At the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus.

In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the 'philosophers of the garden.' His life was simple, chaste, and temperate.

Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others.

Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have been found at Herculaneum.

The additional sources of our knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius.