A Consular Epicurean under the Early Principate

AI HAVE DESERTED to camp of my enemy Epicurus (Cic. Farm. 9.20.1). Cicero wrote in jest: no one could doubt his immunity to inlecebrae voluptatis. Still there were earnest converts to Epicureanism among his peers, for example L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (cos. 58) and C. Vibius Pansa (cos. 43);1 and he made C. Cassius and C. Trebatius Testa butt of persiflage for defecting from virtus to voluptas.2 But heyday of Epicureanism, at least as a faith for Roman aristocrats, drew to a close with establishment of Augustan Principate, which propagated a state-serving rather than an individualistic morality, and in first century A.D. senatorial Epicurean must have been a fish out of water. Still, Syme has cautioned that the dearth of evidence may be deceptive,3 and in light of this warning it may be prudent to scrutinize a dim figure from reign of Gaius--an Epicurean senator known only by odd gentilicium Pompedius. Josephus recounts, among outrages of Gaius, ordeal of Pompedius (IIHo(iL&oP) and his mistress Quintilia, an actress celebrated for her

Ancient history · Art · Epicureanism · Literature · Political science · Principate · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · History · Law

• Two unidentified senators in Josephus, A.J 19

  Open Access•A R Birley•The Classical Quarterly•2000

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