Hegesias of Cyrene

He argued that eudaimonia (happiness) is impossible to achieve, and that the goal of life should be the avoidance of pain and sorrow.

In the same way they say that slavery and freedom are things indifferent, if measured by the standard of pleasure, and nobility and baseness of birth, and glory and infamy.

[3]Hence the sage ought to regard nothing but himself; action is quite indifferent; and if action, so also is life, which, therefore, is in no way more desirable than death: The wise person would not be so much absorbed in the pursuit of what is good, as in the attempt to avoid what is bad, considering the chief good to be living free from all trouble and pain: and that this end was attained best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure as indifferent.

[3]None of this, however, is as strong as the testimony of Cicero,[4] who claims that Hegesias wrote a book called Death by Starvation (Greek: ἀποκαρτερῶν), in which a man who has resolved to starve himself is introduced as representing to his friends that death is actually more to be desired than life, and that the gloomy descriptions of human misery which this work contained were so overpowering that they inspired many people to kill themselves, in consequence of which the author received the surname of Death-persuader (Peisithanatos).

The book was said to have been published at Alexandria, where he was, in consequence, forbidden to teach by king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC).