Epicurus
Epicurus(b. Samos, 341 BC; d. Athens, 270 BC), moral and natural philosopher. His father Neocles and mother Chaerestrate, Athenians of the deme (local district: see democracy, Athenian) Gargettus, emigrated to the Athenian cleruchy (citizen settlement) in Samos. As a boy he was taught by a Platonist, Pamphilus. He served as an ephebe (see gymnasium) in Athens, when Xenocrates was head of the Academy and Aristotle was in Euboean Chalcis; the playwright Menander was in the same class of the ephebate as Epicurus. He rejoined his family, who had then settled on the Asian mainland at Colophon. At this time or earlier he studied under Nausiphanes, from whom he learnt about the atomist philosophy of Democritus. At 32 he moved to Mytilene in Lesbos, then to Lampsacus on the Hellespont; at both places he...
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