piety towards the Gods, and his affection for his country was quite unspeakable; though, from an excess of modesty, he avoided affairs of state. And though he lived when very difficult times oppressed Greece, he still remained in his own country, only going two or three times across to Ionia to see his friends, who used to throng to him from all quarters, and to live with him in his garden, as we are told by Apollodorus. (This garden he bought for eighty minæ.)
VI. And Diocles, in the third book of his Excursion, says that they all lived in the most simple and economical manner; “They were content,” says he, “with a small cup of light wine, and all the rest of their drink was water.” He also tells us that Epicurus would not allow his followers to throw their property into a common stock, as Pythagoras did, who said that the possessions of friends were held in common. For he said that such a doctrine as that was suited rather for those who distrusted one another; and that those who distrusted one another were not friends. But he himself in his letters, says that he is content with water and plain bread, and adds, “Send me some Cytherean cheese, that if I wish to have a feast, I may have the means.” This was the real character of the man who laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good; whom Athenæus thus mentions in an epigram:—
And as we advance further, we shall learn this fact from his dogmas, and his apophthegms.
VII. Of all the ancient philosophers he was, as we are told by Diocles, most attached to Anaxagoras (although in some points he argued against him); and to Archelaus, the master of Socrates. And he used, Diocles adds, to accustom his pupils to preserve his writings in their memory. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, asserts that he was a pupil of Nausiphanes, and Praxiphanes; but he himself does not mention this; but says in his letter