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Updated: June 6, 2025
It is usually assumed from this passage that Siro had recently died, probably, therefore, some time in 42 B.C., and that, in accordance with a custom frequently followed by Greek philosophers at Rome, he had left his property to his favorite pupil. The garden school, therefore, seems to have come to an end, though possibly Philodemus may have continued it for the few remaining years of his life.
It was a dangerous doctrine, Cicero says, for a youth of no remarkable intelligence; and the tutor, instead of being the young man's guide to virtue, was used by him as an authority for vice. This Greek was a certain Philodemus, a few of whose poems are preserved in the Greek Anthology; and a glance at them will show at once how dangerous such a man would be as the companion of a Roman youth.
From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest “find” of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant scholars.
Here belonged Caesar, his father-in-law Piso, who was Philodemus' patron, Manlius Torquatus, the consulars Hirtius, Pansa, and Dolabella, Cassius the liberator, Trebatius the jurist, Atticus, Cicero's life-long friend, Cicero's amusing correspondents Paetus and Callus, and many others.
Caesar had been friendly to the school; his father-in-law, Piso, had been Philodemus' life-long friend and patron, and, if we may believe Cicero, even at times a boon companion. Several of Caesar's nearest friends were Epicureans of the Neapolitan bay. Their future depended wholly upon Caesar.
Several of the Catalepton may belong to this period. The very first, addressed to Vergil's lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusing trifle in the very vein of Philodemus. The fourth, like the first in elegiacs, is a gracious tribute to a departing friend, Musa, perhaps his fellow-townsman Octavius Musa.
This happy idea may well have been suggested by table talks with Philodemus or Siro, who must at times have recalled stories of savior-princes that they had heard in their youth in the East.
and Servius say Neapoli studuit, and the Ciris mention Cecropus horrulus, and Cicero in all his references place Siro on the bay of Naples, but a fragment of a Herculanean roll of Philodemus locates the garden school in the suburbs of Naples. II. 119, Cumaean villa; Acad. II. 106, Bauli; Ad. Fam. VI. 11.2; Vestorius is a Neapolitan; of. Class. Phil. 1920, p. 107, and Am. Jour. Philology, XLI, 115.
That the four friends continued in intimate relationship with Philodemus, appears from fragments of the rolls. Hor. Mus., 1890, p. 172. Of the general question of Philodemus' influence upon Varius and Vergil, Varus and Horace, the critics and poets who shaped the ideals of the Augustan literature, it is not yet time to speak.
For Greek Philosophy I have used besides Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius and Philodemus, Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker; Diels, Doxographi Graeci; von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta; Usener, Epicurea; also the old Fragmenta Philosophorum of Mullach. The first volume of Dr. For Jewish thought before the Christian era Dr.
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