Epicurus was an Athenian citizen, he remains one of the most influential philosophers in history. His father belonged to the old and prominent Athenian family of the Philaidae and was one of the Athenian settlers sent to Samos, where Epicurus was born and raised.
At the age of eighteen, Epicurus went to Athens to complete his military and civic service. After the Athenians were expelled from Samos, he joined his family in Colophon, on the coast of Asia Minor. There, he studied philosophy under Nausiphanes, a follower of the atomist philosopher Democritus. Relatively little is known about the following years of his life. He later established philosophical schools in Mytilene and Lampsacus, where he gathered several of the followers who would remain his lifelong friends.
At the age of about thirty-five, he returned to Athens and purchased a house with a garden on the road leading from the Dipylon Gate to the Academy. There, he established his philosophical school, which became known as the Garden of Epicurus. He taught there for approximately thirty-five years, living a quiet and simple life among his friends and disciples. Unlike most philosophical schools of the period, the Garden admitted women and slaves as members of its community.
