Epicurean Mockery of Opposing Philosophers And Schools

⚠️ Under Construction — Entries are believed to be correct but should be verified. Discuss the details and submit suggested corrections at EpicureanFriends.com here.

Nausiphanes — “The Mollusk / Jellyfish”

(Atomist / proto-skeptic; Epicurus’s former teacher)

Mockery: “The Mollusk / Jellyfish” (πλεύμων, pleumon); also “The Illiterate,” “The Cheat,” “The Harlot”

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8; confirmed by Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians I.3 (calling Nausiphanes pleumon “as one without sensation”)

Explanation: The jellyfish suggests spinelessness and lack of genuine sensation — a double-edged attack on Nausiphanes’s Pyrrhonist-tinged epistemology (suspend all judgment, therefore have no perceptive grip on reality) and his emphasis on hollow oratory over natural philosophy. The additional moral labels (cheat, harlot) reflect deep personal animosity: Epicurus briefly studied under Nausiphanes and emphatically repudiated him.

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Plato — “The Golden” / “The Gilded”

(Platonist / Academic)

Mockery: “The Golden” / “Gilded” (χρυσοῦς, chrysous)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: “Gilded” implies cheap metal coated to look precious — Plato’s philosophy appears impressive but is superficial decoration over unsound foundations. Plato’s identification of the highest good with pure intellect and virtue, his rejection of pleasure, and his transcendent metaphysics were opposed at every point by Epicurus.

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Plato’s Followers — “Flatterers of Dionysus”

(Platonists / Academics)

Mockery: “Flatterers of Dionysus” (Διονυσοκόλακες, Dionusokolakes)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: The epithet Dionusokolakes — “flatterers/hangers-on of Dionysus” — carries two plausible and possibly complementary meanings. The standard scholarly reading takes it as a reference to Plato’s well-documented trips to Syracuse to court the tyrant Dionysius I and Dionysius II, seeking to install a philosopher-king. On this reading, Epicurus mocked Plato’s followers as political sycophants who subordinated philosophy to power and flattery — the very antithesis of the Garden’s principled withdrawal from the pursuit of unlimited political power.

Norman DeWitt, however, argues that the epithet has nothing to do with Dionysius of Syracuse and is better read as a theater reference: Dionysus was the patron god of drama, and “hangers-on of Dionysus” would cast the Platonists as pompous theatrical performers assuming grand philosophical roles while looking down on Epicurus and his provincial following from Lampsacus as lowbrows. DeWitt connects this to other epithets Epicurus applied in the same context — “the deep-voiced” (a name for ambitious second-rate actors) and “would-be Lycurguses and Solons” — arguing for a coherent satirical theme of Platonists as philosophical actors playing at being kings and legislators.

The two readings are not mutually exclusive; Greek satirical epithets frequently carry double meaning, and Epicurus was sharp enough to exploit both simultaneously. Note in either case that Dionysius I and II were Sicilian rulers entirely distinct from the god Dionysus, who was associated with wine, festivity, and ecstasy — the names are nearly identical in Greek but the referents are separate.

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Aristotle — “The Debauchee”

(Peripatetic)

Mockery: “The Debauchee / Profligate” (ἄσωτος, asotos)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: Epicurus claimed Aristotle squandered his inheritance, served as a mercenary soldier, and sold medicines — all unbecoming a philosopher. Beyond biography, Aristotle’s teleology, his identification of the highest good with virtuous activity (energeia), and his treatment of pleasure as merely secondary were antithetical to Epicurean philosophy.

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Protagoras — “Porter” / “Village Schoolmaster”

(Sophist)

Mockery: “Basketbearer” (φορμοφόρος, Phormophóros = one who carries a wicker basket); also “Copier of Democritus”; “Village Schoolmaster”

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: Protagoras reportedly worked as a wood-carrier before becoming a philosopher, and Epicurus used this humble origin to describe the quality of his philosophy. Calling him a “copier of Democritus” impugns his originality. His signature doctrine — “man is the measure of all things” — yielded relativism in which all perceptions are equally true for each perceiver, incompatible with Epicurus’s confidence in sensation as providing a basis for reliable, objective knowledge.

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Heraclitus — “The Agitator”

(Pre-Socratic / Obscurantist; fl. 500 BC)

Mockery: “The Agitator” (κυκητής, Kykētḗs = one who stirs up / agitates); Bryan Harris (Epicurea 2026) translates as “Agitator” from the root κυκᾶν (to stir, churn, confound)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8. See also extensive criticism in Lucretius.

Explanation: Heraclitus was already nicknamed “the Obscure” (Skoteinos) in antiquity for his riddling, paradoxical style. His doctrine that all things are in constant flux and that opposites are identical was mystifying and practically useless. In Epicurean eyes it was deliberately obscurantist — an agitator who stirred the pot without ever producing clarity. Epicurus insisted on plain language aimed at practical human liberation; Heraclitean paradoxes served only to confuse and impress, not to remove fear.

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Democritus — “The Nonsense-Monger”

(Atomist, materialist)

Mockery: “Lerocritus” (Ληρόκριτος, Lerokritos = “judge of nonsense” / “nonsense-monger”)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: Despite building his atomic physics on Democritean foundations, Epicurus distanced himself sharply from many of that philosopher’s views. Democritus’s strict determinism eliminated free will; his epistemology treated sensory qualities as conventional rather than real; his ethics did not identify pleasure as the supreme good. The nickname — a pun replacing Demo- with Lero- (“nonsense”) — captures Epicurus’s verdict: even the founder of atomism reached wrong conclusions from a promising start.

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Antidorus — “The Wood-Giver”

(philosopher, fl. c. 330 BC; probable Megarian / Stilponic circle)

Mockery: “Wood-Giver” (Σαννίδωρος, Sannídōros); Bryan Harris (Epicurea 2026) translates as “Wood-Giver,” with the note that sannos can mean either a plank/piece of wood or a phallus — the latter yielding the cruder alternative “Phallodorus” proposed by Eikadistes at EpicureanFriends

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: The name is a pun on “Antidorus” (“counter-gift”), replacing the prefix anti- with sannos, suggesting either servile flattery toward more powerful figures or crude obscenity. Antidorus’s precise philosophical affiliation and the specific provocation for this attack are unclear.

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The Cyzicenes — “Enemies of Greece”

(Eudoxan mathematical-astronomical school at Cyzicus; fl. c. 350 BC onward)

Mockery: “Enemies of Greece” (Ἐχθροὶ τῆς Ἑλλάδος, Echthroì tês Helládos)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8. Textual note: Many older editions and translations (including some still in print) misread the Greek as Κυνικούς (Cynics) rather than Κυζικηνούς (Cyzicenes). As David Sedley established and Bryan Harris confirms in Epicurea 2026, the correct reading is Cyzicenes, supported by a parallel fragment of Philodemus On Epicurus 2.92 referencing a letter of Epicurus concerning a Cyzicene astronomer-geometrician.

Explanation: The Cyzicenes were the mathematical-astronomical school descending from Eudoxus of Cnidos, who taught at Cyzicus and produced distinguished pupils including Polemarchus (teacher of Callippus of Cyzicus, who later influenced Aristotle’s meteorology). Epicurus’s hostility likely reflects his deep opposition to mathematical astronomy as a method: Eudoxan astronomers built elaborate geometric models of the heavens, whereas Epicurus insisted that celestial phenomena admit multiple equally valid natural explanations and that mathematical precision in astronomy produces false certainty rather than genuine understanding.

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The Dialecticians — “The Grand Wreckers”

(Megarian school and related logicians)

Mockery: “The Grand Wreckers” (Πολύφθοροι, Polýphthoroi = those who have damaged much / great destroyers)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: The Megarian dialecticians were celebrated for logical paradoxes (the Liar’s Paradox, the Sorites, the Veiled Man) that appeared to dissolve ordinary reasoning. Epicurus regarded their elaborate verbal puzzles as purely destructive — corrosive of the sensations and common-sense inferences that are the real foundation of knowledge, and productive of nothing useful for living a pleasant life. Philosophy’s purpose is living happily and liberation from fear, not endless logical gymnastics.

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Pyrrho — “The Uneducated Fool”

(Pyrrhonist / Radical Skeptic)

Mockery: “The Uneducated Fool” / “Ignorant and Unlearned” (ἀγράμματος, agrammatos)

Source: Epicurus; Diogenes Laertius X.8

Explanation: Pyrrho’s radical suspension of judgment (epochē) — claiming that nothing can be affirmed and that we must withhold assent on all matters — was the polar opposite of Epicurus’s epistemology, which affirmed sensation as the bedrock of certain knowledge. Calling Pyrrho “unlearned” expresses contempt for a position Epicurus found not merely wrong but philosophically primitive: a man who denies the reliability of sensation understands nothing about the foundations of knowledge.

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Socrates — “Attic Buffoon”

(Socratic school)

Mockery: “Attic Buffoon” (Latin: scurra Atticus; Greek equivalent likely βωμολόχος Ἀττικός or similar)

Source: Epicurean tradition; attributed to Epicurus and his circle, especially Colotes; attested via Plutarch, Adversus Colotem; see Kleve, “Scurra Atticus: The Epicurean View of Socrates” (1983)

Explanation: Socrates’ profession of ignorance (“I know only that I know nothing”), his method of ironic questioning that reached no positive conclusions, and his theatrical feigned naivety appeared to Epicureans as philosophical clowning masquerading as wisdom. A man who denies all knowledge while making himself the center of Athenian intellectual life is not a sage but a performer. The epithet captures Epicurean contempt for Socratic irony as the jester of philosophy: intellectually irresponsible and practically useless.

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The following six entries derive from Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D, where Theon reports that Epicurus and Metrodorus hurled collective abuse at the followers of these philosophers. The following are the most plausible pairing of each epithet to its target.

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Followers of Pythagoras — “The Clatterers”

(Pythagorean school; fl. 530 BC onward)

Mockery: “The Clatterers” (Ληκυθισμοί, Lēkythismoí = the action of a lekythos [a narrow-necked oil flask] — evoking empty rattling or hollow noise)

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to Pythagoreans by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026

Explanation: The Pythagorean school combined mathematical mysticism, number theory, and religious doctrine about the soul’s transmigration — all of which Epicurus found deeply objectionable. The image of clattering suggests hollow noise without substance: Pythagorean number-mysticism sounds impressive but produces no real understanding of nature and no guidance for living pleasantly.

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Followers of Socrates — “The Pretenders”

(Socratic school; fl. 430 BC onward)

Mockery: “The Pretenders” (Ἀλαζονεῖαι, Alazoneîai = vagrant boasters / pretenders; from ἀλαζών, a swaggering impostor)

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to Socratics by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026

Explanation: Socrates’ trademark irony — feigning ignorance while maneuvering opponents into contradiction — was from the Epicurean standpoint the height of philosophical imposture. His followers perpetuated the same theatrical pretense: claiming not to know what the good is while asserting authority over how others should live. The label connects to the broader Epicurean charge that Socratic philosophy produces no positive doctrine useful for life.

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Followers of Aristotle — “The Courtesanry”

(Peripatetic school)

Mockery: “Courtesanry” (Ἑταιρήσεις, Hetairḗseis = the process of being a courtesan / prostituting oneself)

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to Aristotelians by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026 (Aristotle is the remaining named target in the Plutarch list not otherwise paired)

Explanation: The charge of intellectual prostitution fits the Epicurean view of the Peripatetics as philosophical opportunists who adapted their doctrines to please patrons and rulers rather than pursuing truth for the benefit of life. Aristotle himself had tutored Alexander the Great and served at the Macedonian court — precisely the kind of entanglement with political power that the Garden’s withdrawal was designed to avoid.

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Followers of Theophrastus — “The Groaners”

(Peripatetic school; Theophrastus fl. 330 BC)

Mockery: “The Groaners” (Βαρύστονοι, Barýstonoi = heavy-toned / deep groaners)

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to followers of Theophrastus by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026

Explanation: Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor as head of the Lyceum, was prolific and wide-ranging, extending Peripatetic inquiry into botany, meteorology, and the emotions. The epithet may mock the heavy, ponderous earnestness of the Peripatetic style — laboring over encyclopedic catalogs of facts while missing what Epicurus saw as the only point of philosophy: showing people how to live pleasantly and without fear.

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Followers of Heracleides of Aenus — “The Manslayers”

(school of Heracleides)

Mockery: “The Manslayers” (Ἀνδροφονίαι, Androphoníai = acts of man-slaying)

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to followers of Heracleides by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026

Explanation: The identification of this Heracleides is uncertain — Bryan Harris identifies him as Heracleides of Aenus. The vivid “manslayer” label likely reflects Epicurean contempt for a philosophy seen as genuinely lethal to human wellbeing — perhaps through encouraging dangerous political engagement or promoting doctrines that cause anxiety and fear rather than peace of mind. The precise provocation is unclear.

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Followers of Hipparchia of Maroneia — “The Altar-Beggars”

(Cynic school; Hipparchia fl. c. 325 BC)

Mockery: “Altar-Beggars” (Βωμολοχίαι, Bōmolochíai = those who ambush the altar [to beg for scraps of sacrificial food])

Source: Attributed to Epicurus and Metrodorus; Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D; pairing to followers of Hipparchia by Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026. Note: the Plutarch Greek text reads Ἱππάρχου but Bryan identifies this as Hipparchia of Maroneia, the Cynic philosopher-wife of Crates.

Explanation: Hipparchia was the most famous woman philosopher of antiquity, a Cynic who famously rejected her wealthy upbringing to live on the streets with her husband Crates, publicly practicing philosophy in a manner the Cynics called “living according to nature.” To Epicureans, the Cynic practice of ostentatious public poverty — begging and performing philosophy in the marketplace — was not liberation but degradation: altar-scavenging rather than civilized living. The Garden welcomed women as full participants; the objection was to the Cynic method, not to the person.

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Zeno of Citium and the Stoics

(Stoic school; Zeno fl. c. 300 BC)

Mockery: No specific coined epithet from Epicurus himself is preserved in the primary record comparable to those in Diogenes Laertius X.8. Later Epicurean writers — especially Philodemus and the spokesmen in Cicero — attacked Stoic doctrine at length but did not produce a memorable personal nickname for Zeno in the surviving texts. Given the similarity between the Stoics and Megarians, it is plausible to presume that the same mockery would have been applied to both schools.

Source: Two distinct Philodemus works bear on this entry and must be distinguished:

• Philodemus, On the Stoics (PHerc. 155 and 339) — a polemical text whose surviving content is specifically a sustained invective against Zeno and the doctrines he inherited from the Cynics, particularly Diogenes of Sinope. Standard edition: T. Dorandi, “Filodemo. Gli Stoici (PHerc. 155 e 339),” Cronache Ercolanesi 12 (1982): 91–133 (Italian text and translation; no published English translation exists). Partial English translation available at attalus.org.

• Philodemus, Index Stoicorum (PHerc. 1018) — a separate biographical and historical work, described by its editor as “objective and unpolemical,” sketching the lives of Stoic philosophers from Zeno to Panaetius and preserving information not found in Diogenes Laertius Book VII. Standard edition: T. Dorandi, Storia dei filosofi: La Stoà da Zenone a Panezio, Philosophia Antiqua 60 (Leiden: Brill, 1994) (Italian only). Partial English translation at attalus.org.

• Cicero, De Natura Deorum I.14–16 — Velleius on Stoic theology.

• Cicero, De Finibus I–II — Torquatus on Stoic ethics.

• Lucretius, De Rerum Natura II and V passim — implicit rejection of Stoic physics throughout.

Explanation: A key reason no personal epithet from Epicurus survives is that Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC) were almost exact contemporaries. Both men founded their schools in Athens within a few years of each other — the Garden around 306 BC, the Stoa around 301–300 BC — and both were active there simultaneously. While the proximity in time and place made friction inevitable, the Epicurean-Stoic rivalry intensified most sharply in the generation after both founders died, when Chrysippus (c. 279–206 BC) systematized Stoicism and drew sustained Epicurean counter-attack. It is accordingly the later Epicurean writers who supply the most documented criticism.

What Philodemus’s On the Stoics (PHerc. 155/339) actually attacks, in the portions that survive, is specifically Zeno’s debt to the Cynics: Philodemus traces Stoic doctrine back to Diogenes of Sinope and uses the disreputable conduct associated with Cynic practice to taint the Stoic school at its foundation. This is a narrower and more precisely sourced argument than a general attack on Stoic ethics or politics — readers wanting to verify the Philodemus citations should be aware that the papyrus is badly fragmented and the surviving content is limited.

The broader Epicurean indictment of Stoic doctrine is better sourced to Cicero. Velleius in De Natura Deorum ridicules Stoic theology at length — Zeno’s identification of god with a “fiery mind” suffusing the universe, the doctrines of providential design and periodic conflagration (ekpyrosis), and the elaborate allegories by which the Stoics tried to reconcile popular religion with their physics. Torquatus in De Finibus challenges the Stoic claim that virtue alone is the good and that pleasure is an “indifferent” — from the Epicurean standpoint a position flatly contradicted by every sensation every living creature ever has. Lucretius, while not addressing Zeno by name, systematically demolishes the physical doctrines underlying Stoicism: the pneuma (breath-tension), divine providence, teleological design, and the concept of a universe that periodically burns and renews itself.

The core Epicurean indictment of Stoicism is thus: its physics imports unwarranted divine order into a godless atomic universe; its ethics insults nature by treating pleasure as irrelevant to the good; its logic produces elaborate verbal machinery useful for debating contests but worthless for living; and its doctrine of fate, if taken seriously, destroys the moral responsibility on which any serious philosophy of life depends.

Note on sourcing: Readers should be aware that Epicurean criticism of “the Stoics” in our surviving texts often conflates Zeno with his successors Cleanthes and Chrysippus. Chrysippus in particular, who shaped the school into its mature systematic form, is frequently the real target even when the criticism is labeled simply “Stoic.” Any future effort to attribute specific criticisms precisely to Zeno himself, rather than to the school he founded, would require careful philological work on the primary texts.

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Notes on Sources

Primary source for DL entries: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book X, section 8 — preserving a list drawn from reports by Timocrates and from Epicurus’s own letters and writings.

Plutarch, Non Posse 1086D — Theon reports that Epicurus and Metrodorus hurled collective abuse at the followers of Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Protagoras, Theophrastus, Heracleides, and Hipparchia. The specific pairing of each epithet to each target is not explicit in Plutarch; the pairings used here follow Bryan Harris, Epicurea 2026.

Critical textual correction: Many older editions of Diogenes Laertius X.8, including Long’s Oxford Classical Text, carry the emendation Κυνικούς (Cynics) where the manuscript reads Κυζικηνούς (Cyzicenes). David Sedley demonstrated the correct reading is Cyzicenes, confirmed by a parallel passage in Philodemus, On Epicurus 2.92. This correction is adopted here and changes the target of “Enemies of Greece” from the Cynics to the Eudoxan mathematical school at Cyzicus.

The Epicurea 2026 document (Usener’s fragment collection with annotations by Bryan Harris, available at the Internet Archive) is the most complete modern treatment of these epithets and is the basis for all pairings from the Plutarch passage and several corrections to the DL entries. Thanks to Bryan Harris for his work on this. Any errors introduced in this EpicurusToday.com table version are the responsibility of Cassius Amicus.