It was distinguished as well by its admission of women and slaves. Epicurus's death, although physically painful, is portrayed in our sources as having been appropriately philosophical.
Diogenes Laertius (third century CE), our chief source for his writings (including his will), relates that Epicurus was the most prolific author of his time (some 300 papyrus rolls). Pitifully little survives. Diogenes himself preserves three short letters outlining Epicurus's physical theory, ethics, and explanations of celestial phenomena, though doubts exist that the last is from Epicurus's hand. Kuriai Doxai, a collection of excerpts quoted by Diogenes, and a parallel collection surviving in another manuscript, Sententiae Vaticanae, were apparently designed to remind adherents of Epicurus's key claims.
Although critical, the philosophical treatises of Cicero, written some two centuries after the time of Epicurus, offer our most articulate evidence for many Epicurean arguments. Other scattered citations are preserved, especially in Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Seneca, and the Aristotelian commentators, though it often is difficult to discern from them the original context and intent of his arguments.
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