And Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed
dialogues
entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece.
Diogenes Laertius
And accordingly, that Gorgias, of Leontini, was his pupil, a man of the greatest eminence as a rhetorician, and one who left behind him a treatise containing a complete system of the art; and who, as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, lived to the age of a hundred and nine years.
IV. Satyrus tells us that he used to say that he had been present when Empedocles was practising magic; and that he professes this science, and many others too in his poems when he says:
And all the drugs which can relieve disease,
Or soften the approach of age, shall be
Revealed to your inquiries; I do know them,
And I to you alone will them disclose.
You shall restrain the fierce unbridled winds,
Which, rushing o'er the earth, bow down the corn,
And crush the farmer's hopes. And when you will,
You shall recall them back to sweep the land:
Then you shall learn to dry the rainy clouds,
And bid warm summer cheer the heart of men.
Again at your behest, the drought shall yield
To wholesome show'rs : when you give the word
Hell shall restore its dead.
V. And Timaus, in his eighteenth book, says, that this man was held in great esteem on many accounts; for that once, when the etesian gales were blowing violently, so as to injure the crops, he ordered some asses to be flayed, and some bladders to be made of their hides, and these he placed on the hills and high places to catch the wind. And so, when the wind ceased, he was called wind-forbidder (kolusanemas). And Heraclides, in his treatise on Diseases, says that he dictated to Pausanias the statement which he made about the dead woman. Now Pausanias, as both Aristippus and Satyrus agree, was much attached to him; and he dedicated to him the works which he wrote on Natural Philosophy, in the following terms:
Hear, O Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.
He also wrote an epigram upon him:--
Gela, his native land, does boast the birth
Of wise Anchites' son, that great physician,
So fitly named Pausanias, from his skill;
A genuine son of Aesculapius,
Who has stopped many men whom fell disease
Marked for its own, from treading those dark paths
Which lead to Proserpine's infernal realms.
VI. The case of the dead woman above mentioned, Heraclides says, was something of this sort; that he kept her corpse for thirty days dead, and yet free from corruption; on which account he has called himself a physician and a prophet, taking it also from these verses :--
Friends who the mighty citadel inhabit,
Which crowns the golden waves of Acragas.
Votaries of noble actions, Hail to ye;
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you well revered by all,
As is my due, crowned with holy fillets
And rosy garlands. And whene'er I come
To wealthy cities, then from men and women
Due honours meets me; and crowds follow me,
Seeking the way which leads to gainful glory.
Some ask for oracles, and some entreat,
For remedies against all kinds of sickness.
VII. And he says that Agrigentum was a very large city, since it had eight hundred thousand inhabitants; on which account Empedocles, seeing the people immersed in luxury,said, "The men of Agrigentum devote themselves wholly to luxury as if they were to die to-morrow, but they furnish their houses as if they were to live for ever. "
VIII. It is said that Cleomenes, the rhapsodist, sung this very poem, called the Purifications, at Olympia; at least this is the account given by Phavorinus, in his Commentaries.
IX. And Aristotle says, that he was a most liberal man, and far removed from anything like a domineering spirit; since he constantly refused the sovereign power when it was offered to him, as Xanthus assures us in his account of him, showing plainly that he preferred a simple style of living. And Timaus tells the same story, giving at the same time the reason why he was so very popular. For he says that when on one occasion, he was invited to a banquet, by one of the magistrates, the wine was carried about, but the supper was not served up. And as every one else kept silence, he, disapproving of what he saw, bade the servants bring in the supper; but the person who had invited him said that he was waiting for the secretary of the council. And when he came he was appointed master of the feast, at the instigation of the giver of it, and then he gave a plain intimation of his tyrannical inclinations, for he ordered all the guests to drink, and those who did not drink were to have the wine poured over their heads. Empedocles said nothing at the moment, but the next day he summoned them before the court, and procured the execution of both the entertainer and the master of the feast.
And this was the beginning of his political career. And at another time, when Acron, the physician, asked of the council a place where he might erect a monument to his father, on account of his eminence as a physician, Empedocles came forward and opposed any such grant, adducing many arguments on the ground of equality, and also putting the following question :-- "And what elegy shall we inscribe upon it? Shall we say:-
Akron ietron Akron Akragantinon patros akrou
kruptei kremnos akros patridos akrotates.
But some give the second line thus :-
'Akrotates koruphes tumpos akros katechei.
And others assert that it is the composition of Simonides.
But afterwards Empedocles abolished the assembly of a thousand, and established a council in which the magistrates were to hold office for three years, on such a footing that it should consist not only of rich men, but of those who were favourers of the interests of the people. Timaeus, however, in his first and second book (For he often mentions him), says that he appeared to entertain opinions adverse to a republic. And, as far as his poetry goes, any one may see that he was arrogant and self-satisfied.
Accordingly, he says :
Hail to ye,
I an immortal. God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you:
And so on.
But when he went to the Olympic games he was considered a worthy object of general attention; so that there was no mention made of any one else in comparison of Empedocles.
X. Afterwards indeed, when Agrigentum was settled, the descendants of his enemies opposed his return; on which account he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. And Timon has not let even Empedocles escape, but satirises him in this style, saying:
And then Empedocles, the honeyed speaker
Of soft forensic speeches; he did take
As many offices as he was able,
Creating magistrates who wanted helpers.
But there are two accounts of the manner of his death.
XI. For Heraclides, relating the story about the dead woman, how Empedocles got great glory from sending away a dead woman restored to life, says that he celebrated a sacrifice in the field of Pisianax, and that some of his friends were invited, among whom was Pausanias. And then, after the banquet, they lay down, some going a little way off, and some lying under the trees close by in the field, and some wherever they happened to choose. But Empedocles himself remained in the place where he had been sitting. But when day broke, and they arose, he alone was not found. And when he was sought for, and the servants were examined and said that they did not know, one of them said, that at midnight he had heard a loud voice calling Empedocles; and that then he himself rose up and saw a great light from heaven, but nothing else. And as they were all amazed at what had taken place, Pausanias descended and sent some people to look for him; but afterwards he was commanded not to busy himself about the matter, as he was informed that what had happened was deserving of thankfulness, and that they behoved to sacrifice to Empedocles as to one who had become a God.
Hermippus says also, that a woman of the name of Panthea, a native of Agrigentum, who had been given over by the physicians, was cured by him, and that it was on this account that he celebrated a sacrifice; and that the guests invited were about eighty in number. But Hippobotus says that he rose up and went away as if he were going to mount Aetna; and that when he arrived at the crater of fire he leaped in, and disappeared, wishing to establish a belief that he had become a God. But afterwards the truth was detected by one of his slippers having been dropped. For he used to wear slippers with brazen soles. Pausanias, however, contradicts this statement.
But Diodorus, of Ephesus, writing about Anaximander, says that Empedocles imitated him; indulging in a tragic sort of pride and wearing magnificent apparel. And when a pestilence attacked the people of Selinus, by reason of the bad smells arising from the adjacent river, so that the men died and the women bore dead children, Empedocles contrived a plan, and brought into the same channel two other rivers at his own expense; and so, by mixing their waters with that of the other river, he sweetened the stream. And as the pestilence was removed in this way, when the people of Selinus were on one occasion holding a festival on the bank of the river, Empedocles appeared among them; and they rising up, offered him adoration, and prayed to him as to a God. And he, wishing to confirm this idea which they had adopted of him, leaped into the fire.
But Timaeus contradicts all these stories; saying expressly, that he departed into Peloponnesus, and never returned at all, on which account the manner of his death is uncertain. And he especially denies the tale of Heraclides in his fourth book; for he says that Pisianax was a Syracusan, and had no field in the district of Agrigentum ; but that Pausanias erected a monument in honour of his friend, since such a report had got about concerning him; and, as he was a rich man, made it a statue and little chapel, as one might erect to a God. "How then," adds Timaus, "could he have leaped into a crater, of which, though they were in the neighbourhood, he had never made any mention? He died then in Peloponnesus; and there is nothing extraordinary in there being no tomb of his to be seen; for there are many other men who have no tomb visible. " These are the words of Timaeus; and he adds further, "But Heraclides is altogether a man fond of strange stories, and one who would assert that a man had fallen from the moon. "
Hippobotus says, that there was a clothed statue of Empedocles which lay formerly in Agrigentum, but which was afterwards placed in front of the Senate House of the Romans divested of its clothing, as the Romans had carried it off and erected it there. And there are traces of some inscriptions or reliefs still discernible on it.
Neanthes, of Cyzicus, who also wrote about the Pythagoreans, says, that when Meton was dead, the seeds of tyrannical power began to appear; and that then Empedocles persuaded the Agrigentines to desist from their factious disputes, and to establish political equality. And besides, as there were many of the female citizens destitute of dowry, he portioned them out of his own private fortune. And relying on these actions of his, he assumed a purple robe and wore a golden circlet on his hand, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries. He also wore slippers with brazen soles, and a Delphian garland. His hair was let grow very long, and he had boys to follow him; and he himself always preserved a solemn countenance, and a uniformly grave deportment. And he marched about in such style, that he seemed to all the citizens, who met him and who admired his deportment, to exhibit a sort of likeness to kingly power. And afterwards, it happened that as on the occasion of some festival he was going in a chariot to Messene, he was upset and broke his thigh ; and he was taken ill in consequence, and so died, at the age of seventy-seven. And his tomb is in Megara.
But as to his age, Aristotle differs from this account of Neanthes ; for he asserts that he died at sixty years of age; others again say, that he was a hundred and nine when he died. He flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad. Demetrius, of Traezen, in his book against the Sophists, reports that, as the lines of Homer say :--
He now, self-murdered, from a beam depends,
And his mad soul to blackest hell descends.
But in the letter of Telauges, which has been mentioned before, it is said that he slipped down through old age, and fell into the sea, and so died.
And this is enough to say about his death.
There is also a jesting epigram of ours upon him, in our collection of Poems in all Metres, which runs thus:
You too, Empedocles, essayed to purge
Your body in the rapid flames, and drank
The liquid fire from the restless crater;
I say not that you threw yourself at once
Into the stream of Aetna's fiery flood.
But seeking to conceal yourself you fell,
And so you met with unintended death.
And another:--
'Tis said the wise Empedocles did fall
Out of his chariot, and so broke his thigh:
But if he leapt into the flames of Aetna,
How could his tomb be shown in Megara?
XII. The following were some of his doctrines. He used to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:
Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.
Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual. Accordingly, he says subsequently:
Sometimes in friendship bound they coalesce,
Sometimes they're parted by fell discord's hate.
And he asserts that the sun is a vast assemblage of fire, and that it is larger than the moon. And the moon is disk-shaped; and that the heaven itself is like crystal; and that the soul inhabits every kind of form of animals and plants. Accordingly, he thus expresses himself:
For once I was a boy, and once a girl.
A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea,
XIII. His writings on Natural Philosophy and his Purifications extend to five thousand verses; and his Medical Poem to six hundred; and his Tragedies we have spoken of previously.
LIFE OF EPICHARMUS
I. EPICHARMUS was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he came to Syracuse, as he himself tells us in his writings. And on his statue there is the following inscription.
As the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea far exceeds the river streams:
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass,
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned.
II. He has left behind him Commentaries in which he treats of natural philosophy, and delivers apophthegms, and discusses medicine. He has also added brief notes to many of his commentaries, in which he declares plainly that he is the author of the works.
III. He died at the age of ninety years.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ARCHYTUS
I. ARCHYTAS was a native of Tarentum, and the son of Innesagoras; or, as Aristoxenus relates, of Histiaeus.
II. He also was a Pythagorean; and he it was who saved Plato's life by means of a letter, when he was in danger of being put to death by Dionysius.
III. He was a man held in very general esteem on account of his universal virtue; and he was seven times appointed general of his countrymen, when no one else had ever held the office for more than one year, as the law forbade it to be held for a longer period.
IV. Plato wrote his letters to him; as he had begun the correspondence by writing himself to Plato, which he did in the following manner:
ARCHYTAS TO PLATO, GREETING.
"I am very glad that you have recovered from your delicate state of health; for you yourself have sent me word of your recovery, and Lamiscus gives the same account. I have been much occupied with some commentaries, and have been among the Lucanians, and have met with the descendants of Orellus. I have now in my possession, and I send to you the treatises on Law, and Kingly Power, and Piety, and the Creation of the Universe. As for the rest, I have not been able to find them, but whenever I do find any, I will send them to you. "
Thus wrote Archytas. And Plato sent him an answer in the following terms:
PLATO TO ARCHYTAS, GREETING.
"I was exceedingly glad to receive the Commentaries which came from you, and I have admired their author in the greatest possible degree; and he seems to us to be a man worthy of his ancient ancestors. For they are said to have been originally natives of Myra; and to have been among the Trojans, whom Laomedon took with him, gallant men, as the story handed down by tradition attests. As for my Commentaries which you ask me for, they are not yet completed, but, such as they are I send them to you. And on the propriety of taking care of such things we are both agreed, so that I have no need to impress anything on you on that head. Farewell. "
These then are the letters which these philosophers wrote to one another.
V. There were four people of the name of Archytas. The first, this man of whom we are speaking. The second was a Mytilenean, a musician. The third wrote a treatise on Agriculture. The fourth was an epigrammatic poet. Some writers also make mention of a fifth, who was an architect; and there is a book on mechanics extant which is attributed to him; which begins in this way:
"This is what I heard from Teucer, the Carthaginian. "
And concerning the musician, the following story is told: That once he was reproached for not making himself heard, and he replied, "My organ contends on my behalf, and speaks. "
VI. Aristoxenus says, that this Pythagorean was never once defeated while acting as general. But that as he was attacked by envy, he once gave up his command, and his army was immediately taken prisoner.
VII. He was the first person who applied mathematical principles to mechanics, and reduced them to a system; and the first also who gave a methodical impulse to descriptive geometry in seeking, in the sections of a demicylinder for a proportional mean, which should enable him to find the double of a given cube. He was also the first person who ever gave the geometrical measure of a cube, as Plato mentions in his Republic.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ALCMAEON
I. Alcmaeon was a citizen of Crotona; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. And the chief part of his writings are on medical subjects; but he also at times discusses points of natural philosophy, and asserts that the greater part of human affairs have two sides. He appears to have been the first person who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy, as Favorinus affirms, in his Universal History; and he used to argue that the moon had the same nature for ever which she had at that moment.
II. He was the son of Pirithus, as he himself states at the beginning of his treatise, where he says, "Alcmaeon, of Crotona, the son of Pirithus, says this to Brontinus, and Leon, and Bathyllus. About things invisible, and things mortal, the Gods alone have a certain knowledge; but men may form conjectures . . . . " And so on.
He used also to say that the soul was immortal, and that it was in a state of perpetual motion in the same way as the sun.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF HIPPASUS
I. Hippasus was a citizen of Metapontum, and a pupil of Pythagoras.
II. He used to say that the time of the changes of the world was definite, and that the universe also was finite, and in a state of perpetual motion.
III. Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he left no writings behind him.
IV. There were two people of the name of Hippasus; this man, and another who wrote an account of the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, in five books. And he was himself a Lacedaemonian.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHILOLAUS
I. PHILOLAUS was a native of Crotona, and a pupil of Pythagoras, it was from him that Plato wrote to Dion to take care and purchase the books of Pythagoras.
II. And he died under suspicion of having designed to seize on the tyranny; and we have written an epigram on him:
I say that all men ought above all things
To guard against suspicion. For, though innocent,
Still if you are suspected, you're unfortunate.
And thus his native city of Crotona
Slew Philolaus; for the jealous citizens
Thought that his house betrayed a tyrant's purpose.
III. His theory was, that everything was produced by harmony and necessity. And he was the first person who affirmed that the earth moved in a circle; though some attribute the assertion of this principle to Icetas of Syracuse.
IV. He wrote one book, which Hermippus reports, on the authority of some unknown writer, that Plato the philosopher purchased when he was in Sicily (having come thither to the court of Dionysius), of the relations of Philolaus, for forty Alexandrian minae of silver; and that from this book he copied his Timaeus. But others say that Plato received it as a present, after having obtained his liberty for a young man, one of the disciples of Philolaus, who had been arrested by Dionysius. Demetrius, in his treatise on people of the same name, says that he was the first of the Pythagoreans who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy; and it begins thus:
"But nature in the world has been composed of bodies infinite and finite, and so is the whole world and all that is in it. "
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUDOXUS
I. Eudoxus was the son of Aeschines, and a native of Cnidos. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician, and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Archytas, and in medicine of Philistion, the Sicilian, as Callimachus relates in his Tablets; and Sotion, in his Successions, asserts that he was likewise a pupil of Plato; for that, when he was twenty-three years of age, and in very narrow circumstances, he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of the Socratic school. Some say that his attachment to Theomedon was cemented by nearer ties. And when he had arrived at Piraeus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two months there, he returned home again; and being again aided by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he recommended him to the priests.
II. And having remained there a year and four months, he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the Octacteris. From thence he went to Cyzicus, and to the Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist; he also went to the court of Mansolus. And then, in this manner, he returned again to Athens, having a great many disciples with him, for the sake, as some say, of annoying Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his school. Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the fashion of sitting in a semicircle.
Nichomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that pleasure was the good.
III. He was received in his own country with great honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows. He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and Geometry, and several other considerable works.
He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis.
And Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.
IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of Chrysippus, the son of Aethlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.
VI. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The first this man of whom we are speaking; the second, a Rhodian, who wrote histories; the third, a Sicilist, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three victories at the Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenaea,1 as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.
VI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the hundred and third Olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines. And he died in his fifty-third year. But when he was in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as it is reported by Favorinus in his Commentaries. And we have written an epigram on him, that runs thus:
'Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus
Learnt his own fate from th' holy fair-horned bull;
He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak;
Nor had kind nature e'er calf Apis gifted
With an articulately speaking mouth.
But standing on one side he lick'd his cloak,
Showing by this most plainly-in brief time
You shall put off your life. So death came soon,
When he had just seen three and fifty times
The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.
And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,2 on account of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we have gone through the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now speak of the Promiscuous philosophers, as they call them.
And we will first of all speak of Heraclitus.
1. There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic contests took place, the Dionysia kat' agrous, or, "in the fields;" the Lenaia, or ta en limnais, or "the marshes," a part of the city near the Acropolis, in which was situated the Lenaion, an enclosure dedicated to Bacchus; and the ta en astei, "in the city," or ta megala Dionysia. The comic contests usually took place at the second or Linaean festivals. Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.
2. endoxos, glorious.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF HERACLITUS
I. HERACLITUS was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heraceon, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad.
II. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain from his writings, in which he says, "Abundant learning does not form the mind; for if it did, it would have instructed Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and likewise Xenophanes, and Hecataeus. For the only piece of real wisdom is to know that idea, which by itself will govern everything on every occasion. He used to say, too, that Homer deserved to be expelled from the games and beaten, and Archilochus likewise. He used also to say, "It is more necessary to extinguish insolence, than to put out a fire. " Another of his sayings was, "The people ought to fight for the law, as for their city. " He also attacks the Ephesians for having banished his companion Hermodorus, when he says, "The Ephesians deserve to have all their youth put to death, and all those who are younger still banished from their city, inasmuch as they have banished Hermodorus, the best man among them, saying, "Let no one of us be pre-eminently good; and if there be any such person, let him go to another city and another people. "
And when he was requested to make laws for them, he refused, because the city was already immersed in a thoroughly bad constitution. And having retired to the temple of Diana with his children he began to play at dice; and when all the Ephesians flocked round him, he said, "You wretches, what are you wondering at? is it not better to do this, than to meddle with public affairs in your company? "
III. And at last becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains; feeding on grasses and plants, and in consequence of these habits, he was attacked by the dropsy, and so then he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced. And as he did himself no go good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years; and we have written an epigram upon him which runs thus:
I've often wondered much at Heraclitus,
That he should chose to live so miserably,
And die by such a miserable fate.
For fell disease did master all his body,
With water quenching all the light of his eyes,
And bringing darkness o'er his mind and body.
But Hermippus states, that what he asked the physicians was this, whether any one could draw off the water by depressing his intestines? and when they answered that they could not, he placed himself in the sun, and ordered his servants to plaster him over with cow-dung; and being stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was buried in the market-place. But Neanthes, of Cyzicus says, that as he could not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there, and on account of the alteration in his appearance, he was not discovered, and so was devoured by the dogs.
IV. And he was a wonderful person, from his boyhood, since, while he was young, he used to say that he knew nothing but when he had grown up, he then used to affirm that he knew everything. And he was no one's pupil, but he used to say, that he himself had investigated every thing, and had learned everything of himself. But Sotion relates, that some people affirmed that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes. And that Ariston, stated in his account of Heraclitus, that he was cured of the dropsy, and died of some other disease. And Hippobotus gives the same account.
V. There is a book of his extant, which is about nature generally, and it is divided into three discourses; one on the Universe; one on Politics; and one on Theology. And he deposited this book in the temple of Diana, as some authors report, having written it intentionally in an obscure style, in order that only those who were able men might comprehend it, and that it might not be exposed to ridicule at the hands of the common people. Timon attacks this man also, saying:
Among them came that cuckoo Heraclitus
The enigmatical obscure reviler
Of all the common people.
Theophrastus asserts, that it was out of melancholy that be left some of his works half finished, and wrote several, in completely different styles; and Antisthenes, in his Successions, adduces as a proof of his lofty spirit, the fact, that he yielded to his brother the title and privileges of royalty. 1
And his book had so high a reputation, that a sect arose in consequence of it, who were called after his own name, Heracliteans.
VI. The following may be set down in a general manner as his main principles: that everything is created from fire, and is dissolved into fire; that everything happens according to destiny, and that all existing things are harmonized, and made to agree together by opposite tendencies; and that all things are full of souls and daemones. He also discussed all the passions which exist in the world, and used also to contend that the sun was of that precise magnitude of which he appears to be. One of his sayings too was, that no one, by whatever road he might travel, could ever possibly find out the boundaries of the soul, so deeply hidden are the principles which regulate it. He used also to call opinion the sacred disease; and to say that eye-sight was often deceived. Sometimes, in his writings, he expresses himself with great brilliancy and clearness; so that even the most stupid man may easily understand him, and receive an elevation of soul from him. And his conciseness, and the dignity of his style, are incomparable.
In particulars, his doctrines are of this kind. That fire is an element, and that it is by the changes of fire that all things exist; being engendered sometimes by rarity, sometimes by density. But he explains nothing clearly. He also says, that everything is produced by contrariety, and that everything flows on like a river; that the universe is finite, and that there is one world, and that that is produced from fire, and that the whole world is in its turn again consumed by fire at certain periods, and that all this happens according to fate. That of the contraries, that which leads to production is called war and contest, and that which leads to the conflagration is called harmony and peace; that change is the road leading upward, and the road leading downward; and that the whole world exists according to it.
For that fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything else is produced; and then he refers almost everything to the evaporation which takes place from the sea; and this is the road which leads upwards. Also, that there are evaporations, both from earth and sea, some of which are bright and clear, and some are dark; and that the fire is increased by the dark ones, and the moisture by the others. But what the space which surrounds us is, he does not explain. He states, however, that there are vessels in it, turned with their hollow part towards us; in which all the bright evaporations are collected, and form flames, which are the stars; and that the brightest of these flames, and the hottest, is the light of the sun ; for that all the other stars are farther off from the earth; and that on this account, they give less light and warmth; and that the moon is nearer the earth, but does not move through a pure space; the sun, on the other hand, is situated in a transparent space, and one free from all admixture, preserving a well proportioned distance from us, on which account it gives us more light and more heat. And that the sun and moon are eclipsed, when the before-mentioned vessels are turned upwards. And that the different phases of the moon take place every month, as its vessel keeps gradually turning round. Moreover, that day and night, and months and years, and rains and winds, and things of that kind, all exist according to, and are caused by, the different evaporations.
For that the bright evaporation catching fire in the circle of the sun causes day, and the predominance of the opposite one causes night; and again, from the bright one the heat is increased so as to produce summer, and from the dark one the cold gains strength and produces winter; and he also explains the causes of the other phenomena in a corresponding manner.
But with respect to the earth, he does not explain at all of what character it is, nor does he do so in the case of the vessels; and these were his main doctrines.
VII. Now, what his opinion about Socrates was, and what expressions he used when he met with a treatise of his which Euripides brought him, according to the story told by Ariston, we have detailed in our account of Socrates. Seleucus, the grammarian, however, says that a man of the name of Croton, in his Diver, relates that it was a person of the name of Crates who first brought this book into Greece; and that he said that he wanted some Delian diver who would not be drowned in it. And the book is described under several titles; some calling it the Muses, some a treatise on Nature; but Diodotus calls it--
A well compacted helm to lead a man
Straight through the path of life.
Some call it a science of morals, the arrangement of the changes2 of unity and of everything.
VIII. They say that when he was asked why he preserved Silence, he said, "That you may talk. "
IX. Darius was very desirous to enjoy his conversation; and wrote thus to him:--
KING DARIUS, THE SON OF HYSTASPES, ADDRESSES HERACLITUS
OF EPHESUS, THE WISE MAN, GREETING HIM.
"You have written a book on Natural Philosophy, difficult to understand and difficult to explain. Accordingly, if in some parts it is explained literally, it seems to disclose a very important theory concerning the universal world, and all that is contained in it, as they are placed in a state of most divine motion. But commonly, the mind is kept in suspense, so that those who have studied your work the most, are not able precisely to disentangle the exact meaning of your expressions. Therefore, king Darius, the son of Hystaspes wishes to enjoy the benefit of hearing you discourse, and of receiving some Grecian instruction. Come, therefore, quickly to my sight, and to my royal palace; for the Greeks in general, do not accord to wise men the distinction which they deserve, and disregard the admirable expositions delivered by them, which are, however, worthy of being seriously listened to and studied; but with me you shall have every kind of distinction and honour, and you shall enjoy every day honourable and worthy conversation, and your pupils' life shall become virtuous, in accordance with your precepts. "
HERACLITUS, OF EPHESUS, TO KING DARIUS, THE SON OF
HYSTASPES, GREETING.
"All the men that exist in the world, are far removed from truth and just dealings; but they are full of evil foolishness, which leads them to insatiable covetousness and vain-glorious ambition. I, however, forgetting all their worthlessness, and shunning satiety, and who wish to avoid all envy on the part of my countrymen, and all appearance of arrogance, will never come to Persia, since I am quite contented with a little, and live as best suits my own inclination. "
X. This was the way in which the man behaved even to the king. And Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he also despised the Athenians among whom he had a very high reputation. And that though he was himself despised by the Ephesians, he nevertheless preferred his own home. Demetrius Phaleruus also mentions him in his Defence of Socrates.
XI. There were many people who undertook to interpret his book. For Antisthenes and Heraclides, Ponticus, and Cleanthes, and Sphaerus the Stoic; and besides them Pausanias, who was surnamed Heraclitistes, and Nicomedes, and Dionysius, all did so. And of the grammarians, Diodotus undertook the same task; and he says that the subject of the book is not natural philosophy, but politics; and that all that is said in it about natural philosophy, is only by way of illustration. And Hieronymus tells us, that a man of the name of Scythenus, an iambic poet, attempted to render the book into verse.
XII. There are many epigrams extant which were written upon him, and this is one of them:
I who lie here am Heraclitus, spare me
Ye rude unlettered men: 'Twas not for you
That I did labour, but for wiser people.
One man may be to me a countless host,
And an unnumbered multitude be no one;
And this I still say in the shades below.
And there is another expressed thus:
Be not too hasty, skimming o'er the book
Of Heraclitus; 'tis a difficult road,
For mist is there, and darkness hard to pierce.
But if you have a guide who knows his system,
Then everything is clearer than the sun.
XIII. There were five people of the name of Heraclitus. The first was this philosopher of ours. The second a lyric poet, who wrote a panegyrical hymn on the Twelve Gods. The third was an Elegiac poet, of Halicarnassus; on whom Callimachus wrote the following epigram:
I heard, O Heraclitus, of your death,
And the news filled my eyes with mournful tears,
When I remembered all the happy hours
When we with talk beguiled the setting sun.
You now are dust; but still the honeyed voice
Of your sweet converse doth and will survive;
Nor can fell death, which all things else destroys,
Lay upon that his ruthless conquering grasp.
The fourth was a Lesbian, who wrote a history of Macedonia. The fifth was a man who blended jest with earnest; and who, having been a harp-player, abandoned that profession for a serio-comic style of writing.
1. According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.
2. There is probably some corruption in the text here.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF XENOPHANES
I. XENOPHANES was the son of Dexius, or, as Apollodorus says, of Orthomenes. He was a citizen of Colophon; and is praised by Timon. Accordingly, he says:
Xenophanes, not much a slave to vanity,
The wise reprover of the tricks of Homer.
He, having been banished from his own country, lived at Zande, in Sicily, and at Catana.
II. And, according to the statements made by some people, he was a pupil of no one; but, as others say, he was a pupil of Boton the Athenian; or, as another account again affirms, of Archelaus. He was, if we may believe Sotion, a contemporary of Anaxemander.
III. He wrote poems in hexameter and in elegiac verse; and also he wrote iambics against Hesiod and Homer, attacking the things said in their poems about the Gods. He also used to recite his own poems. It is said likewise, that he argued against the opinions of Thales and Pythagoras, and that he also attacked Epimenides. He lived to an extreme old age; as he says somewhere himself:
Threescore and seven long years are fully passed,
Since first my doctrines spread abroad through Greece:
And 'twixt that time and my first view of light
Six lustres more must added be to them:
If I am right at all about my age,
Lacking but eight years of a century.
His doctrine was, that there were four elements of existing things; and an infinite number of worlds, which were all unchangeable. He thought that the clouds were produced by the vapour which was borne upwards from the sun, and which lifted them up into the circumambient space. That the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man; that the universe could see, and that the universe could hear, but could not breathe; and that it was in all its parts intellect, and wisdom, and eternity. He was the first person who asserted that everything which is produced is perishable, and that the soul is a spirit. He used also to say that the many was inferior to unity. Also, that we ought to associate with tyrants either as little as possible, or else as pleasantly as possible.
When Empedocles said to him that the wise man was undiscoverable, he replied, "Very likely; or it takes a wise man to discover a wise man. " And Sotion says, that he was the first person who asserted that everything is incomprehensible. But he is mistaken in this.
Xenophanes wrote a poem on the Founding of Colophon; and also, on the Colonisation of Elea, in Italy, consisting of two thousand verses. And he flourished about the sixtieth olympiad.
IV. Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, and Phenaetius the Stoic, in his essay on Cheerfulness, relate that he buried his sons with his own hands, as Anaxagoras had also done. And he seems to have been detested by the Pythagoreans, Parmeniscus, and Orestades, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries.
V. There was also another Xenophanes, a native of Lesbos, and an iambic poet.
These [Heraclitus and Xenophanes] are the Promiscuous or unattached philosophers.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PARMENIDES
I. PARMENIDES, the son of Pyres, and a citizen of Elea, was a pupil of Xenophanes. And Theophrastus, in his Abridgment, says that he was also a pupil of Anaximander. However, though he was a pupil of Xenophanes he was not afterwards a follower of his; but he attached himself to Aminias, and Diochartes the Pythagorean, as Sotion relates, which last was a poor but honourable and virtuous man. And he it was whose follower he became, and after he was dead he erected a shrine, or heroon, in his honour. And so Parmenides, who was of a noble family and possessed of considerable wealth, was induced, not by Xenophanes but by Aminias, to embrace the tranquil life of a philosopher.
II. He was the first person who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form; and that it was situated in the centre of the universe. He also taught that there were two elements, fire and earth; and that one of them occupies the place of the maker, the other that of the matter. He also used to teach that man was originally made out of clay; and that they were composed of two parts, the hot and the cold; of which, in fact, everything consists. Another of his doctrines was, that the mind and the soul were the same thing, as we are informed by Theophrastus, in his Natural Philosophy, when he enumerates the theories of nearly all the different philosophers.
He also used to say that philosophy was of a twofold character; one kind resting on certain truth, the other on opinion. On which account he says some where:
And 'twill be needful for you well to know,
The fearless heart of all-convincing truth:
Also the opinions, though less sure, of men,
Which rest upon no certain evidence.
III. Parmenides too philosophizes in his poems; as Hesiod and Xenophanes, and Empedocles used to. And he used to say that argument was the test of truth; and that the sensations were not trustworthy witnesses. Accordingly, he says:
Let not the common usages of men
Persuade your better taught experience,
To trust to men's unsafe deceitful sight,
Or treacherous ears, or random speaking tongue:
Reason alone will prove the truth of facts.
On which account Timon says of him:
The vigorous mind of wise Parmenides,
Who classes all the errors of the thoughts
Under vain phantasies.
Plato inscribed one of his dialogues with his name--Parmenides or an essay on Ideas. He flourished about the sixty-ninth Olympiad. He appears to have been the first person who discovered that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star, as Favorinus records, in the fifth book of his Commentaries. Some, however, attribute this discovery to Pythagoras. And Callimachus asserts that the poem in which this doctrine is promulgated is not his work.
IV. He is said also to have given laws to his fellow-citizens, as Speusippus records, in his account of the Philosophers. He was also the first employer of the question called the Achilles,1 as Favorinus assures us in his Universal History.
V. There was also another Parmenides, an orator, who wrote a treatise on the art of Oratory.
1. See the account of Zeno the Cittiaean.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF MELISSUS
I. MELISSUS was a Samian, and the son of Ithageses. He was a pupil of Parmenides; but he also had conversed with Heraclitus, when he recommended him to the Ephesians, who were unacquainted with him, as Hippocrates recommended Democritus to the people of Abdera.
II. He was a man greatly occupied in political affairs, and held in great esteem among his fellow citizens; on which account he was elected admiral. And he was admired still more on account of his private virtues.
III. His doctrine was, that the Universe was infinite, unsusceptible of change, immoveable, and one, being always like to itself, and complete; and that there was no such thing as real motion, but that there only appeared to be such. As respecting the Gods, too, he denied that there was any occasion to give a definition of them, for that there was no certain knowledge of them.
IV.
IV. Satyrus tells us that he used to say that he had been present when Empedocles was practising magic; and that he professes this science, and many others too in his poems when he says:
And all the drugs which can relieve disease,
Or soften the approach of age, shall be
Revealed to your inquiries; I do know them,
And I to you alone will them disclose.
You shall restrain the fierce unbridled winds,
Which, rushing o'er the earth, bow down the corn,
And crush the farmer's hopes. And when you will,
You shall recall them back to sweep the land:
Then you shall learn to dry the rainy clouds,
And bid warm summer cheer the heart of men.
Again at your behest, the drought shall yield
To wholesome show'rs : when you give the word
Hell shall restore its dead.
V. And Timaus, in his eighteenth book, says, that this man was held in great esteem on many accounts; for that once, when the etesian gales were blowing violently, so as to injure the crops, he ordered some asses to be flayed, and some bladders to be made of their hides, and these he placed on the hills and high places to catch the wind. And so, when the wind ceased, he was called wind-forbidder (kolusanemas). And Heraclides, in his treatise on Diseases, says that he dictated to Pausanias the statement which he made about the dead woman. Now Pausanias, as both Aristippus and Satyrus agree, was much attached to him; and he dedicated to him the works which he wrote on Natural Philosophy, in the following terms:
Hear, O Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.
He also wrote an epigram upon him:--
Gela, his native land, does boast the birth
Of wise Anchites' son, that great physician,
So fitly named Pausanias, from his skill;
A genuine son of Aesculapius,
Who has stopped many men whom fell disease
Marked for its own, from treading those dark paths
Which lead to Proserpine's infernal realms.
VI. The case of the dead woman above mentioned, Heraclides says, was something of this sort; that he kept her corpse for thirty days dead, and yet free from corruption; on which account he has called himself a physician and a prophet, taking it also from these verses :--
Friends who the mighty citadel inhabit,
Which crowns the golden waves of Acragas.
Votaries of noble actions, Hail to ye;
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you well revered by all,
As is my due, crowned with holy fillets
And rosy garlands. And whene'er I come
To wealthy cities, then from men and women
Due honours meets me; and crowds follow me,
Seeking the way which leads to gainful glory.
Some ask for oracles, and some entreat,
For remedies against all kinds of sickness.
VII. And he says that Agrigentum was a very large city, since it had eight hundred thousand inhabitants; on which account Empedocles, seeing the people immersed in luxury,said, "The men of Agrigentum devote themselves wholly to luxury as if they were to die to-morrow, but they furnish their houses as if they were to live for ever. "
VIII. It is said that Cleomenes, the rhapsodist, sung this very poem, called the Purifications, at Olympia; at least this is the account given by Phavorinus, in his Commentaries.
IX. And Aristotle says, that he was a most liberal man, and far removed from anything like a domineering spirit; since he constantly refused the sovereign power when it was offered to him, as Xanthus assures us in his account of him, showing plainly that he preferred a simple style of living. And Timaus tells the same story, giving at the same time the reason why he was so very popular. For he says that when on one occasion, he was invited to a banquet, by one of the magistrates, the wine was carried about, but the supper was not served up. And as every one else kept silence, he, disapproving of what he saw, bade the servants bring in the supper; but the person who had invited him said that he was waiting for the secretary of the council. And when he came he was appointed master of the feast, at the instigation of the giver of it, and then he gave a plain intimation of his tyrannical inclinations, for he ordered all the guests to drink, and those who did not drink were to have the wine poured over their heads. Empedocles said nothing at the moment, but the next day he summoned them before the court, and procured the execution of both the entertainer and the master of the feast.
And this was the beginning of his political career. And at another time, when Acron, the physician, asked of the council a place where he might erect a monument to his father, on account of his eminence as a physician, Empedocles came forward and opposed any such grant, adducing many arguments on the ground of equality, and also putting the following question :-- "And what elegy shall we inscribe upon it? Shall we say:-
Akron ietron Akron Akragantinon patros akrou
kruptei kremnos akros patridos akrotates.
But some give the second line thus :-
'Akrotates koruphes tumpos akros katechei.
And others assert that it is the composition of Simonides.
But afterwards Empedocles abolished the assembly of a thousand, and established a council in which the magistrates were to hold office for three years, on such a footing that it should consist not only of rich men, but of those who were favourers of the interests of the people. Timaeus, however, in his first and second book (For he often mentions him), says that he appeared to entertain opinions adverse to a republic. And, as far as his poetry goes, any one may see that he was arrogant and self-satisfied.
Accordingly, he says :
Hail to ye,
I an immortal. God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you:
And so on.
But when he went to the Olympic games he was considered a worthy object of general attention; so that there was no mention made of any one else in comparison of Empedocles.
X. Afterwards indeed, when Agrigentum was settled, the descendants of his enemies opposed his return; on which account he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. And Timon has not let even Empedocles escape, but satirises him in this style, saying:
And then Empedocles, the honeyed speaker
Of soft forensic speeches; he did take
As many offices as he was able,
Creating magistrates who wanted helpers.
But there are two accounts of the manner of his death.
XI. For Heraclides, relating the story about the dead woman, how Empedocles got great glory from sending away a dead woman restored to life, says that he celebrated a sacrifice in the field of Pisianax, and that some of his friends were invited, among whom was Pausanias. And then, after the banquet, they lay down, some going a little way off, and some lying under the trees close by in the field, and some wherever they happened to choose. But Empedocles himself remained in the place where he had been sitting. But when day broke, and they arose, he alone was not found. And when he was sought for, and the servants were examined and said that they did not know, one of them said, that at midnight he had heard a loud voice calling Empedocles; and that then he himself rose up and saw a great light from heaven, but nothing else. And as they were all amazed at what had taken place, Pausanias descended and sent some people to look for him; but afterwards he was commanded not to busy himself about the matter, as he was informed that what had happened was deserving of thankfulness, and that they behoved to sacrifice to Empedocles as to one who had become a God.
Hermippus says also, that a woman of the name of Panthea, a native of Agrigentum, who had been given over by the physicians, was cured by him, and that it was on this account that he celebrated a sacrifice; and that the guests invited were about eighty in number. But Hippobotus says that he rose up and went away as if he were going to mount Aetna; and that when he arrived at the crater of fire he leaped in, and disappeared, wishing to establish a belief that he had become a God. But afterwards the truth was detected by one of his slippers having been dropped. For he used to wear slippers with brazen soles. Pausanias, however, contradicts this statement.
But Diodorus, of Ephesus, writing about Anaximander, says that Empedocles imitated him; indulging in a tragic sort of pride and wearing magnificent apparel. And when a pestilence attacked the people of Selinus, by reason of the bad smells arising from the adjacent river, so that the men died and the women bore dead children, Empedocles contrived a plan, and brought into the same channel two other rivers at his own expense; and so, by mixing their waters with that of the other river, he sweetened the stream. And as the pestilence was removed in this way, when the people of Selinus were on one occasion holding a festival on the bank of the river, Empedocles appeared among them; and they rising up, offered him adoration, and prayed to him as to a God. And he, wishing to confirm this idea which they had adopted of him, leaped into the fire.
But Timaeus contradicts all these stories; saying expressly, that he departed into Peloponnesus, and never returned at all, on which account the manner of his death is uncertain. And he especially denies the tale of Heraclides in his fourth book; for he says that Pisianax was a Syracusan, and had no field in the district of Agrigentum ; but that Pausanias erected a monument in honour of his friend, since such a report had got about concerning him; and, as he was a rich man, made it a statue and little chapel, as one might erect to a God. "How then," adds Timaus, "could he have leaped into a crater, of which, though they were in the neighbourhood, he had never made any mention? He died then in Peloponnesus; and there is nothing extraordinary in there being no tomb of his to be seen; for there are many other men who have no tomb visible. " These are the words of Timaeus; and he adds further, "But Heraclides is altogether a man fond of strange stories, and one who would assert that a man had fallen from the moon. "
Hippobotus says, that there was a clothed statue of Empedocles which lay formerly in Agrigentum, but which was afterwards placed in front of the Senate House of the Romans divested of its clothing, as the Romans had carried it off and erected it there. And there are traces of some inscriptions or reliefs still discernible on it.
Neanthes, of Cyzicus, who also wrote about the Pythagoreans, says, that when Meton was dead, the seeds of tyrannical power began to appear; and that then Empedocles persuaded the Agrigentines to desist from their factious disputes, and to establish political equality. And besides, as there were many of the female citizens destitute of dowry, he portioned them out of his own private fortune. And relying on these actions of his, he assumed a purple robe and wore a golden circlet on his hand, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries. He also wore slippers with brazen soles, and a Delphian garland. His hair was let grow very long, and he had boys to follow him; and he himself always preserved a solemn countenance, and a uniformly grave deportment. And he marched about in such style, that he seemed to all the citizens, who met him and who admired his deportment, to exhibit a sort of likeness to kingly power. And afterwards, it happened that as on the occasion of some festival he was going in a chariot to Messene, he was upset and broke his thigh ; and he was taken ill in consequence, and so died, at the age of seventy-seven. And his tomb is in Megara.
But as to his age, Aristotle differs from this account of Neanthes ; for he asserts that he died at sixty years of age; others again say, that he was a hundred and nine when he died. He flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad. Demetrius, of Traezen, in his book against the Sophists, reports that, as the lines of Homer say :--
He now, self-murdered, from a beam depends,
And his mad soul to blackest hell descends.
But in the letter of Telauges, which has been mentioned before, it is said that he slipped down through old age, and fell into the sea, and so died.
And this is enough to say about his death.
There is also a jesting epigram of ours upon him, in our collection of Poems in all Metres, which runs thus:
You too, Empedocles, essayed to purge
Your body in the rapid flames, and drank
The liquid fire from the restless crater;
I say not that you threw yourself at once
Into the stream of Aetna's fiery flood.
But seeking to conceal yourself you fell,
And so you met with unintended death.
And another:--
'Tis said the wise Empedocles did fall
Out of his chariot, and so broke his thigh:
But if he leapt into the flames of Aetna,
How could his tomb be shown in Megara?
XII. The following were some of his doctrines. He used to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:
Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.
Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual. Accordingly, he says subsequently:
Sometimes in friendship bound they coalesce,
Sometimes they're parted by fell discord's hate.
And he asserts that the sun is a vast assemblage of fire, and that it is larger than the moon. And the moon is disk-shaped; and that the heaven itself is like crystal; and that the soul inhabits every kind of form of animals and plants. Accordingly, he thus expresses himself:
For once I was a boy, and once a girl.
A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea,
XIII. His writings on Natural Philosophy and his Purifications extend to five thousand verses; and his Medical Poem to six hundred; and his Tragedies we have spoken of previously.
LIFE OF EPICHARMUS
I. EPICHARMUS was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he came to Syracuse, as he himself tells us in his writings. And on his statue there is the following inscription.
As the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea far exceeds the river streams:
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass,
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned.
II. He has left behind him Commentaries in which he treats of natural philosophy, and delivers apophthegms, and discusses medicine. He has also added brief notes to many of his commentaries, in which he declares plainly that he is the author of the works.
III. He died at the age of ninety years.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ARCHYTUS
I. ARCHYTAS was a native of Tarentum, and the son of Innesagoras; or, as Aristoxenus relates, of Histiaeus.
II. He also was a Pythagorean; and he it was who saved Plato's life by means of a letter, when he was in danger of being put to death by Dionysius.
III. He was a man held in very general esteem on account of his universal virtue; and he was seven times appointed general of his countrymen, when no one else had ever held the office for more than one year, as the law forbade it to be held for a longer period.
IV. Plato wrote his letters to him; as he had begun the correspondence by writing himself to Plato, which he did in the following manner:
ARCHYTAS TO PLATO, GREETING.
"I am very glad that you have recovered from your delicate state of health; for you yourself have sent me word of your recovery, and Lamiscus gives the same account. I have been much occupied with some commentaries, and have been among the Lucanians, and have met with the descendants of Orellus. I have now in my possession, and I send to you the treatises on Law, and Kingly Power, and Piety, and the Creation of the Universe. As for the rest, I have not been able to find them, but whenever I do find any, I will send them to you. "
Thus wrote Archytas. And Plato sent him an answer in the following terms:
PLATO TO ARCHYTAS, GREETING.
"I was exceedingly glad to receive the Commentaries which came from you, and I have admired their author in the greatest possible degree; and he seems to us to be a man worthy of his ancient ancestors. For they are said to have been originally natives of Myra; and to have been among the Trojans, whom Laomedon took with him, gallant men, as the story handed down by tradition attests. As for my Commentaries which you ask me for, they are not yet completed, but, such as they are I send them to you. And on the propriety of taking care of such things we are both agreed, so that I have no need to impress anything on you on that head. Farewell. "
These then are the letters which these philosophers wrote to one another.
V. There were four people of the name of Archytas. The first, this man of whom we are speaking. The second was a Mytilenean, a musician. The third wrote a treatise on Agriculture. The fourth was an epigrammatic poet. Some writers also make mention of a fifth, who was an architect; and there is a book on mechanics extant which is attributed to him; which begins in this way:
"This is what I heard from Teucer, the Carthaginian. "
And concerning the musician, the following story is told: That once he was reproached for not making himself heard, and he replied, "My organ contends on my behalf, and speaks. "
VI. Aristoxenus says, that this Pythagorean was never once defeated while acting as general. But that as he was attacked by envy, he once gave up his command, and his army was immediately taken prisoner.
VII. He was the first person who applied mathematical principles to mechanics, and reduced them to a system; and the first also who gave a methodical impulse to descriptive geometry in seeking, in the sections of a demicylinder for a proportional mean, which should enable him to find the double of a given cube. He was also the first person who ever gave the geometrical measure of a cube, as Plato mentions in his Republic.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ALCMAEON
I. Alcmaeon was a citizen of Crotona; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. And the chief part of his writings are on medical subjects; but he also at times discusses points of natural philosophy, and asserts that the greater part of human affairs have two sides. He appears to have been the first person who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy, as Favorinus affirms, in his Universal History; and he used to argue that the moon had the same nature for ever which she had at that moment.
II. He was the son of Pirithus, as he himself states at the beginning of his treatise, where he says, "Alcmaeon, of Crotona, the son of Pirithus, says this to Brontinus, and Leon, and Bathyllus. About things invisible, and things mortal, the Gods alone have a certain knowledge; but men may form conjectures . . . . " And so on.
He used also to say that the soul was immortal, and that it was in a state of perpetual motion in the same way as the sun.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF HIPPASUS
I. Hippasus was a citizen of Metapontum, and a pupil of Pythagoras.
II. He used to say that the time of the changes of the world was definite, and that the universe also was finite, and in a state of perpetual motion.
III. Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he left no writings behind him.
IV. There were two people of the name of Hippasus; this man, and another who wrote an account of the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, in five books. And he was himself a Lacedaemonian.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHILOLAUS
I. PHILOLAUS was a native of Crotona, and a pupil of Pythagoras, it was from him that Plato wrote to Dion to take care and purchase the books of Pythagoras.
II. And he died under suspicion of having designed to seize on the tyranny; and we have written an epigram on him:
I say that all men ought above all things
To guard against suspicion. For, though innocent,
Still if you are suspected, you're unfortunate.
And thus his native city of Crotona
Slew Philolaus; for the jealous citizens
Thought that his house betrayed a tyrant's purpose.
III. His theory was, that everything was produced by harmony and necessity. And he was the first person who affirmed that the earth moved in a circle; though some attribute the assertion of this principle to Icetas of Syracuse.
IV. He wrote one book, which Hermippus reports, on the authority of some unknown writer, that Plato the philosopher purchased when he was in Sicily (having come thither to the court of Dionysius), of the relations of Philolaus, for forty Alexandrian minae of silver; and that from this book he copied his Timaeus. But others say that Plato received it as a present, after having obtained his liberty for a young man, one of the disciples of Philolaus, who had been arrested by Dionysius. Demetrius, in his treatise on people of the same name, says that he was the first of the Pythagoreans who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy; and it begins thus:
"But nature in the world has been composed of bodies infinite and finite, and so is the whole world and all that is in it. "
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUDOXUS
I. Eudoxus was the son of Aeschines, and a native of Cnidos. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician, and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Archytas, and in medicine of Philistion, the Sicilian, as Callimachus relates in his Tablets; and Sotion, in his Successions, asserts that he was likewise a pupil of Plato; for that, when he was twenty-three years of age, and in very narrow circumstances, he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of the Socratic school. Some say that his attachment to Theomedon was cemented by nearer ties. And when he had arrived at Piraeus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two months there, he returned home again; and being again aided by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he recommended him to the priests.
II. And having remained there a year and four months, he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the Octacteris. From thence he went to Cyzicus, and to the Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist; he also went to the court of Mansolus. And then, in this manner, he returned again to Athens, having a great many disciples with him, for the sake, as some say, of annoying Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his school. Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the fashion of sitting in a semicircle.
Nichomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that pleasure was the good.
III. He was received in his own country with great honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows. He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and Geometry, and several other considerable works.
He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis.
And Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.
IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of Chrysippus, the son of Aethlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.
VI. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The first this man of whom we are speaking; the second, a Rhodian, who wrote histories; the third, a Sicilist, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three victories at the Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenaea,1 as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.
VI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the hundred and third Olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines. And he died in his fifty-third year. But when he was in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as it is reported by Favorinus in his Commentaries. And we have written an epigram on him, that runs thus:
'Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus
Learnt his own fate from th' holy fair-horned bull;
He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak;
Nor had kind nature e'er calf Apis gifted
With an articulately speaking mouth.
But standing on one side he lick'd his cloak,
Showing by this most plainly-in brief time
You shall put off your life. So death came soon,
When he had just seen three and fifty times
The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.
And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,2 on account of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we have gone through the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now speak of the Promiscuous philosophers, as they call them.
And we will first of all speak of Heraclitus.
1. There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic contests took place, the Dionysia kat' agrous, or, "in the fields;" the Lenaia, or ta en limnais, or "the marshes," a part of the city near the Acropolis, in which was situated the Lenaion, an enclosure dedicated to Bacchus; and the ta en astei, "in the city," or ta megala Dionysia. The comic contests usually took place at the second or Linaean festivals. Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.
2. endoxos, glorious.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF HERACLITUS
I. HERACLITUS was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heraceon, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad.
II. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain from his writings, in which he says, "Abundant learning does not form the mind; for if it did, it would have instructed Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and likewise Xenophanes, and Hecataeus. For the only piece of real wisdom is to know that idea, which by itself will govern everything on every occasion. He used to say, too, that Homer deserved to be expelled from the games and beaten, and Archilochus likewise. He used also to say, "It is more necessary to extinguish insolence, than to put out a fire. " Another of his sayings was, "The people ought to fight for the law, as for their city. " He also attacks the Ephesians for having banished his companion Hermodorus, when he says, "The Ephesians deserve to have all their youth put to death, and all those who are younger still banished from their city, inasmuch as they have banished Hermodorus, the best man among them, saying, "Let no one of us be pre-eminently good; and if there be any such person, let him go to another city and another people. "
And when he was requested to make laws for them, he refused, because the city was already immersed in a thoroughly bad constitution. And having retired to the temple of Diana with his children he began to play at dice; and when all the Ephesians flocked round him, he said, "You wretches, what are you wondering at? is it not better to do this, than to meddle with public affairs in your company? "
III. And at last becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains; feeding on grasses and plants, and in consequence of these habits, he was attacked by the dropsy, and so then he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced. And as he did himself no go good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years; and we have written an epigram upon him which runs thus:
I've often wondered much at Heraclitus,
That he should chose to live so miserably,
And die by such a miserable fate.
For fell disease did master all his body,
With water quenching all the light of his eyes,
And bringing darkness o'er his mind and body.
But Hermippus states, that what he asked the physicians was this, whether any one could draw off the water by depressing his intestines? and when they answered that they could not, he placed himself in the sun, and ordered his servants to plaster him over with cow-dung; and being stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was buried in the market-place. But Neanthes, of Cyzicus says, that as he could not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there, and on account of the alteration in his appearance, he was not discovered, and so was devoured by the dogs.
IV. And he was a wonderful person, from his boyhood, since, while he was young, he used to say that he knew nothing but when he had grown up, he then used to affirm that he knew everything. And he was no one's pupil, but he used to say, that he himself had investigated every thing, and had learned everything of himself. But Sotion relates, that some people affirmed that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes. And that Ariston, stated in his account of Heraclitus, that he was cured of the dropsy, and died of some other disease. And Hippobotus gives the same account.
V. There is a book of his extant, which is about nature generally, and it is divided into three discourses; one on the Universe; one on Politics; and one on Theology. And he deposited this book in the temple of Diana, as some authors report, having written it intentionally in an obscure style, in order that only those who were able men might comprehend it, and that it might not be exposed to ridicule at the hands of the common people. Timon attacks this man also, saying:
Among them came that cuckoo Heraclitus
The enigmatical obscure reviler
Of all the common people.
Theophrastus asserts, that it was out of melancholy that be left some of his works half finished, and wrote several, in completely different styles; and Antisthenes, in his Successions, adduces as a proof of his lofty spirit, the fact, that he yielded to his brother the title and privileges of royalty. 1
And his book had so high a reputation, that a sect arose in consequence of it, who were called after his own name, Heracliteans.
VI. The following may be set down in a general manner as his main principles: that everything is created from fire, and is dissolved into fire; that everything happens according to destiny, and that all existing things are harmonized, and made to agree together by opposite tendencies; and that all things are full of souls and daemones. He also discussed all the passions which exist in the world, and used also to contend that the sun was of that precise magnitude of which he appears to be. One of his sayings too was, that no one, by whatever road he might travel, could ever possibly find out the boundaries of the soul, so deeply hidden are the principles which regulate it. He used also to call opinion the sacred disease; and to say that eye-sight was often deceived. Sometimes, in his writings, he expresses himself with great brilliancy and clearness; so that even the most stupid man may easily understand him, and receive an elevation of soul from him. And his conciseness, and the dignity of his style, are incomparable.
In particulars, his doctrines are of this kind. That fire is an element, and that it is by the changes of fire that all things exist; being engendered sometimes by rarity, sometimes by density. But he explains nothing clearly. He also says, that everything is produced by contrariety, and that everything flows on like a river; that the universe is finite, and that there is one world, and that that is produced from fire, and that the whole world is in its turn again consumed by fire at certain periods, and that all this happens according to fate. That of the contraries, that which leads to production is called war and contest, and that which leads to the conflagration is called harmony and peace; that change is the road leading upward, and the road leading downward; and that the whole world exists according to it.
For that fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything else is produced; and then he refers almost everything to the evaporation which takes place from the sea; and this is the road which leads upwards. Also, that there are evaporations, both from earth and sea, some of which are bright and clear, and some are dark; and that the fire is increased by the dark ones, and the moisture by the others. But what the space which surrounds us is, he does not explain. He states, however, that there are vessels in it, turned with their hollow part towards us; in which all the bright evaporations are collected, and form flames, which are the stars; and that the brightest of these flames, and the hottest, is the light of the sun ; for that all the other stars are farther off from the earth; and that on this account, they give less light and warmth; and that the moon is nearer the earth, but does not move through a pure space; the sun, on the other hand, is situated in a transparent space, and one free from all admixture, preserving a well proportioned distance from us, on which account it gives us more light and more heat. And that the sun and moon are eclipsed, when the before-mentioned vessels are turned upwards. And that the different phases of the moon take place every month, as its vessel keeps gradually turning round. Moreover, that day and night, and months and years, and rains and winds, and things of that kind, all exist according to, and are caused by, the different evaporations.
For that the bright evaporation catching fire in the circle of the sun causes day, and the predominance of the opposite one causes night; and again, from the bright one the heat is increased so as to produce summer, and from the dark one the cold gains strength and produces winter; and he also explains the causes of the other phenomena in a corresponding manner.
But with respect to the earth, he does not explain at all of what character it is, nor does he do so in the case of the vessels; and these were his main doctrines.
VII. Now, what his opinion about Socrates was, and what expressions he used when he met with a treatise of his which Euripides brought him, according to the story told by Ariston, we have detailed in our account of Socrates. Seleucus, the grammarian, however, says that a man of the name of Croton, in his Diver, relates that it was a person of the name of Crates who first brought this book into Greece; and that he said that he wanted some Delian diver who would not be drowned in it. And the book is described under several titles; some calling it the Muses, some a treatise on Nature; but Diodotus calls it--
A well compacted helm to lead a man
Straight through the path of life.
Some call it a science of morals, the arrangement of the changes2 of unity and of everything.
VIII. They say that when he was asked why he preserved Silence, he said, "That you may talk. "
IX. Darius was very desirous to enjoy his conversation; and wrote thus to him:--
KING DARIUS, THE SON OF HYSTASPES, ADDRESSES HERACLITUS
OF EPHESUS, THE WISE MAN, GREETING HIM.
"You have written a book on Natural Philosophy, difficult to understand and difficult to explain. Accordingly, if in some parts it is explained literally, it seems to disclose a very important theory concerning the universal world, and all that is contained in it, as they are placed in a state of most divine motion. But commonly, the mind is kept in suspense, so that those who have studied your work the most, are not able precisely to disentangle the exact meaning of your expressions. Therefore, king Darius, the son of Hystaspes wishes to enjoy the benefit of hearing you discourse, and of receiving some Grecian instruction. Come, therefore, quickly to my sight, and to my royal palace; for the Greeks in general, do not accord to wise men the distinction which they deserve, and disregard the admirable expositions delivered by them, which are, however, worthy of being seriously listened to and studied; but with me you shall have every kind of distinction and honour, and you shall enjoy every day honourable and worthy conversation, and your pupils' life shall become virtuous, in accordance with your precepts. "
HERACLITUS, OF EPHESUS, TO KING DARIUS, THE SON OF
HYSTASPES, GREETING.
"All the men that exist in the world, are far removed from truth and just dealings; but they are full of evil foolishness, which leads them to insatiable covetousness and vain-glorious ambition. I, however, forgetting all their worthlessness, and shunning satiety, and who wish to avoid all envy on the part of my countrymen, and all appearance of arrogance, will never come to Persia, since I am quite contented with a little, and live as best suits my own inclination. "
X. This was the way in which the man behaved even to the king. And Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he also despised the Athenians among whom he had a very high reputation. And that though he was himself despised by the Ephesians, he nevertheless preferred his own home. Demetrius Phaleruus also mentions him in his Defence of Socrates.
XI. There were many people who undertook to interpret his book. For Antisthenes and Heraclides, Ponticus, and Cleanthes, and Sphaerus the Stoic; and besides them Pausanias, who was surnamed Heraclitistes, and Nicomedes, and Dionysius, all did so. And of the grammarians, Diodotus undertook the same task; and he says that the subject of the book is not natural philosophy, but politics; and that all that is said in it about natural philosophy, is only by way of illustration. And Hieronymus tells us, that a man of the name of Scythenus, an iambic poet, attempted to render the book into verse.
XII. There are many epigrams extant which were written upon him, and this is one of them:
I who lie here am Heraclitus, spare me
Ye rude unlettered men: 'Twas not for you
That I did labour, but for wiser people.
One man may be to me a countless host,
And an unnumbered multitude be no one;
And this I still say in the shades below.
And there is another expressed thus:
Be not too hasty, skimming o'er the book
Of Heraclitus; 'tis a difficult road,
For mist is there, and darkness hard to pierce.
But if you have a guide who knows his system,
Then everything is clearer than the sun.
XIII. There were five people of the name of Heraclitus. The first was this philosopher of ours. The second a lyric poet, who wrote a panegyrical hymn on the Twelve Gods. The third was an Elegiac poet, of Halicarnassus; on whom Callimachus wrote the following epigram:
I heard, O Heraclitus, of your death,
And the news filled my eyes with mournful tears,
When I remembered all the happy hours
When we with talk beguiled the setting sun.
You now are dust; but still the honeyed voice
Of your sweet converse doth and will survive;
Nor can fell death, which all things else destroys,
Lay upon that his ruthless conquering grasp.
The fourth was a Lesbian, who wrote a history of Macedonia. The fifth was a man who blended jest with earnest; and who, having been a harp-player, abandoned that profession for a serio-comic style of writing.
1. According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.
2. There is probably some corruption in the text here.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF XENOPHANES
I. XENOPHANES was the son of Dexius, or, as Apollodorus says, of Orthomenes. He was a citizen of Colophon; and is praised by Timon. Accordingly, he says:
Xenophanes, not much a slave to vanity,
The wise reprover of the tricks of Homer.
He, having been banished from his own country, lived at Zande, in Sicily, and at Catana.
II. And, according to the statements made by some people, he was a pupil of no one; but, as others say, he was a pupil of Boton the Athenian; or, as another account again affirms, of Archelaus. He was, if we may believe Sotion, a contemporary of Anaxemander.
III. He wrote poems in hexameter and in elegiac verse; and also he wrote iambics against Hesiod and Homer, attacking the things said in their poems about the Gods. He also used to recite his own poems. It is said likewise, that he argued against the opinions of Thales and Pythagoras, and that he also attacked Epimenides. He lived to an extreme old age; as he says somewhere himself:
Threescore and seven long years are fully passed,
Since first my doctrines spread abroad through Greece:
And 'twixt that time and my first view of light
Six lustres more must added be to them:
If I am right at all about my age,
Lacking but eight years of a century.
His doctrine was, that there were four elements of existing things; and an infinite number of worlds, which were all unchangeable. He thought that the clouds were produced by the vapour which was borne upwards from the sun, and which lifted them up into the circumambient space. That the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man; that the universe could see, and that the universe could hear, but could not breathe; and that it was in all its parts intellect, and wisdom, and eternity. He was the first person who asserted that everything which is produced is perishable, and that the soul is a spirit. He used also to say that the many was inferior to unity. Also, that we ought to associate with tyrants either as little as possible, or else as pleasantly as possible.
When Empedocles said to him that the wise man was undiscoverable, he replied, "Very likely; or it takes a wise man to discover a wise man. " And Sotion says, that he was the first person who asserted that everything is incomprehensible. But he is mistaken in this.
Xenophanes wrote a poem on the Founding of Colophon; and also, on the Colonisation of Elea, in Italy, consisting of two thousand verses. And he flourished about the sixtieth olympiad.
IV. Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, and Phenaetius the Stoic, in his essay on Cheerfulness, relate that he buried his sons with his own hands, as Anaxagoras had also done. And he seems to have been detested by the Pythagoreans, Parmeniscus, and Orestades, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries.
V. There was also another Xenophanes, a native of Lesbos, and an iambic poet.
These [Heraclitus and Xenophanes] are the Promiscuous or unattached philosophers.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PARMENIDES
I. PARMENIDES, the son of Pyres, and a citizen of Elea, was a pupil of Xenophanes. And Theophrastus, in his Abridgment, says that he was also a pupil of Anaximander. However, though he was a pupil of Xenophanes he was not afterwards a follower of his; but he attached himself to Aminias, and Diochartes the Pythagorean, as Sotion relates, which last was a poor but honourable and virtuous man. And he it was whose follower he became, and after he was dead he erected a shrine, or heroon, in his honour. And so Parmenides, who was of a noble family and possessed of considerable wealth, was induced, not by Xenophanes but by Aminias, to embrace the tranquil life of a philosopher.
II. He was the first person who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form; and that it was situated in the centre of the universe. He also taught that there were two elements, fire and earth; and that one of them occupies the place of the maker, the other that of the matter. He also used to teach that man was originally made out of clay; and that they were composed of two parts, the hot and the cold; of which, in fact, everything consists. Another of his doctrines was, that the mind and the soul were the same thing, as we are informed by Theophrastus, in his Natural Philosophy, when he enumerates the theories of nearly all the different philosophers.
He also used to say that philosophy was of a twofold character; one kind resting on certain truth, the other on opinion. On which account he says some where:
And 'twill be needful for you well to know,
The fearless heart of all-convincing truth:
Also the opinions, though less sure, of men,
Which rest upon no certain evidence.
III. Parmenides too philosophizes in his poems; as Hesiod and Xenophanes, and Empedocles used to. And he used to say that argument was the test of truth; and that the sensations were not trustworthy witnesses. Accordingly, he says:
Let not the common usages of men
Persuade your better taught experience,
To trust to men's unsafe deceitful sight,
Or treacherous ears, or random speaking tongue:
Reason alone will prove the truth of facts.
On which account Timon says of him:
The vigorous mind of wise Parmenides,
Who classes all the errors of the thoughts
Under vain phantasies.
Plato inscribed one of his dialogues with his name--Parmenides or an essay on Ideas. He flourished about the sixty-ninth Olympiad. He appears to have been the first person who discovered that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star, as Favorinus records, in the fifth book of his Commentaries. Some, however, attribute this discovery to Pythagoras. And Callimachus asserts that the poem in which this doctrine is promulgated is not his work.
IV. He is said also to have given laws to his fellow-citizens, as Speusippus records, in his account of the Philosophers. He was also the first employer of the question called the Achilles,1 as Favorinus assures us in his Universal History.
V. There was also another Parmenides, an orator, who wrote a treatise on the art of Oratory.
1. See the account of Zeno the Cittiaean.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF MELISSUS
I. MELISSUS was a Samian, and the son of Ithageses. He was a pupil of Parmenides; but he also had conversed with Heraclitus, when he recommended him to the Ephesians, who were unacquainted with him, as Hippocrates recommended Democritus to the people of Abdera.
II. He was a man greatly occupied in political affairs, and held in great esteem among his fellow citizens; on which account he was elected admiral. And he was admired still more on account of his private virtues.
III. His doctrine was, that the Universe was infinite, unsusceptible of change, immoveable, and one, being always like to itself, and complete; and that there was no such thing as real motion, but that there only appeared to be such. As respecting the Gods, too, he denied that there was any occasion to give a definition of them, for that there was no certain knowledge of them.
IV.
