Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Still, more than any other book from antiquity,
if I could read any lost historical text -conveniently
translated into a language I could read - it
has to be Death by Starvation, written by
Hegesias of Cyrene.
Well ok, that is riveting you are thinking,
but who exactly is Hegesias of Cyrene?
Well Hegesias of Cyrene is a bit of a historical
footnote as we really don't know too much
about him.
But what we do know is Hegesias was a Cyrenaic
philosopher active around 290 B.C.E., who
also happened to teach in Alexandria, and
that his opinions were rather controversial
to say the least.
Hegesias was given the nickname of Peisithanatos,
meaning "Death-Persuader".
He is most known for his exceptionally pessimistic
worldview, which culminated in his most prominent
work, Death By Starvation.
In Death By Starvation, the premise is the
main character plans to starve himself to
death, arguing to a friend that death is inherently
more desirable than life.
The book essentially argues there is only
two states, pleasure and pain.
Ideally, we want to live only in pleasure,
however due to the fundamental flaws of the
human character it is impossible to live free
from pain.
He argues then, that the only way to avoid
pain is to terminate the senses.
But before I go on, it is important to note,
it has been lost to time why exactly he thought
starvation would be the best way to achieve
this aim?
Certainly isn't quick, certainly isn't painless,
and I feel there is a part of his overall
philosophy that has been neglected by ancient
historians who more caught up in the sensationalism
of his stories, and as a result the larger
picture of his overall philosophy has probably
been lost forever.
So, do keep that in mind whenever anyone is
speaking about Hegesias of Cyrene they are
making assumptions based on incomplete texts,
myself included.
It is also worth noting that Hegesias, like
so many supposed advocates of suicide, didn't
appear to have killed himself, at least not
during the years he was at the height of his
infamy, so again, I just want to state there
is always the possibility there was more nuance
to his philosophy than what has been recorded.
Most of the source information comes from
a couple of hundred years after the event,
at which point you can never be sure what
is entirely accurate and what might be a sensationalist
ancient Daily Mail-like character assassination.
Most people seem to incorrectly label Hegesias
as a nihilist, but I think that is unfair
given that he was a follower of Aristippus.
With either Aristippus, or Aristippus the
Younger - his grandson, founded the Cyreanic
school of philisophy, which in itself argues
the same, that there is only two states available;
pleasure and pain, therefore the object of
life is to live with more pleasure than pain.
Which is pretty close to Hegesias' fundamental
philosophy, rather than just simply believing
that all life is meaningless.
Now it's easy to say Hegesias is just a nihilistic,
depressive version of Hedonism, and that may
or may not be true.
But I personally believe Hegesias had merely
accepted the concept of suffering as a fundamental
part of human existence, be it through contact
with Buddhist missionaries or simply through
the realisation that life is quite often painful,
and therefore that suffering must inherently
be a part of the human experience.
Although it is worth noting that Hegesias
wasn't a pupil of Aristippus directly, with
the link according to Diogenes La�rtius,
in his book 'Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers' written roughly 300 years after
the time of Hegesias, he states:
"The disciples of Aristippus were his daughter
Arete, Aethiops of Ptolemais, and Antipater
of Cyrene.
The pupil of Arete was Aristippus the Younger,
that being the grandchild of the first Aristippus,
who went by the nickname of mother-taught
or mother-pupil; his pupil would be Theodorus,
known as The Atheist, and subsequently as
"God."
Antipater's pupil was Epitimides of Cyrene,
his was Paraebates, and his pupils Hegesias,
the advocate of suicide, and Anniceris, who
ransomed Plato."
He continues,
"Those then who adhered to the teaching of
Aristippus, and were known as Cyrenaics held
the following opinions; They laid down that
there are two states, pleasure and pain, the
former a smooth, the latter a rough motion,
and that pleasure does not differ from pleasure
nor is one pleasure more pleasant than another."
"One state is agreeable and the other repellent
to all living things."
It goes on,
"The school of Hegesias, as it is called,
adopted the same ends, namely pleasure and
pain.
In their view there is no such thing as gratitude
or friendship or beneficence, because it is
not for themselves that we choose to do these
things but simply from motives of interest,
apart from which such conduct is nowhere found.
They denied the possibility of happiness,
for the body is infected with much suffering,
while the soul shares in the sufferings of
the body and is a prey to disturbance, and
fortune often disappoints.
From all this it follows that happiness cannot
be realized.
Moreover, life and death are each desirable
in turn.
But that there is anything naturally pleasant
or unpleasant they deny; when some men are
pleased and others pained by the same objects,
this is owing to the lack or rarity or surfeit
of such objects.
Poverty and riches have no relevance to pleasure;
for neither the rich nor the poor as such
have any special share in pleasure.
Slavery and freedom, nobility and low birth,
honour and dishonour, are alike indifferent
in a calculation of pleasure.
To the fool life is advantageous, while to
the wise it is a matter of indifference.
The wise man will be guided in all he does
by his own interests, for there is none other
whom he regards as equally deserving.
"
i.e. be rich or poor, we experience pleasure
and pain the same.
The state of pleasure is agreeable, and desirable,
the state of pain is not.
Therefore it can be concluded that pleasure
is the absense of pain.
Oh, and that we're all egoistic, which is
probably true.
But the reason I put Diogenes work after my
own personal opinion, is because as much as
I really enjoyed Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers, it is a bit like an ancient
gossip magazine.
Mostly full of tidbits of information, and
a brief overview of their thoughts and ideas.
It is generally considered an uncritial and
unphilosophical compilations, and it is generally
adviced to take anything from that book to
be taken with a grain of salt.
Diogenes doesn't always site his sources,
and when he does those sources have often
been lost to time.
A great example of this is when I mentioned
Anniceris 'who ransomed Plato', that is the
words written by Diogenes, but in my research
though, this cannot be true.
He states he was a follow student of Hegesias,
but this is 50 years after Plato has already
died - so it seems likely whatever Diogenes
was sourcing from, it was mistaken.
The ransom incident has been, in modern times,
possibly attributed to a famous, celebrated
Charioteer, also named Anniceris, who was
written about by Aelian.
The Buddhist connection, on the other hand
seems to come down to the fact that around
the height of Hegesias' infamy the governors
of Cyrene, Ophellas, and later Magas, both
claim to have been recipients of Buddhist
missionaries from the Indian King Ashoka.
Just bare in mind the Indian connection is
mostly connecting dots that might be there,
it is entirely possible Hegesias came to these
conclusions independently and we, at a later
date, have abscribed this to Buddhists in
order to fill in a gap or two.
Basically, as always, we won't know for sure
until we dig up more stuff out the ground.
As we've discovered Hegesias argued that happiness
is impossible to achieve and the avoidance
of pain and sorrow should be considered just
as important.
However, given that eventually pain and sorrow
are inevitable no matter your ranking, or
tier in society, so therefore the only way
to live without pain or sorrow was to commit
suicide as death was neither pain or pleasure,
but rather eternal termination of the senses.
He argues that wealth and poverty have no
influence at all on pleasure, and that rich
people are not affected by pleasure differently
than poor people.
Which, if you need a real world example for,
you just have to look at Kurt Cobain, Robin
Williams, or Chester Bennington.
Not that I'm endorsing Hegesias' worldviews,
I'm just pointing out that this statement
is as true as it ever was - money can't buy
you happiness... although admittedly, I'd
rather cry myself to sleep in a mansion than
in a box next to a train platform.
You could also say that Hegesias took the
Four Noble Truths of Buddhism to it's most
radical conclusion.
If he was in fact influenced by Buddhists,
it could be argued that Death by Starvation
was his way of transcending through the Four
Noble Truths.
"The Four Noble Truths refer to and express
the basic orientation of Buddhism, in a short
expression it is: we crave and cling to impermanent
states and things, which are Dukkha, incapable
of satisfying and painful.
This craving keeps us caught in Samsara, the
endless cycle of repeated rebirth and dying,
along with the Dukkha that comes with it.
There is, however, a way to end this cycle
namely by attaining Nirvana, the cessation
of craving, whereafter rebirth and associated
Dukkha will no longer arise again."
If we take the philosopher's approach to this,
it is not hard to see how a man writing a
book called Death By Starvation could have
been attempting to express a philosophy such
as the Four Noble Truths, albeit perhaps poorly.
But again, all of this is conjecture, and
the Buddhist connection does seem to hinge
on what a court would consider circumstantial
evidence at best.
But if true would help connect a few dots,
but as with everything, until we dig up a
cache of ancient Greek scrolls from somewhere
and get researchers in to look at them - it
is quite possible we will never know all the
facts surrounding this unusual footnote in
history.
But I digress, Death By Starvation regardless
of it's influences or intentions would become
quite controversial given the fact that 2'000
years ago, the people with the ability to
read, and have access to such works of literature,
or even the mentorship of such an established
teacher would be a rarity.
So what I'm saying is, this was controversial
probably mostly because of who it affected
directly, rather than his ideas as a whole.
Not entirely, of course, but it definitely
was a part of it.
As according to Cicero around 300 years later,
'Death by Starvation' lead to reprecussions
for Hegesias both personally and professionally.
The high number of suicides in particular
among his students caused panic throughout
the city, and as a result Hegesias would be
permanently banned from teaching in Alexandria.
As alluded to previously, education at this
level was only for the upper echelons of society.
This was the children of the top tier of Ancient
Greek society, this top tier were outraged
that their children and heirs had resorted
to suicide after reading the works of their
teacher.
Hegesias may even have the dubious honour
of being the first teacher to ever be censored
by a government when he was banned from teaching
in Alexandria as a result of the suicides.
Ok, ok, how very depressing, but why was this
footnote in history important?
Well, because I don't think the point of Death
by Starvation was to cause suicide among its
readers, although that is conjecture, as so
much has been lost to history it's is impossible
to say anything concrete about the subject.
I think it's an important footnote, because
it helps highlight that no matter how you're
feeling, there will always have been someone
who has felt that way before.
Not I don't condone or endorse taking such
action, as I feel like death is inevitable
anyway, so there's no real need to accelerate
that process.
But I do find it fascinating that people so
long ago where writing and teaching about
such subjects.
It's a bit of a heavy one for the soul, to
sit questioning your own mortality, but hopefully
that realisation, if nothing else, will give
you the push needed to start planning, rather
than praying, for whatever it is you want
to do with your life.
