Epicurus and the Garden (306 BC): A School of Pleasure and Peace

Epicurus founded his school, known as the Garden, in Athens around 307/306 BC. There he taught that the world is made of atoms, that the gods do not punish or reward humans, and that a happy life comes from simple pleasures, friendship and freedom from fear. His ideas competed with those of the Stoics and the heirs of Plato and Aristotle, and they survive today through ancient texts and the poetry of Lucretius.

Background

Epicurus was born in 341 BC on the island of Samos, where his Athenian parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, had settled as colonists. He came to Athens in 323 BC for his two years of military training as a young citizen. Soon afterwards the Athenian settlers were expelled from Samos, and his family moved to Colophon in Asia Minor.

He studied with followers of Democritus, the earlier philosopher who had taught that everything consists of tiny indivisible particles called atoms. Epicurus began teaching at Mytilene on Lesbos and then at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, where he gained his first loyal pupils.

Founding the Garden

Around 307/306 BC Epicurus moved to Athens. According to Diogenes Laertius, he bought a house and a garden for 80 minae. The garden gave the school its name. Its exact site is unknown, but it is usually placed just outside the Dipylon Gate, near the road leading to Plato’s Academy.

The Garden was more than a lecture hall. Epicurus and his friends lived together in a simple community with shared meals and conversation. Women such as Leontion and Themista, and slaves such as Mys, were included, which was rare and drew attacks from rivals. Leading members included Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Polyaenus and Hermarchus, who became head of the school after Epicurus.

The teaching

Epicurus divided philosophy into physics, a theory of knowledge and ethics. All three served one goal: a calm and happy life.

In physics, he taught that the universe consists of atoms and empty space, infinite in extent. Atoms sometimes make a tiny unpredictable “swerve”, an idea preserved by Lucretius and Cicero, which explains collisions and leaves room for free will. The gods exist, but they live in perfect peace and take no interest in human affairs.

From this followed his ethics. Since the soul is made of atoms and disperses at death, “death is nothing to us”: where death is, we are not. Without fear of the gods or of punishment after death, people can reach ataraxia, freedom from mental disturbance, and aponia, freedom from bodily pain.

Pleasure, for Epicurus, was the absence of pain rather than constant excitement. He praised bread and water and a little cheese, avoided politics, and valued friendship above almost everything. Later followers summed up his teaching in a “four-part cure”: the gods are not to be feared, death is not to be worried about, the good is easy to get, and the terrible is easy to endure.

Death and survival of his ideas

Epicurus died in 271 or 270 BC, after a painful illness caused by kidney stones. In his will he left the Garden to his school, and his followers kept his birthday as a feast.

He wrote an enormous amount, about 300 rolls according to Diogenes Laertius, including 37 books On Nature. Almost all of it is lost. Three letters and the Principal Doctrines survive in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and a collection known as the Vatican Sayings was found in a manuscript in 1888. Charred papyri from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, preserve parts of On Nature and works by the Epicurean Philodemus.

The Roman poet Lucretius set out Epicurean physics in his poem On the Nature of Things in the 1st century BC. In the 2nd century AD, Diogenes of Oinoanda carved a vast Epicurean inscription on a wall in his city in Asia Minor. The rediscovery of Lucretius’ poem in 1417 helped revive atomism in early modern Europe.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Epicureans lived for luxury and feasting. Fact: Epicurus taught moderation and a simple life; the modern word “epicure” reflects a later distortion.
• Myth: Epicurus was an atheist. Fact: He believed the gods existed but did not intervene in the world.

Timeline

• 341 BC: Epicurus is born on Samos.
• 323 BC: He comes to Athens for military training.
• c. 311–307 BC: He teaches at Mytilene and Lampsacus.
• c. 307/306 BC: He settles in Athens and founds the Garden.
• 271/270 BC: Epicurus dies in Athens.
• 1st century BC: Lucretius writes On the Nature of Things.
• 1417: Lucretius’ poem is rediscovered in a German monastery.

Why it matters

The Garden offered a philosophy for ordinary life, focused on calm, friendship and freedom from fear. Alongside Zeno’s Stoic school, it shaped Hellenistic and Roman thought, and its atomism and rejection of superstition influenced later scientists and thinkers.