Spaced out and transliterated in upper/lower case for easier reading, the letters on the image on the scroll would be:
Tetrapharmakos
Ἄφοβον ὁ θεός, (transliterated: Aphobon ho theos)
ἀνύποπτον ὁ θάνατος (anupopton ho thanatos)
καὶ τἀγαθὸν μὲν εὔκτητον, (kai tagathon [to + agathon] men eukteton)
τὸ δὲ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον (to de deinon euekkartereton)
My own literal translation (with more alternatives shared below):
God is no cause for fear.
Death is free from risk.
The Highest Good is easily procured,
While the Terrible is easy to endure.
Line by line:
Ἄφοβον ὁ θεός,
1a. Ἄφοβος causing no fear, free from fear (a + phobon)
1b. ὁ θεός with the singular article, god/God BUT Liddell & Scott give an interesting alternative definition at 1.d. ὁ θ., of natural phenomena. So, an interesting *possibility* would be, paraphrasing, "We have nothing to fear from the gods or natural phenomenon."
ἀνύποπτον ὁ θάνατος
2a. ἀνύποπτος LSJ: without suspicion; i.e., free from risk
2b. θάνατος death
καὶ τἀγαθὸν μὲν εὔκτητον, (NOTE: καὶ = and; μὲν... δὲ... in lines 3 & 4 simply show those two phrases are connected. Clunky translations would be "One the one hand,...; on the other hand,...)
3a. τἀγαθὸν can be thought of as “the highest good” "The Good" (to + agathon) So, is this actually refer to Pleasure, "The Highest Good" "Pleasure is easy to obtain"?
3c. εὔκτητον “honestly acquired” per LSJ (Phld.Sto.339.4.), easily gotten. From: εὔ-κτητος, ον “good, well” + “that may be gotten”
τὸ δὲ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον
4a. τὸ (δὲ) δεινὸν “fearful, terrible; danger, suffering, horror” (TRIVIA: This "deino" is the "dino" in "dinosaur = terrible lizard")
4b. εὐεκκαρτέρητον “easy to endure”
As above is "τὸ δεινὸν to deinon" The Terrible referring to Pain? Pleasure is easy to obtain, and Pain can be endured.?
So another alternative:
There is nothing to fear from gods or natural phenomenon,
There is no afterlife of which to be suspicious,
And Pleasure is easy to obtain,
while Pain can be easily endured.
Food for thought.
Cassius has also expressed interest in finding out more about PHerc 1005 in which the tetrapharmakos is found. The following provide some context for the work and was found in two reviews of Anna Angeli's work in JSTOR:
The following citation and excerpt were in Italian. I used Google Translate (see below)
1st Work from JSTOR:
Review
Reviewed Work(s): L'ira. volume V, (ed. Bibliopolis) by null Filodemo, Giovanni Indelli and
Marcello Gigante; Frammenti. volume VI, (ed. Bibliopolis) by null Ermarco, Francesca Longo Auricchio and Marcello Gigante; Agli Amici di Scuola (P. Herc. 1005). volume VII, (ed. Bibliopolis) by null Filodemo, Anna Angeli and Marcello Gigante; La poesia. volume IX, (ed. Bibliopolis) by Demetrio Lacone, Costantina Romeo and Marcello Gigante
Review by: Elisabetta Martelli
Source: Aegyptus, Anno 69, No. 1/2 (gennaio-dicembre 1989), pp. 288-293
Published by: Vita e Pensiero – Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41217138
Excerpt from 291-2 using Google Translate for Italian > English
In her Introduction, Angeli deals with the difficult task of reconstructing the subject, structure, doctrine, title and dating of Philodemus' Ad Contubernales treatise, preserved by P. Herc. 1005 with serious gaps especially in the initial part (p. 25 ff.). The work has a controversial content, as revealed not only by the contents, but also by the subscription, of which only "Philodemou Pros tous .." survives. A careful investigation on several fronts allows the scholar to exclude a controversy by Philodemus against philosophers from other schools, and leads her to glimpse a lively debate within the Epicurean school itself; confirming an intuition already of Gigante, Angeli admits as possible the integration "Pros tous [synethes]", or "Pros tous I [hetairous]", or similar; worthy of note is the accepted hypothesis that "Pros" can be interpreted with the meaning of ad, rather than with the value of adversus (pp. 71-75); the work is dated around the middle of the first century. B.C. Angeli dedicates large sections of her research to the study of the three topics around which it is possible to reconstruct the controversy of Philodemus against classmates. The first argument concerns the accusation, evidently addressed to the Epicureans of the school of Athens, of venerating the figure of the wise philosopher as the mass of men venerates the gods; Angeli presents it in a chapter entitled "Logoi eis apeiron ekpiptontes", with the aim of underlining the logical and gnoseological principle to which Philodemus refers to refute the accusation (fr. 77), according to a typically epicurean procedure; in conclusion, Philodemus shows the interlocutor critic that the reverence towards the wise is fully licit, and was born as an act of gratitude for the benefits received from his philosophical teachings, while the reprehensible cult of the gods, proper to the mass, arises from the false prejudice that from them descend the good to which man aspires and the unexpected evil; the debate is felt by the scholar as a sign of the need for a part of Epicureanism of the first century. B.C. to limit the religious characterization of the cult to the essay proper to the school (pp. 29-37). The second topic concerns the nature of the summaries, epitomes and maxims, which played a large part in the spread of Epicureanism on the initiative of the Master himself, but which in the course of time inevitably led to a certain trivialization and simplification of the doctrine; the debate on this theme is reconstructed with great detail by Angeli, according to which it testifies, already for the second half of the second century. BC, a strand of Greek Epicureanism that spread the doctrine among ever wider social strata, but with tools not approved by the Athens school. The famous maxim of tetrapharmakoe mentioned in col. V 1-6, is finally attributed to Philodemus himself, rather than Epicurus (pp. 37-61). The third argument enters into the merits of Epicurus' struggle against traditional "paideia", and of the subsequent problem of characterizing doctrine as a democratic or aristocratic philosophy, strongly felt by the Epicureans themselves; Philodemus clashes with the other Epicureans precisely on the system's diffusion program (pp. 61-70).
2nd excerpt from JSTOR:
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Filodemo, Agli Amici di Scuola (Pherc. 1005) by Anna Angeli; Demetrio
Lacone, Aporie Testuali ed Esegetiche in Epicuro (Pherc. 1012) by Enzo Puglia; Demetrio
Lacone, La Poesia (Pherc. 188 e 1014) by Costantina Romeo; Carneisco, Il Secondo Libro del
Filista (Pherc. 1027) by Mario Capasso
Review by: Phillip de Lacy
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 573-577
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/295250
The latest of these texts is 1005 (vol. 7), a work of Philodemus. By the time of Philodemus, early first century B.C., the Epicureans were adapting their teachings to changing times and circumstances. Questions of orthodoxy arose, and Philodemus participated in the resultant controversies. In 1005 he accuses certain unnamed Epicureans of failing to follow the teaching of Epicurus, and in support of his position he quotes and explicates passages from Epicurus' writings. Angeli, who gives in her introduction a good account of the history of controversy within the school, presents a text that differs at many points from that of E Sbordone (Naples, 1947). She rejects outright some of Sbordone's restorations, including those that appear as fragments 262 and 263 in the second edition of Arrighetti's Epicuro. Others are greatly altered. An important passage in 1005 is Philodemus' quotation from a letter almost certainly by Epicurus that mentions Aristotle's Analytics and Physics, frag. 13 Sbordone, frag. 127 Arrighetti, and now frag. 111 Angeli. Aristotle is still there, but Crates has disappeared, Aristippus is now author of a work Su Socrate, and there is a new entry, Speusippus' Encomium of Plato. Angeli's comment on this passage is seven pages long, and indeed her restoration is attractive, except that one might question whether Aristippus' work had the title "Peri Sokratous"; see the lists of Aristippus' writings in Diog. Laer. ii. 84-85.
The title that Angeli gives to the papyrus is also questionable. All that remains of the subscription is "Philodemou Pros tous". Taking "pros" as expressing opposition, Sbordone, and Vogliano before him, supplied "sophistas". Angeli, however, believing that Philodemus is addressing his associates, supplies "hetairous". But the Epicureans, so far as I can discover, did not address each other as hetairoi. In Epicurus, frag. 119 Arrighetti, hetairos does not refer to a member of the school, and the hetairos of Diogenes of Oenoanda (frag. 16 11 Chilton) is beginning the study of philosophy and is not committed to Epicureanism. The feminine hetaira, courtesan, was used in attacks on the school (see Plut. Mor 1129B, Diog. Laer. x.6), and Angeli introduces ieaita as a conjecture in 1005.
The similar entry in Usener's Glossarium Epicureum is also a conjecture. But even if these conjectures should be correct, they give no support to the view that the Epicureans addressed each other as hetairoi. When Epicurus wrote to his followers he called them philoi.
Another uncertainty bearing on Angeli's title is the question whether in this papyrus Philodemus is addressing one person or a group. Some of the second-person forms are singular, some plural. Angeli's solution is that he is addressing a group but sometimes limits his address to one member of the group. Possibly, but since JtQ6g is ambiguous, it is better to leave the question of the title unanswered.