Category:Roman Personages

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Gaius Vestorius, banker and chemical multinational industrialist (Alexandria delocalization) [Vitr. De arch. VII 11.1: "caeruli temperationes Vestorius Puteolis instituit faciundum"] of Puteoli (Naples). Epicurean friend of Atticus and confidential partner of Cicero (56 - 44 B.C.: from exile's end to death) [to Att. IV 14.1: Vestorius noster, our secret partner]. Senatorial order persons weren't allowed to be involved in business (conflict of interest: only estate ownership). Epicurean equites (well-off persons) had no class support, ... or don't wished to be senators, they don't needed showy pomp and saved money:: roll my log and I'll roll yours; know-how in return of roads, aqueducts, army, contracts. Others used with men of straw, often their freedmen. Atticus inherited 7,500,000 sesterces and multiplied them, [C. Nep. Atticus 14.2]. Cicero went back from Cilicia proconsulate with more than 2,000,000 and invested in estates through a friend of a friend (and relative), the above-named Gaius little inclined to rhetoric but good calculating man (arithmeticis satis exercitatum), and fair mate ("in me liberalis") [Att. XIII 50.2; IV 6.3 (May 56)]; known from experience "As a trustee I might not find a person more industrious, more obliging, more loyal than Vestorius" [Att. XIII, 45, 2 (Aug. 45)]. If Epicurean friendship may be both utilitarian and liberal/emotional, Epicureanism of this trio was primarily businesslike. Roman Epicurean schools taught to take easy non-necessary things and to hold strong nerves; perhaps rich business Epicurean gentlemen felt the stress not unduly. We know not much about inner experiences of these Epicurean 'characters'; glooms and bad choices of Cicero are but well-known: Pompey, Brutus, Dolabella, Philippics, second young wife; hence Atticus' rescues, who is revealed much more balanced. Conventionally: his daughter Pomponia and her money married Augustus' statesman Marcus Agrippa, and grand-daughter Agrippina married emperor Tiberius. Of Vestoria gens the tracks are lost, but several Cicero' s letters shall speak of them quite a bit.

Volumnius Eutrapelus. (Cic. Fam. 7,32; 9,26; Att. 15,8,1; Phil. 13,3; Cluent. 198; Nep. Att. 10,2; 12,4). Epicurean, Roman of equestrian order, praefectus fabrum of Antonius, friend of Cassius and Atticus [Nep. Att. 9,4]. "Cicero S.(alutem) D.(icit )Volumnio, [...] might I disentangle myself off of occupations, as in my fancies [...] I'll cut Forum and Curia dead and pass the 'dolce vita' with you and our friends. Your Cassius, my Dolabella, or rather both ours, who are fond of our same studying and amiable conversation". [Fam. VII, 33. from Cilicia]
In a convivium at V.'s house, his freedwoman Volumnia - as an actress - was present and reclining to dine, whereas married women were simply sitting [Ad. Att. 5.1; 46 B.C.E].
Horace reports that, when he wanted to free himself from a cliens, he presented him with a stylish toga: "The guy, big-headed, with airy-fairy plan, will sleep at daylight [...] and end up gladiator... or carter-greengrocer". [Ep. I, 18; on freeloader' s career]

Asclepiàdes of Bithynia (130 - 40 BC av.). Since 91 in Rome, he was the head of a first atomistic private school of medicine in Rome (Schola medicorum). According to Galen he was an Epicurean, but his atomism has eclectic derivation also from Academic atomist Heraclides of Pontus. He studied in Alexandria, where Erophilus (anti-teleologist) and Erasistratus (zenith of career in 258 BC) had been active, performing dissections and vivisection of sensory and motor nerves. A. treated according to material nature's organisation, rejecting teleological patterns, re-establishing organic whole for “not chronic” diseases without intentional shamanism, with massages, exercises, hydrotherapy, diet, ... wine, surgery [Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXVI, 7, 3]; he introduced emetics, enemas, bloodletting, acupuncture for dropsy, pharingotomy.
For A. body is constituted by corpuscle (onkoi ) spaced out by poroi, which may be disintegrated up to particles by some trauma. Apperception has a major role in the knowledge, and speech therapy in order to re-establish mental equilibrium. A fragment of Epicurean psychotherapy (Epikouros meant helper) taught for instance: “When to opinion of a big evil is added another opinion too, that it's necessary, it's right , it's our duty to grieve for a misfortune, then it causes the storm of depression. Agamemnon tore his hair out, as if baldness helped to simplify his problems. All these scenes are made by assumption they are due.”[Tusc. Disp.]
Some Alexandrine scientific researches (nervous and circulatory systems), recognizable in Lucretius' physiology, not found in Perì Physeos' fragments so far, have suggested a Lucretius' discipleship at A. By his followers, e.g. Themison and Antonius Musa and the Methodist school, he remained a legendary figure.

M. Valerius Messala Corvinus (born around 64 B.C.) general in Gaule, consul in 31, Memories writer, Tibullus' patron, Vergilius' Ciris ' addressee. Among the losers at Philippi, like Horace, he will integrate to Augustus Empire too, and to Epicurean circle of Maecenas: [Cic. Ad Fam. VII.12.1; IX.25.2; XV.19.1-3 ]