The Writings of Epicurus Epicurus

Epicurus was an extremely prolific writer.[118][116][61][65] According to Diogenes Laërtius, he wrote around 300 treatises on a variety of subjects.[116][61] Although more original writings of Epicurus have survived to the present day than of any other Hellenistic Greek philosopher,[65] the vast majority of everything he wrote has still been lost,[118][116][61] and most of what is known about Epicurus's teachings come from the writings of his later followers, particularly the Roman poet Lucretius.[61] The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three relatively lengthy letters, which are quoted in their entirety in Book X of Diogenes Laërtius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι Δόξαι), which are likewise preserved through quotation by Diogenes Laërtius, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library that was first discovered in 1888.[61] In the Letter to Herodotus and the Letter to Pythocles, Epicurus summarizes his philosophy on nature and, in the Letter to Menoeceus, he summarizes his moral teachings.[61] Numerous fragments of Epicurus's lost thirty-seven volume treatise On Nature have been found among the charred papyrus fragments at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.[61][65] Scholars first began attempting to unravel and decipher these scrolls in 1800, but the efforts are painstaking and are still ongoing.[61] According to Diogenes Laertius (10.27-9), the major works of Epicurus include:

1. On Nature, in 37 books
2. On Atoms and the Void
3. On Love
4. Abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural Philosophers
5. Against the Megarians
6. Problems
7. Fundamental Propositions (Kyriai Doxai)
8. On Choice and Avoidance
9. On the Chief Good
10. On the Criterion (the Canon)
11. Chaeridemus,
12. On the Gods
13. On Piety
14. Hegesianax
15. Four essays on Lives
16. Essay on Just Dealing
17. Neocles
18. Essay addressed to Themista
19. The Banquet (Symposium)
20. Eurylochus
21. Essay addressed to Metrodorus
22. Essay on Seeing
23. Essay on the Angle in an Atom
24. Essay on Touch
25. Essay on Fate
26. Opinions on the Passions
27. Treatise addressed to Timocrates
28. Prognostics
29. Exhortations
30. On Images
31. On Perceptions
32. Aristobulus
33. Essay on Music (i.e., on music, poetry, and dance)
34. On Justice and the other Virtues
35. On Gifts and Gratitude
36. Polymedes
37. Timocrates (three books)
38. Metrodorus (five books)
39. Antidorus (two books)
40. Opinions about Diseases and Death, addressed to Mithras
41. Callistolas
42. Essay on Kingly Power
43. Anaximenes
44. Letters