Note 37 — Chapter XIV · THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE AND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION.
Oswald J. (Oswald Joseph) Reichel translation
According to Athen. xii. 547, a, Ælian, V. H. ix. 12, two Epicureans, Alcius and Philiscus, were banished from Rome, in the consulate of L. Postumius (173 or 155 B.C.; see Clinton’s Fasti), because of their evil influence on youth. Although the story is obviously taken from a hostile authority and in Suid. (Ἐπίκουρος, vol. i. b, 419 Bern.), it is told with such exaggerations as to inspire grave mistrust, it can hardly be altogether without some foundation. Plut. N. P. Suav. V. 19, 4, says, that in some cities severe laws were passed against the Epicureans, and just at that time there was a strong feeling in Rome against innovations, witness the well-known enquiry into the Bacchanalia instituted 186 B.C. ↑