Month: January 2022

Today corresponds to the birthday of Epicurus, the founder of Epicureanism. The date was well known in ancient times and has been preserved by historians like Diogenes Laertius: He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes [341 BCE], on the seventh…

Intro My last blog entry (on the Greek festival of Lenaia and Plato’s Symposium was actually the first of a long series of blogs). Now that you had a taste, here’s the official announcement of this series. In collaboration with James Kostecka (from the Fremont Stoics, the Intergalactic Stoic School, and The Stoic Fellowship), we…

Plato’s Symposium is a complex and beautiful dialogue. Most of the dramatic events take place in Athens at the house of Agathon, a tragedian playwright who had recently won his first victory at the festival of “Lenaia,” which commemorated ‘Dionysus of the Wine-press’ (Dionysos Lênaios). We can pinpoint the intended dramatic date to Jan. 5th,…