Epicurus, the son of the Athenian Neocles, [1050] was born in Samos [1051] in the year 342 or 341 B.C. [1052] His early education appears to have been neglected; [1053] and his knowledge of previous philosophic systems was very superficial, even at the time when he first came forward as an independent teacher. Still he can hardly have been so entirely self-taught as he wished to appear at a later period in life. The names, at least, of the individuals are on record who instructed him in the systems of Democritus and Plato; [1054] and although it is by no means an ascertained fact that he subsequently attended the lectures of Xenocrates, [1055] on the occasion of a visit to Athens, [1056] no doubt can be felt that he was acquainted with the writings of previous philosophers, from whom he borrowed important parts of his system [1057] and more particularly with those of Democritus. After having been engaged as a teacher in several Schools [1058] in Asia Minor, he repaired to Athens about the year 306 B.C., [1059] and there founded a School of his own. [1060] The meeting-place of this School was the founder’s garden, [1061] and its centre of attraction was the founder himself, around whom a circle of friends gathered, knit together by a common set of principles, by a common affection for a master whom they almost worshipped, and by a common enjoyment of cultivated society. [1062] Opponents charged the Epicureans with gross impropriety, because they admitted not only women, [1063] but women of loose morality, [1064] to this circle of philosophic culture; but in the then state of Greek society, such conduct does not appear extraordinary. Here Epicurus laboured for six and thirty years, during which he succeeded in impressing a stamp on his School which is now seen definite and unchanged after the lapse of centuries. In the year 270 B.C. [1065] he succumbed to disease, the pains and troubles of which he bore with great fortitude. [1066] Out of the multitude of his writings [1067] only a few have come down to us, and these are for the most part unimportant ones. [1068] On the whole, these fragments [1069] bear out the unfavourable opinions which opponents have expressed with regard to his style. [1070] [B. Scholars of Epicurus.]