Over the years, you’ve prob­a­bly heard at least a few peo­ple casu­al­ly describe them­selves as Epi­cure­ans. Whether they would fol­low that premise all the way to the con­clu­sions Epi­cu­rus did is anoth­er mat­ter. For that ancient Greek philoso­pher, Ryan explains, “hap­pi­ness was the sole legit­i­mate goal of human exis­tence. Though fair­ly ascetic in its orig­i­nal form, Epi­cure­anism drew quite a few high-pro­file Romans as adher­ents — and as detrac­tors. That may or may not be true by our mod­ern stan­dards, but the ques­tion is worth con­tem­plat­ing over a good din­ner.