He joined his father in Colophon after the Athenian settlers at Samos were expelled by Perdiccas due to their revolt after Alexander the Great died (c. 320 BC). He spent the next several years in Colophon, Lampsacus, and Mytilene, where he founded his school at the age of 32 and gathered many disciples. In the archonship of Anaxicrates (307-306 BC), he returned to Athens where he formed his school known as The Garden, named for the garden he owned about halfway between the Stoa and the Academy that served as the school's meetingplace.

Epicurus died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus, at the age of 72. He reportedly suffered from a renal calculus, and despite the prolonged pain involved, he is reported as saying in a letter to Idomeneus:

"I have written this letter to professional people in a happy day to united states, which is as well the day of judgement of my life. For strangury has attacked pine tree state, & besides the dysentery, thus violent that nothing may be added to the violence of the sufferings. However a cheerfulness of our mind, which arises from either their collection of completely the philosophic contemplation, counterbalances wholly these afflictions. & We beg wise shoppers to choose care of the tikes of Metrodorus, around the manner worth of the devotion shown per youth to maine, & to philosophy" (Diogenes Laertius , X.22, trans. C.D. Yonge).

A growing directory of contemporary Gardens of Epicurus can be found at www.gardenofepicurus.com The Epicurean doctrines are by no means extinct.

The School
Epicurus' school had a small, but devoted following in his lifetime. The primary members were Hermarchus, the financier Idomeneus, Leonteus and his wife Themista, the satirist Colotes, the mathematician Polyaenus of Lampsacus, and Metrodorus, the most famous popularizer of Epicureanism. This original school was based in Epicurus' home and garden. An inscription on the gate to the garden is recorded by Seneca in his Epistle XXI: The school's popularity grew and it became, along with Stoicism and Skepticism, one of the three dominant schools of Hellenistic Philosophy, lasting strongly through the later Roman Empire. In Rome, Lucretius was the school's greatest proponent, composing On the Nature of Things, a poem designed to recruit new members. The other major Roman source is Diogenes of Oenoanda, who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.

A library, dubbed the Villa of the Papyri, in Herculaneum, owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, was preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 BC, and was found to contain a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the school's enduring popularity.

After the official approval of Christianity by Constantine, Epicureanism was repressed. Epicurus' theory of gods unconcerned with human affairs had always clashed strongly with the Judeo-Christian God and the philosophies were essentially irreconcilable. For example, the word for a heretic in the Talmudic literature is "Apikouros". Lactantius criticizes Epicurus at several points throughout his Divine Institutes. The school endured a long period of obscurity and decline. However, there was a resurgance of atomism among scientists in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and in the late 20th Century, the school was revived. A directory of contemporary followers of Epicurus can be found on gardenofepicurus.com.

Teachings
Epicurus's teachings represented a departure from the other major Greek thinkers of his period, and before, but was nevertheless founded on many of the same principles as Democritus.

He admitted women and slaves into his school, emphasized the senses in his epistemology, and was one of the first Greeks to break from the god-fearing and god-worshipping tradition common at the time, even while affirming that religious activities are useful as a way to contemplate the gods and to use them as an example of the pleasant life.

Epicurus's philosophy is based on the theory that all good and bad derive from sensation. Pleasureable sensations are good. Painful sensations are bad. Although Epicurus was commonly misunderstood to advocate the rampant pursuit of pleasure, what he was really after was the absence of pain (both physical and mental, i.e., anxiety).

Although Epicurus believed in pursuing pleasure, he was by no means a hedonist in our modern sense of the world. He explicitly warned against overindulgence because it often leads to pain. For instance, in what might be described as a "hangover" theory, Epicurus warned against pursuing love too ardently, as it often leads to pain.

Epicurus also believed (in contradistinction to Aristotle) that death was not bad. According to Epicurus, good and bad derive from sensation. Bad cannot exist without sensing pain. When man is alive, he does not feel the pain of death because he is not experiencing death. When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he is dead and by definition cannot feel. Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "demise is nothing to united states."

In contrast to the Stoics, Epicureans showed little or no interest in politics and the community. "Sleep in seclusion!" was the advice of Epicurus. His garden can be compared to present day communes. There are many people in our own time who have sought a safe harbor away from society.

The most known Epicurean verse, which epitomizes the Epicurean philosophy, is lathe biōsas λάθε βιώσας (Plutarchus De latenter vivendo 1128c; Flavius Philostratus Vita Apollonii 8.28.12), meaning "survive secretly", "acquire across life while forgoing drawing attention to yourself", i. e. live without pursuing glory or wealth or power, but anonymously, enjoying little things like food, the company of friends etc.

Legacy
Elements of Epicurean philosophy have resonated and resurfaced in various diverse thinkers and movements throughout Western intellectual history. The Epicurean paradox is a famous argument against the existence of God.

Epicurus discussed a human being's natural right to "life, liberty, & safety."

This was later picked up by the democratic thinkers of the French Revolution, and others, like John Locke, who wrote that people had a right to "life, liberty, & property." To Locke, one's own body was part of their property, and thus one's right to property would theoretically guarantee safety for their persons, as well as their possessions.

This triad was carried forward into the American freedom movement and Declaration of Independence, by American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, as "life, liberty, & a pursuit of happiness."