Epicurus Posted in: Authors

Epicurus was born in 341 BCE and was a pupil of the Platonist Pamphilus of Samos, and the Democritean philosopher Nausiphanes of Teos. He began to teach when he was thirty-two, first in Mitylene on Lesbos and then in Lampsacus on the nearby mainland. In 306 BCE he moved to Athens with his loyal disciples; he purchased a property with a garden and established his school there. The Garden, as the school came to be known, soon became a popular choice among Athenian youth, alongside the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle. Epicurus died in Athens in 270 BCE, but his philosophy lives on.