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:
- On Nature, in 37 books
- On Atoms and the Void
- On Love
- Abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural Philosophers
- Against the Megarians
- Problems
- Fundamental Propositions (Kyriai Doxai)
- On Choice and Avoidance
- On the Chief Good
- On the Criterion (the Canon)
- Chaeridemus,
- On the Gods
- On Piety
- Hegesianax
- Four essays on Lives
- Essay on Just Dealing
- Neocles
- Essay addressed to Themista
- The Banquet (Symposium)
- Eurylochus
- Essay addressed to Metrodorus
- Essay on Seeing
- Essay on the Angle in an Atom
- Essay on Touch
- Essay on Fate
- Opinions on the Passions
- Treatise addressed to Timocrates
- Prognostics
- Exhortations
- On Images
- On Perceptions
- Aristobulus
- Essay on Music (i.e., on music, poetry, and dance)
- On Justice and the other Virtues
- On Gifts and Gratitude
- Polymedes
- Timocrates (three books)
- Metrodorus (five books)
- Antidorus (two books)
- Opinions about Diseases and Death, addressed to Mithras
- Callistolas
- Essay on Kingly Power
- Anaximenes
- Letters