In existographies, Leontion (c.330-280BC), or “Leontium”, was a Greek philosopher, characterized as “Epicurus’ first female disciple” (Hecht, 2003) and or the "mistress of Epicurus" (Walsh, 1997), a well-known “hetaerae of the time” (Ѻ), noted for []
Overview
In c.300BC, Leontion penned a treatise criticizing Theophrastus (Ѻ), presumably, according to Patrick Walsh (1997), for the peripatetic doctrine of god as the unmoved mover. [3]
In 1850, Frances Wright (1795-1852) (Ѻ), in her A Few Days in Athens, gave a discussion of Leontion and Epicurus, amid which she stated:
“Surely the absurdity of all other doctrines of religion, and the iniquity of many, are sufficiently evident. To fear a being on account of his power is degrading; to fear him if he is good, ridiculous. I see no sufficient evidence of his existence; and to reason of its possibility I hold to be idle speculation.”
Wright, of note, has been put into the category, along with Robert Owen, of practical atheism. (Ѻ)
Quotes | On
The following are quotes on Leontion:
“Leontium was an insolent meretricula.”
— Cicero (c.50BC) (Ѻ)
“Madame Clive-Hart's house was a rendezvous for atheists. Well for them had they been such atheists as Epicurus, Leontium, Lucretius, Memmius (Ѻ), and Spinoza —the most upright man of Holland — or Hobbes, so faithful to his unfortunate king, Charles I.”
— Voltaire (1776), The Sage and the Atheist [1]
References
1. (a) Wright, Frances. (1850). A Few Days in Athens: the Translation of a Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum. J.P. Mendum.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 385). HarperOne.
2. Voltaire. (1776). The Sage and the Atheist: Including the Adventures of a Young Englishman (pg. 123). Publisher. 1921.
3. Cicero. (45BC). The Nature of the Gods (Introduction, translation, and notes: Patrick Walsh) (pg. 167). Oxford University Press, 1998.
External links
● Leontion – Wikipedia.
