Towards the beginning of Book 3, Lucretius starts his description of the soul. According to Epicurus, the soul is divided into two, an irrational part, which is coextensive with the body, and a rational part, the ‘mind’, which is located in the chest. This position is a relic from an earlier, non–philosophical tradition, and was adopted by several different philosophers. But Alexandrian doctors would soon correctly locate the mind in the head, and later Epicureans would have to defend an increasingly (...) uncomfortable and out-of-date position. (shrink)

Odes 1.29, while perhaps ‘not an important poem’, is a jocular address to Horace's philosophically inclined friend Iccius, who is considering joining a military expedition to Arabia; the poet remonstrates playfully with him about seeking wealth while leaving behind his philosophical studies. It ends as follows : quis neget arduispronos relabi posse riuosmontibus et Tiberim reuerticum tu coemptos undique nobilislibros Panaeti Socraticam et domummutare loricis Hiberis,pollicitus meliora, tendis?

This English translation of On Anger provides a newly read and supplemented Greek text of one of the most important "Herculaneum papyri," the only collection of literary texts to survive the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. On Anger is 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, a view that can be shown to have influenced Latin authors like Cicero, Horace (...) and Virgil. (shrink)