This guy was really not a fan of superstition. In the next paragraph he mentions the case of a girl that the people forced to be sacrificed by her father:
“It was her fate in the very hour of marriage to fall a sinless victim to a sinful rite, slaughtered to her greater grief by a father’s hand, so that a fleet might sail under happy auspices. Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by superstition.”
It is hardly a coincidence that Epicureans (with Lucretius as their most prestigious Latin representative) became the subjects of a massive smear campaign by the early Christian Church.
I wasn’t sure who this was referring to (I thought it was about Socrates), so I looked it up. It’s about Epicurus.
Whoa, great call! Didn’t know that.
This guy was really not a fan of superstition. In the next paragraph he mentions the case of a girl that the people forced to be sacrificed by her father:
“It was her fate in the very hour of marriage to fall a sinless victim to a sinful rite, slaughtered to her greater grief by a father’s hand, so that a fleet might sail under happy auspices. Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by superstition.”
It is hardly a coincidence that Epicureans (with Lucretius as their most prestigious Latin representative) became the subjects of a massive smear campaign by the early Christian Church.
Religious Jews are apparently not too fond of the Epicureans too. At least, if the origin of the term Apikorus = Epicurus.
That’s either Iphigenia or just possibly some poor nameless girl who was killed so that a local fishing fleet would have a good catch.