# Loeb Cicero De finibus reprints the Roman indictment of Epicurean pleasure as vice

Date: 1914

## The fact

In 1914 the Loeb Cicero De finibus printed the Roman academic attack that treats Epicurean pleasure as a rich man’s alibi. [Epicurus](/people/epicurus) did not write [Cicero](/people/cicero)’s brief. Later luxury brands still borrow the name.

## Context

Garden teaching distinguished natural from empty desires. Roman and modern reception often dropped that distinction and sold the heading as refinement. The harm path is the printed indictment-plus-brand, not a surviving Athenian wine list.

Epicurus is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official edition, museum, archive, or agency page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Cicero, De finibus 1 — Perseus (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Cic.+Fin.; Perseus Digital Library / Tufts).

## Significance

A hostile brief can still teach the rich to cite pleasure as philosophy. Keep the reception dated.

A hostile brief can still teach the rich to cite pleasure as philosophy. Keep the reception dated.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Epicurus: https://factrail.ai/people/epicurus

## Drivers

- Income Inequality: https://factrail.ai/drivers/income-inequality

## Sources

- https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Cic.+Fin.+1
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ep-luxury-reception-cicero