gods.

Epicurus ' teachings were introduced into medical philosophy and practice by the Epicurean doctor Asclepiades of Bithynia, who was the first physician who introduced Greek medicine in Rome.

This argument was a type favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist.

This triad, as well as the egalitarianism of Epicurus, was carried forward into the American freedom movement and Declaration of Independence, by the American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, as " all men are created equal " and endowed with certain " inalienable rights ," such as " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Epicurus was first to assert human freedom as coming from a fundamental indeterminism in the motion of atoms.

This has led some philosophers to think that for Epicurus free will was caused directly by chance.

Epicurus was also a significant source of inspiration and interest for both Arthur Schopenhauer, having particular influence on the famous pessimist's views on suffering and death, as well as one of Schopenhauer's successors: Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was attracted to, among other things, Epicurus ' ability to maintain a cheerful philosophical outlook in the face of painful physical ailments.

However, he thought that Epicurus ' conception of happiness as freedom from anxiety was too passive and negative.

In Rabbinic literature the term Epikoros is used, without a specific reference to the Greek philosopher Epicurus, yet it seems apparent that the term was derived from his name.

Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus and Leucippus.

Following Aristippus — about whom very little is known — Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear ( ataraxia ) as well as absence of bodily pain ( aponia ) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of our desires.

As much as Epicurus or Socrates was content to possess is best, or-in the Roman manner-a fortune equal to the equestrian order.