Talk:Philodemus

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Philodemus' On Death. IV Book [PHerc 1050; something in PHerc. 189 and 207 too; http://cispe.org/language_en/immagini.mvd] is a valid help to understand death‘s necessity and inevitability, and the first acquisition for a satisfied life: "About all other goods think people that a little is better than nothing: why would it be different about a broken life?" A body has no need of guarantee of infinite repeatability in order to feel pleasurable a meal , when it is hungry, so the mind must do the same in relation to his own pleasures. Of course in order to make one's soul's desires 'physical' and concrete, one have to drift apart from infinite frustrating desires: power, avarice, extreme knowledge, love. Dionysian spirit and Romanticism walk arm in arm with tragedy and anguish. "The pleasantness lies in propensity nor in excess fruition": without needs no pleasures, without death no needs [parallel reflection on DRN 3. 843-6]; "The one who is getting sage and unrelated to how much time he is going to live has acquired the end-goal [...] and even thought he is losing some following pleasures, he wouldn't lose the past ones"; "when the sage realizes the final dash is on, he mentally covers the whole repertoire of pleasant and taken goods".
It's an enough extensive philosophical work, but literary too (sketches of satirical story), in spite of climax falls of unbroken break. Lucretius' Book III was its predecessor; L. Varius Rufus' On Death (c. 40 B.C. : alas lost work) and A. Bassus' interview (of Seneca, and U503) were some imitators; Epicurus' On Life's Ways is quoted, where was tackled the wish of immortality and indicated subjective everlasting time: "during a time which won't ever have death" ( Phld.'s epigram). Death is the death of death, removing life it is removing itself. It exist before itself, not after... “Death would have been estimated very less than nothing, if a more void nothing was possible ” [Lucr., DRN, III, 926-927]. For Epicurus physical vacuum exists (for us 'quantum vacuum'), not nothingness,: as the world is eternal. It's a phenomenon for audience, soon forgotten. This papyrus has been not much brought out indeed for the same reason which pushed daddy to answer his son: "I suppose we'll be delighted by God's contemplation... but let's not talk of sad matters at lunchtime!".
Actually fear we - or rather, are people depressed by - the curtailment of existing projects and attachments, and by some process of death troubles without "remembering its limitations and adding nothing to it by imagination"[U447]. Afterlife isn't tempting for the objection Philodemus rises to Platonics: "Their idea of deduction of wrong, if they die in youth, and of acquisition of merits if they reach old age, is meaningless, as their souls won't be the same, becoming different in the absence of organic substance which characterized them". In such case we will be a different animal without former needs and thoughts, not otherwise to be devoured and metamorphosed in the same old process of corruption of each life. We do not in any sense survive our own death. What yields life so exciting is that: " We should regard an amazing thing not that one dies, but that one is successful to live out [...] taking profit day by day from an experience which disregards time's amount". [If by eternity is understood no endless temporal duration but atemporality, then he lives eternally who lives in the present (Wittgenstein, Tract. 6.4311). Seneca reasserts as a Stoic: Ut satis vixerimus, nec anni nec dies faciunt sed animus. “In order to live enough, neither years nor days make it, but soul”(Ad Luc. 61)]. "They who aim only at time's addition, whether in this life or hereafter, are people who live pitifully enough [...] No young man of ours will crave for adding the farthest old age, or, even more ludicrously, an endless time." Unlike conventional time of days, seasons and events, only the present time is real (exactly an indivisible quantum of time), the past life's recollection is lived, selected and accommodated to the present time, and future plans are enjoyed right now - if we don't now when we'll die, not the past and future as such: one loses ever the same minimum time present at the age of twenty like at ninety, and can live one pleasure each time; therefore pleasure cannot rise. "Every man passes out of life as if he had just been born " [V.S. 60; U495]. "Any length of time naturally produces pleasure for all - provided one recognizes pleasure's limits - and because of the fact that at the same time the flesh immediately receives the amount of pleasure equal to what an unlimited length of time provides..." [On Death, 111.32-IIIa. Gigante; see P.D. 19 ]. Aristotle also holds that pleasure is independent of duration [Nicom. Ethics 10,1174a l4ff. ]. Thus the sage is willing to say every day bebiōtai (“I have lived”). That meant also: I'm ready to die, because “he has lived” was a litotes of “he died” in death notices. Necessary desire are fixed in advance, 'bigger' non necessary ones cannot give bigger pleasures, as they are more difficult and therefore more frustrating, and our biologic emotional system is all the same fixed in advance, that is homeostatic. We have got ataraxia and we don't realize it. We are having it already here and we go seeking it elsewhere. A longer and satisfactory life has to be accepted but not craved, as it isn't under our discretionary power. It has to be made of many-sided bounded desires.
We fear deadly pains when they are present after instinct, our dear ones' death or their future lot after natural and cultural feeling, we become depressed after future planning frustration for neocortical mistake (and this is not what it was planned for): "What of service is knowledge to, if we are losing the calm of animals about death?" (see the archaeological finds of Epicurean pig mascots). "People mourn close relatives' death as if was it there some suffering for them; others run relentlessly after pleasures for fear of regrets, i.e. again some supposed pain after death..." For final real pains point out Ph. opportunity of alcohol and poppy juice, of the natural free anaesthesia of habituation, of extreme old or young ages, of faint, of transition during orgasm or epilepsy... "Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity" [V.S 9; cf. also DRN 3.862-4. ]. "Epicurus admitted death to be (welcome) and in a sense he met it willingly", that is euthanasia [Phild. On Epicurus. Pherc 1418 Col. XXXI: the last day from an Epicurus' letter to Mithres]: wine and hot bath induced congestion and "the very intensity found means of ending it". The sage likes the pleasure of living, not to live merely out of prejudice [Men.L. 126].
In the absence of assurance were there godfathers and friends. Funeral banquet (and popular usage of grave's hole..) defused the situation (like Halloween). Epicureans, more than other ancients practiced the private piety for the dead, with memorial days and dedicated monographs (hero's cult renewed the solidarity of the sect; see The Philista) and accepted a temporary sadness "mixed to amiable recollection". But Lucretius talked big: deus ille fuit. Ph. clarify, with a certain ambiguity: "it could be comforting our consciousness that friends will remember us, but their friendship will give really pleasure when we are living". The one's recollection of performed life is more important than the extraneous people's one, grounded on appearances.
About stupidity: the fretting of healthy unfriendly people who chats on our disease is "like fretting for the views of pest"; the one who dies without heir will hear his name remembered during succession lawsuit... The one who strives for spending money which would go into the pockets of unlovable heirs, "taking large mouthfuls".
About philosophical stupidity. "The one who believes that the longer the lifespan, the bigger will be one's wisdom increase, is precluding himself from an immediate wisdom, because his mind is losing present well being in order to estrange itself vainly in the future." It's fruitless that one didn't fear not to live enough if one fears not to be sage enough. Conceitedly supervising oneself and world's course does cause frustrations, guilty feeling about 'wasted' time of enjoyments and belief that what's important has not shown up yet, with worry of no reaching it, and of no good choice done. "Wisdom isn't got as time goes by, but by presence of mind of ataraxia attained by eradicating wrong opinions" [related to the situation]. A general wrong opinion is that pleasure is difficult, secondly that egghead are the most happy persons. Knowing an unlimited universe with limited mind and time may become an intemperance, a not natural desire. The very wisdom has to get natural and human dimensions, with days which foolishness is mimed in too: "as I'm seeing to be there into you some other kind things, I wouldn't you to shrink from a certain spontaneous craziness" [Pragmatiae. PHerc. 1418].
If our former non-existence is nothingness, and the one at a future time is neither nothingness: two time nothing ... (Lucr. DRN III, 927); as an Epicurean cannot realize if he is dead, and awareness is for the creature like some horizon for sight: not removable (absolute nothingness doesn't exists), so his own death is only imagination, because it cannot be subjectively apprehended, and the word 'my death' doesn't parallel any experience; thinking about isn't worth it, and death's meditation is inconsistent. “Whence, we do not reflect continuously on the fact that we will die in the same way as we do when death is clearly known to be coming soon” [Pherc. 1251 col. XVI]; "one breathes one's last as if thinking about it never ceased" [End of On Death]. "The Epicurean sage uses a cyclic distraction from ineliminable negative emotions, by practicing pleasures and warmth: in comparison with the Stoics a sort of upside down meditation. Frustration for one's own and friends' death can be sweetened /distracted either by epilogismòs or epochê, not fully removed. One will think about if need be. [“Learnig to die! What's the point then? One achieves it pretty wholly in first time!” Chamfort]. As, ready to die, the Epicurean searches for comfort from past pleasures but (without sharp pain) would prefer to live [cfr. Sext.E. Math. 1.285 ], "death is nothing" means "we cannot represent it indeed" "it's non-existent" rather than 'we are unmoved'; “Death is not existent for him whom awareness is turned off” [Diog. Oinoan., NF 129]; anaistheton on Philodemus' Tetrapharmakos entails also unimaginable: aisthesis is foundational, a blind cannot imagine a painting. But, weighting pleasures-pros and pains-cons, he "will leave life crying aloud in a glorious triumph-song that we have lived well [...] in the knowledge that what has come to be cannot be taken away" [Metrod. V.S. 47, (55); Horatius C. III, 29, 47]
Furthermore, in the morning nobody would feel the interests' collapse of the night. Neurohormones, i.e. instincts, that is nature, do that and more. With old age and critical handicaps: energy, self-sufficiency, kinetic pleasures (drop of dopamine) do decrease, it gets more easy to meet It, as Epicurus and Aufidius have gone through. Let's think about an experience of excitement and vigor, spent many time in different scenarios: that is what we are going to loose somehow; any resistance is almost repugnance for the unknowable unknown. In a letter to Metrodorus Epicurus wrote: "If the events deprive us of hope and pleasure in the body, and past experiences' grateful memory, could I preserve something like physical katastematic pleasure? [Plild. De Epicuro, fr 6 colII, Vogliano p.67; Arrighetti 73]. For a dying man and a healthy/intact one perceived values are different. As an healthy Epicurean he was practicing the epochê-ataraxia, (death is mentally nothing), when he'll be dying the avoidance-ataraxia will be wanted: death becomes paradoxically the last form of health. “Epicureans assert that the thought of dissolution involves a positive and pleasurable solace“ - evidently when is there: “ fear of terminal aches without relief” [Plut., Non posse... 1106 D]. Contrary to ethical intellectualism of Socrates and epigones, Epicureanism appeals to sensitivity and nature, that is instincts. Beyond rational persuasion Epicurus said “accustom ourselves”[Men. L.. 24]. A death instinct (Freud) - which acts out of place in neurosis - help us to die. One can remember happy deeds, but synapses of nostalgia (emotional memory) become inhibited by the neurohormones (GABA) of the moment. Death acceptance as a natural event is not only a rational outcome but also an experience to show, to "place in front of eyes" pro ommaton, to sense, with vigil, eulogy, tombstone's aphorism. After catching all these facets, a real 'satori' for the Epicurean, he "goes around already buried" [entetafiasménos: wearing a shroud], and enjoys that single day as if it was an eternity". Sure enough - as it is written in many Epicurean gravestone - the dead... with esoteric nonsense testifies: "I'm not any more, I don't take care".

Philodemus' On Household Management. (Peri oikonomias : PHerc. 1424); On Wealth (Peri ploutou PHerc. 163); fragments of On avarice (Peri philargusias). In ancient world the intellectuals and writers had no copyrights and are there no media. The most part of them sold hope, illusions, or got respect and offices through occult fears and faculties' pretense. So they addressed most works to a patron or to Muses and Gods, who got renown and spread conformism. Philosophical schools were despised by opponents, the 'guru' had undoubtedly ascendancy, the troop paid one's shares and benefited ... reciprocal self-esteem. All praised autarky and poverty, but the career of client was more frequently taken up. [see Horace, Epist. I. 16 and 17 and Phld. On Flattery].
Epicureans and Phld. thought on the contrary that there are lesser troubles in the possession of property by the gentleman farmer, than in the waste of time caused by the lack of it, like in case of Cynics and also Stoics, poor, wandering, begging for daily bread. Epicurean school, Greek or Roman, didn't involve divestment of one's assets. Epicurus, Metrodorus, Idomeneus, Mithres, Heliodorus of Antioch, Philonides, Albucius, Saufeius, Atticus, Vestorius, Amynia of Samos, Apollophanes of Pergamos, Diogenes of Oenoanda, Popillius Theotimus were well-off persons. More tricky was the situation of the skilled amasser of wealth, like entrepreneurs, who were up to local politicians, judges, taxation assessors, and "awake as a start in order to watch over their ownership". Of course the philosophical way of life suited "the ones who need mutual talk more frequently than several current competitions of the town, and whose assets keep with lesser tenseness than those of greedy people, which frequently stake big losses"; but it didn't disown the former, possibly less prone by character to pressure (Mithres, Philonides, Atticus, Vestorius). "If one is subjected to character pressure by minimal issues [...] it would be better for him not to be an owner"
In order to avoid stress the Epicurean has to "renounce growth with the view to get (at once) the goal, which they wanted to make just money for". The sage has to work hard or to establish public relations only if he is in necessity, but: "The most acceptable job is getting fees from well inclined and grateful learners, provided that one has no demagogic nor charlatan faculties and talents, but some experiences to share with independence and without flattery". It was the private practice of Epicurus and of the author in question.
The Epicurean refuses internalized code of conduct and "considers if he is in financial situation to treat himself to what is beyond the necessary things", and suggests certain people to have "a recurrent carefree income if they place their estate on trusteeship of qualified friends", and "maintaining that from other people cannot derive usefulness is a feeling of a psychotic". Surprisingly was there a division of the Garden which took care of clumsy people ... There was no legal brokerages but 'friendlessness' lost face: "Despised by people, without cooperators, one has no substantial gain, nor safekeeping"
Phld. concludes maintaining that household management concerns anyway on lesser goods and evils; "a good manager is he who takes care of his estate by following usefulness" not by following efficiency, and regrets that historians "assign successes to politicians and to men of action, and one may ask what may be left over them who develops a deep interest for truth". But he set out also the ostensible interest for truth of them who "are able to be dragged by common abstract words, to deny perceivable things and hence to exhibit themselves as people who strive to amend the large crowd who think otherwise, and this way they [the idealists] are teaching things which they can tell nothing about" [PHerc. 1424, col. 21].

Herc.1251 [On Choices and Avoidances, or Comparetti's Ethics] (attributed to Hermarcus, next to Philodemus) is rendering more living (although incomplete) the schematism of Principal Doctrines, and comes out more realistic than the inciting Menoeceus letter, an actual "protrepticon", with his accentuation of tranquillity of the mind, katastematic pleasure, and therefore happiness. Summaries may involve over-simplification and even distortion: (this applies to this writing too...). What is necessary is foreseeable, stable (katastematic, we would say homeostatic), dogmatic. Epicurus wrote surely Doubtful Cases (Problems) and On Life's Ways [plural, ed.'s n.] (Life-courses) (4 Books). We can read somewhere else that the sage is prone to irrational instincts and emotions like all people, even though he get out of there better. One ought not confine oneself to fundamental tenets as "some have clumsily interpreted it". But thank Diogenes L. anyway...
This ethical treatise redefines the hedonistic calculus techniques. The knowledge of oneself and of the world is under the phrase "one would go to infinity" - an expression which is frequent in the informal On Nature, so as "to go astray", "plausible motives". The working method is the focusing of the logismos: "he also establishes the congenital ends , which yield the most conspicuous evidence and by which the calculations concerning choices and avoidances are performed". Human relations, human knowledge are not necessary nor foreseeable. Philodemus expound it in the Rhetoric: "Since no thing is on the whole praiseworthy or censurable by itself, but becomes so, to the extent that it corresponds to the rank of the goods, and censurable insofar as it corresponds to the rank of the evils, the one who does not consider this knowledge through analogical calculation (epilogismós) will not be able to distinguish the things taken up with a view toward commendation according to the standard applicable to them... " [Rhet. I 218, 4. PHerc. 1007]. But these ranks we don't know precisely in advance, but we are going to discover by life steps
In an human world which is partially free, is there, beyond necessities, a personal creativeness (in the more conventional people only a cookery and living one): we cant know now in detail what will keep us mentally engaged some years hence, and choice will be up to evolution and situation of each person; so we need "distinction between what directly procure pleasure and what does not hinder it (is under our feasibility, if we choose it)". Everybody has to find day by day with dialog and meditation one's wisdom's lane, even after he has understood general first principles. The author redefines more in detail the causes of desires and the conduct about the organic necessary and the external variable ones. The former have to be sought and - if possible - the way has to be calculated, the latter have to be calculated and eventually not rejected if it turns up, but not sought far-off, because they improve our life only under that condition.
After empty desires (stupidity, conformism), are set out traumatic desires too, "a sort of wound ", with psychotherapeutic meaning about their compulsive attraction. The character desires (e.g. privacy, hyperactivity, hyperemotiveness-desires) aren't distinguished (or they are deteriorated on papyrus: he just wrote On Characters and Ways of Life), unlike in Polystratus, Demetrius the Laconian, Lucretius.
The author exposes religion as cause of fatalism and renunciation, and depicts irrational behaviors of his contemporaries. Moreover religion is a "deterrence (of crime) for a short period of time"; "(by) the principles of philosophy (...) alone it is possible to act rightly". The sentence "One must positively draw the moral arguments regarding both choices and avoidances from the study of nature", does not turn Epicureanism in a deterministic ethics of duty and destiny (like Stoicism): in order to choose something or avoid it, that thing has to be existing in nature and to be knowable, not only in our fancy. All the same, conforming oneself to natural and social order is a necessity, but also it will bring the aesthetic/intellectual pleasure (kalos, beautiful means also moral in Greek, a trait of in sight persons) of an atomistic non-egocenticity: not a means for pleasure but a pleasure concomitant with virtue [see similarly: "pleasure does not follow learning; rather, learning and pleasure advance side by side (V.S. 27)]. Morality helps to avoid troublesome egocentric greed (a sin against intelligence, so to speak) for an harmonious state of mind. How can a sure mortal be egocentric if his atomic components and structural formula are going to be another person? "The one who is spurred by very personal self-interest is dependent on chance and cannot get ataraxia" [Epicurean Ethics PHerc 346 (Polystratus?)] "

For a deep influence in therapeutic guidance in human relations, one has to make use not only of logic arguing, but of epibolè too (what one is perceiving at once), that is plain speech (parrhesias). The trope of "placing in front of eyes" (hypotyposis; Phld., De ira I, 23) trace back to diatribe form, and coincide with satirical literature. In this respect PHerc 1251 can't be summarized, all the more so because it's fragmentary. The prosopopoeia of Nature in Lucr. III°, of pathologically restricted people about self-analysis or tight with money in Philodemus and Horace are more effective than a rational proof. Certain life-styles are chosen or avoided by assimilation more than by demonstration.
For instance a passage with estrangement effect for our public relation custom: "The natural charmer is a sort of people who, greeting a man from far away and calling him 'Mister', after expressing him his admiration feeling by holding with both hand, he won't let him go off but after he walked with him along a stretch of road, and after he requested when he might meet him; and he goes off going on praising him. [...] Constantly he cuts beard and hair, he whitens teeth, he wears new suits and use up deodorizers [...] he runs to seat down in the neighborhood of VIP" [Phld., On Flattery (Perì Kolakeias) (it was in seven books!)]

On Flattery (Perì Kolakeias) PHerc. 222, 1008, 1457, 1675; On Plain Speech (Perì Parrhesias): PHerc. 146, 1082, 1471. In pre-industrial societies, mostly, having an escort was the best status symbol. "Powerful peoplewant one to be poor; and I will say why: so one learns and identifies them as patrons" ['On Plain Speech']. It was a sort of uneven friendship. The patron lied about promises, the clients about approval and praises. "Aiming a trouble-less life we don't want to be plagued by major frustrations and we look down with firm belief on them who are in troubles owing to one another; political dealers do feel the stress, we shun them and differ from them about many points, getting fed up about their rituals of presents and honors" [On Flattery, PHerc. 1675].
Friends' groups lie with flattery, which strengthens self-esteem, because one grant esteem in return for esteem; philosophical groups flatter themselves, strengthen shared value judgments, built upon bold slogans and backward conformism. Moving about alone was rather risky. A scholarch demanded payment, and had bodyguards in addition.
Epicureans considered it a fatuous gratification and preferred the parrhesias, the reciprocal constructive criticism, which encouraged the very self-criticism. “...there is nothing so grand as having one person to whom one will tell what is in one’s heart and who will listen when one speaks. For our nature strongly desires to reveal to some person what we think.” [Parrh. fr. 28]. So they became vulnerable and inseparable, sheltered by an human barrier from dissensions with the group; but the flatterer was a real enemy without uniform, who staked reputations when he had recourse to slander in order to put in the shade a favorite. No wonder that seven books were dedicated to kolakeia and as many to parrhesias, as part of On ways of life (Peri ethon kai bion). Phld. was in dispute with Nicasicrates, who didn't understand a fine distinction between cordiality and flattery, and distinctions of various kind of flatterers. The Garden did not offer big advantages, nor sumptuous banquets, but some pupils were forced to attend by relatives (perhaps Timokrates), and - besides - some rich Epicurean was there all the same. "Let's not hurry nearby the masters to an ostensible agreement only" [On Plain Speech]. A modest fighting spirit was considered a good vaccine against servile flattery [On Anger]. Pindar compared flatterers to octopus for their color changing.
Some masters flattered too, exaggerating pupils' improvements, inflating the goal. "The sage often arouses suspicion too, as he is able to captivate minds more than sirens" [PHerc. 222, col. II 7]. Some speakers flattered the citizens; the rhetorician did it with artistic conceit. But it was an acknowledged component of a society without competitive examination, with ubiquitous connections and bribes. The more a region is underdeveloped, the more 'cordial' are people at every street corner. By us, instead, somebody does it at every 'spot'.
The teaching of the Garden was at the same time a true group psychotherapy, the first in western civilization (Antiphon was initiator of analytical anti-depressive therapy); it distinguished "both affections' explanation, and causes' explanation- method "[On Nat. Book XXV] and " two kinds of philosophical inquiry: one concerned facts, the other mere words." [Diog. L. X, 34]. Common research (syzetêsis) "consent don't disregard debate". Chats kept up where inference had to stop: plain speech after formal speech. PHerc 873 Perì Omilìa ('On Talk') divides talks from chats; the former " cling more to actions than intonations ". But learning how one has to speak or to be silent is made by speaking, so "it is better experiencing only to chat, whereas by being silent one doesn't learn it" [col. 8]. Here begun 'plain speech' and group (interpersonal) psychotherapy.

On Anger (Perì orgès Pherc 18; 20 pages approximately) deals with the absurdity of indulgence with impatient people. Open-mindedness doesn't involve egalitarian laxity, as being relativist under one's preservation and vested advantage is valid too. Phld. declares that he must establish by empirical analogical reasoning (epilogísostai) the true nature of that affection.
In philosophical and mystery circles one was under the idealistic illusion of the invulnerable sage and of the tame brotherhood. Philodemus explains the P.D. 1: anger is surely called a weakness, but 'weak' is a gradable ('always' comparative) adjective, and “the one who may be heading for pain and death “ is of course weaker than the gods; “so the sage is definable as prone to anger” [col. XLIII]. Epicurus is reported as strict a lot of times (in portraits too). But a 'natural (useful) anger' also is defined: the one which is limited to prevent an immediate tangible damage. Revenge is not the trick. “Actually Epicurus explains in 'Enunciations' what is turning up anger and to fall prey of it with temperance [ibid.] ”
As an adrenergic emotion, anger is a dope, but it damages health, safety and social relations. “Physicians are reproaching faults linked with sickness and outbursts of anger. Timasagoras (a dissident: 'ungrateful blowhard'), who preached with firm belief to restrict ardor of dispute, suffered painful unthought after-effect of his anger against Basileides and Thespis” [col. VI]. Enraged people come to blows with very larger guys too, as by Metrodorus young Timokrates is said to do with Mentorides, the oldest among his brothers. “Disturbed enraged people do not succeed in progressing, as they don't tolerate neither teachers nor colleagues [...] they get leaved out of search teams (syzethesis) and their advantages [...] they have glowering looks, trivial and slanderous language, they overemphasize insignificant deeds in order to justify their anger, disclosing hidden reasons and events. ”
“In order to remove psychological affections which are after-effect of our unfounded opinions, it's basic to work out size and lastingness of damages which are involved” [col. VI]. Anger is the correlate reverse of gratefulness and they are affected by reciprocal intensity (but also by glory wish, and falling in love): “We believe that the sage cannot have deep emotions of gratefulness, because he don't consider very decisive the advantages which come from other people”. Nor for wisdom counselors is due exaggerated gratefulness! [col. XLVI]. Epicurus denied to have had masters, because wisdom - what is the top - is found by oneself through personal understanding and training to choices and avoidances. By depending on conscience director one need to have confidence in oneself though, about one's choice of him; if we are chosen, he is possibly domineering. A corollary is that not all people are able to get sage [Diog. L. 117].
"Only the reason which realizes that nature produces no horrible or dreadful thing, and that none of its productions has a great consequence, when it reaches its cycle, (only that reason) come off to tame us" [On Music, book IV; and therefore more unbuttoned to the others: cfr P.D. XXVIII].

More and more is revealed a discerning Epicureanism, different from, however understandable, Diogenes L.' s 'catechism'. Once one 'sterilized' Epicurus, given religious moral hegemony, what there's no need of today. Difficulties about job, health, human relations, fancies, are better resolved by personal strength of mind, industriousness, intuition (epibolè) than by good precepts. "courageousness [...] otherwise, even though some hope or delectation lure us with a smile, anxiety suddenly breaks forth, like a sea storm appearing in fair weather and the soul is overwhelmed and confounded" [Epic apud Plut., De virtute et vitio 3.101b]. As we must obtain wisdom day by day from ourselves (see Herod. Lett. 082; Pherc. 1251), so the transference-dependent pupil shows not to be yet sage. Nor Epicurus cult... Let's consider Colotes' incident (for him every philosopher was wrong except Epicurus ... see Plut., Adv. Col. 1107E). "If one wanted to be only contented, that would be easy [...] It isn't advisable to be happy or sage more than others, as it's difficult, because we believe others to be such more than they are actually" [Montesquieu, My way of thinking].
Individual and collective (fanatical) anger are 'fuel' for disorders into families and nations, and for wars among them. Classic example was and is absurd terrace violence - portrayed also on Pompeii walls (Noceria- Pompeii 'local derby', with dead supporters and stadium's close). Tests show that group anger is more unrestrained than individual one. Control (not an impossible removal) of it passes through our estimation of good and damages, but also of our feeling of gratitude, of love, of group commitment. An individual into a small group went with the tide for fear of loneliness - a predictable death or sterility in ancient savanna. But in mass society, will the prudent man stress himself or risk his life for a rabid imprudent group? It was a current principle also among Roman Epicureans: "Among Brutus' [the plotter against Caesar] friends Statillius, the Epicurean, [...] considered that a wise man oughtn't to put himself at risk, and to let himself be involved by worthless and imprudent people"[Plutarch, Brutus 12, 3].

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