Introduction

Scholarly assessments of Philodemus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were often sharply negative. Philodemus' works are largely transcripts of lectures given by his teacher Zeno of Sidon, who was probably the most important Epicurean philosopher after Epicurus himself. Philodemus has arisen particularly in the last thirty years, when there has been a strong resurgence of interest by classicists and literary critics in his works. Credit for this contemporary appreciation must be given, above all, to the late Professor Marcello Gigante in Naples, Italy, who, together with his students, took the lead in editing or re-editing many of the papyrus texts that contain Philodemus' works. These papyri were discovered more than two centuries ago in 1752-1754 to be precise at several locations within a villa in the city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed along with Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. Keywords: Epicurean philosopher; Herculaneum; Marcello Gigante; Mt. Vesuvius; papyri; Philodemus; Pompeii

Art · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

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