mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my
past conversations with you. Take care of the children left by
Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards
me and towards philosophy.' Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when
it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and
moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted
long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate
terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.

In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from
bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and exaggerated
aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects
appeared most seductive from a distance, inciting man to lawless
violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always
disappointments, and generally something worse; partly, and still more,
from the delusions of fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest
torments of human existence--fear of Death, and of eternal suffering
after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the Gods.
Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul
separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational
ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of
consciousness.[13] Death was nothing to us (he said); when death comes,
we are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the groundless
fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and
held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment. Whoever had
surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and
against all the gravest misfortunes. Next, the fear of the gods was not
less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death. It
was a capital error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the gods
employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of
the Cosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering
chastisement to others. The vulgar religious tales, which represented
them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the gods
themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the
hopes and fears of mankind. Epicurus believed sincerely in the gods;
reverenced them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and
unchangeable; and took delight in the public religious festivals and
ceremonies. But it wa