Happy 20 with a lot of news from Italy

Wow that is great Michele!

Do you happen to have a form of the program on a web page that we can run through Google translate when we post on English pages?

Also, looking forward to an English translation of your book some day!

Being a Roman history fan I had to look up the history of the location, so this would have been known to the ancient Epicureans as "Sena Gallica":

"Senigallia was first settled in the 4th century BC by the gallic tribe of the Senones who first settled this coastal area . In 284 BC, the settlement was taken over by Romans, who established the colony Sena Gallica there. "Sena" is probably a corrupted form of "Senones" and "Gallica" (meaning "Gaulish") distinguished it from Saena (Siena) in Etruria.

In the prelude to the battle of the Metaurus between Romans and Carthaginians in 207 BC, Sena Gallica was the southernmost point of Carthaginian General Hasdrubal Barca's invasion of Italy. Senigallia was ravaged by Alaric during the decline of the Roman Empire and fortified when it became part of the Byzantine Empire. It was again laid waste by the Lombards in the 8th century and by the Saracens in the 9th. It was one of the five cities of the medieval Adriatic duchy of Pentapolis. "

Happy Twentieth!

You've been keeping busy! Looks great, I hope everyone has a good time!

Nice to see this! I hope you take pictures and post a full report so that I can post it on SoFE website!

And video too!

Outstanding Michele! Keep us posted and good "luck" with all these projects!

Michele - I was posting earlier today about the Boscoreale cup, and noting how frustrating it is that we don't have images for the full cup. If you happen to think of it and the occasion arises, it would be tremendously good if somehow we could get a 3d scan of it so that people could print their own duplicates. I know you have a lot on your mind but if the occasion arises to talk to anyone who might be able to help, please let us know!

Same thing goes for the leaping pig. It would be so great to get a 3d scan of that to print.

Of course I wouldn't even consider planting in your mind that a 3d scan of the Epicurus Hermarchus and Metrodorus busts from Herculaneum would make the world of Epicurean 3d scan / printing complete!

1 - Thanks for the English transcription!

2 - Yes you are right about the difficulty. It is probably going to take a sympathetic scholar like Bernard Frischer or similar to get permission to do that and publish the scans. I know that these museums are protective of their "rights" in these images, but surely if "copyright" protection has expired on anything, it has expired on objects two thousand years old!

What a great news. Does this event hold/happen for the first time ? Michelle you made me really happy and wishing to all of you to have for this event such a success for becoming also an institution that will be followed by the people every year.

As for my presence at this event, sorry it is not possible, since this period of time my son will be married, and a lot of supportive issues for that day have to be done by me too.

Cassius the museums protection laws did not expire. They are still nowadays, as they also forbid the visitors taking pictures of the finds inside the museums. I think it is the same in the museums of the USA. We are in their disposal, maybe in their research on the marketing, if they will have sufficient income of the reproducing of copies of the finds, for the purpose to buy them as individuals. Museum's goal is the profit and the income, what else could be ? Since, the expenses for the excavations, for paying salaries of workers, archeologists, safe-guards, the sculptors for making copies of the finds, as well as, for all the expenses of the buildings of the museums are enormous.

The only we have to do is to make through emails for sending many requests to the managers of the museums (usually the managers are archeologists that working for the state), asking for the reproduction of our epicurean finds and to declare them that we are many buyers, from all over the world, that have a willing to buy them through internet and an eshop.

A notice by me to the author of the book. Dear Michelle, I read in the synopsis of your book this sentence: "un incontro impossibile fra due grandi spiriti, quello greco, ancora pagano, e quello cristiano".

I totally agree with you that the "incontro" (encounter) and the mixture between them is impossible.

Grande spirito christiano, that means : The great spirit of christianism. I have a question : Which were these ideas that came by christianism to be considered from epicureans as great ?

quello greco, ancora pagano that means : That greek one, still pagan. This characterization for the greek cosmotheasis as paganism and the people as pagans, as well as, idolatres show how disrespectful were the people who tried to keep their customs. All these characterizations came by christianism and the christians.

But anyway, according to "the encounter between them is impossible", me, as a greek epicurean, addressed to them, I would like to say: What those gypsies and shepherds of the dessert are able to teach me, on how to milk goats and sheep? Who were those that were searching for 40 years a land that was so near by to them, and they called it "EDEN" ? They say that this word "EDEN" derived from the word "HEDONE" and means "delight/pleasure". They were searching for pleasure for 40 years, and it was in front of them, but still they give me the impression that are searching pleasure till our days.

Here is an interesting article on the webpage of YSEE, by a historian Chris Aldridge https://www.ysee.gr/aldridge.html

"Christians and Epicureans talk about friendship and love. But Epicureans must think about it".

Christians and their cousins i.e. the Abrahamic monotheistic religions may speak for "friendship" and "love" but their "friendship" and "love" has a virus that is capable enough for leading to the disease and the collapse of any healthy body inside any society. Christians speak for "friendship" and "love" hypocritically since, inside them is a hidden egoism, and a huge selfishness which is due to their fears of god and death. These fears make them thinking and acting, like the reptilian brains, and in two ways: either to attack to their opponents and destroy them, or to be hidden for acting with cunning as their double spy Saul of Tarsus acted. This hidden huge selfishness, in psychological terms, is their depression and it is against the goal of pleasure, and the enjoyment of life that leads the majority of them to apathy and anesthesia (waiting for their salvation by their saviors/leaders that with their laws and their symbols had exterminate day by day through the idealism, the greek scientific/materialistic spirit of Epicurus, inside the schools, universities, academies, courts, ministries, etc etc), and the worse consequence of these fears, it is the commitment of suicide and of themselves and any of the society they live. This is the general picture of the society the christians build and its suicide is the break of its coherence, through their movement from a fantastic world to another fantastic world, the asceticism of the numerous of monks and priests inside the monasteries, and churches, and in the end when the reality comes for showing its harsh face, they are the same that lead the societies to the decadence and the destruction.

"Christians have just to have faith. And this is probably the cause Christians won".

For their faith, and its consequences, I explained as above, that is on fears. As for the victory and the won... I wonder what they really won ? Pride, respect, dignity, eudaemonia, pure pleasure, freedom, bravery, isonomia, isigoria, isigonia, isokratia, isopsyfia, and isotimia ? Someone has to be blind to not see to where they lead our western societies: to a caricature of Democracy for which they're boasting about and around, for spreading and this motto as the coldman sucks said it :"we do God's work", for leading the societies to the worse that are the endless debts that give birth to the ideologies of fascism and its barbarism.

"Think about everything, be ready to explain our reasons is far harder than saying: "God said that". And people are lazy and sometimes stupid too".

Yes, laziness, lethargy, anesthesia, and stupidity these were the main issues that Epicurus fought against in his era that the phenomena were similar like today, but not so damaging than today due to the monotheistic religions and the motto "we are doing God's work". No, the greeks did not say "gods says this and that". They said we say this and that and we are doing this and that. Man is the measure of all things - Protagoras. For this reason, Epicurus won the day, and every brave spirit was an epicurean and in Greece and in Rome. There were numerous of Epicureans and Gardens all over the ecumene. But christians' and Judaistic religions' battle was not Man to Man, but was a battle with cunning that lead to the destruction of all the ancient temples and those symbols that led the humans to lose their identity and pride of what they really were and what was their real goal in their one and unique life.

On friendship and love, we the epicureans we do not think about anything more or less, since we grasp the concept of the words directly and without mistake along with its first principle that is the common benefit and the common goal of pleasure that sprung from inner self-sufficient man spontaneously and automatically, like the swerve that is our freedom and bravery to choose with cleverness among many options. The opportunity is here and now, and it has to not be lost again. The opportunity is for a transvaluation to all the fake values, because without Epicurus and his greek spirit, we will be lost again in the darkness of the abyss as it has been lost in the medieval ages.

P.S. Dear Michelle, many thanks for your efforts to spread the right message of epicurean philosophy, and I hope in the festival there would be a reference to some of my above thoughts, by honest men and women as speakers.