LIFE OF SIMMIAS
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume.
SIMMIAS was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume.
Diogenes Laertius
Such was Theodorus, and such were his circumstances and opinions.
But at last he went away to Cyrene, and lived there with Megas, being treated by him with the greatest distinction.
And when he was first driven away from Cyrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly, "You do wrong, O men of Cyrene, driving me from Africa to Greece.
"
XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name of Theodorus. The first was a Samian, the son of Rhoeus; he it was who advised the putting of coals under the foundations of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; for as the ground was very swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of their ligneous qualities would retain their solidity in a way that could not be impaired by water. The second was a Cyrenean, a geometrician, and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was the philosopher whom we have been describing. The fourth was an author who wrote a very remarkable treatise on the art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a man who wrote a treatise on Musicial Composers, beginning with Terpander. The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on Tactics. The ninth was a citizen of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is mentioned by Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who is spoken of by Menodotus. The fourteenth was an Ephesian, a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his Essay on Painting. The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth wrote an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil of Athenaeas. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philosopher. The nineteenth was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet.
1. This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.
Ep. i. 23, 24.
2. Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHAEDO
I. PHAEDO the Elean, one of the Eupatridae, was taken prisoner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street, shutting the door, he met with Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say, Crito, to ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as became a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on suspending one's judgment, calls him a slave.
II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine copies ; by name- Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but the genuineness of this one is disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to Aeschines, and others to Polyaenus; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one); the Scythian discourses, and these, too, some attribute to Aeschines.
III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis; and the next in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Asclepiades of Philias, who came over from Stilpo. And down to the age of these last, they were called the Eliac school; but after the time of Menedemus, they were called the Eretrians. And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was the founder of a new sect.
* Yonge transliterates the name as "Phoedo"
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUCLIDES
I. EUCLIDES was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela, according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings of Parmenides; and his successors were called the philosophers of the Megaric school; after that they were called the Contentious school, and still later, the Dialecticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the Carthaginian; because they carried on their investigations by question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides, because they feared the cruelty of the tyrants.
II. He used to teach that the chief good is unity; but that it is known by several names; for at one time people call it prudence; at another time God; at another time intellect, and so on. But everything which was contrary to good, he discarded, denying its existence. And the proofs which he used to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those which proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected all that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison, saying that it must be founded either on things which are like, or on things which are unlike. If on things which are like, then it is better to reason about the things themselves, than about those which resemble them; and if on things which are unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on this account Timon uses the following language concerning him, where he also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic school:
But I do care for none of all these triflers,
Nor for any one else; not for your Phaedon,
Whoever he may be; not for the quarrelsome
Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
With love of fierce contention.
III. He wrote six dialogues-the Lamprias, the Aeschines, the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dialogue.
IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of Miletus, who handed down a great many arguments in dialectics; such as the Lying one; the Concealed one; the Electra; the Veiled one; the Sorites; the Horned one; the Bald one. 1
And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the following terms :
Eubulides, that most contentious sophist,
Asking his horned quibbles, and preplexing
The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.
For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that being at first unable to pronounce the C, he got rid of that defect. Eubulides had a quarrel with Aristotle, and was constantly attacking him.
V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides, was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which account he was nicknamed Elenchinos. 2 He had an especial quarrel with Zeno; and Hermippus relates of him that he went from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy there; and that when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said that he wished to establish a school which should be called the Olympic school; but that his pupils being in distress, through want of means of support and finding the situation unhealthy for them, left him; and that after that Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the injury proved fatal, and he died. And we have written an epigram on him which runs thus :
Then the report, alas! was true,
That an unhappy man,
While swimming tore his foot against a nail;
For the illustrious sage,
Good Alexinus, swimming in the Alpheus,
Died from a hostile reed.
And he wrote not only against Zeno, but he composed other works also, especially one against Ephorus the historian.
VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of the events of his own time; he also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinction at the festivals. And he was the preceptor of Antigonus, the king to whom he dedicated a treatise on Monarchy, which had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he died of old age.
VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom is Apollonius Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of Iasos, the son of Aminias; and he too was surnamed Cronus, and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in his epigrams:
Momus himself did carve upon the walls,
Cronus is wise.
And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one. When he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, he had several dialectic questions put to him by Stilpo; and as he was not able to solve them at the moment, he was reproached by the king with many hard words, and among other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So he left the banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of Stilpo, and then died of despondency. And we have written the following epigram on him:
O Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
Buried you in despair?
So that you hastened to the shades below,
Perplexed by Stilpo's quibbles-
You would deserve your name of Cronus3 better,
If C and r were gone.
VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the son of Metellus, a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue. And Clinomachus of Therium, who was the first person who ever wrote about axioms and categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian, a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.
1. The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:
The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?
The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones. Electra sees Orestes : she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man's head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.
2. From elencho, to confute.
3. Kronos, take away K. , r. , leaves onos, an ass.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF STILPO
I. STILPO, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides' school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us.
II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in command of words and in acuteness, that it may almost be said that all Greece fixed its eyes upon him, and joined the Megaric school. And concerning him Philippus of Megara speaks thus, word for word: "For he carried off from Theophrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Timagoras of Gela; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitarchus and Simias; and from the dialecticians' school also he won men over, carrying off Poeoneius from Aristides, and Dippilus of the Bosphorus from Euphantus, and also Myrmex of the Venites, who had both come to him to argue against him, but they became converts and his disciples. " And besides these men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a natural philosopher of great ability; and Alcimus the rhetorician, the most eminent orator in all Greece at that time; and he won over Crates, and great numbers of others, and among them Zeno the Phoenician.
III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he was married. But he lived also with a courtesan, named Nicarete, as Onetor tells us somewhere. And he had a licentious daughter, who was married to a friend of his named Simias, a citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in an orderly manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him. But he said, "She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an honour to her. "
IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great honour; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him money, and invited him to sail with him to Egypt. But he accepted only a moderate sum of money, and declined the journey proposed to him, but went over to Aegina, until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to be saved, and took care that everything that had been plundered from him should be restored to him. But when he wished Stilpo to give him in a list of all that he had lost, he said that he had lost nothing of his own; for that no one had taken from him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject of doing good to men with such power, that he became a zealous hearer of his.
V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a man, about the Minerva of Phidias: "Is Minerva the Goddess the daughter of Jupiter? " And when the other said, "Yes;" "But this," said he, "is not the child of Jupiter, but of Phidias. " And when he agreed that it was so- "This then," he continued, "is not a God. " And when he was brought before the Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but maintained that he had spoken correctly; for that she was not a God (theos) but a Goddess (thea); for that Gods were of the male sex only. 1 However the judges of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city; and on this occasion, Theodorus, who was nicknamed theos, said in derision, "Whence did Stilpo learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a Goddess? " But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accordingly when Crates asked him if the Gods delighted in adoration and prayer; they say that he answered, "Do not ask these questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private. " And they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were any Gods, answered in the same spirit:
"Will you not first, O! miserable old man, Remove the multitude? "
VI. But Stilpo was a man of simple character, and free from all trick and humbug, and universally affable. Accordingly, when Crates the Cynic once refused to answer a question that he had put to him, and only insulted his questioner-- "I knew," said Stilpo, " that he would say anything rather than what he ought. " And once he put a question to him, and offered him a fig at the same time; so he took the fig and ate it, on which Crates said "O Hercules I have lost my fig. " "Not only that," he replied, "but you have lost your question too, of which the fig was the pledge. " At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him, "Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress," meaning, both a new mind and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the following parody:
"There2 Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Syphon's voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue's name with eager chase pursues. "
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and when some one said to him, "Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you were a wild beast," he replied, "Not so; but as a real genuine man. "
VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species. And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual, nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person at all. Another of his illustrations was, "That which is shown to me, is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago, therefore this is not a vegetable. " And they say that once when he was conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, "You are leaving the argument;" "Not at all," he replied," "I keep the argument, but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to some one else. "
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style: The Moschus; the Cnistippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Choerecrates; the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine, in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophibus the comic poet, in his play called Marriages:
The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.
1. The quibble here is, that theos is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine.
2. The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden's Version, B. ii. 719.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CRITO
I. CRITO was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest affection; and paid such great attention to him, that he took care that he should never be in want of anything.
II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus.
III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all published in one volume; and I subjoin their titles: That men are not made good by Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman; on the Honourable; on doing ill; on Good Government; on Law; on the Divine Being; on Arts; on Society; Protagoras, or the Statesman; on Letters; on Political Science; on the Honourable; on Learning; on Knowledge; on Science; on what Knowledge is.
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 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?
XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name of Theodorus. The first was a Samian, the son of Rhoeus; he it was who advised the putting of coals under the foundations of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; for as the ground was very swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of their ligneous qualities would retain their solidity in a way that could not be impaired by water. The second was a Cyrenean, a geometrician, and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was the philosopher whom we have been describing. The fourth was an author who wrote a very remarkable treatise on the art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a man who wrote a treatise on Musicial Composers, beginning with Terpander. The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on Tactics. The ninth was a citizen of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is mentioned by Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who is spoken of by Menodotus. The fourteenth was an Ephesian, a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his Essay on Painting. The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth wrote an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil of Athenaeas. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philosopher. The nineteenth was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet.
1. This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.
Ep. i. 23, 24.
2. Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHAEDO
I. PHAEDO the Elean, one of the Eupatridae, was taken prisoner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street, shutting the door, he met with Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say, Crito, to ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as became a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on suspending one's judgment, calls him a slave.
II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine copies ; by name- Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but the genuineness of this one is disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to Aeschines, and others to Polyaenus; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one); the Scythian discourses, and these, too, some attribute to Aeschines.
III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis; and the next in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Asclepiades of Philias, who came over from Stilpo. And down to the age of these last, they were called the Eliac school; but after the time of Menedemus, they were called the Eretrians. And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was the founder of a new sect.
* Yonge transliterates the name as "Phoedo"
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUCLIDES
I. EUCLIDES was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela, according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings of Parmenides; and his successors were called the philosophers of the Megaric school; after that they were called the Contentious school, and still later, the Dialecticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the Carthaginian; because they carried on their investigations by question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides, because they feared the cruelty of the tyrants.
II. He used to teach that the chief good is unity; but that it is known by several names; for at one time people call it prudence; at another time God; at another time intellect, and so on. But everything which was contrary to good, he discarded, denying its existence. And the proofs which he used to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those which proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected all that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison, saying that it must be founded either on things which are like, or on things which are unlike. If on things which are like, then it is better to reason about the things themselves, than about those which resemble them; and if on things which are unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on this account Timon uses the following language concerning him, where he also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic school:
But I do care for none of all these triflers,
Nor for any one else; not for your Phaedon,
Whoever he may be; not for the quarrelsome
Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
With love of fierce contention.
III. He wrote six dialogues-the Lamprias, the Aeschines, the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dialogue.
IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of Miletus, who handed down a great many arguments in dialectics; such as the Lying one; the Concealed one; the Electra; the Veiled one; the Sorites; the Horned one; the Bald one. 1
And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the following terms :
Eubulides, that most contentious sophist,
Asking his horned quibbles, and preplexing
The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.
For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that being at first unable to pronounce the C, he got rid of that defect. Eubulides had a quarrel with Aristotle, and was constantly attacking him.
V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides, was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which account he was nicknamed Elenchinos. 2 He had an especial quarrel with Zeno; and Hermippus relates of him that he went from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy there; and that when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said that he wished to establish a school which should be called the Olympic school; but that his pupils being in distress, through want of means of support and finding the situation unhealthy for them, left him; and that after that Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the injury proved fatal, and he died. And we have written an epigram on him which runs thus :
Then the report, alas! was true,
That an unhappy man,
While swimming tore his foot against a nail;
For the illustrious sage,
Good Alexinus, swimming in the Alpheus,
Died from a hostile reed.
And he wrote not only against Zeno, but he composed other works also, especially one against Ephorus the historian.
VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of the events of his own time; he also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinction at the festivals. And he was the preceptor of Antigonus, the king to whom he dedicated a treatise on Monarchy, which had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he died of old age.
VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom is Apollonius Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of Iasos, the son of Aminias; and he too was surnamed Cronus, and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in his epigrams:
Momus himself did carve upon the walls,
Cronus is wise.
And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one. When he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, he had several dialectic questions put to him by Stilpo; and as he was not able to solve them at the moment, he was reproached by the king with many hard words, and among other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So he left the banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of Stilpo, and then died of despondency. And we have written the following epigram on him:
O Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
Buried you in despair?
So that you hastened to the shades below,
Perplexed by Stilpo's quibbles-
You would deserve your name of Cronus3 better,
If C and r were gone.
VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the son of Metellus, a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue. And Clinomachus of Therium, who was the first person who ever wrote about axioms and categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian, a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.
1. The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:
The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?
The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones. Electra sees Orestes : she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man's head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.
2. From elencho, to confute.
3. Kronos, take away K. , r. , leaves onos, an ass.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF STILPO
I. STILPO, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides' school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us.
II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in command of words and in acuteness, that it may almost be said that all Greece fixed its eyes upon him, and joined the Megaric school. And concerning him Philippus of Megara speaks thus, word for word: "For he carried off from Theophrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Timagoras of Gela; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitarchus and Simias; and from the dialecticians' school also he won men over, carrying off Poeoneius from Aristides, and Dippilus of the Bosphorus from Euphantus, and also Myrmex of the Venites, who had both come to him to argue against him, but they became converts and his disciples. " And besides these men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a natural philosopher of great ability; and Alcimus the rhetorician, the most eminent orator in all Greece at that time; and he won over Crates, and great numbers of others, and among them Zeno the Phoenician.
III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he was married. But he lived also with a courtesan, named Nicarete, as Onetor tells us somewhere. And he had a licentious daughter, who was married to a friend of his named Simias, a citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in an orderly manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him. But he said, "She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an honour to her. "
IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great honour; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him money, and invited him to sail with him to Egypt. But he accepted only a moderate sum of money, and declined the journey proposed to him, but went over to Aegina, until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to be saved, and took care that everything that had been plundered from him should be restored to him. But when he wished Stilpo to give him in a list of all that he had lost, he said that he had lost nothing of his own; for that no one had taken from him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject of doing good to men with such power, that he became a zealous hearer of his.
V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a man, about the Minerva of Phidias: "Is Minerva the Goddess the daughter of Jupiter? " And when the other said, "Yes;" "But this," said he, "is not the child of Jupiter, but of Phidias. " And when he agreed that it was so- "This then," he continued, "is not a God. " And when he was brought before the Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but maintained that he had spoken correctly; for that she was not a God (theos) but a Goddess (thea); for that Gods were of the male sex only. 1 However the judges of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city; and on this occasion, Theodorus, who was nicknamed theos, said in derision, "Whence did Stilpo learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a Goddess? " But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accordingly when Crates asked him if the Gods delighted in adoration and prayer; they say that he answered, "Do not ask these questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private. " And they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were any Gods, answered in the same spirit:
"Will you not first, O! miserable old man, Remove the multitude? "
VI. But Stilpo was a man of simple character, and free from all trick and humbug, and universally affable. Accordingly, when Crates the Cynic once refused to answer a question that he had put to him, and only insulted his questioner-- "I knew," said Stilpo, " that he would say anything rather than what he ought. " And once he put a question to him, and offered him a fig at the same time; so he took the fig and ate it, on which Crates said "O Hercules I have lost my fig. " "Not only that," he replied, "but you have lost your question too, of which the fig was the pledge. " At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him, "Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress," meaning, both a new mind and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the following parody:
"There2 Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Syphon's voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue's name with eager chase pursues. "
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and when some one said to him, "Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you were a wild beast," he replied, "Not so; but as a real genuine man. "
VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species. And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual, nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person at all. Another of his illustrations was, "That which is shown to me, is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago, therefore this is not a vegetable. " And they say that once when he was conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, "You are leaving the argument;" "Not at all," he replied," "I keep the argument, but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to some one else. "
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style: The Moschus; the Cnistippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Choerecrates; the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine, in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophibus the comic poet, in his play called Marriages:
The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.
1. The quibble here is, that theos is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine.
2. The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden's Version, B. ii. 719.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF CRITO
I. CRITO was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest affection; and paid such great attention to him, that he took care that he should never be in want of anything.
II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus.
III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all published in one volume; and I subjoin their titles: That men are not made good by Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman; on the Honourable; on doing ill; on Good Government; on Law; on the Divine Being; on Arts; on Society; Protagoras, or the Statesman; on Letters; on Political Science; on the Honourable; on Learning; on Knowledge; on Science; on what Knowledge is.
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 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.
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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?
