Fictional debates between Epicures and Stoics existed in classical antiquit
y and live on in the neo-Latin literature of the Renaissance, as in Lorenzo
Valla's De Voluptate and Erasmus's Epicureus. Specific parallels suggest t
hat the creator of the picaresque genre knew this tradition. Fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century humanists connected Epicureanism with the cult of Bacchu
s and the Lazarillo contains several parallels to the Bacchean myth. In the
first two books of his dialogue Valla creates an unrestrained Epicure that
dwells on the foolishness of Stoics, who condemn their natural urges - tho
ugh secretly following them - and blame them on Stepmother Nature's blindin
g influence. The self-serving narrator of the Lazarillo makes a similar cla
im, and in several ways lives out the recommendations of Valla's voluptuary
. Similarly, Erasmus remarks on the etymology of the word "Epicurean", whic
h suggests a guide who is a boy or son, and so the proto-picaro himself. Af
ter profiling the disastrous moral slide of the unrepentant who begins sinn
ing in childhood, he praises an unblemished life, spent from youth in ever
growing virtuous pleasures. Lazarillo's life and the concluding line of his
account may echo that praise in ironic reversal.