Commentary on Colotes of Lampsacus

‘Let us do some extraordinarily excellent thing, not suffering ourselves to be plunged in reciprocal affections, but retiring from this low and terrestrial life, and elevating ourselves to the truly holy and divinely revealed ceremonies and mysteries of Epicurus.’ - Metrodorus of Lampsacus, writing to Timarchus, as reported by Plutarch

The Mutual Prostration

One of the best remembered (and criticized by enemies) episodes of life in the Epicurean Garden consists of a mutual prostration between Epicurus and Colotes (c. 320 – after 268 BC). I wanted to write about this, and quickly realized that it’s impossible to delve in depth into the mutual prostration episode without a careful evaluation of the person of Colotes, and so this essay is as much about Colotes as it is about his act of prostration.

Our main source on this is hostile. Plutarch was a Neo-Platonist who wrote a work criticizing Colotes’ arrogance for claiming that Epicurean philosophy is the only one that can be practiced. Plutarch claims that Colotes was a great favorite with Epicurus, who used, by way of endearment, to call him Koλωτάρας and Koλωτάριoς. This is the report in Against Colotes, as preserved in Usener 141:

Colotes himself, for another, while hearing a lecture of Epicurus on natural philosophy, suddenly cast himself down before him and embraced his knees; and this is what Epicurus himself writes about it in a tone of solemn pride: 

“You, as one revering my remarks on that occasion, were seized with a desire, not accounted for by my lecture, to embrace me by clasping my knees and lay hold of me to the whole extent of the contact that is customarily established in revering and supplicating certain personages. You therefore cause me to consecrate you in return and demonstrate my reverence.”

My word! We can pardon those who say that they would pay any price to see a painting of that scene: one kneeling at the feet of the other and embracing his knees while the other returns the supplication and worship. Yet that act of homage, though skillfully contrived by Colotes, bore no fruit: he was not proclaimed a Sage. Epicurus merely says: “Go about as one immortal in my eyes and think of me as immortal too.”

Let us consider Plutarch's report, although it is tinged with a considerable amount of ill-will towards the Epicureans. He detects self-interest on the part of Colotes, and accuses him of wanting to be declared a Sage. He makes the entire event sound as if it was out of place and yet, he closes the report with a declaration on the part of Epicurus which aligns with the closing (the “meleta portion”) of the Letter to Menoeceus, which calls us to recognize ourselves and each other as immortals if we are practicing correctly.

Epicurus Bowed Back

According to Plutarch (Column 17), Epicurus prostrated before Colotes immediately after Colotes did the same. In some translations, Epicurus spoke in the plural (Go thy ways, and walk immortal; and understand that we also are in like manner immortal). Perhaps Colotes prostrated before Epicurus AND some of the other Kathegemones (Hermarchus, Metrodorus, etc.), so that this was a prostration of all before all within the Koinonia? Such prostrations are still commonplace, for instance, in the Gaudiya Vaishnava lineage of Hinduism, where at the end of the devotional service and liturgy, devotees praise all the worshipers of Krishna everywhere with a full prostration because theirs is a devotional lineage that teaches that all devotees are worthy of praise.

In all of the historical data that we have available, this is the single episode of Epicurus prostrating himself before anyone. And so we may have reason to ask ourselves: what attributes did Colotes demonstrate to make Epicurus consider him worthy of reverence? How did he/do we demonstrate that we “get it”? I believe this mutual prostration was a token or acknowledgement that he had acquired a particular insight or attainment. If we understand this, we will be able to understand the episode as it was understood by Colotes and Epicurus, rather than as Plutarch mockingly describes it.

Colotes profited from Epicurus’ teaching more fully than other disciples, as a result of which he was (to some extent) considered an equal and considered worthy of reverence by the Hegemon. 

Usener’s Fragment 140 gives the impression that Epicurus attributed some of what he learned to Colotes and Leontion. His inner circle was made up of individuals who were intellectual peers, and who helped him to develop his ideas over time. This gives the impression that Epicurus mulled over the things he was learning with Colotes, so that–for instance–his arguments in book 25 of On Nature concerning the pragmatic impossibility of determinism probably are mirrored in Colotes’ own scroll, and were probably developed with the help of Colotes’ insights, since pragmatism (as we will see later in this essay) was one of Colotes’ main attributes.

The Embrace of Feeling

Part of the context of the mutual prostration involves a culture where people were emotionally free, and able to express their feelings quite openly in the Garden. This culture was nurtured by Epicurus himself, who had been mocked for crying publicly when his brother Neocles died. In Usener, Fragment 143 (citing the enemy of the Kepos, Plutarch), we read:

But what epithet do they deserve–with your “roars” of ecstasy and “cries of thanksgiving” and tumultuous “bursts of applause” and “reverential demonstrations” and the whole apparatus of adoration that you people resort to in supplicating and hymning the man who summons you to sustained and frequent pleasures?

Colotes the Pragmatist

Colotes was moved to reverence by Epicurus’ sober realism in the midst of a society that was immersed in superstition. Cicero recounts that Colotes held that it is unworthy of the truthfulness of a philosopher to use fables in his teaching. In the past, I’ve contrasted this with Lucretius’ use of parables, as part of an argument that Colotes and Lucretius are very different types of Epicureans, yet both profited from the teaching in their own way. Lucretius is the artist-philosopher, what Nietzsche would call a “creating one”. Colotes, in contrast, can be described as practical.

Attempting to Reconstruct Colotes’ Scroll

Colotes wrote a work titled That it is impossible even to live according to the doctrines of the other philosophers--against which Plutarch wrote a work. We don’t have Colotes’ work but we may infer about its contents based on what his enemy wrote. Plutarch is more moved by ill-will towards Colotes and the Epicureans than solidarity with other philosophers, as he himself admits that all the philosophers attacked by Colotes had many mutually exclusive and contradictory opinions, and it’s hard to imagine that Plutarch coincided with the views of all or even the majority of Colotes’ diverse opponents. In spite of this, Plutarch reveals many useful insights. For instance, it seems that Colotes’ work was, at least in part, a work of comedy.

Let us consider what Plutarch wrote and try to imagine Colotes’ arguments based on this. Plutarch discusses the heating properties of wine and the idea that one body may have one effect on another body, and a different effect in another body. Plutarch refutes the (now accepted) idea that there are accidental or relational properties of bodies. This was also one of the key arguments of Polystratus, the third Scholarch of the Garden of Athens, in his work Irrational Contempt. Plutarch (in column 7) seems perplexed by these insights, as seems to attribute some essential and non-relational quality to things like colors (which are relational or emergent properties of bodies once exposed to light). By this, we may infer that Colotes began his work discussing chemistry and the relational properties of bodies, so as to set the tone for anti-skeptical arguments.

Plutarch then goes on to refute the paradox related to the infinity of particles. Ergo we can imagine that Colotes posited arguments against this paradox by establishing that elementary particles have a limit in size, so that there are “atomoi” (uncuttable particles).

Epicurean cosmology teaches about the infinite relativity of all the bodies (explained towards the end of Book I of De rerum natura). This can be complicated to explain, conceive, and understand, while simpler ideas lure many intellects because they are much easier to conceive. In Column 13, Plutarch reveals that Colotes argued against Parmenides’ idea of “the One”, a popular quasi-mystical proto-Platonic belief which denied the diversity of bodies. We can imagine that the ever-practical Colotes may have argued that the denial of the diversity of bodies goes against what our senses report to us.

In Column 15, Plutarch leads us to infer that some of Colotes’ arguments were critical of the rhetorical games of other philosophers, and that part of the reason why he believed that Epicurean philosophy was the only one that could be practiced was that Epicureans were not known for playing word games. This is confirmed in Column 22, where Colotes ridiculed the sophistry of other philosophers and defended the Epicurean convention of applying clear and concise speech that was neatly tied to the evidence of nature, as Epicurus instructs in his sermon against the use of empty words. This has the effect of leaving the unintelligible outside of the realm of meaningful and useful language, which frustrates the word-games and abstractions of philosophers (like Plutarch) whose views are divorced from the evidence of nature.

In Column 17, Plutarch criticizes Colotes’ rejection of the Delphic oracle according to which Socrates was the wisest man in Greece, saying that it was “odious and absolutely sophistical”. This may have reflected a general distrust of oracles, and of knowledge acquired by oracular methods.

In Column 22, we read that Plutarch reproached Colotes for changing the appellations and names of the gods, a practice which was common among the ancient Epicureans—as we saw in the book review of How one can be a god.

Based on Column 28’s closing statement, it seems that Plutarch argued a skeptic point related to the quantity and types of things about which we must withhold our opinion (epoche), which to the Epicureans is limited based on the evidence of nature (KD 22-25). From this, we may infer that Colotes, in his book, must have prudently argued for a strict adherence to evidence and against jumping to conclusions without evidence. Based on this, we see that one of the things that Epicurus and Colotes seem to have shared is their disdain and lack of patience for those who argue adamantly against that which is evident.

In Column 30, we find self-contradictory statements where Plutarch criticizes the Epicurean conception of justice, even as he cites Colotes’ praise of lawgivers. Plutarch defends divine providence and divine punishment for those who transgress the laws, ideas which Colotes must have criticized. This tells us that Colotes may have dedicated a portion of his book to the practical repercussions of KD 6 and the Doxai on justice. Plutarch wants his readers to believe in the need to fear the gods’ punishments if laws are broken. He hates that Epicureans dismiss these types of superstitions, and (because he believes in divine punishment and divine providence) thinks the Epicureans are lawless for rejecting the view that gods punish wrongdoers. Plutarch is unaware of the Epicurean doctrines concerning the social contract, or at least feigns to be.

Why would Colotes deem his defense of this point important enough to include in his book? Let us remember that he was writing on the practicality of Epicurean philosophy, versus all the other ones. We may infer that Colotes may have been expounding Kyriai Doxai 37-38, which teach that laws and rules were made by mortals and can be changed by mortals according to what is advantageous and prudent, rather than bestowed and punished by the gods. In this way, Epicurean philosophy is practicable, and others are not: a divine law can never be challenged, but an agreement between people can easily be amended if we think pragmatically, with the understanding that the world and its laws are for the living. This seems to have been Colotes’ final argument, and so must have been of some importance.

In Column 31, Plutarch argues that lawmakers should legislate concerning the control of people’s passions. I wonder if Colotes argued in favor of natural limits to what governments may rightfully legislate on? In section 33, Plutarch argues that people should make great sacrifices for the state, seek glory and become “great” public figures. Colotes’ argument against this may have involved discussions against empty and endless desires that do not necessarily lead to happiness.

All of these arguments reveal Colotes’ realism and pragmatism. Let us now consider Colotes’ work in light of the fact that it was dedicated to king Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Who was this king, and why would Colotes dedicate this work to him?

King Ptolemy II and the Library of Alexandria

I wish to accentuate two facts about this Greek Pharaoh of Egypt, which I think may be relevant to our study of Colotes: he made Alexandria the center of culture and literature of his day, and he practiced a form of religious humanism that reminds me of the mutual prostration event.

Ptolemy I Soter (323-283 BCE)—the father and predecessor of the young king to whom Colotes dedicates his work—conceived the idea of the Library of Alexandria under the influence of Demetrius of Phalerum, but it was his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283-246 BCE) who built it. The Garden was founded around 307/306 BCE in Athens, and Colotes lived from 320-268 BCE. This places the conception and construction of the legendary Library during the early decades of the Epicurean Garden.

The king promoted the Museum and Library of Alexandria and is historically reputed to have been responsible for the translation of the Torah (Jewish scripture) into Greek. This version of it is known as the Septuagint and helped to bring about the development of the various strains of Gnosticism and, eventually, Christianity. But this is not all he did as a propagator of cosmopolitan culture, literature, and religion.

King Ashoka was a type of Buddhist Constantine: he’s the Indian king who converted to Buddhism after mass murdering his siblings and half-siblings and thousands of others in order to gain power. He felt so guilty for his many crimes, that he then converted to Buddhism and, in order to purge his guilt and clear up some of his bad karma, he spent lavishly on the propagation of the Buddha dharma everywhere.

There is a monument in India where King Ashoka took pride in the fact that he sent Buddhist missionaries to many kings, including King Ptolemy II in Alexandria, during his reign. This means that, at around the time that the Library of Alexandria was being built, there was a small Indian community in Alexandria which included Buddhist monks. If there were monks, this means that there must have been patrons (since monks were not allowed to work and had to live from the alms of the community), as well as people who fed these monks daily. If there were monks, this means that there was a sangha (Buddhist community). There were students of Buddhism from various backgrounds, and there must have been a process of teaching and methods of transmission, scrolls being replicated and translated, etc.

All of this is to say that Alexandria was the New York of its day: the most cosmopolitan city that had ever existed. According to some estimates, at one point about a third of the population was Jewish. In addition to these Jews and Buddhists, there were Libyans, Ethiopians, Platonists, later Stoics, and every other major Western philosophy was represented, as well as scholars in every major field of knowledge. There were always large numbers of Phoenicians in all the coastal cities of the Mediterranean, since they were the ones who lubricated trade throughout the Mediterranean and promoted the use of purple robes among the North African people we call “Berbers”—a practice for which their descendants are known even today. According to the wikipedia article on the Library of Alexandria,

the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. 

According to this World History article, 

It (the Library) seems to have been proposed by Ptolemy I Soter (r. 323-282 BCE), founder of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and built under the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282-246 BCE), who also acquired the first books for its collection. Under Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246-221 BCE), the library's collection increased as books were taken from ships at port, copied, and the originals were then housed in the stacks.

Colotes dedicated his work to the king who acquired the first books for the Library, which was legendary from its inception, and Alexandria was the place to go if you wanted your ideas to be propagated, and to compete in the market of ideas.

It makes sense that Colotes dedicated this work to Ptolemy II knowing that the Library, which had been announced by the previous Pharaoh, was being built or had been recently built, and needed these scrolls. It’s possible that the new Pharaoh sent scouts in all directions to gather the knowledge available from all the philosophical schools and fountains of knowledge. Perhaps he commissioned leaders of various philosophical schools to send them representative scrolls for replication, and Colotes simply may have been hired to procure these. Or maybe it was Colotes’ initiative to gather and send the scrolls. The point is that he also sent his own book arguing that his was the only philosophy that could actually be practiced, as a way to help his own school’s ideas to stand out in the market of ideas that was Alexandria.

If by doing this, Colotes intended to propagate Epicurean philosophy in Alexandria, then we know that his efforts were not in vain because Diogenes Laertius, in Book Ten of Lives of Eminent Philosophers, mentions two Alexandrian Kathegemones—a white Ptolemy and a black Ptolemy—among the succession of Epicurean Scholarchs. The white one may have been Greek. The black one may have been a Hellenized Egyptian, Libyan, or Ethiopian, but must have spoken Greek.

King Ptolemy II’s Religious Humanism

The king’s life reads like episodes of Game of Thrones. His reign happened at the height of the Alexandrian court in terms of prosperity and culture, and he was married to his own sister according to Egyptian dynastic custom (although they apparently never had sex). He had multiple concubines and illegitimate children.

Was Colotes, on some level, proud to see his own Hellenistic culture taking root in Africa? Is this part of why he gave his nod to Ptolemy?

It’s hard to say to what extent (if at all) Colotes looked up to this king as a role model, as opposed to a soul that he wanted to save. But there’s one element of the king’s lifestyle that reminds me of the mutual prostration. Ptolemy had a habit of worshiping his family members, loved ones and lovers after they died, including his hetaira Bilistecha. She had become a celebrity after winning a competition in the Olympics, was later involved with the Pharaoh, and they were the subject of much gossip. They had a son together, and Ptolemy built posthumous temples syncretizing her with Aphrodite. He also deified his older sister, his father (although Pharaoh-worship was a long-established tradition), and his sister-wife. 

Did Ptolemy and his court sing songs, or hymns to them? What cultural expressions did this take? Was this practice common enough to be culturally familiar to Colotes, when he prostrated before Epicurus? Judging from the mutual prostration episode, Colotes clearly sympathized with this more natural, spontaneous and humanist form of worship. Or perhaps this was just a familiar practice to him, and this merely indicates a certain Pagan innocence.

We know (based on the one book he is known for) that Colotes was a very practical man. Perhaps he considered it easier and more natural to worship a friend, lover, or loved one, than a heavenly being. There was true intimacy and familiarity with the object of worship, while there can never be such a thing with a heavenly being. Our studies of the Hellenistic Era show that, during this time, there was a move away from the heavenly deities towards more intimate, humanistic, and familiar forms of worship.

I see a religious humanism at play in the mutual prostration episode that transfers religious technologies away from the heavens and down to Earth, to nature, to the realm of philia (friendship), of familiarity.

After the mutual prostration event, Plutarch reports that Epicurus “merely” said:

“Go about as one immortal in my eyes and think of me as immortal too.”

But this may be a certification of a key insight, in light of the meleta portion of the Letter to Menoeceus (which announces that we may live like immortals), rather than the “mere” dismissal of Colotes that Plutarch makes it out to be. They became godlike to each other after this, sacred friends worthy of piety.

Conclusion

While we admire Colotes, he may have been a character who was given to polemic and controversy, and we know that this can sometimes lead to errors. He may have made unwarranted or ad-hominem attacks in his book.

On the other hand, he was also a sincere Epicurean, an intellectual peer of the Hegemon who demonstrated insight into what Epicurus was teaching and helped him to develop his ideas, a fired-up missionary who sent scrolls to Alexandria, and the founder and first Kathegemon (Guide) of the Koinonia (Epicurean community) of Lampsacus, which makes him an important philosophical ancestor.