Rush The Ridiculous must be reading online again, claims Aristippus of Cyrene was the first to say "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die"

The line quoted here is not actually attributed to Aristippus as a quotation, but rather as a conclusion of his philosophy, which in its turn goes too far. As usual Rush reads the first hit on Al Gore's amazing internet, reads it badly, and believes it.

Skull full of mush much?

Epicurus is traditionally credited with the idea because we have an actual line which is similar, but it is so widespread in antiquity it is difficult to know who first came up with it.

At any rate the ethical hedonism taught by both Aristippus and Epicurus involved self-mastery, not license.   

Not that the licentious sense was unknown in antiquity.

The Greek geographer Strabo (64BC-24AD) knew it, purportedly from an Assyrian inscription on the tomb of Sardanapallus, legendary last king of Assyria, who was legendarily decadent:

Sardanapallus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. 'Eat, drink, be merry, because all things else are not worth this,' meaning the snapping of the fingers. -- Strabo, Geographica, 14.5.9f.

Isaiah the prophet knew it in the 8th century BC, antedating any Greek knowledge by hundreds of years:

And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. -- Isaiah 22:13.

And of course Paul of Tarsus knew it in the middle of the 1st century AD, which is how most of us in the Christian West know the lines:

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.  -- I Corinthians 15:32.

Here endeth the lesson.