“Men suffer the worst evils for the sake of the most alien desires,” wrote his disciple Philodemus, in one of the books found in the library at Herculaneum, and “they neglect the most necessary appetites as if they were the most alien to nature.” What are these necessary appetites that lead to pleasure? It is impossible to live pleasurably, Philodemus continued, “without living prudently and honourably and justly, and also without living courageously and temperately and magnanimously, and without making friends, and without being philanthropic.”
