This volume stands as a landmark in Epicurean studies. It redefines how philosophical authority was constituted and negotiated within the Kēpos - not as a static hierarchy of dogma, but as a dynamic, self-reflective practice of interpretation. Although no ancient philosophical school tied its identity more closely to its founder's voice and writings, the contributors demonstrate from a variety of disciplinary perspectives how Epicurus's authority was maintained, contested, and transmitted variously through later Hellenistic and Roman periods. The volume thus serves as the natural companion to Authority and Authoritative Texts in the Platonist Tradition (ed. by Erler / Hessler / Petrucci, Cambridge 2021) whose editors developed many of the conceptual tools for thinking about authority that the present volume applies. This collection, however, will occupy a special position within the larger series, since for Epicureans the dialectic of innovation and fidelity is most acute, as is the interplay between doctrine and commentary.

The editors' methodological introduction sets the stage with lucidity, and over the course of the volume the old image of a closed, doctrinaire, and 'fundamentalist' sect gives way to a reflective community of internal debate, disciplined autonomy, and self-conscious textuality. Epicurean authority emerges as a process of continual rearticulation - one anchored in the master's words, but reactivated through commentary, dialogue, and performance. Jan Erik Hessler's opening contribution, "Orthodox Enhancement vs Orthodox Misconception," sets the tone for the collection with conceptual precision. Working his way through a range of difficult source material, he distinguishes loyal innovation from misinterpretation, thus showing that the Garden tolerated, even encouraged, internal diversity so long as it preserved the philosophical telos. Authority here is cooperative rather than coercive, and interpretation betokens fidelity. Offering a telling external counterpoint, Vincenzo Damiani's "A State without Revolt" surveys Arcesilaus, Cicero, Seneca, Diogenes Laertius, and Numenius and reconstructs the Roman image of the Epicurean school. He argues that this very stability was a polemical target, since to outsiders consensus signified stagnation. Yet by embracing unity as a moral achievement rather than a symptom of servility, the Epicureans turned critique into confirmation. Authority, Damiani reminds us, is as much a performance - in both its senses - as a structure. Moreover, his taxonomy of external misrepresentation is of singular importance not only for understanding ancient charges of Epicurean fundamentalism, but also for the contemporary versions based on them.

Next follow analyses of texts by Epicurus himself. Dino De Sanctis' "The Authoritative Word: Literary Genres in the Kēpos" illuminates the rhetorical strategies by which Epicurus's texts shaped authority. Through dialogues, letters, and didactic epitomes, Epicurus presents himself as both teacher and text, a presence reproduced through reading. De Sanctis restores to Epicurus's prose its performative dimension. Writing thus functions as an enactment of the philosophical life. Margherita Erbì's "The Letters of Epicurus as Authoritative Texts in the Kēpos" examines how these compressed works functioned as both doctrinal précis and instruments of cohesion. Transmitted across generations, the letters gave disciples a palpable sense of Epicurus's continuing guidance. Erbì's analysis reveals authority as an affective as well as intellectual relation, pedagogy through proximity. Giuliana Leone's "On Nature: Authority and Interpretation in Epicurean Teaching" masterfully integrates textual and pedagogical dimensions as well. Focusing on the transmission of Epicurus' On Nature, Leone shows how teaching was organized around disciplined reading and guided by commentary and memory. Authority resided not in mere quotation, but in the communal act of interpretation that was an education in autonomous reflection within tradition.

The later Hellenistic and Roman sections deepen this picture and extend its complexities. Dorandi's detailed study of the relations of Philodemus, Zeno of Sidon, and Philonides is a seminal intervention in understanding this fertile period and Philodemus's own claims to orthodoxy. The following essays on Demetrius Laco and Philonides by McCosker and Verde refine this insight. Combining textual reconstruction and philosophical reading, they show in complementary ways how Laco and Philonides balanced reverence for Epicurus texts with interpretive elasticity - what Verde, in a happy phrase, calls "faithful innovation". The Herculaneum papyri, far from being mere relics, thus appear as material witnesses to a living hermeneutic culture in which textual authority was sustained through collective reading and scholarly labor. Two chapters by Schnieder and David Konstan extend the horizon to Plutarch and the Roman Imperial milieu. Schnieder reconsiders Plutarch's polemics not as simple refutation but as a dialectical appropriation that paradoxically helps preserve Epicurean arguments within Platonist frameworks. The late David Konstan's paper, "The Therapy of Authority," argues with characteristic sympathy that Plutarch's engagement, although adversarial, must be understood not only against Aristotelian rhetorical practices, but also his own commitment to quotational fidelity. Together, both papers demonstrate that "authority" extended beyond the school's boundaries and that Epicurus's voice continued to shape even its detractors. Equally significant are the studies on poetic and monumental communication. Erler's essay on "The Authority of Poetry in Epicureanism" argues, that verse, far from ornamental, reinforced the affective dimension of doctrine, for example in Lucretius, through "ekphrastic therapy." Jurgen Hammerstaedt's treatment of Diogenes of Oinoanda's public wall of inscriptions reveals authority materialized. Epicurus's teaching is transformed into civic architecture and the Garden thus re-enters the city, claiming space for philosophy among the living.

Throughout, the balance between philological rigor and philosophical imagination is exemplary. Each contribution respects the grain of the texts while pursuing larger questions about transmission, identity, and community. The central paradox of Epicureanism - how a philosophy of individual self-sufficiency (autarkeia) could generate such cohesive textual allegiance - animates every page. Authority, in this view, is not submission but shared reasoning and a practice of freedom guided by trust. By the same token, the volume's editorial coherence is admirable. The essays converse rather than coexist, moving between close reading and cultural synthesis with compositional grace. The inclusion of later figures like Laco, Philonides, and even Plutarch underscores the long continuity of Epicurean textual culture and its porous boundaries. By situating the Garden within a network of reading, commentary, and refutation, the volume rescues Epicureanism from the charge of sectarian isolation and self-absorption, showing it instead as a model of intellectual community.

If a few aspects, say, the imperial transmission or the precise role of Diogenes Laertius, invite further study, these are matters for future work, not omissions. The editors' guiding principle that textual practices are the true history of philosophy has yielded a book of exemplary unity and depth. Elegantly produced and consistently lucid, the collection offers both substance and charm. It restores to Epicureanism its living complexity as neither dogma nor rebellion, but a continuous act of interpretation. Scholars will long turn to these discussions not only for their philological precision but also for their philosophical warmth. One leaves them with the sense that the Garden still breathes and that its texts remain occasions for shared reflection on what it means to live and to practice philosophy together.

Phillip Mitsis