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Updated: May 7, 2025
And after Amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written much about them, the Pythagoreans spread over all Italy: but that these doctrines should be so easily understood and approved of by the unlearned is a great proof that they were not written with any great subtlety, and they think their establishment to be owing to this.
But, during this silence, C. Amafinius arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them.
The mere assertion that pleasure was the summum bonum for man was so repugnant to the old Roman views that it could hardly have been made the basis of a self-sacrificing political activity. Accordingly we find in the period before Cicero only men of the second rank representing epicurean views. AMAFINIUS is stated to have been the first who popularised them.
"Epicureanism popularised inevitably turns to vice." Was it really popular at Rome? Cicero tells us in a valuable passage that one Amafinius had written on it, and that a great number of copies of his book were sold, partly because the arguments were easy to follow, partly because the doctrine was pleasant, and partly too because men failed to get hold of anything better.
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