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Dane R. Gordon and David B. Suits, editors. Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance. Rochester, New York: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper, $24.99.
This volume presents papers of a conference held in 2002 at the Rochester Institute of Technology. After a superficial introduction, eight chapters trace the legacy of Epicureanism from Philodemus, the philosopher who took up residence in the Roman town of Herculaneum in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to C.S. Peirce and, rather cursorily, eighteenth-century Russian theology. Three further chapters deal with Epicurus' ideas of friendship and death, and the last provides a brief description of the wall-sized Epicurean inscription in the ancient city of Oenoanda (in modern Turkey), dating to the second century AD.
David Armstrong, one of the philologists currently editing the papyri buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD, offers an elegant survey of their discovery and publication, followed by a detailed analysis of Philodemus's treatise, On Death. Since Epicureanism identified the fear of death as the major source of human disquiet, and further affirmed that "death is nothing to us," the topic is highly significant, and Philodemus's essay provides important new evidence that Epicureans addressed the pain of survivors with tact...