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Diogenes of Oenoanda

The otherwise unknown Diogenes of Oenoanda authored a monumental Greek inscription that offered Epicurean salvation (σωτηρία) to his compatriots and to foreign visitors to his small but thriving town in Lycia (now in Turkey). Parts of the dismantled circa second-century ce inscription were first discovered in 1884, and fragments continue to emerge. The contents include several letters, original epitomes on Physics and Ethics, a discourse on Old Age, a collection of the Epicurean Key Doctrines, a set of original Maxims, and a lengthy but now fragmentary explanation of Diogenes’s philanthropic purpose. Scholars estimate that Diogenes’s text—the largest known inscription from the ancient world—originally consisted of over 25,000 words spread across 260 square meters. Located evidently in a prominent urban setting, the inscription had the properties of a billboard, an archive, a philosophical handbook, an imposing commemorative monument, and something akin to a shrine. While the epigraphical content is unique and even subversive, the inscription reflects trends in imperial Asia Minor: extravagant urban benefactions, the enthusiasm for epigraphy, and the public display of Greek culture. Diogenes’s inscription is significant to the history of Epicureanism, as it provides glimpses of a lost Epicurean community, sheds light on the formation of Epicurean texts, and attests to the diversity of the social and cultural contexts of Epicureanism. Among its most unexpected aspects are an emphasis on altruism and a description of an imagined Epicurean future when there would be no slaves, fortifications, or laws, and the world would be “full of justice and mutual love.”