Epicureans in Revolt?
Epicureans in Revolt?
The historian Arnaldo Momigliano claimed that persons of Epicurean belief dominated the conspiracy against Caesar, and that Epicureanism — creatively reformulated in the fifth book of Lucretius — underpinned the anti-monarchic rebellion of these ‘Epicureans in revolt’. His belligerent essay is compelling but largely unfounded, especially in its central tenets: that the conspirators and later republican fighters were mostly ‘unconventional’ (that is, politically committed) Epicureans, and that Lucretius was their formative reading. It remains a good article on the aesthetic level, extolling the ‘heroic’ nexus between Epicureanism in philosophy and militant libertarian republicanism in politics.
Keywords: Julius Caesar, Arnaldo Momigliano, Epicureanism, militant libertarian republicanism, conspiracy, Lucretius
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