Should look into the rest of Epicurus’ philosophy. He didn’t miss much, and there’s a reason Marx did his college thesis on him. He had early conceptions of germ theory, atomic theory, evolutionary theory and even quantum mechanics arguably (he argued that hard materialism did not deprive us of free will or make everything pre-determined due to “atomic swerve” that was possibly random but could not be accounted for in models of physics).

He also viewed the Greek gods in much the same way, as examples and metaphors. So that he wouldn’t be labeled an atheist and harassed he reluctantly admitted they were real existing beings, but said that they were so perfect that they were completely self-contained and needing nothing more, so they did not interact with the world in any way. Thus their purpose is as archetypes for us to learn from and inspire us, and not as beings who would intervene on our behalf. Any influence from them was more of a passive radiation and exposure than anything direct or intentional.