Epicurus in “Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance” by Anthony Gottlieb

"Like Pythagoras two centuries earlier, Epicurus (341–271 BC) came from Samos, an Ionian island off the south-west coast of Asia Minor. Also like Pythagoras, he founded the sort of commune that attracted hostile gossip. One rebellious former member sold his story: he wrote of Epicurus' 'notorious midnight philosophizings' and claimed that Epicurus vomited twice a day from over-eating. He wrote that Epicurus' acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with life even smaller; that his health was so bad that for years he could not get out of his chair; but that he nevertheless enjoyed close relations with four women in the commune who were known by the nicknames of Hedeia (' Sweety-Pie'), Erotion (' Lovie'), Nikidion (' Little Victory') and Mammarion (' Big Tits'). 

[Sorry, couldn't resist sharing the translation of those names that the Dover editor was apparently too demure to mention.]

EPICURUS Mud like this has stuck to Epicurus—and, later, to Lucretius (c. 99–c. 55 BC), his best-known popularizer—ever since. The Romans commonly referred to Epicurus as 'the Pig'. St Jerome (AD 340–420) made the apparently groundless statement that Lucretius was driven mad by a love-potion and wrote his great Epicurean poem in a few lucid moments before committing suicide. John of Salisbury, a twelfth-century bishop, said that 'the world is filled with Epicureans for the simple reason that in its great multitude of men there are few who are not slaves to lust'. In the end, the name of Epicurus simply became synonymous with the excessive enjoyment of food, as in the words of a British wit, the Reverend Sydney Smith (1771–1845): Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day. 

But the truth about Epicurus and his followers seems be rather different. The commune that he established when he moved to Athens, in a house and garden just outside the walls of Plato's Academy, was in fact devoted to the simple life. It stressed the importance of an unadorned diet and condemned all forms of over-indulgence. As for sex, who knows exactly what Epicurus got up to with Sweety-Pie in his garden? But his official doctrine was largely against it: 'sex is never advantageous, and one should be content if it does no harm'. Lucretius said much the same, as we shall see. Ironically, it was probably the extremes of his passionate denunciation of sexual love which gave rise to the idea that he must have been driven out of his mind by a love-potion. Still, one can easily see how the rumour-mill began and why later moralists and Christians lapped up the gossip. 

Epicurus did say that one needs first of all to be fed in order to lead a happy life. That could easily be quoted out of context and it no doubt was. His religion was theologically incorrect—his 'gods' were irrelevant swarms of atoms, and he was contemptuous of everyday religious beliefs...

— The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb