person
Gaius Amafinius
Amafinius
also: Amafinius, Amafinii
An early Latin writer who popularized Epicurean doctrine in plain Latin prose, winning a wide unlearned readership; Cicero (and here Cassius) treats him and Catius as crude interpreters who debased Epicurus's teaching (Fam. 15.19).
Reading notes
- Academica §5 Amafinius or Rabirius
Early Latin Epicurean popularizers whom Cicero scorns for writing without method or technical vocabulary. He sets his own demanding philosophical Latin against their plain everyday speech.
- Ad Familiares 15.19 §2 those poor interpreters of words
Catius and Amafinius were the early Latin popularizers of Epicureanism; Cassius, himself an Epicurean, dismisses them as crude vulgarizers who debased the master's teaching.
- Tusculan Disputations §4.6 Gaius Amafinius
An early Roman Epicurean writer (probably second to first century BC) whose Latin treatises won a wide popular following. Cicero scorns him as expounding doctrine too crudely to count as real philosophy.