O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

The Invulnerable Pleasures of 
Epicurean Friendship 

David K. O'Connor 

E PICURUS DEVELOPED a distinctive account of the value of 
friendship, an account he surely intended to be consistent 
with his more general hedonic account of value and hap­

piness. Many critics both ancient and modern believe that Epicurus 
failed, with diagnoses of the failure falling into two camps. One 
camp claims that Epicurus' attachment to the view that pleasure is 
the sole constituent of hapriness permitted him only a mercenary 
and niggardly conception 0 friendship. They charge that the sort of 
friendship he held up as an ideal for his disciples falls short of the 
highest friendship, especially because it entails too little sacrifice of 
one's own interests for one's friends'. Critics from the other camp 
deny that Epicurus' ideal is insufficient, and in fact often praise him 
for his generosity on this point. But they find this generosity in­
consistent with his hedonism. According to a recent critic, "In his 
account of friendship, Epicurus seems quite willing to concede the 
common belief that friendship requires valuing others for their 
own sake, even though this creates difficulties for his hedonism."l 

So the critics view Epicurus either as consistent philosopher and 
bad friend, or as inconsistent philosopher and good friend. Either 
way, criticism focuses on what Epicurus' hedonism excludes from 
friendship, while taking for granted what a good friendship is. I 
think it is fairer to Epicurus, and more interesting philosophically, if 
we focus instead on what he believed friendship is and could be. 
He does not merely give us novel hedonic reasons for living up to 
an already given ideal of friendship. Instead, Epicurus offers us an al­
ternative ideal, and invites us to measure our friendships against his 

1 P. MITSIS, "Epicurus on Friendship and Altruism," aSAP 5 (1987: hereafter 
'Mitsis'J) 126-53, at 131 n.ll. A slightly revised version appears as chapter 3 of his 
Epicurus' Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability (Ithaca 1988) 98-128. 
My references are to the original article. 

165 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

166 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

new standard. He has not claimed simply to have found a shorter 
path than his opponents to the top of the same old mountain, but to 
have found a new and more lofty peak. He challenges us to reorgan­
ize our experience of friendship by putting the exquisite pleasure of 
peaceful tranquillity at its heart. We shall first try to reconstruct in 
some detail what such friendship would be (section I). 

Once we have seen more clearly what the ideal Epicurean friend­
ship asks of us and offers to us, we can better confront the criti­
cisms leveled against it. I then (section II) consider a question that 
arises immediately from Epicurus' own concerns: does living up to 
this ideal of friendship undermine our self-sufficiency and control 
over our own happiness? Recently, the notion has become popular 
that if love and friendship are indispensable elements of a happy life, 
happiness must be more vulnerable to chance than many Greek 
moral philosophers were willing to concede. 2 I argue that this is not 
true of Epicurus' ideal friendships. We neither depend on 
spontaneous, fortuitous affections for their formation nor become 
vulnerable to unlucky pains at their dissolution. The link between 
self-sufficiency and tranquillity is preserved when we live together 
as Epicureans should. 

A second question, less central within Epicurus' own perspective 
but important to many critics both ancient and modern, asks 
whether the Epicurean ideal of friendship is too undemanding in 
what it asks friends to give up for each other. The ancients raised 
this question by asking whether a consistent Epicurean would be 
willing to die for a friend. This particular sacrifice is used here as a 
test of the nobility of a moral ideal: an ideal that can justify giving up 
so great a good as one's own life must promise even greater and 
nobler goods to those who live up to it. Later Epicureans apparent­
ly tried to show that their ideal would indeed justify this ultimate 
act of generosity to a friend. 3 But I shall suggest (section III) that an 
Epicurean's reasons for being willing to die for a friend undermine 
the very assumptions that make such a death a test of nobility. The 

2 E.g. B. Williams, -Moral Luck," in Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-
1980 (Cambridge 1981) and Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge 
[Mass.] 1985); M. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge 1986). 

3 See D.L. 10.121. Perhaps the mention of taking risks for friendship in VS 28 is 
a hint that Epicurus himself would have been interested in the question. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DAVID K. O'CONNOR 167 

particular wayan Epicurean will devote him- or herself to a friend 
is a measure of the distance between Ericurean ideals and the ideals 
implicit in the test, and not at all a proo of their similarity. 

Modern critics are less concerned with the nobility of Epicurus' 
ideal friendship than with its perceived egoism. In section IV, I shall 
question Phillip Mitsis' recent claim to have found a commitment 
to altruism (i.e., to valuing one's friends for their own sake rather 
than for the pleasure they provide to oneself) within Epicurus' 
account of friendship. So far as I can see, Epicurus never so much 
as entertained the possibility that altruism was necessary for the 
best friendship, let alone that the value of altruism was independent 
of his hedonic criterion. His ideal of friendship is hedonist through 
and through, which is to say that he values friends because they con­
tribute so much to living a peaceful, tranquil life. This ideal excludes 
the sorts of selfish behavior that provoke the charge of egoism, but 
the reasons for this exclusion have nothing to do with valuing al­
truism as such. 

Before we begin, we should note what sort of inquiry is possible 
here. My attempt to explicate an Epicurean ideal of friendship and 
to explore its resources for responding to criticism suffers under 
the same debility as its competitors: the paucity of our sources. Dis­
cussion of friendship in the surviving writings of Epicurus is slight: 
two of the forty Principal Doctrines, a handful of Vatican Sayings, 
along with some incidental discussions in the Letter to Menoeceus. 
There are also some reports and anecdotes of various credibility 
about Epicurus and his friendships that may be relevant, and Cicero 
preserves some evidence useful primarily for showing what Epi­
curus' position (as opposed to that of later Epicureans) was not. But 
compared with our sources for the basic Epicurean doctrine on 
pleasure, for example, those on friendship are meager. We are in no 
position to reconstruct anything like a complete theory of friend­
ship, and must in fact be guided more by Epicurus' general views of 
pleasure and happiness than by any very definite constraints that 
his sayings on friendship would impose. Much that I say here will 
therefore be frankly speculative, at best an appreciation of the 
Master's spirit rather than an interpretation of his letter. I believe 
that an Epicurean ideal of friendship is nevertheless worth con­
sidering, in part simply for its value in making us reconsider what 
we might otherwise take for granted about friendship itself. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

168 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

I. The Epicurean Ideal 

Epicureans were notorious for the way they embodied their 
views of friendship in a distinctive style of communal living. 4 This 
concrete and practical way of life is a good place to start thinking 
about how an Epicurean friendship contributes to a happy, success­
fullife-just as reflection on political life at Athens or philosophical 
life with Socrates or within the Academy helps us to understand 
what Plato and Aristotle say about love and friendship. Unlike the 
political friendships discussed in the Nichomachean Ethics, Epi­
curean social life clearly did not focus on shared public action with­
in a polis; nor does it seem to have focused on shared theoretical in­
vestigations of the sort portrayed in Plato's dialogues. Epicureans 
valued less the pleasures of a good colloquium than of the reception 
afterwards. The heart of Epicurean friendship seems to have been 
fellowship rather than political action or philosophical conversation. 

We will feel more vividly the distinctive appeal of this Epicurean 
fellowship if we consider a few important aspects of their com­
munallife. No doubt one thing Epicurean friends did together was 
study Epicurus' philosophy. But a more distinctive manifestation of 
their fellowship seems to have been a hero cult in honor of the 
founders of the school. 5 The central event of these regular gather­
ings was a common meal. Breaking bread together, rather than en­
gaging in political action or arguing with one another, was the focus 
of Epicurean fellowship. These banquets were devoted to remem­
bering the dead-both deceased members of the local community 
and famous Epicurean heroes, including Epicurus himself. This 
practice of remembrance involved the public telling of tales of 
exemplary biography, a sort of Epicurean Lives of the Saints. For 
example, the story of Epicurus' tranquillity in his hnal hours in the 
face .of great bodily pain might be read to the assembled com­
mumty. 

Banqueting, remembering the dead, meditating on the teachings 
of the Master: if we want to understand the great value Epicurus 

4 There are enough sneers from outsiders to justify calling Epicurean friendships 
'notorious' . 

5 Here I am heavily indebted to Diskin Clay, -The Cults of Epicurus," Cron 
Ercol16 (1986) 11-28, which gathers and discusses the evidence for the existence of 
this cult. Note especially Epicurus' endowment of these memorial banquets in his 
will (D.L. 10.18). 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA YID K. O'CONNOR 169 

placed on friendship, we should perhaps start by trying to appre­
ciate how such quasi-religious fellowship could be so important to a 
tranquil and pleasant life.6 How can this style of community life be 
justified on hedonic grounds? 

We might be tempted to think that on Epicurus' view humans 
have an intrinsic desire for friendship, such that friendship would 
provide a special, characteristic pleasure of its own, a pleasure so 
important and pleasing that a life lived without it would lack an 
essential element of pleasant tranquillity. On this view, even the 
wisest Epicureans, if they lived alone, would feel the pang of an un­
satisfied desire for the company of others, much like what we call 
loneliness. They would need friends to fill what would otherwise 
remain a gap in their complete satisfaction. This approach would as­
similate the satisfaction of the need for friends to the satisfaction of 
what Epicurus called the necessary desires, e.g. for food and drink.l 
The friendless Epicurean would be almost literally starved for affec­
tion. But though this view seems natural enough to us, there is no 
evidence that Epicurus believed in any such direct desire for friend­
ship.8 Its hedonic value must be explained less directly. 

An alternative view would avoid placing the importance of friend­
ship in fulfilling so particular a need. Rather than valuing friendship 
in itself as the uniquely satisfying object of an inescapable desire, we 
might value it for its broader effects on the tranquillity of our lives. 
To some extent, friendship provides the same sort of bodily and 
mental security from thieves and cutthroats as justice does; but 

6 I do not mean to claim that the only or even the most important context of 
Epicurean friendship was the formal celebration of the hero cult; but these central 
features of the cult do illustrate in a striking way why Epicureans found friendship 
so valuable. 

7 This interpretation would also leave open the same possibilities for variation 
and substitution: one friend could be substituted for another as one type of food 
and drink can be as satisfying as another. Thus on this interpretation the 
Epicurean view of the need for and value of friends would be quite different from 
contemporary conceptions of friendship that emphasize loving individuals and 
deny the replaceability of a lost friend by a new one. 

8 There is in fact considerable evidence that Epicurus explicitly denied any such 
natural impulse to community: see P. A. Vander Waerdt, '"Hermarchus and the 
Epicurean Genealogy of Morals, " TAPA 118 (1988) 93 n.26. The view that Epi­
curus believed in a direct desire for friendship might be thought to receive support 
from VS 23, 1tuoa <J>tA.\a St' eau'tftv aipE'tTt [Usener: apE'tTt MSS.]. apxTtV s' tlA.ll<J>EV 
a1tO 'til~ cOcp£A.t\a~, a saying I discuss below (IV). 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

170 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

clearly we should expect rather more from friendship than this. 
Closer to the heart of Epicurus' conception of happiness are the 
cozy pleasures of the temperate yet festive common banquets. 9 Let 
contemplative Platonic elves and practical Aristotelian dwarves pre­
tend to 'higher' pleasures; the Epicurean will not be embarrassed by 
his hobbit-like appreciation of ample food, good drink, and a warm 
fire. But the gemutlichkeit and physical well-being enjoyed in 
wholesome feasting does not yet guarantee our complete satisfac­
tion in life. For even after we remove any anxieties caused by the 
predations of others, even when we achieve a healthy, pleasing 
bodily state, we are still prey to mental fears that destroy our happi­
ness. "'It is no profit to obtain security as far as concerns human 
beings," says Epicurus (KD 13), "'while suspiciously eyeing the 
things above and the things beneath the earth, and generally the 
things in the unlimited universe." We might add to these cosmic 
anxieties those discontents based on false judgments about the 
sources and limits of pleasure and pain (KD 11). Can Epicurus have 
expected those who live up to his ideal of fellowship to find aid 
against these mental disturbances much as against the physical? 

There is every reason to think he did. Some of this aid probably 
came from the communal study of philosophy.10 Without some 
basic understanding of the nature of the divine and the sources and 
limits of pleasure and pain, no one could be safe from vain fears and 
discontents. The main surviving account of Epicurus' moral teach­
ing, the Letter to Menoeceus, implies that some philosophical train­
ing was an aspect of communallife. 11 But we must not overrate the 

9 Cf. Arist. Pol. 1280b36-41: religious festivals are for the sake of mere living to­
gether (<T\)~i1v) rather than noble actions (xaAaI. 1tpa~El.~). 

10 Consider VS 74 and the mention of "'discussions" ('to'i~ 1tEPI. <puaECJ)~ ~1.aA.o'Y1.a­
JlOl.9 at VS 10. 

lIThe letter concludes with an exhortation to study its contents .. night and day 
by yourself and with someone like you," a clear indication of group study. A. A. 
Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers I (Cambridge 1987) 144, 
have challenged this reading, rejecting Usener's 1tpO~ ('tE), and find no reference 
in the passage to studying with another person. Somewhat more revealing is Epi­
curus' earlier warning to Menoeceus (Ep. ad Men. 132) about the scandalous 
accounts of Epicurean hedonism spread by ignorant or confused detractors: 
"'Neither non-stop drinking and partying, nor indulgence in boys and women, 
nor in the fish and other things lavish tables provide, makes for the pleasant life, 
but rather sober thinking (A.o'Yta .... o~), and searching out the grounds for all choice 
and avoidance, and driving out those opinions from which the greatest dis­
turbance gets hold of souls." Epicurus seems here to be responding to the popular 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DAVID K. O'CONNOR 171 

importance of such study; Epicurus is quite explicit about the 
merely instrumental value of philosophy.12 The theoretical remains 
firmly subordinated to the practical. I suggest that groups in which 
Epicureans studied philosophy together were typically not research 
seminars, pushing forward the limits of knowledge; they were 
probably more like refresher courses to shore up any erosion in 
the central Epicurean commitments of the particirants. 

More important than communal philosophica study, I believe, 
was the concrete example of the other members of the Epicurean 
community, illustrated in a striking way by the school's hero cult to 
Epicurus and its other founders. The cult was doubtless intended 
solely for the edification and support of the living members of the 
community. Cicero (Fin. 2.103) and Plutarch (MOT. 1128A-30B) held 
this cult inconsistent with the fundamental Epicurean dicta "Death 
is nothing to us" and "Live unknown," but these are criticisms that 
do little more than vent polemical spleen. Eficurus did not endow 
these cultic celebrations to guarantee his sou a vicarious enjoyment 
of the pleasures of the table after he was gone, nor to attain im­
mortal fame. The cult seems to have aimed at two benefits for its 
celebrants: the enjoyable memory of the goodness of the departed 
heroes of Epicureanism, and the inspiration of their example. 13 The 
importance in Epicurean moral education of imitating such exem­
plary precursors can hardly be stressed enough. Even the Master 
himself found comfort and inspiration in the calm and fearless 
example of the many close associates who died before him.14 Those 

fantasy that Epicurean communities, with their motley collection of citizen and 
alien, male and female, slave and free, had extravagant orgies. He replaces this false 
picture of Epicurean gatherings (perhaps of the cultic celebrations themselves) with 
a true one in which we can perhaps see the outlines of the 'sober thinking' of com­
munal philosophizing. 

12 See KD 11 and Ep. ad Men. 132 (the priority of <Pp6vllcr~ to theoretical inquiry). 
Long and Sedley (supra n.11: 56) claim, on the basis of VS 27, that philosophy has 
more than instrumental value for Epicurus; but I think this saying simply indicates 
that the fruit of philosophy (namely, pleasant tranquillity) grows along with philo­
sophic understanding. The distinction between the philosophizing and its fruit 
should be preserved. 

13 See e.g. VS 66. I am indebted to Diskin Clay's discussion, "Individual and 
Community in the First Generation of the Epicurean School," in I:'\)~ft'tTlcrt~: Studi 
sull' epicureismo greco e romano offerti a Marcello Gigante I (Naples 1983) 255-79. 

14 See Clay (supra n.13); also VS 61 on the encouragement of friends. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

172 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

who had traveled the Epicurean road loyally and successfully were 
a vivid reminder of the promise of this way of life, the surest proof 
of its attainability, and their exemplary biographies the surest guide 
for those still on the journey. 

I believe that this kind of support through remembrance and 
example was the chief consideration behind both Epicurus' written 
praise of friendship and his practical arrangements for the commun­
ity that looked to him for leadership. There is no great difference 
on this point between living and dead heroes:15 either can be the 
source of comfort when we doubt the value or attainability of an 
ideal we have been seeking. The solidarity of the community rein­
forces the commitment of every individual within it. To outsiders, 
this solidarity might sometimes look like narrow-mindedness: 
when Athenaeus (5.182A=fr.56 Usener) says that Epicurus'Sym­
posium consists of a crowd of flatterers praising one another, he 
means to criticize more than a particular book. This negative judg­
ment has found its way into the often repeated contrast between 
the stagnant orthodoxy of the Epicurean school and the dynamic 
development of Stoicism. 16 But from the inside, Epicurean friend­
ships did not have this sinister air.17 

We should not, then, think of such friendships as generating 
some special, characteristic pleasure indispensable for hedonistic 
happiness. What we miss if we do not give fellowship its rightful 
place in our lives, an Epicurean would argue, is not a distinctive and 
wonderfully potent kind of pleasure. Instead, we will risk under­
mining that secure tranquillity which is the bedrock of all pleasur­
able living. Supportive fellowship is the coat of varnish protecting 
the contented life we paint for ourselves, not some brilliant color 
we need to complete the picture. The protection this supportive fel­
lowship provides is mental as well as bodily. No doubt our friends 
defend us from aggressors and help us in times of distress. But they 

15 As Clay (supra n.13) points out, the hero cult existed before Epicurus' death, 
as is shown by the provisions of his will (D.L. 10.18; cf. VS 32). 

16 A contrast nicely challenged by Sedley, -Epicurean Anti-Reductionism," in J. 
Barnes and M. Mignucci, edd., Matter and Metaphysics (Naples 1989) 297-327. 

17 M. Nussbaum gives a particularly sinister reading of Epicurean moral educa­
tion, based primarily on Philodemus' reports: -Therapeutic Arguments: Epicurus 
and Aristotle," in M. Schofield and G. Striker, edd., The Norms of Nature (Cam­
bridge 1986) 31-74. I believe that she both underestimates the rationality of Epi­
curean practice and overstates the focus on reason in Aristotelian moral formation 
to heighten her contrast; but the question is beyond the scope of this essay. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA VID K. O'CONNOR 173 

also remind us of our belief and give us their support and example. 
We live the Epicurean way of life most fully and with least risk of 
straying from the path when we have the encouragement and 
scrutiny of our fellow travelers. 

II. Does Epicurean Friendship Undermine Self-sufficiency? 

I have reconstructed the Epicurean ideal of friendship as a kind of 
safe harbor from the worldly storms-physical and mental-that 
threaten to disturb human tranquillity. But the fashion recently has 
been to suspect that this harbor is mined with disturbing elements 
of its own. In particular, a number of recent commentators have 
emphasized the ways in which valuing close personal attachments 
can make our happiness vulnerable to various kinds of chance dis­
ruption.1s This seems to create difficulties for Epicurus' moral 
theory, for he clearly places a high value upon both friendship and 
self-sufficiency. Since self-sufficiency requires that one's happiness 
be relatively (some would say absolutely) resistant to chance dis­
ruption,19 is it not impossible to combine in a single coherent moral 
ideal the demands for both friendship and self-sufficiency? 

I believe the Epicurean would have good cause for rejecting this 
inference. There is no general reason to expect friendship to under­
mine self-sufficiency; everything depends on what kinds of friend­
ship we are talking about, and on exactly how chance is supposed to 
threaten them. I shall consider two ways in which friendship might 
be thought to expose us to chance disturbances, and try to show 
that the Epicurean ideal is not threatened by either of them. First, 
the very formation of friendships might be a matter of chance. 
Perhaps they spring up spontaneously when people of complemen­
tary temperament come together, independent of any calculated 
attempt to seek them out. 20 If friendship is both spontaneous and 
indispensable for a happy life, rational control over happiness will 
be limited. We may not happen to meet enough of the right sort of 
people to satisfy our need for friendship. Second, the chance of the 

18 E.g. Mitsis, Nussbaum, and Williams (supra nn.1-2). 

19 By no means do I think this captures everything, or even the most important 
thing, that Greek moralists had in mind when they valued self-sufficiency (o.u't(Xp­
KEto.). But the issue of vulnerability to chance is important, and it has been prom­
inent in recent discussions. 

20 Something resembling this view is present even in Cicero Fin. 2.83 on the con­
trast between calculated and spontaneous friendship. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

174 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

dissolution of a friendship might be thought to expose us to pain. 
Sometimes these dissolutions may result from competition or be­
trayal among friends; but the most final dissolution of all occurs at 
death. For humans who have no control over death, does not 
friendship necessarily expose our happiness to the pain of separa­
tion and mourning? 

In these two ways, chance might be thought to threaten friend­
ship at its beginning and end. How can Epicurus preserve us from 
its risks without denying us its blessings? Let us first consider the 
alleged spontaneity of friendship's beginnings. The picture of friend­
ship as a delicate plant that springs up spontaneously only under 
quite special conditions of mutual compatibility may be appropriate 
for certain kinds of personal relationships among contemporary 
bourgeois academics,21 but it seems much less applicable to the sort 
of supportive fellowship at the heart of Epicurus' ideal. Though 
they were certainly warm and intimate, Epicurean friendships were 
not, I suspect, 'personal' in the way some of our friendships are. 
Cicero's Epicurean spokesman Torquatus (Fin. 1.65) contrasts the 
large number of friends who lived with Epicurus with the exclu­
sivity of the famous, intensely personal relationships (e.g. between 
Orestes and Pylades) usually held up as paradigms of friendship. 
Whatever spontaneous combustion may have been required to 
weld together these legendary pairs, there is little reason to think 
that the broader bonds of fellowship have such volatile and unpre­
dictable beginnings. 

The bonds of an Epicurean community are more characteristic of 
friendly fellowship than of the personal intimacy presumed by the 
'spontaneity' view of the formation of relationships. "We should 
laugh, philosophize, and handle our household affairs and other 
personal matters, all at the same time," says Epicurus (VS 41, tr. 
Long/Sedley). Such a community is not a product of chance: we 
build it up on our own initiative. There is no threat to self-sufficien­
cy to be found here. 

But even those who accept my suggestion that the beginning of 
Epicurean fellowship is not much exposed to chance disturbance 
may think that its end cannot avoid being so. In the first place, the 
everyday threats to friendship of betrayal and competition can 

21 I am actually skeptical that the description fits even these personal friendships. 
If the conditions are so much in the hands of fortune, why are they so often ful­
filled? 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA VrD K. O'CONNOR 175 

shatter an Epicurean fellowship as much as any personal friendship. 
Being part of a fellowship, on this view, makes us vulnerable, and 
contradicts the demand of self-sufficiency for invulnerability. The 
surviving evidence indicates that Epicurus was indeed somewhat 
wary of friendship, but he offered advice that would minimize the 
risks and make friendship among Epicureans secure.22 But his most 
important way of making people into good and secure friends was 
by making them into good and secure Epicureans, with Epicurean 
tastes and goals. By rooting out the greed (VS 43) and political ambi­
tion (e.g. KD 7) that are the underlying cause of the greatest discord 
among friends,23 Epicurus makes his followers the kind of people 
who are not risky friends. The notion that friendship necessarily 
makes us vulnerable to betrayal or other hurt by our friends 24 
seems much more at home in a modern personal friendship than in 
the moderate fellowship of Epicureanism. 

But death is another story (VS 31): "Against all else protection can 
be provided, but because of death all human beings dwell in an un­
fortified city." Not even Epicurus could find a way to shield friend­
ship from its unpredictable and inevitable disruptions. Our friends 
not only may die, they will die. Must we drink this wormwood 
wi th the honey? 

Epicurus did not think so, and tried to find a response to the 
death of friends that would be unmarred by emotion and irration­
ality. His suggestion is summarized by this saying (VS 66): "We 
should feel for (auJl1ta900JlEv) our friends not through mournful­
ness but through mindfulness (cpPov"ci~OV'tEC;)." We do not know as 
much as we would like about the concrete embodiment of this 
attitude in Epicurean community, but I believe we should look to 
the way Epicureans remembered the exemplary lives of the dead in 
the cultic celebrations. Epicurus must have felt very strongly the 
contrast between the tears and wailing of traditional mourning and 
the calming and pleasant remembrance of past intimacy that he 
recommended. 

What made this radically new and undisturbed acceptance of the 
passing of friends possible was, of course, the famous claim that 

22 For advice, see VS 39; for Epicurus' wariness, along with a final judgment in 
favor of friendship's prudence when proper safeguards are respected, VS 28. 

23 Aristotle (esp. Eth.N ic. 9.8) rather than Epicurus is the explicit source of this 
claim about the causes of discord. 

24 See e.g. Mitsis 150 with n.46. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

176 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

"Death is nothing to us." This was the final and greatest protection 
against the slings and arrows of fortune that an Epicurean could 
have, and explains how Epicurus' friend Metrodorus could say (VS 
47), "When it is time for us to go, we spit on life." Two features of 
the Epicureans' attitude to their own deaths are especially im­
portant for removing the sting from the death of friends as well. 
First, after death there is no sensation, so no disturbing pains; so 
there is no reason to worry about one's state after death (KD 2). 
Second, "an unlimited time and a limited time have equal pleasure"; 
so there is no reason to regret the deprivation of future pleasures at 
the cessation of life.25 Epicureans have no more reason for worry 
about the pains of their departed friends or for regret at their 
friends' deprivation of future pleasures than they have for worry 
and regret about their own deaths. They might still regret being de­
prived of the pleasure of a friend now dead; but Epicurus' emrlhasis 
on the pleasures of memory, and the practical reanimation 0 such 
memories in the Epicurean cult, seem designed to remove even 
this source of disturbance (VS 75). The joys of a departed friend 
need not be irrevocably past. Once again, I think we will better 
appreciate this security of friendship even in the face of death if we 
keep in mind the Epicurean ideal's focus on fellowship rather than 
our more personal style of friendship. 

To sum up, I do not think the friendly fellowship of the Epi­
cureans made them vulnerable to chance disturbances in a way that 
is inconsistent with their concern for self-sufficiency. Fellowship 
does not depend to any important extent on rare, spontaneous at­
tachment; it is not particularly exposed to dissolution by betrayal 
and competition, especially among people with the tamed desires 
for wealth and honor characteristic of good Epicureans; and Epi­
curus took care to make the pleasures of friendship secure even 
against death. The notion that friendship must make us vulnerable 
to such chance threats to our happiness assumes, if only implicitly, 

25 KD 19. I believe these two doctrines are the -judgment" referred to in KD 28 
that guarantees the security of friendship from eternal or even long-lasting pain; 
but the saying is rather obscure. The nature and justification of the Epicurean at­
titude to death (on which see most recently P. Mitsis, -Epicurus on Death and the 
Duration of Life," Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philoso­
phy 4 [1988] 295-314) is of course a complicated and controversial topic that I 
cannot address here. I aim only to clarify how death does not make friendship 
and self-sufficiency incompatible for an Epicurean. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA YID K. O'CONNOR 177 

a model more appropriate to contemporary personal friendship 
than to the supportive fellowship recommended by Epicurus. 

III. The Ancient Criticism: Epicurean Friendship is Ignoble 

So far I have concentrated on showing that Epicurus' ideal of 
friendship is consistent with his hedonism and his concern for self­
sufficiency. In doing so, I have remained largely inside the Epi­
curean perspective, taking for granted the supreme importance of 
pleasant tranquillity and asking merely how Epicurean friendship 
will help us achieve it. In the rest of this paper, I want to consider 
two criticisms of the Epicurean ideal that originate outside this basic 
hedonist perspective. First, I want to examine the charge that the 
Epicurean ideal cannot justify dying for a friend; in the following 
section, I consider the charge that Epicurean friendship is overly 
egoistic. Despite appearances, these two objections have very 
different grounds, and we must understand the ideals implicit in 
them before we can see how Epicurus might respond. I am at least 
as concerned to clarify what is at stake in these criticisms as to 
decide who wins the argument. 

Through much of the second book of De finibus, Cicero focuses 
his critique on the Epicurean denial that virtue and nobility are 
rationally attractive independent of pleasure. Cicero sees this denial 
as the central weakness of Epicureanism, and believes that if he 
"can succeed in proving the existence of the noble (honestum) as a 
thing essentially and for itself desirable" (Fin. 2.44, tr. Rackham 
[modified]), he has refuted the entire Epicurean teaching. Within 
the scope of the noble Cicero seems to include both intellectual 
and moral excellence, though by far his greater emphasis is on the 
latter. 2l, More specifically, Cicero (esp. 2.45-47) sets out to show 
that reasonable people will find the four cardinal virtues attractive 
and even beautiful in their own right, whether or not they bring 
any advantage or reward. He argues this point in detail for justice, 
courage, and temperance. A recurring feature of these arguments is 
the presentation for Torquatus' consideration of famous examples 
of virtuous behavior under unpleasant, disadvantageous, and danger­
ous conditions. Trusting more to Torquatus' solid Roman character 

26 For the inclusion of intellectual excellence in the noble, see especially his refer­
ence at Fin. 2.111 to the pleasure-independent attraction of honestissima studia. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

178 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

than his Epicurean allegiance,27 Cicero is sure that his interlocutor 
will feel the attraction of virtue even in these cases, proof that the 
attraction is independent of pleasure. 

Prominent among Cicero's examples of the independent at­
traction of the noble are cases in which certain Romans gave up 
their very lives for the sake of virtue. These cases are not intended 
primarily to illustrate the altruism of the actors. 28 Cicero's entire em­
phasis is on how such people must have aimed at something other 
than mere pleasure, something Cicero argues is of higher rank and 
independently desirable. The courage of soldiers who boldly go to 
their deaths in battle is perhaps the most typical example of a virtue 
that he claims to be inexplicable in terms of pleasure. But Cicero 
gives examples of the other virtues as well. Marcus Regulus of his 
own free will departed from Rome, where he could have lived a 
famous and respected man, to return to captivity in Carthage be­
cause of a pledge he had given to an enemy. His concern for his 
own integrity and fidelity (aspects of justice in Cicero's view: 2.46) 
easily outweighed for him all the attractions of a peaceful and hon­
ored retirement. Lucretia committed suicide to defend her temper­
ance, outraged by sexual mistreatment by a tyrannical ruler. In all 
these cases, acceptance of death shows a depth of commitment to a 
sometimes painful nobility that, Cicero believes, belies the Epi­
curean reduction of the rationally desirable to the pleasant. 

I propose that Cicero continues this general line of attack when 
he turns to criticize the Epicurean account of friendship. This 
critique immediately follows the section on the independent at­
tractiveness of the virtues, and a number of passages show the close 
links between the two discussions. 29 He is simply applying to the 

27 Cicero (2.58) emphasizes that both Torquatus' and Epicurus' professed doc­
trines neither justify nor do justice to the nobility of their lives. 

28 Of course some of Cicero's exemplary noble actions did in fact benefit people 
other than the actor. Courageous military deaths benefit fellow soldiers and citi­
zens (2.60-62); Marcus Regulus' justice respects a pledge to the enemy (65); Lu­
cretia's suicide in defense of her sexual temperance was instrumental in procuring 
Roman liberty (66). But Cicero does not emphasize that such actions benefit 
others more than the actor so much as that they manifest more regard for the 
noble than for pleasure. He contrasts acting for the sake of the noble with acting 
for one's own pleasure, not with acting for one's own pleasure. 

29 See especially 2.83. Cicero is criticizing the view of some later Epicureans that 
friendship involves a contract to feel toward a friend as one feels toward oneself: 
• If men have succeeded in making this contract, let them make a further contract 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DAVID K. O'CONNOR 179 

nobility of friendship the same sort of considerations that he had 
earlier applied to the cardinal virtues. Once again, he presents to 
Torquatus an example of noble action in a situation where pleasure 
cannot be the motivation, and trusts to Torquatus' good character 
to draw the conclusion that nobility can be choiceworthy inde­
pendent of pleasure. And as with the virtues of courage, justice, and 
temperance, this independence is illustrated best when an actor 
faces a noble death for friendship's sake.30 Cicero (2.79) gives two 
such illustrations: the devotion of Phintias to Damon and of 
Pylades to Orestes. 

This 'Pyladic' type of friendship (2.84) contrasts with friendships 
that aim at profit or advantage. Cicero (2.85) describes this contrast 
by saying, "You must love me for myself, not my possessions, if 
we are to be genuine friends." We might take this as primarily acon­
trast between egoistic and altruistic friendship, but I think the con­
text, especially the parallel with what Cicero says about the virtues, 
indicates that this is not what he had in mind. He is trying to show 
that Epicurean friendship, like Epicurean virtue, is ignoble because 
it aims at low ends like profit or pleasure rather than at nobility 
itself. 31 Devotion to a friend 'for himself' even when no pleasure 
results shows that one is motivated by the independent attraction 
of nobility, just as the deaths of Regulus and Lucretia showed their 
noble devotion to justice and temperance. No doubt there is some­
thing selfish about Epicurean friendship as Cicero understood it; 
but in keeping with his general criticism of Epicureanism, he was 
more exercised by its ignobility than its egoism. 

Cicero's argument for the ignobility of Epicurean virtue and 
friendship silences the Roman Epicurean Torquatus, but all the 
important moves in the argument appeal more to Romanness than 

to love fair-dealing, self-control, and all the virtues for their own sakes and with­
out reward" (tr. Rackham [modified]). Epicurean hedonism threatens the inde­
pendent value of friendship in the same way it threatened the independent value 
of the virtues. See also 2.81, where Cicero claims that the actual concern for the 
noble in Epicurean friendship is inconsistent with the professed value of pleasure, 
and 2.85, where in the conclusion of the friendship section he links it to the virtue 
section. 

30 Cf Arist. Eth.Nic. 1169a18-22 on why a friend of the best kind would be 
willing to die for a friend: such a man .. acquires for himself the noble {'to xaAOv)." 

31 This interpretation is confirmed by Cicero's similar critique of hedonic friend­
ship in Arnie. 9.32 and 15.52. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

180 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

Eficureanism. Torquatus does not dispute any of Cicero's examples 
o noble action; he shares the acceptance of patriotism and political 
ambition that lies behind Cicero's claims. Obviously this is a bizarre 
thing for an Epicurean to do. We can construct the outlines of a 
more authentically Epicurean response fairly easily. Epicurus was 
perfectly clear in his rejection of the pleasure-independent de­
sirability of the very sorts of activities that Cicero presents as para­
digms of virtue. He despised political ambition, and warned his fol­
lowers (e.g. KD 7, 14; VS 58) to release themselves from "the 
prison of politics." He also cautioned his followers (e.g. KD 11, VS 
45) not to be inflated by the pretensions of philosophy. Epicurus, 
then, offered a general critique of the independent attractiveness 
and nobility of just the sorts of intellectual and moral virtue to 
which Cicero so freely appeals. In the light of this critique, it is an 
important and desperate puzzle how a public-spirited Roman like 
Torquatus ever thought of himself as an Epicurean at all.32 But for 
Epicurus himself there is no puzzle; Cicero's arguments can get no 
grip on him. 

Since Epicurus would reject the assumption of the pleasure-in­
dependent rational desirability of the noble on which Cicero builds 
his critique, he need not be disturbed by failing Cicero's 'nobility 
test' for friendship. Epicurean fellowhip will not be 'Pyladic', just as 
Epicurean virtue will not find in the ambitious courage of a soldier, 
the absolute devotion to justice of a Regulus, or even the outraged 
honor of a Lucretia, much of a model. Of course this does not 
mean that a consistent Epicurean would never die for a friend; 
some such deaths may be justified on hedonic grounds. Epicurus 
himself nearly lost his life in a shipwreck when he ran the risk of 
visiting his friends in Lampsacus.33 But this is a far cry from the 

32 Diskin Clay has some very interesting suggestions about how Lucretius adapts 
the Epicurean message to a Roman audience: Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca 1983). 
The general issue of what practical meaning allegiance to Epicureanism had for 
political Romans deserves serious consideration. It is curious that Cicero argues for 
the anti-political implications of Epicurean hedonism as if these implications were 
not explicitly acknowledged by the Epicureans themselves. Why does he not 
simply confront the public-spirited Torquatus with the explicitly anti-political state­
ments of the Master? 

33 See D. Clay, ·Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 
7," GRBS 14 (1973) 49-59, for the evidence of this shipwreck and Epicurus' use of 
it in his moral teaching. Could this be one of the risks Epicurus had in mind when 
he said (KD 28) that we must run some risks for friendship'S sake? Clay points out 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA VID K. O'CONNOR 181 

heroic deaths faced by legendary friends like Pylades or Achilles. 
The Epicurean indifference to fame and death makes a poor subject 
for epic poetry. As Cicero (Fin. 2.97, tr. Rackham) says, "A great 
commander's death is famous, but philosophers [like Epicurus] 
mostly die in their beds. » 

These considerations open up onto a broader and more 
speculative set of issues about what we might call the virility of the 
Epicurean ideal of friendship. To a Roman like Cicero, there was 
something unmanly about Epicureanism, and its rejection of 
political friendship was, I think, a particularly galling feature of this 
effeminacy.34 How could a real man be satisfied with such 
domesticated pleasures? Where is his sense of adventure? To a cer­
tain extent, Epicurus' critique of nobility is also a critique of virility 
and its demands. The suspicion generated by the Epicureans' in­
discriminate mixing across political, social, and sexual boundaries 
may reflect an uneasiness at their blurring of sexual identity, a 
disgust at a kind of moral transvestism. The Epicurean way of 
friendship made men too soft and women too public in a society 
where hardness and privacy were defining characteristics, re­
spectively, of the male and the female.35 

In the end, the challenge 'Will an Epicurean die for a friend?' can­
not be answered straightforwardly. There are probably cases in 
which an Epicurean would indeed choose to die for a friend; but 
this choice looks much more significant to someone with Cicero's 
starting points than Epicurus'. Cicero thinks such extreme cases 
show how nobility shines through with its own value, independent 
of pleasure; Epicurus would find them no more than curious illus­
trations of his general teaching on pleasure and death. They are not 
very revealing test cases of anything. Epicureanism rejects the very 
understanding of nobility that gives Cicero's question its point. 

how Epicurus models his account of the shipwreck on a passage of the Odyssey; it 
is hard to imagine any Epicurean heroism that could be modeled on the Iliad. 

34 E.g. Arnie. 13.47, where Cicero contrasts the risks taken in manly friendship 
with the craving for security of friendships fit only for women, the poor, and the 
unlucky. For criticisms of the virility of Epicureanism, see Fin. 2.47, 73, 94f. 
Aristotle, e.g. Eth.Nic. 1 09sb 19-22, also attacks hedonism as fit only for an un­
manly, servile person (avopa1toorooTl~). 

35 Paul Veyne's discussion in The History of Private Life I (Cambridge [Mass.] 
~ 987) of sexual identity in the ancient world has stimulated my thinking on these 
Issues. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

182 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

IV. The Modern Criticism: Epicurean Friendship is Egoistic 

On my reading, the Epicurean ideal of friendship emphasizes 
fellowship rather than altruism. This conclusion will trouble many 
readers. Does Epicurean friendship require, or even allow, the 
altruistic concern for another for that other's sake that is at the heart 
of real love and friendship? Does not Epicurus' hedonism, granting 
ultimate value only to pleasant psychological states of individuals, 
commit him to an unacceptably selfish account of friendship? I 
answer that in the Epicurean ideal of fellowship reconstructed 
above (section I) there is no obvious element of selfishness; and the 
mutual support and enjoyment of such friends seem attractive and 
generous. This generous sociality is grounded in an Epicurean 
education of desire, especially in a critique of greed and ambition, 
rather than in any direct cultivation of altruistic concern. 

Some will not be satisfied by this, and will insist that friendship 
without altruism is inherently defective. They will either have to 
give up on Epicurus, or try to find room within his generally ego­
istic hedonism for altruistic friendship. Mitsis has recently taken 
this second path, arguing that there are ineliminable altruistic com­
mitments in the Epicurean account. 36 He believes that, like John 
Stuart Mill, Epicurus was forced to admit into his hedonist theory 
"non-hedonistic grounds of preference,» but was unaware that he 
had done so because he had accepted "an illegitimate move from 
'pleasurable pursuits' to 'pleasures.'»37 I do not think Epicurus 
made this illegitimate move,38 but for present purposes I want to 
concentrate on the evidence for ascribing to him an altruistic view 
of friendship. 

36 See Mitsis 129f with n.7. 
37 Mitsis 132, 141, both times referring to Sidgwick's criticisms of Mill in Meth­

ods of Ethics. 

38 Besides his claim that Epicurus allows non-hedonistic grounds of preference 
by valuing altruistic friendship, Mitsis (142 n.31) mentions only one other aspect of 
his moral theory that this alleged illegitimate move infects: "'Epicurus relies on a 
non-hedonic criterion when defending his [preference for] pleasures which are 
completely up to us (1tap' ftjl.a~) and not subject to chance. JJ I see no reason to ac­
cept this. Self-sufficiency surely can be defended on hedonic grounds; it minimizes 
the likelihood of chance disturbance and increases our enjoyment of luxuries 
when we do happen upon them: see Ep. ad Men. 13of. If Epicurus nowhere else 
makes the mistake about pleasure that Mitsis alleges he makes regarding friend­
ship, the allegation is not very well supported. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DA YID K. O'CONNOR 183 

Mitsis' argument hinges on two passages. The first is from De 
finibus, consisting of the Epicurean Torquatus' first of three argu­
ments against the charge that hedonism destroys the possiblility of 
friendship.39 Two questions must be answered about this passage: 
(1) Does it ascribe altruism to friendship? and (2) Is it good evi­
dence for Epicurus' view rather than (like the other two argu­
ments) merely for the views of later Epicureans? 

I think the answer is <No' to both, though the structure of the 
argument is so obscure that it is hard to be confident about the first 
question. The argument tries to show the consistency of friendship 
with the position that "the pleasures which belong to friends are 
not as desirable per se as those we desire as our own" (Fin. 1.66, tr. 
Long/Sedley). I agree with Mitsis 40 that this position accurately 
reflects "Epicurus' widespread commitments to egoism and hedon­
ism: and take it as an accurate statement of Epicurus' own view. 
Critics like Cicero (1.66, 69; 2.80) claimed that this view would 
make friendship "unstable" or "completely crippled: and apparent­
ly some later Epicureans (whom Torquatus calls "timid") agreed. 
They in effect gave up the position to accommodate the critics' 
demand that friends "be loved for their own sake even if no 
advantage accrues from the friendship. "41 Cicero reports their 
views in Torquatus' second and third arguments. But other and 
presumably bolder Epicureans tried to accommodate the critics' 
demand without giving up the authentic view of· Epicurus, and 
Torquatus' first argument was the result. 

The argument runs as follows: (1) Premise: friendship is neces­
sary both to create and to protect the pleasant security of a happy 
life. (2) Premise: we cannot preserve friendship "unless we love 
our friends as much as ourselves" (1.69, tr. Long/Sedley). (3) Con­
clusion: "the wise man will have just the same feelings towards his 

39 Fin. 1.65 (cf 2.78) states the charge, while 1.66-70 provides Torquatus' three ar­
guments. Mitsis takes only the first argument (66-68) to be relevant to establishing 
that Epicurus (as opposed to later Epicureans) held an altruistic view of friendship, 
since Cicero's reply to the second and third arguments (2.82) explicitly denies that 
they are from Epicurus. 

40 Mitsis 139f n.26. J. M. Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction (Cambridge 1972) 129, 
claims that -Torquatus does not attribute this view to Epicurus himself and the 
context makes it certain that it was not the master's position," but I see no reason 
to accept this. 

41 1.69 (tr. Long/Sedley). Cicero (esp. 2.82) makes this clear in his reply to the sec­
ond and third arguments. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

184 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

friend that he has for himself, and he will work as much for his 
friends' pleasure as he would for his own'" (1.67, tr. Long/Sedley). 
This conclusion is supposed to show that the wise Epicurean will 
fulfill the critic's demand about friendship while remaining true to 
the authentic view of Epicurus that our own pleasures are in them­
selves more desirable than those of friends. Unfortunately there is a 
glaring weakness in the argument, centering on the crucial premise 
(2). The distinction between finding our friends' pleasures as de­
sirable in themselves as our own (which is ruled out by Epicurus' 
authentic view) and loving our friends as much as ourselves (as re­
quired by the argument's conclusion) is left utterly obscure. If they 
collapse into the same thing, Epicurus' position is abandoned as in 
the second and third arguments. But if the distinction is preserved, 
it is not clear whether or not the resulting position will require altru­
ism.42 I confess that I find the argument incoherent, and doubt that 
any conclusions can be drawn from it about how the bolder 
E1?i~ureans remained true to Epicurus while accommodating the 
cntlcs. 

There is, I think, is good reason to think that this lame argument 
is no reflection on Epicurus. Torquatus says that all three argu­
ments come from "us,'" i.e., from us later Epicureans. This contrasts 
with the way he introduces his account of friendship by referring 
to a statement of Epicurus: "Epicurus' pronouncement about 
friendship is that of all the means to happiness that wisdom has 
devised, none is greater, none more fruitful, none more delightful 
than this. "'43 Similarly, Cicero (2.82, tr. Rackham) in his response 
refers to "a saying of Epicurus himself-that friendship cannot be 
divorced from pleasure, and that it deserves to be cultivated for the 
reason that without it we cannot live secure and free from alarm, 
and therefore cannot live agreeably.'" I think authentic sayings of 
Epicurus like these, which emphasize the hedonistic justification of 
friendship, are being interpreted by "us (later) Epicureans'" in 
Torquatus' first argument, just as in the other two. Thus even if this 

42 I do not claim that the very idea of loving a friend as much as oneself is in­
coherent; but unless we know more precisely what T orquatus' bolder Epicureans 
had in mind by this, we do not know whether such loving would really be al­
truistic. The bare statement of the second premise gives us no clue. 

43 Fin. 1.65 (tr. Rackham). Torquatus also summarizes the point of the first argu­
ment with a translation of KD 28, which I take as further proof that the argument 
itself is intended to interpret Epicurus, but is not based on his explicit statement. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

DAVID K. O'CONNOR 185 

argument could be shown clearly to espouse altruism (which I 
doubt), we have no reason to think it represents Epicurus' own 
view rather than a later modification introduced under the pressure 
of criticism. 

The second passage to which Mitsis appeals is indeed an authentic 
statement of Epicurus, albeit an emended one: "All friendship is 
choiceworthy for itself (bt' rau'tTtv); it has its beginning (apXTt) 
from utility (a1tO 'tile; rocp£AElae;). "44 Does this saying "strongly sug­
gest an unselfish picture of friendship" and "enjoin [aJ positive, 
altruistic concern for others' interests"?45 Notice first that it does 
not say that a friend is choiceworthy for himself, whatever that may 
mean; it says that friendship is. Mitsis sometimes seems to conflate 
these two notions, as if attributing a value to friendship independent 
of pleasure would be equivalent to attributing a value to my friend 
independent of my egoistic interests. Of course it would be incon­
sistent for Epicurus to hold both that pleasure is the sole thing 
rationally desirable and that friendship is rationally desirable in­
dependent of its pleasure; but even this would not commit him to 
altruism. Consider an illustration of the difference: a political man 
might claim that kingship is choiceworthy in itself without refer­
ence to its pleasure or utility, but deny that the king's subjects 
should be valued altruistically at all. 

If, then, this passage is evidence of an inconsistency in Epicurus, 
it concerns the reduction of the rationally desirable to the pleasant, 
not egoism and altruism. As I argued in the previous section, Cic­
ero was primarily interested in the first issue; but Mitsis is primarily 
interested in the second. But I do not think we should interpret this 
isolated saying in a way that so blatantly contradicts Epicurus' 
hedonism unless there is no reasonable alternative. One possibility 
is Rist's suggestion that Epicurus does not mean that friendship is 
valuable independent of its pleasure, but only that it is directly 
pleasant, without intermediaries. 46 Let me suggest another alterna­
tive reading. This saying is usually translated with a strong contrast 

44 VS 23 (quoted supra n.8). With Mitsis I accept Usener's change of apuTt to 
ai.pE'tTt· 

45 Mitsis 129f. 
46 Rist (supra nAO) 132. Rist draws a parallel with the Stoic conception of 'things 

preferred' (npol1'YJ.LEva), some of which, while not valued independently of virtue, 
were said to be preferred for their own sake. 



O'CONNOR, DAVID K., The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship , Greek, Roman 
and Byzantine Studies, 30:2 (1989) p.165 

186 EPICUREAN FRIENDSHIP 

between "in itself" and "from utility. "~7 But there is no textual 
necessity for this. Equally, we may take the second clause to explain 
or amplify the first rather than to contrast with it. Epicurus would 
then be saying roughly that all friendships are in themselves good 
things to have because they have been founded in utility. Perhaps 
he had in mind a contrast between the general case of friendship 
being choiceworthy in itself, and exceptional cases in which it 
should nonetheless be avoided. He considers a parallel issue with re­
gard to pleasures in general (Ep. ad Men. 129f; KD 8): though a plea­
sure is in its own nature something good, there can be exceptional 
occasions when we should refrain from choosing it. This gives a 
natural reading to the saying without attributing to Epicurus a stark 
contradiction between his hedonism and VS 23. 

I do not think that Mitsis' attempt to save Epicurus from the 
charge of egoism is successful. But I want to conclude by suggest­
ing that Epicurus' egoism is in this regard unobjectionable. For 
even if Epicurus' ideal of friendship is egoistic, it is not selfish. 
Once again it helps to consider what concrete life as an Epicurean 
would be. There will be no exploitative relationships bent on 
extracting money or power from others, for Epicurus has taught us 
that greed and ambition are empty and vain-they will distract us 
from our real goal of peaceful tranquillity. There will be the fellow­
ship of a community that remembers its departed saints and there­
by supports its living members. And there will be communal 
meditation on the philosophy that justifies this way of life. What 
more could altrusim demand of us than this? The solidarity of our 
fellowship eclipses the altruism of the individual. "Friendship 
dances round our dwelling, inviting us all to awaken to the call of 
blessed happiness. "~8 

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
August. 1989 

47 E.g. Long and Sedley connect the two clauses with -but." 
48 VS 52. I would like to thank the other participants in the conference for their 

fellowship and discussion, especially Phillip Mitsis and Paul Vander Waerdt for 
their extensive written comments on an earlier draft.