Yet chaos is
asserted
to have been
The first existent Deity.
The first existent Deity.
Diogenes Laertius
The Phidylus; the Euripides; the Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus; the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus.
There are thirty-two others which go under his name, but they are spurious.
LIFE OF SIMMIAS
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching; on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life ; on what the Honourable is; on Industry, and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES
CEBES was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The Tablet; the Seventh, and the Phrynichus.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF SIMON
I. SIMON was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected.
II. And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined in one volume:--On the Gods; on the Good; on the Honourable; what the Honourable is; the first Dialogue on Justice; the second Dialogue on Justice; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught; the first Dialogue on Courage; the second; the third; on Laws; on the Art of Guiding the People; on Honour; on Poetry; on Good Health; on Love; on Philosophy; on Knowledge; on Music; on Poetry; on what the Honourable is; on Teaching; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on Number; on Diligence; on Activity: on Covetousness; on Insolence; on the Honourable; Some also add to these dialogues; on taking Counsel; on Reason or Suitableness; on doing Harm.
III. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that he would not sell his freedom of speech.
IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art. And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And another, who was a statuary.
LIFE OF GLAUCON
GLAUCON was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant, which are all contained in one volume. The Phidylus; the Euripides; the Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus; the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus. There are thirty-two others which go under his name, but they are spurious.
LIFE OF SIMMIAS
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching; on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life ; on what the Honourable is; on Industry, and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES
CEBES was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The Tablet; the Seventh, and the Phrynichus.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF MENEDEMUS
I. THIS Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phaedo; and he was one of those who are called Theoprobidae, being the son of Clisthenes, a man of noble family, but a poor man and a builder. And some say that he was a tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him, saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree.
II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato; and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when Asclepiades, the Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived in Megara, near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus, who belonged to Phaedo's school. And up to this time, as I have already mentioned in my account of Phaedo, they were called Eleans; and they were also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am now speaking.
III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus :
And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius,
And the Eretrian bull.
And Timon mentions him thus:
Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.
And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle, that when Eurylochus, of Cassandra, had been invited by Antigonus to come to him in company with Cleippides, a youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for he was afraid lest Menedemus should hear of it; for he was very severe in his reproofs and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piraeus, attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what Antigonus's object was in treating him as he did.
On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself airs, "Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also? " And once, hearing a young man talk very loudly, he said, "See whom you have behind you. " When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel, he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm; and when he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, "Go then and look after them; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that elegant rusticity of yours with them. " He was once asked whether a good man should marry, and his reply was, "Do I seem to you to be a good man, or not? " and when the other said he did; "Well," said he, "and I am married. " On one occasion a person said that there were a great many good things, so he asked him how many; and whether he thought that there were more than a hundred. And as he could not bear the extravagance of one man who used frequently to invite him to dinner, once when he was invited he did not say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in silence, by eating nothing but olives.
IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in which he indulged, he was very near while in Cyprus, at the court of Nicocreon, being in great danger with his friend Asclepiades. For when the king was celebrating a festival at the beginning of the month, and had invited them as he did all the other philosophers; Menedemus said, "If the assemblage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival like this ought to be celebrated every day: but if it is not good, even once is too often. " And as the tyrant made answer to this speech, "that he kept this festival in order to have leisure in it to listen to the philosophers," he behaved with even more austerity than usual, arguing, even while the feast was going on, that it was right on every occasion to listen to philosophers; and he went on in this way till, if a flute-player had not interrupted their discussion, they would have been put to death. In reference to which, when they were overtaken by a storm in a ship, they say that Asclepiades said, "that the fine playing of a flute-player had saved them, but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had ruined them.
V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal from the usual habits and discipline of a school, so that he never regarded any order, nor were the seats arranged around properly, but every one listened to him while lecturing, standing up or sitting down, just as he might chance to be at the moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this irregular conduct.
VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous man, and very fond of glory; so that, as previously he and Asclepiades had been fellow journeymen of a builder, when
Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying mortar, Menedemus would stand in front of him to screen him when he saw any one coming.
VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous, that once, when setting down the incense, he actually missed the incense burner. And on one occasion, when Crates was standing by him and reproaching him for meddling with politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he, even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed, and to stand on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon and Hegesipolis.
VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accordingly, once, when he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had unintentionally eaten some meat that had been thrown array, when he was told of it he became sick, and turned pale, until Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him that it was not the meat itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man, with notions such as became a gentleman.
IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man he retained all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with firm flesh, and a ruddy complexion, and very stout and fresh looking. In stature he was of moderate size; as is plain from the statue of him which is at Eretria, in the Old Stadium. For he is there represented seated almost naked, undoubtedly for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body.
X. He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his friends; and because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have a great many parties, particularly of poets and musicians. And he was very fond of Aratus and Lycophon the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he applied himself to the study of Homer; and next to him to that of the Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Aeschylus the first. And it is from Achaeus that he quoted these verses against the politicians of the opposite party
A speedy runner once was overtaken
By weaker men than he. An eagle too,
Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.
And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achaeus called Omphale; so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of Neophron, the Sicyonian.
XI. Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and Xenocrates, and Paraebates of Cyrene; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being questioned about him, he said nothing more of him than that he was a gentleman.
XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation he was hard to argue against; he spoke on every subject, and had a great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as Antisthenes says in his Successions; and he used to put questions of this sort, "Is one thing different from another thing? " "Yes. " "And is benefiting a person something different from the good? " "Yes. " "Then the good is not benefiting a person. " And he, as it is said, discarded all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones; and of these he only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple; saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned dialectics; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating his father, he said, "I have not beaten him, and I have not left off;" and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, "It would be absurd," he rejoined, "to comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance. "
When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard some one assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires; he said, "It is a much greater good to desire what is proper. " But Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.
XIII. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take the smaller share, that neither of them would receive any of it.
XIV. It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when Asclepiades's wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus, when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich; and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion, after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now, that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty minae, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.
XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion :-- First of all, he would sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then he would invite in any one who came to see him, even if they had already dined; and if any one came too soon, they would walk up and down, and ask those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what o'clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of the lines:
After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup
Is handed round with moderation due;
And conversation wise makes the dessert.
XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently, he was so much admired by his countrymen, that they entrusted him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to remit. fifty. And having been falsely accused to him, as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus :
"Menedemus to king Demetrius. -Health. I hear that information has been laid before you concerning us. "
And the tradition is, that a man of the name of Aeschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History.
XVII. Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus:
"The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the council and to the people. " . . . And from these circumstances, and because of his friendship for him, as shown in other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of a broken heart.
But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him; saying, that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went to the court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell into despondency, and starved himself for seven days, and so he died. And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persaeus was the only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that when Antigonus himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among the Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and among them, "He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever will live. "
XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I've heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord,
You starved yourself for seven days and died;
Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man,
For spiritless despair appears your guide.
These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy; and to his successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PLATO
The Web edition of the Life of Plato, translated by Yonge, is dedicated to Christopher Planeaux, who took the time to share some thoughts about Gorgias.
To link to a specific chapter, use the url for this page plus "#" plus the Arabic numeral corresponding to the appropriate red Roman numeral.
I. PLATO was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Petone, and a citizen of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon; for Solon had a brother named Diopidas, who had a Plato son named Critias, who was the father of Calloeschrus, who was the father of that Critias who was one of the thirty tyrants, and also of Glaucon, who was the father of Charmides and Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon. And Solon traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune. They say too that on the father's side, he was descended from Codrus, the son of Melanthus, and they too are said by Thrasylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato, and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was that Perictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavoured to violate her and did not succeed; and that he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he abstained from approaching his wife till after her confinement.
II. And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. And he died as Hermippus says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years. But Neanthes says that he was eighty-four years of age at his death. He is then younger than Isocrates by six years; for Isocrates was born in the archonship of Lysimachus, and Plato in that of Aminias, in which year Pericles died.
III. And he was of the borough of Colytus, as Antileon tells us in his second book on Dates. And he was born, according to some writers, in Aegina in the house of Phidiades the son of Thales, as Favorinus affirms in his Universal History, as his father had been sent thither with several others as a settler, and returned again to Athens when the settlers were driven out by the Lacedaemonians, who came to the assistance of the Aeginetans. And he served the office of choregus at Athens, when Dion was at the expense of the spectacle exhibited, as Theodorus relates in the eighth book of his Philosophical Conservations.
IV. And he had brothers, whose names were Adimantus and Glaucon, and a sister called Petone, who was the mother of Speusippus.
V. And he was taught learning in the school of Dionysius, whom he mentious in his Rival Lovers. And he learnt gymnastic exercises under the wrestler Ariston of Argos. And it was by him that he had the name of Plato given to him instead of his original name, on account of his robust figure, as he had previously been called Aristocles, after the name of his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions. But some say that he derived this name from the breadth (platutes) of his eloquence, or else because he was very wide (platus) across the forehead, as Neanthes affirms There are some also, among whom is Dicaearchus in the first volume on Lives, who say that he wrestled at the Isthmian games.
VI. It is also said that he applied himself to the study of painting, and that he wrote poems, dithyrambics at first, and afterwards lyric poems and tragedies.
VII. But he had a very weak voice, they say; and the same fact is stated by Timotheus the Athenian, in his book on Lives. And it is said that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet on his knees, who immediately put forth feathers, and flew up on high, uttering a sweet note, and that the next day Plato came to him, and that he pronounced him the bird which he had seen.
VIII. And he used to philosophize at first in the Academy, and afterwards in the garden near Colonus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions, quoting the testimony of Heraclitus; and subsequently, though he was about to contend for the prize in tragedy in the theatre of Bacchus, after he had heard the discourse of Socrates, he learnt his poems, saying :
Vulcan, come here; for Plato wants your aid. And from henceforth, as they say, being now twenty years old, he became a pupil of Socrates. And when he was gone, he attached himself to Cratylus, the disciple of Heraclitus, and to Hermogenes, who had adopted the principles of Parmenides. Afterwards, when he was eight and twenty years of age, as Hermodorus tells us, he withdrew to Megara to Euclid, with certain others of the pupils of Socrates; and subsequently, he went to Cyrene to Theodorus the mathematician; and from thence he proceeded to Italy to the Pythagoreans, Philolaus and Eurytus, and from thence he went to Eurytus to the priests there; and having fallen sick at that place, he was cured by the priests by the application of sea water, in reference to which he said:
The sea doth wash away all human evils.
And he said too, that, according to Homer, all the Egyptians were physicians. Plato had also formed the idea of making the acquaintance of the Magi; but he abandoned it on account of the wars in Asia.
IX. And when he returned to Athens, he settled in the Academy, and that is a suburban place of exercise planted like a grove, so named from an ancient hero named Hecademus, as Eupolis tells us in his Discharged Soldiers.
In the well-shaded walks, protected well
By Godlike Academus.
And Timon, with reference to Plato, says :
A man did lead them on, a strong stout man,
A honeyed speaker, sweet as melody
Of tuneful grasshopper, who, seated high
On Hecademus' tree, unwearied sings.
For the word academy was formerly spelt with E. Now our philosopher was a friend of Isocrates; and Praxiphanes composed an account of a conversation which took place between them, on the subject of poets, when Isocrates was staying with Plato in the country.
X. And Aristoxenus says that he was three times engaged in military expeditions; once against Tanagra; the second time against Corinth, and the third time at Delium; and that in the battle of Delium he obtained the prize of pre-eminent valour. He combined the principles of the schools of Heraclitus, and Pythagoras and Socrates; for he used to philosophize on those things which are the subjects of sensation, according to the system of Heraclitus; on those with which intellect is conversant, according to that of Pythagoras; and on politics, according to that of Socrates.
XI. And some people, (of whom Satyrus is one,) say that he sent a commission to Sicily to Dion, to buy him three books of Pythagoras from Philolaus for a hundred minae; for they say that he was in very easy circumstances, having received from Dionysius more than eighty talents, as Onetor also asserts in his treatise which is entitled, Whether a wise Man ought to acquire Gains.
XII. And he was much assisted by Epicharmus the comic poet, a great part of whose works he transcribed, as Alcinus says in his essays addressed to Amyntas, of which there are four. And in the first of them he speaks as follows:-"And Plato appears to utter a great many of the sentiments of Epicharmus. Let us just examine. Plato says that that is an object of sensation, which is never stationary either as to its quality or its quantity, but which is always flowing and changing; as, for instance, if one take from any objects all number, then one cannot affirm that they are either equal, or of any particular things, or of what quality or quantity they are. And these things are of such a kind that they are always being produced, but that they never have any invariable substances. "
But that is a subject for intellect from which nothing is taken, and to which nothing is added. And this is the nature of things eternal, which is always similar and the same. And, indeed, Epicharmus speaks intelligibly on the subject of what is perceived by the senses and by the intellect:
A. But the great Gods were always present, nor
Did they at any moment cease to be;
And their peculiar likeness at all times
Do by the same principles.
B.
Yet chaos is asserted to have been
The first existent Deity.
A. How can that be?
For 'tis impossible that we should find
Any first principle arise from anything.
B. Is there then no first principle at all?
A. Nor second either in the things we speak of;
But thus it is-if to an even number,
Or e'en an odd one, if you so prefer it,
You add a unit, or if you deduct one,
Say will the number still remain the same?
B. Certainly not.
A. So, if you take a measure
A cubit long, and add another cubit,
Or cut a portion off, the measure then
No longer is the same?
B. Of course it is not.
A. Now turn your eyes and thoughts upon mankind-
We see one grows, another perishes:
So that they all exist perpetually
In a condition of transition. That
Whose nature changes must be different
At each successive moment, from the thing
It was before. So also, you and I
Are different people now from what we were
But yesterday; and then, again, to-morrow
We shall be different from what we're now;
So that, by the same rule, we're always different.
And Alcinus speaks as follows: - "The wise men say that the soul perceives some things by means of the body, as for instance, when it hears and sees; but that it also perceives something by its own power, without availing itself at all of the assistance of the body. On which account existent things are divisible into objects of sensation and objects of understanding. On account of which Plato used to say, that those who wished to become acquainted with the principles of everything, ought first of all to divide the ideas as he calls them, separately, such as similarity, and unity, and multitude, and magnitude, and stationariness, and motion. And secondly, that they ought to form a notion of the honourable and the good, and the just, and things of that sort, by themselves, apart from other considerations. And thirdly, that they ought to ascertain the character of such ideas as are relative to one another, such as knowledge, or magnitude, or authority; considering that the things which come under our notice from partaking of their nature, have the same names that they have. I mean that one calls that just which partakes of the just; and that beautiful which partakes of the beautiful. And each of these primary species is eternal, and is to be understood by the intellect, and is not subject to the influence of external circumstances. On which account he says, that ideas exist in nature as models; and that all other things are like them, and, as it were, copies of them. Accordingly Epicharmus speaks thus about the good, and about the ideas.
A. Tell me, is flute-playing now a thing at all?
B. Of course it is.
A. Is man then flute-playing?
B. No, nothing of the sort.
A. Well, let us see-
What is a flute-player? what think you now,
Of him-is he a man, or is he not?
B. Of course he is a man.
A. Think you not then
The case is just the same about the good.
That the good is something by itself, intrinsic,
And he who's learnt, does at once become
Himself a good man? just as he who's learnt
Flute-playing is a flute-player; or dancing,
A dancer; weaving, a weaver. And in short,
Whoever learns an art, does not become
The art itself, but just an artist in it.
Plato, in his theory of Ideas, says, "That since there is such a thing as memory, the ideas are in existent things, because memory is only conversant about what is stable and enduring; and that no other thing is durable except ideas, for in what way," he continues, "could animals be preserved, if they had no ideas to guide them, and if, in addition to them, they had not an intellect given to them by nature? " But as it is they recollect similitudes, and also their food, so as to know what kind of food is fit for them; which they learn because the notion of similarity is implanted naturally in every animal; owing to which notion they recognize those of the same species as themselves. What is it then that Epicharmus says?
Eumaeus' wisdom? - not a scanty gift
Appropriated to one single being;
But every animal that breathes and lives,
Has mind and intellect. - So if you will
Survey the facts attentively, you'll find,
E'en in the common poultry yard, the hen
Brings not her offspring forth at first alive,
But sits upon her eggs, and by her warmth,
Cherishes them into life. And all this wisdom
She does derive from nature's gift alone,
For nature is her only guide and teacher.
And in a subsequent passage he says :
There is no wonder in my teaching this,
That citizens please citizens, and seem
To one another to be beautiful:
For so one dog seems to another dog
The fairest object in the world; and so
One ox seems to another, ass to ass,
And swine to swine.
And these and similar speculations are examined and compared by Alcinus through four books, where he shows how much assistance Plato has derived from Epicharmus. And that Epicharmus himself was not indisposed to appreciate his own wisdom, one may learn from these lines, in which he predicts that there will arise some one to imitate him:
But as I think, I surely foresee this,
That these my words will be preserved* hereafter
In many people's recollection. And
Another man will come, who'll strip my reasons
Of their poetic dress, and, clothing them
In other garments and with purple broidery
Will show them off; and being invincible,
Will make all rivals bow the knee to him.
XIII. Plato also appears to have brought the books of Sophron, the farce-writer, to Athens, which were previously neglected; and to have availed himself of them in his Speculations on Morals: and a copy of them was found under his head.
XIV. And Plato made three voyages to Sicily, first of all for the purpose of seeing the island and the craters of volcanoes, when Dionysius, the son of Hermocrates, being the tyrant of Sicily, pressed him earnestly to come and see him; and he, conversing about tyranny, and saying that that is not the best government which is advantageous for one individual alone, unless that individual is pre-eminent in virtue, had a quarrel with Dionysius, who got angry, and said, "Your words are those of an old dotard. " And Plato replied,
* The Greek is tou mimographon. "A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into mimioi andreioi and gynaikeioi, also into mimoi spoudaion and geloion. " -- L&S in voc. mimos.
"And your language is that of a tyrant. " And on this the tyrant became very indignant, and at first was inclined to put him to death; but afterwards, being appeased by Deni and Aristimenes, he forebore to do that, but gave him to Pollis, the Lacedaemonian, who happened to have come to him on an embassy just at that time, to sell as a slave. And he took him to Aegina and sold him; and Charmander, the son of Charmandrides, instituted a capital prosecution against him, in accordance with the law which was in force, in the island of Aegina, that the first Athenian who landed on the island should be put to death without a trial; and he himself was the person who had originally proposed that law, as Favorinus says, in his Universal History. But when some one said, though he said it only in joke, that it was a philosopher who had landed, the people released him. But some say that he was brought into the assembly and watched; and that he did not say a word, but stood prepared to submit to whatever might befall him; and that they determined not to put him to death, but to sell him after the fashion of prisoners of war. And it happened by chance that Anniceris, the Cyrenean, was present, who ransomed him for twenty minae, or, as others say, for thirty, and sent him to Athens, to his companions, and they immediately sent Anniceris his money: but he refused to receive it, saying that they were not the only people in the world who were entitled to have a regard for Plato. Some writers again say, that it was Deni who sent the money, and that he did not refuse it, but bought him the garden in the Academy. And with respect to Pollis it is said that he was defeated by Chabrias, and that he was afterwards drowned in Helia, in consequence of the anger of the deity at his treatment of this philosopher. And this is the story told by Favorinus in the first book of his Commentaries. Dionysius, however, did not remain quiet; but when he had heard what had happened he wrote to Plato not to speak ill of him, and he wrote back in reply that he had not leisure enough to think at all of Dionysius.
XV. But he went a second time to Sicily to the younger Dionysius, and asked him for some land and for some men whom he might make live according to his own theory of a constitution. And Dionysius promised to give him some, but never did it. And some say that he was in danger himself, having been suspected of exciting Dion and Thetas to attempt the deliverance of the island; but that Archytas, the Pythagorean, wrote a letter to Dionysius, and begged Plato off and sent him back safe to Athens. And the letter is as follows :
ARCHYTAS TO DIONYSIUS, GREETING.
"All of us who are the friends of Plato, have sent to you Lamiscus and Photidas, to claim of you this philosopher in accordance with the agreement which you made with us. And it is right that you should recollect the eagerness which you had to see him, when you pressed us all to secure Plato's visit to you, promising to provide for him, and to treat him hospitably in every respect, and to ensure his safety both while he remained with you, and when be departed. Remember this too that you were very delighted indeed at his arrival, and that you expressed great pleasure at the time, such as you never did on any other occasion. And if any unpleasantness has arisen between you, you ought to behave with humanity, and restore the man unhurt; for by so doing you will act justly, and do us a favour. "
XVI. The third time that he went to Sicily was for the purpose of reconciling Dion to Dionysius. And as he could not succeed he returned back to his own country, having lost his labour.
XVII. And in his own country he did not meddle with state affairs, although he was a politician as far as his writings went. And the reason was, that the people were accustomed to a form of government and constitution different from what he approved of. And Pamphile, in the twenty-fifth book of his Commentaries, says that the Arcadians and Thebans, when they were founding a great city, appointed him its lawgiver; but that he, when he had ascertained that they would not consent to an equality of rights, refused to go thither.
XVIII. It is said also, that he defended Chabrias the general, when he was impeached in a capital charge; when no one else of the citizens would undertake the task: and as he was going up towards the Acropolis with his client, Crobylus the sycophant met him and said, "Are you come to plead for another, not knowing that the hemlock of Socrates is waiting
also for you? " But he replied, "And also, when I fought for my country I encountered dangers; and now too I encounter them in the cause of justice and for the defence of a friend. "
XIX. He was the first author who wrote treatises in the form of dialogues, as Favorinus tells us in the eighth book of his Universal History. And he was also the first person who introduced the analytical method of investigation, which he taught to Leodamus of Thasos. He was also the first person in philosophy who spoke of antipodes, and elements, and dialectics, and actions (poiemata) and oblong numbers, and plane surfaces, and the providence of God. He was likewise the first of the philosophers who contradicted the assertion of Lysias, the son of Cephalus, setting it out word for word in his Phaedrus. And he was also the first person who examined the subject of grammatical knowledge scientifically. And as he argued against almost every one who had lived before his time, it is often asked why he has never mentioned Democritus.
XX. Neanthes of Cyzicus says, that when he came to the Olympic games all the Greeks who were present turned to look at him: and that it was on that occasion that he held a conversation with Dion, who was on the point of attacking Dionysius. Moreover, in the first book of the Commentaries of Favorinus, it is related that Mithridates, the Persian, erected a statue of Plato in the Academy, and put on it this inscription, "Mithridates, the son of Rhodobates, a Persian, consecrated an image of Plato to the Muses, which was made by Silanion. "
XXI. And Heraclides says, that even while a young man, he was so modest and well regulated, that he was never once seen to laugh excessively.
XXII. But though he was of such a grave character himself, he was nevertheless ridiculed by the comic poets. Accordingly, Theopompus, in his Pleasure-seeker, says:
For one thing is no longer only one,
But two things now are scarcely one; as says
The solemn Plato.
And Anaxandrides in his Theseus, says:
When he ate olives like our worthy Plato.
And Timon speaks of him in this way, punning on his name:
As Plato placed strange platitudes on paper. *
Alexis says in his Mesopis :
You've come in time: since I've been doubting long,
And walking up and down some time, like Plato;
And yet have hit upon no crafty plan,
But only tir'd my legs.
And in his Analion, he says:
You speak of what you do not understand,
Running about like Plato: hoping thus,
To learn the nature of saltpetre and onions.
Amphis says in his Amphicrates :
A. But what the good is, which you hope to get
By means of her, my master, I no more
Can form a notion of, than of the good
Of Plato.
B. Listen now.
And in his Dexidemides he speaks thus:
O Plato! how your learning is confined
To gloomy looks, and wrinkling up your brows,
Like any cockle.
Cratinas in his Pseudripobolimaeus, says:
You clearly are a man, endued with sense,
And so, as Plato says, I do not know;
But I suspect.
Alexis, in his Olympiodorus speaks thus :
My mortal body became dry and withered:
But my immortal part rose to the sky.
Is not this Plato's doctrine?
And in his Parasite he says :
Or to converse alone, like Plato.
Anaxilas also laughs at him in his Botrylion, and Circe, and his Rich Women.
XXIII. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise upon Ancient Luxury, says that he was much attached to a youth of the name of Aster, who used to study astronomy with him; and also to Dion, whom we have already mentioned.
* The Greek is, hos aneplatte Platon peplasmena thaumata eidos.
And some say that he was also attached to Phaedrus, and that the following epigrams which he wrote upon them are evidences of the love he felt for them:
My Aster, you're gazing on the stars (asteres),
Would that I were the heavens, that so I might
Gaze in return with many eyes on thee.
Another of his epigrams is :
Aster, you while among the living shone,
The morning star. But now that you are dead,
You beam like Hesperus in the shades below.
And he wrote thus on Dion:
Once, at their birth, the fates did destine tears
To be the lot of all the Trojan women,
And Hecuba, their Queen--to you, O Dion,
As the deserved reward for glorious deeds,
They gave extensive and illustrious hopes.
And now you lie beneath your native soil;
Honoured by all your countrymen, O Dion,
And loved by me with ardent, lasting love.
And they say that this epigram is inscribed upon his tomb at Syracuse. They say, also, that he was in love with Alexis, and with Phaedrus, as I have already mentioned, and that he wrote an epigram on them both, which runs thus:
Now when Alexia is no longer aught,
Say only how beloved, how fair he was,
And every one does turn his eyes at once.
Why, my mind, do you show the dogs a bone?
You're but preparing trouble for yourself:
Have we not also lost the lovely Phaedrus!
There is also a tradition that he had a mistress named Archianassa, on whom he wrote the following lines :
I have a mistress fair from Colophon,
Archianassa, on whose very wrinkles
Sits genial love: hard must have been the fate,
Of him who met her earliest blaze of beauty,
Surely he must have been completely scorched.
He also wrote this epigram on Agathon :
While kissing Agathon, my soul did rise,
And hover'd o'er my lips; wishing perchance,
O'er anxious that it was, to migrate to him.
Another of his epigrams is:
I throw this apple to you. And if you
Love me who love you so, receive it gladly,
And let me taste your lovely virgin charms.
Or if that may not be, still take the fruit,
And in your bosom cherish it, and learn
How fleeting is all gracefulness and beauty.
And another:
I am an apple, and am thrown to you;
By one who loves you: but consent, Xanthippe;
For you and I shall both with time decay.
They also attribute to him the following epigram on the Eretrians who had been surprised in an ambuscade:
We were Eretrians, of Eubaean race,
And now we lie near Susa, here entomb'd,
Far from my native land.
And this one also :
Thus Venus to the muses spoke:
Damsels submit to Venus' yoke,
Or dread my Cupid's arms.
Those threats the Virgins nine replied,
May weigh with Mars, but we deride
Love's wrongs, or darts, or charms.
Another is:
A certain person found some gold.
Carried it off, and in its stead
Left a strong hatter neatly roll'd.
The owner found his treasure fled;
And powerless to endure his fortune's wreck,
Fitted the halter to his hapless neck.
XXIV. But Melon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says, "There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato's being in Sicily. " Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him: and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropaedia and the other a book on Politics ; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropaedia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences. It is said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something that he had written, invited him to be present; and that Plato having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an essay on the impropriety of contradicting. "How then," said Plato, "can you write on this subject? " and then he showed him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he entitled Sothon; after which they were always enemies to one another; and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, "O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about me. " For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said.
Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus; accordingly, he speaks ill of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was not with Socrates when he died, though he was in Aegina, at no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with Aeschines, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius, and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says, that the speech which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he counselled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by Aeschines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on the Soul, and the Defence of Socrates.
XXV. Aristotle says, that the treatises of Plato are something between poems and prose ; and Favorinus says, when Plato read his treatise on the Soul, Aristotle was the only person who sat it out, and that all the rest rose up and went away. And some say that Philip the Opuntian copied out the whole of his books upon Laws, which were written on waxen tablets only. Some people also attribute the Epinomis to him. Euphorion and Panaetius have stated that the beginning of the treatise on the Republic was often altered and re-written; and that very treatise, Aristoxenus affirms, was found almost entire in the Contradictions of Protagoras; and that the first book he wrote at all was the Phaedrus; and indeed that composition has a good many indications of a young composer. But Dicaearchus blames the whole style of that work as vulgar.
XXVI. A story is told, that Plato, having seen a man playing at dice, reproached him for it, and that he said he was playing for a trifle; "But the habit," rejoined Plato, "is not a trifle. " On one occasion he was asked whether there would be any monument of him, as of his predecessors in philosophy? and he answered "A man must first make a name, and the monument will follow. " Once, when Xenocrates came into his house, he desired him to scourge one of his slaves for him, for that he himself could not do it because he was in a passion; and that at another time he said to one of his slaves, "I should beat you if I were not in a passion. " Having got on horseback he dismounted again immediately, saying that he was afraid that he should be infected with horse-pride. He used to advise people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would abandon their unseemly habit; and he said that it was never decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the festivals of the God who had given men wine. He also disapproved of much sleeping: accordingly in his Laws he says, "No one while sleeping is good for anything. " Another saying of his was, "That the pleasantest of all things to hear was the truth;" but others report this saying thus, "That the sweetest of all things was to speak truth. " And of truth he speaks thus in his Laws, "Truth, my friend, is a beautiful and a durable thing; but it is not easy to persuade men of this fact. "
XXVII. He used also to wish to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends, or in his books.
XXVIII. He also used to travel a good deal as some authors inform us.
XXIX. And he died in the manner we have already mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip of Macedon, as Favorinus mentions in the third book of his Commentaries; and Theopompus relates that Philip on one occasion reproached him. But Mysonianus, in his Resemblances, says that Philo mentions some proverbs that were in circulation about Plato's lice; implying that he had died of that disease.
XXX. He was buried in the Academy, where he spent the greater part of his time in the practice of philosophy, from which his was called the Academic school; and his funeral was attended by all the pupils of that sect. And he made his will in the following terms:
"Plato left these things, and has bequeathed them as follows:
The farm in the district of the Hephaestiades, bounded on the north by the road from the temple of the Cephiciades, and on the south by the temple of Hercules, which is in the district of the Hephaestiades; and on the east by the estate of Archestratus the Phreanian, and on the west by the farm of Philip the Challidian, shall be incapable of being sold or alienated, but shall belong to my son Ademantus as far as possible. And so likewise shall my farm in the district of the Eiresides, which I bought of Callimachus, which is bounded on the north by the property of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, on the south by that of Demostratus of Xypeta, on the east by that of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, and on the west by the Cephisus;-- I also leave him three minae of silver, a silver goblet weighing a hundred and sixty-five drachms, a cup weighing forty-five drachms, a golden ring and a golden ear-ring, weighing together four drachms and three obols. Euclides the stonecutter owes me three minae. I leave Diana her liberty. My slaves Sychon, Bictas, Apolloniades, and Dionysius, I bequeath to my son; and I also give him all my furniture, of which Demetrius has a catalogue. I owe no one anything. My executors shall be Tozthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus, and Thrasippus. "
This was his will. And on his tomb the following epigrams were inscribed. First of all :
Here, first of all men for pure justice famed,
And moral virtue, Aristocles lies;
And if there e'er has lived one truly wise,
This man was wiser still; too great for envy.
A second is:
Here in her bosom does the tender earth
Embrace great Plato's corpse. -His soul aloft
Has ta'en its place among the immortal Gods.
Ariston's glorious son--whom all good men,
Though in far countries, held in love and honour,
Remembering his pure and god-like life.
LIFE OF SIMMIAS
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching; on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life ; on what the Honourable is; on Industry, and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES
CEBES was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The Tablet; the Seventh, and the Phrynichus.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF SIMON
I. SIMON was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected.
II. And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined in one volume:--On the Gods; on the Good; on the Honourable; what the Honourable is; the first Dialogue on Justice; the second Dialogue on Justice; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught; the first Dialogue on Courage; the second; the third; on Laws; on the Art of Guiding the People; on Honour; on Poetry; on Good Health; on Love; on Philosophy; on Knowledge; on Music; on Poetry; on what the Honourable is; on Teaching; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on Number; on Diligence; on Activity: on Covetousness; on Insolence; on the Honourable; Some also add to these dialogues; on taking Counsel; on Reason or Suitableness; on doing Harm.
III. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that he would not sell his freedom of speech.
IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art. And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And another, who was a statuary.
LIFE OF GLAUCON
GLAUCON was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant, which are all contained in one volume. The Phidylus; the Euripides; the Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus; the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus. There are thirty-two others which go under his name, but they are spurious.
LIFE OF SIMMIAS
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching; on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life ; on what the Honourable is; on Industry, and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES
CEBES was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The Tablet; the Seventh, and the Phrynichus.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF MENEDEMUS
I. THIS Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phaedo; and he was one of those who are called Theoprobidae, being the son of Clisthenes, a man of noble family, but a poor man and a builder. And some say that he was a tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him, saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree.
II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato; and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when Asclepiades, the Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived in Megara, near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus, who belonged to Phaedo's school. And up to this time, as I have already mentioned in my account of Phaedo, they were called Eleans; and they were also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am now speaking.
III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus :
And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius,
And the Eretrian bull.
And Timon mentions him thus:
Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.
And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle, that when Eurylochus, of Cassandra, had been invited by Antigonus to come to him in company with Cleippides, a youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for he was afraid lest Menedemus should hear of it; for he was very severe in his reproofs and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piraeus, attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what Antigonus's object was in treating him as he did.
On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself airs, "Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also? " And once, hearing a young man talk very loudly, he said, "See whom you have behind you. " When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel, he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm; and when he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, "Go then and look after them; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that elegant rusticity of yours with them. " He was once asked whether a good man should marry, and his reply was, "Do I seem to you to be a good man, or not? " and when the other said he did; "Well," said he, "and I am married. " On one occasion a person said that there were a great many good things, so he asked him how many; and whether he thought that there were more than a hundred. And as he could not bear the extravagance of one man who used frequently to invite him to dinner, once when he was invited he did not say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in silence, by eating nothing but olives.
IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in which he indulged, he was very near while in Cyprus, at the court of Nicocreon, being in great danger with his friend Asclepiades. For when the king was celebrating a festival at the beginning of the month, and had invited them as he did all the other philosophers; Menedemus said, "If the assemblage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival like this ought to be celebrated every day: but if it is not good, even once is too often. " And as the tyrant made answer to this speech, "that he kept this festival in order to have leisure in it to listen to the philosophers," he behaved with even more austerity than usual, arguing, even while the feast was going on, that it was right on every occasion to listen to philosophers; and he went on in this way till, if a flute-player had not interrupted their discussion, they would have been put to death. In reference to which, when they were overtaken by a storm in a ship, they say that Asclepiades said, "that the fine playing of a flute-player had saved them, but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had ruined them.
V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal from the usual habits and discipline of a school, so that he never regarded any order, nor were the seats arranged around properly, but every one listened to him while lecturing, standing up or sitting down, just as he might chance to be at the moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this irregular conduct.
VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous man, and very fond of glory; so that, as previously he and Asclepiades had been fellow journeymen of a builder, when
Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying mortar, Menedemus would stand in front of him to screen him when he saw any one coming.
VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous, that once, when setting down the incense, he actually missed the incense burner. And on one occasion, when Crates was standing by him and reproaching him for meddling with politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he, even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed, and to stand on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon and Hegesipolis.
VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accordingly, once, when he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had unintentionally eaten some meat that had been thrown array, when he was told of it he became sick, and turned pale, until Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him that it was not the meat itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man, with notions such as became a gentleman.
IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man he retained all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with firm flesh, and a ruddy complexion, and very stout and fresh looking. In stature he was of moderate size; as is plain from the statue of him which is at Eretria, in the Old Stadium. For he is there represented seated almost naked, undoubtedly for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body.
X. He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his friends; and because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have a great many parties, particularly of poets and musicians. And he was very fond of Aratus and Lycophon the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he applied himself to the study of Homer; and next to him to that of the Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Aeschylus the first. And it is from Achaeus that he quoted these verses against the politicians of the opposite party
A speedy runner once was overtaken
By weaker men than he. An eagle too,
Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.
And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achaeus called Omphale; so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of Neophron, the Sicyonian.
XI. Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and Xenocrates, and Paraebates of Cyrene; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being questioned about him, he said nothing more of him than that he was a gentleman.
XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation he was hard to argue against; he spoke on every subject, and had a great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as Antisthenes says in his Successions; and he used to put questions of this sort, "Is one thing different from another thing? " "Yes. " "And is benefiting a person something different from the good? " "Yes. " "Then the good is not benefiting a person. " And he, as it is said, discarded all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones; and of these he only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple; saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned dialectics; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating his father, he said, "I have not beaten him, and I have not left off;" and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, "It would be absurd," he rejoined, "to comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance. "
When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard some one assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires; he said, "It is a much greater good to desire what is proper. " But Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.
XIII. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take the smaller share, that neither of them would receive any of it.
XIV. It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when Asclepiades's wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus, when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich; and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion, after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now, that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty minae, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.
XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion :-- First of all, he would sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then he would invite in any one who came to see him, even if they had already dined; and if any one came too soon, they would walk up and down, and ask those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what o'clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of the lines:
After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup
Is handed round with moderation due;
And conversation wise makes the dessert.
XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently, he was so much admired by his countrymen, that they entrusted him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to remit. fifty. And having been falsely accused to him, as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus :
"Menedemus to king Demetrius. -Health. I hear that information has been laid before you concerning us. "
And the tradition is, that a man of the name of Aeschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History.
XVII. Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus:
"The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the council and to the people. " . . . And from these circumstances, and because of his friendship for him, as shown in other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of a broken heart.
But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him; saying, that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went to the court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell into despondency, and starved himself for seven days, and so he died. And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persaeus was the only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that when Antigonus himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among the Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and among them, "He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever will live. "
XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram on him:
I've heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord,
You starved yourself for seven days and died;
Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man,
For spiritless despair appears your guide.
These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy; and to his successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PLATO
The Web edition of the Life of Plato, translated by Yonge, is dedicated to Christopher Planeaux, who took the time to share some thoughts about Gorgias.
To link to a specific chapter, use the url for this page plus "#" plus the Arabic numeral corresponding to the appropriate red Roman numeral.
I. PLATO was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Petone, and a citizen of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon; for Solon had a brother named Diopidas, who had a Plato son named Critias, who was the father of Calloeschrus, who was the father of that Critias who was one of the thirty tyrants, and also of Glaucon, who was the father of Charmides and Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon. And Solon traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune. They say too that on the father's side, he was descended from Codrus, the son of Melanthus, and they too are said by Thrasylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato, and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was that Perictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavoured to violate her and did not succeed; and that he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he abstained from approaching his wife till after her confinement.
II. And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. And he died as Hermippus says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years. But Neanthes says that he was eighty-four years of age at his death. He is then younger than Isocrates by six years; for Isocrates was born in the archonship of Lysimachus, and Plato in that of Aminias, in which year Pericles died.
III. And he was of the borough of Colytus, as Antileon tells us in his second book on Dates. And he was born, according to some writers, in Aegina in the house of Phidiades the son of Thales, as Favorinus affirms in his Universal History, as his father had been sent thither with several others as a settler, and returned again to Athens when the settlers were driven out by the Lacedaemonians, who came to the assistance of the Aeginetans. And he served the office of choregus at Athens, when Dion was at the expense of the spectacle exhibited, as Theodorus relates in the eighth book of his Philosophical Conservations.
IV. And he had brothers, whose names were Adimantus and Glaucon, and a sister called Petone, who was the mother of Speusippus.
V. And he was taught learning in the school of Dionysius, whom he mentious in his Rival Lovers. And he learnt gymnastic exercises under the wrestler Ariston of Argos. And it was by him that he had the name of Plato given to him instead of his original name, on account of his robust figure, as he had previously been called Aristocles, after the name of his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions. But some say that he derived this name from the breadth (platutes) of his eloquence, or else because he was very wide (platus) across the forehead, as Neanthes affirms There are some also, among whom is Dicaearchus in the first volume on Lives, who say that he wrestled at the Isthmian games.
VI. It is also said that he applied himself to the study of painting, and that he wrote poems, dithyrambics at first, and afterwards lyric poems and tragedies.
VII. But he had a very weak voice, they say; and the same fact is stated by Timotheus the Athenian, in his book on Lives. And it is said that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet on his knees, who immediately put forth feathers, and flew up on high, uttering a sweet note, and that the next day Plato came to him, and that he pronounced him the bird which he had seen.
VIII. And he used to philosophize at first in the Academy, and afterwards in the garden near Colonus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions, quoting the testimony of Heraclitus; and subsequently, though he was about to contend for the prize in tragedy in the theatre of Bacchus, after he had heard the discourse of Socrates, he learnt his poems, saying :
Vulcan, come here; for Plato wants your aid. And from henceforth, as they say, being now twenty years old, he became a pupil of Socrates. And when he was gone, he attached himself to Cratylus, the disciple of Heraclitus, and to Hermogenes, who had adopted the principles of Parmenides. Afterwards, when he was eight and twenty years of age, as Hermodorus tells us, he withdrew to Megara to Euclid, with certain others of the pupils of Socrates; and subsequently, he went to Cyrene to Theodorus the mathematician; and from thence he proceeded to Italy to the Pythagoreans, Philolaus and Eurytus, and from thence he went to Eurytus to the priests there; and having fallen sick at that place, he was cured by the priests by the application of sea water, in reference to which he said:
The sea doth wash away all human evils.
And he said too, that, according to Homer, all the Egyptians were physicians. Plato had also formed the idea of making the acquaintance of the Magi; but he abandoned it on account of the wars in Asia.
IX. And when he returned to Athens, he settled in the Academy, and that is a suburban place of exercise planted like a grove, so named from an ancient hero named Hecademus, as Eupolis tells us in his Discharged Soldiers.
In the well-shaded walks, protected well
By Godlike Academus.
And Timon, with reference to Plato, says :
A man did lead them on, a strong stout man,
A honeyed speaker, sweet as melody
Of tuneful grasshopper, who, seated high
On Hecademus' tree, unwearied sings.
For the word academy was formerly spelt with E. Now our philosopher was a friend of Isocrates; and Praxiphanes composed an account of a conversation which took place between them, on the subject of poets, when Isocrates was staying with Plato in the country.
X. And Aristoxenus says that he was three times engaged in military expeditions; once against Tanagra; the second time against Corinth, and the third time at Delium; and that in the battle of Delium he obtained the prize of pre-eminent valour. He combined the principles of the schools of Heraclitus, and Pythagoras and Socrates; for he used to philosophize on those things which are the subjects of sensation, according to the system of Heraclitus; on those with which intellect is conversant, according to that of Pythagoras; and on politics, according to that of Socrates.
XI. And some people, (of whom Satyrus is one,) say that he sent a commission to Sicily to Dion, to buy him three books of Pythagoras from Philolaus for a hundred minae; for they say that he was in very easy circumstances, having received from Dionysius more than eighty talents, as Onetor also asserts in his treatise which is entitled, Whether a wise Man ought to acquire Gains.
XII. And he was much assisted by Epicharmus the comic poet, a great part of whose works he transcribed, as Alcinus says in his essays addressed to Amyntas, of which there are four. And in the first of them he speaks as follows:-"And Plato appears to utter a great many of the sentiments of Epicharmus. Let us just examine. Plato says that that is an object of sensation, which is never stationary either as to its quality or its quantity, but which is always flowing and changing; as, for instance, if one take from any objects all number, then one cannot affirm that they are either equal, or of any particular things, or of what quality or quantity they are. And these things are of such a kind that they are always being produced, but that they never have any invariable substances. "
But that is a subject for intellect from which nothing is taken, and to which nothing is added. And this is the nature of things eternal, which is always similar and the same. And, indeed, Epicharmus speaks intelligibly on the subject of what is perceived by the senses and by the intellect:
A. But the great Gods were always present, nor
Did they at any moment cease to be;
And their peculiar likeness at all times
Do by the same principles.
B.
Yet chaos is asserted to have been
The first existent Deity.
A. How can that be?
For 'tis impossible that we should find
Any first principle arise from anything.
B. Is there then no first principle at all?
A. Nor second either in the things we speak of;
But thus it is-if to an even number,
Or e'en an odd one, if you so prefer it,
You add a unit, or if you deduct one,
Say will the number still remain the same?
B. Certainly not.
A. So, if you take a measure
A cubit long, and add another cubit,
Or cut a portion off, the measure then
No longer is the same?
B. Of course it is not.
A. Now turn your eyes and thoughts upon mankind-
We see one grows, another perishes:
So that they all exist perpetually
In a condition of transition. That
Whose nature changes must be different
At each successive moment, from the thing
It was before. So also, you and I
Are different people now from what we were
But yesterday; and then, again, to-morrow
We shall be different from what we're now;
So that, by the same rule, we're always different.
And Alcinus speaks as follows: - "The wise men say that the soul perceives some things by means of the body, as for instance, when it hears and sees; but that it also perceives something by its own power, without availing itself at all of the assistance of the body. On which account existent things are divisible into objects of sensation and objects of understanding. On account of which Plato used to say, that those who wished to become acquainted with the principles of everything, ought first of all to divide the ideas as he calls them, separately, such as similarity, and unity, and multitude, and magnitude, and stationariness, and motion. And secondly, that they ought to form a notion of the honourable and the good, and the just, and things of that sort, by themselves, apart from other considerations. And thirdly, that they ought to ascertain the character of such ideas as are relative to one another, such as knowledge, or magnitude, or authority; considering that the things which come under our notice from partaking of their nature, have the same names that they have. I mean that one calls that just which partakes of the just; and that beautiful which partakes of the beautiful. And each of these primary species is eternal, and is to be understood by the intellect, and is not subject to the influence of external circumstances. On which account he says, that ideas exist in nature as models; and that all other things are like them, and, as it were, copies of them. Accordingly Epicharmus speaks thus about the good, and about the ideas.
A. Tell me, is flute-playing now a thing at all?
B. Of course it is.
A. Is man then flute-playing?
B. No, nothing of the sort.
A. Well, let us see-
What is a flute-player? what think you now,
Of him-is he a man, or is he not?
B. Of course he is a man.
A. Think you not then
The case is just the same about the good.
That the good is something by itself, intrinsic,
And he who's learnt, does at once become
Himself a good man? just as he who's learnt
Flute-playing is a flute-player; or dancing,
A dancer; weaving, a weaver. And in short,
Whoever learns an art, does not become
The art itself, but just an artist in it.
Plato, in his theory of Ideas, says, "That since there is such a thing as memory, the ideas are in existent things, because memory is only conversant about what is stable and enduring; and that no other thing is durable except ideas, for in what way," he continues, "could animals be preserved, if they had no ideas to guide them, and if, in addition to them, they had not an intellect given to them by nature? " But as it is they recollect similitudes, and also their food, so as to know what kind of food is fit for them; which they learn because the notion of similarity is implanted naturally in every animal; owing to which notion they recognize those of the same species as themselves. What is it then that Epicharmus says?
Eumaeus' wisdom? - not a scanty gift
Appropriated to one single being;
But every animal that breathes and lives,
Has mind and intellect. - So if you will
Survey the facts attentively, you'll find,
E'en in the common poultry yard, the hen
Brings not her offspring forth at first alive,
But sits upon her eggs, and by her warmth,
Cherishes them into life. And all this wisdom
She does derive from nature's gift alone,
For nature is her only guide and teacher.
And in a subsequent passage he says :
There is no wonder in my teaching this,
That citizens please citizens, and seem
To one another to be beautiful:
For so one dog seems to another dog
The fairest object in the world; and so
One ox seems to another, ass to ass,
And swine to swine.
And these and similar speculations are examined and compared by Alcinus through four books, where he shows how much assistance Plato has derived from Epicharmus. And that Epicharmus himself was not indisposed to appreciate his own wisdom, one may learn from these lines, in which he predicts that there will arise some one to imitate him:
But as I think, I surely foresee this,
That these my words will be preserved* hereafter
In many people's recollection. And
Another man will come, who'll strip my reasons
Of their poetic dress, and, clothing them
In other garments and with purple broidery
Will show them off; and being invincible,
Will make all rivals bow the knee to him.
XIII. Plato also appears to have brought the books of Sophron, the farce-writer, to Athens, which were previously neglected; and to have availed himself of them in his Speculations on Morals: and a copy of them was found under his head.
XIV. And Plato made three voyages to Sicily, first of all for the purpose of seeing the island and the craters of volcanoes, when Dionysius, the son of Hermocrates, being the tyrant of Sicily, pressed him earnestly to come and see him; and he, conversing about tyranny, and saying that that is not the best government which is advantageous for one individual alone, unless that individual is pre-eminent in virtue, had a quarrel with Dionysius, who got angry, and said, "Your words are those of an old dotard. " And Plato replied,
* The Greek is tou mimographon. "A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into mimioi andreioi and gynaikeioi, also into mimoi spoudaion and geloion. " -- L&S in voc. mimos.
"And your language is that of a tyrant. " And on this the tyrant became very indignant, and at first was inclined to put him to death; but afterwards, being appeased by Deni and Aristimenes, he forebore to do that, but gave him to Pollis, the Lacedaemonian, who happened to have come to him on an embassy just at that time, to sell as a slave. And he took him to Aegina and sold him; and Charmander, the son of Charmandrides, instituted a capital prosecution against him, in accordance with the law which was in force, in the island of Aegina, that the first Athenian who landed on the island should be put to death without a trial; and he himself was the person who had originally proposed that law, as Favorinus says, in his Universal History. But when some one said, though he said it only in joke, that it was a philosopher who had landed, the people released him. But some say that he was brought into the assembly and watched; and that he did not say a word, but stood prepared to submit to whatever might befall him; and that they determined not to put him to death, but to sell him after the fashion of prisoners of war. And it happened by chance that Anniceris, the Cyrenean, was present, who ransomed him for twenty minae, or, as others say, for thirty, and sent him to Athens, to his companions, and they immediately sent Anniceris his money: but he refused to receive it, saying that they were not the only people in the world who were entitled to have a regard for Plato. Some writers again say, that it was Deni who sent the money, and that he did not refuse it, but bought him the garden in the Academy. And with respect to Pollis it is said that he was defeated by Chabrias, and that he was afterwards drowned in Helia, in consequence of the anger of the deity at his treatment of this philosopher. And this is the story told by Favorinus in the first book of his Commentaries. Dionysius, however, did not remain quiet; but when he had heard what had happened he wrote to Plato not to speak ill of him, and he wrote back in reply that he had not leisure enough to think at all of Dionysius.
XV. But he went a second time to Sicily to the younger Dionysius, and asked him for some land and for some men whom he might make live according to his own theory of a constitution. And Dionysius promised to give him some, but never did it. And some say that he was in danger himself, having been suspected of exciting Dion and Thetas to attempt the deliverance of the island; but that Archytas, the Pythagorean, wrote a letter to Dionysius, and begged Plato off and sent him back safe to Athens. And the letter is as follows :
ARCHYTAS TO DIONYSIUS, GREETING.
"All of us who are the friends of Plato, have sent to you Lamiscus and Photidas, to claim of you this philosopher in accordance with the agreement which you made with us. And it is right that you should recollect the eagerness which you had to see him, when you pressed us all to secure Plato's visit to you, promising to provide for him, and to treat him hospitably in every respect, and to ensure his safety both while he remained with you, and when be departed. Remember this too that you were very delighted indeed at his arrival, and that you expressed great pleasure at the time, such as you never did on any other occasion. And if any unpleasantness has arisen between you, you ought to behave with humanity, and restore the man unhurt; for by so doing you will act justly, and do us a favour. "
XVI. The third time that he went to Sicily was for the purpose of reconciling Dion to Dionysius. And as he could not succeed he returned back to his own country, having lost his labour.
XVII. And in his own country he did not meddle with state affairs, although he was a politician as far as his writings went. And the reason was, that the people were accustomed to a form of government and constitution different from what he approved of. And Pamphile, in the twenty-fifth book of his Commentaries, says that the Arcadians and Thebans, when they were founding a great city, appointed him its lawgiver; but that he, when he had ascertained that they would not consent to an equality of rights, refused to go thither.
XVIII. It is said also, that he defended Chabrias the general, when he was impeached in a capital charge; when no one else of the citizens would undertake the task: and as he was going up towards the Acropolis with his client, Crobylus the sycophant met him and said, "Are you come to plead for another, not knowing that the hemlock of Socrates is waiting
also for you? " But he replied, "And also, when I fought for my country I encountered dangers; and now too I encounter them in the cause of justice and for the defence of a friend. "
XIX. He was the first author who wrote treatises in the form of dialogues, as Favorinus tells us in the eighth book of his Universal History. And he was also the first person who introduced the analytical method of investigation, which he taught to Leodamus of Thasos. He was also the first person in philosophy who spoke of antipodes, and elements, and dialectics, and actions (poiemata) and oblong numbers, and plane surfaces, and the providence of God. He was likewise the first of the philosophers who contradicted the assertion of Lysias, the son of Cephalus, setting it out word for word in his Phaedrus. And he was also the first person who examined the subject of grammatical knowledge scientifically. And as he argued against almost every one who had lived before his time, it is often asked why he has never mentioned Democritus.
XX. Neanthes of Cyzicus says, that when he came to the Olympic games all the Greeks who were present turned to look at him: and that it was on that occasion that he held a conversation with Dion, who was on the point of attacking Dionysius. Moreover, in the first book of the Commentaries of Favorinus, it is related that Mithridates, the Persian, erected a statue of Plato in the Academy, and put on it this inscription, "Mithridates, the son of Rhodobates, a Persian, consecrated an image of Plato to the Muses, which was made by Silanion. "
XXI. And Heraclides says, that even while a young man, he was so modest and well regulated, that he was never once seen to laugh excessively.
XXII. But though he was of such a grave character himself, he was nevertheless ridiculed by the comic poets. Accordingly, Theopompus, in his Pleasure-seeker, says:
For one thing is no longer only one,
But two things now are scarcely one; as says
The solemn Plato.
And Anaxandrides in his Theseus, says:
When he ate olives like our worthy Plato.
And Timon speaks of him in this way, punning on his name:
As Plato placed strange platitudes on paper. *
Alexis says in his Mesopis :
You've come in time: since I've been doubting long,
And walking up and down some time, like Plato;
And yet have hit upon no crafty plan,
But only tir'd my legs.
And in his Analion, he says:
You speak of what you do not understand,
Running about like Plato: hoping thus,
To learn the nature of saltpetre and onions.
Amphis says in his Amphicrates :
A. But what the good is, which you hope to get
By means of her, my master, I no more
Can form a notion of, than of the good
Of Plato.
B. Listen now.
And in his Dexidemides he speaks thus:
O Plato! how your learning is confined
To gloomy looks, and wrinkling up your brows,
Like any cockle.
Cratinas in his Pseudripobolimaeus, says:
You clearly are a man, endued with sense,
And so, as Plato says, I do not know;
But I suspect.
Alexis, in his Olympiodorus speaks thus :
My mortal body became dry and withered:
But my immortal part rose to the sky.
Is not this Plato's doctrine?
And in his Parasite he says :
Or to converse alone, like Plato.
Anaxilas also laughs at him in his Botrylion, and Circe, and his Rich Women.
XXIII. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise upon Ancient Luxury, says that he was much attached to a youth of the name of Aster, who used to study astronomy with him; and also to Dion, whom we have already mentioned.
* The Greek is, hos aneplatte Platon peplasmena thaumata eidos.
And some say that he was also attached to Phaedrus, and that the following epigrams which he wrote upon them are evidences of the love he felt for them:
My Aster, you're gazing on the stars (asteres),
Would that I were the heavens, that so I might
Gaze in return with many eyes on thee.
Another of his epigrams is :
Aster, you while among the living shone,
The morning star. But now that you are dead,
You beam like Hesperus in the shades below.
And he wrote thus on Dion:
Once, at their birth, the fates did destine tears
To be the lot of all the Trojan women,
And Hecuba, their Queen--to you, O Dion,
As the deserved reward for glorious deeds,
They gave extensive and illustrious hopes.
And now you lie beneath your native soil;
Honoured by all your countrymen, O Dion,
And loved by me with ardent, lasting love.
And they say that this epigram is inscribed upon his tomb at Syracuse. They say, also, that he was in love with Alexis, and with Phaedrus, as I have already mentioned, and that he wrote an epigram on them both, which runs thus:
Now when Alexia is no longer aught,
Say only how beloved, how fair he was,
And every one does turn his eyes at once.
Why, my mind, do you show the dogs a bone?
You're but preparing trouble for yourself:
Have we not also lost the lovely Phaedrus!
There is also a tradition that he had a mistress named Archianassa, on whom he wrote the following lines :
I have a mistress fair from Colophon,
Archianassa, on whose very wrinkles
Sits genial love: hard must have been the fate,
Of him who met her earliest blaze of beauty,
Surely he must have been completely scorched.
He also wrote this epigram on Agathon :
While kissing Agathon, my soul did rise,
And hover'd o'er my lips; wishing perchance,
O'er anxious that it was, to migrate to him.
Another of his epigrams is:
I throw this apple to you. And if you
Love me who love you so, receive it gladly,
And let me taste your lovely virgin charms.
Or if that may not be, still take the fruit,
And in your bosom cherish it, and learn
How fleeting is all gracefulness and beauty.
And another:
I am an apple, and am thrown to you;
By one who loves you: but consent, Xanthippe;
For you and I shall both with time decay.
They also attribute to him the following epigram on the Eretrians who had been surprised in an ambuscade:
We were Eretrians, of Eubaean race,
And now we lie near Susa, here entomb'd,
Far from my native land.
And this one also :
Thus Venus to the muses spoke:
Damsels submit to Venus' yoke,
Or dread my Cupid's arms.
Those threats the Virgins nine replied,
May weigh with Mars, but we deride
Love's wrongs, or darts, or charms.
Another is:
A certain person found some gold.
Carried it off, and in its stead
Left a strong hatter neatly roll'd.
The owner found his treasure fled;
And powerless to endure his fortune's wreck,
Fitted the halter to his hapless neck.
XXIV. But Melon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says, "There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato's being in Sicily. " Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him: and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropaedia and the other a book on Politics ; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropaedia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences. It is said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something that he had written, invited him to be present; and that Plato having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an essay on the impropriety of contradicting. "How then," said Plato, "can you write on this subject? " and then he showed him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he entitled Sothon; after which they were always enemies to one another; and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, "O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about me. " For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said.
Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus; accordingly, he speaks ill of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was not with Socrates when he died, though he was in Aegina, at no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with Aeschines, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius, and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says, that the speech which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he counselled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by Aeschines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on the Soul, and the Defence of Socrates.
XXV. Aristotle says, that the treatises of Plato are something between poems and prose ; and Favorinus says, when Plato read his treatise on the Soul, Aristotle was the only person who sat it out, and that all the rest rose up and went away. And some say that Philip the Opuntian copied out the whole of his books upon Laws, which were written on waxen tablets only. Some people also attribute the Epinomis to him. Euphorion and Panaetius have stated that the beginning of the treatise on the Republic was often altered and re-written; and that very treatise, Aristoxenus affirms, was found almost entire in the Contradictions of Protagoras; and that the first book he wrote at all was the Phaedrus; and indeed that composition has a good many indications of a young composer. But Dicaearchus blames the whole style of that work as vulgar.
XXVI. A story is told, that Plato, having seen a man playing at dice, reproached him for it, and that he said he was playing for a trifle; "But the habit," rejoined Plato, "is not a trifle. " On one occasion he was asked whether there would be any monument of him, as of his predecessors in philosophy? and he answered "A man must first make a name, and the monument will follow. " Once, when Xenocrates came into his house, he desired him to scourge one of his slaves for him, for that he himself could not do it because he was in a passion; and that at another time he said to one of his slaves, "I should beat you if I were not in a passion. " Having got on horseback he dismounted again immediately, saying that he was afraid that he should be infected with horse-pride. He used to advise people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would abandon their unseemly habit; and he said that it was never decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the festivals of the God who had given men wine. He also disapproved of much sleeping: accordingly in his Laws he says, "No one while sleeping is good for anything. " Another saying of his was, "That the pleasantest of all things to hear was the truth;" but others report this saying thus, "That the sweetest of all things was to speak truth. " And of truth he speaks thus in his Laws, "Truth, my friend, is a beautiful and a durable thing; but it is not easy to persuade men of this fact. "
XXVII. He used also to wish to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends, or in his books.
XXVIII. He also used to travel a good deal as some authors inform us.
XXIX. And he died in the manner we have already mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip of Macedon, as Favorinus mentions in the third book of his Commentaries; and Theopompus relates that Philip on one occasion reproached him. But Mysonianus, in his Resemblances, says that Philo mentions some proverbs that were in circulation about Plato's lice; implying that he had died of that disease.
XXX. He was buried in the Academy, where he spent the greater part of his time in the practice of philosophy, from which his was called the Academic school; and his funeral was attended by all the pupils of that sect. And he made his will in the following terms:
"Plato left these things, and has bequeathed them as follows:
The farm in the district of the Hephaestiades, bounded on the north by the road from the temple of the Cephiciades, and on the south by the temple of Hercules, which is in the district of the Hephaestiades; and on the east by the estate of Archestratus the Phreanian, and on the west by the farm of Philip the Challidian, shall be incapable of being sold or alienated, but shall belong to my son Ademantus as far as possible. And so likewise shall my farm in the district of the Eiresides, which I bought of Callimachus, which is bounded on the north by the property of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, on the south by that of Demostratus of Xypeta, on the east by that of Eurymedon the Myrrhinusian, and on the west by the Cephisus;-- I also leave him three minae of silver, a silver goblet weighing a hundred and sixty-five drachms, a cup weighing forty-five drachms, a golden ring and a golden ear-ring, weighing together four drachms and three obols. Euclides the stonecutter owes me three minae. I leave Diana her liberty. My slaves Sychon, Bictas, Apolloniades, and Dionysius, I bequeath to my son; and I also give him all my furniture, of which Demetrius has a catalogue. I owe no one anything. My executors shall be Tozthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus, and Thrasippus. "
This was his will. And on his tomb the following epigrams were inscribed. First of all :
Here, first of all men for pure justice famed,
And moral virtue, Aristocles lies;
And if there e'er has lived one truly wise,
This man was wiser still; too great for envy.
A second is:
Here in her bosom does the tender earth
Embrace great Plato's corpse. -His soul aloft
Has ta'en its place among the immortal Gods.
Ariston's glorious son--whom all good men,
Though in far countries, held in love and honour,
Remembering his pure and god-like life.
