Patricia
FITZGIBBON Epicurean
Case-Studies in Aelian’s Fragments
The primary purpose of this paper, “Epicurean
Case-Studies in Aelian's Fragments,” is to illustrate Aelian's
attitudes toward Epicureanism and the methods he uses to denigrate
the philosophy and those who practice it. The fragments of Aelian's
Divine Manifestations
and Divine Providence
provide vivid descriptions of individuals, or caricatures, who incur
divine displeasure and are afflicted with physical ailments because
of their adherence to Epicurean philosophy.
Aelian's attitude toward Epicureanism is
based on the prevalent but false accusation that Epicureans are
atheists and, while his hostility is not unique, the physical
ailments he describes which afflict Epicureans are unattested
elsewhere. He describes
Epicureans as womanish and even goes so far as to describe an
Epicurean who, certainly metaphorically, if not actually, loses his
penis through his adherence to the philosophy. From Fragment 10 in
Hercher's edition: “There
was a man (if indeed we can even call him a man) who enfeebled his
soul through the words of Epicurus and became a woman, castrated and
a womanish man, (oJ clouvnh" te kai;
guvnni").” This same Epicurean violates
religious protocol and becomes ill:
"But when his shameful act was dared, a kind of terror
overcame him and he suffered a malady which lasted a long time and
consumed him.” Yet another Epicurean's
illustration shows the clear connection between Epicureanism and
atheism: “There was a man named
Euphronios, a bad spirited man, and he took joy in the scurrilous
words of Epicurus and from these he derived two evils:
atheism and intemperance.”
(Frag. 89) The
prevalent attitude in Aelian considers Epicureanism dangerous to the
individual practicing the philosophy and to his associates as well. Emphasizing this attitude is
the fact that the aforementioned Euphronius becomes ill but recants
his adherence to Epicurean philosophy and is saved.
Aelian offers a unique commentary on
Epicureanism towards the end of its existence as a practiced
philosophy in the ancient world.
Analogies will be made between other detractors of
Epicureanism: Plutarch and Athenaeus. In comparison to Plutarch's
criticisms, which challenge the entire philosophical system of
Epicureanism, Athenaeus and Aelian both neglect Epicureanism as a
complete philosophical system, choosing to base their criticisms only
on the ethical aspect of Epicureanism which ascribes pleasure as the
highest goal. Neither
Athenaeus nor Aelian mentions Epicurus' own definition of pleasure
(sound reasoning, investigating the reasons for every choice and
avoidance, Ep. Men.
132). Athenaeus centers his
criticisms on the notion that pleasure is over-indulgence in food and
transforms any Epicurean, whether a character out of New Comedy,
Epicurus himself, or a contemporary of the deipnosophistai, into a
glutton. Aelian, while
he displays knowledge of Epicurean atomism, which he rejects because
it disallows divine providence (Frag. 61), illustrates Epicureans as
sexually deviant or criminal due to their indifference to the powers
of the gods and popular conceptions of the gods.
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