institution
the Epicurean school
the Epicureans
also: hairesis, the school of Epicurus
The philosophical school (hairesis) founded by Epicurus, holding that pleasure is the highest good and that perception works by physical images (eidola). In Fam. 15.16 Cicero jokingly treats Cassius's recent conversion to Epicureanism as an interdict-style ejection from the school.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 3.9 §2 an \textit{[Greek: Epikoureion]} (Epicurean) consideration
Cicero disowns a self-interested motive as "Epicurean," alluding to the Epicurean school's reputation for grounding action in one's own pleasure or advantage.
- Ad Familiares 7.12 §1 you have turned Epicurean
The Epicureans held that pleasure is the highest good and counselled withdrawal from public life. Cicero mock-laments that a serious jurist has adopted a creed that, taken literally, undermines the whole basis of civil law and public duty.
- Ad Familiares 9.25 §2 your fellow-tipplers the Epicureans
Paetus and his circle on the bay of Naples were Epicureans; Cicero, a sceptical Academic, teasingly calls them 'combibones' (fellow drinking-companions) and notes that he relies on M. Fadius's help in his philosophical disputes against them.
- Ad Familiares 15.16 §1 not by way of images of mental impressions, as your new friends say
A learned joke at Cassius's recent conversion to Epicureanism. Epicurean physics held that perception (and even thought) occurs when thin films of atoms, the eidola or 'images' streaming off objects, strike the eyes or mind.
- Ad Familiares 15.16 §3 from which you have been ejected
Cicero casts Cassius's defection to Epicureanism in the language of the praetor's interdict de vi armata, which restored a man violently ejected from property; the formula did not carry the usual one-year limit, so the 'case' for restoring Cassius to virtue stays open.