The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  Although the inscription does not undermine what we know of the original teachings of Epicurus, Diogenes offers distinctive expansions of Epicurean doctrine and demonstrates the elasticity of Epicurean teachings. A key example of the latter is Diogenes’s version of the Principal Doctrines. Much of the text is recognizable, despite departures from Diogenes Laertius’s text that suggest they had been simplified for memorizing and recitation (Clay 1990). Yet eight of Diogenes’s Principal Doctrines are unique, but are nonetheless granted authenticity by their inclusion in the same continuous, single-line band that Clay 1990, 2535 describes as “Epicurus’s underwriting” of Diogenes’s Ethics. Another corresponds to one of the Sententiae Vaticanae, a version that is longer than, but similar to Diogenes Laertius’s collection. Thus, Diogenes Laertius and Diogenes of Oenoanda present us with two versions of the Principal Doctrines, both of which may well resemble only roughly a collection directly formulated by Epicurus or his immediate disciples. The likelihood that Diogenes himself was not the innovator is suggested by the fact that he includes his own collection of maxims elsewhere, in multiline columns. There Diogenes’s authorship is indicated by the apparent epilogue to these maxims, which reminds readers that he “turned so many letters to stone” for their sake (fr. 116).

  Perhaps the strongest indication of Diogenes’s stance on cultural phenomena in the first centuries of the Roman Empire is his critique of oracular prophecy. Epicureans of all eras denied that the gods intervene in human affairs (for good or for ill), and Diogenes Laertius records that Epicurus rejected all types of divination (Diog. Laert. 10.135). Yet the extant works of Epicurus contain no criticism of oracular prophecy in particular, as would be in keeping with the decrease in the importance of Delphi and other oracular centers during the Hellenistic era, (as was later remarked by Cicero in Div. 2.117). But in the Greek East of the first centuries of the empire there was a sharp rise in the interest in oracles, a phenomenon that may be regarded as part of a broader “rhetoric of tradition” and a “successful export of Greek culture” to Asia Minor (Bendlin 2011, 220 and 221). As a faithful Epicurean, Diogenes puts traditional Epicurean theology into service, writing his own critique of a contemporary development. Similarly, Lucretius takes Epicurus’s general teachings about the gods as his starting point when he censures Roman augury (e.g., Lucr. 6.83–89).

  Recent discoveries strongly suggest that there was an oracle to Apollo in Oenoanda (Milner 2000), but Diogenes takes a longer view. Like the second-century Cynic Oenomaus of Gadara, Diogenes uses a Herodotean locus classicus to argue against the belief in oracular prophecy. Regarding the famous story of Croesus’s Delphic consultation about Cyrus’s empire (Hdt. 1.53), Diogenes asks: “Why does he (Apollo) give oracles to any who want them against those who have committed no sin, either big or small, against him? For this is incompatible with the majesty of a god.” “Moreover,” Diogenes continues, in this traditional and erroneous account, “Apollo also takes bribes”: because of his desire to procure oracular responses, Croesus dedicated large quantities of gold to Delphi (New Fragment [henceforth NF] 143). Also in connection with traditional oracles recorded by Herodotus, Diogenes writes in a fragment that was probably adjacent: “what great misfortunes some people have experienced on account of this ambiguity and intricate obliqueness of oracles” (fr. 23). Warren (2000, 148) describes Diogenes’s critique of oracular prophecy as a response in kind to the “epigraphical genre” of inscribed oracular utterances, contemporary examples of which are found in Oenoanda (Milner 2000).

  One of the most valuable texts in the inscription is a series of fragments that has been named the Letter to Mother (fr. 125–126, and possibly fr. 127). In this letter a student of philosophy apparently assures his mother that her dreams about him are meaningless: despite the dire situation that the dreams suggest, her son is learning to be “as joyful as the gods” (an Epicurean ideal). The writer explains that dream images can be sensed not by physical touch, but only by the mind. Although the text is fragmentary, it is evidently in accord with a well-known Epicurean explanation that dreams—rather than being sent by the gods—are merely streams of fine simulacra that flow from the actual object or person, entering the mind of the dreamer along with any distortions that conditions induce (Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 9 and 10; Lucr. 4.26–44, 4.722–822, and 4.962–1036; Epicurus Ep. Hdt. 51). As Diogenes writes elsewhere, dreamers may misinterpret what they experience, “for the means of testing the opinion are asleep at the time” (fr. 9). Having offered his scientific explanation, the philosophy student urges his mother: “But in heaven’s name, do not be so generous with the contributions which you are constantly sending us, for I do not want you to go without anything so that I may have more than enough” (fr. 126).

  Although the Letter to Mother has been included in editions of Epicurus, some scholars read it as a letter from Diogenes to his own mother, and others suspect that it is fictional (see Smith 1993, 555–558; on fictional letters in the Second Sophistic, see chapters 32 [“Epistolography”] and 43 [“Christian Apocrypha”] in this volume). Signs of its being a later composition include: it paraphrases Epicurus’s Principal Doctrines, resembles other pseudepigraphic letters attributed to philosophers, and overturns widespread clichés about the Epicureans (Fletcher 2012 and Gordon 1996, 66–93). This last element is particularly telling. The first generation of the Garden had included women who were bona fide students of philosophy, but hostile observers labeled the women as hetaerae and portrayed their inclusion as an emblem of Epicurean licentiousness (Gordon 2012, 72–108). This letter, however, validates the notion that a woman could be the recipient of Epicurean wisdom. A third fragment even predicts: “you will turn away from the speeches of the rhetoricians, in order that you may hear something of our tenets” (fr. 127). Judging it unlikely that a woman would be entreated to leave rhetoric in favor of philosophy, some scholars would attribute this last fragment to a letter to a male recipient (see Smith 1993, 559–560). But fragment 127 appears less incongruous if we consider the Letter to Mother as a composition not of the late fourth century BCE, when a woman who studied philosophy would be labeled a hetaera, but of an era when women were more active in public life and when Diogenes Laertius urged his female reader to master Epicurus completely (Diog. Laert. 10.28–29). Thus the Letter to Mother achieves several ends: it offers a portrait of a young Epicurus who is a model of filial piety, serves as a medium for an Epicurean theory of the mechanics of dreams, and challenges a hostile stereotype of women in the Garden. The tendency of Diogenes’s non-Epicurean contemporaries to regard dreams as “a preferred medium of divine communication” (Bendlin 2011, 181), may also indicate a specifically second-century context.

  Among Diogenes’s unique contributions to Epicurean theology is his commentary on ancient portrayals of divinities. In contrast with the vengeful gods of many ancient cultures (including Greek and Roman), the gods as conceived by Epicurus are contented, “blessed” beings who never harm people (Principal Doctrines 1). Whether he took his assertion from an earlier text or was offering an original elaboration, Diogenes illustrates the concept in a unique way by critiquing traditional iconography. Instead of depicting gods armed with a bow (as was traditional for, e.g., Apollo, Artemis, and Heracles) or guarded by wild beasts (traditional for Cybele), Diogenes asserts: “we ought to make statues of the gods genial and smiling, so that we may smile back at them rather than be afraid of them” (fr. 19). It may be that Diogenes’s assertion is a particularly Epicurean response to Christian and Jewish rejection of “graven images” comparable to Dio Chrysostom’s “exalted interpretation” of Phidias’s cult statue of Zeus (Clay 2000, 89–91). Elsewhere Diogenes corrects the common misapprehension that the Epicureans were atheists, asserting that such views were held by other philosophers, notably Pythagoras.

  In accord with his disapproval of the notion that the gods communicate with human beings by means of oracles and dreams, Diogenes deplores the prevalence of superstition (ψευδοδο
ξία) among his contemporaries “who suffer from a common disease, as in a plague . . . and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep)” (fr. 3). Here Diogenes does not enumerate the superstitions of this growing number of victims. But a recently discovered fragment identifies two peoples as the most superstitious, or, literally, “the most fearful of divine power” (δεισιδαιμονέστατοι). In accordance with the Epicurean view that fear of the gods is a human failing that brings no societal good, Diogenes writes: “A clear indication of the complete inability of the gods to prevent wrongdoings is provided by the nations of the Jews and Egyptians, who, while being the most superstitious of all peoples, are the vilest of all peoples” (NF 126). Various explanations for this unexpectedly hostile commentary on Judaism have been offered. Diogenes may be expressing Hellenic aversion to circumcision, or may be influenced here by traditional lore about Jews and Christians such as their alleged cannibalism (Smith 1998, 140–142). In Rome both Egyptians and Jews were sometimes regarded as practitioners of unwelcome alien cults (Gruen 2002, 30–33; 52–53), and Diogenes’s focus on Jews and Egyptians may be “an Epicurean counter to the Stoic, and then Middle Platonist, tendency to regard precisely these two nations as exemplifying the claim that barbarian philosophies contained elements of the true religion of primal times” (Gordon and Reynolds 2003, 289). It is also possible—depending upon its date—that this passage is inspired in part by the widespread and violent Jewish revolt of 115–118 or possibly of the second great revolt in Palestine in 132–135 CE (Smith 1998, 142). A more general context would be the vigorous Jewish critiques of Epicureanism such as those found in Philo (20 BCE–50 CE) and Josephus (37 to ca. 100 CE), which are epitomized by the Hebrew transliteration of Epicurus’s name as a term for heretic.

  Writing all or most of the inscription toward the end of his life, Diogenes includes a defense of old age that apparently stretched across much of the highest level of the inscription and is thus far represented by fifty-three fragments (Smith 2004, 39). In it he expresses exasperation with young men’s erroneous views of the elderly and quotes Agamemnon’s words to Nestor in the Iliad (2.53) as proof that old men are good speakers (fr. 138 and 142). A new fragment whose physical attributes match the Old Age treatise (NF 136), mentions “an elaborate house with fretted and gold-spangled ceilings” as something to be avoided, recommending instead simple clothing and food, particularly cabbage (elsewhere Diogenes commends chick peas). Here Diogenes takes part in an Epicurean tradition of improvising on Epicurus’s teaching that “it is better to recline on a straw mattress and have no worries than to have a golden couch and luxurious table” (Usener fr. 207; cf. Letter to Menoeceus 131–132 and Lucr. 2.20–36).

  Thinking beyond his own life—and expressing an idea found in no other Epicurean sources—Diogenes hoped for an Epicurean Golden Age when people would have no slaves, but would study philosophy and farm together (NF 21). Despite evident earthquake damage and the predations of the Oenoandans that obscured Diogenes’s Golden Age message for centuries, we can hope for an excavation that will reveal yet more of Diogenes’s benefaction, elucidating even more clearly the state of Epicureanism in the second century CE.

  FURTHER READING

  The most up-to-date book-length editions of Diogenes of Oenoanda are published by Smith (1993 and 2003). Since 2004, newly discovered or redeciphered fragments have been published nearly annually and are now reprinted in Hammerstaedt and Smith 2014, which begins with NF 136. All of these editions include commentary and English translation. Note also the catalog of publications of new fragments on the Oenoanda project’s website, under the auspices of the Deutsche Archäologische Institut (DAI) http://www.dainst.org/de. Fragments cited in this chapter follow Smith’s or Hammerstaedt and Smith’s numeration, and all translations are by Smith 1993 or Hammerstaedt and Smith 2014, unless otherwise noted. Smith (1993, 599–615) offers a concordance of the various numeration systems.

  Earlier editions and translations of Diogenes of Oenoanda include the publication of the first discoveries in the nineteenth century (Hebedey and Kalinka 1897), as well as Chilton 1971, and Casanova 1984. The production of print editions of Diogenes of Oenoanda is problematic not only because the fragments present us with a complicated and lacuna-ridden puzzle, but also because the printed page cannot reproduce the layout of the inscription or capture its full impact as experienced by readers in antiquity. On various reconstructions of the layout see Erler 2009, figs. 1 and 2. On other major inscriptions in and near Oenoanda, see Kokkinia 2000, Rogers 1991, and Wörrle 1988.

  Considerations of the second-century context of the inscription include: Bendlin 2011 on dreams, oracular prophecy, and the subversive nature of Diogenes’s endeavor; Clay 1989 on Diogenes’s community and intellectual background; Clay 2000 on theology; Fletcher 2012 and Gordon 1996 on the Letter to Mother; Roskam 2007 on Diogenes’s response to euergetic practices; Scholz 2003 on Diogenes’s community; Snyder 2000 on the production of Epicurean texts; and Warren 2000 on the monumentality of the inscription. Innovations in Epicureanism in general are explored in Fish and Sanders 2011 and Holmes and Shearin 2012.

  The most recent critical editions of Diogenes Laertius are Marcovich 1999–2002 and Dorandi 2013. For recent reevaluations of Diogenes Laertius, see Gigante 1992; Goulet-Cazé 1999; Meier 1992 and 2007; and Warren 2007. Gigante examines Diogenes Laertius’s connections with Epicureanism. Warren suggests that Diogenes Laertius does not express “any personal philosophical allegiance” (2007, 138).

  Recent handbooks on Epicureanism include Warren 2009. Erler 2009, Erler and Bees 2000, and Ferguson 1990 treat Epicureanism in the Roman Empire. Maso 1999 treats Seneca’s many affirmative citations of Epicurean philosophy. Hershbell 1992 and Boulogne 2003 examine Plutarch’s critique of Epicureanism. On Epictetus and Stoics in general, see chapter 33 in this volume; on Cleomedes, see Bowen and Todd 2004. On anti-Epicurean discourse in antiquity, see Gordon 2012.

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