Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Somewhat rubbed jacket, slightly rubbed binding, otherwise very good and clean. / Etwas beriebener Umschlag, leicht beriebener Einband, sonst sehr gut und sauber. - Paradosis and Survival presents fifteen essays devoted to recovering the three main phases of Epicurean philosophy in antiquity: its origin in the first generation of the school in Athens; its spread to Italy in the first century B.C.; and its arrival in Lycia in the second century A.D. The first series of essays focuses on the mechanisms Epicurus devised to assure the survival of the philosophy beyond its Athenian roots. Clay presents social history on an equal footing with doctrine and for the first time offers evidence for hero cults among these philosophers who believed that the soul died with the body. The second set of essays locates Epicureanism in the age of Cicero, Philodemus, and Lucretius, concentrating on the De Rerum Natura. The book concludes with the study of the philosophy in Oenoanda, Lycia, in which the author brilliantly situates post-1968 discoveries from Oenoanda in the context of the second-century mountain city. Philosophy is usually approached as a matter of doctrines and systems, but in antiquity, especially for the Epicureans, philadophia connoted a communal lifestyle. Diskin Clay recognizes this subtlety and makes use of papyri and inscriptions as well as the familiar philosophical texts in his study. In the four essays on De Rerum Natura, Lucretius is viewed not as a transparency through which we can view the Greek of Epicurus but as a Roman philosopher in control of both doctrine and rhetoric. - Diskin Clay is the R. J. R. Nabisco Distinguished Professor of Classical Studies, Duke University. ISBN 9780472108961