Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos.  At the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus.  In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the ‘philosophers of the garden.’  His life was simple, chaste, and temperate.  Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others.  Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have been found at Herculaneum.  The additional sources of our knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius.  Our information from Epicurean writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious than what we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions.  We have no Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Inicretius; whereas respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most valuable evidence.

To Epicurus succeeded, in the leadership of his school, Hermachus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides, and others, ten in number, down to the age of Augustus.  Among Roman Epicureans, Lucretius (95—­51 B.C.) is the most important, his poem (De Rerum Natura), being the completest account of the system that exists.  Other distinguished followers were Horace, Atticus, and Lacian.  In modern times, Pierre Gassendi (1592—­1655) revived the doctrines of Epicurus, and in 1647 published his ‘Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri,’ and a Life of Epicurus.  The reputation of Gassendi, in his life time, rested chiefly upon his physical theories; but his influence was much felt as a Christian upholder of Epicureanism.  Gassendi was at one time in orders as a Roman Catholic, and professor of theology and philosophy.  He established an Epicurean school in France, among the disciples of which were, Moliere, Saint Evremond, Count de Grammont, the Duke of Rochefoncalt, Fontenelle, and Voltaire.

The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epicurus to pleasure and pain.  Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good.  Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought:  Vice is no end in itself, to be avoided.  The motive for cultivating Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains.  But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the least amount of suffering.[12]