TEXT: Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 2: The Socratics (tr C.D. Yonge)

Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 

Book 2: The Socratics (tr C.D. Yonge, 1895)

LIFE OF ANAXIMANDER.

I. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus.

II. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all
things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he
meant air or water, or anything else. And he said that the parts were
susceptible of change, but that the whole was unchangeable; and that the
earth lay in the middle, being placed there as a sort of centre, of a
spherical shape. The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it
from the sun; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth, and
the purest possible fire.

III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he placed some
in Lacedæmon on the sun-dials there, as Phavorinus says in his Universal
History, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes; he also made
clocks. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and
sea, and he also made a globe; and he published a concise statement of
whatever opinions he embraced or entertained; and this treatise was met
with by Apollodorus, the Athenian.

IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the second year
of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four years old. And soon after
he died, having flourished much about the same time as Polycrates, the
tyrant, of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed; and
that he, hearing of this, said, “We must then sing better for the sake of
the children.”

V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian; and he too was a
Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect.


LIFE OF ANAXIMENES.

I. Anaximenes, the son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, was a pupil of
Anaximander; but some say that he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He
said that the principles of everything were the air, and the Infinite;
and that the stars moved not under the earth, but around the earth. He
wrote in the pure unmixed Ionian dialect. And he lived, according to the
statements of Apollodorus, in the sixty-third Olympiad, and died about
the time of the taking of Sardis.

II. There were also two other persons of the name of Anaximenes, both
citizens of Lampsacus; one an orator and the other a historian, who was
the son of the sister of the orator, and who wrote an account of the
exploits of Alexander.

III. And this philosopher wrote the following letters:—

ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGORAS.

Thales, the son of Euxamias, has died in his old age, by an unfortunate
accident. In the evening, as he was accustomed to do, he went forth out
of the vestibule of his house with his maid-servant, to observe the
stars: and (for he had forgotten the existence of the place) while he
was looking up towards the skies, he fell down a precipitous place. So
now, the astronomer of Miletus has met with this end. But we who were his
pupils cherish the recollection of the man, and so do our children and
our own pupils: and we will lecture on his principles. At all events, the
beginning of all wisdom ought to be attributed to Thales.

IV. And again he writes:—

ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGORAS.

You are more prudent than we, in that you have migrated from Samos to
Crotona, and live there in peace. For the descendants of Æacus commit
unheard-of crimes, and tyrants never cease to oppress the Milesians. The
king of the Medes too is formidable to us: unless, indeed, we choose to
become tributary to him. But the Ionians are on the point of engaging
in war with the Medes in the cause of universal freedom. For if we
remain quiet there is no longer any hope of safety for us. How then can
Anaximenes apply his mind to the contemplation of the skies, while he is
in perpetual fear of death or slavery? But you are beloved by the people
of Crotona, and by all the rest of the Italians; and pupils flock to you,
even from Sicily.


LIFE OF ANAXAGORAS.

I. Anaxagoras, the son of Hegesibulus, or Eubulus, was a citizen of
Clazomenæ. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first philosopher
who attributed mind to matter, beginning his treatise on the subject
in the following manner (and the whole treatise is written in a most
beautiful and magnificent style): “All things were mixed up together;
then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order.” On which account
he himself got the same name of Mind. And Timon speaks thus of him in his
Silli:—

    They say too that wise Anaxagoras
    Deserves immortal fame; they call him Mind,
    Because, as he doth teach, Mind came in season,
    Arranging all which was confus’d before.

II. He was eminent for his noble birth and for his riches, and still more
so for his magnanimity, inasmuch as he gave up all his patrimony to his
relations; and being blamed by them for his neglect of his estate, “Why,
then,” said he, “do not you take care of it?” And at last he abandoned it
entirely, and devoted himself to the contemplation of subjects of natural
philosophy, disregarding politics. So that once when some said to him,
“You have no affection for your country,” “Be silent,” said he, “for I
have the greatest affection for my country,” pointing up to heaven.

III. It is said, that at the time of the passage of the Hellespont
by Xerxes, he was twenty years old, and that he lived to the age of
seventy-two. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles says that he flourished
in the seventieth Olympiad, and that he died in the first year of the
seventy-eighth. And he began to study philosophy at Athens, in the
archonship of Callias, being twenty years of age, as Demetrius Phalereus
tells us in his Catalogue of the Archons, and they say that he remained
at Athens thirty years.

IV. He asserted that the sun was a mass of burning iron, greater than
Peloponnesus; (that some attribute this doctrine to Tantalus), and that
the moon contained houses, and also, hills and ravines: and that the
primary elements of everything were similarities of parts; for as we say
that gold consists of a quantity of grains combined together, so too is
the universe formed of a number of small bodies of similar parts. He
further taught that Mind was the principle of motion: and that of bodies
the heavy ones, such as the earth, occupied the lower situations; and the
light ones, such as fire, occupied the higher places, and that the middle
spaces were assigned to water and air. And thus that the sea rested
upon the earth, which was broad, the moisture being all evaporated by
the sun. And he said that the stars originally moved about in irregular
confusion, so that at first the pole star, which is continually visible,
always appeared in the zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain
declination. And that the milky way was a reflection of the light of
the sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered to be a
concourse of planets emitting rays: and the shooting stars he thought
were sparks as it were leaping from the firmament. The winds he thought
were caused by the rarification of the atmosphere, which was produced by
the sun. Thunder, he said, was produced by the collision of the clouds;
and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds. Earthquakes, he
said, were produced by the return of the air into the earth. All animals
he considered were originally generated out of moisture, and heat,
and earthy particles: and subsequently from one another. And males he
considered were derived from those on the right hand, and females from
those on the left.

V. They say, also, that he predicted a fall of the stones which fell near
Ægospotami, and which he said would fall from the sun: on which account
Euripides, who was a disciple of his, said in his Phaethon that the sun
was a golden clod of earth. He went once to Olympia wrapped in a leathern
cloak as if it were going to rain; and it did rain. And they say that he
once replied to a man who asked him whether the mountains at Lampsacus
would ever become sea, “Yes, if time lasts long enough.”

VI. Being once asked for what end he had been born, he said, “For the
contemplation of the sun, and moon, and heaven.” A man once said to him,
“You have lost the Athenians;” “No,” said he, “they have lost me.” When
he beheld the tomb of Mausolus, he said, “A costly tomb is an image of a
petrified estate.” And he comforted a man who was grieving because he was
dying in a foreign land, by telling him, “The descent to hell is the same
from every place.”

VII. He appears to have been the first person (according to the account
given by Phavorinus in his Universal History), who said that the Poem
of Homer was composed in praise of virtue and justice: and Metrodorus, of
Lampsacus, who was a friend of his, adopted this opinion, and advocated
it energetically, and Metrodorus was the first who seriously studied the
natural philosophy developed in the writings of the great poet.

VIII. Anaxagoras was also the first man who ever wrote a work in
prose; and Silenus, in the first book of his Histories, says, that in
the archonship of Lysanias a large stone fell from heaven; and that
in reference to this event Anaxagoras said, that the whole heaven was
composed of stones, and that by its rapid revolutions they were all held
together; and when those revolutions get slower, they fall down.

IX. Of his trial there are different accounts given. For Sotion, in
his Succession of the Philosophers, says, that he was persecuted for
impiety by Cleon, because he said that the sun was a fiery ball of iron.
And though Pericles, who had been his pupil, defended him, he was,
nevertheless, fined five talents and banished. But Satyrus, in his Lives,
says that it was Thucydides by whom he was impeached, as Thucydides was
of the opposite party to Pericles; and that he was prosecuted not only
for impiety, but also for Medism; and that he was condemned to death
in his absence. And when news was brought him of two misfortunes—his
condemnation, and the death of his children; concerning the condemnation
he said, “Nature has long since condemned both them and me.” But about
his children, he said, “I knew that I had become the father of mortals.”
Some, however, attribute this saying to Solon, and others to Xenophon.
And Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, says that Anaxagoras
buried them with his own hands. But Hermippus, in his Lives, says that he
was thrown into prison for the purpose of being put to death: but that
Pericles came forward and inquired if any one brought any accusation
against him respecting his course of life. And as no one alleged anything
against him: “I then,” said he, “am his disciple: do not you then be led
away by calumnies to put this man to death; but be guided by me, and
release him.” And he was released. But, as he was indignant at the insult
which had been offered to him, he left the city.

But Hieronymus, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Commentaries,
says that Pericles produced him before the court, tottering and emaciated
by disease, so that he was released rather out of pity, than by any
deliberate decision on the merits of his case. And thus much may be said
about his trial. Some people have fancied that he was very hostile to
Democritus, because he did not succeed in getting admission to him for
the purposes of conversation.

X. And at last, having gone to Lampsacus, he died in that city. And it is
said, that when the governors of the city asked him what he would like
to have done for him, he replied, “That they would allow the children to
play every year during the month in which he died.” And this custom is
kept up even now. And when he was dead, the citizens of Lampsacus buried
him with great honours, and wrote this epitaph on him:—

    Here Anaxagoras lies, who reached of truth
    The farthest bounds in heavenly speculations.

We ourselves also have written an epigram on him:—

    Wise Anaxagoras did call the sun
    A mass of glowing iron; and for this
    Death was to be his fate. But Pericles
    Then saved his friend; but afterwards he died
    A victim of a weak philosophy.

XI. There were also three other people of the name of Anaxagoras; none of
whom combined all kinds of knowledge; But one was an orator and a pupil
of Isocrates; another was a statuary, who is mentioned by Antigonus;
another is a grammarian, a pupil of Zenodotus.


LIFE OF ARCHELAUS.

I. Archelaus was a citizen of either Athens or Miletus, and his father’s
name was Apollodorus; but, as some say, Mydon. He was a pupil of
Anaxagoras, and the master of Socrates.

II. He was the first person who imported the study of natural philosophy
from Ionia to Athens, and he was called the Natural Philosopher, because
natural philosophy terminated with him, as Socrates introduced ethical
philosophy. And it seems probable that Archelaus too meddled in some
degree with moral philosophy; for in his philosophical speculations he
discussed laws and what was honourable and just. And Socrates borrowed
from him; and because he enlarged his principles, he was thought to be
the inventor of them.

III. He used to say that there were two primary causes of generation,
heat and cold; and that all animals were generated out of mud: and that
what are accounted just and disgraceful are not so by nature, but only by
law. And his reasoning proceeds in this way. He says, that water being
melted by heat, when it is submitted to the action of fire, by which it
is solidified, becomes earth; and when it is liquefied, becomes air.
And, therefore, the earth is surrounded by air and influenced by it, and
so is the air by the revolutions of fire. And he says that animals are
generated out of hot earth, which sends up a thick mud something like
milk for their food. So too he says that it produced men.

And he was the first person who said that sound is produced by the
percussion of the air; and that the sea is filtered in the hollows of
the earth in its passage, and so is condensed; and that the sun is the
greatest of the stars, and that the universe is boundless.

IV. But there were three other people of the name of Archelaus: one,
a geographer, who described the countries traversed by Alexander; the
second, a man who wrote a poem on objects which have two natures; and the
third, an orator, who wrote a book containing the precepts of his art.


LIFE OF SOCRATES.

I. Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and of Phænarete, a
midwife; as Plato records in his Theætetus, he was a citizen of Athens, of
the borough of Alopece.

II. Some people believed that he assisted Euripides in his poems; in
reference to which idea, Mnesimachus speaks as follows:—

    The Phrygians are a new play of Euripides,
    But Socrates has laid the main foundation.[19]

And again he says:—

    Euripides: patched up by Socrates.

And Callias, in his Captives, says:—

    _A._ Are you so proud, giving yourself such airs?

    _B._ And well I may, for Socrates is the cause.

And Aristophanes says, in his Clouds:—

    This is Euripides, who doth compose
    Those argumentative wise tragedies.

III. But, having been a pupil of Anaxagoras, as some people say, but of
Damon as the other story goes, related by Alexander in his Successions,
after the condemnation of Anaxagoras, he became a disciple of Archelaus,
the natural philosopher. And, indeed, Aristoxenus says that he was very
intimate with him.

IV. But Duris says that he was a slave, and employed in carving stones.
And some say that the Graces in the Acropolis are his work; and they are
clothed figures. And that it is in reference to this that Timon says, in
his Silli:—

    From them proceeded the stone polisher,
    The reasoning legislator, the enchanter
    Of all the Greeks, making them subtle arguers,
    A cunning pedant, a shrewd Attic quibbler.

V. For he was very clever in all rhetorical exercises, as Idomeneus also
assures us. But the thirty tyrants forbade him to give lessons in the art
of speaking and arguing, as Xenophon tells us. And Aristophanes turns
him into ridicule in his Comedies, as making the worse appear the better
reason. For he was the first man, as Phavorinus says in his Universal
History, who, in conjunction with his disciple Æschines, taught men how
to become orators. And Idomeneus makes the same assertion in his essay
on the Socratic School. He, likewise, was the first person who conversed
about human life; and was also the first philosopher who was condemned
to death and executed. And Aristoxenus, the son of Spintharas, says that
he lent money in usury; and that he collected the interest and principal
together, and then, when he had got the interest, he lent it out again.
And Demetrius, of Byzantium, says that it was Criton who made him leave
his workshop and instruct men, out of the admiration which he conceived
for his abilities.

VI. He then, perceiving that natural philosophy had no immediate bearing
on our interests, began to enter upon moral speculations, both in his
workshop and in the market-place. And he said that the objects of his
search were—

    Whatever good or harm can man befall
    In his own house.

And very often, while arguing and discussing points that arose, he was
treated with great violence and beaten, and pulled about, and laughed
at and ridiculed by the multitude. But he bore all this with great
equanimity. So that once, when he had been kicked and buffeted about, and
had borne it all patiently, and some one expressed his surprise, he said,
“Suppose an ass had kicked me, would you have had me bring an action
against him?” And this is the account of Demetrius.

VII. But he had no need of travelling (though most philosophers did
travel), except when he was bound to serve in the army. But all the rest
of his life he remained in the same place, and in an argumentative spirit
he used to dispute with all who would converse with him, not with the
purpose of taking away their opinions from them, so much as of learning
the truth, as far as he could do so, himself. And they say that Euripides
gave him a small work of Heraclitus to read, and asked him afterwards
what he thought of it, and he replied, “What I have understood is good;
and so, I think, what I have not understood is; only the book requires
a Delian diver to get at the meaning of it.” He paid great attention
also to the training of the body, and was always in excellent condition
himself. Accordingly, he joined in the expedition to Amphipolis, and
he it was who took up and saved Xenophon in the battle of Delium, when
he had fallen from his horse; for when all the Athenians had fled, he
retreated quietly, turning round slowly, and watching to repel any one
who attacked him. He also joined in the expedition to Potidæa, which was
undertaken by sea; for it was impossible to get there by land, as the war
impeded the communication. And they say that on this occasion he remained
the whole night in one place; and that though he had deserved the prize
of pre-eminent valour, he yielded it to Alcibiades, to whom Aristippus,
in the fourth book of his treatise on the Luxury of the Ancients, says
that he was greatly attached. But Ion, of Chios, says, that while he was
a very young man he left Athens, and went to Samos with Archelaus. And
Aristotle says, that he went to Delphi; and Phavorinus also, in the first
book of his Commentaries, says that he went to the Isthmus.

VIII. He was a man of great firmness of mind, and very much attached to
the democracy, as was plain from his not submitting to Critias, when he
ordered him to bring Leon of Salamis, a very rich man, before the thirty,
for the purpose of being murdered. And he alone voted for the acquittal
of the ten generals;[20] and when it was in his power to escape out of
prison he would not do it; and he reproved those who bewailed his fate,
and even while in prison, he delivered those beautiful discourses which
we still possess.

IX. He was a contented and venerable man. And once, as Pamphila says, in
the seventh book of her Commentaries, when Alcibiades offered him a large
piece of ground to build a house upon, he said, “But if I wanted shoes,
and you had given me a piece of leather to make myself shoes, I should
be laughed at if I took it.” And often, when he beheld the multitude of
things which were being sold, he would say to himself, “How many things
are there which I do not want.” And he was continually repeating these
iambics:—

    For silver plate and purple useful are
    For actors on the stage, but not for men.

And he showed his scorn of Archelaus the Macedonian, and Scopas the
Cranonian, and Eurylochus of Larissa, when he refused to accept their
money, and to go and visit them. And he was so regular in his way of
living, that it happened more than once when there was a plague at
Athens, that he was the only person who did not catch it.

X. Aristotle says, that he had two wives. The first was Xanthippe, by
whom he had a son named Lamprocles; the second was Myrto, the daughter
of Aristides the Just; and he took her without any dowry, and by her he
had two sons, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. But some say that Myrto was
his first wife. And some, among whom are Satyrus, and Hieronymus, of
Rhodes, say that he had them both at the same time. For they say that the
Athenians, on account of the scarcity of men, passed a vote, with the
view of increasing the population, that a man might marry one citizen,
and might also have children by another who should be legitimate; on
which account Socrates did so.

XI. And he was a man able to look down upon any who mocked him. And he
prided himself upon the simplicity of his way of life; and never exacted
any pay from his pupils. And he used to say, that the man who ate with
the greatest appetite, had the least need of delicacies; and that he who
drank with the greatest appetite, was the least inclined to look for a
draught which is not at hand; and that those who want fewest things are
nearest to the Gods. And thus much, indeed, one may learn from the comic
poets; who, without perceiving it, praise him in the very matters for
which they ridicule him. Aristophanes speaks thus:—

    Prudent man, who thus with justice long for mighty wisdom,
    Happiness will be your lot in Athens, and all Greece too;
    For you’ve a noble memory, and plenty of invention,
    And patience dwells within your mind, and you are never tired,
    Whether you’re standing still or walking; and you care not for cold,
    Nor do you long for breakfast time, nor e’er give in to hunger;
    But wine and gluttony you shun, and all such kind of follies.

And Ameipsias introduces him on the stage in a cloak, and speaks thus of
him:—

    O Socrates, among few men the best,
    And among many vainest; here at last
    You come to us courageously—but where,
    Where did you get that cloak? so strange a garment,
    Some leather cutter must have given you
    By way of joke: and yet this worthy man,
    Though ne’er so hungry, never flatters any one.

Aristophanes too, exposes his contemptuous and arrogant disposition,
speaking thus:—

    You strut along the streets, and look around you proudly,
    And barefoot many ills endure, and hold your head above us.

And yet, sometimes he adapted himself to the occasion and dressed
handsomely. As, for instance, in the banquet of Plato, where he is
represented as going to find Agathon.

XII. He was a man of great ability, both in exhorting men to, and
dissuading them from, any course; as, for instance having discoursed
with Theætetus on the subject of knowledge, he sent him away almost
inspired, as Plato says. And when Euthyphron had commenced a prosecution
against his father for having killed a foreigner, he conversed with him
on the subject of piety, and turned him from his purpose: and by his
exhortations he made Lysis a most moral man. For he was very ingenious
at deriving arguments from existing circumstances. And so he mollified
his son Lamprocles when he was very angry with his mother, as Xenophon
mentions somewhere in his works; and he wrought upon Glaucon, the
brother of Plato, who was desirous to meddle with affairs of state, and
induced him to abandon his purpose, because of his want of experience in
such matters, as Xenophon relates. And, on the contrary, he persuaded
Charmidas to devote himself to politics, because he was a man very well
calculated for such business. He also inspired Iphicrates, the general,
with courage, by showing him the gamecocks of Midias the barber, pluming
themselves against those of Callias; and Glauconides said, that the state
ought to keep him carefully, as if he were a pheasant or a peacock. He
used also to say, that it was a strange thing that every one could easily
tell what property he had, but was not able to name all his friends, or
even to tell their number; so careless were men on that subject. Once
when he saw Euclid exceedingly anxious about some dialectic arguments, he
said to him, “O Euclid, you will acquire a power of managing sophists,
but not of governing men.” For he thought that subtle hair-splitting on
those subjects was quite useless; as Plato also records in the Euthydemus.

XIII. And when Charmidas offered him some slaves, with the view to his
making a profit of them, he would not have them; and, as some people say,
he paid no regard to the beauty of Alcibiades.

XIV. He used to praise leisure as the most valuable of possessions,
as Xenophon tells us in his Banquet. And it was a saying of his that
there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely,
ignorance; that riches and high birth had nothing estimable in them, but
that, on the contrary, they were wholly evil. Accordingly, when some one
told him that the mother of Antisthenes was a Thracian woman, “Did you
suppose,” said he, “that so noble a man must be born of two Athenians?”
And when Phædo was reduced to a state of slavery, he ordered Crito to
ransom him, and taught him, and made him a philosopher.

XV. And, moreover, he used to learn to play on the lyre when he had time,
saying, that it was not absurd to learn anything that one did not know;
and further, he used frequently to dance, thinking such an exercise good
for the health of the body, as Xenophon relates in his Banquet.

XVI. He used also to say that the dæmon foretold the future to him;[21]
and that to begin well was not a trifling thing, but yet not far from
a trifling thing; and that he knew nothing, except the fact of his
ignorance. Another saying of his was, that those who bought things out of
season, at an extravagant price, expected never to live till the proper
season for them. Once, when he was asked what was the virtue of a young
man, he said, “To avoid excess in everything.” And he used to say, that
it was necessary to learn geometry only so far as might enable a man to
measure land for the purposes of buying and selling. And when Euripides,
in his Auge, had spoken thus of virtue:—

    ’Tis best to leave these subjects undisturbed;

he rose up and left the theatre, saying that it was an absurdity to
think it right to seek for a slave if one could not find him, but to
let virtue be altogether disregarded. The question was once put to him
by a man whether he would advise him to marry or not? And he replied,
“Whichever you do, you will repent it.” He often said, that he wondered
at those who made stone statues, when he saw how careful they were that
the stone should be like the man it was intended to represent, but how
careless they were of themselves, as to guarding against being like the
stone. He used also to recommend young men to be constantly looking in
the glass, in order that, if they were handsome, they might be worthy
of their beauty; and if they were ugly, they might conceal their
unsightly appearance by their accomplishments. He once invited some rich
men to dinner, and when Xanthippe was ashamed of their insufficient
appointments, he said, “Be of good cheer; for if our guests are sensible
men, they will bear with us; and if they are not, we need not care about
them.” He used to say, “That other men lived to eat, but that he ate
to live.” Another saying of his was, “That to have a regard for the
worthless multitude, was like the case of a man who refused to take one
piece of money of four drachmas as if it were bad, and then took a heap
of such coins and admitted them to be good.” When Æschines said, “I am a
poor man, and have nothing else, but I give you myself;” “Do you not,” he
replied, “perceive that you are giving me what is of the greatest value?”
He said to some one, who was expressing indignation at being overlooked
when the thirty had seized on the supreme power, “Do you, then, repent of
not being a tyrant too?” A man said to him, “The Athenians have condemned
you to death.” “And nature,” he replied, “has condemned them.” But some
attribute this answer to Anaxagoras. When his wife said to him, “You
die undeservedly.” “Would you, then,” he rejoined, “have had me deserve
death?” He thought once that some one appeared to him in a dream, and
said:—

    On the third day you’ll come to lovely Phthia.

And so he said to Æschines, “In three days I shall die.” And when he was
about to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus presented him with a handsome
robe, that he might expire in it; and he said, “Why was my own dress good
enough to live in, and not good enough to die in?” When a person said to
him, “Such an one speaks ill of you;” “To be sure,” said he, “for he has
never learnt to speak well.” When Antisthenes turned the ragged side of
his cloak to the light, he said, “I see your silly vanity through the
holes in your cloak.” When some one said to him, “Does not that man abuse
you?” “No,” said he, “for that does not apply to me.” It was a saying of
his, too, “That it is a good thing for a man to offer himself cheerfully
to the attacks of the comic writers; for then, if they say anything worth
hearing, one will be able to mend; and if they do not, then all they say
is unimportant.”

XVII. He said once to Xanthippe, who first abused him and then threw
water at him, “Did I not say that Xanthippe was thundering now, and
would soon rain?” When Alcibiades said to him, “The abusive temper of
Xanthippe is intolerable;” “But I,” he rejoined, “am used to it, just
as I should be if I were always hearing the noise of a pulley; and you
yourself endure to hear geese cackling.” To which Alcibiades answered,
“Yes, but they bring me eggs and goslings.” “Well,” rejoined Socrates,
“and Xanthippe brings me children.” Once, she attacked him in the
market-place, and tore his cloak off; his friends advised him to keep her
off with his hands; “Yes, by Jove,” said he, “that while we are boxing
you may all cry out, ‘Well done, Socrates, well done, Xanthippe.’” And
he used to say, that one ought to live with a restive woman, just as
horsemen manage violent-tempered horses; “and as they,” said he, “when
they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others; so I,
after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with any one else whatever.”

XVIII. And it was in consequence of such sayings and actions as these,
that the priestess at Delphi was witness in his favour, when she gave
Chærephon this answer, which is so universally known:—

    Socrates of all mortals is the wisest.

In consequence of which answer, he incurred great envy; and he brought
envy also on himself, by convicting men who gave themselves airs of
folly and ignorance, as undoubtedly he did to Anytus; and as is shown in
Plato’s Meno. For he, not being able to bear Socrates’ jesting, first
of all set Aristophanes to attack him, and then persuaded Meletus to
institute a prosecution against him, on the ground of impiety and of
corrupting the youth of the city. Accordingly Meletus did institute
the prosecution; and Polyeuctus pronounced the sentence, as Phavorinus
records in his Universal History. And Polycrates, the sophist, wrote the
speech which was delivered, as Hermippus says, not Anytus, as others say.
And Lycon, the demagogue, prepared everything necessary to support the
impeachment; but Antisthenes in his Successions of the Philosophers, and
Plato in his Apology, say that these men brought the accusation:—Anytus,
and Lycon, and Meletus; Anytus, acting against him on behalf of the
magistrates, and because of his political principles; Lycon, on behalf
of the orators; and Meletus on behalf of the poets, all of whom Socrates
used to pull to pieces. But Phavorinus, in the first book of his
Commentaries, says, that the speech of Polycrates against Socrates is
not the genuine one; for in it there is mention made of the walls having
been restored by Conon, which took place six years after the death of
Socrates; and certainly this is true.

XIX. But the sworn informations, on which the trial proceeded, were
drawn up in this fashion; for they are preserved to this day, says
Phavorinus, in the temple of Cybele:—“Meletus, the son of Meletus, of
Pithus, impeaches Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, of Alopece: Socrates
is guilty, inasmuch as he does not believe in the Gods whom the city
worships, but introduces other strange deities; he is also guilty,
inasmuch as he corrupts the young men, and the punishment he has incurred
is death.”

XX. But the philosopher, after Lysias had prepared a defence for him,
read it through, and said—“It is a very fine speech, Lysias, but is not
suitable for me; for it was manifestly the speech of a lawyer, rather
than of a philosopher.” And when Lysias replied, “How is it possible,
that if it is a good speech, it should not be suitable to you?” he said,
“Just as fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me.”
And when the trial was proceeding, Justus, of Tiberias, in his Garland,
says that Plato ascended the tribune and said, “I, men of Athens, being
the youngest of all those who have mounted the tribune …” and that he
was interrupted by the judges, who cried out καταβάντων, that is to say,
‘Come down.’

XXI. So when he had been condemned by two hundred and eighty-one votes,
being six more than were given in his favour, and when the judges were
making an estimate of what punishment or fine should be inflicted on him,
he said that he ought to be fined five and twenty drachmas; but Eubulides
says that he admitted that he deserved a fine of one hundred. And when
the judges raised an outcry at this proposition, he said, “My real
opinion is, that as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a
maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of my life.” So they condemned
him to death, by eighty votes more than they had originally found him
guilty. And he was put into prison, and a few days afterwards he drank
the hemlock, having held many admirable conversations in the meantime,
which Plato has recorded in the Phædo.

XXII. He also, according to some accounts, composed a pæan which begins—

    Hail Apollo, King of Delos,
    Hail Diana, Leto’s child.

But Dionysidorus says that this pæan is not his. He also composed a
fable, in the style of Æsop, not very artistically, and it begins—

    Æsop one day did this sage counsel give
    To the Corinthian magistrates: not to trust
    The cause of virtue to the people’s judgement.

XXIII. So he died; but the Athenians immediately repented[22] of their
action, so that they closed all the palæstræ and gymnasia; and they
banished his accusers, and condemned Meletus to death; but they honoured
Socrates with a brazen statue, which they erected in the place where the
sacred vessels are kept; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had
already left Athens; and the people of Heraclea banished him from that
city the day of his arrival. But Socrates was not the only person who
met with this treatment at the hands of the Athenians, but many other
men received the same: for, as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty
drachmas as a madman, and they said that Tyrtæus was out of his wits.
But they honoured Astydamas, before Æschylus, with a brazen statue. And
Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Palamedes, saying—

    Ye have slain, ye have slain,
    O Greeks, the all-wise nightingale,
    The favourite of the Muses, guiltless all.

And enough has been said on this head.

But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates; and he was
born, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, in the archonship of
Apsephion, in the fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad, on the
sixth day of the month Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city,
and when the citizens of Delos say that Diana was born. And he died in
the first year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, being seventy years of age.
And this is the calculation of Demetrius Phalereus, for some say that he
was but sixty years old when he died.

XXIV. Both he and Euripides were pupils of Anaxagoras; and Euripides was
born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, in the archonship
of Calliades. But Socrates appears to me to have also discussed
occasionally subjects of natural philosophy, since he very often disputes
about prudence and foresight, as Xenophon tells us; although he at the
same time asserts that all his conversations were about moral philosophy.
And Plato, in his Apology, mentions the principles of Anaxagoras and
other natural philosophers, which Socrates denies; and he is in reality
expressing his own sentiments about them, though he attributes them all
to Socrates. And Aristotle tells us that a certain one of the Magi came
from Syria to Athens, and blamed Socrates for many parts of his conduct,
and also foretold that he would come to a violent death. And we ourselves
have written this epigram on him—

    Drink now, O Socrates, in the realms of Jove,
    For truly did the God pronounce you wise,
    And he who said so is himself all wisdom:
    You drank the poison which your country gave,
    But they drank wisdom from your godlike voice.

XXV. He had, as Aristotle tells us in the third book of his Poetics,
a contest with a man of the name of Antiolochus of Lemnos, and with
Antipho, an interpreter of prodigies, as Pythagoras had with Cylon
of Crotona; and Homer while alive with Sagaris, and after his death
with Xenophanes the Colophonian; and Hesiod, too, in his lifetime with
Cercops, and after his death with the same Xenophanes; and Pindar with
Amphimenes of Cos; and Thales with Pherecydes; and Bias with Salarus of
Priene; and Pittacus with Antimenides; and Alcæus and Anaxagoras with
Sosibius; and Simonides with Timocreon.

XXVI. Of those who succeeded him, and who are called the Socratic school,
the chiefs were Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes: and of the ten, as they
are often called, the four most eminent were Æschines, Phædo, Euclides,
and Aristippus. But we must first speak of Xenophon, and after him of
Antisthenes among the Cynics. Then of the Socratic school, and so about
Plato, since he is the chief of the ten sects, and the founder of the
first Academy. And the regular series of them shall proceed in this
manner.

XXVII. There was also another Socrates, a historian, who wrote a
description of Argos; and another, a peripatetic philosopher, a native of
Bithynia; and another a writer of epigrams; and another a native of Cos,
who wrote invocations to the Gods.


LIFE OF XENOPHON.

I. Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough
of Erchia; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be
imagined.

II. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, and put his stick
across it, and prevented him from passing by, asking him where all kinds
of necessary things were sold. And when he had answered him, he asked him
again where men were made good and virtuous. And as he did not know, he
said, “Follow me, then, and learn.” And from this time forth, Xenophon
became a follower of Socrates.

III. And he was the first person who took down conversations as they
occurred, and published them among men, calling them memorabilia. He was
also the first man who wrote a history of philosophers.

IV. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury,
says that he loved Clinias; and that he said to him, “Now I look upon
Clinias with more pleasure than upon all the other beautiful things which
are to be seen among men; and I would rather be blind as to all the rest
of the world, than as to Clinias. And I am annoyed even with night and
with sleep, because then I do not see him; but I am very grateful to the
sun and to daylight, because they show Clinias to me.”

V. He became a friend of Cyrus in this manner. He had an acquaintance, by
name Proxenus, a Bœotian by birth, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini, and a
friend of Cyrus. He being in Sardis, staying at the court of Cyrus, wrote
a letter to Athens to Xenophon, inviting him to come and be a friend of
Cyrus. And Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates, and asked his advice.
And Socrates bade him go to Delphi, and ask counsel of the God. And
Xenophon did so, and went to the God; but the question he put was, not
whether it was good for him to go to Cyrus or not, but how he should go;
for which Socrates blamed him, but still advised him to go. Accordingly
he went to Cyrus, and became no less dear to him than Proxenus. And all
the circumstances of the expedition and the retreat, he himself has
sufficiently related to us.

VI. But he was at enmity with Menon the Pharsalian, who was the commander
of the foreign troops at the time of the expedition; and amongst other
reproaches, he says that he was much addicted to the worst kind of
debauchery. And he reproaches a man of the name of Apollonides with
having his ears bored.

VII. But after the expedition, and the disasters which took place in
Pontus, and the violations of the truce by Seuthes, the king of the
Odrysæ, he came into Asia to Agesilaus, the king of Lacedæmon, bringing
with him the soldiers of Cyrus, to serve for pay; and he became a very
great friend of Agesilaus. And about the same time he was condemned to
banishment by the Athenians, on the charge of being a favourer of the
Lacedæmonians. And being in Ephesus, and having a sum of money in gold,
he gave half of it to Megabyzus, the priest of Diana, to keep for him
till his return; and if he never returned, then he was to expend it upon
a statue, and dedicate that to the Goddess; and with the other half he
sent offerings to Delphi. From thence he went with Agesilaus into Greece,
as Agesilaus was summoned to take part in the war against the Thebans.
And the Lacedæmonians made him a friend of their city.

VIII. After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which is a strong
place in the district of Elis, at no great distance from the city. And a
woman followed him, whose name was Philesia, as Demetrius the Magnesian
relates; and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the
action against Xenophon;[23] and they were also called Dioscuri. And
when Megabyzus came into the country, on the occasion of some public
assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of ground, and
consecrated it to the Goddess; and a river named Selinus, which is the
same name as that of the river at Ephesus, flows through the land. And
there he continued hunting, and entertaining his friends, and writing
histories. But Dinarchus says that the Lacedæmonians gave him a house
and land. They say also that Philopides, the Spartan, sent him there, as
a present some slaves, who had been taken prisoners of war, natives of
Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased. And that the Eleans,
having made an expedition against Scillus, took the place, as the
Lacedæmonians dawdled in coming to his assistance.

IX. But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a few servants;
and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the place fell; and from thence
he went to Lepreum to his children, and from thence he escaped in safety
to Corinth, and settled in that city.

X. In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote to go to the
assistance of the Lacedæmonians, he sent his sons to Athens, to join in
the expedition in aid of the Lacedæmonians; for they had been educated
in Sparta, as Diocles relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus
returned safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself
in the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his brother
Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry, (and the battle took place
at Mantinea,) fought very gallantly, and was slain, as Ephorus tells us,
in his twenty-fifth book; Cephisodorus being the Captain of the cavalry,
and Hegesides the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this
battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered sacrifice,
wearing a crown on his head; but when the news of the death of his son
arrived, he took off the crown; but after that, hearing that he had
fallen gloriously, he put the crown on again. And some say that he did
not even shed a tear, but said, “I knew that I was the father of a mortal
man.” And Aristotle says, that innumerable writers wrote panegyrics and
epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to gratify his father. And
Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theophrastus, says that Isocrates also
composed a panegyric on Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him in these words:—

    A silly couplet, or e’en triplet of speeches,
    Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon
    Might write, or Meagre Æschines.

Such, then, was the life of Xenophon.

XI. And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety-fourth
Olympiad; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus, in the archonship
of Xenænetus, the year before the death of Socrates. And he died, as
Stesiclides the Athenian states in his List of Archons and Conquerors
at Olympia, in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, in the
archonship of Callidemides; in which year, Philip the son of Amyntas
began to reign over the Macedonians. And he died at Corinth, as Demetrius
the Magnesian says, being of a very advanced age.

XII. And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and very fond
of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is manifest from his
writings. And he was a pious man, fond of sacrificing to the Gods, and a
great authority as to what was due to them, and a very ardent admirer and
imitator of Socrates.

XIII. He also wrote near forty books; though different critics divide
them differently. He wrote an account of the expedition of Cyrus, to each
book of which work he prefixed a summary, though he gave none of the
whole history. He also wrote the Cyropædia, and a history of Greece, and
Memorabilia of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay
on Œconomy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking Dogs, and one on
Managing Horses, and a Defence of Socrates, and a Treatise on Revenues,
and one called Hiero, or the Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus; one on
the Constitution of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, which, however,
Demetrius the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said,
also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides, which
were previously unknown, and himself published them.

XIV. He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the sweetness of
his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a spirit of rivalry
towards one another, as we shall relate further in our life of Plato. And
we ourselves have composed an epigram on him, which runs thus:—

    Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus
      Did Xenophon go, but now he’s mounted up
    The path which leads to Jove’s eternal realms—
      For he, recounting the great deeds of Greece,
    Displays his noble genius, and he shows
      The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates.

And another which ends thus:—

    O Xenophon, if th’ ungrateful countrymen
      Of Cranon and Cecrops, banished you,
    Jealous of Cyrus’ favour which he show’d you,
      Still hospitable Corinth, with glad heart,
    Received you, and you lived there happily,
      And so resolved to stay in that fair city.

XV. But I have found it stated in some places that he flourished about
the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time as the rest of the disciples
of Socrates. And Ister says, that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus,
and that he was recalled by another decree proposed by the same person.

XVI. But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon. First of
all, this philosopher of ours; secondly, an Athenian, a brother of
Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the Theseid, and who wrote
other works too, especially the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the
third was a physician of Cos; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of
Alcibiades; the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous
prodigies; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor; the seventh, a poet
of the Old Comedy.


LIFE OF ÆSCHINES.

I. Æschines was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker, but, as some
writers say, of Lysanias; he was a citizen of Athens, of an industrious
disposition from his boyhood upwards, on which account he never quitted
Socrates.

II. And this induced Socrates to say, the only one who knows how to pay
us proper respect is the son of the sausage-seller. Idomeneus asserts,
that it was he who, in the prison, tried to persuade Socrates to make
his escape, and not Crito. But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to
favour Aristippus, attributed his advice to Crito.

III. And Æschines was calumniated on more than one occasion; and
especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many
dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe.
And those of them which are called “headless,” are exceedingly slovenly
performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus,
of Ephesus, used to say, that they were not the work of Æschines. There
are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persæus to be the work
of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works
of Æschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser
Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues
of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Æschines, which profess
to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in
number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias,
the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Telauges, and the Rhino.
And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and
was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he
gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.

IV. After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to
practise the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high
reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches
to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On
which account, Timon said of him, “The speeches of Æschines which do
not convince any one.” And they say that when he was in great straights
through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting
some part of his expenditure in his food.

V. And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his
Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them
at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him, “Oh! you thief; where did
you get that?”

VI. And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his History of
Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and
till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the
tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Æschines
addressed to Dionysius.

VII. But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from
the defence of his father Phæax, the general; and from the works which
he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias of Leontini. And Lysias wrote
an oration against him entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which
circumstances it is plain that he was a skilful orator. And one man is
spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.

VIII. Now Panætius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples
of the Socratic school are all genuine,—Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and
Æschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phædon,
and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.

IX. And there were eight men of the name of Æschines. The first, this
philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on
Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes;
the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates; the fifth was a
citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators;
the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple
and favourite of Melanthius, of Rhode; the seventh was a Milesian, a
political writer; the eighth was a statuary.


LIFE OF ARISTIPPUS.

I. Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Æschines
says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.

II. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias, of Eresus, the
Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who
exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once
he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates
said that his dæmon would not allow him to accept them; for, in fact, he
was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate
him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack
upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus
also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has
Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.

III. But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to every kind of
place, and time, and person,[24] and he easily supported every change of
fortune. For which reason he was in greater favour with Dionysius than
any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances.
For he enjoyed what was before him pleasantly, and he did not toil to
procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present. On which account
Diogenes used to call him the king’s dog. And Timon used to snarl at him
as too luxurious, speaking somewhat in this fashion:

    Like the effeminate mind of Aristippus,
    Who, as he said, by touch could judge of falsehood.

They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at the
price of fifty drachmas; and when some one blamed him, “And would not
you,” said he, “have bought it if it had cost an obol?” And when he said
he would, “Well,” replied Aristippus, “fifty drachmas are no more to
me.” Dionysius once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful
courtesans; and he carried off all three, saying that even Paris did not
get any good by preferring one beauty to the rest. However, they say,
that when he had carried them as far as the vestibule, he dismissed them;
so easily inclined was he to select or to disregard things. On which
account Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him, “You are
the only man to whom it is given to wear both a whole cloak and rags.”
Once when Dionysius spit at him, he put up with it; and when some one
found fault with him, he said, “Men endure being wetted by the sea in
order to catch a tench, and shall not I endure to be sprinkled with wine
to catch a sturgeon?”

IV. Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed
by, and said, “If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not
have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant.” But Aristippus replied,
“And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been
washing vegetables.” Being asked once what advantage he had derived from
philosophy, he said, “The power of associating confidently with every
body.” When he was reproached for living extravagantly, he replied, “If
extravagance had been a fault, it would not have had a place in the
festivals of the Gods.” At another time he was asked what advantage
philosophers had over other men; and he replied, “If all the laws should
be abrogated, we should still live in the same manner as we do now.” Once
when Dionysius asked him why the philosophers haunt the doors of the
rich, but the rich do not frequent those of the philosophers, he said,
“Because the first know what they want, but the second do not.”

On one occasion he was reproached by Plato for living in an expensive
way; and he replied, “Does not Dionysius seem to you to be a good man?”
And as he said that he did; “And yet,” said he, “he lives in a more
expensive manner than I do, so that there is no impossibility in a
person’s living both expensively and well at the same time.” He was asked
once in what educated men are superior to uneducated men; and answered,
“Just as broken horses are superior to those that are unbroken.” On
another occasion he was going into the house of a courtesan, and when one
of the young men who were with him blushed, he said, “It is not the going
into such a house that is bad, but the not being able to go out.” Once
a man proposed a riddle to him, and said, “Solve it.” “Why, you silly
fellow,” said Aristippus, “do you wish me to loose what gives us trouble,
even while it is in bonds?” A saying of his was, “that it was better to
be a beggar than an ignorant person; for that a beggar only wants money,
but an ignorant person wants humanity.” Once when he was abused, he was
going away, and as his adversary pursued him and said, “Why are you going
away?” “Because,” said he, “you have a license for speaking ill; but
I have another for declining to hear ill.” When some one said that he
always saw the philosophers at the doors of the rich men, he said, “And
the physicians also are always seen at the doors of their patients; but
still no one would choose for this reason to be an invalid rather than a
physician.”

Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, he was overtaken
by a violent storm; and when somebody said, “We common individuals are
not afraid, but you philosophers are behaving like cowards;” he said,
“Very likely, for we have not both of us the same kind of souls at
stake.” Seeing a man who prided himself on the variety of his learning
and accomplishments, he said, “Those who eat most, and who take the most
exercise, are not in better health than they who eat just as much as is
good for them; and in the same way it is not those who know a great many
things, but they who know what is useful who are valuable men.” An orator
had pleaded a cause for him and gained it, and asked him afterwards,
“Now, what good did you ever get from Socrates?” “This good,” said he,
“that all that you have said in my behalf is true.” He gave admirable
advice to his daughter Arete, teaching her to despise superfluity. And
being asked by some one in what respect his son would be better if he
received a careful education, he replied, “If he gets no other good, at
all events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be one stone sitting
upon another.” Once when some one brought his son to introduce to him, he
demanded five hundred drachmas; and when the father said, “Why, for such
a price as that I can buy a slave.” “Buy him then,” he replied, “and you
will have a pair.”

It was a saying of his that he took money from his acquaintances not in
order to use it himself, but to make them aware in what they ought to
spend their money. On one occasion, being reproached for having employed
a hired advocate in a cause that he had depending: “Why not,” said he;
“when I have a dinner, I hire a cook.” Once he was compelled by Dionysius
to repeat some philosophical sentiment; “It is an absurdity,” said he,
“for you to learn of me how to speak, and yet to teach me when I ought
to speak:” and as Dionysius was offended at this, he placed him at the
lowest end of the table; on which Aristippus said, “You wish to make
this place more respectable.” A man was one day boasting of his skill
as a diver; “Are you not ashamed,” said Aristippus, “to pride yourself
on your performance of the duty of a dolphin?” On one occasion he was
asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and
his answer was, “Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find
out.” A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without
being drunk; and he said, “A mule can do the very same thing.” When a
man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said, “Does it make
any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived
before one, or one where no one has ever lived?” and his reprover said,
“No.” “Well does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship which
ten thousand people have sailed before one, or whether one sails in
one in which no one has ever embarked?” “By no means,” said the other.
“Just in the same way,” said he, “it makes no difference whether one
lives with a woman with whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom
no one has lived.” When a person once blamed him for taking money from
his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates: “To be sure
I do,” he replied, “for Socrates too, when some friends sent their corn
and wine, accepted a little, and sent the rest back; for he had the chief
men of the Athenians for his purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom
I have bought with money.” And he used to live with Lais the courtesan,
as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions. Accordingly,
when some one reproached him on her account, he made answer, “I possess
her, but I am not possessed by her; since the best thing is to possess
pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures.” When
some one blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said,
“Would you not have bought those things yourself if they had cost three
obols?” And when the other admitted that he would, “Then,” said he, “it
is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money.” On
one occasion, when Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a
magnificent house, paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a
great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his face;
and when Simus was indignant at this, he said, “I could not find a more
suitable place to spit in.”

Charondas, or as some say, Phædon, asked him once, “Who are the people
who use perfumes?” “I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the
king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that
as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a
man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.”
On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer,
“As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to
his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made
for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a
while said, “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented,
“Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the
luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some
money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion
relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, “Drop what is beyond your
strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing
a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he
let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his
loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the
money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the
sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had
come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a
share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, “When I
wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come
to you.” He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they
examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of
men’s lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech
to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the
guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:—

    “I could not wear a woman’s robe, when I
    Was born a man, and of a manly race.”

But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said
very wittily:—

    “She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
    By Bacchanalian revels.”

He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could
not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when some one reproached him for
such conduct, he said, “It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who
has his ears in his feet.” When he was staying in Asia, and was taken
prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, some one said to him, “Are you still
cheerful and sanguine?” “When, you silly fellow,” he replied, “can I have
more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing
with Artaphernes?” It used to be a saying of his, that those who had
enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy,
were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho
and Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that
than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses
when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all
the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.

On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary
things for well-born boys to learn, said, “Those things which they will
put in practice when they become men.” And when some one reproached him
for having come from Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, “I went to
Socrates because I wanted instruction (παιδεῖας), and I have come to
Dionysius because I want diversion (παιδιᾶς).” As he had made money by
having pupils, Socrates once said to him, “Where did you get so much?”
and he answered, “Where you got a little.” When his mistress said to him,
“I am in the family way by you,” he said, “You can no more tell that,
than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket, which thorn
had scratched you.” And when some one blamed him for repudiating his son,
as if he were not really his, he said, “I know that phlegm, and I know
that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless.”
One day, when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato had
received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, “The fact is, money is
what I want, and books what Plato wants.” When he was asked what it was
for which he was reproached by Dionysius, “The same thing,” said he, “for
which others reproach me.” One day he asked Dionysius for some money, who
said, “But you told me that a wise man would never be in want;” “Give
me some,” Aristippus rejoined, “and then we will discuss that point;”
Dionysius gave him some, “Now then,” said he, “you see that I do not want
money.” When Dionysius said to him;—

    “For he who does frequent a tyrant’s court,[25]
    Becomes his slave, though free when first he came:”

He took him up, and replied:—

    “That man is but a slave who comes as free.”

This story is told by Diocles, in his book on the Lives of the
Philosophers; but others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He once
quarrelled with Æschines, and presently afterwards said to him, “Shall we
not make it up of our own accord, and cease this folly; but will you wait
till some blockhead reconciles us over our cups?” “With all my heart,”
said Æschines. “Recollect, then,” said Aristippus, “that I, who am older
than you, have made the first advances.” And Æschines answered, “You say
well, by Juno, since you are far better than I; for I began the quarrel,
but you begin the friendship.” And these are the anecdotes which are told
of him.

V. Now there were four people of the name of Aristippus; one, the man
of whom we are now speaking; the second, the man who wrote the history
of Arcadia; the third was one who, because he had been brought up by
his mother, had the name of μητροδίδαντος given to him; and he was the
grandson of the former, being his daughter’s son; the fourth was a
philosopher of the New Academy.

VI. There are three books extant, written by the Cyrenaic philosopher,
which are, a history of Africa, and which were sent by him to Dionysius;
and there is another book containing twenty-five dialogues, some written
in the Attic, and some in the Doric dialect. And these are the titles of
the Dialogues—Artabazus; to the Shipwrecked Sailors; to the Exiles; to
a Beggar; to Lais; to Porus; to Lais about her Looking-glass; Mercury;
the Dream; to the President of the Feast; Philomelus; to his Domestics;
to those who reproached him for possessing old wine and mistresses; to
those who reproached him for spending much money on his eating; a Letter
to Arete his daughter; a letter to a man who was training himself for
the Olympic games; a book of Questions; another book of Questions; a
Dissertation addressed to Dionysius; an Essay on a Statue; an Essay on
the daughter of Dionysius; a book addressed to one who thought himself
neglected; another to one who attempted to give him advice. Some say,
also, that he wrote six books of dissertations; but others, the chief
of whom is Sosicrates of Rhodes, affirm that he never wrote a single
thing. According to the assertions of Sotion in his second book; and
of Panætius, on the contrary, he composed the following books,—one
concerning Education; one concerning Virtue; one called An Exhortation;
Artabazus; the Shipwrecked Men; the Exiles; six books of Dissertations;
three books of Apophthegms; an essay addressed to Lais; one to Porus;
one to Socrates; one on Fortune. And he used to define the chief good as
a gentle motion tending to sensation.

VII. But since we have written his life, let us now speak of the
Cyrenaics who came after him; some of whom called themselves Hegesiaci,
some Annicerei, others Theodorei. And let us also enumerate the disciples
of Phædo, the chief of whom were the Eretrians. Now the pupils of
Aristippus were his own daughter Arete, and Æthiops of Ptolemais, and
Antipater of Cyrene. Arete had for her pupil the Aristippus who was
surnamed μητροδίδαντος, whose disciple was Theodorus the atheist, but
who was afterwards called θεὸς. Antipater had for a pupil Epitimedes of
Cyrene, who was the master of Paræbates, who was the master of Hegesias,
who was surnamed πεισιθάνατος (persuading to die), and of Anniceris who
ransomed Plato.

VIII. These men then who continued in the school of Aristippus, and
were called Cyrenaics, adopted the following opinions.—They said that
there were two emotions of the mind, pleasure and pain; that the one,
namely pleasure, was a moderate emotion; the other, namely pain, a rough
one. And that no one pleasure was different from or more pleasant than
another; and that pleasure was praised by all animals, but pain avoided.
They said also that pleasure belonged to the body, and constituted
its chief good, as Panætius also tells us in his book on Sects; but
the pleasure which they call the chief good, is not that pleasure as
a state, which consists in the absence of all pain, and is a sort of
undisturbedness, which is what Epicurus admits as such; for the Cyrenaics
think that there is a distinction between the chief good and a life of
happiness, for that the chief good is a particular pleasure, but that
happiness is a state consisting of a number of particular pleasures,
among which, both those which are past, and those which are future, are
both enumerated. And they consider that particular pleasure is desirable
for its own sake; but that happiness is desirable not for its own sake,
but for that of the particular pleasure. And that the proof that pleasure
is the chief good is that we are from our childhood attracted to it
without any deliberate choice of our own; and that when we have obtained
it, we do not seek anything further, and also that there is nothing which
we avoid so much as we do its opposite, which is pain. And they assert,
too, that pleasure is a good, even if it arises from the most unbecoming
causes, as Hippobotus tells us in his Treatise on Sects; for even if an
action be ever so absurd, still the pleasure which arises out of it is
desirable, and a good.

Moreover, the banishment of pain, as it is called by Epicurus, appears to
the Cyrenaics not to be pleasure; for neither is the absence of pleasure
pain, for both pleasure and pain consist in motion; and neither the
absence of pleasure nor the absence of pain are motion. In fact, absence
of pain is a condition like that of a person asleep. They say also that
it is possible that some persons may not desire pleasure, owing to some
perversity of mind; and that all the pleasures and pains of the mind, do
not all originate in pleasures and pains of the body, for that pleasure
often arises from the mere fact of the prosperity of one’s country, or
from one’s own; but they deny that pleasure is caused by either the
recollection or the anticipation of good fortune—though Epicurus asserted
that it was—for the motion of the mind is put an end to by time. They
say, too, that pleasure is not caused by simple seeing or hearing.
Accordingly we listen with pleasure to those who give a representation
of lamentations; but we are pained when we see men lamenting in reality.
And they called the absence of pleasure and of pain intermediate states;
and asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones, and
corporeal sufferings worse than mental ones. And they argued that it was
on this principle that offenders were punished with bodily pain; for they
thought that to suffer pain was hard, but that to be pleased was more in
harmony with the nature of man, on which account also they took more care
of the body than of the mind.

And although pleasure is desirable for its own sake, still they admit
that some of the efficient causes of it are often troublesome, and as
such opposite to pleasure; so that they think that an assemblage of
all the pleasures which produce happiness, is the most difficult thing
conceivable. But they admit that every wise man does not live pleasantly,
and that every bad man does not live unpleasantly, but that it is only a
general rule admitting of some exceptions. And they think it sufficient
if a person enjoys a happy time in consequence of one pleasure which
befalls him. They say that prudence is a good, but is not desirable for
its own sake, but for the sake of those things which result from it. That
a friend is desirable for the sake of the use which we can make of him;
for that the parts of the body also are loved while they are united to
the body; and that some of the virtues may exist even in the foolish.
They consider that bodily exercise contributes to the comprehension of
virtue; and that the wise man will feel neither envy, nor love, nor
superstition; for that these things originate in a fallacious opinion.
They admit, at the same time, that he is liable to grief and fear,
for that these are natural emotions. They said also that wealth is an
efficient cause of pleasure, but that it is not desirable for its own
sake. That the sensations are things which can be comprehended; but they
limited this assertion to the sensations themselves, and did not extend
it to the causes which produce them. They left out all investigation of
the subjects of natural philosophy because of the evident impossibility
of comprehending them; but they applied themselves to the study of logic,
because of its utility.

Meleager, in the second book of his Treatise on Opinions and Clitomachus
in the first book of his Essay on Sects says, that they thought natural
philosophy and dialectics useless for that the man who had learnt to
understand the question of good and evil could speak with propriety,
and was free from superstition, and escaped the fear of death,
without either. They also taught that there was nothing naturally and
intrinsically just, or honourable, or disgraceful; but that things were
considered so because of law and fashion. The good man will do nothing
out of the way, because of the punishments which are imposed on, and the
discredit which is attached to, such actions: and that the good man is a
wise man. They admit, too, that there is such a thing as improvement in
philosophy, and in other good studies. And they say that one man feels
grief more than another; and that the sensations are not always to be
trusted as faithful guides.

IX. But the philosophers who were called Hegesiaci, adopted the same
chief goods, pleasure and pain; and they denied that there was any
such thing as gratitude, or friendship, or beneficence, because we do
not choose any of those things for their own sake, but on account of
the use of which they are, and on account of these other things which
cannot subsist without them. But they teach that complete happiness
cannot possibly exist; for that the body is full of many sensations, and
that the mind sympathizes with the body, and is troubled when that is
troubled, and also that fortune prevents many things which we cherished
in anticipation; so that for all these reasons, perfect happiness
eludes our grasp. Moreover, that both life and death are desirable.
They also say that there is nothing naturally pleasant or unpleasant,
but that owing to want, or rarity, or satiety, some men are pleased and
some vexed; and that wealth and poverty have no influence at all on
pleasure, for that rich men are not affected by pleasure in a different
manner from poor men. 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. They add that,
for the foolish man it is expedient to live, but to the wise man it
is a matter of indifference; and that the wise man will do everything
for his own sake; for that he will not consider any one else of equal
importance with himself; and he will see that if he were to obtain ever
such great advantages from any one else, they would not be equal to what
he could himself bestow. They excluded the sensations, inasmuch as they
had no certain knowledge about them; but they recommended the doing of
everything which appeared consistent with reason.

They asserted also that errors ought to meet with pardon; for that a man
did not err intentionally, but because he was influenced by some external
circumstance; and that one ought not to hate a person who has erred, but
only to teach him better. They likewise said that the wise man 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.

X. The Annicereans, in many respects, agreed with these last; but they
admitted the existence in life of friendship and gratitude and respect
for one’s parents, and the principle of endeavouring to serve one’s
country. On which principle, even if the wise man should meet with some
annoyance, he would be no less happy—even though he should have but few
actual pleasures. They thought that the happiness of a friend was not to
be desired by us for its own sake; for that in fact such happiness was
not capable of being felt by the person’s neighbour; and that reason
is not sufficient to give one confidence, and to authorise one to look
down upon the opinions of the multitude; but that one must learn a
deference for the sentiments of others by custom, because the opposite
bad disposition being bred up with infirm and early age. They also taught
that one ought not to like friends solely on account of the advantage
that we may derive from them, and not discard them when these hopes or
advantages fail; but that we ought rather to cultivate them on account of
one’s natural feelings of benevolence, in compliance with which we ought
also to encounter trouble for their sakes, so that though they consider
pleasure the chief good, and the deprivation of it an evil, still they
think that a man ought voluntarily to submit to this deprivation out of
his regard for his friend.

XI. The Theodoreans, as they are called, derived their name from the
Theodorus who has been already mentioned, and adopted all his doctrines.

XII. Now Theodorus utterly discarded all previous opinions about the
Gods: and we have met with a book of his which is entitled, On Gods,
which is not to be despised; and it is from that that they say that
Epicurus derived the principal portions of his sentiments. But Theodorus
had been a pupil of Anniceris, and of Dionysius the Dialectician, as
Antisthenes tells us in his Successions of Philosophers.

XIII. He considered joy and grief as the chief goods: and that the former
resulted from knowledge, and the latter from ignorance. And he called
prudence and justice goods: the contrary qualities evils, and pleasure
and pain something intermediate. He discarded friendship from his system,
because it could not exist either in foolish men or in wise men. For
that, in the case of the former, friendship was at an end the moment
that the advantage to be derived from it was out of sight. And that wise
men were sufficient for themselves, and so had no need of friends. He
used also to say that it was reasonable for a good man not to expose
himself to danger for the sake of his country, for that he ought not to
discard his own prudence for the sake of benefiting those who had none.
And he said that a wise man’s country was the World. He allowed that
a wise man might steal, and commit adultery and sacrilege, at proper
seasons: for that none of these actions were disgraceful by nature, if
one only put out of sight the common opinion about them, which owes its
existence to the consent of fools. And he said that the wise man would
indulge his passions openly, without any regard to circumstances: on
which principle he used to ask the following questions: “Is a woman
who is well instructed in literature of use just in proportion to the
amount of her literary knowledge?” “Yes,” said the person questioned.
“And is a boy, and is a youth, useful in proportion to his acquaintance
with literature?” “Yes.” “Is not then, also, a beautiful woman useful
in proportion as she is beautiful; and a boy and a youth useful in
proportion to their beauty?” “Yes.” “Well, then, a handsome boy and
a handsome youth must be useful exactly in proportion as they are
handsome?” “Yes.” “Now the use of beauty is, to be embraced.” And when
this was granted he pressed the argument thus:—If then a man embraces a
woman just as it is useful that he should, he does not do wrong; nor,
again, will he be doing wrong in employing beauty for the purposes for
which it is useful. And with such questions as these he appeared to
convince his hearers.

XIV. But he appears to have got the name of θεὸς from Stilpo one day
asking him, “Are you, Theodorus, what you say you are?” And when he said
he was, “And you said that you are θεὸς,” continued his questioner; he
admitted that also. “Then,” continued the other, “you are θεὸς.” And as
he willingly received the title, the other laughed and said, “But you,
wretched man, according to this principle, you would also admit that you
were a raven, or a hundred other things.” One day Theodorus sat down by
Euryclides the hierophant, and said to him, “Tell me now, Euryclides, who
are they who behave impiously with respect to the mysteries?” And when
Euryclides answered, “Those who divulge them to the uninitiated;” “Then,”
said he, “you also are impious, for you divulge them to those who are not
initiated.”

XV. And indeed he was very near being brought before the Areopagus if
Demetrius of Phalereus had not saved him. But Amphicrates in his Essay on
Illustrious Men, says that he was condemned to drink hemlock.

XVI. While he was staying at the court of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,
he was sent once by him to Lysimachus as an ambassador. And as he was
talking very freely, Lysimachus said to him, “Tell me, Theodorus, have
not you been banished from Athens?” And he replied, “you have been
rightly informed; for the city of the Athenians could not bear me, just
as Semele could not bear Bacchus; and so we were both cast out.” And when
Lysimachus said again, “Take care that you do not come to me again;” “I
never will,” he replied, “unless Ptolemy sends me.” And as Mythras, the
steward of Lysimachus was present, and said, “You appear to me to be
the only person who ignores both Gods and Sovereigns;” “How,” rejoined
Theodorus, “can you say that I ignore the Gods, when I look upon you as
their enemy?”

XVII. They say also that on one occasion he came to Corinth, bringing
with him a great many disciples; and that Metrocles the Cynic, who was
washing leeks, said to him, “You, who are a Sophist, would not have
wanted so many pupils, if you had washed vegetables.” And Theodorus,
taking him up, replied, “And if you had known how to associate with men,
you would not have cared about those vegetables.” But this rejoinder, as
I have said already, is attributed both to Diogenes and Aristippus.

XVIII. Such was Theodorus, and such were his circumstances and opinions.
But at last he went away to Cyrene, and lived there with Megas, being
treated by him with the greatest distinction. And when he was first
driven away from Cyrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly,
“You do wrong, O men of Cyrene, driving me from Africa to Greece.”

XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name of Theodorus. The
first was a Samian, the son of Rhœcus; he it was who advised the putting
of coals under the foundations of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; for as
the ground was very swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of
their ligneous qualities, would retain their solidity in a way that could
not be impaired by water. The second was a Cyrenean, a geometrician,
and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was the philosopher whom
we have been describing. The fourth was an author who wrote a very
remarkable treatise on the art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a
man who wrote a treatise on Musical Composers, beginning with Terpander.
The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth
was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on Tactics. The ninth was a citizen
of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator,
who is mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh
was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is mentioned by
Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who is spoken of by Menodotus.
The fourteenth was an Ephesian, a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his
Essay on Painting. The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth
wrote an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil of
Athenæus. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philosopher. The nineteenth
was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet.


LIFE OF PHÆDO.

I. Phædo the Elean, one of the Eupatridæ, was taken prisoner at the
time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to
the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street, shutting
the door, he met with Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say,
Crito, to ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as became
a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on suspending one’s judgment,
calls him a slave.

II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine copies; by
name—Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but the genuineness of this one is
disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to Æschines, and others
to Polyænus; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one); the
Scythian discourses, and these, too, some attribute to Æschines.

III. But his successor was Plistanus of Elis; and the next in succession
to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Asclepiades of Phlius, who came
over from Stilpo. And down to the age of these last, they were called
the Eliac school; but after the time of Menedemus, they were called the
Eretrians. And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was the
founder of a new sect.


LIFE OF EUCLIDES.

I. Euclides was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela,
according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander
in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings
of Parmenides; and his successors were called the philosophers of the
Megaric school; after that they were called the Contentious school, and
still later, the Dialecticians, which name was first given to them by
Dionysius the Carthaginian; because they carried on their investigations
by question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of Socrates,
Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides, because they feared
the cruelty of the tyrants.

II. He used to teach that the chief good is unity; but that it is known
by several names; for at one time people call it prudence; at another
time God; at another time intellect, and so on. But everything which was
contrary to good, he discarded, denying its existence. And the proofs
which he used to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those
which proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected all
that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison, saying that it
must be founded either on things which are like, or on things which are
unlike. If on things which are like, then it is better to reason about
the things themselves, than about those which resemble them; and if on
things which are unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on
this account Timon uses the following language concerning him, where he
also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic school:—

    But I do care for none of all these triflers,
    Nor for any one else; not for your Phædon,
    Whoever he may be; not for the quarrelsome
    Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
    With love of fierce contention.

III. He wrote six dialogues—the Lamprias, the Æschines, the Phœnix, the
Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dialogue.

IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of Miletus, who handed
down a great many arguments in dialectics; such as the Lying one; the
Concealed one; the Electra; the Veiled one; the Sorites; the Horned
one; the Bald one.[26] And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the
following terms:—

    Eubulides, that most contentious sophist,
    Asking his horned quibbles, and perplexing
    The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
    Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.

For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that being at first
unable to pronounce the R, he got rid of that defect. Eubulides had a
quarrel with Aristotle, and was constantly attacking him.

V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides, was Alexinus of
Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which account he was nicknamed
Ἐλέγξινος.[27] He had an especial quarrel with Zeno; and Hermippus
relates of him that he went from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy
there; and that when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said
that he wished to establish a school which should be called the Olympic
school; but that his pupils being in distress, through want of means of
support, and finding the situation unhealthy for them, left him; and that
after that Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after
that, when swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the
injury proved fatal, and he died. And we have written an epigram on him
which runs thus:—

    Then the report, alas! was true,
      That an unhappy man,
    While swimming tore his foot against a nail
      For the illustrious sage,
    Good Alexinus, swimming in the Alpheus,
      Died from a hostile reed.

And he wrote not only against Zeno, but he composed other works also,
especially one against Ephorus the historian.

VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote
a history of the events of his own time; he also composed several
tragedies, for which he got great distinction at the festivals. And he
was the preceptor of Antigonus, the king to whom he dedicated a treatise
on Monarchy, which had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he
died of old age.

VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom is Apollonius
Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of Iasos, the son of Aminias;
and he too was surnamed Cronus, and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in
his epigrams:—

    Momus himself did carve upon the walls,
    Cronus is wise.

And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first
person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one. When
he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, he had several dialectic
questions put to him by Stilpo; and as he was not able to solve them at
the moment, he was reproached by the king with many hard words, and among
other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So he left the
banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of Stilpo, and then died of
despondency. And we have written the following epigram on him:—

    O Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
      Buried you in despair?
    So that you hastened to the shades below,
      Perplexed by Stilpo’s quibbles—
    You would deserve your name of Cronus[28] better,
      If C and r were gone.

VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the son of Metellus,
a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue.
And Clinomachus of Thurii, who was the first person who ever wrote about
axioms and categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian,
a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.


LIFE OF STILPO.

I. Stilpo, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides’
school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of
Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides
informs us.

II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in command of words
and in acuteness, that it may almost be said that all Greece fixed
its eyes upon him, and joined the Megaric school. And concerning him
Philippus of Megara speaks thus, word for word:—“For he carried off from
Theophrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Timagoras of
Gela; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitarchus and Simias;
and from the dialecticians’ school also he won men over, carrying off
Pæoneius from Aristides, and Diphilus of the Bosphorus from Euphantus,
and also Myrmex of the Venetes, who had both come to him to argue against
him, but they became converts and his disciples.” And besides these
men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a natural
philosopher of great ability; and Alcimus the rhetorician, the most
eminent orator in all Greece at that time; and he won over Crates, and
great numbers of others, and among them Zeno the Phœnician.

III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he was married.
But he lived also with a courtesan, named Nicarete, as Onetor tells us
somewhere. And he had a licentious daughter, who was married to a friend
of his named Simias, a citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in
an orderly manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him.
But he said, “She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an honour to
her.”

IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great honour; and when
he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him money, and invited
him to sail with him to Egypt. But he accepted only a moderate sum of
money, and declined the journey proposed to him, but went over to Ægina,
until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus
had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo’s house to be saved, and took care
that everything that had been plundered from him should be restored to
him. But when he wished Stilpo to give him in a list of all that he had
lost, he said that he had lost nothing of his own; for that no one had
taken from him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his
knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject of doing good
to men with such power, that he became a zealous hearer of his.

V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a man, about the
Minerva of Phidias:—“Is Minerva the Goddess the daughter of Jupiter?”
And when the other said, “Yes;” “But this,” said he, “is not the child
of Jupiter, but of Phidias.” And when he agreed that it was so—“This
then,” he continued, “is not a God.” And when he was brought before the
Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but maintained that he
had spoken correctly; for that she was not a God (θεὸς) but a Goddess
(θεὰ); for that Gods were of the male sex only.[29] However the judges
of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city; and on this occasion,
Theodorus, who was nicknamed θεὸς, said in derision, “Whence did Stilpo
learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a Goddess?”
But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most
witty and elegant-minded man. Accordingly when Crates asked him if the
Gods delighted in adoration and prayer; they say that he answered, “Do
not ask these questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private.”
And they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were any
Gods, answered in the same spirit:—

    “Will you not first, O! miserable old man,
    Remove the multitude?”

VI. But Stilpo was a man of simple character, and free from all trick and
humbug, and universally affable. Accordingly, when Crates the Cynic once
refused to answer a question that he had put to him, and only insulted
his questioner—“I knew,” said Stilpo, “that he would say anything rather
than what he ought.” And once he put a question to him, and offered him
a fig at the same time; so he took the fig and ate it, on which Crates
said, “O Hercules, I have lost my fig.” “Not only that,” he replied,
“but you have lost your question too, of which the fig was the pledge.”
At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him,
“Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress,” meaning, both a new mind
and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the
following parody:—

    “There[30] Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
    Pours out deep groans, where Typhon’s voice resounds,
    And there he oft doth argue, while a school
    Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
    And virtue’s name with eager chase pursues.”

And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a
degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and
when some one said to him, “Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you
were a wild beast,” he replied, “Not so; but as a real genuine man.”

VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species.
And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was
speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual,
nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this
person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person
at all. Another of his illustrations was, “That which is shown to me,
is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago,
therefore this is not a vegetable.” And they say that once when he was
conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy
some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, “You are
leaving the argument;” “Not at all,” he replied, “I keep the argument,
but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold
to some one else.”

VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style:
The Moschus; the Aristippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Chœrecrates;
the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my
Daughter, and the Aristotle.

IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had
been one of his pupils.

X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine,
in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:—

    Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
    A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
    The pride of Megara: he found good wine
    The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
    And drinking it, he drove on to the end.

And he was ridiculed by Sophilus the comic poet, in his play called
Marriages:—

    The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.


LIFE OF CRITO.

I. Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest
affection; and paid such great attention to him, that he took care that
he should never be in want of anything.

II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names
were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus.

III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all published in one
volume; and I subjoin their titles:—That men are not made good by
Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman; on the
Honourable; on doing ill; on Good Government; on Law; on the Divine
Being; on Arts; on Society; Protagoras, or the Statesman; on Letters;
on Political Science; on the Honourable; on Learning; on Knowledge; on
Science; on what Knowledge is.


LIFE OF SIMON.

I. Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came
into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his
sayings that he recollected.

II. And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern
ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined
in one volume:—On the Gods; on the Good; on the Honourable; what the
Honourable is; the first Dialogue on Justice; the second Dialogue on
Justice; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught; the first
Dialogue on Courage; the second; the third; on Laws; on the Art of
Guiding the People; on Honour; on Poetry; on Good Health; on Love; on
Philosophy; on Knowledge; on Music; on Poetry; on what the Honourable is;
on Teaching; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on Number; on
Diligence; on Activity; on Covetousness; on Insolence; on the Honourable;
Some also add to these dialogues; on taking Counsel; on Reason or
Suitableness; on doing Harm.

III. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the
conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles
offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that
he would not sell his freedom of speech.

IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art.
And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And
another, who was a statuary.


LIFE OF GLAUCO.

Glauco was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant,
which are all contained in one volume. The Phidylus; the Euripides; the
Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus;
the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus. There are thirty-two others which go
under his name, but they are spurious.


LIFE OF SIMIAS.

Simias was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant,
contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on
Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching;
on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what
Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living
Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life; on what the Honourable is;
on Industry; and on Love.


LIFE OF CEBES.

Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The
Tablet; the Seventh; and the Phrynichus.


LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.

I. This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phædo;
and he was one of those who are called Theopropidæ, being the son of
Clisthenes, a man of noble family, but a poor man and a builder. And
some say that he was a tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned
both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward
a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him,
saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree.

II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of
the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato;
and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when
Asclepiades, the Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived
in Megara, near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from
thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus,
who belonged to Phædo’s school. And up to this time, as I have already
mentioned in my account of Phædo, they were called Eleans; and they were
also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am
now speaking.

III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on
which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus:—

    And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius,
    And the Eretrian bull.

And Timon mentions him thus:—

    Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.

And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle, that when
Eurylochus, of Cassandrea, had been invited by Antigonus, to come to him
in company with Cleippides, a youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for
he was afraid lest Menedemus should hear of it; for he was very severe
in his reproofs, and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man
behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit
of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young
man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers
of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piræus,
attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about
the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what
Antigonus’s object was in treating him as he did.

On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself
airs, “Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has
a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also?” And once, hearing a
young man talk very loudly, he said, “See whom you have behind you.”
When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel,
he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to
tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said
something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm; and when
he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, “Go then and
look after them; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that
elegant rusticity of yours with them.” He was once asked whether a good
man should marry, and his reply was, “Do I seem to you to be a good man,
or not?” and when the other said he did; “Well,” said he, “and I am
married.” On one occasion a person said that there were a great many good
things, so he asked him how many; and whether he thought that there were
more than a hundred. And as he could not bear the extravagance of one man
who used frequently to invite him to dinner, once when he was invited
he did not say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in
silence, by eating nothing but olives.

IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in which he indulged,
he was very near while in Cyprus, at the court of Nicocreon, being
in great danger with his friend Asclepiades. For when the king was
celebrating a festival at the beginning of the month, and had invited
them as he did all the other philosophers; Menedemus said, “If the
assemblage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival like
this ought to be celebrated every day: but if it is not good, even once
is too often.” And as the tyrant made answer to this speech, “that he
kept this festival in order to have leisure in it to listen to the
philosophers,” he behaved with even more austerity than usual, arguing,
even while the feast was going on, that it was right on every occasion
to listen to philosophers; and he went on in this way till, if a
flute-player had not interrupted their discussion, they would have been
put to death. In reference to which, when they were overtaken by a storm
in a ship, they say that Asclepiades said, “that the fine playing of a
flute-player had saved them, but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had
ruined them.”

V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal from the usual
habits and discipline of a school, so that he never regarded any order,
nor were the seats arranged around properly, but every one listened
to him while lecturing, standing up or sitting down, just as he might
chance to be at the moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this
irregular conduct.

VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous man, and very
fond of glory; so that, as previously he and Asclepiades had been fellow
journeymen of a builder, when Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying
mortar, Menedemus would stand in front of him to screen him when he saw
any one coming.

VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous that once,
when setting down the incense, he actually missed the incense burner. And
on one occasion, when Crates was standing by him, and reproaching him for
meddling with politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he,
even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed, and to stand
on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon and Hegesipolis.

VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accordingly, once, when
he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had unintentionally eaten some
meat that had been thrown away, when he was told of it he became sick,
and turned pale, until Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him that it was
not the meat itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had
adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man, with notions
such as became a gentleman.

IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man he retained
all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with firm flesh, and a ruddy
complexion, and very stout and fresh looking. In stature he was of
moderate size; as is plain from the statue of him which is at Eretria,
in the Old Stadium. For he is there represented seated almost naked,
undoubtedly for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body.

X. He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his friends; and
because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have a great many parties,
particularly of poets and musicians. And he was very fond of Aratus and
Lycophon the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he
applied himself to the study of Homer; and next to him to that of the
Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achæus, to whom he assigned
the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Æschylus the
first. And it is from Achæus that he quoted these verses against the
politicians of the opposite party:—

    A speedy runner once was overtaken
    By weaker men than he. An eagle too,
    Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.

And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achæus, called Omphale;
so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but
the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of
Neophron, the Sicyonian.

XI. Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and Xenocrates,
and Paræbates of Cyrene; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being
questioned about him, he said nothing more of him than that he was a
gentleman.

XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation
he was hard to argue against; he spoke on every subject, and had a
great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as
Antisthenes says in his Successions; and he used to put questions of
this sort, “Is one thing different from another thing?” “Yes.” “And is
benefiting a person something different from the good?” “Yes.” “Then
the good is not benefiting a person.” And he, as it is said, discarded
all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones; and of these he
only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple;
saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that
in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned
dialectics; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off
beating his father, he said, “I have not beaten him, and I have not left
off;” and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt
by answering explicitly yes or no, “It would be absurd,” he rejoined, “to
comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance.”

When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he
said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard
some one assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything
that one desires; he said, “It is a much greater good to desire what
is proper.” But Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or
composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But
in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the
face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse,
he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used
to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great
benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as
she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.

XIII. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment
to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades
and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was
said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on
one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money
between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take
the smaller share, that neither of them would receive any of it.

XIV. It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades
was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when
Asclepiades’s wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus,
when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich;
and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted
the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at
Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great
economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion,
after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and
when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit
him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now that
he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were
Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of
them thirty minæ, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to
portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the
children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.

XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion:—First of all, he would
sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then
he would invite in any one who came to see him, even if they had already
dined; and if any one came too soon, they would walk up and down, and ask
those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what
o’clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish,
they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And
during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in
winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for
himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a
cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes
fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried
figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his
satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making
his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of
the lines:—

    After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup
    Is handed round with moderation due;
    And conversation wise makes the dessert.

XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and
trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently, he was so much admired by
his countrymen, that they entrusted him with the chief government of the
state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was
greatly honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as
the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to
remit fifty. And having been falsely accused to him, as having betrayed
the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter
which begins thus:—

“Menedemus to king Demetrius.—Health. I hear that information has been
laid before you concerning us.” … And the tradition is, that a man of the
name of Æschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in
the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was
sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus,
as Euphantus relates in his History.

XVII. Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his
pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus
drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which
begins thus:—

“The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has
defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom,
and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes,
it has seemed good to the council and to the people.” … And from these
circumstances, and because of his friendship for him, as shown in other
matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being
impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and
there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden
goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general
vote of the Bœotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great
despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his
wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of
a broken heart.

But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him; saying, that
while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once
preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought
in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city
to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went
to the court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance
of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell
into despondency, and starved himself for seven days, and so he died.
And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persæus was the
only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that
when Antigonus himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among
the Eretrians for his sake, Persæus prevented him. And on this account
Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and
among them, “He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man
that lives or that ever will live.”

XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four.
And we have written the following epigram on him:—

    I’ve heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord,
        You starved yourself for seven days and died;
    Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man,
        For spiritless despair appears your guide.

These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors;
but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy; and to his
successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.

[19] Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots.

[20] After the battle of Arginusæ.

[21] “This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the dæmon which
attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him
from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.”—_See
Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist. of Greece_, vol. v.

[22] Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.

[23] The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου—“ἀποστασίου δίκη,
an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his
προστάτης.”—_L. & S._

[24] This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:—

    Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
    Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.—
                                 _Ep._ i. 23, 24.

[25] Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to
Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.

[26] The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is
meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:—

The _lying_ one is this:—Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies.
If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he
a liar?

The _concealed_ one:—Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do
not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.

The _veiled_ one is much the same as the preceding.

The _electra_ is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones:
Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not
know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does
not know, her brother at the same time.

The _Sorites_ is universally known.

The _bald_ one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head
will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in
his head is pulled out.

The _horned_ one:—You have what you have not lost. You have not lost
horns, therefore you have horns.

[27] From ἐλέγχω, to confute.

[28] Κρόνος, take away Κ. ρ., leaves ὄνος, an ass.

[29] The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it
is sometimes used as feminine.

[30] The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus.
Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B. ii. 719.