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The Epicurean teacher and poet Philodemus of Gadara (c. 110-c. 40/35 BC) exercised significant literary and philosophical influence on Roman writers of the Augustan Age, most notably the poets Vergil and Horace. Yet a modern appreciation for Philodemus' place in Roman intellectual history has had to wait on the decipherment of the charred remains of Philodemus' library, which was buried in Herculaneum by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. As improved texts and translations of Philodemus' writings have become available since the 1970s, scholars have taken a keen interest in his relations with leading Latin poets. The essays in this book, derived from papers presented at the First International Symposium on Philodemus, Vergil, and the Augustans held in 2000, offer a new baseline for understanding the effect of Philodemus and Epicureanism on both the thought and poetic practices of Vergil, Horace, and other Augustan writers. Sixteen leading scholars trace his influence on Vergil's early writings, the Eclogues and the Georgics, and on the Aeneid, as well as on the writings of Horace and others. The volume editors also provide a substantial introduction to Philodemus' philosophical ideas for all classicists seeking a fuller understanding of this pivotal figure.

Building on recent advances in the reconstruction of the charred Papyri of Philodemus excavated from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, this volume presents eleven new chapters in the history of literary criticism in antiquity. Philodemus of Gadara (c.110-40 BC) shares with his Roman contemporaries Lucretius and Horace the fact that all excelled in the production of poetry, while all three were (at some stage in their careers) adherents of Epicureanism. Designed to offer a critical survey of trends and developments in recent scholarship on Philodemus in particular, and Hellenistic literary theory in general, the essays treat the newly published and re-edited papyrus texts of Philodemus’ treatises on poetry and the related subjects of rhetoric and music. In addition, the volume contains a complete translation of a new text of Philodemus’ On Poems book 5. The essays evaluate the philosophical and historical importance of these Epicurean treatises and of Philodemus as a literary theorist, and document connections between Greek philosophy and Roman literary production in the first century BC. The recent papyrus discoveries of Ennius, Lucretius, and Posidippus make this volume especially topical. Philodemus was himself a poet of considerable repute. His Epigrams were noticed by Cicero and have been shown to have influenced the poetry of his younger contemporaries Catullus, Vergil, and Horace. As a literary critic, Philodemus embraced a formalism which denied both the moral utility of poems and the separability of content from poetic form. At the same time Philodemus, especially for the benefit of his wealthy patron Piso, sought to demonstrate the convergence of the Epicurean and the traditionally poetic, to show how Homer’s poetry, for example, could be seen as providing moral and political paradigms and personal guidance for the potential ruler. How Philodemus attempted to reconcile this position with standard Epicurean views and his own rejection of the moral utility of poetry is a question explored by the essays in this volume.

This article contributes to our understanding of women in the Epicurean school. Focussing on the second- and first-century b.c.e. philosophers Zeno of Sidon and Philodemus of Gadara, it examines some neglected textual evidence and argues that a misogynist position can be traced back to Zeno. While Epicureanism contains many progressive ideas on women and early Epicureans admitted women in their communities, Zeno was much more dismissive of women than other Epicureans. This points to a significant doctrinal development in the Epicurean school.

The publication of Philodemus' On Poems: Book Two in 2020 has changed our understanding of enargeia (the \"vivid\" quality of writing that puts the subject \"before the eyes\"). We now can see that enargeia was already an important term of literary theory in the fourth century b.c.e., but also that Heraclides, Heracleodorus, Pausimachus, and Demetrius did not connect enargeia to the \"before the eyes\" formulation. This connection was made in the first century b.c.e. during the Aristotelian revival when enargeia was confused with Aristotle's word energeia (\"activity\"). Before the first century b.c.e., rhetorical enargeia meant what it meant more generally: not \"vividness\" but \"clarity/obviousness.\"

The first English translation of On Anger This latest volume in the Writings from the Greco-Roman World series provides a translation of a newly edited Greek text of Philodemus's On Anger , now supplemented with the help of multispectral imaging. As our sole evidence for the Epicurean view of what constitutes natural and praiseworthy anger as distinguished from unnatural pleasure in vengeance and cruelty for their own sake, this text is crucial to the study of ancient thought about the emotions. Its critique of contemporary Stoic and Peripatetic theories of anger offers crucial new information for the history of philosophy in the last two centuries BCE. The introduction and commentary also make use of newly revised texts and readings from several other ancient treatises on anger. Features An apparatus representing work on the text since the papyrus was opened in 1805 A full explication of the Epicurean theory of natural anger as an emotion without pleasure One of the Herculaneum papyri that survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE

Abstract A crux in Philodemus’ De morte IV, P.Herc. 1050, col. 14.38–15.1–3, can be resolved if the lacuna is supplemented with an expression that is also used to refer to death in the works of his contemporaries, namely ‘the last hour, the last time’: Gr. ἡ τελευταία ὥρα, Lat. postrema hora (Catull. 64.191), supremo tempore (Lucr. 3.595), extrema hora (Verg. Ecl. 8.20). The history of this expression has not been explored by modern scholars: it appears already in the Sanskrit words antavelāand antakāla-. A human lifetime is viewed as the coming and going of a single day, with birth the ‘first hour’ (dawn) and death the ‘last’ (sunset or evening).

In this article I reassess the ancient evidence for a Hellenistic Stoic debate about the authenticity of the two Republics written by Diogenes of Sinope and Zeno of Citium, respectively. I argue that while a Stoic attempt to reject the authenticity of Diogenes’ Republic is clearly attested in the 1st century bce, the evidence for a similar attempt with regard to Zeno’s Republic is scant and problematic. Most sources attest that various Hellenistic Stoics criticized the work, but usually did not consider it spurious. If some Stoics cast doubts on the authenticity of Zeno’s Republic, such a position was in the minority.

In this article, I would like to provide a reappraisal of sophistic activities during the Hellenistic period. An analysis of passages in Philodemus, Posidonius, and several more fragmentary sources can show that there is a continuous and lively tradition of sophistic teaching and rhetoric from the Classical period until Imperial times. The texts give the impression that characteristic features of Hellenistic sophists point towards the generation of Gorgias and his colleagues as well as towards the star speakers of the Second Sophistic. The traditional but outworn negative image of the Hellenistic sophists and Hellenistic rhetoric in general can be explained as a result of the source situation, the decentralisation of schools and performance spaces, and a Classicistic bias of ancient and modern authors. In the end, the testimonies allow for more conclusions than generally thought. A selection of related sources is provided in an appendix.

In this article I argue against the view that the templa serena in Lucr. 2.7-13 should be exclusively interpreted as a reference to mental realms. Instead, I suggest that Lucretius is intertwining the concept of templa serena as mental sanctuaries with the symbolical image of an 'elevated temple of Epicurean philosophy'. We should take into account both the cognitive and the symbolical meaning of Lucretius' imagery. I point to parallels in the Epicurean tradition, in order to demonstrate that the concept of an elevated sanctuary of philosophy as a spatial entity, rather than a mental realm, may have been a popular topos within Italy's Epicurean circles.

PHerc 1669, formerly identified with book 5, book 7 and book 10 of Philodemus’ On Rhetoric, actually transmits book 20. The book number – a clear Κ – is still legible in the final title of the papyrus. This means that On Rhetoric was in precisely or at least 20 books, depending on whether or not PHerc 1669 is to be considered the final book of the work.