Lampe Kurt - The birth of hedonism : the Cyrenaic philosophers and pleasure as a way of life

THE BIRTH OF HEDONISM

THE BIRTH OF HEDONISM

The Cyrenaic Philosophers
and Pleasure
as a Way of Life

KURT LAMPE

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton & Oxford

Copyright 2015 by Princeton University Press

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Jacket art: Henri Matisse, Luxe calme et volupte, 1904, Muse dOrsay, Paris, France. 2014 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo credit: RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, NY / Herv Lewandowski.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Lampe, Kurt, 1977

The birth of hedonism : the Cyrenaic philosophers and pleasure as a way of life / Kurt Lampe.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-16113-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Hedonism. 2. Cyrenaics (Greek philosophy) I. Title.

B279.L36 2014 183.5dc23

2013039984

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Minion

Printed on acid-free paper

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

PARENTIBUS DILIGENTIBUS,

QUI ME EDUCANDUM CUR AVERINT

SOPHIAE HANINA, CUIUS AMORE MAIOR SIM FACTUS

UNIVERSITATIS BRISTOLIENSIS CONLEGIS, QUORUM

CONSTANTIA AUDACIAQUE ME CORROBOR AVERINT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book began life as a PhD dissertation at the University of Berkeley in 20052007. Above all I must thank Tony Long, my lead supervisor, for giving me the latitude to pursue my own interests at that time. The mandate to produce an immediately publishable thesis, thank goodness, was never imposed on me. While this freedom led to many dead ends and complete revisions, the wandering involved has undoubtedly been fundamental not only for this book (notwithstanding its remaining flaws!), but also for my broader development as a scholar.

For the last two years of my PhD I was actually resident either at Cambridge or at the Warburg Institute in London. I am grateful to both institutions for their supportive research environments. In particular I want to thank David Sedley and Malcolm Schofield at Cambridge and Charles Burnett at the Warburg.

Many others have helped with both the PhD and subsequent drafts of this work. First, John Ferrari and Nelly Oliensis read drafts of many chapters at Berkeley. Hans Sluga read the completed dissertation and offered me his comments, as did Margaret Graver. As I revised and re-revised the manuscript, chapters were read by Geoffrey Lloyd, Duncan Kennedy, Charles Martindale, Lee Behlman, and Gillian Clark. Stephen Clark was kind enough to read almost an entire draft. To all of these people I owe my thanksand indeed my apologies, since I fear I have not always been a gracious recipient of criticism!

I also owe a great deal of gratitude to the Classics & Ancient History Department at the University of Bristol, which has been unfailingly supportive during the long revision process. Indeed, from my first weeks here I was permitted to turn my attention to entirely new and unrelated projects. Without the lapse of time this created I do not think I would have arrived at some of the most important interpretive claims in this book.

Some of this materialoften in embarrassingly undercooked formhas been presented at the APA convention in San Diego (2007), the University of Toronto (2007), the University of Cambridge (2010, 2011), and Durham University (2011). I am grateful to those audiences for their criticisms.

Finally, I want to thank Rob Tempio, my editor at Princeton University Press, and the referees. One of those refereesVoula Tsounachose to reveal her name to me afterwards. I have benefited from both her detailed report and from subsequent correspondence.

ABBREVIATIONS

My abbreviations for classical authors follow those of LSJ and The Oxford Latin Dictionary (ed. P.G.W. Clare, 1982. Oxford: Clarendon Press). For ease of reference I list them here as well. I also give the publication details for works that are harder to find.

All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. There exists no convenient English translation of the collected evidence for the Cyrenaics, although some of it can be found scattered through Boys-Stones and Rowe 2013. Onfray 2002 is currently the only modern-language translation of this evidence of which I know, although another is forthcoming by Mrsico. Those wishing to consult English translations of particular Greek or Roman works are advised to check first in the Loeb Classical Library series (Harvard University Press), whose translations of book titles I use in the following list. Translations and commentaries I have cited in the text are given in the bibliography under the name of the translator or commentator.

Ael. = Aelian

- AH = Animalium Historia (On Animals)

- VH = Varia Historia (Historical Miscellany)

At. = Atius, Placita (in Diels 1879, 267444)

Al. Aphr. De An. = Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Anima Liber (On the Soul)

Anecd. Gr. = Anecdota Graeca. Ed. J. Fr. Boissonade. 182933. Paris: The Royal Press.

Andron. Rh. = Pseudo-Andronicus of Rhodes:. dition critique du texte grecque et de la traduction latine mdivale. Ed. A. Glibert-Thirry. 1977. Leiden: Brill.

Anon. Comm. in Pl. Tht. = Anonymous Commentarius in Platonis Theaetetum (Commentary on Platos Theaetetus). Ed. G. Bastianini and D. N. Sedley. 1995. In Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci et latini vol. 3. Florence: Olschki.

Apul. Flor. = Apuleius, Florida

Ar. Av. = Aristophanes, Aves (Birds)

Arist. = Aristotle

- AH = Animalium Historia (History of Animals)

- De An. = De Anima (On the Soul)

- EN = Ethica Nicomachea (Nicomachean Ethics)

- Ph. = Physica (Physics)

- Pol. = Politica (Politics)

- Rhet. = Rhetorica (Rhetoric)

[Arist.] MM = Pseudo-Aristotle, Magna Moralia

Aristocles: See Chiesara 2001

Arius Didymus Epit. = Epitome of Stoic Ethics, ed. A. Pomeroy. 1999. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Arr. An. = Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander

Athen. = Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae (The Learned Banqueters)

Aug. Civ. Dei = Augustine, City of God

Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. = Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights)

Auson. Opusc. = Ausonius, Opuscula (Book III: Personal Poems in the Loeb)

Bion: see Kindstrand 1976

Callimachus Ep. = Epigrammata. Ed. R. Pfeiffer, 1953. Vol II: Hymni et Epigrammata. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Cic. = Cicero

- Fin. = De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On Ends)

- Luc. = Lucullus (sometimes called the Prior Academics)

- ND = De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods)

- Off. = De Officiis (On Duties)

- Tusc. = Tusculanae Disputationes (Tusculan Disputations)

Clem. Al. = Clement of Alexandria

- Paed. = Paedagogus (The Pedagogue)

- Protrept. =